Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [60]
“Not the first time?” Adam asked. “You’re saying he’s killed before?”
“Yes, several times I’d venture to guess. He’s way too smooth for a beginner.” McCall shook her head. “And the precise manner in which he’s conducted the crimes, choreographed, scripted. Novices rarely kill in so highly disciplined a fashion.”
“Except for Julie Lohmann,” Chief Ford noted.
“Ahhh, this young girl.” McCall shook her head, her eyes showing real emotion for the first time since she began speaking. “This is different. He totally lost it with her. Who knows which of them surprised the other, but she was definitely a surprise. She probably tried to run, maybe screamed. That would have excited him. The autopsy showed a violent rape, a lot of vaginal tearing, bite marks on her breasts and neck, an excessive number of stab wounds. He simply hadn’t planned on her. There was no script, and so he just went with his emotions with this one.”
“Emotions?” an officer asked.
“Everything he’s suppressed with the others. Everything he held back.” McCall turned away. “This poor girl took the brunt of it.”
“So where do we go from here? I’m throwing this open for suggestions”—Lieutenant Barker stood to one side of the table after Anne Marie McCall sat down—“because I don’t have a clue, folks. This son of a bitch has walked past us like a phantom. He comes and goes as he pleases. He abducts his victims at will, kills them and drops them into our midst, then vanishes. We have seven dead women and no credible leads. He’s the invisible man. He’s not leaving much behind.”
“He may have left something behind these last two times,” Adam spoke up.
“You mean his DNA? He’s been leaving that all over the place,” Barker growled.
“More than his DNA. As you all know from studying the scene or the photos, Joanne Jacobson was found wearing a gold cross on a chain around her neck.”
“So what?” a detective from Walnut Crossing asked.
“So her sister claims never to have seen it before,” Adam said, turning to him.
The detective shrugged. “Maybe she has a boyfriend.”
“If she does, then Leslie Miller, last night’s victim, was seeing the same guy.” Adam tossed photos of both women onto the table. “Same cross, same chain. And Miller’s ex-husband swears she never wore anything around her neck.”
The eleven men and three women seated around the table moved forward in unison toward the table for a closer look.
“The earlier victims weren’t wearing these.” Miranda was the first to speak up. “So why now? He’s sending us a message, but what is it?”
“Maybe he found religion,” a uniformed member of the Dale Police Department offered.
“It feels more like a taunt, somehow,” Adam said, a thought niggling at the back of his mind. What was it that seemed so familiar about the cross? He stared at it, trying to remember.
“Maybe he’s asking us to pray for his victims?” the chief of the Windsorville Police Department ventured as the photographs were passed around the table. “Or for him.”
“Yeah, I’ll pray for him, all right,” the trooper nearest the door muttered. “Pray that he burns in hell.”
Hours later it hit him.
Then, even as his blood turned cold, Adam left his hotel room, his cell phone in his hand, dialing as he walked though the lobby.
“Rosello,” the Newkirk chief of police answered his private line.
“Can you get me a copy of the tape that one of your local stations made of our compositor showing off the sketch she made outside of Annie McGlynn’s last week?” Adam asked after identifying himself. “There’s something I want to check out. Can you arrange it? Yes, as soon as possible. I can be at your office in less than an hour. Thanks, Chief.”
Adam disconnected the call, slapping the phone on his palm without even realizing he was doing so, and walked to his car. He dialed Kendra’s number, then started his engine, pulling out of the parking lot as he counted the rings. She picked up on the fourth ring, just as the answering machine came on.
“Hey, Adam, hi.” She sounded out of breath. “Hold on, let me turn off the machine . . . how are you?”
“Good. I