Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) (9 page)

Rick was holding his forensics kit when we walked up. He shook his head as I made eye contact.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Clean as a whistle. Scrubbed with bleach. No prints anywhere—no belongings.”

“Damn. All right, Rick, thanks.” I focused my attention on Ed, standing next to him. “What can you tell me?”

Ed coughed into his fist. “I put time of death in between three and six hours—same as the last. Ligature marks were consistent with the woman from the other day. She has some cut marks on the palm of her hand. I’d say the beating was the cause of death, but I need to check into something else first.”

“What’s that?” Hank asked.

“Sutures on the right side of her head above her ear. I didn’t see the shaved hair around the area until we moved the body to load her. The way her hair was positioned, combined with the damage, made it hard to see.”

“Sutures?” I asked.

“Yeah. Homemade. Not done by a physician, that’s for sure. Kind of barbaric work.”

“Another lobotomy attempt?”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

“How soon until you can get to her?” I asked.

“Well, we have her loaded. We’re going to head back to the office with her now. I don’t have anything pressing at the moment. I’ll start with her right away.”

“Thanks, Ed.”

The media had started to swarm on the outskirts of the parking lot and seemed to multiply with each passing minute. Employees from local businesses and homeowners from the neighborhood gathered on the sidewalks to watch. I dialed the captain to let him know what we had and to ask him what he wanted me to give the press. He wanted to have a meeting back at the station and schedule a press release for three o’clock. Through the sea of reporters, I relayed the message.

He’d dumped her body where she would be found and identified. His plan for her, as well as the last, hadn’t been death—he would need to try again. He was halfway through a double bacon cheeseburger when chatter across the CB alerted him that they’d found her body. Between fares, the cab drivers liked to talk about the latest happenings across the city. He had found the frequency of one of the major cab companies in the area and set the station to a preset. From the way drivers were speaking on the radio, it sounded as though quite a scene was unfolding at the attorney’s office. He figured he would pop in, just from a standpoint of curiosity. The thought of watching the police work entertained him. They’d interview people and cross-check everyone’s stories. The forensics guys would search for any scrap of evidence left behind. He could even catch a glimpse of his new adversary, trying to solve the crime. The detectives wouldn’t find anything, and neither would the forensics team. He was careful and far too smart to leave something for a stupid lab geek to find. The cops would go through a lot of trouble for nothing. They wouldn’t find out who did it until he wanted them to.

It took him fifteen minutes to get to the scene. He slowed as he drove down the block in front of the attorney’s office. News vans had parked at the curb, and the office’s parking lot had five squad cars and three unmarked police-issue Dodges. His timing was perfect. He crawled past, doing no more than five miles an hour. Two men were loading a black body bag into the back of the coroner’s van.

He continued past and made the next right. A parking spot at the end of the street came into view. He parked the cab and walked back to the scene. Pain shot up his leg with each step as he tried to hide his limp. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

An opening appeared next to a group of people on the sidewalk. He approached and made eye contact with a man to his right. “What’s going on?”

The guy shrugged. “Guess someone died or something.”

“Lots of police for someone who just happened to die. The news vans, too? Nah, this seems like a bigger deal than a stiff at the office.”

The guy looked over at him, appearing put off by his crass comment. “Okay, Detective.”

He smirked. “Has to be a murder or something.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe.”

He continued walking to the next group of people: three women, all dressed business casual. He put on a smile and stopped next to them. “What happened?” he asked.

The blond he addressed shook her head. “It’s horrible. I heard people talking. They said they found a dead woman on the side of the building. I guess someone found her and called the police.”

He nodded. “Yeah, same thing I heard. Someone back there said it was a blond woman dressed in lingerie? They found another body like that at an office building a few days ago. I caught it on the six o’clock news.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Really?”

“Yeah. And now this at another office building?” He moved like he was trying to shake away the thought.

A look of concern crossed the woman’s face. A reporter walked up, asking if she could interview the three women. His time to leave had come. He ducked his head and walked away. He took in the rest of the scene as he left. Detectives walked from the front of the building.

He paused when he spotted the larger bald cop in a suit. Lieutenant Kane was working the scene.

He grinned and continued walking down the block. He began limping again as he rounded the corner toward his car. The pain was intense.

Everyone assembled in one of our meeting rooms. I’d just gotten off the phone with Ed. He was getting ready to start the autopsy but wanted to let me know that Lisa Cotter had positively identified the victim as Diane Robins. The captain informed me that he’d made a call to the local FBI office to see if they could lend us someone to draw up a profile. They agreed to send someone over in the morning. We asked a few of the other department heads to join us for the meeting. Rick from forensics was sitting in, as was Sergeant Timmons from patrol. Hank and Detective Jones leaned against the small table at the corner of the room. Sam James, the station’s PR guy, sat at the back to listen in and determine what information from our briefing would go into the press release. He sat at a laptop, typing it up. I started the meeting.

I went over what we had found out at the scene. The same perp had killed both women. We didn’t reveal to the public that the first victim had a branded hand. The killer was the only one who knew that detail.

Both women were in their thirties, blond, and found wearing green lingerie. I put Detective Jones on finding what stores sold that specific brand of lingerie. I also put him on looking to see if they belonged to any of the same groups or organizations. We needed to put the two together somewhere. If they’d stayed at the same Holiday Inn four years ago in Fresno, I wanted to know about it.

The cab was next. It was still the best lead we had. Sarah McMillian got into a cab at the airport and never arrived at her destination. I had looked into every registered cab company in the city, but that left who-knows-how-many taxis operating without licensing. I asked Sergeant Timmons to station officers from patrol at the airport. The plan was to chat up cab drivers, ask to look at their registration, and see if anything was amiss. He agreed and dispatched two cars.

Hank was going to head over to the airport and talk with Nick Waterman at the security office again. We had Diane Robins’s itinerary and planned to do the same thing we’d done with Sarah McMillian. We would follow her on video through the airport to see if she spoke with anyone or got into a cab. We needed to know if the airport was his hunting ground.

Rick explained to the team that the lack of evidence told us something about our perp. He was careful disposing of the bodies. He’d left nothing at either crime scene to incriminate himself. Our team found no fingerprints or personal belongings, and the bodies were both cleaned. We were dealing with someone intelligent. However, even the most intelligent people made mistakes. He said he would take Pax back out to the scenes and have another look around. Another pass couldn’t hurt.

Together, we agreed that we should disclose to the media that our perp may be driving a taxi. While we didn’t know yet if Diane Robins had taken a cab, we did know that Sarah McMillian did. It wouldn’t go over well with the cab companies in the city. However, there was a chance someone else got a ride from this guy and had a run in with him. We assigned extra people to man the phones. Any calls that had substance would be forwarded to me or Captain Bostok.

The captain thought we should keep the brands to ourselves for the time being. They screamed serial killer. We weren’t in that territory yet.

Sam left the room to make a copy of the press release he’d put together, as well as a handout of details we felt comfortable sharing with the media. He came back a few minutes later as we mulled over our assignments.

Sam looked at his watch. “We’re scheduled over in the press room in about five minutes. Take a few seconds to go over the release.” He handed the press releases out.

I gave it a quick once-over.

“All right, let’s get this done so we can get back to it,” the captain said.

We made our way through the hall to the station’s press room. It was another meeting room that the station used for budget meetings and the occasional dealings with the media. Two long tables with chairs sat in the center of the room, and more chairs lined the back wall if needed. At the front, a podium took center stage. We entered. Reporters from various news outlets and local news channels filled the room. They rustled about, finding seats. Cameramen stood to the sides to record the release.

Captain Bostok took a seat to the side of the podium. Hank and I sat next to him. Detectives Jones and Donner sat on the other side. Sam approached the podium. He gave the microphone a few taps to quiet the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the media, we want to thank you for coming in this morning. I’m Sam James, director of public relations for the Tampa Police Department. The basis of today’s briefing is to bring you current developments and updates on two homicide cases we are investigating. To begin the brief, I turn the podium over to Captain Bostok of the homicide division and Lieutenant Carl Kane. Captain.”

The captain introduced himself and gave a few highlights of our morning meeting. When he finished, he turned the podium over to me.

“I’m Lieutenant Carl Kane of the Tampa Police Department’s homicide division. To my right, seated, is Sergeant Hank Rawlings. We are the lead investigators on the case. As Captain Bostok just informed you, this briefing is to cover the two homicides that are under investigation. Monday morning, we received a call that a body had been found. Our team arrived on the scene and began the investigation. The press release we had provided to the media led to a call in. That call helped us to identify the woman. She was here from out of town on business. We will not be disclosing her identity at this time as the case is still being investigated. We do have leads that we are following up on in this case.

“Today at 10:18 a.m., the TPD received a call regarding another body found under similar circumstances. We dispatched officers and detectives to the scene. From our initial investigation, we do believe these two cases to be related. The local FBI office has agreed to further help us with the investigation.”

The media room burst into a commotion. Each reporter fired a different question at me at the same time.

I put my hands out to quiet the room. “Please, everyone, we will have a short question-and-answer session at the conclusion of our release. Please hold your questions until then. Let me reiterate: the Tampa Police Department is committed to bringing a resolution to this case in the shortest time possible. We have the department’s full resources and staff at our disposal. That being said, we want to ask for help from the public as well. If you were in the vicinity of the Manchester office building between the hours of midnight and seven a.m. Monday or the vicinity of West Cypress Street between the hours of midnight and nine a.m. this morning and saw anything that seemed suspicious, please call the Tampa Police Department. Again, no matter how insignificant it may seem, we want you to call in and speak with one of our detectives. You can always remain anonymous.”

“Where are you on the case? Do you have any suspects?” A reporter interrupted.

I nodded. “As I said, our team is still working a number of leads. From the evidence we gathered on the first case, we believe that our suspect may be a cab driver. Our first victim was last seen entering a taxi at Tampa International. What we would like to do is ask anyone who had witnessed suspicious activity involving a taxi to phone into the station. We are looking for things like verbal altercations with the drivers, especially if you are a female. We will be stationing additional officers at the airport and will be checking into the cabs and cab drivers coming and going from that area.”

A reporter from the
Tampa Tribune
spoke from the back of the room. “Why are you bringing in the FBI?”

I tried to hold back my annoyance. The press in the room must have missed the part where I’d told them to hold their questions until the end.

“The TPD has a great relationship with our FBI field office. They have resources and databases that are unavailable to us at a local level. The captain called them to lend us a hand. They are sending us over a profiler to work with the team that we have assembled. Once that profile is complete, we will release it to the press.”

“Lieutenant Kane, in your opinion, what kind of person are we dealing with here?”

Clearly, the press was just going to keep firing questions at me.

“Anyone who commits acts of violence on women is sick and depraved in my opinion. That’s going to be it for me, guys. I’m going to turn it back over to Sam James to wrap up. Thank you.”

I stepped away, and Sam took the podium.

“That is going to be it for us for today. We have to let our team get back to the investigation. I’ll take a couple quick questions if you have them ready.”

The media rustled around writing notes and going over what they heard in the briefing. Rich Brimley, a reporter for the
Tampa Tribune
, threw up a hand.