Split Second - Catherine Coulter [18]
“The closest match is Ted Bundy’s DNA.”
Savich saw disbelief, astonishment, shaking heads, and heard snorts, gasps, and comments like “That’s just plain crazy” and “You’re making that up, Savich, to make sure we’re on our toes.”
Savich raised his hands, palms flat. “This isn’t a joke. Incredible as it seems, Ted Bundy’s DNA is the closest match.”
Coop said, “The Ted Bundy? You’re not putting us on?”
Savich smiled. “Yes, it’s the Ted Bundy.”
Coop sat forward in his chair. “But he’s dead, Savich, electrocuted. Late eighties, wasn’t it?”
Ruth said, “Yeah, he was electrocuted in Florida in 1989 for his last murder. He had more than ten years of appeals before they pulled the plug on him.”
Jack Crowne, who studied serial killers, said, “He eventually confessed to more than thirty murders, but no one believes the number was that low. He was forty-two when he was electrocuted. They have his DNA profile?”
Savich said, “They typed him and entered him in the database, in case we found any more of his crime scenes after he died.”
“So how can it be his DNA?” Dane Carver said, and smacked his forehead. “Well, hot diggity, it’s an illegitimate son, right, Savich? Carrying on his daddy’s fine work?”
“Nope.”
Jack said, “But—no, you’re kidding us, right?”
Lucy was staring at him, nearly en pointe.
Savich smiled at them. “It’s no son. She’s a woman. The statistical analysis they gave us shows she’s almost certainly a first-degree relative, a mother or a sister or daughter. Given our perp’s age, she’s almost certainly his daughter.”
Sherlock said, “Just a bit of background. Bundy had a girlfriend he met while enrolled at the University of Washington in 1967. She dumped him after she graduated, said he was too immature for her, and went home to California. Bundy looked her up in 1973, and showed her the new, improved package—law school, good attitude, the serious dedicated professional. He courted her, proposed marriage, but then two weeks later, shortly after New Year’s 1974, he dumped her. No one knows why, but a couple of weeks later, he started his murder spree in Washington State.
“Obviously, something significant went down, but no one knows what it was. Regardless, it was the trigger.
“At that same time he was also dating a secretary. That lasted six years. There were other women as well, though we don’t have many names. As you know, Bundy was quite good-looking and he could charm a lizard off a sunny rock. So it makes sense he would have had relationships with women. And one of these women birthed a daughter he never acknowledged. Or maybe she never told him she was pregnant. Again, we don’t know.”
Dane said slowly, “But maybe her mom told our killer who her monster of a daddy was, and the daughter realized Bundy’s madness was flowing in her veins. Blood calling to blood, I guess you could say.”
Lucy said, “Sherlock, when did Bundy go to jail for the last time?”
Sherlock shuffled through her notes. “He was apprehended February fifteenth, 1978, and remained in prison until his execution in 1989.”
Lucy said, “Okay, that would make our Black Beret a minimum of thirty-three years old. Everybody thought he looked early thirties or late twenties, so this is in the ballpark.”
Coop had a dark eyebrow up a good inch. “This is weird. Here I was, eating my sesame-seed bagel this morning, never thinking that during the course of this fine day I’d be dealing with Ted Bundy’s daughter. I wonder why she is masquerading as a man?”
“Good question,” Ruth said. “Maybe she’d rather be her father’s son? More importance?”
Coop said, “Maybe being a guy makes her more like her father?”
Lucy leaned forward, leaned her chin on her folded hands. “I sure hope we’ll have the opportunity to ask her when we get her.”
Savich said, “Okay. Now, those of you who are familiar with Bundy know he had another daughter, this one born in the eighties during conjugal visits with his wife—yeah, the court let him marry—a former coworker. However, we’ve excluded her as being our