FOURTEEN
There was always a sense of finality to seeing a body on a slab in the morgue, but Chloe Somner didn’t look much different than she had next to the river. Just her skin was more translucent and held more of a bluish tinge under the harsh lighting.
Rideout was standing next to the autopsy table and appeared rather solemn considering his normal upbeat nature, even in the face of death. But there was something about seeing a young woman ripped from this world so unexpectedly—it went against the fiber of humanity. It stung. It enraged. It was unnatural and demanded a righting of a wrong.
“Glad to see you made it all right,” Rideout said and waved a greeting.
“I wish I could say that we meet again under better circumstances.” Amanda nudged her head toward the body. “Do you have anything for us so far?”
“Yep.” Rideout snapped on some gloves and pulled the white sheet down to Chloe’s waist. “Just to get this out of the way, I stand by what I’d surmised on scene. She wasn’t sexually assaulted.”
“One glimmer of good news despite all this…” Amanda waved a hand over Chloe.
“We take what we can, Detective. And there’s no evidence that she was even sexually active recently.”
More good news. It could support Josh Ryder’s claim that they’d broken up. “Is there anything you can tell us that will get us closer to her killer? Possibly the type of weapon used or whether there were any defensive wounds? Maybe she scratched her assailant and attained epithelia.” As she spoke, Rideout’s face fell, and he frowned. She could read his expression like a book: he didn’t have too much good news, if any, to share from this point forward.
“It doesn’t look like she had a chance to defend herself,” he said. “No evidence of that, anyway. I’ve scraped under her nails, but it’s not promising. The killer did quite a thorough job of cleaning up trace.”
“Missed the snail,” Amanda said, inserting some humor into the moment.
“I heard about that. Yes, it might help the case. But there’s also this.” He snatched a vial off a metal table and handed it to her.
It was just a tiny piece of yellow fiber. “What am I looking at?”
“I believe it’s a piece of a sponge.”
“So he stripped her, laid her out, and sponge-bathed her. Probably using river water. It would also account for the blood on her back and on the soil.” Her mind assembled the image. The killer put her body on the ground, and some of the blood dripped around and behind her torso. He hadn’t been completely thorough, but damn close to it.
“I believe so.” Rideout took back the vial and returned it to the table. “She was stabbed seven times, as you know from the scene. After being stabbed even once, instinctual reaction would have you reaching out to defend yourself.”
“She might not have been able to reach him.” Amanda was building a picture in her head—the killer lunging forward with the knife, keeping his distance, juking left, right, left. How could Chloe have reached him to defend herself? But then that raised another question. “Okay, I can follow what you’re saying, but then why didn’t Chloe run? There wasn’t any indication at the scene that she had.”
“Probably because of this.” Rideout lifted Chloe’s left arm and pointed to light bruising on her tricep. “These contusions indicate the killer grabbed her.”
The impressions of fingers were plain to see. Amanda’s stomach knotted into a ball. That poor girl must have been so terrified, held in place and stabbed repeatedly—and possibly by someone she trusted.
“Given the bruising is on the left arm and the angle of the wounds, I’d conclude she was attacked from the front, and that the killer used their left hand to inflict the blows. Her killer would have required a lot of physical strength to hold onto her while they stabbed her.”
Trent glanced at Amanda. “Strong and left-handed.”
She shook her head. “Not necessarily on the latter.”
Rideout was smiling. “She’s right, Trent. Just because the killer may have used their left hand in this situation that doesn’t mean it’s their dominant one. They could be ambidextrous and even be primarily considered right-handed. However, I will say this: given the clean edges to the cut, using their left hand to stab Chloe came naturally to them.”
Naturally…That word was unsettling, given the context. “You think they’ve killed before?”
“I think it’s quite possible, but I’ll leave that for you to determine.”
Tremors ran through her. He might as well have just come out and said he suspected a serial killer at work.
“Told you on scene, the wounds showed no hesitation. Well, the weapon was a non-serrated blade approximately five to seven inches long.” Rideout drew a circle with his finger around one of the stab wounds. “As you can see, the incision is very clean. The killer did attack her aggressively—she was consecutively stabbed seven times—but also showed restraint. There is no indication of the knife’s hilt hitting the skin, so they drew the blade out before going that deep.”
Amanda rubbed her arms. Another serial killer in Prince William County? Would there be more young women before this was over? Not on my watch. “What can you give us that lends a clue to the identity of the killer?”
“The angle of the wounds tells me her killer was taller than her. I’d approximate at least six feet. Probably no taller than six four.”
Likely a man, then, as they’d already assumed. Luke Hogan, one of the names Josh had given them? There was also the possibility Chloe was attacked by a tall woman who may have bolstered her height by wearing heeled shoes or boots to impede the investigation. Could the other name on the list be the culprit—Stephanie Piper? Or was it wishful thinking that Chloe’s murder was an isolated incident, executed at the hands of someone within her circle? After all, the alternative was terrifying—a psychopathic killer who might strike again.
Rideout went on. “Also, one thing with this sort of repetitive action is that the killer’s hand could have slipped down the side of the blade, even if they were exercising restraint. You might be looking at someone who was cut.”
“The least of what he deserves,” Amanda spat. Chloe would have encountered her would-be killer in the dark. She must have been terrified upon realizing she was going to die. But did she know her killer’s face? The question was haunting. The repercussions of her being the victim of a serial killer unthinkable. “In your professional opinion, this killer was controlled and experienced?”
“Absolutely.”
Would a one-off killer be able to show such poise?
“You said it was a non-serrated blade, but do you have any knife types or brands in mind?” Trent asked.
“Unfortunately, no. But there is one more thing I can tell you. The width of the blade would be about one inch.”
“A hunting knife?” Trent looked over at her, and she could surmise what he was thinking. They’d had a case before that involved a bowie knife. It was possible such a knife had been used on Chloe. But narrowing down a knife type and, from there, finding the specific one that had been used as the weapon would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Things would work the other way around, instead. Find the suspect, see if he had such a knife.
“And what about time of death?” Amanda asked.
“I’ve run more tests here. Given the timestamp on the video from the park and approximating thirty minutes to walk to the point where she was found, she died not long after reaching the riverbank. Somewhere between four and five in the morning.” Rideout moved around the body and added, “Something else you’ll be interested to know. I pulled cotton fibers from some of the wounds. Could have come from her clothing.”
“Sounds like proof her killer stabbed her while she was clothed,” Amanda concluded.
“I’d say that’s a fair assessment.”