The Soul Catcher - Alex Kava [85]
After inspecting her skirt and shoes and buttons, making certain there were no sharp edges, she bent down to her overnight case and pulled out a plain yellow legal pad—no wire spiral notebooks—and a simple number two lead pencil. She had learned the hard way that the simplest pen could be dismantled in seconds, its insides used to pick the lock of even the best set of handcuffs.
Finally prepared, she took a deep breath and nodded to Burt to open the door. Yes, she knew the drill. Don’t show any signs of vulnerability. Let him know immediately that she wouldn’t be intimidated by any of his bullshit, crude comments or lewd glares. However, when the young man sitting across the wooden table looked up at her, Gwen saw something that threatened to unravel her calm more than any obscene gesture or wolf-call whistle. What she saw in Eric Pratt’s eyes was pure, undeniable fear. And that fear seemed to be directed at her.
CHAPTER 43
FBI Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
Maggie spread out the files on the counter Keith Ganza had cleared for her, shoving high-tech microscopes out of the way and setting empty racks of vials clinking.
“Should we wait for Detective Racine?” Ganza asked, glancing at his watch.
“She knew what time we were going to get started.” Maggie tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. Just when she was starting to be impressed with Racine, the detective did something to annoy her all over again. “The only case I could find on VICAP,” Maggie began, “is a floater fished out of Falls Lake just north of Raleigh. They found her about ten days ago.” She pulled out the scanned photos she had downloaded. “She was a twenty-two-year-old college student at Wake Forest.”
“A floater?” Ganza hovered over her shoulder. “How long had she been in the water?”
“Coroner’s report says several days.” She showed him a faxed copy. “But you know as well as I do that it’s pretty tough to figure time of death with a floater.”
“This doesn’t sound like our guy. What was VICAP’s match?”
“Actually there’re quite a few things. Her mouth was taped shut with duct tape and a piece of paper was found shoved down her throat. There’re handcuff marks on the wrist and several ligature tracks on her throat.” Again, she pulled out more scanned photos, close-ups of a mutilated neck and welted wrists.
“Was the hyoid crushed?”
Maggie ran her index finger down the coroner’s report until she came to the notation. “Yes. And check the photo. There’s a lot more bruising than from a cord. This guy likes to use his hands when he’s ready for the kill.”
Ganza held up a full-length scan. “Looks like livor mortis on her backside. She may have been sitting when she died. Would have had to be sitting for hours before he came back and tossed her in the water. But why toss her? Our guy likes to pose his victims.”
“He may not have tossed her,” Maggie said. “The Wake County sheriff told me they had some flooding in that area about two weeks ago. The lake came up over its banks.”
“Well, she’s washed pretty clean. Any DNA samples found at all? How ’bout under her nails?”
“Nope. All washed away.”
“I have the preliminary DNA results from the Brier girl,” Ganza said while he shifted through the documents Maggie had laid out.
“And?”
“There was some foreign DNA under her fingernails, but it doesn’t match the semen.” Ganza didn’t sound surprised. Maggie wasn’t, either. Whether Senator Brier wanted to believe it or not, the evidence seemed to point to consensual sex, probably earlier in the evening.
“Also found some foreign fingerprints on the Brier girl’s purse. We’ll check them against what we have in AFIS,” Ganza continued. “’Course, the way you girls share your belongings with one another, it might not lead us anywhere.”