His voice rose in shock. “What?”
“It’s more common than you think,” Sara told him. “The Clorox removes trace evidence. I imagine he shaved her so we couldn’t do a comb for his pubic hair. Even during normal sex, hairs are torn out. He could have shaved her for the sexual thrill, though. A lot of attackers like to think of their victims as children. Shaving the pubic hair would fuel that fantasy.”
Hare shook his head, overcome with the nastiness of the crime. “What kind of animal would do this?”
Sara stroked back the woman’s hair. “A methodical one.”
“Do you think she knew him?”
“No,” Sara answered, never more sure of anything in her life. She walked over to the counter where Lena had left the evidence bag. “Why did he give us her driver’s license? He doesn’t care if we know who she is.”
Hare’s tone was incredulous. “How can you be so sure?”
“He left—” Sara tried to catch her breath. “He left her in front of the hospital where anybody could’ve seen him dump her.” She put her hand over her eyes for just a second, wishing that she could hide. She had to get out of this room. That much she was certain of.
Hare seemed to be trying to read her expression. His face, normally open and kind, took on a stern look. “She was raped in a hospital.”
“Outside a hospital.”
“Her mouth was taped shut.”
“I know that.”
“By someone who obviously has some kind of religious fixation.”
“Right.”
“Sara—”
She held up her hand for silence as Lena returned.
Lena said, “Frank’s on his way.”
Thursday
14
Jeffrey blinked his eyes several times, forcing himself not to go back to sleep. For a few seconds, he did not know where he was, but a quick glance around the room reminded him of what had happened last night. He looked over at the window, his eyes taking their time coming into focus. He saw Sara.
He leaned his head back into the pillow, letting out a long sigh. “Remember when I used to brush your hair?”
“Sir?”
Jeffrey opened his eyes. “Lena?”
She seemed embarrassed as she walked over to the bed. “Yeah.”
“I thought you were…” He waved this off. “Never mind.”
Jeffrey forced himself to sit up in bed, despite the pain shooting through his right leg. He felt stiff and drugged, but he knew if he did not stay upright, the rest of the day would be blown.
“Hand me my pants,” he said.
“They had to throw them away,” she reminded him. “Remember what happened?”
Jeffrey grumbled an answer as he put his feet on the floor. Standing hurt like a hot knife in his leg, but he could live with the pain. “Can you find me some pants?” he asked.
Lena left the room and Jeffrey leaned against the wall so that he wouldn’t sit back down. He tried to remember what had happened the night before. Part of him didn’t want to deal with it. There was enough on his plate trying to find out who had killed Sibyl Adams.
“How are these?” Lena asked, tossing him a pair of scrubs.
“Great,” Jeffrey said, waiting for her to turn around. He slipped them on, suppressing a groan as he lifted his leg. “We’ve got a full day ahead of us,” he said. “Nick Shelton is coming in at ten with one of his drug guys. We’ll get a rundown on the belladonna. We’ve got that punk, what’s his name, Gordon?” He tied the string in the pants. “I want to go at him again, see if he can remember anything about when he last saw Julia Matthews.” He leaned his hand against the table. “I don’t think he knows where she is, but maybe he saw something.”
Lena turned around without being told. “We found Julia Matthews.”
“What?” he asked. “When?”
“She showed up at the hospital last night,” Lena answered. There was something about her voice that sent a sense of dread coursing through his veins.
He sat back down on the bed without even thinking about it.
Lena closed the door and narrated last night’s events for him. By the time she was finished, Jeffrey was pacing the room in an awkward gait.
“She just showed up on Sara’s car?” he asked.
Lena nodded.
“Where is it now?” he asked. “The car, I mean.”
“Frank had it impounded,” Lena said, a defensive tone to her voice.
“Where is Frank?” Jeffrey asked, leaning his hand on the bed railing.
Lena was silent, then, “I don’t know.”
He gave her a hard look, thinking she knew exactly where Frank was but wouldn’t say.
She said, “He put Brad on guard upstairs.”
“Gordon’s still in jail, right?”
“Yeah, that was the first thing I checked. He was in jail all night. There’s no way he could’ve put her on Sara’s car.”
Jeffrey hit the bed with his fist. He knew last night he shouldn’t have taken that Demerol. This was the middle of a case, not a holiday.
“Hand me my jacket.” Jeffrey held his hand out, taking the jacket from Lena. He limped out of the room, Lena on his heels. The elevator was slow in coming, but neither of them spoke.
“She’s been sleeping all night,” Lena said.
“Right.” Jeffrey jabbed at the button. The elevator bell dinged several seconds later, and they rode up together, still in silence.
Lena began, “About last night. The shooting.”
Jeffrey waved her off, stepping out of the elevator. “We’ll deal with that later, Lena.”
“It’s just—”
He held his hand up. “You have no idea how little that matters to me right now,” he said, using the railing lining the hallway to work his way toward Brad.
“Hey, Chief,” Brad said, standing up from his chair.
“Nobody in?” Jeffrey asked, motioning for him to sit down.
“Not since Dr. Linton around two this morning,” he answered.
Jeffrey said, “Good,” leaning his hand on Brad’s shoulder as he opened the door.
Julia Matthews was awake. She stared blindly out the window, not moving when they came in.
“Miss Matthews?” he said, leaning his hand against the railing of her bed.
She continued to stare, not answering.
Lena said, “She hasn’t spoken since Sara took the tube out.”
He looked out the window, wondering what held her attention. Dawn had broken about thirty minutes ago, but other than the clouds there wasn’t anything remarkable to see out the window.
Jeffrey repeated, “Miss Matthews?”
Tears streamed down her face, but still she said nothing. He left the room, using Lena’s arm to lean on.
As soon as they were outside the room, Lena provided, “She hasn’t said anything all night.”
“Not one word?”
She shook her head. “We got an emergency number from the college and found an aunt. She’s tracking down the parents. They’re flying into Atlanta on the first available flight.”
“When’s that?” Jeffrey asked, checking his watch.
“Around three today.”
“Frank and I will pick them up,” he said, turning to Brad Stephens. “Brad, you’ve been on all night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lena will relieve you in a couple of hours.” He looked at Lena, daring her to protest. When nothing came, he said, “Take me home, then back to the station. You can walk to the hospital from there.”
Jeffrey stared straight ahead as Lena drove to his house, trying to work his mind around what had happened last night. He felt a tension in his neck that even a handful of aspirin couldn’t tame. He still could not shake the lethargy from being drugged last night, and his brain was getting sidetracked left and right, even as he came to accept that all this had happened three doors down from where he lay sleeping like a baby. Thank God Sara had been there or he would hav
e two victims instead of one on his hands.
Julia Matthews proved that the killer was escalating. He had gone from a quick assault and murder in the bathroom to keeping a girl for a few days so that he could take his time with her. Jeffrey had seen this kind of behavior over and over again. Serial rapists learned from their mistakes. Their lives were spent figuring out the best way to obtain their objectives, and this rapist, this murderer, was honing his skills even now as Jeffrey and Lena talked about how to catch him.
He had Lena repeat her story about Julia Matthews, trying to see if it was any different in the telling, trying to pull out additional clues. There were none. Lena was very good at reporting things as she saw them, and nothing new came with the second telling.
Jeffrey asked, “What happened after?”
“After Sara left?”
He nodded.
“Dr. Headley came from Augusta. He closed her up.”
Jeffrey became aware of the fact that throughout Lena’s narration of events of the night before, she was using “her” instead of the woman’s name. It was common in law enforcement to look at the criminal rather than the victim, and Jeffrey always felt that this was the quickest way to lose sight of why they did the job in the first place. He didn’t want Lena to do this, especially considering what had happened to her sister.
There was something different about Lena today. Whether it was a higher level of tension or anger, he could not say. Her body seemed to vibrate with it, and his main goal was to get her back to the hospital, where she could sit and decompress. He knew Lena would not leave her guard at Julia Matthews’s bedside. The hospital was the only place to trust her to stay. There was, of course, the added bonus of knowing that if Lena did finally have some sort of nervous breakdown, she was in the right place. For now, he needed to use her. He needed her to be his eyes and ears for what happened last night.
He said, “Tell me what Julia looked like.”
Lena tapped the horn, shooing a squirrel out of the road. “Well, she looked normal.” Lena paused. “I mean, I thought it was an OD or something from the way she looked. I never would’ve pegged her for a rape.”
“What convinced you otherwise?”
Lena’s jaw worked again. “Dr. Linton, I suppose. She pointed out the holes in her hands and feet. I must’ve been blind, I don’t know. The bleach smell and all of that gave it away.”
“All of what?”
“Just, you know, physical signs that something wasn’t right.” Lena paused again. Her tone took a defensive ring. “She had her mouth taped shut, with her driver’s license shoved down her throat. I suppose she looked raped, but I wasn’t seeing it. I don’t know why. I would’ve figured it out; I’m not stupid. It’s just that she looked so normal, you know? Not like a rape victim.”
He was surprised by this last part. “What does a rape victim look like?”
Lena shrugged. “Like my sister, I guess,” she mumbled. “Like somebody who can’t really take care of themselves.”
Jeffrey had been expecting a physical description, some comment on the state of Julia Matthews’s body. He said, “I don’t follow you.”
“Never mind.”
“No,” Jeffrey said. “Tell me.”
Lena seemed to think over how to phrase her words, then, “I guess I can understand with Sibyl, because she was blind.” She stopped. “I mean there’s this whole thing about women asking for it and all. I don’t think Sibyl was like that, but I know rapists. I’ve talked to them, I’ve busted them. I know how they think. They don’t pick somebody who they think is going to put up a fight.”
“You think so?”
Lena shrugged. “I guess you can go into all that feminist bullshit about how women should be able to do whatever they want to do and men should just get used to it, but…” Lena paused again. “It’s like this,” she said. “If I parked my car in the middle of Atlanta with the windows rolled down and the keys in the ignition, whose fault is it when somebody steals it?”
Jeffrey didn’t quite get her logic.
“There are sexual predators out there,” Lena continued. “Everybody knows there are some sick people, usually men, who prey on women. And they’re not picking the ones who look like they can take care of themselves. They’re picking the ones who won’t, or can’t, put up a fight. They’re picking the quiet ones like Julia Matthews. Or the handicapped ones.” Lena added, “Like my sister.”
Jeffrey stared at her, not sure he bought her logic. Lena surprised him sometimes, but what she had just said blew him out of the water. He would expect this kind of talk from someone like Matt Hogan, but never from a woman. Not even Lena.
He leaned his head against the headrest, quiet for a few beats. After a while, he asked, “Run down the case for me. Julia Matthews. Give me the physicals.”
Lena took her time answering. “Her front teeth were knocked out. Her ankles had been bound. Her pubic hair had been shaved off.” Lena paused. “Then, you know, he’d cleaned her out on the inside.”
“Bleach?”
Lena nodded. “Mouth, too.”
Jeffrey watched her closely. “What else?”
“There was no bruising on her.” Lena indicated her lap. “No defensive wounds or marks on her hands, other than the holes in her palms and the bruises from the straps.”
Jeffrey considered this. Julia Matthews had probably been drugged the entire time, though that didn’t make sense to him either. Rape was a crime of violence, and most rapists got off more from causing women pain, controlling them, than actually having sex with them.
Jeffrey said, “Tell me what else. What did Julia look like when you found her?”
“She looked like a normal person,” Lena answered. “I told you that.”
“Naked?”
“Yeah, naked. She was totally naked, and she was laid out like, with her hands straight out. Her feet were crossed at the ankles. Right across the hood of the car.”
“Do you think she was placed like that for a reason?”
Lena answered, “I dunno. Everybody knows Dr. Linton. Everybody knows what car she drives. It’s the only one in town.”
Jeffrey felt his stomach lurch. This was not the response he had been fishing for. He’d meant for Lena to specifically address the positioning of the body, to draw the same conclusion he had, which was that the woman was displayed in a crucifixion pose. He had assumed Sara’s car was chosen because it had been parked closest to the hospital where someone would see it. The possibility that this action was directed toward Sara was chilling.
Jeffrey dismissed these thoughts for the moment, quizzing Lena. “What do we know about our rapist?”
Lena thought out her answer. “Okay, he’s white because rapists tend to rape within their own ethnic group. He’s superretentive, because she was scrubbed thoroughly with bleach; bleach means he’s up on his forensics, because that’s the best way to dispose of physical evidence. He’s probably an older man, has his own house, because he obviously nailed her to some floor or wall or whatever, and it’s not like you can do that in an apartment building, so he must be established in town. He’s probably not married, because he’d have a lot of explaining to do if his wife came home and found a woman nailed down in the basement.”
“Why do you say basement?”
Lena shrugged again. “I don’t imagine he can keep her out in the open.”
“Even if he lives alone?”
“Not unless he’s sure nobody’s gonna drop by.”
“So, he’s a loner?”
“Well, maybe. But, then, how did he meet her?”
“Good point,” Jeffrey said. “Did Sara send blood for the tox screen?”
“Yeah,” Lena said. “She drove it over to Augusta. At least, that’s where she said she was going. She said she knew what she was looking for.”
Jeffrey pointed to a side street. “There.”
Lena made a sharp turn. “Are we gonna cut Gordon loose today?” she asked.
&nbs
p; “I don’t think so,” Jeffrey said. “We can use the drug charge to get his cooperation on who Julia’s been hanging around with. From what Jenny Price said, he kept her on a tight leash. He’d be the most likely person to notice who was new in her life.”
“Yeah,” Lena agreed.
“Up here on the right,” he instructed, sitting up. “You want to come in?”
Lena sat behind the wheel. “I’ll stay here, thanks.”
Jeffrey sat back in his seat. “There’s something else you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”
She took a deep breath, then let it go. “I feel like I let you down.”
“About last night?” he asked, then: “Me getting shot?”
She said, “There’s things you don’t know.”
Jeffrey put his hand on the door handle. “Is Frank taking care of it?”
She nodded.
“Could you have stopped what happened?”
She shrugged, her shoulders going up to her ears. “I don’t know if I can stop anything anymore.”
“Good thing that’s not your job,” he said. He wanted to say more to her, to take some of her load, but Jeffrey knew from experience that Lena would have to work this out for herself. She had spent the last thirty-three years building a fortress around herself. He wasn’t about to break through it in three days.
Instead, he said, “Lena, my number one focus right now is to find out who killed your sister and who raped Julia Matthews. This”—he indicated his leg—“I can deal with when it’s over. I think we both know where to start looking. It’s not like they’re all gonna leave town.”
He pushed the door open and physically lifted his injured leg out with his hand. “Jesus Christ,” he groaned, feeling an intense protest from his knee. His leg had gotten stiff from sitting in the car for so long. By the time Jeffrey stood up from the car, a line of perspiration beaded over his lip.
Pain shot through his leg as he walked toward his house. His house keys were on the same ring as the car keys, so he walked to the back of the house, entering through the kitchen. For the last two years, Jeffrey had been remodeling the house himself. His latest project was the kitchen, and he had gutted the back wall of the house one three-day weekend, planning to have it built back in time to return to work. A shooting had cut his plans short, and he had ended up buying plastic strips from a freezer supply house in Birmingham and nailing them up over the naked two-by-fours. The plastic kept the rain and wind out, but meanwhile he still had a big hole at the back of his house.