“I begin shooting them next week.”
Then they’d be alone. And Munch hadn’t paid anyone else yet. He should have a lot of cash in his house. “How much farther out is your studio?” Greg demanded. “We must have gone fifty miles.”
“Not much farther,” Munch replied. He smiled and Greg felt a cold shiver burn down his back. “I don’t like to bother my neighbors, so I live out where no one can hear me.”
“How would you bother them?” Greg asked, not so sure he wanted the answer.
“Oh, I host medieval reenacting groups.”
“You mean like jousting and shit?”
Munch smiled again. “And shit.” He turned off the highway. “That’s my house.”
“Nice place,” Greg murmured. “Classic Victorian.”
“I’m glad you approve.” He pulled into the driveway. “Come in.”
Greg followed Munch, impatient that the old man took so long walking with the damn cane. Inside he looked around, wondering where the old man kept his money.
“This way,” Munch said and led him into a room filled with costumes. Some were on hangers, while others were worn by faceless mannequins. It looked like a medieval department store. “You’ll wear this.” Munch pointed to a friar’s robe.
“Pay me first.”
Munch looked annoyed. “You’ll be paid when I am satisfied. Get dressed.” He turned to go and Greg knew it was now or never.
Do it. Quickly he flipped out his blade, moved in behind the old man and hooked his arm around Munch’s neck, pressing the sharp edge against his throat. “You’ll pay me now, old man. Walk slowly to wherever you keep your money and you won’t get hurt.”
Munch went still. Then in an explosion of movement he grasped Greg’s thumb and twisted. Greg yelped with pain and his knife clattered to the floor. His arm was whipped behind his back and a second later he was on the ground, Munch’s knee in his back.
“You slimy little sonofabitch,” Munch said and it was not the voice of an old man.
Greg could barely hear him over the pounding in his head. The pain was excruciating. His arm, his hand. They were burning. Pop. Greg screamed as his wrist snapped. Then moaned when his elbow did the same.
“That was for trying to rob me,” Munch said, grabbed a handful of Greg’s hair and smashed his head into the floor. “That was for calling me old.”
Nausea rolled through him when Munch stood up and pocketed his blade. Get help. He slipped his hand into his pocket and fumbled his cell open with his left hand. He had time only to push one button before Munch’s boot came crashing against his kidneys.
“Hands out of your pockets.” He shoved his boot into Greg’s stomach and flipped him to his back. Greg could only stare in horror as Munch pulled off his gray wig. Munch wasn’t old. He wasn’t gray. He was totally bald. Munch pulled off his goatee and put it next to the wig. The eyebrows were last and Greg’s stomach clenched as panic gave way to cold hard fear. Munch had no eyebrows. He had no hair of any kind.
He’s going to kill me. Greg coughed and tasted blood. “What are you going to do?”
Munch smiled down at him. “Terrible things, Greg. Terrible, terrible things.”
Scream. But when he tried, all that came out was a pathetic croak.
Munch threw his arms wide. “Scream all you want. No one can hear you. No one will save you. I’ve killed them all.” He bent down until all Greg could see were his eyes, cold and furious. “They all thought they suffered, but their suffering was nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you.”
Chapter Twelve
Tuesday, January 16, 5:00
P.M.
Sober-faced, they’d reassembled to debrief. Vito sat at the head of the table, Liz on his right, Jen on his left. Next to Jen were Bev and Tim. Katherine sat next to Liz, her expression drawn. Vito thought about her having to do autopsies on all those bodies. She probably had the worst job of them all.
Although informing a family that their nineteen-year-old daughter was dead had been no picnic either. “Nick’s on his way from court,” he told Liz. “They just adjourned.”
“Did he testify?”
“Not yet. ADA Lopez thinks it’ll be tomorrow.”
“Let’s hope so. Well, bring me up to speed so we can get out of here.”
Vito checked his watch. “I’m also expecting Thomas Scarborough.”
Jen McFain’s brows went up. “Nice. Scarborough’s a great profiler. But how did you get him so quickly? Last I heard he had a client list months long.”
“You can thank Nick Lawrence for that.” A tall man with linebacker’s shoulders and wavy chestnut hair came into the room and from the corner of his eye Vito saw both Beverly and Jen sit a little straighter. Dr. Thomas Scarborough wasn’t what Vito thought most women called movie-star handsome, but he had a presence that filled the room. He leaned over and shook Vito’s hand. “You must be Chick. I’m Scarborough.”
Vito shook his hand. “Thanks for coming, Dr. Scarborough.”
“Thomas,” he said and took a seat. “ADA Lopez introduced me to your partner outside court this morning. We were waiting to testify. Nick asked me about perps who use torture, and I was intrigued.”
Vito introduced everyone, then went to the whiteboard where he’d drawn the grave matrix that morning. “We’ve confirmed that the woman with the folded hands is Brittany Bellamy. We compared prints from her bedroom to the vic’s. They’re hers.”
“So we’ve identified three of the nine,” Liz said. “What do they have in common?”
Vito shook his head. “We don’t know. Warren and Brittany were on the modeling website, but Claire was not. Warren and Brittany were tortured. The killer broke Claire’s neck, but did no more. There was at least a year between their murders.”
“The one thing they do have in common is that they were all buried in that field,” Jen said. “I didn’t think the fill dirt was from the field and I was right. The field is mostly clay. The fill dirt used in all the graves is sandier. It probably came from a quarry.”
Tim Riker sighed. “And Pennsylvania is full of quarries.”
Liz frowned. “But why use fill dirt from somewhere else? Why not use the dirt he dug from the hole in the first place?”
“That’s actually an easy question to answer,” Jen said. “The soil from the field gets clumpy when it gets wet. The quarry soil is sandy, so it doesn’t absorb water the same way. It flows. It would be easier to pack a body in sand rather than clumpy clay.”
“Can we identify where exactly the soil came from?” Beverly asked her.
“I’ve called in a geologist. His team is looking at the breakdown of the minerals to give us an idea of where that soil naturally occurs. But it’s going to take a few days.”
“Can we get them to move any faster?” Liz asked. “Get them to up their resources?”
Jen lifted her hands. “I tried to push it, but so far everyone is telling me that is the fastest they can work, and that is with the maximum resources. But I can try again.”
Liz nodded. “Then do. The nature of his burial pattern indicates he’s not finished. He could be working on a new victim right now. Two days could make a big difference.”
“Especially since we’ve disrupted his routine,” Thomas said quietly. “This killer is incredibly obsessive-compulsive. He’s left one open space at the end of the third row, and if his current pattern holds, he’ll be looking for a new victim any time now. When he finds you’ve discovered his carefully planned burial site… It’s going to throw him. He’s going to be angry, maybe disoriented.”
“Maybe he’ll make a mistake,” Beverly said.
Thomas nodded. “It’s possible. It’s also possible that he’ll retreat, go under and regroup. He went almost a year between the first murders and these recent ones. He could wait another year. Or more.”