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“We’ll catch him.” Beth cleared her throat. “There’s nothing we can do until we outsmart him. We will outsmart him. He’s just one man and has never been up against people like us before.” She shrugged. “Put that case out of your mind for now. The local sheriffs are dealing with it, and we need all our attention on the Night Creeper. After the autopsy findings, it will be interesting to see what we find in the murder books and case files.” She glanced at him. “I’d personally like to know, in this digital age, why the heck he isn’t uploading all his cases to his server. He has one, and apart from local misdemeanors, there’s nothing there at all. The Night Creeper murders mention only someone died and a very sketchy report from the hospital or local doctors and morticians. It’s the weirdest setup I’ve ever seen.”
Climbing from the chopper and letting Bear out, Styles smiled at her. “I can’t imagine how Sheriff Walker is going to cope with you hauling him over the coals. He chuckled. “I figure it’s going to make my day.” He clicked his fingers for Bear to follow them and pulled open the heavy metal door to the entrance.
As they descended the stairs and went into the elevator that took them down to the mortuary and examination rooms in the medical examiner’s office, he glanced at Beth. “You sure you don’t want to call in Jo Wells to assist in the Convenience Store Killer case? She might be able to discover something about this maniac that we’ve missed.”
“Not yet.” Beth folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t have any information to give her. Just bringing her in now will make us look incompetent.”
Nodding, Styles waited for the elevator doors to open. The familiar smell of the examination rooms wafted toward them.The place was surgically clean. White tiles from floor to ceiling gleamed without one speck of dust anywhere and the smell of decaying flesh had been masked to some extent by floral disinfectants and air freshener plug-ins in power outlets in strategic areas. Strangely enough, Wolfe never carried the odor of death. How he managed to avoid the stench Styles didn’t know. He figured he must live in the shower. As they walked along the passageway to Wolfe’s office, the door opened and two people, accompanied by a bloodhound, walked out with Wolfe. His attention drifted over the petite beautiful woman, and he blinked. He recognized her and the huge guy at her side after seeing them in the local newspaper. They made quite the couple, like the handsome football player and the stunning cheerleader prom king and queen. What a mistake anyone would make if they believed these two were a pushover, as this was Sheriff Jenna Alton and her husband, Deputy Dave Kane, two of the most respected law enforcement officers in these parts. Even their dog, Duke, was a legend in his own right after digging out Kane from a mudslide and saving his life.
When Wolfe came toward them and made introductions, he could actually feel Beth stiffen beside him. He glanced at her and she seemed to be making all the normal responses. He shook hands and smiled. “I’ve heard so much about you and your team. Very impressive.”
“It’s nice to meet you at last.” Jenna turned to Beth and she frowned. “Have we met? You look familiar.”
“No, I arrived from DC last fall.” Beth smiled and offered her hand. “I did spend a short time in Helena but I’m sure I’d remember meeting you. I mean, you’re in books and all.”
“Ah, well, I hope we’ll have time to chat soon.” Jenna smiled.
“Great to meet you.” Kane’s handshake was firm and his smile reached his eyes.
Styles nodded. “Maybe we’ll get together over a case one of these days? We can’t allow Carter and Jo to have all the fun.”
“We’ll be sure to call if we need you.” Jenna looked at Wolfe. “Thanks, Shane. We’ll wait for your report. Don’t forget to try and make it to the cookout this Sunday.”
“I’ll do my best.” Wolfe smiled at her. “I have three cases on the run at the moment.” As Jenna and Kane walked away, he waved a hand toward the examination rooms. “Leave Bear in my office. There’s food, water, and a dog bed in there. Grab scrubs, masks, and gloves from the alcove. I’m ready to start. I have only Webber assisting today. Em is taking a class.”
Styles hung back until Wolfe had walked into the examination room with a red light glowing outside and followed Beth to the alcove. As they removed their coats, gloves, and hats, he looked at her. “You didn’t look too impressed meeting the local sheriff. Is there something I should know?”
“Not impressed?” Beth pulled on scrubs and grinned at him. “I was impressed. What you were seeing was dumbstruck with awe. You know, like meeting a favorite movie star? It’s hard to act casual, when I’ve been trained to the highest level and I’m expected to know how to solve cases, right?” She pulled on a mask and then gloves. “Then I’m expected to compete, with literally no formal training, against an elected sheriff and deputy who can run rings around me with their eyes shut. They don’t just solve crimes, they do it to such an extent someone put their cases into a bestselling series of books. I mean, come on, Styles. That doesn’t make you awestruck?”
Never having been awestruck by anyone, Styles shrugged. “I know Kane has a military background. Ty Carter mentioned it in passing. Plus they have an impressive team around them. One of their deputies worked as a gold shield detective in LA, then they have Carter and Jo and Wolfe and his team.” He snapped on gloves. “We do just fine and we’ve solved cases just as notorious.Give it time, our cases will make it into a true crime series as well.”
“Oh, I’m not sure I’d want the publicity. They’d dig into my past and use it against me for sure.” Beth’s brow furrowed into a frown. “Right now, they have targets on their backs. Serial killers are already coming here. There are so many who would see these vast areas of forest as a perfect place to hunt. Just how many would want to be the first to take them out? For them it would be the ultimate trophy.”
Intrigued by the way she thought, Styles glanced at the examination room door and figured he had another minute to talk to her before Wolfe came looking for them. “Maybe, but they have experience now and that’s everything when dealing with psychopaths, right?”
“Getting married was their first mistake… family, well that’s two.” Beth turned to look at him. “You know as well as I do that psychopaths are smart and they take vulnerabilities and use them to their advantage. It’s like staking out a live goat to catch a bear. If they set their sights on taking down one of them, they’ll use what works best. Trust me, people they love will make the best goats.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Still reeling from coming face-to-face with Jenna Alton, Beth followed Styles into the examination room. She’d taken down a serial killer more than once in Black Rock Falls, but to keep her Tarot Killer identity a secret she’d had no choice but to make up an explanation on the fly. Styles was so perceptive and picked up the slightest change in her body language. Part of her wished she could come clean and tell him, but Styles was a law-abiding man and she couldn’t risk the chance of him turning her in. She sensed he believed she’d spun him a yarn by the way he lifted one eyebrow when she’d given her excuses. How could she tell him that Jenna had seen her, as herself, not hours after she’d dispatched an unstoppable serial killer. The one in question would have been in the wind long before Jenna and her team had gotten to him. Out of options, she had to act. It had been self-defense; he’d tried to kill her and she’d turned the tables on him. She had no witnesses, and she never planned to have any either. Not that it mattered. Deep down inside, her conscience was clear, just as it would be if she killed someone firing on her in an FBI shootout. One side of the line is murder, and the other is ruled as a justified shooting.
“Y’all ready?” Wolfe looked from one to the other. “In your absence, I took X-rays, blood samples, and swabs of all areas of interest.” He indicated to the array of screens on the wall. “I’ve established the ID of the victim as Layla Cooper out of Wolf Valley. We had her mom by earlier to identify her. She reported her missing first thing this morning. As most folks do, she’d called everyone, driven around the roads. Just in case she’d missed the bus home, the sheriff was notified. He called the local bus station. The driver recalls dropping her at her usual stop. She takes the bus regular. He didn’t recall seeing anyone in the local vicinity at the time.”
“You’ve just about done all our work for us.” Styles stared at Wolfe. “Do you know where she was last seen?”
“I sure do.” Wolfe pulled up a map on the screen and they all moved closer. “Bus stop is here. She usually walks from here to her home.” He moved his finger across the map. “This is the old industrial area where we found the body. It’s a mile or so away in the opposite direction. There’s no reason she’d head out there. The bus driver insisted she got down from the bus alone and he saw no one waiting for her, and no vehicles in the immediate area.”
Beth moved her attention to the X-rays and pointed to the neck. “She has a broken hyoid bone, so is that conclusive of strangulation?”
“In layman’s terms, yeah.” Wolfe looked at her. “Asphyxiationis the term I’d use, by means of a cord.” He moved back to the body and flipped back the sheet.
“As I assumed when we examined the body in situ, the killer used a cord to immobilize but not kill his victim.” Wolfe indicated to the circles of ligature marks crisscrossing the neck. “As she fought to remove the cord, it was tightened enough to render her unconscious, and then with her subdued, he attempted to rape her.” He indicated to the bruises to her thighs.“I can see why a local doctor or a mortician seeing this bruising would assume rape took place. In the instance of Jody Hooper, the victim we examined at the funeral parlor yesterday, a swab was taken by a local doctor, but without a full rape kit diagnosis, we had no positive proof of rape. It was an assumption. We now know that no rape took place.” He looked from one to the other. “I’ll conduct the same examination now.” He collected his instruments and went to work.
Watching the screen rather than the process, Beth waited for the dye to be introduced into the cavities to allow tears and damage to show out very clearly on the scope. She shook her head. The vaginal cavity was undamaged. The hymen was clearly intact, confirming the victim was a virgin. “At least, it will give the parents some peace to know she wasn’t raped.”
“I can’t imagine the horror of losing a child.” Wolfe removed the instruments and set them back on the aluminum tray. “Attempted rape in both victims. The others are inconclusive because I can’t trust the examination reports. This is not the same guy as in Roaring River. He multiple-raped his victims. I don’t believe this guy is capable, as in, he becomes impotent during the attack, or is impotent and hopes a violent situation will stimulate him.”
“Maybe he has a religious upbringing and it works as a barrier.” Styles glanced at Beth. “You know, he hears his father’s or priest’s voice in his ear telling him sex outside of marriage is a sin?”
