53
ANSON
As I exited the patrol car behind Detective Moss, I felt a million eyes on me.
There were the homeless people in the encampment under the awning.
I counted seven—four in tents, the other three standing in shadows.
There were also at least twenty members of the Charleston PD, all milling about.
Some were flat-out staring at us; others were busy putting up crime scene tape and holding the growing crowd at bay.
I also spotted four firemen—they were leaning against a brick wall, smoking cigarettes.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Their yellow turnout coats were stained with dark soot, as were their hands and faces. Their expressions were dire, worn out.
The smell hit like a wall.
Sharp.
Acrid.
Gas and plastic, burnt wiring, and upholstery.
There wasn’t much left, but I knew the smoldering black ruin halfway down the block was the SUV from the video.
The general shape was still there, but not much else.
Father had once told me a vehicle can reach temperatures of over 1500 degrees Fahrenheit when properly set ablaze.
Aside from the fact they came with a built-in bomb in the form of a gas tank, nearly everything used in their construction was petroleum-based.
Extremely combustible. Water was often ineffective in putting out a vehicle fire; instead, it was used for containment to ensure the fire didn’t spread as it burned itself out.
The pavement around us was soaked in filthy water, littered with tiny bits of who knows what.
I didn’t want to think about those bits.
Especially when I spotted the ambulance and the black body bag on a gurney just inside the open back doors.
Detective Moss led me to the smoldering SUV.
The driver’s side door was open. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and handed them to me, then slipped a second pair on her own hands.
“Don’t you even think about touching anything.
I just don’t want anyone to see you here without gloves.
I don’t need more questions.” She turned toward the SUV.
“The metal is still hot enough to take off your skin, too, so be mindful of that. Don’t touch, just listen.
Got it?” She gave it a second for that to sink in before continuing.
“We pulled a single body out. It was positioned behind the wheel. Female, approximately fifteen years old. The ME was able to tell me that much from the skeletal remains. Skin, tissue, organs, all that was long gone. Bones are tough, though; bones survive. We believe she was the girl from the video.”
“You said, ‘positioned behind the wheel.’”
“She wasn’t alive when the fire started.”
I swallowed. I suppose that was a good thing. “How do you know?”
“Because her skull was intact. Someone drilled a hole in her head and removed her brain. Same as Andy and all the others. We also found two leather bags in the back of the SUV containing human organs in stainless steel containers—kidney, liver, lung, spleen, heart, intestines, pancreas. If they’re hers, she was literally gutted and placed in this SUV for disposal. ”
“The fire was meant to destroy all traces of him—the man who took her, not her. He . . . he staged the rest, wanted you to know what he did.”
Detective Moss’s eyes narrowed. “How old are you again?”
“Fifteen.”
“Watch a lot of cop shows on TV?”
“Not really.”
Her hand went to her hip as she considered that. “Aside from me and my chief, nobody else picked up on that,” she explained. “But yeah, those containers weren’t an accident. I’ve been told they’re designed to store valuables and documents when you specifically want to protect them from fire.”
“Did he do that with any of the others?” I asked. “Remove organs?”
She shook her head. “Only the brain. This is some kind of escalation.”
A patrol officer came up and eyed me suspiciously before speaking to the detective. “We’ve got a lot of press behind the line with more coming. I just saw a van for WCBD. They’re all asking if someone is going to make a statement.”
I turned and looked behind us. The crowd had grown substantially in just the time we’d been there. Several people had big, expensive-looking cameras with long lenses. There were a few television cameras on tripods, too.
“Tell them not at this time,” she said. “If they ask if this is connected to the other killings, say it’s unlikely.”
He frowned at her. “Is it connected?”
“It’s unlikely,” she repeated.
When he was gone, I said, “You’re going to lie to them?”
“It’s not a lie; it’s a half-truth. There’s a difference.
Right now, they don’t need to know what they don’t know.
” She rounded the back of the SUV to the opposite side, where the gas cap used to be.
The quarter panel was flayed out like a jagged metal flower.
“Nothing special about how he did it. It’s obvious he stuffed something down the gas pipe and lit it up.
Bought himself a minute or two to get away before it blew. ”
I looked around at the surrounding buildings. “There are no cameras on this part of the street.”
“I’m sure that’s no accident. He could have disposed of the girl anywhere.
Same with the SUV. Instead, he took the time to drive back to relatively the same spot where he abducted her.
I suppose that’s a smart move. If he dumped her somewhere else, gave us a secondary crime scene, we could use the data to triangulate.
Maybe narrow down his starting position. ”
“Or he’s from right around here, the center of Charleston. Close to where all the others were taken, where they were found.”
I thought of Stash again, couldn’t help it.
You’re not far from the Quick, right? Father pointed out. What? Maybe a mile or two at most?
“There’s something else I want you to see,” Detective Moss said.
She stepped back around the SUV and went to the sidewalk. A square area about four feet in diameter was fenced off with crime scene tape wrapped around orange traffic cones. At the center stood a small piece of plastic with the number twenty-three on it. An evidence tag.
“It’s okay,” she told me. “You can get closer. Get a good look. We think he dropped it.”
I approached the tape and leaned over.
Next to the evidence tag, lying face up on the concrete, was a photograph of me.