Crush - Alan Jacobson [7]
“As our colleague Mandisa Manette is fond of saying, ‘Sometimes life just sucks the big one.’” Vail’s thoughts momentarily shifted to Manette, how she was doing in recovery. It didn’t last long, as the snap of Robby’s phone closing brought her back to the here and now.
“Okay,” Vail said, “one of us goes, just to see if she’s alive. We don’t want to totally destroy the crime scene.”
“Might as well be you,” Robby said. “Get a close look, see if you see anything worthwhile.”
Vail stood there, but didn’t move. “I already see stuff that’s worthwhile.” She sighed in resignation, then stepped forward. “Like you said earlier, nothing but fun from here on out.”
THREE
Vail crouched a few feet from the body, outside the penumbra of bloody soil, and shone the flashlight across the woman’s face, then worked her way over the chest, and on down to the leather shoes.
Robby stood twenty feet away, well beyond the visible field. “Feel her pulse.”
“Yeah, no need to. She’s done. Too much blood loss. No color left in the face.”
“Check it, just—just to be sure.”
Vail frowned, shifted her weight, and said, “I know death, Robby. I’m sure. Dead as the wood in those oak barrels back there.”
Vail continued surveying the body with the light. Miguel was correct—the woman’s breasts were severed, but then she never truly doubted that Miguel saw what he thought he saw. It’s kind of a hard thing to get wrong, even when stunned with fear.
“Sharp knife, probably a few inches in length.” She examined the slices, which were surprisingly clean. “No hesitation marks. Definitely not the first time this UNSUB has killed,” she said, using the law enforcement abbreviation for “Unknown Subject.”
“Any ritual behaviors?” Robby asked.
“Ritual” was a term used by profilers to describe unique activities a serial killer engages in with his victim’s body. Like a behavioral fingerprint, they were vital to understanding or identifying a particular killer.
Vail pointed at the victim’s chest. “For one, severing the breasts is a biggie.”
“Yeah,” Robby said. He cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I mean, aside from that.”
“Her pants and underwear are pulled down to her knees. If there was penetration of any sort, pulling down the pants wouldn’t be ritualistic, but if there wasn’t any sexual assault involved, then it would be. Follow me?”
“Yeah. If he pulled down her pants and . . . violated her, then there’s a reason for pulling the pants down. If he didn’t violate her, there’s no reason to pull down her pants. In which case it’s probably related to his messed up childhood.”
“Righto. But keep in mind that it’s hard to draw conclusions on only one finding. There could be staging involved, so it’s impossible to say for sure just yet.”
“Staging. To throw off the cops?”
Vail pulled a pen from her pocket and gently nudged away the woman’s collar. “If he’s killed before, he may try to create a different looking crime scene, or the appearance of a new motive, just to misdirect us. That’s why we have to consider the totality of the circumstances.”
“And what would those be?”
“Every behavior is analyzed and reconciled with the logic of the forensic evidence. You have to examine each aspect of the crime scene to see if the offender carried out each key attribute to its logical conclusion. Are they sequentially logical?”
“Because unless the offender is a cop or a CSI, he wouldn’t know all the details of crime scene reconstruction.”
“Exactly.” Vail shifted her weight to the right, leaned forward, and shone the light over the groin. “We’ll have to wait for the ME to tell us about penetration. Hard to tell.”
“The breasts?”
“Don’t see them.” She twisted and motioned to the forklift behind them. “See if there are keys in that thing, maybe you can shed some light on the situation.”
Robby turned and made his way out of the room to the forklift. He leaned in, and a second later the vehicle’s engine purred to life and the headlamp glowed brightly.
Vail rose from her crouch and stepped out of the beam’s way.