Consumed (10 page)

“Crock-Pot on the counter next to the stove.” Richard pointed toward the kitchen.

“What cut?”

“Calf. Pretty good. There’s enough if you want to fix yourself a plate.”

“Maybe just a taste,” Mark said. He walked toward the kitchen.

We left the scene after Dave helped Jeff load the second body. We planned to stop at the Nashville Medical Science facility after we’d finished meeting with the local PD. Dave took the trip back to the facility with Jeff to inspect the remains for any kind of trace evidence. When we stopped by, we would also pick up the full autopsy report on the woman who’d been found the day prior.

Tom was driving behind us, following us into downtown Nashville. The three of us had stopped for a quick fast-food lunch a half hour earlier. The “super burger with the works” I’d ordered had been a bit undercooked and wasn’t sitting quite right in my stomach. I didn’t know if the reason was that it had been a bit bloody or that I’d seen and smelled what I had over the course of the morning. I adjusted myself in the passenger seat—I could still smell decay inside my nostrils—and somehow a vision of the single fly crawling across the dead woman’s forehead was stuck in my head.

“Do you have all the photos?” Beth asked.

“Yeah, Dave sent me two headshots of the two from this morning to my e-mail. I also have the woman from yesterday and a couple photos of the tattoos. I’m going to see if we can get these printed somehow at the station so I can get them out of my damn e-mail and off my phone.”

“We can’t be more than a mile from our hotel, and if we head straight to the PD, we’re going to be, like, forty minutes early. Why don’t we pop into the hotel’s business center quick and get the photos printed off.”

“Works for me,” I said.

Beth handed me her phone and told me to change the destination from the police station to our hotel. I did, and her phone told me it was recalculating. An arrow popped up, telling us to make the next right-hand turn and that our hotel was just one point three miles away.

“Right turn on the next street.” I handed the phone back to her and dialed Tom, who was following us.

“Agent Clifford,” he answered.

“Hey, it’s Rawlings. We’re a bit early and close to our hotel. We’re going to make a stop quick and get these photos printed off in the hotel’s business center.”

“Got it. Just want me to follow you?”

“Sure, that’s fine. The hotel is about a mile from here.”

“No problem. See you in a minute,” he said.

I clicked off and looked at Beth. “He’s just going to follow us over there.”

She nodded.

We pulled to the front of the hotel a couple minutes later and opted to park to the side of the front entrance under the covered entryway reserved for guests loading and unloading as opposed to entering the structure. Our stay inside would only be a matter of minutes, so Tom opted to wait with the cars. If anyone gave him a problem for being parked there, the fact that we were conducting official FBI business would be a good enough reason for them to let it slide.

Beth and I hit the business center, made five copies of each photo, and headed back out. We piled into the car and headed for the downtown Nashville police station. While Beth drove, I divided the stacks of photos into five separate files.

“This looks like the place, huh?” Beth asked.

I lifted my eyes from the files on my lap. Tom, driving ahead of us, was making a right onto James Robertson Parkway. The Nashville Police Department building took up the city block to our right. We followed Tom around the corner and made another right on the next street. He lucked himself into a street parking spot right around the corner. Beth and I had to search for another five minutes before finding a spot a block or so up. I placed all the files in my laptop bag with everything we had on the investigation and got out. I glanced at the time on my wrist—ten to one. We’d be right on time. We walked down the block and a half and met Tom, who stood on the sidewalk, resting his arms on the roof of his car. Tom ran his hand over his brown buzz cut. The hair immediately returned to the same position it had been in before his hand touched it—perfectly flat, standing an inch and a half off the top of his head.

“Was wondering where you guys went,” he said.

“Had to park a block or so up,” Beth said.

Tom nodded. “Who are we meeting here?”

“Captain Ken Munro,” I said. “He said he was going to try to get another couple people from the department here in on the meeting as well.”

“Well, hopefully we get something,” Tom said. He adjusted his suit jacket on his shoulders and brushed a few wrinkles from the jacket’s front.

We rounded the corner of the brown brick building, and I looked up—the station was three stories and appeared to have been built sometime in the nineteen seventies. We walked the sidewalk and made a left toward the building’s entrance. To our right was a small outdoor courtyard filled with benches and small planters holding various green shrubbery. Beth pulled the door of the cylindrical entryway open. The three of us entered and went to the receptionist. I told her we were looking for Captain Munro and he should be expecting us. Then the three of us had a seat in the waiting area.

Tom, Beth, and I waited for just a few minutes before a man appeared in a black suit. He wore a white dress shirt and navy-blue tie. The man appeared in his sixties and was roughly forty pounds overweight for his height. His hair was snow white and short, his face shaved clean aside from a thick white mustache.

“Are you the agents that called?” he asked.

“That we are,” I said.

The three of us stood.

The man reached out and shook each of our hands. “Captain Ken Munro, homicide. Let’s head on back to a conference room. I have a couple of detectives that are waiting.”

“Sure,” I said.

We followed the captain through a dark-wood-floored bullpen area filled with gray metal desks butted up against each other in groups of twos. On the far side of the bullpen was a short, wide hall with glass offices to each side. Another hallway, looking just like the one we’d come from, spread out before us. The captain entered the first door around the corner, and we funneled in behind him. The room looked to be a smaller conference room, with office chairs spread around a large rectangular table. Two men in suits, who I assumed to be detectives, had taken seats on the far side. In the center of the table was a pitcher of water, some glasses upside down on a tray, and a conference phone. A rolling cart with a television and some video equipment took up a spot in one corner.

Tom, Beth, and I went through a round of introductions with the detectives. Their names were Detective Hardy and Detective Pierce. Both of the men appeared to be in their forties. Pierce was thin, balding, and wearing a gray suit with black tie. Hardy was big in the chest with a pair of sunglasses hanging from the handkerchief pocket of his dark suit. His tie was yellow over his white shirt, his hair jet black and styled. Both men said they worked in the Specialized Investigations Division—meaning everything from narcotics to gambling to prostitution. They both appeared to be of average height when they stood to shake our hands.

We took chairs around the table, and I set my laptop bag beside me at my ankle.

“We’re still waiting on one more,” Captain Munro said. “I have Detective Nicole Ferris coming. She does some undercover work in the city—prostitution stings and things of that nature. She may be able to help identify your victims. She says she thinks she knows what your moon tattoos represent—apparently, there’s a group of prostitutes that all have it, some kind of mark from their employer. She can tell you more about it when she gets here. I was actually on the phone with her when the front desk called me to let me know you guys were here. She should be here any minute. It’s her off day, but she has a condo downtown here.”

“Great,” I said.

“I’ve worked a few stings with her,” Detective Hardy said. “And I’ve played the role of a John before. I know some of the girls in the business around here. The captain said you had some photos of the women found deceased.”

“Yeah, I put together a couple of files that contain the photos. Maybe you guys can get some copies made and distribute them around the station as needed?”

“We’ll do what we can,” Munro said.

I pulled my laptop bag onto my lap and took out everything we had. After I passed out the individual files of photos, the two detectives and the captain opened the files.

“We’re pretty sure these women are from Nashville here,” Beth said. “And if what your other detective said about the tattoos is true, it confirms it.”

Detective Hardy tapped at a photo. “I recognize this one. Candy, she goes by. Always wears that platinum wig.”

“She had a tattoo that said Candy,” Beth said. “Do we know if that’s a real name or what her last name is?”

“Couldn’t tell you on that. I’ve never picked her up for soliciting personally, but I’ve seen her on the streets around Murfreesboro Pike. I’ve talked to her a handful of times. It’s about fifteen minutes from here.”

I wrote the name down. “Is that a street or an area of town or…?”

“State highway for the most part, a couple lanes in each direction—runs from Nashville down to Murfreesboro. Changes name a bunch of times along the way. The area with the most traffic in the sex-for-hire trade is around Plus Park Boulevard and Wilhagan Road. That’s where we run our stings when we do them,” Detective Hardy said.

I jotted the street names down.

“Recognize any of the others?” Tom asked.

Detective Pierce was leaning back, flipping through the photos until he stopped with one in particular in his hand. “Give me one second. This dark-haired girl looks like someone that was in a flophouse we raided last month. Let me get my file from the case.” He stood from his chair and left the office.

The captain asked a few questions on the investigation while we waited for Detective Pierce to return. I pulled out the files we had on Rhonda Oakley, Brittany Colwell, and our first unidentified woman. I passed them over to the captain so he could have a look. As he finished with each one, he slid it to Detective Hardy.

“I know this one,” Hardy said.

“Brittany or Rhonda?” Beth asked.

“No. This one.” Hardy held up the photo of the first unidentified woman. “Megan Poe. She’s been arrested countless times for solicitation. She works downtown here a lot. I see her on my way pretty much every morning. She’s always walking down on Second Street. I can’t say I’ve seen her in the last few days, now that I think about it. When was she found deceased?”

“Wednesday of this past week if I’m not mistaken,” I said.

“Shit. She was actually a nice person. I mean, obviously, yes, she was a criminal, soliciting men for sex, but still. She sure as hell didn’t deserve this. I’d stop every now and then to chat her up. She’d give me the same song and dance every time I’d stop her—literally. She’d sing me a country tune, twirl around, laugh, smile, wave, and continue on her way.”

Giving the deceased woman a bubbly personality only seemed to worsen what had been done to her.

The door of the conference room opened, and Detective Pierce reentered with a file in his hand. “Yeah, it’s her, I think. Rachael Mendez.” He opened his file and placed a mug shot next to the photo Dave had snapped of the woman’s face from the first dump site we’d viewed that morning.

I slid both photos to my side of the table so Tom, Beth, and I could view them side by side.

“That’s her,” Beth said. “Same scar in her right eyebrow. I noticed it at the dump site.”

“Megan Poe is the name you said for this one?” I tapped on the photo.

“Without a doubt,” Detective Hardy said.

I wrote the woman’s name down on the back of the photo. “And this one is Rachael Mendez?” I tapped on the other photo.

“Pretty sure,” Pierce said.

“I’d say ninety-five percent, just going visually,” Beth said.

“Okay.” I wrote that name on that photo.

“Well, if we can get a positive on this Candy, at least we won’t have unknown victims any longer. We need to find someone who knew these women.”

The door of the room opened, and a woman I assumed to be Detective Ferris entered. She looked to be in her midthirties. Her hair was about shoulder length, blond, and pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a pair of jeans with a service weapon on her hip. Over her white long-sleeved shirt with horizontal red stripes, a badge hung from a cord around her neck. The detective took a seat next to Pierce.

“This is Detective Nicole Ferris,” the captain said.

We went through a round of introductions between Detective Ferris and Tom, Beth, and me.

“Nice to meet you guys. Sorry if I kept you guys waiting,” she said. “What have we got?”

Detective Ferris had the photos of the women spread out before her on the conference table. She’d identified the wig-wearing woman, going by Candy, as Candice Schwarz. Therefore, we had identities on each victim except the blond found the day prior. Detective Pierce went to go print us off everything they could get for each woman we had positive IDs on—rap sheets, copies of driver’s licenses, and personal information including next of kin.

“What can you tell us about the prostitution around Nashville?” Beth asked.

“Well, there’s plenty—maybe four or five spots in town and reaching out into the suburbs that are pretty bad as far as women walking the streets. We have escort services and massage parlors as well. If you’re looking for that sort of thing around here, you’re damn well going to find it,” the captain said.

“Do you ever hear about women going missing?” Tom asked.

Captain Munro looked at Ferris to field the question.

“It’s hard to say. Most of these girls come and go. So if they weren’t around anymore, it wouldn’t really raise too many eyebrows, to tell you the truth,” Ferris said.

“We maybe get a handful of deceased ones a year,” the captain said. “Mostly overdoses but some foul play.”

“What more can you tell us about the tattoos?” Beth asked.