The Rainy Day Killer (2 page)

“Did they get any shots of her before they got the tent up?”

“I don’t think so,” Montgomery replied, “but traffic’s slow at this time of morning coming off the bridge and someone may have gotten something on their cell phone from a vehicle up there before they moved her. We’ll have to see what turns up. Will you make a statement at this time?”

Hank shook his head, causing droplets of rain to fall from his frizzy brown hair
. They ran down his cheek. “It’s all yours.”

“All right, Lieutenant.”

He watched her walk away, eyes on her tablet, index finger tap-tapping. He turned to see uniformed officers holding up a tarpaulin as Chalmers supervised the movement of the body from the tent to a body bag. The bag was then shifted onto a gurney for transportation to the morgue.

Behind Chalmers, Karen looked over at him.

The raindrops on her face could have been misinterpreted as tears, but the anger in her eyes was unmistakable.

2

Wednesday, April 24: late morning

Karen pulled into an empty spot in the parking lot of the Glendale Forensic Medical Center and killed the engine on the brand-new, unmarked Ford Taurus. One of the police interceptor models, it had just been assigned to her on Monday by the motor pool, replacing her beloved Crown Victoria. She hated it. It drove well enough, admittedly, but it wasn’t a Crown Vic, so for that reason alone she hated it with a passion.

“You’ll get used to it,” the guy had told her as she’d signed the paperwork for it. “Couple of days, you’ll think you should’ve been driving one all along.”

“It looks like a fucking pace car at a harness race.” She handed back the clipboard. “I’m lucky it doesn’t have advertising on the doors for Pizza Hut or some fucking thing.”

“You’ll love it. Trust me.”

Karen trusted no one, especially a weasel-necked goober in coveralls who parked cars for a living, but when she floored the accelerator on the expressway she found that it had a little zip to it after all. But it wasn’t a Crown Vic. So it sucked.

Inside the smaller autopsy theater Karen found Harry Shaniwatru and
Sarah Chalmers completing the external examination of the body from beneath the bridge. Chalmers was measuring the restraint marks on the right ankle while Harry wrote down the numbers as she recited them aloud.

Harry
looked up and grinned weakly at Karen.

“Wow,” she said before he could speak, “did you win or lose?”

Harry was sporting two black eyes and a butterfly bandage on the bridge of his nose, which had obviously been broken again. A small cut just above his right eyebrow held three stitches, and his lower lip was scabbed in the middle. His left hand, which gripped the pen he was using to write down the measurements being fed to him by Chalmers, was red and puffy.

“I won,” he said quietly, “but it took some doing.”

“Obviously.” Karen shook her head. “You really should be worried about head injury, Harry. You don’t need the money anymore, do you? You should be thinking about hanging them up.”

“That’s what I told him,” Chalmers said without looking up from her work.

The son of Thai immigrants, Harry had started boxing as a student, first as an amateur and later, after failing to qualify for the Olympics, as a professional to help pay his way through college. His record as a pro stood at twenty-one wins—counting last night’s bout—and twelve losses, which was good but not great. At five feet, four inches tall, he stood about an inch and a half shorter than the current champion in the flyweight class, but the fact that he was a southpaw sometimes compensated for his lack of height and reach, as did his complete fearlessness in the ring.

Harry had begun working for the
Office of the Medical Examiner four years ago as a contract forensic investigator while completing his MD at State University. His objective was to become a pathologist, but last summer he’d put those career plans on hold when his father passed away and he was forced to move back home to look after his mother, who spoke no English and seldom went outdoors. Dr. Jim Easton, the medical examiner, considered Harry to be the best diener currently on contract and offered him a position that would allow him to move from the midnight shift to full-time days as a pathologist assistant. He was a favorite not only of Easton but also of Chalmers, who’d begun to nag him about giving up boxing while his brain was still intact.

“I’m thinking about it,” he admitted to Karen. “But enough about me. Would you like to know who your victim is?”

Karen raised an eyebrow. “Hell, yeah. What’ve you got?”

“We got a hit on her fingerprints right away,” Chalmers said, turning away from the dissecting table to pick up a tablet. “She was a school teacher, so her prints are in the system.”

Karen took the tablet and looked it over. Theresa Olsen was born on March 12, 1989, which made her twenty-four years of age. Born and raised in Glendale, her education degree was from State University. She’d taught Grade Two at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Springhill. Her home address was just around the corner from the school. The security check that had recorded her fingerprints was less than a year old, meaning that Theresa Olsen had not yet completed her first year as a teacher. The kids would be upset when they found out what had happened to Miss Olsen.

Karen made a face.

“I know,” Chalmers said, as though reading her thoughts.

“What can you tell me?”

“First of all,” Chalmers said, “I have to apologize, because we’re not going to be able to do the internal until four this afternoon. I hate to make you come back, but the schedule’s bad right now. Harry and I shoehorned in the external, though, because I said we’d have something this morning and we know you want to get moving on it.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Karen said. “Horvath would love to come over this afternoon. He’s that kind of guy.”

“It’s apparent she was held for several days,” Chalmers continued, “judging by the number and aging of the contusions on her neck, ankles and wrists, plus indications of dehydration. I expect the stomach will be empty, or nearly so. The ligature looks to have been manila rope, three-eighths of an inch. Harry used adhesive tape in the hope that we might pick up any trace fibers the killer missed when he cleaned her.”

Karen glanced at Harry, who was sitting at the computer at the far end of the room.

“His hands are as steady as a surgeon’s,” Chalmers said, following her eyes. “I don’t know how he does it. I really wish he’d quit, though. He’s going to seriously hurt himself.”

“Yeah.” Karen turned back to the body. “So you’re sure it was strangulation and not drowning.”

“I expect to find very little water in the lungs, if any. There’s no doubt she was left on dry land, and that she was already deceased.” Chalmers leaned forward and pointed at a mark on the left side of the neck. “I’d say this was from a stun gun, and this,” she moved down and indicated a tiny puncture wound on the left thigh, “is an injection site. See the bruising around it? The syringe was applied with some force, several days ago. There are other injection sites over here,” Chalmers edged past Karen and walked around the table to point at the right shoulder. “See? One, two, three, four, five. No bruising, though. We’ll see what the toxicology report tells us, but I can guess.”

“So can I.” Karen went back around to the other side of the table and pointed at the mark on the neck. “Stuns her here and then pounds in a sedative right away, here,” she motioned with her fist at the
bruise on the left thigh, “then later on gives her injections in the right shoulder while she’s tied up, to control her.”

Chalmers nodded.

“Stunned and injected on the left side,” Karen said, staring at the body. “Passenger seat of a car, maybe. He talks her into a car and then stuns and drugs her from the driver’s seat.”

Chalmers
tucked an errant red curl back under her hair net.

Karen leaned closer. “What the hell did he
cut off the breasts for? What’d he do with them?”

“I hate to think.”

“Christ. Tell me about the sexual assaults.”

“We’ve done the swabs,” Chalmers said. “It appears as though the cleaning process included an enema and douching in an attempt to eliminate all traces of semen, but we’ve only just begun our work and we’ll see what the internal yields.” She looked at Karen. “I can assure you, Karen, the last word hasn’t been spoken on this one. Not by a long shot.”

Karen remained silent, looking at the body.

“There are the expected injuries to the vagina and the anus consistent with repeated rape,” Chalmers said. “He shaved her as part of the cleaning process, nicking her once, obviously post-mortem. There wasn’t a single loose hair to be found. Harry never misses them, and neither do I.”

“Like he had all night,” Karen said.

“He was very careful. Meticulous. But one thing to keep in mind is that he only had two to three hours after killing her to do all this, plus transport her to the river and position her, before rigor would begin to stiffen the limbs.”

“You said before you thought time of death was about seven thirty last night. Anything change your mind on that?”

Chalmers shook her head. “Not so far. I’ll be able to answer the question better once we’ve done the internal, but I think it’s a fairly safe bet.”

“All right. Thanks, Doc.”

“Karen, do me a favor?” Chalmers asked, her voice rising.

Karen turned from the body, raising an eyebrow. “Sure, Doc. What?”

“Nail this son of a bitch’s ass to the wall, will you
? Please?”

Karen’s pale blue eyes were steady.

“Count on it.”

3

Wednesday, April 24: midday

After picking up Horvath downtown, Karen drove across the river into Wilmingford to notify Theresa Olsen’s parents of their daughter’s death. At the curb outside the modest ranch-style house on Strathton Road, they waited for only five minutes before they were joined by the chaplain from Victim Services. By mutual agreement Karen took the lead, drawing on experience in giving bad news to parents that had been developed over several years as a detective working family-related crime. Horvath was more than happy to take a back seat on this one.

Tom Olsen was a longshoreman who worked at the marine port
of entry in Wilmingford. It was his habit to have lunch with his wife Brenda every day, and so both parents were at home when Karen knocked on the front door. She sat them down in the living room to break the news, holding Brenda’s hands as she cried her way through it and answering Tom’s angry questions as delicately as possible, given the circumstances. It was necessary that they know at least as much as they might see on the six o’clock news, but it couldn’t be piled on them all at once. She led them through it in small steps, using their questions as an opportunity to release a small detail, working through the emotional reaction to it, then finding a way to move on to the next thing they needed to know. It was time-consuming and stressful work that demanded sensitivity and patience, and the chaplain spelled her off occasionally, offering the well-intended, meaningless words that innocent, wounded people like the Olsens need so desperately to hear at such times.

Eventually they reached the point where it was time to stop giving out information and to start asking for it. Choosing a moment when Brenda’s sobbing and Tom’s cursing had subsided, Horvath
leaned forward. “When was the last time either of you spoke to Theresa?”

“Last Friday,” Brenda said, staring at
a wad of tissue poking out of her right fist. “I called her after supper to see how she was doing.”

“How did she seem?”

“Fine. She was fine. There wasn’t nothing wrong, nothing at all.”

“Did she say whether she had any plans for the weekend? E
ither that night or the next day, for example?”

“
Nothing I know about.”

“
Did she have any close friends?” Karen asked. “Someone who might be able to help us figure out her whereabouts on Friday or Saturday?”

Tom shook his head. “She was a real quiet girl, didn’t go out much. Kept to herself.
There was Melanie, another girl from school she talked about sometimes.”

“Cheryl Kasten,” Brenda said. “From high school. B
ut I don’t think she went out with Cheryl since Valentine’s Day. They went to a party together, but Theresa didn’t stay very long. She went home by herself and then talked to me on the phone for an hour about it.”

“Oh?”

“Cheryl picked up some guy and left Theresa by herself. Theresa didn’t know no one else, so she called a taxi and went home.”

“Did
she have a boyfriend?”

Brenda shook her head. When Karen looked at Tom, he shook his head as well. “She was shy.”

“What about neighbors?” Karen asked. “She ever mention anyone where she lives?”

Tom shook his head. “She didn’t really know the other pe
ople, except the superintendent or whatever she calls herself, and that was just to give her the rent checks and one time to get her to fix the toilet.”

“When did she move there?”

“Last August, before the school year started.”

“And before that?”

“Here. At home.”

“While she was a student?”

“Not her first year,” Tom said, “because they told her she had to live a year on campus. Residency requirements. After that she came home, because we couldn’t afford it no more. We were barely able to make her tuition and expenses.”

“So she’d lived away from home before, but this was her first place o
f her own?”

“Ye
s. She was real proud of it.”

They asked a few more questions, building up a picture of a young, inexperienced
, and lonely young woman tentatively starting out in life. When they reached the point where they’d gathered about as much information as they were liable to get, Karen and Horvath left the chaplain with the Olsens and went out to the car.

As he got into the passenger seat of the Taurus and buckled up,
Horvath looked up through the windshield at the sky.

“Looks like it’s starting to clear up.”

Karen started the engine. “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m supposed to meet Sandy at The Brass Pump for lunch. That okay? We can still talk. He won’t care.”

“Sure,” Horvath said.

Karen eased away from the curb and accelerated slowly, in case one of the Olsens might be watching from the window. At the corner she stopped, signaled, looked both ways, turned left onto Hinson Road and then floored it, snapping Horvath’s head back against the headrest.

Sandy had reserved a table at The Brass Pump but hadn’t a
rrived yet, so Karen and Horvath ordered strong coffee and plates of nachos that they devoured while going over photos Horvath had brought along in the car with him.

Although he was five years younger and more comfortable with the technological devices that had been everywhere at the crime scene this morning, Horvath shared Karen’s preference for eight-by-ten gloss
ies from the big laser printer on the ninth floor. They were still pawing through them with salsa-sticky fingers when Sandy Alexander slid into the booth next to Karen and pecked her cheek. “Sorry I’m late. Meeting ran long.”

Karen squeezed his thigh. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll punish you later.”

“Ow.” Short, slim, dark-haired and neatly groomed, Sandy wore a tidy blue suit with a white shirt and a dark blue tie. He looked like a shoe salesman. He smiled at the server who immediately came over, ordered coffee, then gave his attention to the table for the first time. “What’s this?”

“Rape
and murder, early this morning.”

A special agent with the local field office of the Federal B
ureau of Investigation, Sandy’s eyes roved across the photos spread out on the table, his professional curiosity immediately aroused. He reached out and picked up a close-up shot of an ankle, noticing the layered restraint marks. “Nasty.”

Karen looked at Horvath. “
We should put these away. Sandy wants me to talk about wedding stuff. He’s got a whole checklist of crap I have to do, for cryin’ out loud.”

Horvath held up his hands. “Oh, hey. Don’t mind me.” He began to gather up the pho
tographs. “We can do this later. I’ll get some takeout.”

“No,” Sandy said. “Wait.”

Karen and Horvath both looked at him.

His eyes were roving the table with sudden intensity. He put down the photograph of the ankle and suddenly snapped up a full-length shot of the body with the head still submerged in water. “Oh, shit.” He picked up another photo showing the body from the waist down. “Oh, Christ.”

Karen frowned at him. “What?”

“What is it?” Horvath asked.

Sandy picked up another photo, then another. “This was this morning? Here?”

“What do mean, here?” Karen asked.

“I mean here. Glendale. She was found here this morning?”

“Of course she was.
Weren’t you listening? What the hell, Sandy?”

He
carefully put the prints down on the table, rubbing his upper lip with a knuckle. He glanced at Horvath and turned to Karen. “I’ve seen this before. Same dump MO, same basic positioning. Ligature strangulation, right? Multiple? Like he strangled her to the point of unconsciousness several times over the course of several days, before finishing her off?” He turned his attention back to the photographs on the table. “I didn’t see all the pictures. Is there breast mutilation as well?”

“Oh, shit,” Horvath said.

“Spill it, Sandy,” Karen ordered. “What the hell have you got?”

“I’ve seen photos like this before
,” Sandy repeated. “I’ve seen this modus operandi before. I think your victim was done by a serial killer. He’s been in Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that we know of. Now it looks like he’s here.”

Karen’s shoulders slumped. “Christ.”

Sandy nodded. “It looks like she was a victim of the Rainy Day Killer.”