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“They are on the woman’s back,” Larry Birkin said. He walked over to the cold, metal slab and pulled the shoulder of the woman until her body was on its side. When he did this, it revealed two large slices on the shoulder blades of the back.
Valerie looked at the incisions and the downward thrust of them.
“The weapon must have entered the lungs,” she mused out loud. “Death would have been pretty quick.”
“I’ll give you that, you know what you’re talking about,” Larry Birkin said. “That’s exactly what happened in my estimation. And my estimation is always right.”
Valerie sighed.
“Do you not see anything that’ll help?” Sheriff Carter asked.
“It’s my job to build a profile,” Valerie explained, regret in her voice. “That’s what I’m trained to do. I look at the bodies. Then I build a mental simulation of sorts of the killer. A way to understand how the killer thinks, what his history is, and what his next move might be. But there’s nothing here that tells me much. Normally killers have a type; this one does not. It’s not the first time I’ve faced that, but there’s almost no other residual evidence left at the scenes. I have a really bad feeling.”
“What is it?” Sheriff Carter asked.
“We’re not going to know more until another body turns up.”
“We can’t let that happen,” Sheriff Carter said.
The care the sheriff had for his community was clear, but Valerie could say nothing to comfort him. Solving any case involved some sort of happenstance, some aspect of luck. Valerie hated to admit that in the face of all her training, but nonetheless, it was true. Sometimes they had to just catch a break. However, it seemed that throughout the winter hills of Kerry County, luck had abandoned them.
A knock came at the door of the morgue, and Valerie almost jumped at the sound.
“I wish people would leave me alone,” Larry Birkin grumbled under his breath. “What is it, Malcolm?”
The door opened, and the sheepish, pale, young figure of a man, who was clearly an assistant at the coroner’s office, stepped in timidly. Valerie hated the idea of how overbearing Larry Birkin must have been to his colleagues and subordinates to make one act so afraid.
“Well, spit it out,” the old coroner said when the silence grew too much.
“There’s a call for Agent Law,” the man said. “An Agent Charlie Carlson?”
Valerie looked at Sheriff Carter with hope.
And in the sheriff’s eyes, Valerie could see that they were filled with the same inclination.
They left the old man and the morgue behind, and Valerie was led into another small office, this time not Larry Birkin’s.
The nervous young man said, “you can use my phone here, he should be on the line transferred from the front desk.” Then he left as if he wanted to be anywhere else but there.
“I hope this is something useful,” Sheriff Carter said quietly.
“So do I,” Valerie sighed, picking up the receiver and speaking into it. “Charlie?”
The phone line buzzed. “Val, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I think the cell phone reception around here is patchy at best, Charlie, and we were in the most cramped morgue I’ve ever seen, surrounded by all that metal. Apologies. How did you get on with the other farm?”
“Well,” Charlie said with concern in his voice. “Will has a broken arm.”
“A broken arm?” Valerie repeated with surprise. “What the hell happened?”
“Val,” Charlie then said. “I think we’ve got him. I think we’ve caught the killer.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Valerie thought Carter’s driving left a little to be desired. The sheriff’s lights flashed on the winding road as they headed out towards Turnberry Town where the Sheriff Department’s HQ was to be found.
The sheriff was driving faster than he needed to, but he was like a man possessed.
