Beautiful Maids All in a Row (5 page)

“So, what are we looking for?”

“White male. Thirty-five to fifty-five, judging from his level of restraint and preparedness. He's well above average intelligence and holds a high-paying job that lets him travel. That's when he meets the women, or sees them with their sons. It's those boys that really draw him to the women. He sees himself in them.”

“He's power-oriented?” Luke asked. “He wants power over the women?”

“He more aptly fits the thrill-seeking orientation. He gets an intense thrill from what he's doing, that plus the mutilation. He has power through his job. These killings are about getting his jollies. He may not even consciously know these women resemble his mother—he's just drawn to them.”

“What else?”

“He lives with someone, but she doesn't know or doesn't care about what he's doing. She's submissive, most definitely a blonde—all brunettes mean Mom—and gives in to his every kinky whim.”

“Like bondage and asphyxiation?”

“Yeah. He objectifies women. They're nothing more than sexual objects.” I looked down at my pad for what I was going to say next. The booze hadn't worn off yet. “Now, his job gives him latitude to travel and disappear for days. Stalking them takes time.”

“Maybe he's out of a job,” he suggested. “That's why he started now.”

“His job is his gateway to a normal life, something he feels he needs. He's probably well respected in his field. It's probably technical and something in the medical field.”

“Why the medical field?”

“He knew how, where, and the right amount of thiopental sodium to administer for the best effect. That, and the heart was cut with a doctor's precision.”

“He used a hacksaw,” he pointed out. “The women were a mess.”

“Bone saws run on batteries. He wouldn't chance not having it when he needed it.” I shook my head. “No, he knew where and when to inject a non-common drug. That points to a doctor.”

“Couldn't he be in the law enforcement community, and just looked up the right dose?”

I smiled at him. I'd stepped on his toes on this point. “Is that what my old buddies at Behavioral Analysis said?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. He knows our forensics, what we're capable of finding and not. He even knows to put the body in water to wash away all the evidence.”

“The man is meticulous. He planned this for a long time. He could have researched forensics, or hell, even watched television. We live in a crime-obsessed country where every other show has something to do with crime and how we solve it. But the cutting of the heart itself was flawless. The man went to med school.”

“Policemen have basic knowledge of physiology so they can administer CPR and first aid. They know how to get to the heart.”

“Forgetting the hacksaw, the incisions were precise. He knew the perfect drug for his purpose. He used a scalpel and saw to get through the rib cage. The man cut a perfect hole in the chest and ribs to get to the heart. The medical examiner said so.”

“Maybe he used it to throw us off track.”

I threw Justine's file at him. “You know, if you already had a profile perfected, then what the hell do you need me for?”

“I just wanted another perspective, one I can trust.”

“Then trust me on this.”

He leaned back in his seat, not saying anything for a moment. “Fine, I'm open to the possibility he's a doctor, or at least trained as one. But you should be open to the possibility that he's law enforcement.”

“He isn't,” I stated matter-of-factly. “If he were, there would have been more violence involved.”

“He ripped their hearts out. He strangled them with his bare hands and raped them repeatedly. That's pretty damn violent.”

“The heart was surgically excised postmortem; he didn't rip it out. The rape was all about dominance and pain, and the strangulation was for his own sexual gratification. He used minimal force. He didn't beat them, he didn't cut them up into pieces when they were alive, and he had control the entire time. Most people in law enforcement are very volatile and ruled by emotions, as we both can attest to. Almost all crimes committed by a member of law enforcement have some level of frenzy, which is not the case here. But doctors have to be meticulous and plan or people die. You're wrong. Get over it.”

He scoffed and shook his head. “I forgot how cocky you can be.”

“Well, it's fun to be right.” I smiled, but Luke didn't smile back. I changed the subject. “He might have some sort of handicap, maybe a speech impediment. The blitz attack and dominance angle both point to this being a way to overcome a handicap. It wouldn't be something obvious because he would have been noticed. I also think his mother ridiculed him on the subject.”

“Blame the parents,” Luke muttered.

“Got to blame someone.”

Luke nodded in agreement. “Why the woods?”

“Isolation. She can scream as loud as she wants, which gets him off. It's also harder to collect physical evidence. And there's a river nearby to wash away all his sins. He probably also feels a certain kinship to nature. It takes life at a whim, just like he does. He might live in the woods, or have spent summers with the mother there. He most likely enjoys hunting, too.”

“So we can book him for killing Bambi's mother as well. Good to know.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You've grown a sense of humor in the past two years.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe not,” I said under my breath.

“So, he's a white middle-aged man, likes the woods, is well employed, lives with or dates a submissive woman, is into kinky sex, has mother issues, and has killed four women so far. That it?” he asked impatiently.

“I never said he only killed four women.”

“Fine, enlighten me.” He was getting pissy now. I had that way with men.

“You want to look for women between twenty-five and thirty-five who have died from strangulation across the eastern seaboard in the past ten years.”

“We already did that. We looked at rapes, too. Nothing came up in NCIC, ViCAP, or Europol. Nothing even remotely similar.”

“Did you look at accidental strangulations? Apparent suicides? I'd look for women, especially prostitutes, who were found strangled, ruled a suicide or not. Also,
anyone
dumped in the water. I'll bet he's been killing for years. No way is this his first. Too sophisticated.”

“I'll widen the search.”

“Concentrate on the New York area. Most first victims—”

“Are known to the killer, and he would want to stay in his comfort zone.” He cleared his throat. “How does he pick them?”

I threw my pen down to rub my weary eyes. “
That
is the $64,000 question. Besides general similarities, there is nothing to link them. They lived in different states, never met as far as you've found, and had entirely different jobs. I don't see any connection. But when we find it, we find him. And we'd better do it fast because he's speeding up. He's got a real taste for it now. He won't stop until
we
stop him.”

And on that ominous note, I shut the folder.

“Oh, shit.”

The neon light above the mirror in the small bathroom stung my eyes, and the buzzing lights were piercing my brain like an ice pick, which meant only one thing. I was becoming sober. I suppose the fact that I'd been up for close to twenty-four hours also could have explained it. It wasn't a personal record by any means, but I still felt the weight. The longest I'd been without sleep was four days right after I moved to Grafton. Every sound unnerved me, and living in the woods was very noisy. The hoot of an owl once caused me to drop an entire box of books on my foot. I limped for days.

In the small hotel bathroom I couldn't help but look in the mirror, something I tried to avoid as much as possible. People told me all my life I was beautiful. I'd then tell them they were nuts. My skin was a pasty white found only on corpses. I'd been avoiding the sun for years and it showed. My light brown hair was tied into a tight French twist. Some days I pulled it so tight I could feel the edges of my face move as if I'd had a face-lift. My hair would have been considered mousy if not for the natural blond highlights that streaked through. I let my hair fall and shook it out. It needed a cut. It fell a few inches past my shoulders, the longest I'd ever had it. I used to have a straight nose, but an accident in high school corrected that. My eyes were bloodshot—not sleeping for two years does that to a person—but the dark circles under them really brought out the green. My cheeks were sunken in and my not-so-high cheekbones poked out like two mounds. The phrase “crack whore” often sprung to mind.

I splashed cold water on my face, hoping it would wake me up, and wiped my face on a damp towel. It smelled of Ivory soap and some perfumed shampoo I couldn't remember the name of. It smelled like Luke. I hung the towel back up and turned my attention to his toiletry bag on the back of the john. I couldn't help myself. I had to snoop. You could tell a lot about people by what they bring with them while traveling.

He had everything packed inside the small gray bag he'd carried since the Academy. Inside were the basics: toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, and mouthwash. Nothing out of the ordinary except the condom. One condom at the bottom, ribbed for her pleasure. It was nice to know he still practiced safe sex. I felt a tinge of embarrassment having found this. The idea of Luke having…I stopped myself right there.
Not going there.
I put everything back quickly and rejoined Luke in the main room.

He was studying Sarah Illes's file for most likely the hundredth time. I didn't know what he hoped to find then that he hadn't found before. Maybe he was considering the medical aspect I presented. It was great to know he was taking me seriously. I walked over and sat across from him on the bed. “You should get a new toiletry bag. You can barely fit all your stuff in there. They do provide soap in hotels, you know.”

“You know it dries my skin out,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the file.

“Well, if you got rid of the soap container, you'd probably have room for more condoms.”

I expected a rise out of him, but he didn't comply. He just stared at the file. “Thank you for the suggestion. I'll take it under consideration.”

I lay down on the bed facing him. Even though I was staring at him, he didn't register my presence. “So, are you married? Have a couple of little Lukes running around?”

“Not yet.”

“Doesn't surprise me. You aren't exactly the matrimonial type.”

“I'm not even going to ask what you mean by that.”

I turned onto my back and looked up at the off-white ceiling. It felt nice to lie down. Sleep began creeping up behind my eyes. They desperately wanted to close. I let out a big yawn that wracked my whole body.

“You going to fall asleep on my bed?” Luke asked.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” I immediately sat up, a little too quickly. The room spun like a top, round and round and round. Residual effect of the booze. I groaned and put my head between my legs.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked. He was quickly beside me on the bed. “Are you having another panic attack?” His strong hands began kneading the tension out of my shoulders as he did in the good old days, and for a second everything but how great that felt fell away. Luke was always better at this than Hayden.
Hayden.
His smiling face flashed across my mind. Remembering myself, I shrugged Luke's hands off.

“I'm fine,” I assured him. “Just sat up too fast.”

“When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?”

“When I was in the hospital, what? Two years ago? I really should get some of what they gave me there.”

“Jesus,” he said under his breath.

“You're surprised? We both know that insomnia is a symptom of post-traumatic stress. As are panic attacks, loss of appetite, nightmares, and depression. Lucky me—I hit the mother lode.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“Why, you asking me out?” I asked cattily. He didn't smile. “I stopped going. It was useless.”

“Always have to do things on your own,” he said, shaking his head. “You should have called me.”

“We haven't exactly been close for two years, Luke.”

“Whose fault is that?” he asked.

“
You
could have picked up the phone.”

“So could you.”

“Yeah, because this is going
so
well. We're at each other's throats already, and it's been what? A total of twenty minutes?”

“You just bring out the bastard in me, Iris.”

“It's a gift.” We both smiled. Just like old times. “So, what's next? What's our next move?”

He stood but stayed beside me. “
My
next move is to take these updated notes back to the team, see if it's any help. I don't know what your next move is, but I hope it involves getting help.”

I stood up quick as a flash. “No way you're cutting me out of this now!”

“You've done all you can. Leave the rest to the professionals.” He sidestepped me, walking to the table. He began clearing the files off the table to ignore the look of death I was giving him.

I walked over and jerked the files out of his hands. “In case you forgot, I got the same training you did. I
am
a professional.”

He snatched the files out of my hand. “You
were
a professional. You quit.”

I fought the urge to smack him across the face, crossing my arms over my chest and balling my hands into fists. “What? Afraid I'll steal your thunder? Solve it before you do?”

He jammed the files into his briefcase. I could tell I'd hit a sore spot. “Please. Even at your best you were never better than me.”