All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [30]
“They were barhopping, got a little drunk and went on the make. They went into a bar called Jungle Jim’s for their last stop. Megan and Kimber were talking to a couple of guys and trying to get them to buy some drinks. Tiffany had separated from the group when they got there. Her boyfriend showed up and was all kinds of put out, saw her dancing with another guy. She was drunk, he was pissed. She sat with him and got engrossed in their conversation. Shauna was with Kimber and Megan while they were talking to the boys. Apparently she didn’t think things were going anywhere, and when one of the boys made a pass at her, she blew him off. According to Megan, Shauna made the loser sign at him, you know, put her hand up to her forehead in an L, which made Kimber and Megan laugh. Kimber pointed out that Shauna wasn’t an angel, but she was pretty picky about who she’d fool around with. And that’s the last they remember seeing her.
“They’re all feeling horribly guilty about it. They were really drunk, and no one was paying a lot of attention. Megan and Kimber saw Tiffany leave with her boyfriend, and when they were ready to go, they didn’t see Shauna and assumed she’d gotten a ride with Tiffany.”
“Did anyone see her leave the bar?”
“Well, a bouncer thinks he remembers seeing her leave alone. Says he saw her walking north on Front Street, which would be the way she would go if she was walking home. But that’s it. Until she showed up in Georgia, that is. Same guy?”
“Same guy. We found a hand that we think belongs to Jessica Porter at the scene. It’s being processed. But we have a problem.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Another girl’s gone missing. A doctor from Noble, Georgia. We’re headed that way to get some more information. Keep close to the phone, okay? We should have some more information for you soon.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know. Talk to you later.”
Baldwin clicked the phone off. “Let’s talk some more about the crime scenes. What kind of evidence did you find at the scenes where the bodies were recovered?”
“Nada. Nothing. Zip. They were lying on their backs with their arms kinda stretched out, legs crossed at the ankle. But there’s nothing to indicate they hadn’t been just dumped there. We don’t even have tire prints. Just some loose trash that the techs collected from the scenes. Cans, bottles, papers, that kind of thing. Did you get any of that from your Nashville site?”
Baldwin took a deep breath. “No, nothing evidentiary at all. Just Jessica’s body and what’s presumably Jeanette Lernier’s hand. We’ll have to wait for DNA to match it absolutely…”
“Just like here in Georgia. Man, this is totally fucked up.”
“He’s not giving us much to go on, is he? And now we have Marni Fischer missing. She’s been gone how long?”
“Since yesterday after her shift ended, around five.”
“If he’s holding them for three days, that gives us until tomorrow night, right?”
“Yeah. And this guy uses the interstates. So he could be anywhere by now.”
Baldwin looked at the file in his lap. Marni Marie Fischer, age twenty-eight. A beautiful face stared at him with laughing eyes. He perused her features, noting the differences between this new missing girl and the ones before. She was older, he saw that immediately. The first three girls had been in their late teens. And Marni had dark blond hair. All of the previous victims were brunette. He found himself saying a quick prayer that maybe Marni Fischer was simply missing, not the latest victim of the Southern Strangler.
Grimes’s phone rang, and he picked it up, listening intently to the person on the other line. He hung up and shook his head as if trying to clear the cobwebs, then dragged his eyes back to Baldwin. “Okay then, let me fill you in on what they’ve got. A whole bunch