“It does?”
“It does. I’ll see you in the morning, okay Gary?”
“Okay.”
We relaxed on our balcony that night, Mason and me, in our comfy robes, with drinks in hand. There was a lopsided, almost full moon rising over the reservoir, and the little bit of vodka in my Coke was smoothing all my rough edges out.
Jeremy and Misty had invited Josh and Christie to go to the newest Marvel movie with them. Christie had laughed and rolled her eyes. Josh lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. So we had the place to ourselves–you know, aside from the two bulldogs snoring like bulldozers on our bed.
“Alone at last,” I said, taking a nice big sip while regretting that it was two thirds of the way gone. “I hate to bring it up while we’re in such a beautiful moment–”
“Then don’t.”
I looked at him and smirked. “We have met, right?” He closed his eyes, probably resolving himself to the inevitable. “Tell me about the body today.”
He sighed, but he talked. “White male, mid-fifties, once-red hair going gray. You now how that looks?”
“I know exactly how that looks.” Having seen it up close while I strangled him. “Cause of death?"
“Don’t know yet. But there were ligature marks.”
“What about the car?”
“Yeah, you nailed that, too. Jaguar in the parking area at the trailhead. Car’s registered to a Dwayne Clark of Dilmun, a small lake town just past Ithaca.”
“Shit.”
He understood the thousand-and-one emotions conveyed by the single word. He was the only one who possibly could.
“Any forensics?”
“Wrapped in burlap.”
“Burlap. Burlap. Burlap…” I snapped my fingers at him. “The Craig’s List Ripper!”
“Hasn’t been active since the nineties.”
“How can anyone say that for sure?”
“No bodies found since twenty-eleven.”
“He’s hiding them better.”
“They were all women.”
“All but one.”
“Right, but that one was in drag,” Mason pointed out.
“You think the burlap’s coincidence, then?” I bounded out of my chair.
My drink sloshed dangerously, so I downed it and headed inside for my phone. Unlike Mason, I respected my no-devices-on-the-balcony rule. I grabbed it off the nightstand, started tapping, and found what looked like a decent report on the Craig’s List Ripper.
I scrolled with my thumb, speed reading while Mason looked over my shoulder. “Look at this crime scene.” I tapped on a photo where one of the serial killer’s victims had been found.
“It’s very similar,” Mason said, spreading the image larger, really studying it. “This might be better on the desktop.”
“Way ahead of you.” We hurried through the house. My office was the 30’ by 30’ third floor in the peak of the house, with its own mini balcony. Its front was entirely glass, and faced the reservoir. My desk was on the back wall, facing the front and all that glass, with a desktop and a laptop ready to roll.
I sat, and he stood behind me, looking over my shoulder as I read aloud.
“The Craig’s list Ripper, also known as the The Long Island Killer, the Gilbo Beach Killer, blah blah blah. Yes. They were all strangled. Several bodies found near water.”
“Not all in burlap, though. Not all in one piece, either.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence, Mason.”
“We’re five hours away from his dumping ground.”
“We’re five hours away from one of his dumping grounds. The only one we know of.” I looked up at him, daring him to argue.
“What are you doing, babe?” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “Internet research? That’s not your forte. What does your NFP tell you?”
I shrugged. “Nothing about this guy.”
“I didn’t think so.”
I pushed away from the computer, got up from my chair and paced across the room, closing my eyes, and trying to recall the dream or vision or whatever the hell it had been. “It felt like a woman. And there was…there was a needle,” I said snapping my fingers, because I’d just remembered it. “She drugged him first. We need to get to that body and check for a track mark in the crease under the left butt cheek.”
“I’m meeting the new forensic pathologist in the morning. Come with me.”
“To an autopsy?”
“Autopsy’s already done. She texted me an hour ago.”
“Okay, Mason. I’ll go with you. Right after we get Gary squared away.”
“I left him fifty bucks,” he said. “He’s not gonna be there in the morning. He’s gonna go spend it to get high.”
“If you felt the shit storm inside his head, you’d want to self-medicate, too.”
“Not judging. Just saying.”
“He came here because he wanted me to help him. He’s gotta stick around long enough to let me.”
He hugged me up close. He’d shucked his robe, and mine was open, so I got that warm, silky rub of skin against skin. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my cheek on his chest.
Girl Blue: Chapter 3
“Happy Labor Day weekend, right?” asked the twelve-year-old pixie, standing over the open chest of a dead guy in the basement of Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital.
Mason had told me she looked like a Christmas elf, and he had nailed it.
“Rachel, meet Billy Carmichael, forensic pathologist.”
She beamed at me. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. de Luca. I’m excited to work with you.” Her eyes slid to Mason, who stood on my left, then quickly back to me. I got, did I do okay?
I got it. She was a fan and he’d advised her not to gush, but it was oozing from her pores. She was doing a good job trying to hide it, though.
“Have you run toxicology?” I needed to get a look at the crease under his left butt cheek without her noticing, or she’d want to know how I knew. My NFP was a closely-guarded secret. Oh, there was gossip. I hated that there was, but there was. I'd been too close to too many gruesome murder investigations for there not to be. And you know, as far as the general public is concerned, woo-woo is woo-woo. If you're a self-help author you must also be a fortune teller, brandishing crystals and reading palms.
“Toxicology is in process,” she said. “Everything else is done. Just gotta sew him up and release him to the funeral home. Widow’s called three times already.”
Note to self, widow’s in a hurry. That probably wasn’t so unusual, though.
“The cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation. Killer used twisted wire. Twice. From behind him, and from in front of him. We got a few shards of metal off the skin. You can see the pattern there in his neck.” She poked the skin on the dead guy’s neck with a gloved-forefinger.
I grimaced like that bothered me, and I didn't have to fake too hard. The memory of choking the life out of this human being was vivid and sickening. Here he was, dead. A life extinguished. And it felt like I'd been the one to extinguish it. “I have to step out,” I said, holding one palm up. I hurried out of the room, and when Mason tried to follow, I said, “No, stay. I’ll be back, I just need a breath of death-free air.”