The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [162]
It swung open with a creak.
And before them lay a young woman, brutalized in a way that had become all too familiar to them. They took a few steps into the room and stood there staring at the body. Bledsoe bent over and barfed into his bag. Blood was everywhere . . . pooling on the bed, dripping to the floor. Smeared on the walls. But not painted.
“There’s no message,” Robby said.
“Maybe he’s already made his point. We know what it means, so there’s nothing left to say.”
Just then, a noise down the hallway pricked their ears. Bledsoe instinctively drew his SIG Sauer nine millimeter. Then he heard the deep voice of Sinclair and the heavy footfalls of Del Monaco, and his heart slowed toward a more normal rate.
Sinclair’s eyes found the body. “Holy Jesus.”
“Fuck,” Del Monaco said.
Bledsoe found himself agreeing with Del Monaco. A simple four-letter word, but the emotions it conveyed in this particular instance just about summed it up.
“Okay, Frank. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you think. Karen’s not coming, so you’re it.”
Del Monaco swallowed hard, took a few seconds to compose himself. “It appears to be the same offender, but there are some key elements missing. Hand isn’t severed, there’s no message, and the blood isn’t painted on the wall. It’s kind of smeared.”
“Yeah, we can see all that. When I told you to tell me what you see, I didn’t mean literally. I meant, you know, what do you see that we don’t?”
“I know, I know what you meant.” He dragged a hand across the sweat on his brow, then took a step closer to Laura Mackey. “Key is focusing on the ritualistic behaviors we didn’t make public. We didn’t release anything about the hand, right?”
“Right.”
“And the hand isn’t severed. So maybe that indicates copycat.”
“Here we go with the maybes again.”
“Give me a break, Manette. You think this is easy? I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. You got anything better to offer than smart alec remarks?”
“Let’s take it down a notch.” Bledsoe said. “Go on, Frank.”
Del Monaco swallowed and turned back to the body. After a few seconds of observation, he said, “Knives driven through the eyes. That would also go in the copycat column. Same with the smeared blood. But the knives . . . I’d want to know if there are similar knives in the kitchen. Dead Eyes always used the vic’s own knives. That wasn’t released to the press.”
Bledsoe nodded to Sinclair, who left the room in search of the answer.
Del Monaco continued. “Body left in the vic’s bed. No significant signs of struggle. Copycat or not, this guy knew what he was doing. There’s confidence in this scene. He’s organized, methodical. He’s killed before. This isn’t the work of a beginner.”
The forensics team arrived and immediately began setting up their halogen lights in the bedroom to take their photos and collect their evidence.
Sinclair returned holding a steak knife. He held it beside the victim’s body and compared the handles. “Looks the same.”
The task force members were lost in thought as the technicians set up their equipment. Finally, Robby stepped beside Del Monaco and said, “I thought smeared blood, blood all over the crime scene, could indicate disorganization.”
“Yes, it can,” Del Monaco said. “But this guy got this woman into her bedroom without much of a struggle. I don’t even see head trauma. Won’t know for sure till they shave her head, but if I’m right, he probably used verbal means to con his way in. That indicates intelligence and planning. There may be some disorganization in the postmortem behavior, but this guy is high IQ.”
“None of this makes any sense. Dead Eyes is dead,” Bledsoe said.
“There is another explanation,” Del Monaco said. “Someone on the inside.”
“On the inside?” Manette asked. “What drug you on?”
“It’s happened before. Could be a forensic tech, too. Someone who’s been at the crime scenes, who knows what we’d expect to find. Or a lab tech who’s worked