The Professor (2 page)

A group of women stood next to the fountain. The circle opened, and Meg’s mouth sagged open in shock as Didi Hammond, clad only in her Victoria’s Secret underwear, lurched toward the wide ledge surrounding the Trev.

“Oh, my God!” Meg turned appalled eyes from Didi to Tony.

“No way,” he said with a laugh.

Uptight, über-bitch Didi? Drunk? In her underwear?

Normally the sophomore wrapped her upper-class entitlement so tightly around herself Meg wondered how she could breathe.

Didi climbed over the ledge into the knee-deep pool. Egged on by the cheering women, she turned an unsteady pirouette. Someone added liquid soap, and bubbles exploded under Neptune’s steely gaze. Didi giggled and grabbed at the spume. She slipped and landed mid-pool with a wave of foam.

“Go, Didi!” Dino added an enthusiastic male voice to the women’s encouragement.

Didi crawled to the nearest mermaid and hauled herself upright. The self-appointed guardian of virtue cavorted in what were now see-through undergarments, splashing mounds of bubbles at her admiring audience.

Other male voices approached the fountain. Once they reached the surrounding lights, Meg realized the voices belonged to Sigma Nus who were half-carrying Didi’s boyfriend, Brad. He was equally drunk, very naked, and obviously very happy to see Didi. He clambered over the ledge, tripped and belly flopped into the fountain, splashing water and bubbles over the growing crowd.

“Hope he didn’t break anything important,” Tony murmured into Meg’s ear. Given the husky note in his voice, he found the scene a turn-on rather than appallingly amusing.

“Maybe it’ll keep him from reproducing.”

Brad staggered to his feet and caught Didi in a sloppy embrace. Within seconds, his tongue was down her throat and his hands were in her panties. Didi clung to his shoulders and hooked a leg around him.

“Go for it,” the guys called.

“You don’t think he’ll actually…?” Meg tugged on Tony’s arm.

“If we’re lucky,” Dino answered from her other side.

If anyone deserved the chance to make a fool of herself, it was Didi, but drunken
sex as a spectator sport went too far. “Do something, Tony.”

“Com’ on, Teach. They’re just doing what comes natural.”

More people poured from the surrounding buildings and camera phones flashed.

“We can’t let them screw in front of everybody.”

“I’m not sure they know or care.”

Meg gave him an exasperated glare and shoved past the people closest to the fountain. “Didi,” she called as she pulled off her first sneaker.

Tony sighed and followed her. “I’ll do it.”

He stepped over the ledge and waded toward the oblivious couple. Smacking Brad’s shoulder, he knocked him back several feet. Didi lost her balance and fell, landing in a billow of bubbles. Brad gaped drunkenly at Tony. “Wha-a?” He looked around as if he’d lost something, but couldn’t quite remember what. “Didi?”

Tony hauled Didi to her feet. “She’s right here. You need to get a room, man.”

The pair gaped at him, as if their hearing were on a time delay setting. Slowly, Didi’s head turned, her eyes squinting at the sea of faces surrounding the fountain. A flurry of activity caught her attention, and a well-dressed brunette emerged from the crowd.

The woman stared, horrified, at the sodden trio. “Oh, my God, Didi. What did they do to you?”

Didi blinked as her friend’s words apparently registered. She sank to her knees and crossed her arms over her chest. “They made me do it,” she sobbed.

Thursday, late morning

Mick O’Shaughnessy sat in his car behind the brick building that housed the county medical examiner’s office. The sun shining through the window felt good against the morning chill. He cracked the window, savoring the fresh air, and slumped in the seat, postponing the moment he had to enter the building.

His empty stomach rumbled—the coffee he’d had at the Geigers’ burned—but he never ate before an autopsy. He dreaded autopsies—a necessary evil in homicide investigations. He couldn’t imagine working with the dead day in and day out; better Dr. Spindler than him. Technically, he wasn’t required to attend, but he needed to observe. Everything in the field pointed to the killer he’d been tracking for months. If it was the same man, he wanted to learn it firsthand, not read about the signature detail in a report.

Mick slammed the car door and walked into the building. He’d spent the morning with Emily Geiger’s shattered family. While the crime scene techs processed the girl’s bedroom, he interviewed—or at least tried to interview—her parents. The victim’s family usually talked more, remembered more details, in comfortable surroundings, but the experience was always surreal: the sunny living room, family portraits smiling from the walls, the central player gone forever, the ones left behind slack with shock. Like the other families, the Geigers lived in an upscale development, this one wrapped around a golf course. The lavish appointments hadn’t kept tragedy from finding them. This family was as bewildered as the rest, endlessly wondering what they’d done wrong.

Mick had read the statements taken when Emily disappeared, but he’d pressed for details, searching for and finding the pattern of harassment. She’d mentioned the feeling of being watched. Her laptop confirmed at least one harassing e-mail message. If she’d deleted others, the computer jockeys in Columbia could recover them. Her parents had been stunned, then angry. They’d lashed out at Mick, as if his uncovering the information made him responsible for her death.

In the autopsy suite changing room, Mick layered a surgical gown and shoe covers over his clothing and added a paper cap. The cap kept his stray hairs out of the operating field. The rest was because he’d seen what spilled off the table. The stench he’d carry home in his hair and clothes was bad enough. He didn’t need to add blood and clumps of tissue. Before donning gloves, he twirled a Q-tip through the vat of VapoRub and dabbed the greasy concoction under his nose. The sharp scent masked at least some of death’s pungency.

Squaring his shoulders, he opened the connecting door to the autopsy room. The place was spotless, gleaming tile and polished stainless steel. Jerry Jordan and Larry Robbins were already in place. Jordan stood against the wall, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the table. Robbins apparently still couldn’t decide whether he thought SLED was helping or interfering. Arms crossed, jaw jutting stoically, he stood opposite Dr. Spindler. “Wasn’t sure you were going to show up.”

“The Geigers had a lot on their mind,” Mick said mildly.

Robbins stared at him a moment, glanced at the draped corpse, then roamed the room for a place to focus his attention. “They took it pretty hard.”

“Most parents would.”

Dr. Spindler snapped his gloves into place. Mick had arranged for him to autopsy
this latest victim, since he’d examined the first ones. His assistant had the body prepped and the instruments in place. He removed the screening drape. Emily’s remains lay on the steel table in horrifying contrast to the vibrant photos Mick had endured that morning. No one would call her pretty now.

Under the pitiless glare of the examination lights, she looked in worse shape than she had in the woods. Rigor had broken overnight. At least her limbs lay slack and straight. The greenish skin of her abdomen drew his attention. For a moment, he irrationally imagined the decay arose from the site of her violation rather than the natural action of bacteria. His stomach turned over and he wished he’d skipped the coffee too.

Forcing professional detachment, Mick silently studied the pattern of cuts and bruises. “What kind of knife did he use?”

“A medium-sized chef’s knife. The blade was unserrated. See the jags here?” Dr. Spindler pointed to her thigh. “Some initial hesitation on these, but none here.” His hand moved to the breast and abdomen.

“He gained confidence as he went,” Mick said.

Robbins stood ramrod straight, his gaze locked on the sliced flesh. “Hell of a skill to acquire.”

Jordan ventured a quick look. He gagged, lurched to the sink and vomited. He clung to the steel counter a few minutes, then rinsed his mouth and returned to his former position. Two red spots burned on his otherwise pale cheeks.

Keeping his eyes on the corpse, Mick said conversationally, “The first time I saw a dead body, I was fresh out of the Academy, riding shotgun with a patrol sergeant. We were first on the scene for a wreck out on 520. You know the four-lane going into Myrtle Beach?”

He glanced at Jordan. The kid’s eyes were still fixed on the floor. “A logging truck spilled its load.”

“A log fall on somebody?” Robbins asked from Mick’s other side.

An interested expression lifted the man’s features. Mick gave him a startled look, then continued his story. “Nope. A kid in a convertible—his license said he was sixteen—must’ve panicked when the first log came off. There weren’t any skid marks.”

“He probably hit the gas instead of the brake.”

“Probably. He went straight under the trailer.” Mick caught the wince that wrinkled Jordan’s face. “I walked over to where the car stuck out from under the chassis. The kid’s head was lying on the road, looking up at me.”

Jordan gagged again.

“When I came to, my sergeant was scraping me off the pavement, while a Highway Patrol officer hovered behind him. Sarge never said another word about it. Just told me to keep my head between my knees until the spinning stopped.”

Jordan didn’t say anything, but his shoulders dropped an inch as his tension level fell. Message received. Nobody thought less of him for tossing his cookies over a mutilated body.

“The skin’s already been taped for hair and fiber,” the doctor said into the following silence. “I don’t think we’ll find much trace evidence. Her dental X-rays are on the light box. Dr. Christopher sent them over last night.”

The curse and advantage of living in a small town: the tragedy touched everyone, but they were also quick to help. Mick crossed to the viewer, relieved to move away
from the body. He studied the film clipped to the flat box. Teeth like small headstones glowed softly against the black background.

“Silver amalgam filling in number two. And see the short, blunt roots on seventeen through twenty-eight? Orthodontic work.”

Orthodonture. Long after the flesh was gone, the teeth distinguished the rich from the poor. Someone struggling to put food on the table didn’t worry about the appearance of the teeth that bit it. All three victims were sounding distressingly familiar—young, female, college students. White, pretty, well-to-do. “Confirmed match, then?”

“These are definitely the remains of Emily Geiger. The cap would confirm it, if I had any remaining doubts.”

“She’s kind of young for caps.”

“Number seven.” He gestured at his left front tooth. “She probably broke it when she was a kid. The color’s a little off. The fill material doesn’t stain at the same rate as natural enamel.”

Jordan stirred. “She fell off the monkey bars at school.”

Ah, shit. Jordan knew her. Probably grew up with her.
Mick looked at the X-rays, waiting a beat, until he was fairly confident both of their faces would be calm. Returning to the table, he studied the pattern of bruises around the neck. The discoid bruises were visible even against the underlying postmortem discoloration. “Did you x-ray the neck?”

Dr. Spindler nodded. “There are bilateral thyroid horn fractures, consistent with manual strangulation. So’s the petechiae.”

Manual strangulation. Dr. Mathews, the forensic psychologist consulting with the task force, called it the most intimate way to kill someone. Face to face; flesh on flesh. Squeezing her throat until he felt her life drain away.

“What’s petech-y?” Jordan asked, inching closer.

“Petechiae. Strangulation causes an increase in venous and capillary pressure that damages the inner walls of the capillaries. The result is minute points of bleeding— pinpoint hemorrhages—in the softer tissues.” Dr. Spindler rolled the corpse’s right eyelid. The pinpoints were visible on both the eye and the inner lid.

Frank Meyers, Mick’s partner, pushed through the changing room door. A big, sandy-haired man, he was in his late forties. Fast food and no exercise had padded his body with a spare tire and jowls. With an open face and gentle, brown eyes, the extra weight gave him a teddy-bear approachability, and Mick wished he’d been present for the family interview that morning.

“Sorry,” Frank said. “Did I miss much?”

“We’re just getting started.” Dr. Spindler turned to his assistant. “Let’s get her in position.”

Mick steeled himself for the worst indignity—the rape exam. He couldn’t imagine how a living, breathing, humiliated woman endured it. Not for the first time, he was grateful he was male and excluded from those examination rooms. But he couldn’t escape the ritual in the autopsy suite. Rage spurted through his detachment. This murdering bastard not only ended Emily Geiger’s life, he threw her away like yesterday’s garbage, and brought her to this final degradation. Mick clamped his jaw closed and focused on the table as the assistant spread the corpse’s legs.

Frank shifted uncomfortably beside him. Mick suspected he had been late on
purpose, hoping to miss this part. The man had three teenage daughters.

“Did you x-ray the pelvis?” Mick asked. He watched Dr. Spindler’s hands, feeling like a ghoulish voyeur.

“Definitely a foreign object there.”

Dr. Spindler made vaginal and rectal swabs. After rolling a swab across a slide, he added saline and moved to the microscope. He adjusted the machine and examined the first slide. “This is different.”

Mick’s attention sharpened. “What?”

“We have semen.”

He hung over the doctor’s shoulder. “Enough to work with? How soon can we get a DNA profile?”

“Whoa, O’Shaughnessy. One step at a time.”

Dr. Spindler quickly examined the remaining slides, then returned to the table. Moving his task light, the doctor catalogued the damage to the genitalia in a detached voice. He inserted a speculum and slid forceps into the vaginal opening. Moments later, he extracted a rock and dropped it with a clang into a sterile receptacle.

“What the hell?” Robbins burst out.

“It’s him,” Mick said flatly. “That’s his signature.”

The psychiatrists could talk all day about what it meant and why he did it. To Mick, it just confirmed who killed Emily Geiger. But the killer had made a mistake. He’d left behind evidence. If there was any justice, the bastard’s DNA was in the Combined Index System.
Just give me a name. I’ll hunt him down like the animal he is.

As far as Mick was concerned, the autopsy was over, but he had to endure the rest of it. Dr. Spindler started the Y-shaped incision, moving from the left shoulder to the sternum, then matching the incision from the right. When he opened the belly, Mick took a step backward, as the stench of decomposing organs hit the air like a polluted wave. “Jeez.”

The pathologist looked up, then silently returned to work.

Mick wondered if the man’s olfactory system even worked anymore or if it had shut down in self-defense.

Several long hours later, the procedures were finally finished. Mick removed the protective garments, tossed them in the basket and headed toward his car. He needed to shower and change clothes before the meeting with all the task force detectives. He could remove the source of the stench, but he knew he would smell the residue—he imagined it trapped in his sinuses—all day.

His partner jogged down the hall after him. “Cap’n just paged me. Conference call this afternoon at three o’clock.”

Mick glanced at his watch. That didn’t leave much time to clean up. “He say what it’s about?”

Frank shook his head. “Something over at Douglass College. A girl was kidnapped and assaulted on campus. Some boy broke it up. Cap’n thought it might be related to our case.”

Mick frowned. “That doesn’t sound like our guy’s MO. He’s never assaulted a woman in the open.”

“I got the impression this came from somewhere up the ladder. Like maybe the Chief told the Cap’n to look into it.”

“Great. Just what we need. More pressure and more politics.”

“Yeah,” Frank sighed. “Guess dinner isn’t happening today, either.”

“Look at it this way. You may drop some of that weight you bitch about.”

Frank patted his belly. “Not my preferred method. I’d rather drop it on a beach, with a sailboat and a big margarita.”

“Oh, yeah. That’d work off a lot of pounds.”

“The blonde with me might help.”

“Swinging from the catamaran’s trapeze?” Mick laughed. “Does Marilyn know about this?”

“Yeah, yeah. Rub it in. Guy’s gotta have his fantasies. You’ll get old someday. I’m gonna laugh when
your
hair starts falling out.”

“Ain’t gonna happen. My granddad still has all his hair.”

“He’s your dad’s dad. Baldness comes from the mother’s side. I always knew women caused it. And I’ve got four of them at home. Five if you count the dog.”

“You’re just frustrated. Makes you tear your hair out.”

“Something you wouldn’t know about.”

Being single had its own frustrations, Mick thought. “See you at four.”

The Professor folded the newspaper neatly and deposited it in the recycle bin. He would have liked to keep it, but if the police ever came calling, he didn’t want evidence of his conquests lying around. He’d read enough—studied numerous case histories—to know better. Then again, if they saw the articles, here in his home, it would already be too late. They wouldn’t come unless they knew.

Affiliates in the larger cities were covering the story now. He’d been disappointed at first. Mary Baldwin’s death was front page in the
Greenville News
for two days before a train derailment pushed the story to the Metro section. The
Spartanburg Herald
ran Ashley Cohen’s story longer—it was a smaller town—but the coverage trailed off when no lead appeared to keep the story moving. There’d been a brief flurry of excitement last month when a reporter, finally clued in by SLED joining the investigation, linked the two deaths.