“Single woman?” Doug asked.
“Single. Young. Lived in the same neighborhood for twelve years.” When Doug raised his eyebrows, he added, “She woke up and heard someone in her apartment. Didn’t turn over because she was too scared. Allegedly, he watched her for ten minutes and then moved to touch her, at which point she screamed. Perp hit the trail.”
“Yeah, McConnell debriefed me.” He rubbed a hand over his mustache. “You think she’s legit?”
He didn’t nod right away because, well, he had asked himself the same question several times in the last twenty-four hours. He didn’t know Lola Michaels personally, but the woman that he’d had breakfast with yesterday wasn’t the type to be prone to exaggeration. She was intelligent and practical, not someone who would make a false report or call 911 for anything less than an emergency. “I believe that she is.”
“Our victim fits the same physical description,” Doug began, “but McConnell says it’s not the same girl.” He rubbed his chin, sighing as he did so. “I think we may have a serial on our hands, Jake.”
Jacob realized that he’d been staring and blinked. He put his hands into the pockets of his slacks and clenched them. It wasn’t Lola lying on the ground then. He felt a wave of relief course through him, starting in his stomach and spreading through every muscle in his body. He consciously pulled his face into an emotionless expression given where he was standing and, for the first time since arriving, looked down at the body.
She was young, maybe a few years younger than Lola. Her chestnut hair was only a few shades darker, and she had green eyes that were locked in a glassy stare. Where Lola was thin and angular with striking features, the girl that he looked at now was petite and curvy.
He crouched down next to the ME so that he could get a better look at the body, noticed that she wore dark blue jeans with a long-sleeved, oversized hoodie and black Converse shoes. Small, gold, star earrings winked in each ear. Her sleeves were pulled up over her elbows as if she had been walking and had gotten warm but not hot enough to take her hoodie off. But other than that, her clothing looked unmolested.
He did not need to ask the ME what instrument had killed her. In addition to the single laceration from a thin rope or cord wrapping around her neck, her right eye was bloodshot, and her lips were swollen. There were nail marks around the area where the rope had been, but Jacob had been around long enough to know that the only skin under her fingernails would be her own. “Laceration strangulation?”
The city ME, Jason Ridley, a small man with quick, efficient hands and signature round glasses that were always perched on the end of his nose, nodded his head. “The Deputy Coroner will need to perform an autopsy to be sure, but it appears so. Judging by the petechiae of her right eye and the swelling in her lips, I’d say asphyxiation is the likely COD.”
“No signs of sexual assault?”
“Not from my preliminary observations, but it’ll be routine in the autopsy so we can confirm in a few days.”
Jacob pushed to his feet and looked around the group again. McConnell was pale white, ashen under the bright, white light that the ME had brought. He looked like he might be sick at any moment. The other officers looked on the scene with quiet contemplation that spoke of routine and habit more than comfort around the dead.
He took a moment to think, studied the two detectives as a distraction. They were both tall, but where one was broad and muscular, the other was lean and lithe. Where the broad, muscular detective was black, the leaner one was white. Other than the twin expressions on their faces and their similar ages, which he pegged to be close to his own thirty-seven, they could have been literal physical juxtapositions of one another.
“No ID?” he asked the group in general.
Captain Brennan shook his head. “Burns. Williams.” When the captain spoke their names, the two detectives glanced up. “Tape off the alley and put a full-time perimeter officer in place until forensics leave. They were en route when I spoke to them fifteen minutes ago. I’m assuming they’re going to want to re-comb the scene in the daylight, so make sure that it’s secure.” When they nodded, he added, “Start interviewing the residents and business owners in the vicinity first thing tomorrow. You know the drill. If there was so much as a dog howling at midnight, I want to know about it. Ask them all if they have any surveillance cameras. And while you’re at it, contact ATC and see if they have any traffic cameras with a view of the roads parallel to the crime scene.”
Burns and Williams nodded and walked off together, their movements so near synchronized that Jacob could tell that they had been partners for a while.
“McConnell,” Doug turned to his youngest policeman. “Go home and catch some z’s. You’ve been on shift three nights in a row.” When McConnell smiled, Doug continued, “Check-in with Burns and Williams tomorrow. You can run support for them on this.”
“Yes, Sir.” McConnell turned to Jacob. “Lieutenant.”
Jacob nodded and watched McConnell walk off down the dark alley, his long legs giving him a loping gait.
Left with only Doug and the ME, he finally asked, “You mentioned a serial?”
Doug nodded and indicated his cruiser with his head. They walked off, leaving the ME with the body. “It’s unconfirmed because we don’t want to stir a media frenzy, but this is the third body with the same COD in thirty-six hours, excluding your girl last night. Similar victim profiles and the same MO.”
“Shit,” Jacob said, stunned that he hadn’t heard about the murders already. The LAPD did not have much inter-office confidentiality when it came to homicides because they relied on resources outside of each separate geographical division. Usually, he would have heard about a potential serial killer by now.
Doug lifted his foot and placed it on the front tire of his cruiser; his hands were in his pockets and Jacob got the impression that the man was weary. As if sensing his thoughts, Doug looked at him briefly and chuckled. “I tell you, Jake. I’m getting too old for this shit.” He glanced over at the body, then quickly away. “Mira and Joy are around that age.”
Jacob exhaled a long sigh. He knew Doug’s daughters, but only because his father had been Doug’s Captain and mentor before his retirement. Hell, he’d practically grown up with Mira and Joy Brennan. “It never gets easier. You’d think that we’d acclimate.”
“Or just get numb.”
“But you never do.”
They were both silent for a moment.
Eventually, Doug dropped his foot and turned to lean on the cruiser. “I’m guessing that Burns and Williams won’t find much from the neighborhood interviews. This neighborhood is still pretty working class, a lot of early sleepers, early risers. Blue-collar workers. Service industry professionals.”
“I can spare some of my own time to help out.”
Doug raised his eyebrows and his grey mustache inadvertently rose with the movement too. “You work too much, Jacob.”
“I’m an insomniac.”
“So, you’re saying that you climbed to being the youngest lieutenant in LAPD history because you don’t sleep?” He laughed. “I’m not buying that bullshit. None of us sleep. You’re a workaholic and so by the book that you make the chief look like he hasn’t read the damn thing.”