Blindsighted (16 page)

"The palm has been pierced through," Sara offered. She looked under the woman's fingernails, recognizing thin slivers of wood pressed under the nails. "Wood," she reported, wondering why someone would take the time to scrub the victim down with bleach in order to remove physical traces, yet leave slivers of wood under the nails. It did not make sense. And then to leave her arranged on the car in such a way.

Sara worked all of this out in her head, and her stomach responded to the obvious conclusion with a slight pitch. She closed her eyes, picturing the woman as she had been when Sara first found her: legs crossed at the ankles, arms at ninety-degree angles from the body.

The woman had been crucified.

"Those are puncture wounds, right?" Hare said.

Sara nodded, not taking her eyes off the woman. Her body was well nourished and her skin had been taken care of. There were no needle marks to indicate prolonged drug use. Sara stopped in her tracks, realizing she'd assessed the woman as if she was at the morgue rather than the hospital. As if sensing this, the heart monitor went into failure, the shrill scream of the machine putting Sara on alert.

"No," Sara hissed as she leaned over the woman, starting compressions. "Hare, bag her."

He fumbled around in the drawers for the bag. Within seconds, he was squeezing air into the woman's lungs. "She's in V-tach," he warned.

"Slow," Sara said, wincing as she felt one of the patient's ribs crack under her hands. She kept her eyes on Hare, willing him to cooperate. "One, two, squeeze. Quick and hard. Keep it calm."

"Okay, okay," Hare mumbled, concentrating on squeezing the bag.

Despite the great press given CPR, it was merely a stopgap measure. CPR was the act of physically forcing the heart to circulate blood into the brain, and very rarely could this be done manually as efficiently as a healthy heart performing the task on its own. If Sara stopped, so would the heart. It was a time-buying procedure until something else could be done.

Lena, obviously alerted by the shrieking monitor, ran back into the room. "What happened?"

"She crashed," Sara said, feeling a slight sense of relief as she spotted Ellen in the hallway. "Amp of Epi," she ordered.

Sara watched impatiently as Ellen popped open a box of Epi and put the syringe together.

"Jeesh." Lena cringed as Sara administered the drug straight into the woman's heart.

Hare's voice rose a few octaves. "She's in V-fib."

With one hand Ellen took the paddles off the cart behind her, charging the defibrillator with the other.

"Two hundred," Sara ordered. The woman's body jumped into the air as Sara electrocuted her. Sara watched the monitor, frowning when there was no corresponding reaction. Sara shocked her two more times with the same response. "Lidocaine," she ordered just as Ellen popped another box.

Sara administered the drug, keeping an eye on the monitor.

"Flat line," Hare reported.

"Again." Sara reached for the paddles. "Three hundred," she ordered.

Again, she shocked the woman. Again, there was no response. Sara felt a cold sweat come over her. "Epi."

The sound of the box popping open was like a needle in Saras ear. She took the syringe, pushing the Adrenalin directly into the woman's heart one more time. They all waited.

"Flat line," Hare reported.

"Let's go to three-sixty."

For the fifth time, a charge went through the woman's body with no response.

"Goddamnit, goddamnit," Sara muttered, resuming compressions. "Time?" she called.

Hare glanced at the clock. "Twelve minutes."

It had seemed like two seconds to Sara.

Lena must have sensed from Hare's tone of voice where he was going with this. She whispered under her breath, "Don't let her die. Please, don't let her die."

"She's in prolonged asystole, Sara," Hare said. He was telling her that it was too late. It was time to stop, time to let go.

Sara narrowed her eyes at him. She turned to Ellen. "I'm going to crack her chest."

Hare shook his head, saying, "Sara, we don't have the capabilities here."

Sara ignored him. She felt down the woman's ribs, cringing as she made contact with the one she had broken. When Sara's ringers reached the bottom of the diaphragm, she took a scalpel and sliced a six-inch opening into the upper abdomen. She slipped her hand into the incision, reaching under the rib cage and into the woman's chest.

She kept her eyes closed, blocking out the hospital as she massaged the woman's heart. The monitor showed false hope as Sara squeezed, manually circulating the woman's blood. A tingling came to her fingers, and in her ears she could hear a slight piercing tone. Nothing else mattered as she waited for the heart to respond. It was like squeezing a small balloon filled with warm water. Only this balloon was life.

Sara stopped. She counted to five seconds, eight, then up to twelve, before being rewarded with spontaneous beeps from the heart monitor.

Hare asked, "Is that her or you?"

"Her," Sara offered, letting her hand slip out. "Start a lidocaine drip."

"Jesus Christ," Lena muttered, hand to her own chest. "I can't believe you just did that."

Sara snapped off her gloves, not answering.

The room was quiet but for the beeps of the heart monitor and the in and out of the ventilator.

"So," Sara said. "We'll do a darkfield for syphilis and a gram stain for gonorrhea." Sara felt her face flush over this. "I'm sure a condom was used, but make a note to follow up in a few days for pregnancy." Sara was conscious of a waver in her voice that she hoped Ellen and Lena did not pick up. Hare was another matter. She could hear what he was thinking without even looking at him.

He seemed to sense her nervousness and tried to make light of it. "Good God, Sara. That's the sloppiest incision I've ever seen."

Sara licked her lips, willing her own heart to calm. "I was trying not to upstage you."

"Prima donna," Hare offered, wiping perspiration from his forehead with a pad of surgical gauze. "Jesus Christ." He laughed uncomfortably.

"We don't see much of this around here," Ellen said as she packed surgical towels into the incision to control the bleeding until it was closed. "I can call Larry Headley over in Augusta. He lives about fifteen minutes from here."

"I would appreciate that," Sara said, taking another pair of gloves from the box on the wall.

"You okay?" Hare asked, his tone casual. His eyes showed his concern.

"Fine," Sara answered, checking the IV. She told Lena, "I guess you can find Frank?"

Lena had the decency to look embarrassed. "I'll go see." She left the room, her head down.

Sara waited until she was gone, then asked Hare, "Can you take a look at her hands?"

Hare was silent as he examined the woman's palms, feeling the bone structure. After a few minutes, he said, "This is interesting."

Sara asked, "What's that?"

"Missed all the bones," Hare answered, rotating the wrist. When he got to the shoulder, he stopped. "Dislocated," he said.

Sara crossed her arms, suddenly cold. "From trying to get away?"

Hare frowned. "Do you realize how much force it would take to dislocate your shoulder blade?" He shook his head, unable to accept it. "You'd pass out from the pain before you'd-"

"Do you realize how terrifying it is to be raped?" Sara's gaze bored right into him.

Pain registered in his expression. "I'm sorry, honey. Are you okay?"

Tears stung the back of her eyes, and Sara had to fight to keep her voice even. "Check her hips, please. I want you to do a full report."

He did as he was told, giving Sara a curt nod after the examination. "I'm thinking there's some ligature damage in the hip, here. I need to do this when she's awake; it's fairly subjective."

Sara asked, "Can you tell anything else?"

"All the bones in her hands and feet were missed. Her feet were speared between the second and third cuneiforms and the navicular. That's very precise. Whoever did it knew what he was doing." He paused, looking down at the floor to regain his composure. "I don't see why someone would do this."

"Look at this," Sara said, pointing to the skin around the woman's ankles. They both had angry black bruises around their circumference. "Obviously there was a secondary restraint to hold the feet down." Sara picked up the woman's hand, noticing a fresh scar at the wrist. The other had the same mark. Julia Matthews had attempted suicide at some point during the last month. The scar was a white line slashing vertically across her small wrist. A dark bruise put the old wound in stark relief.

Sara did not bring this to Hare's attention. Instead, she offered, "It looks to me like a band was used, probably leather."

"I'm not following."

"The piercing was symbolic."

"Of?"

"Crucifixion, I would imagine." Sara put the woman's hand back by her side.

Sara rubbed her arms, fighting the chill in the room. She walked over, opening drawers, looking for a sheet to cover the young woman. "If I had to guess, I would say that the hands and feet were nailed back from the body."

"Crucifixion?" Hare dismissed this. "That's not how Jesus was crucified. The feet would be together."

Sara snapped, "Nobody wanted to rape Jesus, Hare. Of course her legs were spread apart."

Hare's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed this. "Is this what you do at the morgue?"

She shrugged, looking for a sheet.

"Christ, you've got more balls than I do," Hare said, breathing heavily.

Sara tucked the sheet around the young woman, trying to comfort her. "I don't know about that," she said.

Hare asked, "What about her mouth?"

"Her front teeth were knocked out, I imagine to facilitate fellatio."

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

Chapter Fourteen

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 have 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 drivers 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 land 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. He 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.

"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?"