Chapter Four
Zach breathed in the peppermint oil smeared under his nose, stepping up to the body that lay supine on the table in Cathlyn Harvey’s examination room.
He’d planned to be there by eight, but she’d called his cell at six a.m. and told him she had something for him.
He’d called Jimmy, taken a three-minute shower, and been out the door five minutes after getting the call.
The door opened and a disheveled Jimmy walked in, looking as tired as Zach felt.
“Right on time,” Cathlyn said. “Nice to see you, James.”
“Dr. Harvey.”
She shot him a look. “Meeting like this?” She inclined her head toward the dead body on the gurney between them. “Call me Cathlyn.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Can’t argue with that.”
“What’d you find?” Zach asked, anxious to know anything that could give them a direction to move toward today.
Cathlyn cleared her throat, using her gloved hand to point to the girl’s thigh, or what had once been her thigh and was now bone only partially covered by decayed flesh.
“Words, carved so deep a few letters went through to the femur. Here,” she said, and they bent closer, looking at what she was showing them.
Zach saw scratches on the white bone but couldn’t make out any words.
“I used a magnifying glass and shot a couple of pictures.” She reached over to the table behind them and picked up a stack of photos, handing them to Zach.
He peered down at the magnification of the scratches. A few of the letters were so slight as to be unreadable, as if the blade had pressed harder in some spots than in others. He read the partial words, filling in the rest from memory, and his blood ran cold. “Casus belli?”
“Latin,” Cathlyn said. “It means—”
“Where the blame lies,” Zach murmured, shock rolling through him.
Jimmy furrowed his brow, glancing between them. “Where have I heard that before?”
“The Josie Stratton case we were talking about last night,” Zach said.
Jimmy looked mildly shocked. “You don’t say. But wait, that suspect was caught. Case closed.”
“I remembered the phrase immediately from that case and looked it up this morning,” Cathlyn said. “The information about the words carved into her skin was printed in the paper, leaked by someone.”
Most likely a member of the UC Medical Center staff, talking to any one of the reporters milling around outside the hospital.
People liked to gossip, liked to talk about what they were privy to, especially when the details were lurid and the other person’s reaction would likely be shock and horror.
Zach vaguely remembered his boss being pissed about the leak.
But he was a rookie back then, trying to learn his beat and how to be a good cop.
Once his post at the hospital had been done, he’d put Josie Stratton from his mind—or tried to anyway.
As far as details, though? He hadn’t had them then, and he didn’t have them now.
“So if the perp on that one committed suicide, what is this? A copycat?”
Zach gritted his teeth. They couldn’t jump the gun, but why else would someone carve the exact same phrase into the exact same spot on his victim’s skin?
Then there were the chains…the abandoned location…
“It’s gotta be. He’s recreating the crime committed nine years ago against Josie Stratton.
” Zach’s heart picked up in speed for some reason he couldn’t completely articulate. But why? Why now?
Zach looked back to Cathlyn, who was placing the pictures back in the open file folder on her table. “Were you able to pinpoint cause of death?”
“Cardiac arrhythmia caused by starvation. I found both tissue degradation and severe electrolyte imbalances.”
“Jesus,” Jimmy muttered as Zach let out a slow exhale. “How the fuck long does it take a person to starve to death?”
“Anywhere from three to six weeks.”
“Wouldn’t you dehydrate much more quickly than that?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes, but this girl didn’t,” Cathlyn said. “She was hydrated. For whatever reason, the perpetrator gave her water but no food.”
“Did he want her to suffer longer?” Zach muttered, feeling sickened by the thought of anyone torturing another human being to that extent.
There was a particular cruelty to the length of time it took to starve a person until their heart gave out.
He remembered what he’d read about the Josie Stratton case on the computer the night before.
She’d been deprived of food too. But apparently the perpetrator had given her enough to sustain a pregnancy.
“That’s for you gentlemen to find out. And please do, because the person who did this to her is walking our streets right this minute. This girl was not only mutilated and starved to death; she was sexually assaulted as well. I found evidence of vaginal tearing.”
“Semen?” Jimmy asked.
“No, but there was powder residue from a condom.”
“That’s different than the Josie Stratton case,” Zach said.
Cathlyn’s brow creased. “Yes, Josie Stratton became pregnant, didn’t she?
Maybe this perpetrator learned from his predecessor.
Don’t knock up your victims. It leaves far too much DNA behind in the form of a child.
Then again, that baby was never found, was he?
” Cathlyn sighed, the sound of someone who was used to having to attempt to move past the unthinkable, categorize the horrific.
He supposed all three of them could relate.
“I do have one more thing, though, and hopefully this will help ID her.” Cathlyn moved to the bottom of the table where she picked up what was left of the girl’s foot. “She has a tattoo on her ankle. Very small and almost completely destroyed by the decomposition, but it appears to be a daisy.”
Zach looked at Jimmy. “I don’t recall any of the women we pulled from the missing persons list having a daisy tattoo on her ankle. Do you?”
“No, but she could have gotten it right before she went missing,” Jimmy answered. “It’s usually parents who give the details. Maybe they didn’t know.”
“All right, boys. I’ve gotta get back to work. You go do what you need to do. I’ll call you if I find anything else of relevance,” Cathlyn said.
They thanked her, and she gave them both a salute.
They left the exam room, and Zach took in a few deep breaths when they entered the hallway leading to the elevator.
He hated the smell this place would leave lingering in his nose the rest of the day, despite the pungent peppermint oil he’d applied. It made him vaguely nauseated.
“Hey, listen,” Zach said to Jimmy when they made it the parking lot. “Since we drove here separately, you want to visit the contacts of the missing persons we pulled while I go through the files of the Josie Stratton case? See if I can pull up any other similarities?”
“Sure. I’ve got the list in my car,” Jimmy said. “You know which detectives worked that case? Did you say it was eight or nine years ago?”
“Nine since she was abducted, about eight since she escaped.”
Jimmy blew out a muttered, “Wow,” under his breath. Zach couldn’t agree more. “As far as who worked on it, I think it was Murphy and Bell, but I’ll have to double-check. Bell retired several years back, but Murphy was riding out the DROP program for the next year or so.”
“Meet at the office later to compare notes?” Jimmy asked, turning and moving toward his car.
“Yup,” Zach called, heading toward his own city-issued vehicle.
Once he was inside and had closed the door, he rolled the window down, hoping some fresh air blowing in his face would help dispel the smell of death.
He used a napkin from his glove box to wipe the strong odor of peppermint from beneath his nostrils.
He sat there for a minute, going over the information Cathlyn had given them.
His hunch had been right. But why? Why would someone want to recreate the crime committed against Josie Stratton?
Casus belli. Where the blame lies. What blame?
And what was the connection between the man who abducted Josie nine years before and the person who’d abducted and starved the girl lying on Cathlyn Harvey’s exam table?
He pulled out of the parking lot, a heavy feeling in his chest, the long-ago echo of Josie’s anguished cries ringing in his head.