"No. The bodies were always discovered dressed, all the buttons fastened and nothing ripped. Which is interesting in several ways. For one thing, the women were always found without underwear. No bras or panties, no girdles or stockings or slips. Just their outer dresses. And there was usually very little blood or dirt on those dresses."
"So he stripped them-and then dressed them afterward, but without their underwear. Kept the underwear as trophies, maybe?"
"Maybe. But think how difficult just the mechanics of it had to be. By the time he finished with them, the women were either dead or dying. And instead of dumping them somewhere, naked, which would certainly have been the easiest and simplest thing to do, he takes the time and trouble to dress them in their outer clothing. Almost as if… he was trying to protect their modesty."
"You been talking to the shrink?" Andy wanted to know.
"No, but I've listened to her talk about this sort of thing before, so I feel safe in making a semieducated guess about it. I think the detail is important, Andy. It could be something as simple as the fact that the 1934 killer lived during a more… modest time. Or a quirk of his psyche-he'd defile them in every way possible, but it was for his own enjoyment. When other men saw the women, they had to be decently covered."
"Sounds like the sort of quirk entirely likely in one of these twisted bastards. Okay, it makes sense to me. It definitely sounds like those six women were killed by the same man. But there was doubt about two more victims?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why? The M.O. was drastically different?"
"Two young women found in remote places, having obviously been raped and killed somewhere else, badly beaten, with defense injuries, and wearing their virtually undamaged outer clothing all neatly fastened."
"Sounds like the same guy."
"Yeah, except for one addition."
"Which is?"
"Their eyes were missing. Cut out-with absolutely no finesse."
Andy stared at her a moment, then drew a short breath. "Shit."
"Yeah. Knowing what we know now about the escalation and evolution of this sort of sick predator, I say those last two victims belong with the first six. He had just grown more violent, and more creative. Which means eight, Andy. Killed within the space of about eighteen months."
"Which may or may not mean we could have a year and four-or three-more victims to go."
"If our guy is copycatting earlier crimes, yeah. The killings that started in 1934 sure sound familiar. All of our victims survived the attacks, and only one actually died of her injuries, but that could be as much luck as anything else; they were found before they could bleed to death, unlike the women in 1934. We have naked victims, but that may just be because our particular monster has fewer hang-ups than his predecessor did. Or a better knowledge of forensics."
"He certainly has that," Andy said heavily. "And it does sound more and more like he studied at least some of these earlier crimes. For inspiration, goddamn his soul."
"He doesn't have one," Jenn declared.
Andy grunted an agreement. "What about the earlier date, 1894?"
"Nothing so far, at least in that book. And we haven't found any files from that year-not here and not at any other station. It was a long time ago, Andy."
"Tell me about it." He sighed. "All we can do is keep looking. What else have we got?"
Jennifer sighed and got to her feet. "Yeah, you're right. By the way-I know we're keeping this to ourselves for the time being, but are you going to tell Maggie?"
"I haven't decided yet. What do you think?"
"I say tell her."
Andy leaned back and looked at her curiously. "Why?"
"Because Maggie works best when she has all the information we can give her. And because… she's very good with intangibles, Andy. Victims give her subjective impressions and feelings and pain-and in all that confusion, Maggie finds a face we can search for. As far as I can tell, with her it's all instinct and emotion. She comes at this differently than we do. Maybe she'd have an idea or observation we'd never have."
"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "Yeah, maybe."
"You going to tell Garrett?"
"I don't know that yet either."
"It might give him a focus other than his sister's death."
"It might. And we might need the resources he can tap. I don't know. We'll see how it goes."
"I'm glad it's your decision and not mine," Jennifer told him with a casual salute, then returned to her own desk.
Andy wished it was somebody else's decision. He was a good cop, and maybe it was that inborn instinct that warned him uneasily that this particular case was somehow beyond his experience. Not just because this bastard was torturing his victims the way he was and going to such elaborate extremes to hide his own identity, but because of the chillingly methodical way he went about satisfying his twisted needs.
Andy would have loved to hand the whole mess over to somebody else. But he couldn't do that. It was his mess, and he had to find his way through it. Which meant Jenn was right and he'd have to tell Maggie about these latest puzzle pieces.
Even more, he might just have to break the rules and ignore Drummond's orders and bring John Garrett fully into the investigation. He needed all the resources he could get his hands on, and with Drummond's stubborn refusal to call in the FBI, John could provide a wide and willing conduit to virtually every database and source of information available.
Maybe even some sources that could take them all the way back to 1894.
Maggie wondered if he had any idea at all what he asked of her and thought that he had at least an inkling. But not belief. Because if he believed, he could never have asked her to go to the apartment where a despondent, tormented woman had died and allow those emotions to seep into her. At least… she hoped he couldn't ask that of her.
"Even if I did, it wouldn't be proof," she said flatly. "Because Christina isn't here to verify whatever I'd say."
"I'll know if it's the truth."
"Will you? And how will you know that? Because you were her brother? You've lived in L.A. for the last ten years, and she moved back to Seattle more than five years ago; did you know so much about her life? I'd bet not. I'd bet you didn't know much at all."
"Maggie-"
"She volunteered at a day-care center in her neighborhood, did you know that? And at the local animal shelter. She still woke up in the night and reached for her husband, even though it had been nearly two years since he'd died. She talked to her plants, even sang to them sometimes. She was learning to use a computer for the first time; with Simon gone, she no longer felt she'd have to compete with his genius in that area. She watched old movies in bed at night, and just before the attack she'd been in the middle of a wonderful series of mystery novels."
Maggie drew a breath. "Did you know that? Did you know any of that?"
John stared out through the windshield, a muscle moving in his tight jaw. "No," he said finally. "I didn't know any of that."
Looking down at the sketch pad in her lap, Maggie consciously loosened her grip on it. She really needed to stop clinging, she thought vaguely. It was a very bad sign. "John, if I believed, really believed, that I could help you by going up to Christina's apartment, then I would. But nothing I could find out by doing that would help you in any way." Assuming I survived to tell you. But she didn't add that, of course.
Quietly, she said, "We should try to get to the Mitchell house while the cops are still there."
Without a word, John put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
Maggie didn't sense any hostility coming from him, so she didn't worry about his silence. Instead, she used the time granted to her to do her best to shore up what few defenses she had. Not that she ever had many, except for a fair ability to master her expression and what Beau referred to as her prickly touch-me-not posture.
So she worked on those, at least for the ten minutes or so until they reached the Mitchell house. The police had tried to keep this disappearance as quiet as possible until they knew whether Samantha Mitchell had been abducted by the serial rapist, but the press had found out at least part of it and were milling about just beyond the long drive, where several uniformed officers were holding them at bay.