Sam leafed through the contents of his briefcase until he found the copies of the marked pages in Sara Hunt’s 1970 Smithtown High School yearbook and studied them. He looked over the nine graduating seniors’ headshots, wondering if one of them might be a cold-hearted murderer. Although Roger hadn’t brought it up earlier, Sam was certain that he too now realized the sudden significance of Lieutenant Mancuso’s half-hearted hunch. For not only had this evidence resulted in tying in two related murders, it may very well end up pointing to the murderer himself.
The five men still living in Smithtown had been checked out and interrogated by the police, and every one of them had clean records and solid alibis for the night Marsha Bradley had been murdered. This narrowed the potential suspects down to four, and the police were having a tough time discovering their exact whereabouts. All they knew for certain at this point was that none of the four men had local criminal records.
Sam still remembered two of the men, and neither seemed likely to be the type capable of rape and murder from his recollection of them in high school. Stanley Jenkins had been a nerdy, straight-A student; the type who wore thick horn-rimmed glasses, had zero personality, and made everyone sick because the teachers loved him-he always did his homework and excelled in academics. Buford Jackson, the other one, was a black guy who was as big as an ox, dumber than a coal bucket but one of the funniest, most likable guys in the entire class. Buford was probably either working somewhere as a laborer with a wife and ten kids, or doing stand-up comedy on the Holiday Inn circuit.
The remaining two men both looked like they were capable of almost anything sinister-even murdering their own mothers. They were what all the kids back then referred to as “hoods.” Both wore scowls instead of smiles in their class photos. Both had “automotive class” listed as their only academic credits. And both had probably packed switchblades whenever they decided to show up at school. Ernie Jones and Clyde Kastings: two guys you definitely didn’t want to bump into after school had let out for the day…
And both prime suspects, in Sam’s book.
As he scrutinized their faces, he wondered what possible motive one of these men could have to rape and strangle Sara Hunt in New York City, then two weeks later travel the five hundred miles to Smithtown to do the same to Marsha Bradley. It seemed incomprehensible the more he thought about it. Yet, it had happened. And there had to be reason.
What was the link between Sara Hunt and Marsha Bradley?
He set the yearbook copies aside then began reading over the articles written in the New York papers regarding Sara Hunt’s murder. Just as Lieutenant Mancuso had mentioned, the press coverage had been uncharacteristically lacking-in fact, damn near pathetic. The only articles covering the murder had been written the following day; there had been no follow-
up. Details were scarce in all three of the articles, particularly the one in the New York Times, which had been little more than a cursory obituary: ASPIRING ACTRESS FOUND MURDERED
New York City detectives reported that the body of Sara Marie Hunt, 39, was discovered in her Soho apartment by her roommate at approximately 2:30 A.M. Tuesday morning. Miss Hunt was reportedly beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death by an unknown assailant who remains at large. Police say the incident is under investigation.
Miss Hunt, formerly of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had lived in New York for the past ten years and appeared in a few off-Broadway productions as well as some local television commercials. She was employed part-time as a waitress at a Greenwich Village restaurant at the time of her death. She is survived by her parents, William and Clare Hunt, of Harrisburg.
Sam skimmed over the articles in the Post and the Daily News next. With the exception of the bolder headlines and wordy journalism, neither of the tabloids offered much more information concerning the murder, other than the fact that the police were refusing to release any specific details pertaining to the case at this time.
Out of curiosity, Sam went through and counted up how many homicides had been reported on that particular day and came up with seven, including the execution-style slaying of a notorious Mafia crime boss. Of all the murders, that particular one had by far received the most press coverage. No wonder there had been so little interest in Sara Hunt’s murder, he thought with a wry grin. Not only had she just been one of several other homicide victims in the city that day, she had been upstaged by a more “newsworthy personage” as well.
He shoved the newspapers off to the side and opened the manila folder containing a copy of the police report. Lying on top was the eight-by-ten publicity headshot of Sara Hunt that Mancuso had sent. Sam was surprised at how little she had aged since high school as he stared at the black and white image, wondering skeptically how recently the photo had been taken. Her hair was jet black, in a bob, and her face showed very few lines and wrinkles. Her eyes were large and dark; her smile revealed a set of near-perfect pearly whites. She looked good-in fact, beautiful-and not a day over twenty-five.
He turned the promo shot over and read the resume pasted to its back. Sara had been a theater major at Pitt and there was a list of plays she’d been in while at college. Below was a list of the theatrical productions she had appeared in since moving to New York as well as a handful of television commercials she’d done.
Sam turned to the police report and noted the similarities between Sara’s murder and Marsha Bradley’s. Both women had been raped and strangled. Both were believed to have been strangled to death by a thin cord-like object from behind. And both had been found totally nude with lipstick marks on their breasts, or on only one breast in Sara’s case.
Sam turned to the Xerox copies of the photographs taken at the crime scene and examined them closely. Then something dawned on him. Excitedly, he pulled out the police file copies of Marsha Bradley’s case which he had kept for himself, then set one of the photographs of Marsha beside Sara’s.
It was uncanny. Although the quality of the copies was poor and the camera angles differed somewhat, it was more than obvious that the relative positions of both bodies were virtually identical. Both were lying flat on their backs on the floor, their arms outstretched, their legs spread-eagle, and their eyes opened and frozen in terror…
The body positions were mirror images of each other!
Sam realized that even if the hair and semen samples hadn’t been compared and matched, any idiot could plainly see that both women were murdered by the same person. The pictures were proof positive.
He stubbed out his cigarette and lit up another one. Staring pensively at both photographs, he wondered why the murderer had taken the time and effort to meticulously arrange his victims’ bodies in identical positions. They almost looked as though they were…
Posed.
A light came on in his head.
The murderer had arranged the bodies in this way so he could take pictures of them!
What a sick fuck, he thought.
And what a meticulous son of a bitch!
But why had he done it? As a visual reminder of his escapades? Every picture tells a story?
Or was there more to it than that?
Sam retrieved the copies of the yearbook and stared at the pictures again. Simple logic now told him that none of these men seemed likely suspects, taking everything into account. The murderer was clever and fastidious, carefully thinking through his game plan in advance. He was relentlessly thorough and thus far, hadn’t knowingly been seen by a single solitary soul who could positively identify him. Neither of Sam’s “prime suspects,” Ernie Jones and Clyde Kastings, was bright enough to carry out these two murders without leaving some kind of trail behind…