Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [365]
“Mean anything to you?” he asked.
“No. Should it?”
“I think so, but I can’t figure out what.”
“Tully’s all gloom and doom today.” Julia Racine approached on Maggie’s other side. She smiled down at her, hands on her hips. “He’s already looking for a serial killer.”
Maggie took one last look at the indentations, stood up and glanced at the girl’s body again, then she faced the detective. “I think Agent Tully’s right. And judging by this scene, I’d say this guy’s just getting started.”
CHAPTER 23
“If you ask me, it looks like a rape that got carried away.”
Tully winced at Detective Racine’s assessment, but he didn’t need to argue with her. All he had to do was wait for O’Dell to do it.
“If that’s what you think, then why did Agent Tully and I get called in to check it out?”
“Beats me.” Racine shrugged, lifting the collar of her jacket as another rumble of thunder echoed through the air. “It’s federal property.”
“Then someone at the field office would have been called. Still doesn’t explain why BSU would be consulted.”
Tully stared up at the rolling gray thunderheads. O’Dell was right. The two of them specialized in criminal analysis, coming up with profiles, especially of repeat offenders or serial killers. Someone other than Detective Racine must have thought it important to call Cunningham. Whoever it was hadn’t bothered to let Racine in on it. Didn’t make much sense.
“The scuffle happened over here.” Racine, anxious to prove her theory, pointed to a spot where leaves were smashed and crumbled. The mobile crime lab people had spent a good deal of time sifting and collecting from that area.
“Doesn’t look like much of a scuffle.” O’Dell squatted at the edge of the perimeter and examined the area without touching anything. “Someone definitely lay down here. Maybe even rolled around. The leaves and grass are packed down. But I don’t see any torn grass, any scuffs in the dirt or heel marks for the type of violent scuffle you’re talking about.”
Detective Racine snorted under her breath, and Tully couldn’t help thinking how unladylike it sounded. These two were strutting around each other like a couple of cockfighters. Sort of the equivalent of two men having a pissing contest.
“Look, O’Dell, I know a thing or two about rape scenes.” Racine sounded as though her patience was wearing thin. “Posing the body like that is just one more way for him to degrade his victim.”
“Oh, really?”
Tully turned away. Oh, Jesus! Here it comes. He recognized that tone of sarcasm. Had even had it launched at him a time or two.
“Did you ever think the unsub may have posed the body to alter the crime scene?” O’Dell asked the detective.
“Alter? You mean like on purpose, to throw us off?”
With his back to the two women, Tully rolled his eyes and hoped that O’Dell didn’t say “Oh, duh.” Detective Racine was in charge. Just once, couldn’t O’Dell remember that?
“Maybe he posed the body,” O’Dell was saying slowly as if speaking to a small child, “to redirect the investigation away from himself.”
Another snort from Racine. “You know what your problem is, O’Dell? You give criminals too much credit. Most of them are stupid bastards. That’s the premise I work from.”
Tully walked away. He couldn’t take any more. It had been entertaining at first. Now he no longer cared who won the pissing contest, although he’d place his money on O’Dell. He wandered over to Wenhoff, who was finishing his examination of the young woman’s body.
“Any guess on time of death?”
“My best guesstimate right now judging from the stage of rigor, the rectal temp and the invasion of only the early feeders—” he batted away a few of the persistent blowflies “—is less than twenty-four hours. Maybe about twelve hours. I’ll need to do some other tests. I also want to check with the weather service and see how cold it got last night.”
“Twelve hours?” Tully knew enough about dead