Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [118]
“And if they don’t manage to kill you right away, do you know what they do to cop killers in jail?”
He tried bravado, but it sounded hollow. “Reward them, I would think.”
She tried a short laugh, but it came out equally fake. “Oh, not the other prisoners—I mean the guards. They rape you, first separately and then together. And then they—”
There was a muffled scuffling sound upstairs, as though an animal was clawing at the basement door. His head snapped toward the sound; then he turned back to Krieger.
“I’ll deal with you later.”
Turning sharply, he left the room and bounded up the stairs two at a time. She could hear his shoes on the creaky boards.
Left alone in the dark, Elena Krieger’s whole body began to tremble violently. She took a deep breath and began again.
Lieber Gott, mach mich fromm….
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
“Her name is Carolyn Benton, and she is—was—sixteen years old.”
Chuck Morton tossed a folder of crime-scene photos onto the desk and glowered at the other three men in the room. He looked angry and exhausted and fed up. But then, they all were, Lee thought, looking at his friend. Morton was fishing around in his desk drawer for some thumbtacks to put the photos up on the bulletin board with all the other pictures of the victims, their poor dead bodies mute testimony to the impotence and helplessness everyone in the room felt. While most people were home having dinner, here they were, stuck in the cramped office once again.
Things could hardly be worse, in Lee’s view. A serial killer was still at large, he and Kathy weren’t speaking, and Krieger was missing. Poor brave, foolish Krieger—while he couldn’t say he liked her, exactly, he had come to respect her as a formidable presence. He suspected she had more integrity than she was given credit for.
And now this. He looked at the pictures of Carolyn Benton spread out on the desk. The photo of her dead body bore little resemblance to the one of her with her family, all lined up in front of a grand marble fireplace. They wore expensive-looking matching Christmas sweaters—thick, creamy Irish wool with red and green trim. Her father wore a cheery Santa hat with a big red tassel. Her mother was petite and athletic-looking, with the kind of midwinter tan that didn’t come from a tanning salon, but from a Caribbean cruise—probably on their own private yacht. Her brother was clean-cut and handsome and, Lee guessed, a couple of years older than Carolyn, probably a freshman at Yale or Duke or some other school where money and pedigree mattered as much as grade point average.
Lee held up the family Christmas photo. “Where did you get this one?”
Chuck ran a hand over his stiff blond crew cut and looked down at his shoes. “The family brought it with them when they ID’d the body this morning. Said they wanted us to know what she really looked like.”
Lee could understand why. In the crime-scene photo, Carolyn lay on the banks of the East River, where she had been found floating a few hours ago. Her eyes had been removed, and this time the note had been found not attached to her body, but in her mouth—as with the others, neatly wrapped in a Ziploc bag.
Sergeant Ruggles studied the picture and looked nervously at his boss. After Krieger’s disappearance he begged to join the task force officially, and Chuck had relented, removing him from desk duty for the duration of the investigation.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” Morton said, his pale face reddening. “The family has already released the same picture to the media. They’re even talking about giving interviews—the victim’s ‘bereaved loved ones’ and all that.”
“Do they really think that’s going to help catch this guy?” Butts said with disgust. “Or are they just publicity hogs?”
“Who knows?” Chuck answered. “But if we can’t keep control of what the media does and doesn’t know we’re in even deeper than before.”
“That’s all we need,” Butts grumbled. “A game of tug-of-war with the media.”
Lee had his own personal struggle to wage, and had no desire to inflict