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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sunday, October 9, 6:00 a.m.
Tessa came to Sharp often in his dreams. Most nights, she was dressed only in one of his white dress shirts. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, sleeves pushed recklessly above her elbows, and only a single button was fastened, offering a generous peek at the full swell of her breasts. Firm legs, but so soft to the touch.
Sharp awoke and glanced at the empty side of his bed. He was thinking about her too much during the day, and now she was in his dreams.
Groaning, he got out of bed and went straight for the shower. He didn’t bother with hot water. Ice-cold water was what he needed.
When he came into the kitchen, Sharp was grateful for the full pot of coffee waiting for him. He had only gotten a couple hours of sleep last night, and the cold shower hadn’t quite cut through his fatigue. He filled a mug and found McLean sitting on the back patio, staring at a chessboard that looked to be in midgame.
“What are you looking at?”
“I find sometimes chess allows me to focus and identify patterns.” He put his fingertips on a bishop, hesitated, but in the end, didn’t move the piece.
“Patterns.” Sharp shook his head. “I keep forgetting there’s a philosophy minor lurking behind your math major. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it fall, does it make a sound? All bullshit to me.”
McLean sipped his coffee before moving a chess piece. “You would be surprised what secrets the universe will reveal if you’re simply quiet.”
Sharp took a sip of coffee. “Right.”
McLean’s eyes darkened with unspoken thoughts. “Even in chaos, there are paths. What’s on your agenda today?”
“I’m headed into the office. More surveillance footage waiting for me.”
“On the Diane Richardson case?”
“Indirectly. I’m working on the case of a kid knifed in a Richmond alley. I think the kid was killed because he recognized his killer.”
McLean’s lips curled. “So who did the boy know? What were his daily patterns?”
“I’m working on that. He came from a small town where most of the locals know each other.”
“Your killer is a local?”
“I think he was either local or in the area often. The kid’s neighborhood is right off I-95, which broadens the possible list of suspects.”
“If you need help, shout.”
“Will do.”
McLean checked his watch. “Now, I’ve got to go. Headed to meet with the Shield people.”
Sharp checked his own watch. “At this time of day?”
“They work nonstop, like you.” He placed his coffee cup in the sink and, offering a quick salute to Sharp, snatched up his keys and left.
As Sharp sipped coffee, he mentally ran through the surveillance tapes he’d reviewed, until his phone rang. It was Martin. “Working on Sunday?”
Martin’s chair squeaked through the phone. “A good excuse to skip brunch with my mother-in-law.”
“You two don’t get along?”
Without any malice in his tone, he said, “We’re polite, but she could live the rest of her life without seeing me again, and I could do the same.”
“Tessa’s mother died before I met her. She has a cousin who never liked me. The cousin knows me better than I know myself.”
“How so?”
“The cousin is a workaholic. She recognized the traits in me that I didn’t see.” He refilled his cup.
“She wasn’t charmed by your witty dialogue?”
Sharp grunted. “I’m incapable of small talk.”
“No kidding, really?”
Sharp ignored the sarcasm. “The blood in the Richmond city alley belongs to Terrance Dillon.”
“No doubts?”
“None. The kid was AB negative and the blood is a DNA match to the evidence collected by the medical examiner at autopsy. Terrance Dillon was definitely killed in the alley.”
“Any other evidence from either of the two crime scenes that are attached to this case?”
“As you might remember, there’s a partial fingerprint on Terrance Dillon’s belt buckle, which doesn’t belong to the victim. We’re running it through AFIS. Must have been transferred when the killer lifted the body. Judging by the blood trail, the killer pulled the body toward Cary Street. The trail ended abruptly two feet inside the alley.”
He thought about the white van circling Diane’s block. “He put him in a vehicle.”
“Which has to have traces of blood in it. The kid lost a tremendous amount of blood, and even if he died in the alley, he was still spilling blood.”
He remembered the faint bloodstain on Diane’s doll dress. “What about the blood on our doll victim? Has that been tested?”
“It’s in the works now.”
“Compare it to Terrance Dillon’s blood.”
Martin hesitated. “Sure.”
“What about the kid’s cell phone? Did you find any numbers out of the ordinary?”
“All the numbers on the kid’s phone can be confirmed. The father’s phone is a different story. When he was arrested, he had three phones in his possession. One had not been used. The other two were used to make calls to another burner phone. I checked with the cell towers to see if I could get a location, but the phone is currently inactive. If the killer reactivates the phone, then there might be a chance to find him.”
“If he’s smart, he’ll smash it and toss it in the river.”
“You give him too much credit.”
He wished that were true. This killer could possibly have been killing for a dozen years. “Can you send me a printout of the numbers?”
“Sure, why?”
“A man at Shield Security might be able to track the cells and see if one reactivates.”
“Sure.”
“What about the dolls found at the Richardson home and the Hayes apartment?”
“I was only able to pull a partial print from the Hayes doll. The Richardson doll was wiped clean. Both of the dolls’ heads, arms, and feet are porcelain. Neither was manufactured, so I’m guessing the parts were ordered from a craft supply store and then assembled. The clothes are also not manufactured but hand-sewn. Finding the seller of any of these materials is a tricky matter.”
With the Internet, this supplier could be anywhere in the world. “Are there similarities between the partial print on Terrance Dillon’s belt buckle and the partial on the Hayes doll?”
“I have a thumbprint on the buckle and a right index finger on the doll. The thumbprint
is a fairly good sample, but the index finger shows signs of scarring, perhaps a burn. I had no matches on the index finger and was able to match one, maybe two points on the thumbprint, but as you know, I need at least six for a solid identification.”
“Thanks. Word is you were also on the team in Elena Hayes’s apartment? Find anything?”
“Lots of prints, but no telling which ones, if any, belong to our killer. It’s a matter of sorting through the hundreds we collected and matching them to either the thumbprint or the AFIS system.”
“We’re looking for a needle in a haystack, but at least we have a haystack now.”
“I’ll forward what I have.”
“Thanks.”
As Sharp ended the call, he heard a car door close and looked out his front window. He saw Tessa approaching the door. His first thought was there had to be a problem for her to come to his house this early. He set his coffee cup aside and moved to the door, snapping it open before she could knock.
“Tessa,” he said.
She smiled. “Just the man I need to see. I have information for you.”
He stepped aside. “Come in.”
Closing the door behind her, he felt a familiar tightening in his gut when he watched her walk. Damn. When would he get over wanting her? She moved into the living room, and he motioned for her to sit. She chose the sofa.
He remained standing. “What do you have?”
She scooted to the edge of the couch, clutching a file in her hands. “I pulled Kara’s autopsy file.”
His insides turned brittle. “Why’d you do that?”
“The comment my cousin Holly said bothered me.”
“About the makeup?” A calm tone hid the fire burning in his gut. “The Kara I knew didn’t wear makeup.”
“She wasn’t wearing it that night. The picture proved it. I know my cousin remembers everything, but I thought she might have heard wrong. So I pulled Kara’s medical examiner case files and looked at the pictures taken of her when she arrived at the medical examiner’s office. Have you seen them?”
He paused to shore up his defenses. “No.”
“I know this is painful, Dakota, which is why I did the looking without talking to you first.”
He cleared his throat. “What did you find?”
