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“Where were they found?” I ask, ready to take notes and connect the dots if need be.
“Eagle Pass and Twin Pines,” he says, turning on the screen above his head to a map freckled with red dots. “This is where the bodies have been found so far. All six of them, the head of Ms. Gannon excluded.”
“Look at that.” Nikki’s chest trembles with a laugh. “We’ve almost got a complete circle.”
Fallon nods. “With Ironwood Springs tucked neatly in the middle. It’s almost as if the killer is baiting us to find them.”
I glance her way and her gaze latches to mine as we think about it.
“The branding,” she says. “Can you pull up the autopsies again?”
Hale starts to do just that, but Nikki is already clicking at her keyboard like mad.
“What are we looking for?” she asks.
“Right or left torso. A triangle on top. There’s a line running from the top to the bottom. With two other lines fanning out from under the triangle,” Fallon tells her.
Nikki draws it out on a piece of paper. “Almost looks like two triangles with the one on the bottom missing a third line. It must mean something.”
“Mountains, trees,” Hale offers. “Any number of twisted things qualify.” A corpse pops up on the screen. “Bill Atwood,” he says as he focuses in on the torso.
“There it is,” I say, pointing up at the screen. “Zoom in on the hard right.”
And sure enough, we’ve got a triangular image with three lines dancing from it.
We take a look at the other corpses, and Melissa Kilpatrick, Janelle Medina, and Brandy Richardson all have the very same markings.
“Who wants to bet our shiny new corpses will have the exact same branding?” Nikki says, closing her laptop.
“How were the other two killed?” Fallon asks just as Hale pops the sheriff’s report onto the screen.
“Female, late twenties, throat slashed,” he reads. “The body was found with multiple contusions, broken nose, and an arm that looked as if it were twisted. According to this, she was black and blue all over. Purple, green, and yellow bruising were present.”
“Geez,” Nikki gasps. “So if she had contusions that were evident, that means she got those before she died.”
“Black and blue,” I say. “Color indicates time frame. Yellow and green indicate five to ten days, so we’ll go with that. Unless she was beaten daily.”
“And in that house of horrors, it’s completely possible,” Nikki says.
Fallon squeezes her eyes shut for a moment.
“Everything all right?” I ask and she perks right up.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I just feel bad for the victim.” She glances to Hale. “How did the male die?”
“Throat slashed as well,” he says, pulling up another report.
“What’s the score?” I ask Nikki because I’m too lazy to dig through my notes.
“Four had their throats slashed, Janelle Medina succumbed to a nasty gash on the side of her head, and Melissa was strangled. One dismemberment—that would be Emily.”
“Pull up Janelle,” Fallon requests and Hale quickly obliges. “Get a tight shot of her neck.”
The screen zooms in and we’re treated to blotchy bruising.
“There it is,” I say. “Someone tried to strangle her beforehand.”
“They probably thought they did the job.” Fallon shakes her head. “But the woman must have moaned or moved and they found a way to finish her off. And according to the coroner, Melissa was dead for several weeks before Janelle was killed. I think whoever did this found out the hard way how tedious and unpredictable a strangling could be.”
