A numeral, 122, was printed on Strayhan’s forehead.
“Another number,” Dixon said.
Another number. Another victim. More puzzles. My brain hurts.
Vail pointed at a section of disturbed soil. “Over there.”
Dixon leaned over to get a better look. “Impressions in the dirt. A ladder, maybe.”
“He needed to get Strayhan up onto the pedestal. Do you see any yellow rope?”
“Isn’t that what was used at Palace of Fine Arts?”
Vail hiked her brow. “You’ve read the files.”
“What little there is, yeah.” Dixon moved around the statue’s circular base. She stopped on the other side, at Columbus’s backside, then pulled a pen from her coat.
“Find something?” Vail asked.
“Think so.” She moved a section of the foliage aside and revealed a coil of rope. “Make that a yes.”
“Yellow?”
Dixon leaned in closer. “Nope. Just plain old braided cord. Tan. Why?”
Vail furrowed her brow, then knelt beside Dixon. What the hell’s going on here? Roberta Strayhan’s crime scene was different than the others. Purposely? Now her husband’s scene…subtly different. A different killer, who read Scheer’s article? Or the same asshole, just screwing with us?
“You’re obsessing over something,” Dixon said.
“Yeah.” Vail stood up. “The pedestal’s only a couple of feet off the ground, but he needed a pulley system. Strayhan’s only about five-five, can’t weigh more than, what-?”
Dixon moved back around to the front to appraise their victim. “Maybe a hundred fifty, hundred forty. But even for someone who’s physically fit, a dead body’s a tough thing to lift. It flops all over the place, and the UNSUB’s gotta keep it upright while he’s tying it to the statue. If there’s no one helping him, there’s really no other way of doing it. The rope made it easy.”
“So he wrapped it around Columbus’s shoulders or neck, then hoisted up the body. Anything else?”
“Until we can cut the body down-”
“That’d be my job.”
They turned around and saw Rex Jackson, kit in hand. He set it down and slung the Nikon from around his shoulder. As he lined up his first shot, Burden and Friedberg joined them.
“None of the staff saw anything,” Burden said. “Probably because that statue is so freaking big.”
“That ‘statue’ is a studly Christopher Columbus.”
“Columbus?” He looked up at the monstrosity. “Looks more like Hercules.”
“We’ve already been through that,” Dixon said.
“Robert,” Vail said. “What’s Columbus doing here? If there’s some reason why this statue is here, it might also tell us if the offender picked this spot for a reason.”
“It’s Pioneer Park. More than that, I don’t know.”
Vail contorted her lips. Pioneer Park. Something with that? Does he see himself as a pioneer of some sort? How does that fit with the other vics and dump sites? And what the hell does it have to do with what I did in New York? New York…there has to be something with that. That’s the key-
“Karen,” Dixon said. “You okay?”
Dixon’s voice knocked Vail out of her reverie. She covered her concern. “I’m staring at another dead body. No, I’m not okay.”
“Anyone have any thoughts on what we’re dealing with here?” Burden turned suddenly, apparently realizing that Allman was standing directly behind them. “Clay, give us a minute, okay?”
He looked disappointed. “Yeah, sure.”
Allman walked back toward the officer as Friedberg tapped out a cigarette. “He left the body in front of Coit Tower. Maybe the UNSUB’s a frustrated volunteer firefighter.”
Vail said, “Probably better to leave the psychoanalysis to me.”
Burden turned to face the Bay. “Fair enough. So what do you think?”
Vail looked out at the fog-socked ocean as well. “Robert may’ve been right.”
Friedberg cupped his hands and lit the cigarette. “You think the guy’s a frustrated volunteer firefighter?”
Vail swung back and squared her jaw. “No. That the offender chose this location for a reason.” She faced the water again. “What’s special about this view?”
“From here?” Friedberg puffed on the lit Marlboro and looked out at the blanketing foggy white landscape in front of them. “Nothing that’s materially different from the other crime scenes. The Bay. The Pacific Ocean. Islands. Sailboats. Ships. Cargo boats. Two bridges. Well, the Bay Bridge is still visible,” he said, cocking his head east, to the extreme right. “Basically, it’s just another vantage point. Beautiful stuff, but it’s pretty much the same thing as what we’ve seen before.”
Two women and a man on Segways rolled by, on some sort of guided tour.
“Do you think the UNSUB meant for it to be this foggy? Did he mean for the view to be obscured?” Vail asked.
Friedberg took a long drag, then spoke while the smoke streamed out of his mouth. “Hard to say. Depends on the day. This time of year, fog like this is common. Sometimes it burns off, sometimes it doesn’t.”
“And the 122?” Burden asked.
Vail only shook her head. “The numbers seem to be all over the place. What if you add up the first three?”
Burden looked at the sky a moment, then said, “Whoa. One-twenty-one.”
“Well,” Dixon said, “121 is not 122.”
“No, it’s not.” Vail thought a moment, then said, “It’s reasonable to assume he killed Strayhan sometime after his wife, then posed him under the cover of darkness.” Vail craned her neck to take in her surroundings. “And the location was carefully chosen-a perfect spot, really, to place a dead body. No security cameras. When the public arrives in the morning, none of the staff is going to see the body because he’s blocked by the statue. But like you said, soon as people start arriving in the parking lot, bam. Max impact.”
“You had a problem with something,” Dixon said. “You spaced out on me when I pointed out the rope.”
“The rope,” Vail said with a nod. “There were some things at the wife’s crime scene that varied from the other vics. And there’s rope here, just like the one at that Palace place, but-”
“Palace of Fine Arts,” Friedberg said.
“Yeah. That one. The rope we found there was a specialized type that a climber may use. But the one he used here, it’s just plain old rope.”
“So things are a little different,” Burden said. “What are you saying?”
“It could be a copycat, going off what he read in Scheer’s article. Or it could be the UNSUB screwing with us. That’s what this kind of killer would do.”
“How can we be sure?” Dixon asked.
“Absent identifying forensics, behavioral analysis may hold the answer. Let’s refocus our efforts, drill down a bit, start with the basics.”