“Tell me it’s significant.”
“Significant enough for you to send my wife and me on vacation—and not to the Jersey shore; to a Caribbean island.”
Derek’s pulse began to pick up. “Go on.”
“Our offender is getting careless. Either that, or this mangled woman put up a hell of a fight. We found his saliva on what was left of her face, and skin and tissue underneath her nails.”
“And it took you this long to—”
“Easy. We wanted to finish the autopsy and the lab analysis before we called you. The drug panel shows high levels of ketamine in her blood, and the type of wounds inflicted are identical to the other murdered prostitutes. The difference is, this one was far more brutal. He sliced her up almost beyond recognition.”
“I knew that.”
“But you didn’t know why. All the previous victims were repeatedly sexually violated. Obviously, he wore a condom and was very careful about it, so there was never any trace of semen. But there was extreme swelling and tissue tearing in the vaginal canal, sometimes even bleeding. He violently raped his previous victims, make no mistake about it.”
“And this one?”
“This one shows none of that. No swelling, no tearing, not even any inflammation. In fact, I’d make an educated guess that he never even penetrated the woman.”
“He couldn’t perform,” Derek concluded. “That must have infuriated him. So he took it out on the victim by butchering her.”
“You got it.” A pause. “Do you want to hear the rest?”
“What rest? There’s more?”
“Oh yeah. I told you this was worth a Caribbean vacation. I meant it.”
“Continue.”
“The last test we were waiting to complete was the DNA test.”
“You found something in CODIS. You know who this psycho is.”
“Yes and no. We found something in CODIS. As for who it is, that’s your job.”
“You lost me.”
“What we found, we found in the forensic index. Two separate hits. One in New York, the other in New Jersey.”
By this time, Derek was sitting up stick straight, every vestige of fatigue having vanished. “I’m listening.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Three minutes later, Derek burst into Antonio Sanchez’s office. “Tony, we have to talk. Now.”
His drained SSA looked up from the pile of unanswered phone messages he’d been putting off returning. He was just about to tell Derek that whatever he wanted would have to wait, when he saw his expression.
“You got a lead?” Tony demanded.
“Better.”
A wave of relief crossed his boss’s face. “That’s news I’d put anything aside for. Come in and shut the door.”
Derek complied, remaining on his feet as he spoke. The adrenaline flowing through him was too powerful to allow him to sit. “Not only do I have a solid lead that will get Chinatown back to normal,” he told Tony, “but it’s possible I can use that same lead to solve the Truman case—and a handful of others. Good enough news for you?”
Tony just stared. “Explain,” he ordered.
Derek did, supplying both fact and supposition, leaving out nothing in the process.