I shook my head at that. Thirteen. I barely knew how to masturbate at thirteen and I thought I discovered something no one else knew about. At thirteen, this girl was already having sex. Times have changed and for the worse.
According to both parents, there had been no major blowout between either of them and Fawn. She just became more and more rebellious against their set of rules and finally just didn’t come home from school one day.
Two weeks after that, her body was discovered.
I read through the Forensics report. There had been signs of sexual assault but no fluids. Nothing from the fingernail scrapings, either. Cause of death had been asphyxiation through strangulation.
Something nagged at me. Tonight’s victim had bruising around her throat. Similar. But strangulation was the number one method of unarmed assault in sexual assault cases. It’s no stretch that both killers would employ the same method. Besides, tonight’s girl had stab wounds, too. Something nagged at me, though. I couldn’t quite say what.
I pushed the file away. What a messed up world. Two dead girls in two weeks and I get both cases. Now I have to find two killers and if Crawford gives me anyone to help, I’ll shit sideways in surprise.
Lindsay had asked me at the scene if the two murders could be the same guy. Ever since the Peter Allen Tyson serial killer case in the late nineties here in River City, any time two people died within ten miles and one month of each other, it was a serial case.
“Lindsay,” I told him, “How much do we know about this girl?”
“Nothing,” he’d said.
“And how much evidence have we collected?”
“Almost none.”
“Exactly.” When he hadn’t gotten it from that, I gave up.
I reached for the file again, but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Crawford came around the corner. He was already taking off his jacket and chewing on an unlit cigar.
I remembered when the Chief decided to make the station go smokeless and how Crawford went ballistic about it. He went almost as ballistic when his doctor told him to quit smoking or die of a heart attack. To defy them both, he kept a stogie on hand at all times but never lit up. I’m sure he thought it made him a rebel. I thought it made him look like a reject copy of the guy from the TV show Cannon. He had the whole look. The droopy mustache, receding hairline and expanding waistline. The guy even wore bad suits.
“Tower,” he grunted without breaking stride.
“Lieutenant.”
“Give me a minute, then come to my office and brief me.”
“Not much to tell,” I said.
“Then it’ll go quick.” He disappeared into his office.
I took my time closing the Taylor file and replacing it. I put my recorder away, too.
After Crawford’s “minute” was up, I grabbed my notebook and walked into his office. It was messy, as usual. Crawford was a history nut and black and white pictures of cops were plastered all over the walls. Loose papers and folders were littered across his desk.
“Sit down,” he told me.
I didn’t want to be there long enough to sit down, but I knew he wouldn’t proceed until I took a seat, so I did. Crawford moved his unlit cigar to one corner of his mouth and nodded for me to begin.
I flipped open my notebook. “Deceased is a Hispanic female, probably twenty. No ID on her person. Looks like she was strangled at some point. She was also stabbed multiple times in the chest.”
“Dump job?”
“Probably. No sign of struggle in the surrounding vegetation, but it was raining hard. A lot of our evidence washed away before she was discovered.”
“Sexual assault?”
“Unknown.”
“Hooker?”
I shook my head. “Dunno. She had a condom in her pocket, but these days that just makes her smart.”
“Dump site?”
“300 N. Erie.”
Crawford shifted the cigar in his mouth. “Pretty close to the East Sprague corridor.”
I shrugged. He was right. It was less than half a mile from where the prostitutes congregated and did business.
“What else?”
“Not much. Time of death, cause of death, even her identity will have to come through Crime Scene’s workup on the body. I don’t expect them to finish that today.”
“Who’s the tech?”
“Whitaker.”
Crawford narrowed his eyes.
“He’s good,” I told him.
“Kind of a smart ass.”
I didn’t answer.
“What else?” He asked after a moment.
I flipped through my notes. “Nothing to canvass. Lindsay helped Whitaker check in the evidence. Not much to say, really.”
Crawford removed the cigar from his mouth and spat out of a small piece of tobacco into the garbage can. “Pretty light, Tower.”
“It’s early yet.”
Crawford grunted. “You think it’s related to the one from the Bingo lot? The fourteen year old?”
“Fawn Taylor,” I told him.
“Whatever. You think it’s related?”
He was already thinking serial killer. “I can’t even begin to make that leap, Lieutenant,” I told him. “I have nothing on this case and still have work to do on the Taylor case.”
“You’ve had it for two weeks.”
“Yeah, and I’ve been working it.”
“So do you see any relation?”
I clenched my jaw. “Other than the fact that they’re both female and were murdered and dumped within two miles of each other…no, I don’t.”
“Well, don’t rule it out.”
“I don’t rule anything out until the evidence does.” Nothing like a lieutenant, who was never a detective, giving out free investigative advice. It was like Christmas.
“Good. Where you going from here?”
“I’ll look through last night’s reports for possible related incidents and wait on Forensics.”
“All right. Keep me up to speed. The Chief’s office is calling me every day on this Bingo girl.”
I nodded and left.
I walked back to my desk. I thought about sitting down and starting back in with the Taylor file. I could hear Crawford moving around in his office, though, and knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
To hell with it, I thought, and walked toward the door.
I needed some coffee and Rolaids.
Monday, April 12 th Davenport Hotel, Morning
VIRGIL
I sat at the writing desk in my hotel room, a small cup of coffee steamed in front of me. From the inside pocket of my jacket, I pulled out a long, white envelope. Inside was a newspaper article with a hand-written phone number on the corner. I dialed the number and closed my eyes while the phone rang.
On the fourth ring, she picked up. “Hello?”
Her voice was close in proximity but distant in familiarity.
“Do you know who this is?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the heating unit in the room.
“I’m in town now.”
Her breathing skipped a beat and then returned to normal. “Thank you,” she said, her voice shaky.
I wanted to say something to ease her pain or comfort her, but too much time had passed for anything deep or meaningful to be said.
“I’ll be in touch.”
When I cradled the phone, I opened my eyes. With a single press of a button, I called the concierge desk and ordered a taxi.
The cabbie leaned his head slightly out of the rolled down window of his Chrysler. “You sure you don’t want me to wait?”
With a quick glance, I saw him watching me as I opened my wallet to pay the fare. I finished counting out several bills and stuffed them in to his hand.
“I’m fine,” I said.
The cabbie nodded his head, disappointed at the lost fare of the return trip.
The old Chrysler LeBaron turned around in the driveway of the cemetery, its fan belt squealing loudly. When he stopped at the entrance to wait for passing traffic, I realized the cab leaned to the right. I smiled at that because I thought his seat was higher than mine throughout the drive.