She didn’t scream or faint. The broom still in her hands, she walked back to the house to call the Holloman police. That done, she stationed herself on the edge of the mud to stand guard until help arrived while the dogs, thwarted yet undefeated, circled.
Patrick cordoned off the whole area of the streamlet and concentrated first on the grave, only ten yards from where the dogs had competed for their find.
“My guess is that the raccoons were first,” he said to Carmine, “but I’m positive that she – yes, this has to be Francine – was deliberately buried in order to be unearthed soon after. Just twelve inches down. Eight of the ten pieces are still in situ. Paul found the right humerus in some bushes – raccoons. The left tib-fib and foot were what alerted Mrs. Kyneton. I’ve got reliable people searching, but I don’t think the head is here.”
“Nor do I,” Carmine said. “And it comes back to the Hug.”
“Looks that way. My guess is he’s got a grudge.”
Carmine left Patrick to it and plodded up to the house to find Ruth Kyneton ready and able to talk, though she was by no means indifferent to Francine Murray’s fate.
“Poor little baby! Shoulda been him dog’s meat, only that’s too good. I’d boil him in oil – sit him in it and light the fire with my own hands, then watch him cook real slow,” she said, one hand pressed against her midriff. “Mind if I have a drink of tea, Lieutenant? It settles my stomach.”
“If I can have one too, ma’am.”
“Why us?” she asked. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
“So would I, Mrs. Kyneton. But more importantly, did you see or hear anything last night?”
“You sure it was last night?”
“Fairly sure, but tell me anything unusual that’s happened on any night for the last nine of them.”
“Nothing,” she said, putting a tea bag in each of two mugs. “Never heard no noises. Oh, them dogs barked, but they bark all the time. The Desmonds had a barney – screams, yells, things breaking – night before last. That happens regular. He’s an alkie.” She reflected for a moment. “So’s she.”
“Would you hear anything if you were asleep?”
“Don’t sleep much, and never until my son comes home,” Ruth said, swelling with pride. “He’s a brain surgeon at Chubb, deals with them little bubbles on veins that burst like a water main.”
“Arteries,” Carmine corrected automatically; a Hug education was beginning to make itself apparent.
“Right, arteries. Keith’s the best they got at repairing them bubbles. I always think of it like patching the inner tube on an old bicycle. Did a lot of that when I was a girl. Maybe that’s where Keith gets it from. Dunno where else.”
If I were not so worried and angry, Carmine thought, I could fall in love with this woman. She’s an original.
“Keith. He’s Miss Silverman’s husband.”
“Yep. They’ve been married coming up for three years.”
“I take it that Dr. Kyneton comes home late often?”
“All the time. The operations take hours and hours. He’s a tiger for work, my Keith. Not like his old man. He couldn’t work on a chain gang. Yep, I always wait up for Keith, make sure he eats. Can’t sleep until he’s in.”
“Was he late last night? The night before?”
“Two-thirty last night, one-thirty the night before.”
“Does he make a lot of noise when he comes in?”
“Nope. Quiet as a corpse. Makes no difference – I still hear him. He cuts the engine on his car and coasts down the lane, but I can hear him,” said Ruth Kyneton positively. “I listen.”
“Was there a moment last night when you thought you heard him, but he didn’t come in? Or the night before?”
“Nope. The only one I heard was Keith.”
Carmine drank his tea, thanked her, decided to go. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about this to anyone except your family, Mrs. Kyneton,” he said at the door. “I’ll be back to see them as soon as I can.”
Patrick had finished washing the body parts and assembling them on his table when Carmine walked in.
“They were so covered in mud, humus and leaves that getting anything useful will be a miracle,” Patrick said. “I’ve saved all the washing fluid – distilled water – and I took a sample of the stream water. This time I have more to work with,” he went on, sounding content. “The rape pattern is the same – a succession of increasingly large sheaths or dildoes, vaginal and anal penetration. But see that straight line of bruising on the upper arms just below the shoulders, and that other straight line of bruising below the elbows? She was tied down with something about fifteen inches wide, heavy fabric like canvas. The contusions occurred when she struggled, but she couldn’t free herself. It also tells us that this killer isn’t interested in breasts. He bound them flat under a canvas restraint that hid them from sight. That means she was lying on a table. As to why he didn’t just manacle her wrists or tie her hands down, I don’t know. Keeping her legs free is more logical, he needed to move them around.”
“How long was she alive after she was grabbed, Patsy?”
“About a week, but I don’t think he fed her. The digestive tract was empty. Mercedes had been fed on cornflakes and milk. Though all we had of Mercedes was the torso, I think he changed some of his habits for Francine. Or maybe each victim is a little different. Without the bodies, we’ll never know.”
“How long had she been dead?” Carmine asked.
“Maximum, thirty hours. Probably less. She was buried last night, not the night before, but I’d say before midnight. He didn’t keep her long after she died, but I can tell you that she died from loss of blood. Look at her ankles.” Patrick pointed.
Carmine hadn’t gotten that far; he stiffened. “Ligature welts,” he breathed.
“Not a part of his method of restraint. They weren’t on for more than an hour. Oh, but he’s clever! No fibers or slivers from those welts, I know it in my bones. My guess is that he strung her up with single-strand stainless steel wire that he rigged to make sure that the joins were never in contact with her flesh. The wire bit in, but it didn’t break the skin by sawing at it or catching on it anywhere. These kids are small and light, weigh about eighty pounds. Like Mercedes, he cut her throat to bleed her out first, then decapitated her later – not such a long wait between the two for Francine compared to Mercedes.”
“Tell me there’s semen.”
“I doubt it.”
“You’ll test the wash water for semen too?”
“Carmine! Is the Pope a Catholic?”
“I hope so,” said Carmine, squeezing his cousin’s arm.
From there it was on to Silvestri’s office, Marciano ambling in his wake; Abe and Corey were still out at Griswold Lane, asking its inhabitants if they had seen or heard anything unusual.
He filled Silvestri and Marciano in.
“Is it possible,” Marciano asked afterward, “that this guy doesn’t belong to the Hug, but has a grudge against the place or someone in it?”
“That begins to look more and more likely, Danny. Though I wish I could be sure that all the Huggers really were where they were supposed to be Wednesday of last week when Francine was snatched. It would have taken a good twenty minutes to get from the Hug to Travis and back again – at a jog. Whereas Miss Dupre didn’t locate the senior Huggers for thirty minutes. However, they do seem to have been together on the roof, and as there are only seven of them, I’m sure a twenty-minute absence followed by heavy breathing on return would have caused comment. Dr. Addison Forbes might not have reappeared breathing heavily, I take that into account. Leaving that aside, the killer definitely wants us to believe that his murders are connected to the Hug. Otherwise why choose the Kynetons’ as a dump site? He wanted her found quickly, so he hardly scraped away enough mud to cover her. Every scavenger for a mile must have come running. He’s pissing on someone or something, but who or what I don’t know.”