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“I don’t know,” Torin admitted. “She was a wise and kind and generous female—she didn’t deserve a death like this.”
“No one deserves a death like this.” Sky’lar’s voice sounded shaky. “You knew her?”
Torin nodded.
“I met her briefly.”
Lady Allesandra WinterBright had been originally from Tranq Prime, Torin recalled. She’d been a widow, her Kindred husband having died the year before due to a sudden and unexpected illness. But she had still wanted to live a useful life, despite her loss. Due to her great wisdom, Commander Sylvan had asked her to become an ambassador for the Kindred.
Torin had met her only once, at the ceremony confirming her ambassadorship. He remembered seeing both wisdom and sadness in her gray eyes as they were introduced. But now, no one would ever see anything in her eyes again.
“He…he cut them out. Her eyes—they’re gone.” There was horror and incomprehension in Sky’lar’s voice. Again Torin thought that she had certainly never seen anything so brutal.
“That’s part of his MO—I was able to get that much information at least,” he said steadily. “He cuts out his victim’s eyes—he’s got a whole collection by now.”
“He’s keeping their body parts?” Sky’lar looked at him incredulously.
“It’s what the humans call a ‘trophy’,” Torin explained. “Something he can keep with him to look at and fondle—it’s a way to relive the crime all over again.”
“That’s disgusting.” She made a face and then took a deep breath. “I guess…we should examine the body?”
She didn’t sound like she wanted to and Torin didn’t blame her. But she was definitely right. Though he hated to do it, he drew back the puffy white coverlet that was stained with crimson.
As he had feared, the ambassador’s night dress was pushed up and her thighs were spread. It was clear she had been violated before she died, like the killer’s other victims.
“What’s that stuff on her inner thighs?” Sky’lar asked in a low voice.
Torin frowned at the black, oily streaks on the pale, dead flesh. It had a putrid reek, like something going rotten in the garbage.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“It looks like the same stuff that’s by on the floor at the entrance of the room.”
Sky’lar made her way back to the door and pointed. Sure enough, there were oily black marks on the stone floor.
“It’s on the bottom of the door, too—look,” she said.
She swung the door closed and Torin could see that the oily black substance was indeed smeared along the bottom edge of the door. But then he saw something else.
“Look at that!” He pointed to the back of the wooden panel. “What does that look like to you?”
“An eye?” Sky’lar stared at the gory picture which had been painted in blood. Crimson streaks were running down the wooden door to its bottom edge. It was an open eye with a single dot of blood for the pupil.
“That’s his way of marking the scene—claiming ownership of what he’s done,” Torin muttered. He took a picture with his Com-U device.
“But what does it mean?” Sky’lar asked.
“Don’t know.” Torin shook his head. “It could be some kind of message…or it might just be him mocking us. Either way, as soon as I get samples of this black stuff, I think we’ve gotten everything we’re going to out of this room.”
“You think so?” There was palpable relief in Sky’lar’s voice.
Torin nodded.
“But I’d like to send the ambassador’s body back to the Mother Ship for examination.”
“I…I’m sure that can be arranged.” Sky’lar nodded. She was pale, Torin thought. Too pale. He wondered if she was going to faint, but she lifted her head and squared her shoulders. “I’ll make some calls as soon as we get out of here,” she promised him.
“Thank you.” Torin nodded. “You can go if you want to,” he added, as he took out several specimen collection tubes from the pockets in his vest. He needed to get some samples of the black, oily stuff on the floor and the door to see if it matched the stuff on the body.
“Are you sure?” Sky’lar frowned uncertainly. “I can stay if you think we’ll be able to get any prints or—”
“No prints that I can see, though let’s try this…”
Holding the specimen tubes in one hand, he pulled a small device from his other vest pocket. Flipping it on produced a finely collimated beam of pale purple light. Torin swept it across the crime scene, paying special attention to the body on the bed and the door, where the bloody eye had been scrawled.
“What’s that?” Sky’lar asked, frowning. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Print finder,” Torin explained. “It’s really good at finding fingerprints or footprints. The problem is, it finds all of them,” he added, as myriads of prints showed up like spider webs, crawling across every surface. “Some of these are probably the ambassador’s prints and some probably belong to the cleaning service personnel. Others are probably from the servants who looked after the ambassador.”
