Stealing Faces - Michael Prescott [15]
The trash bag, knotted shut, had kept her body dry. Without moisture, bacteria could not thrive. Some mummification had taken place, but little decay. And because the body was well preserved, no one could miss the obvious mutilation.
WOMAN’S FACELESS CORPSE FOUND IN WHITE MOUNTAINS.
That had been the headline in the Tucson Citizen on the day after the storm, when, at a campground three miles from the site of the kill, Sharon Andrews was found entangled in a floating deadfall, bobbing amid ribbons of shredded plastic. A pair of forest rangers fished her from the water.
Nothing about the corpse or the plastic bag could lead investigators to a suspect. The bag was a common type, available anywhere. The two bullets imbedded in Sharon Andrews’ leg and hip were 9mm semi-jacketed hollow points, untraceable.
No real harm had been done. Even so, Cray hated having his work uncovered. He endured two weeks of media speculation on the twisted psychology of the killer.
The coverage enraged him. He felt violated.
Oddly, every expert assumed that the mutilation was postmortem. No one seemed able to conceive of the truth—that Sharon Andrews had been alive to witness her own final unmasking.
Pain had killed her almost at once, but not before Cray had shown her the trophy he’d taken. She had stared at her own face in his gloved hands, and it had stared back in eyeless mockery, the last thing she would ever see.
That was the whole point, and it was so very obvious, yet not one of them could see it. Not one.
Cray shook free of those thoughts and focused on recalling the exact date of the body’s discovery.
August 17. Five weeks ago.
Elizabeth Palmer had begun following him just afterward. Or so it would appear.
He pondered this sequence of events as he chased the little hatchback into South Tucson, a blighted barrio landscape of rusty low-riders and security-barred windows and brick walls tattooed by gang graffiti.
Brave Elizabeth risked a look into a bikers’ bar and then a noisy pool hall.
Cray had been to both places within the past month. He could not recall exactly when.
She couldn’t have followed him inside on every occasion. She would have attracted notice in the rougher places—the notice of the other patrons, certainly, if not of Cray himself. Perhaps she had sat outside, watching from her car as Cray entered and left.
If so, the tableau was reversed now. It was Cray who sat and watched, sunk deep in the Lexus’ leather seat.
She did not give up until Cray’s dashboard clock read 2 A.M. The bars were closing. There was nowhere left to look.
Now she could only go home. She must be worn out, poor thing.
The Chevette headed north on Park Avenue, then west on Silverlake Road, toward the interstate. Cray, staying far behind, watched the red rectangles of her taillights.
Elizabeth drove steadily, never exceeding the speed limit. At every stop sign and red light she came to a full stop. She never ran the yellows. She used her turn signal even when no other vehicle was near.
Such caution seemed out of character for a huntress sniffing John Cray’s spoor.
Then abruptly she turned down a side street, the move so quick it had to be unpremeditated. Cray worried that she’d seen him behind her and was trying to shake him off.
No. There was a simpler explanation.
A few blocks ahead, the light bar of a Tucson PD patrol unit shimmered at the curb. A police car was making a traffic stop.
Cray did not take the side street. He continued past the police car and the motorcyclist who’d been pulled over, then waited at an intersection until he saw the Chevette reappear a quarter mile ahead.
Elizabeth Palmer had gone out of her way to avoid passing a police car.
And now Cray knew why she drove so timidly.
She was afraid of being stopped. Afraid of the police.
Now why would that be, Elizabeth? he wondered. What would a nice girl like you have to fear from an officer of the law?
He couldn’t guess, but he began to understand why she would follow him on her own. If the police were off limits for some reason, then she would have no choice