Fields’s whole body seemed to drop an inch with relief.
Ella hid her smile behind her coffee mug.She’d known Mia Ripley for long enough to know that the stubbornness had a shelf life, and apparently today that shelf life was about four hours.A personal best.
‘Thank you both,’ said Fields.‘How can we make this work?’
‘Leave it to me,’ Ripley interrupted.‘We can operate as consultants, so there’ll be no dick measuring contests between the feds and NOPD.It stays under your control.We’ll do what we can to help, but remember we’re on a time limit until we get the clearance to transfer Creed.’
‘Perfect.I appreciate it.’
‘I’ll call our director after this, now show us what we’re working with.’
Fields opened the file and turned it so Ella and Ripley could see.Inside were two sets of photographs separated by a divider.He tapped the second set.
‘This one came first.Found last night by a jogger on the bank of the Bayou St.John, about a mile north of where Rose Michaels turned up.We still haven’t confirmed who she is.She didn’t have ID on her, and we’ve got her cell phone but no warrant to access it yet.Apart from that, all she had was the clothes she was wearing and what you’ll see in the photos.’
Ella pulled the photographs toward her.The first was a wide shot taken from the riverbank.The woman was on her back on the dried mud with one arm above her head and the other across her stomach.She was mid-twenties at a guess, clearly in the prime of life.She had red hair that was cut to chin-length and was wearing a pink hoodie and dark jeans.
The second photo was closer.Ella could see the bruising on the victim’s throat.It was the same spread pattern as Rose Michaels, created lateral compression marks either side of the trachea.Someone had wrapped their hands around this woman’s neck and held on until her brain starved of oxygen.
Ripley leaned over and said, ‘Same age range as the victim in the alleyway.’
‘That was my first clue that these were related,’ said Fields.
Ella rifled through the next few photographs and found more of the same.Close-ups of the bruising, wide-angle shots of the ground where she’d fallen.‘What was your second?’she asked.
‘This.’Fields reached over and pulled the picture from the back of the pile.He lay it on the table.‘I was looking for anything that might identify her, and found this when I was checking her jewelry.’
The photograph showed the woman’s necklace.Fields had pulled it from under her hoodie and laid it out.
It was a thin silver chain with a small ceramic figure attached to it.
A snowman.
It had a round white body, black dot eyes, an orange triangle nose.It was crude, slightly lopsided. It was not the kind of thing anyone would put on a necklace.There was string around the snowman’s neck, which had then been tied to the necklace.
‘This is what connects them,’ Ella said.
Fields rubbed the back of his neck.‘I wasn’t sure.I’m still not.But when I saw what Rose Michaels had in her hand, and then looked at this again…’
Ella slid the photograph across to Ripley, who had stopped eating.That alone told Ella everything about how seriously Ripley was taking it.Ripley studied the image and studied the snowman.Then she looked at Ella and said nothing, which was Ripley’s way of sayingwe’ve got a multi-murderer on our hands.
‘It’s the same killer,’ Ella said.
Fields leaned forward.‘You’re sure?’
‘Two women within the same age bracket, killed within hours of each other, less than a mile apart, both strangled.And both left with a small ornamental figure that has no reason to be on their person.A ballet dancer glued into Rose’s palm.A snowman fastened to this woman’s necklace.Ask yourself what young woman would carry a bulky snowman around her neck.These figurines weren’t put here by accident.’
Fields said, ‘So these toys are like his signature.’
‘No,’ Ella said.‘It’s his ritual.’
Fields frowned.
‘A signature is what identifies a killer.Strangulation is his signature.Young women is his signature.This part of New Orleans is his signature.The figurines are different.They don’t serve a practical purpose.Strangling these women achieves his goal without a ballet dancer or a snowman anywhere near the scene, but he puts them there anyway, which means they fulfil a psychological need that the killing alone doesn’t satisfy.It’s compulsive.He can’tnotdo it.’
‘Which tells us what, exactly?’
‘That he’s organized,’ Ripley said.She’d pushed her plate to one side now.‘He brings the figurines with him.He selects them before the murder, which means there’s a planning phase.He doesn’t grab the nearest heavy object and beat someone to death in a car park.He picks his victim, he picks his figurine, and he picks his location.And then he arranges the scene afterward.He posed Rose Michaels with her palms facing up.He tied a snowman to this woman’s necklace.This is someone who can control himself.’
