Creation In Death

3

SO MANY WOUNDS, HE THOUGHT, AND ALL washed clean. Somehow it might have been less horrid if there had been blood. Blood would be proof, wouldn’t it, that life had once been there.

But this…this woman he remembered as vital and brimming with energy looked like some poor doll, mangled and sliced by a vicious child.

“Tidy work,” Eve stated, and had Roarke’s gaze whipping toward her.

He started to speak, to let loose some of the horror he felt. But he saw her face, saw the anger was closer to the surface now however calm her voice. Saw, too, the pity. She had such pity inside her he often wondered how she could bear the weight of it.

So he said nothing.

“He’s very methodical.” Morris engaged the computer before offering Eve microgoggles. “You see these wounds on the limbs? Long, thin, shallow.”

“Scalpel maybe, or the tip of a sharp blade.” Though the wounds were displayed, optimized, on screen, Eve leaned down to study them through the goggles. “Precise, too. Either she was drugged or he had her restrained in such a way she couldn’t struggle enough to make a difference.”

“Which gets your vote?” Morris asked.

“Restraints. What’s the fun if she’s out of it, can’t feel fully? Burns are small along here.” Eve turned the victim’s left arm. “Here in the bend of the elbow, precise again, but the skin’s charred some at the edges. Flame? Not a laser, but live fire?”

“I would agree. Some of the other burns look like laser to me. And there, on the inner thigh where it’s mottled? Extreme cold.”

“Yeah. The bruising-no laceration, no scraping. Smooth implement.”

“Sap.” Roarke studied the bruising himself. “An old-fashioned sap would bruise like that. Leather’s effective if you can afford the cost. Filled with ordinary sand, it does its job.”

“Again, agree. And we have the punctures,” Morris continued. “Which are in circular patterns here, here, here.” The screen flashed with close-ups of the back of the right hand, the heel of the left foot, the left buttocks. “Twenty minute punctures, in this precise pattern.”

“Like needles,” Eve mused. “Some kind of tool…He could…” She curved her right hand, laid it on the heel of the body, pressed. “That’s new. We don’t have this wound pattern on record.”

“He’s an inventive bastard,” Peabody added. “Morris, can I get a bottle of water?”

“Help yourself.”

“You need air,” Eve said without looking at her, “go get some.”

“Just the water.”

“This pattern might be new,” Eve continued, “but the rest is consistent. More creative, maybe, a little more patient. You do what you do long enough, you get better at it. Longer, deeper wounds along the rib cage, over the breasts. Wider burn areas, deeper bruising up the calves.

“Increases the pain, gradually. Wants it to last. Cuts and burns on her face. No bruising there. Sap her and she might lose consciousness. Don’t want that.”

The doors swished open. Feeney walked in, came straight to the table. He looked down. “Ah, hell,” was all he said.

“We’ve got one new wound type. Circular pattern of punctures. See what you think of it.”

Eve bent close to the ruined face, her eyes behind the goggles unflinching. “No bruising here that would indicate he gagged her-or not tightly. Nothing that would mar the skin. He has to have a place, a very, very private place. So she can scream. Tox back?”

“Yes, just before you came. There were small traces of a standard sedative in her bloodstream. Barely registered. She’d have been awake and aware at TOD.”

“Same MO. Puts her to sleep when he’s busy with other business.”

“There were traces, too, of water and protein in her system. The lab will confirm, but…”

“He likes to give them enough nutrients to keep them going,” Feeney said.

Eve nodded. “I remember. Then ends it this way.” She lifted the victim’s hand, turned the wrist up. “Crosshatches, but not too deep. She’ll bleed out, but it’ll take time. Adds to his clock.”

“I expect, given the prior blood loss, trauma, two hours. Three at the most. She would have lost consciousness before the end of it.”

“Any trace of what he used to wash her down?”

“Yes. In the scalp wounds, and the punctures under the nails. I sent it to the lab.”

“Send over some skin scrapings, some hair. I want to see what kind of water. City water? Suburbs?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“He’ll be starting on the second.” Feeney looked at Eve as she took off the goggles. “Probably has the third picked out.”

“Yeah. I’m going to see the commander. For now, you tag a couple of your best men. I want them running and analyzing data as we get it, running probabilities. First on scene was Gil Newkirk’s son.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, you reach out to Newkirk, senior? He’s out of the one-seven, so’s his kid. I’m bringing the son in on the uniform end of the task force, if his lieutenant doesn’t have a problem with it.”

“Who’s the LT?”

“Grohman.”

“I know him,” Feeney told her. “I’ll handle it.”

“Good.” Eve checked the time, calculated. “Peabody, book us a conference room, and I want it for the duration. They give you any lip about it, toss them to Whitney. We’ll meet there for the first briefing at oh-nine-hundred.”

As they headed out, Eve shot a look at Roarke. “I take it you want to stick for the briefing.”

“You trust correctly.”

“I’m going to need to clear that with Whitney.”

“All right.”

“Take the wheel. I’ll see what I can do.”

She put the call through, unsurprised to find Whitney already at his desk. “Sir, we’re heading into Central now from the morgue. We’re booking a conference room.”

“Locked in A,” Peabody said from the backseat.

“Conference room A,” Eve relayed. “And I’m scheduling the first briefing at oh-nine-hundred.”

“I’ll be there. So will Chief Tibble.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve brought in Captain Feeney as we worked together on the previous investigation. I’ve asked him for two additional e-men to run data. I would like to put Officer Newkirk on the uniform part of the task force as he was first on scene, and is the son of an officer who was involved in the previous investigation.”

“I’ll clear that for you.”

“Sir, Feeney’s on that. I want four additional men. Baxter, Trueheart, Jenkinson, and Powell. I’ll reassign whatever caseloads they’re currently carrying. I need them clear for this.”

“It’s your call, Lieutenant, but Trueheart’s an aide, not a detective, and doesn’t have extensive experience.”

“He’s tireless, sir, and has an excellent eye. Baxter’s given him some seasoning.”

“I’ll trust your judgment.”

“Thank you. I’ll need Dr. Mira to review and possibly update the profile, and could make use of an expert consultant, civilian.”

Whitney said nothing for five long seconds. “You want to bring Roarke in on this, Dallas?”

“The victim was an employee. The connection can clear some roads in the investigation and interviews. In addition, Commander, he has access to better equipment than the NYPSD. We may have use for it.”

“Again, your call, your judgment.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dawn was breaking as Roarke swung into the garage at Central. “We’re in the house, sir. I’ll be set up by nine hundred.”

“I’ll contact Dr. Mira and the chief.”

Eve sat for a moment when Roarke pulled into her slot. In the back, Peabody snored in quiet, almost ladylike snorts. “You know something about torture,” she said at length.

“I do, yes.”

“And you know people who know people.”

“True.”

“That’s what I want you to think about. And if you have a contact that can add to the data, I want you to use it. He has tools, and he has a workshop. It would be well set up, well equipped. I think he’d have e-toys, too. Monitor the vic’s pulse rate, maybe brain wave patterns. Cameras, audio. It seems to me he’d want to watch, and you can’t watch and work. Not when you’re that focused.”

“Whatever you need from me.”

She nodded, then turned and shoved Peabody’s knee.

“Huh? What?” Peabody jerked upright, blinked. “I was thinking.”

“Yeah, I always drool and snore when I’m lost in thought.”

“Drool?” Mortified, Peabody wiped at her mouth. “I wasn’t drooling.”

“You’ve got one hour in the crib.”

“No, I’m okay.” Peabody climbed out, blinked her eyes wide as if to show she was alert. “Just nodded off for a minute.”

“An hour.” Eve strode toward the elevator. “Take it, then report to the conference room. I’ll need you to help me set up.”

“You don’t have to get pissed just because I dropped out for a couple minutes.”

“If I was pissed I’d be kicking your ass instead of giving you an hour down. And you don’t want to argue with me when I’m jonesing for coffee. Take the hour. You’re going to need it.”

When the doors opened, Eve stepped off with Roarke, then turned, jabbed a finger at Peabody’s sulky face. “That hour starts now.”

Roarke waited until the doors closed. “You could use an hour yourself.”

“I could use coffee more.”

“And food.”

She slid her eyes up to his. “If you start nagging me about eating and sleeping, I’m booting you off my team.”

“If I didn’t nag you about eating and sleeping, you’d do precious little of either. What’s in your office AutoChef?”

“Coffee,” she said, and yearned for it.

“I’ll meet you there shortly.” When he turned and headed in the opposite direction, she only scowled after him.

Still, if he was off doing whatever, it would be easier for her to write her initial report, call in the members of her team.

She passed through the bullpen. It was nearly change of shift. In her office, she went straight for the coffee, then stood where she was and drank the first half of the first cup.

There hadn’t been real coffee to wake up her blood the first time around, she remembered. Instead of a cramped office, she’d had a cramped desk in the bullpen. She hadn’t been in charge then; Feeney had. She knew that was weighing on him, knew he was remembering all the steps, all the fizzled leads, the dead ends. All the bodies.

It needed to be remembered. It all needed to be remembered, so it didn’t happen again.

She sat at her desk, shot out transmissions to Baxter and to Jenkinson, with orders for them to notify their respective aides and partners, and report.

She mercilessly dumped their caseloads on other detectives.

There would, she knew, be some extensive bitching and moaning in the bullpen, very shortly.

She ordered up the cold-case files from nine years before-including Mira’s initial profile-sent out the request for the files and reports on the other cases, yet unsolved, that matched the MO.

She contacted the lab and pushed for any and all results, left a clipped voice mail for the chief lab tech, Dick Berenski.

And with a second cup of coffee on her desk, began to write her report.

She was fine-tuning it when Roarke came in. He set an insulated bowl on her desk, handed her a toss-away spoon. “Eat.”

Cautious, Eve pried up the lid of the bowl and peeked. “Damn it. If you were going to go to the trouble to get food, why did you get oatmeal?”

“Because it’s good for you.” He sat in her single visitor chair with his own bowl. “Are you aware that the Eatery here serves nothing that could be considered remotely palatable?”

“The eggs aren’t that bad. If you put a lot of salt on them.”

Roarke simply angled his head. “You put a lot of salt on everything, but it doesn’t make it palatable.”

Because it was there, she spooned up some oatmeal. It would fill the hole. “Cop food’s what you get around here.” She ate, frowned. As oatmeal went, it wasn’t completely disgusting. “And this isn’t cop food.”

“No. I got it from the deli around the corner.”

For a moment, her face rivaled Peabody’s for full sulk. “They have bagels there, and danishes.”

“So they do.” He smiled at her. “You’ll do better with the oatmeal.”

Maybe, she thought, but she wouldn’t be as happy about it. “I want to say something before this really gets started. If you feel, at any time, you want to step out, you step out.”

“I won’t, but understood.”

She took another spoonful of oatmeal, then swiveled in her chair so they were face-to-face. “Understand, too, that if I feel your involvement is doing more harm-on a personal level-than it’s adding to the investigation, I’ll have to cut you loose.”

“Personally or professionally?”

“Roarke.”

He set his bowl aside to get up and program coffee for himself. She could attempt to cut him loose, he thought, but they both knew she wouldn’t shake him off the line. And that, he acknowledged, would be a problem indeed.

“Our personal life has, and will, weather the bumps and bruises it takes when we work together, or more accurately, when I contribute to your work.”

“This one’s different.”

“Yes, I understand that as well.” He turned with his coffee, met her eyes. “You couldn’t stop him once before.”

“Didn’t stop him,” Eve corrected.

“You’d think that, and so it’s personal. However much you try to keep it otherwise, it’s personal. It’s harder for you, and it may be harder for us. But things have changed in nine years, a great many things.”

“I didn’t have anybody pushing oatmeal on me nine years ago.”

“There.” His lips curved. “That’s one.”

“It’s unlikely we’ll save the second one, Roarke. Barring a miracle, we won’t save her.”

“And so, you’re already afraid you won’t save the next. I know how that weighs on you, and eats at you, and pushes you. You have someone who understands you, who loves you, and who has considerable resources.”

He crossed over, just to touch a hand to her face. “His pattern may have changed little in all this time, Eve. But yours has. And I believe, completely, that it will stop here. You’ll stop it.”

“I need to believe that, too. Okay, then.” She took one more spoonful of oatmeal. “Peabody’s crib time’s up. I need to finish this report, have copies made for the team. I’ve ordered copies of the old reports, and put in requests for files from other murders attributed to him. Find Peabody, tell her I need her to pick up the cold files, and then the two of you can start setting up. I need another ten minutes here.”

“All right. But unless you have something other than the usual drudge around here in that conference room, I’m taking coffee with me.”

True to her word, Eve walked into the conference room ten minutes later. Behind her, a pair of uniforms hauled in a second board. She carted a boxful of file copies.

“I want the current case up first,” she told Peabody. “Then we’ll have our history lesson.” She pulled the files out, set them on the conference table. “I generated stills of the scene and the body. Use the second board for those.”

“On it.”

She walked over to a white data board on the wall and began to print.

Her printing always surprised Roarke. It was so precise, so perfect, while her handwriting tended toward scrawl. He saw she was printing out the victim’s name, and the timeline from the moment she’d been reported leaving the club, through her death, and the discovery of her body.

After drawing a line down the center of the wide board, she began printing out the others, beginning with Corrine Dagby.

Not just data, Roarke thought. A kind of memorial to the dead. They were not to be forgotten. More, he thought, she wrote them out for herself because she stood for all of them now.

Feeney walked in. “The kid’s cleared for this. The Newkirk kid.” His gaze moved to the board, stayed there. “His old man’s going to dig out his own notes from before. Said he’ll put in any OT you want, or take his own personal time on this.”

“Good.”

“I pulled in McNab and Callendar. McNab knows your rhythm and won’t bitch about the drone work. Callendar’s good. She doesn’t miss details.”

“I’ve got Baxter, Trueheart, Jenkinson, and Powell.”

“Powell?”

“Transferred in from the six-five about three months ago. Got twenty years in. Chips away at a case until he gets to the bones. I’ve got Harris and Darnell in uniform. They’re solid. But I’m giving Newkirk the lead there. He was first on scene and he knows the previous investigation.”

“If he’s like his old man, he’s a solid cop.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking. Tibble, Whitney, and Mira should be on their way down.”

She stepped back from the board. “I’m going to brief on the current first. Do you want to brief on the prior investigation?”

Feeney shook his head. “You take it. Might help me see it from a different angle.” He pulled a book out of his pocket, handed it to her. “My original notes. I made a copy for myself.”

She knew he wasn’t only passing her his notebook, but passing her the command as well. The gesture had something tightening just under her heart. “Is this how you want it?”

“It’s the way it is. The way it’s supposed to be.” He turned away as cops began to come into the room.

She snagged one of the uniforms, ordered him to distribute the files, then studied the boards Peabody and Roarke had set up.

All those faces, she thought. All that pain.

What did she look like, the one he had now? What was her name? Was anyone looking for her?

How long would she last?

When Whitney walked in with Mira, Eve started over. It struck her what a contrast they made. The big-shouldered man with the dark skin, the years of command etched on his face, and the woman, so quietly lovely in the elegant pale pink suit.

“Lieutenant. The chief is on his way.”

“Yes, sir. The full team’s assembled and present. Dr. Mira, there are copies of your original profile in each packet, but if there’s anything you want to add verbally, feel free.”

“I’d like to reread the original murder books.”

“I’ll make them available. Sir, do you wish to speak?”

“Lead it off, Dallas.” He stepped to the side as Tibble entered.

The chief of police was a tall man and-Eve always thought-a contained one. Not an easy man to read, but she doubted he’d have climbed the ranks as he had if he’d been otherwise. He played politics-a necessary evil-but to her mind he found a way so that the department came out on top.

Dark skin, dark eyes, dark suit-part of his presence, she decided. Along with a strong voice, and a strong will.

“Chief Tibble.”

“Lieutenant. I apologize if I delayed the briefing.”

“No, sir, we’re on schedule. If you’re ready now.”

He only nodded, then moved to the back of the room. He didn’t sit, but stood. An observer.

Eve gave Peabody a nod, then walked to the front of the room. Behind her, the wall screen flashed on.

“Sarifina York,” Eve began. “Age twenty-eight at TOD.”

She was putting the victim first, Roarke realized. Putting that image, that name into the mind of every cop in the room. So that every cop in the room would think of her, remember her as they were buried in routine, in data, in the long hours and the frustrations.

Just as they would remember what had been done to her as those next images came up.

She went through them all, every victim. The names, the faces, the ages, the images of their suffering and death. It took a long time, but there were no interruptions, no signs of restlessness.

“We believe all of these women, twenty-three women, were abducted, tortured, and murdered by one individual. We believe there are likely more than these twenty-three who have not been connected or reported, whose bodies may not have been found or who were not killed in the same manner. Earlier victims, we believe, before Corrine Dagby, when he decided on his particular method.”

She paused, just a moment, to insure, Roarke understood, that all eyes, all attention focused on the image of that first victim.

“The method deviates very little from vic to vic, as you’ll see in your copy of the case file from nine years ago. Copies of case files, in full, from murders attributed to the unsub will be forthcoming.”

Her eyes scanned the room, and Roarke thought, saw everything.

“His methodology is, initially, typical of a serial. We believe he stalks and selects his victims-all within a certain age group, race, gender, and coloring-learning their routines, habits. He knows where they live, where they work, where they shop, who they sleep with.”

She paused again, shifting. Roarke saw the light slanting through the privacy screens on the window glint on her sidearm.

“Twenty-three women, known. They were specific targets. No connection was found between any of the victims other than age and basic appearance. None of the victims ever reported a stalker, never mentioned to a friend, coworker, relative that she had been approached or troubled. In each case, the victim left a location and was not seen again until her body was discovered.

“He must have private transportation of some kind, and using it takes the victim to a preplanned location. It, too, must be private as he takes-as with Sarifina York-several days to kill them. In all prior investigations, it was learned through timelines and forensics that he always selects and abducts his second victim before finishing with the first, and so selects and abducts the third before killing the second.”

She outlined the investigator’s on-scene reports, the ME’s reports, taking them through the process of the torture, the method of death.

Roarke heard the e-cop, Callendar, breathe out a soft “Jesus,” as Eve outlined the specifics.

“Here, he may deviate slightly,” Eve continued, “adjusting his method to suit the specific victim. According to Dr. Mira’s profile, this is tailored to the victim’s stamina, tolerance for pain, will to live. He’s careful, he’s methodical, patient. Most likely a mature male of high intelligence. He lives alone, and has some steady method of income. Probably upper bracket. Though he selects females, there is no evidence he abuses them sexually.”

“Small blessing,” Callendar murmured, and if Eve heard she gave no sign.

“Sex, the control and power gained from them doesn’t interest him. They aren’t sexual beings. By carving the time spent on them into their torsos-postmortem-he labels them. The ring he puts on them is another kind of branding.

“It’s ownership.” She glanced at Mira for confirmation.

“Yes,” Mira agreed, and the lovely woman with the soft waves of sable hair spoke in her calm voice. “The killings are a ritual, though not specifically ritualistic in the standard sense. They are his ritual, from the selection and the stalking, through the abduction and the torture, the attention to detail, which includes the time elapsed, to the way he tends to them after death. The use of the rings indicates an intimacy and a proprietary interest. They belong to him. Most likely they represent a female who was important to him.”

“He washes them, body, hair,” Eve continued. “While this removes most trace evidence, we were able to determine the brand of soap and shampoo on previous vics. It’s high end, indicating their presentation matters to him.”

“Yes,” Mira agreed when Eve glanced at her again. “Very much.”

“It matters, as does the dumping method. He lays them on a white sheet, habitually leaving them in a park or green area. Legs together, as you see-again, not a sexual pose-but arms spread.”

“A kind of opening,” Mira commented. “Or embrace. Even acceptance of what was done.”

“While he follows the traditional path of the signature serial killer to this point, he then deviates. Full timeline up, Peabody,” Eve ordered, then turned when it flashed on screen. “He does not escalate in violence, the time between killings doesn’t appreciatively narrow. He spends two to three weeks at his work, then he stops. In a year, or two, he cycles again, in another location. His signature has been identified in New York, in Wales, in Florida, in Romania, in Bolivia, and now again in New York.

“Twenty-three women, nine years, four countries. The arrogant son of a bitch is back here, and here’s where it stops.”

And here, Roarke noted, was the fierceness she’d held back during the relaying of data, of names and methods and evidence. Here was the hint of the anger, of the avenger.

“Right now, there’s a woman between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-three. She has brown hair, light skin, a medium to slender build, and she’s already been taken. We find him. We get her back.

“I’m going to give you your individual assignments. If you have any questions, any problems, wait until I’m done. But I’m going to tell you one more thing. We’re going to nail him. We’re going to nail him here, in New York, with a case so tight he’ll feel it choking him every hour of every day of every year he spends in a cage.”

Not just anger, Roarke noted, but pride. And she was pushing that anger and pride into them so they’d work until they dropped.

She was magnificent.

“He doesn’t walk, run, fly, or crawl out of this city,” Eve told them. “He doesn’t slither out in court because one of us gave his lawyer an opening the size of a flea’s ass.

“He pays, we’re going to make goddamn sure he pays for every one of these twenty-three women.”