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“Oh, here comes the bad cop.” Styles held up his hands in surrender. “Sure, sure. I do listen to everything you say and what you’ve said before about serial killers having a comfort zone. I figure he lives right here in town. This is his central position and the communities around here are his comfort zone. I gave it a lot of thought this morning, considering who would naturally move between towns in this county. Like, what do they all have in common?”
Nodding, Beth considered the question as the server returned with the huge meals. “Well, they’re all mining towns. They all have saloons, stores, and the like.”
“Yeah, but Roaring Creek is the main hub and forms the main supply chain, right?” Styles cut into a sausage, chewed, and sighed. “So if our guy moves between the towns frequently, he wouldn’t be noticed, he’d be part of the scenery.”
Thinking it through, Beth sipped her coffee. “Yeah, the mining camps would need a constant supply of everything. Then there’s the mail, newspapers, milk, etcetera. I figure the bakery in Roaring Creek supplies most of the county. It’s huge. I noticed it when we flew in. It has its name on the roof.”
“Exactly, so maybe we need to start by hunting down people who run deliveries to convenience stores.” Styles waved his fork at her and then continued to eat.
Nodding, Beth ate slowly. She never rushed her food. “Yeah, that would give him the layout of each store, the positions of the cameras, if any. Then if he’s in and out of there frequently, any DNA he accidentally left behind would be covered by his usual visits.”
“Trying to discover which place he plans to hit next will be a problem. He might expand his circle. Mischief is a massive county, with many small mining communities all over.”
Agreeing, Beth smiled at him. “That’s going to be difficult, but we’ll try and think like he does and work it out. We’ll need a watchlist of suspects and to find out where they go and when. We can interview them and work it out or maybe it’s time for me to go undercover again? It would mean staying in the town for a few days, and hoping I get his attention as a possible target.”
“The problem with that idea is that he kills all the witnesses and then abducts the woman. You’d need to take him down before he gets off his first shot. I know you’re darn good, but in a volatile situation like that, anything could happen.” Styles shook his head. “There’s no way I’m risking lives to take down this guy. We do this one by the book. Right?”
She smiled at him. “Your book or my book?”
FIFTEEN
River’s Edge
Wolfe circled the crime scene in a wide perimeter before dropping it down into scrubland not far from the FBI chopper. The entire area looked remote, with only a small patch of woods at the northern end of the field. The soil had been plowed recently but the closest ranch house he’d noticed was over a mile away. Opposite the field, the mountain range rose up dark against the morning sky. The body was situated about ten to twelve yards from the highway. Face down with arms and legs spread out, the young woman carried a backpack. Had she run away to escape or had her killer wanted her to run so he could use her for target practice? In his time as medical examiner, he’d seen many examples of the latter.
Agents Katz and Styles had secured the area and stood on the blacktop as Styles recorded the scene using his phone camera. He motioned his assistant, Colt Webber, to follow him, and after collecting his forensic kit from the chopper, walked over to them. “What have we got? Is she presumably the missing woman from the Roaring Creek convenience store?”
“It’s hard to tell.” Styles met his gaze. “She has a gunshot wound to the back of the head that exited through her face. The clothes she is wearing are the same as in the CCTV footage.” He pointed to an area marked with chalk. “Here is where the sheriff found the bullet casing. Just the one. No footprints. This guy is super slick. He didn’t as much as place the tip of his boot into the dirt.”
Wolfe turned to Webber. “Record the scene. Take note of any footprints along the way.” He turned to Styles. “First on scene?”
“A local but he observed only from his vehicle at sunup.” Styles waved toward the cruiser parked alongside the highway. “Sheriff Tucker was first on scene at six this morning. Tucker walked out, checked it was a body, and walked back. He called Sheriff Bowman, who gave him my number. We came and secured the scene. To preserve evidence, we came in from the north. I dropped my bird down in the field, and we walked twenty yards to the body. We returned to the bird, and I dropped her over yonder, where it’s drier.”
Nodding, Wolfe turned three-sixty degrees slowly. “This place is desolate. The killer knows the area. Not a soul would have been past to see him kill this woman.” He rubbed his chin. “How many vehicles have been by since you arrived?”
“Zero.” Beth looked up at him, her eyes flashing with annoyance. “We need something to go on. We’ve seen this guy and still we can’t put a name to him or come close to knowing who the heck he is.”
Taking gloves and a face mask from his kit, he understood Beth’s frustration, but he did at least have something for her. “First up, we have a positive DNA match on Arizona Carson. Looking over the previous cases, I’m assuming he keeps the women overnight, and from the physical evidence, bruising, and swelling, I’d say he tortures them for many hours. The rape of the previous victim was particularly brutal. He used a condom.There are bruises all over the body made by large hands.” He held out his hand. “My size.” He looked from one to the other. “The strange thing is, I found absolutely no trace evidence or DNA on the body of Arizona Carson. I queried the doctor at Roaring Creek General and asked if Arizona’s body had been washed, and the answer was no, which I found very interesting as y’all know someone who has been raped and brutalized usually has trace evidence all over. Not necessarily human DNA if the killer was careful, but dirt, fibers, and suchlike. So I tested the body for various cleansers and discovered she’d been bathed all over, including her hair, in PCR Clean. It must have been diluted because she has no chemical burns, but it would have burned the skin and eyes.”
“PCR Clean?” Beth stared at him in disbelief. “They wouldn’t bathe her in that at the hospital before burial. I carry a small, diluted quantity myself to avoid cross-contamination at crime scenes, but using it on a body, no way.”
“What did you discover?” Styles tipped back his Stetson and raised his eyebrows in question.
Wolfe’s eyes narrowed. “This is where it gets interesting. They do use that chemical at the hospital for general cleaning of the morgue, but after grilling the orderly and bringing down hell and brimstone on the staff, they all emphatically assured me it’s never used on a corpse.” He glanced over at the body lying in the dirt. “I’ll get her back to the morgue in Black Rock Falls, and if she’s been bathed in PCR Clean, you might be able to tie it to the killer.”
“This also means he must have a secluded place he takes them to, where he can bathe them.” Beth scanned the horizon. She turned bleak eyes on Wolfe. “I know just what he’s doing. I can almost see inside his warped mind.”
“How so?” Styles stood hands on hips staring at her.
“He’s already shown them what he’s capable of doing by killing all the witnesses in the convenience store.” Beth folded her arms across her chest and stared into the distance. “The women are already traumatized and terrified, but he spared their lives. I figure he makes a bargain with them. If they do whatever he tells them to do without complaint, he’ll let them go in the morning. Heck, he even allows them to shower but insists they use the PCR Clean, and it would sting like hell even diluted. He drives them out to the middle of nowhere and lets them go. His twisted mind tells him he’s keeping his word.” She turned her troubled gaze on his face. “What he didn’t promise is that he wouldn’t kill them.”
Finding Beth’s insight remarkable, Wolfe turned toward the body. “Well, if y’all follow me, I’ll see if there’s any other glaring evidence you can use.” He made his way along the plow furrows to the body.
“I’m done here.” Webber pushed his phone into his pocket and pulled on examination gloves.
Wolfe took in the position of the body. He’d seen many victims shot in the back or head while running and they all seemed to fall the same way. A head shot was instant, but the legs kept moving before the body fell down face-first. He walked back and forth, examining the blood and brain-matter spatter on the soil. The girl’s head was turned to one side, the bullet passing at an angle through her skull. She had lived for a minute before dying, enough to turn her face away as she fell. He turned and looked at the others. “She wasn’t expecting to be shot and was making a beeline for the woods. I figure she heard him racking a bullet. Her footprints zigzag before she is hit.” He sighed. “There’s little I can do here apart from take her liver temperature.” He removed the device from his kit and lifted her clothes and went to work. “Okay, I’ll get her back to the morgue and work on her today. I have a DNA comparison, so ifthis is who we suspect, I’ll be able to give you an answer by this afternoon.” He looked from one to the other. “This is a tough one, but the answers are always there.”
“Yeah, I’m running a facial-recognition program back at the office on the shooter.” Beth sighed. “I’ve looped in all the CCTV cameras from everywhere around here. We only have his eyes, but I might get a match or a close match. That’s all we need to start the ball rolling.”
