The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [96]
“MO’s can change, right?” Robby asked. “If the offender thinks something might work better, he refines his methods.”
Vail smiled internally. Robby had been reading the materials she had given him. “That’s right.”
“Or, it could’ve been the press conference,” Bledsoe said. “Linwood went after him pretty good, probably pissed him off big time.”
Del Monaco looked away, rested his hands on his hips. “Or, could be we’re dealing with a different offender altogether.”
“Whoa,” Vail said, holding up a hand. “How do you get that?”
“MO’s very different. Yes, it can change when an offender refines his skills to be more successful. But that’s not the case here. He was pretty damn successful before. Very few defensive wounds. He disabled them fairly efficiently. Why change what works?” He shrugged. “Besides, signature’s way different, too. Much more violent. Major damage to face and head. Severing the breasts suggests a sexual component. Was she raped?”
“Chuck,” Bledsoe called, “any signs of sexual assault?”
A technician appeared in the doorway. “Sodomized. Smooth object. Damage to the surrounding tissue. Best guess, postmortem. Don’t know yet if there’s any semen. ME will be able to tell you more.” Bledsoe gave him a nod and the tech returned to his work in the bathroom.
“Also a first,” Del Monaco said. “And now he might be drinking the vic’s blood. These are all very significant variants.”
Vail held up a hand. “Unless this vic holds special significance to him, like we said before. That still makes the most sense to me, Frank. As to the change in MO, he had a different situation here.” She turned to the others, focusing mostly on Robby, to explain: “Some offenders will case the place to see if there are any boyfriends or husbands or roommates they have to worry about. If there are, and the offender still wants this victim, he’ll take out the male first and then go after the intended target. We saw that with Danny Rolling in Gainesville. If Dead Eyes scoped the place, and I bet he did, then he’d know Linwood wouldn’t answer her own door like the other vics did.”
Quiet settled on the room for a moment. Sinclair asked, “She’s married, right? That shipping guy?”
“Yeah,” Bledsoe said. “He’s been overseas. Chief was going to notify him.”
“Maid lives in the servant’s quarters out back,” Manette said. “She’s had the flu past few days. She ordered take-out for Linwood, it was delivered around five. She went back to her place and passed out. Didn’t hear or see nothing. I gotta follow up with the delivery guy, run his sheet, see if he’s got any priors. And get proof of his whereabouts after he left.”
“Where’s Hancock?” Vail asked.
“Office in the back, it’s his base of operations,” Sinclair said. “Didn’t want to talk. Couldn’t get him to say shit.”
Manette turned to Bledsoe. “You want me to go get him, Blood?” She winked. “I think he’ll listen to me.”
Bledsoe nodded. “We need him to talk to us. Let’s do it out in the living room, let the crime scene guys finish up in here. We’ve . . . seen enough.”
“Got that right,” Sinclair said, following Bledsoe out of the room.
HANCOCK SAT DOWN heavily on the couch, his tie pulled loose to one side and his hair a frazzled mess. His eyes were glazed and his movements heavy, as if he had been drinking. Manette brought up the rear and tipped back a phantom cup, confirming that their compadre had, in fact, been dipping into the sauce.
“Well, lookee what we got here. A fuckin’ party. Well, fuck me. So glad y’all could make it.”
“We need to ask you a few questions,” Sinclair said.
“Cops already asked me some questions.” His bloodshot eyes wandered around the room.
Manette, who sat opposite Hancock on an identical sofa separated by a coffee table with espresso-swirl