Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [90]
The mark on Matthew’s inside thigh had indeed been human bite marks. Poor George Tillie had tried to come up with several other theories before giving in to the realization that the killer had bitten Matthew over and over again in the same spot, making it impossible to register a set of dental prints. What made matters worse and more bizarre—the bites had occurred hours after Matthew was dead.
The killer didn’t return to the scene of the crime only to watch the police. He continued his absurd fascination with the victim’s body. He was slipping from his carefully planned ritual. Something was causing him to degenerate, to lose control. In his recklessness, he could soon leave incriminating evidence.
Maggie had told George they should look for smudges of semen; that the killer may have masturbated this time, while biting the dead boy, and may have smeared some on the victim. The old coroner’s face had turned scarlet as he mumbled something about doing his job in private.
She didn’t blame George. It had been obvious her presence made him uncomfortable. His manner and method resembled the reverence of a priest, with his careful and deliberate touches and his hushed speech. It was almost as though he hadn’t wanted to disturb the boy’s soul.
Maggie, on the other hand, had cut with clinical precision and had spoken loud and clear for her voice-activated recorder. It was a dead body, void of life and warmth. Whatever had resided within the bone-and-flesh cavity had escaped hours ago. Yet, she had to admit there was something wrong, something almost sacrilegious about slicing apart a child’s body. The soft, smooth and hairless skin hadn’t seen nearly enough scrapes and bruises, nor the bones enough chips and breaks to have really lived. It seemed such a waste, such an injustice. But that was what the Scotch was for—to make sense of it all or, at least, to take her to a place where she wouldn’t care, even if only temporarily.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” The young bartender stood over her table. “The gentleman at the end of the bar bought you another Scotch.” He set the glass in front of her. “And he asked me to give you this.”
Maggie recognized the envelope and the boxy handwriting before he handed it to her. Her stomach lurched, her pulse quickened. She stood up so abruptly, her chair teetered on two legs.
“Which man?” She stretched to see over the crowd. The bartender did the same, then shrugged his shoulders.
“He must have left.”
“What did he look like?” She patted her side through her blazer, reassured by the feel of the butt on her gun pressing against her just under her breast.
“I don’t know…tall, dark hair, maybe twenty-eight, maybe thirty. Look, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. Is there a problem with—”
She shoved past him and pushed through the crowd, racing out into the bright airport walkway. Frantically, she searched and scanned the passengers coming and going. Her heart pounded against her chest. Her head throbbed, and her vision was a bit blurred from the Scotch.
The long walkway stretched straight in both directions. There was a family with three children, several businessmen carrying laptops and briefcases, an airport employee pushing a handcart, two gray-haired women and a group of black men and women in colorful robes and headdresses. But there was no tall, dark-haired man without luggage.
He couldn’t possibly have gotten beyond the walkway. She ran toward the escalator at the far end, bumping into passengers and almost tripping over a deserted luggage gurney. The escalator went up and down. She chose up and twisted over the handrail to see down. Again, the array of passengers didn’t include a tall, dark-haired man. He was gone. He had slipped by her again.
She made her way back to the lounge, only now realizing she had