Cut to the Bone (Body Farm 8)

“Threatening me? Why would he be threatening me?” Up to now, I’d felt puzzled and disturbed. Suddenly I felt something much worse.

“I don’t blame you for sounding nervous,” he said. “If any of the creeps I’ve profiled ever hatched a vendetta against me, and were out in the world instead of locked up? Trust me, I’d be nervous as hell. Luckily, I’ve got no prior relationship to any of ’em. No reason for them to come after me.”

Somewhere in a far, dark corner of my mind, I began to hear a low humming sound. “Wait. Wait. Are you saying that this could be someone I know?”

“Possibly. I’m just thinking out loud here, Doc. Maybe somebody you had a connection with; somebody who felt like you betrayed him somehow, did him a grievous wrong.”

“But if that’s the case, why’s he killing these women? If he’s got a grudge, why doesn’t he just come shoot me? Why these murders that echo cases of mine?”

“Dunno. He might be trying to make some sort of grand philosophical statement. Something about the hydra-headed nature of evil.”

“The which-headed?”

“Hydra-headed. Hydra, the mythological monster with all the heads — nine? twelve? A bunch. Hercules was sent to kill the Hydra. Which was supposedly impossible, because any time one of the heads got cut off, a new one grew back.”

“Got it,” I said. “I do remember that myth, now that you mention it. So you’re saying this guy might be trying to make the point that it doesn’t matter if I solve one murder? That another one, just like it, will take its place? But what does that have to do with me?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “More personal. He’s not broadcasting the message. He’s narrowcasting it.”

“Narrowcasting?”

“Whatever he’s saying, he’s saying it to you, about you. It’s between him and you. We don’t know why.” He paused. “Not yet. But I’m afraid we will.”

His words chilled me. “So I need to conjure up the name of everybody I ever cut off in traffic? Every student I ever flunked?”

“No, it would go deeper than that. Somebody you had some sort of strong connection with. Somebody who feels like you betrayed him somehow. Ruined his life.”

I felt baffled. Angry, too. So this unfolding nightmare — this set of gruesome murders — was somehow my fault? I felt myself flush. “I’m not exactly a treacherous kind of guy,” I said testily. “I’ve never cheated on my wife. I’ve never lied on a job application. I’ve never stabbed anyone in the back, literally or figuratively. Hell, I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket.”

“Easy, Doc. Easy. Let me be clearer. I’m not saying you did betray this guy — this hypothetical guy. I’m just playing What if: What if you had some connection to somebody who ended up coming unhinged? What if he decided, rightly or wrongly — completely, one-hundred-percent wrongly — that you’d let him down, betrayed him, wrecked his life? That sort of scenario, that kind of guy, might fit the facts. Anybody like that come to mind?”

“No.”

“Well, sleep on it.”

“How am I supposed to sleep, with this hanging over my head?”

“You might want to try to engage him,” he mused. “Draw him out. Engage him. Goad him.”

“How would I do that? Put up a billboard by I-40? ‘Hey, serial-killer guy, you stink’?”

“Something like that. Guys like this tend to be very narcissistic. He’s almost certainly reading the newspaper and watching TV, looking for coverage of the killings. He gets off on it — it gives him a sense of power. If the police, or especially you, disparage him to the media — talk about his carelessness, his stupidity — he’ll probably be very agitated. He might respond, maybe get in touch with the paper or a TV station. If he does, that gives us another thread to follow.”

I heard a rap on the doorframe. Tyler stuck his head in, gave me a Let’s roll look. “I gotta go pick up a dead woman,” I told Brubaker. “Another thread to follow. I’m hoping the thread doesn’t end up leading to my door.”

* * *

Late that night — after Tyler and I had gathered up the woman’s body from the base of the sweet gum sapling at Cahaba Lane; after I’d talked to a newspaper reporter and a WBIR reporter; after we’d taken the corpse to the Annex; after we’d plucked and pickled the five biggest maggots; after we’d put the remains in to simmer, so we could render them to bare bone; after I’d showered at the stadium and dragged my weary self home and wolfed down a leftover turkey sandwich and crawled into bed beside Kathleen, who’d given up on me for the evening — I finally fell into a fitful sleep.

In my dream, I found myself once more in my backyard, approaching the opening where the gigantic snake lurked. In one hand I held a half-sized garden hoe, a pitifully undersized weapon with which to do battle. Leaning down, I peered into the hole, switching on the flashlight I held in my other hand. The beam of light disappeared into unfathomable darkness.

Straightening, I turned to go, but a movement at the edge of the yard caught my eye. A track of flattened grass led from where I stood to the edge of the woods — the sort of track an immense serpent would create as it slithered across the lawn. Just inside the tree line, where the grass ended and the track disappeared, I saw the body of a woman — a headless and footless woman — her legs twitching and bucking on either side of a tree trunk. In the shadows beyond, I saw more women lying in the woods. All of them splayed against tree trunks; all of them dead; none of them lying peacefully.

I bolted awake, drenched in sweat, my heart racing. The digital clock on the nightstand read 3:47. Slipping out from beneath the covers, I tiptoed from the bedroom and through the living room, my footsteps keeping time with the hollow ticking of the regulator clock on the mantel. The kitchen was lit by the blue-green numerals of the microwave and — once I lifted the telephone from its cradle on the wall — by the faint glow of the keypad. “Nine-one-one,” the dispatcher answered. “What’s your emergency?”

“It’s not an emergency,” I said. “But it’s important. This is Dr. Bill Brockton, at UT. I need to leave a message for a KPD homicide detective. Detective Kittredge.”

“Sir, this is 911 emergency dispatch. We don’t take messages.”

“It’s about the Cahaba Lane murder,” I went on. “Tell Detective Kittredge he needs to search that whole hillside.”

“Sir—”

“Tell Detective Kittredge there are more bodies — more dead women — out there in the woods.”

CHAPTER 27

Satterfield

Satterfield smoothed the newspaper on the kitchen table, taking care not to smudge the ink. The story was briefer than he’d have liked, but it was prominently displayed — at the top of the front page — and it was accompanied by a large photo. He reread the text:

KPD, TBI SEEK SERIAL KILLER

The body of a Knoxville prostitute was discovered in a wooded area in eastern Knox County near Interstate 40 yesterday, and the murder is the work of a serial killer, say two law-enforcement sources. The Knoxville Police Department, Knox County Sheriff’s Office, Campbell County Sheriff’s Office, and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation are seeking the killer, who is considered responsible for the deaths of at least two women, both believed to be prostitutes — one from Knoxville and one from Campbell County. The murders are “definitely the work of the same killer,” according to one investigator, speaking off the record. Neither victim’s name has been released, pending notification of family members.

Officially, both the KPD and the TBI remain tight-lipped, refusing to confirm or deny that the murders are the work of a serial killer. “We investigate every possible lead in every murder,” said KPD spokesman Warren Fountain. “Any time we have multiple unsolved homicides, we consider the possibility that they might be linked. That’s standard procedure for every law-enforcement agency.” But a second source told the News Sentinel that an FBI “profiler”—an agent specializing in serial killers — is consulting with Tennessee

authorities to help catch the murderer. The FBI would not comment on its role in the investigations.

My, my, Satterfield thought. Calling in the cavalry. He took it as a compliment. He stopped reading long enough to look at the photo. It showed four uniformed policemen carrying a stretcher out of the Cahaba Lane woods, threading between the I beams that supported the COMFORT INN billboard. On the stretcher was a misshapen lump, which the photo caption identified as “a body bag containing the mutilated corpse of a murdered Knoxville prostitute.” He was disappointed that the body was covered, though of course he’d seen the woman — he’d had sex with the woman — before she died. Afterward, too.

Satterfield resumed reading the story.