EIGHTEEN
It was so good to touch down in Black Rock Falls after such a chaotic trip. Bone weary and eyes filled with grit, Jenna waited on the tarmac as Wolfe’s Harley was unloaded from the back of the private jet. A cool breeze brushed her face, bringing with it the delicious smell of pine trees and fresh air. It wrapped around her in a fragrant hug as if the mountains and forests were welcoming them home. She’d called ahead to inform Wolfe they’d be arriving outside the medical examiner’s office in a few minutes and to open the gate for them. The moment she climbed on the back of the motorcycle and the wind brushed her face, the feeling of being home engulfed her with peace and contentment. It was a shame she had a murder case to deal with. She wanted to spend more time alone with Kane. It should be their time together and not business as usual, but as the sheriff, homicides were her responsibility.
Wolfe was waiting for them at the gate of the medical examiner’s parking lot and waved them through with a broad smile. As Kane parked the motorcycle, Jenna slid from the back and collected their things from the saddlebags. She turned to Wolfe. “Well, we had a disaster of a honeymoon. What progress have you made with the case?”
“I’m afraid we have another body.” Wolfe rubbed his chin. “The team is on it. We have nothing on their identities or where they came from at all. Kalo is running their prints as we speak. There’s not much else I can tell you. Rio would be the best person to bring you up to date.” Wolfe’s attention moved from her and concentrated on the motorcycle. “It’s such a long time since I’ve seen my baby.” He looked at Kane and smiled. “How did she handle?”
“Like a dream.” Kane slapped him on the back. “You do know this means I’ll have to get one now. I enjoyed flying down the highway with the wind in my hair and hearing the roar of a powerful engine.”
Astonished, Jenna stared at Kane. “I’ll never understand how you take near-death experiences in your stride.” She looked at Wolfe. “He’s not going to mention we were caught in a hurricane and almost died, and had people shooting or throwing rocks at us on the way back to the airport?”
“That would be a walk in the park for him.” Wolfe met her gaze. “The hurricane was only along the beachfront I hear.”
Jenna gripped his arm. “It was really bad, and I’m so sorry, Shane, your mom’s condo was completely destroyed.”
“Don’t worry, it’s insured.” Wolfe turned with a shrug. “Hurricanes happen all the time in Florida.” His gaze traveled over her face. “Kane said you weren’t injured. You’re sheet white, are you okay?”
Jenna rubbed her bruised forearm and nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Just a few bumps and bruises. That’s what happens when people throw rocks at you. We came through the hurricane just fine once we’d climbed down from the top story to the first floor to escape the building before it collapsed. The hair-raising ride through Armageddon to get back to the airport was just peachy. I know that you and Kane are used to living on the edge, but right now I figure I need a week to get over it.” She turned and walked to the back door of the morgue. “I hope you have fresh coffee brewing. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”
The conversation concerning motorcycles followed her into the morgue. She headed for Wolfe’s office and dropped into a chair. “We’re in the middle of a homicide investigation and you’re both chatting about motorcycles. I think we need to get our priorities right.” She turned to Wolfe. “You mentioned a second victim. Is it another female? Are they in the morgue?”
“Yeah, they’re both here, and I’ve completed the autopsies. I believe the team is still at the office.” Wolfe went to the coffee machine and dropped in two pods. “To be perfectly honest, we haven’t made much headway in the twenty-four hours or so you’ve been away, but the team has been working nonstop.”
“Where did you find the second victim?” Kane sat down beside Jenna and sighed. “Same MO?”
“Yeah, exactly. She was found outside the landfill leaning up against the fence.” Wolfe handed them both a cup of coffee. “Mr. Brinks called it in.” He leaned against the counter, looking at them. “We’ve got nothing solid and no suspects. Kalo has checked all the databases for missing women matching their descriptions and fingerprints and these two seem to be ghosts. Another thing, Jane Doe Two was bathed in formaldehyde, which as you know is a preservative. We don’t know how long the killer kept her prior to leaving her at the landfill. I’m running tests to determine the rate of deterioration of Jane Doe Two’s flesh to give me a more accurate time of death. Both women were raped antemortem and bruises of different maturity on their bodies would indicate they were beaten over a period of time.” He looked at Jenna and shrugged. “It’s early in the investigation and I need more time to make a determination. Although cause of death of both victims was asphyxiation due to strangulation. I’ll get my report to you as soon as possible.”
Concerned the killer had escalated so fast, Jenna ran both hands through her hair and stared at Kane. “I would love to go home and shower and change, but we’ll have to go into the office and see if they’ve made any headway.” She finished her coffee and stood and then removed the leather jacket and handed it to Wolf. “Unless you want us to view the bodies now?”
“That can be done tomorrow when you’ve rested. It isn’t a pretty sight, Jenna.” Wolfe shook his head. “You know, it might be best if you went home and started fresh in the morning. You’ve both been through a traumatic experience. You’re both exhausted and won’t be thinking straight.”
“Thanks, but we’re good. We had plenty of time to rest on the flight.” Kane dragged his jacket out of his backpack and shrugged into it. “You know darn well Jenna won’t be able to sleep unless she’s gotten to the bottom of this case.” He tossed Jenna her jacket. “Let’s go. The Beast is out back.”
It was no surprise to Jenna when Kane pulled up outside Aunt Betty’s Café. She’d listened to his stomach growling for the last twenty minutes or so and expected him to stop somewhere to get something to eat. To her surprise he asked her to wait and dashed inside, coming out with a ton of pies. When she walked into the sheriff’s department, she was surprised to see Rowley on the counter. “Hi, Jake. Where’s Maggie?”
“As it’s after five on Saturday, I sent her home.” Rowley smiled at her. “I’m real glad to see you made it home safely. Bad luck about the hurricane.” He indicated with his chin toward the hallway. “The team is in the conference room. Not that they’ve come up with anything yet. This case sure is a tough one.”
Jenna nodded. “Thanks, it’s good to be home, and with two murders in town, it’s just as well we’re here.” She stared down the hallway and then back to Rowley. “Is Jo here too? Where’s Jaime and what’s been happening here?”
“They took Jaime back to Snakeskin Gully after victim two showed.” Rowley rubbed his chin. “On Friday, after you left, Jo and Carter went out to view the scene, and Sandy and Julie went for a ride with the girls. Jaime told me that she had a great time riding the horses.”
Smiling, Jenna’s mind filled with images of the little girls dressed in their bridesmaids’ dresses. “Oh, that’s good. At least her visit wasn’t ruined.” She turned to Kane. “I guess we’d better get at it.”
A low mumble of voices came from the conference room, and Jenna walked in with Kane close behind. In a flash of black and brown Duke flew out from under the desk and hurled himself at Kane. She plucked the bag of takeout from Kane’s arms just as the dog circled him in an affectionate yapping doggy dance. She grinned as Kane wrestled the dog into submission by rubbing his ears and telling him that everything was okay.
“Well, won’t you look at what the hurricane’s blown in.” Carter grinned around his toothpick. “And they’ve brought food too. It’s a double bonus. Now be honest, you missed us, didn’t you, and couldn’t wait to come back.”
“Well, let me think—a weekend in Florida with Dave or working a case with you?” Jenna smiled at him. “Sorry, Dave wins.” She turned back to the whiteboard. The copious notes made by Rio’s neat hand in columns with headings were concise, but it was obvious no conclusions had been drawn about the killer. The column marked profile was empty, which surprised Jenna as Jo was an expert in her field. She smiled as faces turned to her. “Okay, guys, what have you got for me?”
After listening to Rio’s update of the cases, she sat down at the table and rubbed her temples. “So, we have no suspects at all?”
“We hunted down the obvious users of formaldehyde.” Rio rubbed the back of his neck. “The undertaker and the two taxidermists we know about in town. We interviewed them and they all had rock-hard alibis for the time the bodies were dumped.”
Unsatisfied with his reply, Jenna frowned. “I want details—names, places where they work, and their alibis.”
“We went to the Black Rock Falls Funeral Home and interviewed Max Weems, the undertaker, and his son.” Rio leaned back in his seat and stared at her. “They were at Aunt Betty’s around the time of the dumping of the first victim and for the second they were collecting a body from the hospital.”
“We checked out their alibis.” Rowley consulted his iPad. “They’re rock solid.”
Agitated Jenna tapped a pen on the desk. “Is that all? What about the taxidermists?”
“Me and Jo handled the interviews of the taxidermists with stores in town: Colin Drury and Austin Berry. Drury has been in Helena for the past week, and Barry lives with three other guys. All of them confirmed he was at home and we spoke to them separately.” Carter smiled around his toothpick. “They checked out too.” He chuckled. “You see we can work when you’re not here, Jenna. In fact, we’ve been gathering information since you left.”
Trying not to roll her eyes at Carter’s self-satisfied grin, Jenna pushed the hair from her face. “With all this information gathering, we still don’t have a list of suspects. There must be other people who use formaldehyde that we haven’t considered yet.”
“There are plenty of taxidermists in town who do it for a hobby.” Kane sipped coffee. “We’ve run into a few before. They should be licensed. It’s a lead we need to chase down.”
“Okay.” Rio made a note on the whiteboard. “I’ll get on it but that’s all we have for now.”
“This is a tough one but this is only day three. So far you’ve all followed procedure. That’s all I can ask of you.” Jenna turned to Kane. “Any suggestions?”
“Yeah, why do you figure the killer used a fresh victim for Jane Doe One when he had Jane Doe Two in storage?” Kane looked at Jo. “Would you consider this guy is a necrophiliac? What do we need to know to give him that label?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Jo folded her hands on the table. “Those guys enjoy the smell and like frequent visits to the corpses, usually to indulge their sexual fantasies. I see no evidence of that behavior in this case.” She cleared her throat. “I believe he used the formaldehyde for one reason only and that is to preserve the body so he could move it from place to place.”
Considering the update from Rio, Jenna scanned the file and met his gaze across the table. “In your report you mentioned a previous case in DC.” She turned to Carter and raised one eyebrow. “I assume you’ve checked this guy out?”
“We never arrested the killer; he remains in the wind.” Carter moved a toothpick across his lips and narrowed his gaze. “My question is: why would the killer go to this extreme and then stop for a long time before starting up again? If these victims are numbers twenty and twenty-one, where are the rest of them? I don’t recall the killer in DC carving numbers in the flesh of the other victims. It might not be the same perpetrator.”
“I researched a similar pattern of behavior but I’m sure Jo knows more about it than I do.” Kane reached into a bag for a peach pie. “In the case I read about, the killer was married with children. It seemed he could control his urges, which is unusual as you know.”
“Not really.” Jo’s expression became interested. “There is a type of psychopath who can quite comfortably lead a double life and take breaks between murders, or kill and return to their life without any change in behavior. They have the ability to compartmentalize people, memories of murders or fantasies. They become expert at putting them away and not thinking about them. When the need arises, they can easily access their fantasies or switch between imagination and reality in a blink of an eye.”
Fascinated, Jenna poured herself a coffee and leaned back in her chair. “Are they the same in other aspects? Do they lack empathy and not think of the victim once the murder has been committed?”
“In this case, I doubt it.” Kane stretched his long legs and sighed. “He must be thinking about them or he wouldn’t be preserving them. This brings me to another question. Do you think he could be married and have a family?”
“Married or a loner, both are possibilities. We know many leave double lives.” Jo opened her hands. “One thing for sure, this killer is consumed with making people suffer. I believe he becomes sexually aroused at seeing the women struggling. If he is married, he might blame the victim for making him aroused and beats them to death as punishment.”
“Oh, he’s a sadistic SOB.” Carter tossed his toothpick in the trash and reached for one of the pies in the takeout bag. “Wolfe said he’d been beating these women over some time. He used rape as a punishment. I don’t think he was getting any gratification out of it. It was just another weapon in his arsenal.” He shook his head. “He’s as smart as a whip and, just like all the others of late, seems to know his way around forensics. I blame TV shows and the internet for giving too much information on forensic investigations, because it’s becoming more and more difficult to find DNA or, let’s face it, any evidence at all against these killers.”
Determined to get more information on the illusive killer, Jenna turned to Carter. “It would help if you could send the image files and video from the drone to Kalo. He’ll be able to run it through the facial-recognition software against driver’s license pictures. I want the names of everyone in the vicinity at the time the bodies were discovered. It’s not unusual for the killer to be watching. Some of them return to the scene of the crime to see the reaction of their work.” She ran a hand through her hair. “If we find anyone out of place, it will give us a starting point. At the moment, we’re chasing shadows.”
Taking a beat to stare at the whiteboard, Jenna scanned the list of uses of formaldehyde and the various industries where it was commonly found. She turned back to Carter. “Ask Kalo to cross-reference the occupations of the people at the crime scene with anyone working with or involved in any way with formaldehyde. There has to be a link, and if he can hunt down people who showed at the crime scenes and use formaldehyde for any reason whatsoever, we’ll have a list of suspects to investigate.”
“Good thinking.” Rio glanced down at his iPad. “I’ll send him all the additional information I discovered today.”
“Okay. Is there anything else we need to discuss?” When the room fell silent, Jenna glanced at her watch and, seeing it was after six, turned back to the tired faces around the table. “That’s all we can do until we hear from Bobby Kalo and Wolfe sends over the autopsy reports. I figure we’ll need a day to catch up on the information in the case files. So unless anything breaks in the meantime, we’ll start fresh on Monday.”
Chairs scraped as everyone except Carter got to their feet. Jenna ran down the list of files on her tablet to make sure she had all the information on the case and then collected her things, ready to leave. Every inch of her body ached from the bruises, and her muscles had stiffened from traveling. The delicious thought of going home to the ranch and soaking in the hot tub for an hour or so was very tempting. The hot water would be very soothing, and she would have plenty of time to catch up with the case after dinner.
“You look exhausted.” Jo moved to Jenna’s side and stared at her with a worried expression. “Would you like me to come over to the ranch house and cook dinner tonight?”
“No need. This time I’m gonna insist you join us at Antlers for dinner and I won’t take no for an answer.” Carter pushed to his feet. “That peach pie was nice, but I have a feeling Kane would prefer a ten-ounce steak with all the trimmings.”
“You can say that again.” Kane grinned at Jenna. “I’m starving.”
“You don’t have to head back to the ranch first. You could take a shower here. I know you have clothes in the locker room.” Jo moved to her side. “Come with us. It will be your first meal in Black Rock Falls as a married couple. It will be relaxing and you deserve some time together, seeing as your honeymoon was ruined.”
Shaking her head in resignation, Jenna nodded. “Okay, I’m hungry too and a steak sounds like heaven.”