Chapter Seventeen
Zach felt like he was experiencing horrific déjà vu. The girl in front of him lay on the floor, her hands shackled in chains behind her back, body in a state of decomposition. He resisted the urge to flinch at the awful stench that met his nose. This one had died more recently than the last.
“Despite your many good qualities, I was really hoping we wouldn’t be seeing each other again for a while,” Dolores said, putting what looked like a thread held with tweezers into a small plastic container.
“Likewise.”
Zach heard his name behind him and turned to see Jimmy stepping through the doorway to the basement room they were in, the one that had once been dark and now was flooded with bright LED light, criminalists working in various areas.
“Dolores,” Jimmy greeted, and she nodded up at him before focusing back on her work. He squatted next to Zach, taking in the victim in front of them. “Straight out of a horror movie,” he muttered. “Who found her?”
“A vagrant looking for a place to sleep. Says he smelled her the minute he walked in. He’s a Vietnam vet, and he told the operator that once you’ve been around a dead body, you know the smell anywhere.”
“Can’t argue there.” Of course, Jimmy and Zach knew that better than anyone. Death had an odor unlike anything else. “Did the vagrant come down here to check it out or call the cops?”
“Called.”
“Good man.” They all appreciated the fact that the homeless man hadn’t compromised the crime scene. Made their job a little easier anyway.
Zach addressed Jimmy who was leaning around the body to get a better look at the shackles. “Josie good when you left her?”
“Yeah, she was fine. Horton and Vogel are both hanging out until you can get there.”
“Good.”
“This looks like the same exact MO from the previous crime scene photos I looked at,” Jimmy said. “What’s your take having personally been at both scenes?”
“Same guy,” Zach said. “I’d bet on it. This girl is also young like Aria Glazer.”
“Any way to tell how long she’s been here?” Jimmy asked Dolores.
“Long enough to starve to death.”
They were both quiet for a moment, letting that settle.
“And this is what Josie Stratton experienced too,” Jimmy murmured, voice tight. Zach glanced at him and noticed a small tic in his jaw.
“Similar,” Zach answered. “At one point, he unchained one of her hands. That’s not the case with this victim or Aria Glazer. At least not at the time he left them to die. And of course, there was the pregnancy. That’s different too.”
“Prophylactic residue on this one,” Dolores said, obviously listening to their conversation though she looked laser-focused on her work. “Signs of sexual assault.”
“The same as Aria Glazer.”
“This guy learned from his predecessor as far as the importance of protection.”
“Either that or he’s just smarter in general.”
They were both silent for a moment, staring at the extinguished life in front of them, the obviously young woman who’d had her future stolen by a demented monster.
There was a metal pan off to the side with some congealed sludge at the bottom, and Zach gestured to it. “Something like that was taken into evidence at the first crime scene too,” he said. “And Josie was supplied with a similar makeshift toilet by Marshall Landish.”
Jimmy made a rough noise in the back of his throat. “Why bother with the small bit of dignity?” he muttered. Zach didn’t answer. He didn’t have one.
“The carving in the leg?” Zach asked after a minute. “Can we see it?”
Dolores lifted up the girl’s skirt, showing the top of her thigh where the words casus belli were carved. “Premortem?” Jimmy asked.
“Definitely,” Dolores answered. “It appears as if the wounds were just beginning to heal over at the time of death.”
Zach stood, and Jimmy followed suit. “I’m sure Cathlyn will expedite the exam on this one. I’ll give her a call and tell her to let us know as soon as she has anything.”
They said goodbye to Dolores, who gave them a small wave, not lifting her head from her work, and walked up the wooden stairs.
Outside the house, the night was cool and clear.
Rainswept. It felt like an entirely different world than where they’d just been.
He wondered if Josie had experienced that sensation too when she’d fled the warehouse room where she’d been held captive and emerged into that crisp winter day, but he pushed that particular thought away.
He needed to focus on the girl they’d just found.
“One of the missing persons I pulled when we were looking to ID Aria Glazer was that UC student who was reported missing six weeks ago.”
“The one all over the news last month. Harley and Aymes are on that investigation, right?” Zach nodded, and Jimmy ran a hand over his jaw as he pulled out his phone.
He stepped off the path that led from the house to the curb, turning so no one coming or going from the house could see what he was doing.
Zach followed. After typing something into what looked like a browser, Jimmy stared at the screen, his lips thinning as he turned it toward Zach.
The body in the basement was in the beginning stages of decomposition, but damn if the girl he was looking at didn’t appear to be the same as the one they’d just left with criminalists.
“Yeah, this could very well be her. Fuck me. Isn’t her father some city council member or something? ”
“Yeah. We need to let Sergeant Woods know about the possibility.” Zach thought back to Aria’s roommate, Tessa, telling him about Aria taking classes at UC.
Fuck, if this was in fact the UC student, it’d be the second one found in the same manner in less than a week that had ties to the university.
Aria Glazer hadn’t been a full-time student.
She’d been taking night classes. But she’d still been at the campus regularly.
Plus, Josie had been a UC student when she’d been abducted. Did that tie in too?
Shit. People were going to freak. This would have to be managed very carefully.
Jimmy and Zach got in their vehicles just as a news van rounded the corner.
* * *
Sergeant Woods sat back in his chair, digesting the news that Zach had just delivered.
The daughter of the city council member, twenty-year-old Miriam Bellanger, could very well be the girl who had just been found in the basement of an abandoned house in Clifton, shackled, sexually assaulted, tortured, and starved.
“Cathlyn’s at the lab now, waiting for the body.
Miriam’s parents have been notified of the possibility that this is their daughter.
They’re having dental records forwarded in the morning.
” Jimmy blew out a breath. “Can’t imagine anyone in that house will sleep tonight.
We wanted to spare them the purgatory, but the news arrived as we were leaving, and we didn’t want them to hear about this on TV either. ”
“It was the right call. Holy shit.” He shook his head.
“If it does turn out to be her, and along with the news that the other victim found in the same manner took classes at UC too, the whole campus is going to go berserk. We need to tell the chief so he can prepare a statement, because the news will be all over this department like white on rice as soon as the story breaks. What’s the update on the burglary at Josie Stratton’s house? ”
Zach updated him on his meeting with the cousin. “I heard from the lab on my way to tonight’s crime scene. No fingerprints on that knife. The lab hasn’t found anything that would tie him or anyone else to the break-in.”
“The cousin called to complain about you earlier today,” Sergeant Woods said, eyeing Zach.
“Said you threatened him. I squashed it but sounds like he’s hired a lawyer.
Threw some woman’s name around. He won’t talk anymore unless we have something concrete.
” Well, that’s that, Zach thought. And again, What a prick.
“Someone printed up an old article about Josie’s escape and hung it up around town,” Jimmy said quietly.
Zach’s spine stiffened. “What?”
“Yeah, I was going to mention it when you got to Josie’s. She was in the other room when I talked to you earlier. Then the crime scene and—”
“What happened?” Zach interrupted.
Jimmy told them about the garage sale flyers Josie had hung up, about going into town and finding that someone had tacked an article about Josie’s escape, including a picture, next to every flyer she’d posted.
“Someone’s messing with her,” Zach said, his jaw tight. “My bet’s on the cousin, but he also struck me as a guy who would get others to do any dirty work. How much do you want to bet that we get the tapes from the places the ad was hung and it’s some little kid or homeless guy tacking it up?”
Jimmy nodded, and Sergeant Woods laced his hands behind his head, jaw set as he stared off behind them for a moment. “Get those tapes, and we’ll see what’s what. It could be the copycat toying with her. That’s still a possibility.”
“Correct.” But why? What would be the motive?
“A shitstorm could be coming our way. We can’t afford to bungle this. Make sure you keep Josie Stratton safe.”
Zach looked at Jimmy. “Get outta here,” Jimmy said.
“I’m going to keep Cathlyn company at the lab.
The grocery store where one of the articles was hung is open twenty-four hours.
I’ll call and ask the manager to pull the tapes from the last week or so.
The library may or may not have cameras, and the other one we saw was hung on a street corner.
Whatever I hear, I’ll keep you updated.”
Zach appreciated his partner, who’d woken at the crack of dawn and would now be burning the midnight oil.
He knew Jimmy wouldn’t have it any other way, despite the loss of sleep, but damn if Zach wasn’t grateful for Jimmy right then, because he had this urgent need to get back to Josie.
He wanted to do what he could for the girl headed to the coroner’s office, but he also wanted to be the one making sure Josie was safe, unharmed.
It was probably the crime scene he’d been at, the sick, cold feeling that had settled in his bones since he’d walked down the stairs of that abandoned house and had seen the shackled body.
It obviously brought to mind what Josie Stratton had endured—suffered.
The more he saw, the angrier he became at what she went through.
The damp and cold of the basement. The chafing of the chains.
The fear… God. What that monster did to her.
He was antsy to get to her house. See her with his own eyes, know she was okay.
He didn’t let himself analyze it more than that.
Keep Josie Stratton safe.
It was exactly what he intended to do.