Day of the Dead - J. A. Jance [110]
“This isn’t something that went on for a day or two and then stopped,” the ME said. “The extent of the scabbing and scarring would be consistent with weeks or maybe even months of torture. You’re dealing with a monster here, Mr. Fellows, a real sicko. If I were you, I’d get him off the streets pronto.”
To Brian’s way of thinking, “sicko” hardly covered it, especially if any of those other cases turned out to be related. “I already figured that out,” he said. “What about defensive wounds?”
“Didn’t find any,” Dr. Daly returned. “See that?” She pointed to a still-visible indentation on what remained of one pathetically thin wrist.
Brian nodded.
“Chafing like that would be consistent with her being bound or chained for long periods of time,” Dr. Daly explained. “I’d say we’re finding no defensive wounds because she wasn’t able to defend herself.”
“Are you saying she was alive when the final assault began?”
Fran Daly nodded grimly. “Hopefully not for long,” she said.
Two hours later, Brian left and went straight back to his office, where he discovered PeeWee was among the missing. Tackling the pile of sorted files, Brian hit the phone and began contacting the various agencies involved, requesting complete autopsy reports on each of the victims. Brian wasn’t at all surprised to find nothing in his in-box from Jimmy Detloff. Before he could make an end-run call to Deborah Howard, however, PeeWee burst into their shared cubicle. “How’d it go?” he asked.
“Mixed bag,” Brian answered. “Forsythe bitched me out personally and told me we should lay off the Strykers. His contention is that the time of death makes Gayle Stryker’s involvement with LaGrange beside the point. Plus, they’re pillars of the community.”
“And the autopsy?” PeeWee asked.
Brian sighed. “You lucked out big-time. Dodging it was the right thing to do. That poor kid went through hell before she died, and hell lasted for a very long time. The more I think about LaGrange, the less I think he’s capable of doing what was done to her. He strikes me as too much of a wimp.”
“Maybe you’re right, but what about that matching fingerprint?” PeeWee returned. “The one from his house that AFIS connected to the Yuma County case?”
“What if LaGrange didn’t do it, but knows about it and knows who did?” Brian asked.
PeeWee thought about that. “If it was me and knowing the kind of nutcase the killer is, I’d be scared to death—afraid the killer would turn on me next.”
“Bingo,” Brian returned.
“Want to go talk to him again?”
“Not right this minute,” Brian said. “We’ll let him stew in his own juices awhile longer. When we do get around to him, he’ll be even more up for talking than he was yesterday.”
Donna, the Homicide Unit’s head clerk, tapped on their cubicle wall. “Mail call,” she announced, handing over a large interoffice envelope. “Faxes, actually. They came in a few minutes ago, all of them labeled ‘urgent.’ ”
“From Jimmy Detloff?” Brian asked.
“No,” Donna said. “They’re from someone named Deborah Howard. Is she a detective over there in Yuma County?”
“Deborah Howard isn’t a detective,” Brian replied, “but she probably ought to be.”
Erik LaGrange lay on his cot and breathed the fetid air while time slowed to a standstill. After two nights of virtually no sleep, he had finally dropped off on Sunday night despite the steady din from the other cells and the disturbing presence of lights that dimmed but never went out completely.
Sometime toward morning, though, he had been awakened by a terrible groaning coming at him from somewhere down the barred corridor. The moaning rose and fell, with no particular message of either pain or sorrow—a steady keening wail of hopelessness. Whatever was wrong with that person—mental or physical—there was no fixing it, just as there was no fixing what was happening to Erik.
He understood now that he was lost. Despite his earnest prayers, no one—not Gayle and certainly not God—would come to his rescue. Erik had done