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“Digital.”
“Secure?”
“Until the hackers figure out a way to get the signal.”
“Okay. He used a hammer on her. Left it at the scene. We might get some prints off it, might not.”
Sam winced. A hammer did a god-awful amount of damage.
“Not much of her face is left, plus she was stabbed multiple times. And she was sexually attacked.”
If the boyfriend had left his semen behind, he was nailed. “Any semen?”
/> “Don’t know yet. The M.E. will have to do tests. He—ah—did her with the hammer.”
Jesus. Sam took a deep breath. “Okay. Thanks, Sergeant.”
“Appreciate the help. Your lady friend—is she who you intend to ask about the boyfriend?”
“Yeah. She called me because she was worried when Ms. Dean didn’t show up for work this morning.”
“Can you just ask her about the boyfriend, and stall her on the rest?”
Sam snorted. “I’d have a better chance of stalling sundown.”
“One of those, huh? Can she keep it quiet? We’re pretty sure this is Ms. Dean, but we haven’t made a positive I.D. yet, and the family hasn’t been contacted.”
“I’ll get her to leave work. She’s going to be pretty upset.” He wanted to be with her when he told her, anyway.
“Okay. And, Detective—if we can’t locate any family locally, we may need your friend to identify the body.”
“You have my number,” Sam said quietly.
He sat for a minute after they hung up. He didn’t have to imagine the gory details; he had seen too many murder scenes in all their bloody reality. He knew what a hammer or a baseball bat could do to the human head. He knew what multiple stab wounds looked like. And, like the sergeant, he knew that this murder had been perpetrated by someone who knew the victim because the attack had been personal; the face had been attacked. The multiple stab wounds were indicative of rage. And since most female murder victims were killed by someone they knew, usually the husband or boyfriend, or the ex-whatever, the odds were overwhelming that Ms. Dean’s boyfriend was the killer.
He took a deep breath and dialed Jaine’s number again. When she answered, he said, “Do you know Marci’s boyfriend’s name?”
She audibly inhaled. “Is she all right?”
“I don’t know anything yet,” he lied. “Her boyfriend—?”
“Oh. His name is Brick Geurin.” She spelled the last name for him.
“Is ‘Brick’ his real name or a nickname?”
“I don’t know. ‘Brick’ is all I ever heard her call him.”
“Okay, that’s enough. I’ll get back with you when I hear something. Oh—want to meet me for lunch?”
“Sure. Where?”
She still sounded scared, but she was holding together the way he had known she would. “I’ll pick you up, if you can get me through the gate.”
“No problem. Twelve?”
He checked his watch. Ten-thirty-five. “Can you make it earlier, say eleven-fifteen or so?” That would just give him time to get to Hammerstead.
Maybe she knew, maybe she caught on then. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
