Chapter 12
Convinced that the displays were the result of some erotic fantasy, Slidell wanted to round up every registered sex offender in the state.
It took some doing to talk him down and redirect his energy.
After adamant arguing on my part, and much blustering on his, he stormed off on a two-prong mission.
First, he’d compile a list of open MP files—people who’d gone missing in the region over the past three years. Those data might prove useful with regard to the question of human corpse ID.
Then, he’d pull reports of unresolved pet disappearances and of animal mutilation cases spanning the same period. Those data might prove useful with regard to the question of perp ID.
I’d offered to go with Skinny. His response had been less than gracious.
Alone in my office, I forced myself to focus on Nguyen’s hated case inventory. With minimal success. Feeling useless and antsy, I kept finding excuses to avoid the damn thing.
A coffee refill. A toilet break. A check of traffic congestion in the street below.
Slidell had been gone almost four hours when I’d had it. Unable to take the inactivity a second longer, I decided to contact Adina.
My call was answered on the first ring.
“Dr. Brennan,” a voice I recognized as Adina’s sang out. Her office phone must have had some sort of caller ID.
“You’re working your own phone these days?” I asked.
“My receptionist is on vacation.”
“Isn’t the whole goddam world?”
“Whoa. What’s up, girlfriend?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap.”
“I’ve put you on speaker. I can hear you pacing.”
“You have excellent ears.”
“Sit down.”
I did.
“Have you eaten anything today?”
“No.”
“You know that’s unhealthy.”
I said nothing.
“Hungry and angry. As you’re aware, the hangry combo can be a trigger.”
“What are you, my sponsor?”
“I’m your friend.”
“Sorry.” I was saying that a lot. “But I’m not thinking about alcohol.”
“Good. Now tell me what’s got you so anxious.”
“Your prediction was spot-on.” I picked up a pen and began rolling it across my knuckles.
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
“Remember I told you about a whack job nailing animal corpses to trees?”
“Yes.”
“He’s moved up to humans.”
“I feared that might be the progression. How many people so far?”
“Just one.”
“How did he get the remains?”
“No clue.”
“Do they look fresh?”
“No. I’m seeing details that suggest they came from a coffin burial.”
Brief pause as Adina digested what I’d told her.
“So, at this point there’s only one set of human remains that you know of,” she said.
“That makes me feel better.”
“No charge for counseling services.”
“As the duck said, put it on my bill.”
“Are you implying I’m a quack?”
“We really have to stop this.”
“Yes.” Adina agreed. “Before it gets fowl.”
I squelched every poultry pun that came to mind.
“Are you certain it’s the same guy?” Adina asked after a brief pause.
“One missing body part. Similar paint, feathers, and glitter. The lab has everything, but I’ll bet my grannie’s goat the analysis shows a match.”
“Your grannie has a goat?”
“Call the coroner.” Eyes rolling. “I may die laughing.”
That joke fell flat. After several beats, Adina asked,
“Could it be a copycat?”
“What’s the fun there?”
“Take over someone else’s fetish and up the stakes.”
“I suppose anything’s possible,” I said, chewing on that. “Listen. Can I ask you a question?”
“Lay it on me.”
“Slidell has totally embraced something you said to him. He’s convinced these displays are erotic in nature and is drilling down on sex offenders to the exclusion of everyone else.”
“The man has succumbed to monovision in the past.”
“Nicely phrased.”
“I have medical training.”
“Based on what I’ve told you, is there anything else you can say about the doer?” I asked, hoping for a shred of a lead.
“Brief me again on the pattern.”
I did, then waited out another, longer silence.
“As before, this is strictly off the record,” Adina said at last.
“Understood.”
“I’m guessing your guy is a homely little dude who gets very little sex. Perhaps none at all.”
“So, Slidell’s correct? It is about sex?”
“Only indirectly. I still think it’s really about control. The guy has no power over women, or men, whichever side he plays. No control over people in general. But he does feel in charge when dealing with animals.”
“Only now he’s displaying human remains.”
“At risk of repeating myself, that’s troubling.”
I heard heavy footsteps in the corridor.
“Gotta go. I believe Detective Dimwit is in the house.”
“Enjoy.”
“Right.”
Slidell paused in the hall and kicked the door. Hard.
“Yo.”
I got up, crossed my office, and opened it wide.
Skinny stood holding a cardboard box crammed with what appeared to be case files. A long roll of paper cut diagonally across the top stuck out behind his sweat-stained left pit.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You gonna let me in, or do I die of old age standing here?”
I stepped back.
Skinny entered and dumped his load on my desk.
“We’re going old-school,” he said, pulling out another laundry-challenged hanky to wipe his brow.
“Old-school,” I repeated in way of a question.
“This joint got a bulletin board?”
“I think there’s a portable somewhere in storage.” Since the dawn of the digital age. I didn’t add that.
“How ’bout you bring it to the conference room.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to upload all the data—”
“Just get the goddam thing.”
Locating the goddam thing took longer than I thought.
By the time I pushed through the conference room door, the late-afternoon sun was hanging even lower in the sky. A soft tangerine glow lit the long mahogany table, interrupted by diagonal shadows cast by the Venetian blinds’ slats.
Slidell was aglow, too, the orange tinge looking brash coming off his grease-slicked hair.
Skinny was laying out a series of plastic containers. Each held pushpins, one set with blue caps, one with green, one with yellow, one with red.
“Help me with this,” he ordered, unfurling the scroll. Which turned out to be a map of North and South Carolina.
As I held each corner down, Slidell tacked it in place.
“We’re gonna start by plotting every case of a missing pet that never turned up.”
“Going how far back?”
“Three years.”
Though skeptical, I went along with Skinny’s plan. He mined the files—old-school, one spit-moistened finger running through the hard copy in each. As he called out names and locations, I worked the board.
Ninety minutes later, dozens of blue pins dotted the map.
“Now we’re going to add calls involving animal mutilation.”
“Hopefully there aren’t many of those,” I said.
“You’d be surprised.”
Though fewer in number, the array of red pins was impressive. And showed one area of overlap with the blue spread.
Silence surrounded us as we both studied our handiwork.
“Looks like a Venn diagram,” I said.
“Don’t go getting all jargony,” Slidell said.
I considered how I might explain the concept to a high schooler.
“A Venn diagram is an illustration that uses overlapping circles to show the logical relationship between two or more sets of items.”
Frowny stare.
I dropped down to middle school.
“Think of it this way. Circles that overlap have a commonality. Circles that don’t overlap share none of each other’s traits.”
Slidell’s next question suggested he grasped the concept. Maybe.
“Can it do three?”
“You mean add another data set?”
“There you go again with the lingo.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s plug in displays.”
We used green pins to plot the locations at which decorated remains had been found.
Again, one pattern was obvious.
While there were outliers, the diagram showed a triangular area in which all three colors overlapped densely. Reports of missing pets. Reports of animal mutilation. Decorated displays.
“Looks like the jerkwad’s liking Highway 74 these days,” Slidell said. “Lately he’s working a stretch northwest from Matthews.”
I couldn’t disagree.
“The hoods he’s hitting are mostly residential, but there’s also some areas with warehouses and depots.”
“You’re thinking he lives within that overlap area?”
“Maybe,” Slidell mumbled, eyes never leaving the board. “Or maybe he keeps his nasty little hobby away from his crib.”
“In an area he considers safe. One he knows well.”
“The toad probably don’t venture too far from his comfort zone.”
I suspected Slidell was thinking aloud, not talking to me. Still, I tossed out,
“Perhaps he has a place he uses as his hunting ground.”
“Yeah. Why piss off the neighbors by snatching their pets?”
“If that’s true, he’d have to own a car. Or have access to one.”
“He sure as shit ain’t hauling dead animals by CATS.” Slidell referred to the Charlotte Area Transit System.
“Or bicycle. Some of the dogs were fairly big.”
Skinny seemed lost in thought. “When you gave me that fill-in on those human bones, you said maybe they came from an old burial.”
“I did.”
“From a graveyard?”
“Yes. You should check for recent reports of cemetery vandalism.”
Slidell nodded.
I crossed to the map.
“I’d start with this one,” I said, indicating a small green patch in the densest area of tri-color pin overlap. “Holy Comforter Cemetery.”
“Who the hell came up with that name? Sounds like some kinda big blanket.”
I’d had the same thought.
“Here.” Slidell pulled a printout from one of his folders and handed it to me. “This is a list of female MPs going back three years. Let me know if there’s a match to the stiff you got.”
“I’m not sure the woman died that recently.”
“Humor me.”
Lumbering to his feet, Slidell strode toward the door.
“What’s your next move?” I asked.
He turned. I knew the look on his face.
“You say this sonofabitch is a ghoul.” A vein throbbed in the center of Slidell’s sweat-slick forehead. “A ghoul and a pervert.”
“I didn’t—”
“A pervert making up for his limp dick by abusing animals.”
I said nothing.
“I’ll bet my left nut the guy’s in the sex offender files.”
With that, he was gone.
I turned to the list of names Slidell had provided.
Six I could eliminate straight off based on their date of disappearance or on the bio-profile I’d constructed for the remains.
Too young or too old. Too tall or too short.
Wrong ancestry. History of a fracture or abnormality I hadn’t observed on the bones.
That left me with three candidates.
Alice Anne Hunley Tumbler. Caucasian. DOB July 10, 1978. Reported missing eighteen months earlier by her son. Last seen walking her dog at Squirrel Lake Park near Matthews.
Corrina May Rummage. Caucasian. DOB February 4, 1992. Reported missing nine months earlier by her husband. Last seen leaving a Circle K on Sharon Road.
Laurel Jean Patel. Caucasian–Southeast Asian mix. DOB October 29, 2002. Reported missing thirty-six months earlier by her roommate. Last seen at a bus stop on Independence Boulevard.
I’d just finished my comparisons when Slidell returned.
He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t frowning. But, framed in my doorway, his body language suggested he was wired for action.
“I’ve got him.” Raising and waggling his phone.
“Sorry?”
“I’ve got the sick sonofabitch.”