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He watches as she reads through the exchange. Banter at first, flirty, a bit of innuendo. A steady to and fro, going on across a few days. A few gaps: neither wanting to seem too keen, but both still definitely interested. Then, the man suggests they get together. Drinks, at the same bar she went to with Libby only days before.
She opens up her own phone, sending a text to Griffin. Check out CCTV at the Orange Rooms. Bar in town. Libby met Sharp there.
She carries on reading, until the last one catches her eye. Let’s go old school, it says. Leave your phone at home. I’ll be the one with a copy of Dracula at the bar.
Cara points to it, nudging Deakin. He frowns.
“She must have liked this guy.”
“I can see why,” Cara says. She flicks back to his profile. “Every aspect on here is precisely someone that would appeal to Libby. It’s like someone designed a man specifically for her.”
“You think she was targeted?”
“It looks that way. But how could he know so much about her?” Cara says. She scrolls through the conversation again. “The bands she likes, the TV programs she watches.”
“He could have got that from Twitter,” Deakin replies. “I followed her, and she wasn’t discreet.”
True, she thinks. Every little detail of our lives—online. It’s not hard for someone determined.
Cara looks up at the buzz of metal cutting bone. Ross has moved on to the head. He’s already peeled the skin down from Sharp’s face and now painstakingly works his way around the crown. His assistant takes the saw, and Ross slowly pulls the top of his skull away with a slurp. Horrendous, but completely absorbing.
“Anyway,” Deakin continues, pointing to his phone, pulling Cara back. “Forensics and ballistics are back on Manson. All fingerprints and bloods match to victims. Shot with a .22 caliber gun, consistent with pieces of the handle found at the scene.”
“Same as the gun found here?”
He nods. “Could be. But how did he get it? This isn’t America—you need to know someone who can get their hands on a gun. And specific illegal firearms at that.”
Cara sighs. He’s right. “And anything back from the Dahmer scene?”
“Not yet.”
Hardly surprising, the lab must be swamped, samples piling up to be tested.
Her attention is diverted again as Ross moves away from the body to a microscope on the far side of the room. He’s looking at a slide, then calls his assistant over to take a look. They talk animatedly, and Cara fidgets. At last they turn, and Ross goes back to the corpse on the table.
“What have you found?” Cara asks.
“Very curious,” Ross starts. “He has a significant gunshot wound to the head. But you didn’t need me to tell you that,” he says, pointing to the slimy mess that used to be the guy’s brain. “Bullet went through the roof of his mouth, completely obliterating any gray matter on the way through, before exiting at the back-top, here. No other contributing factors except maybe these.” He pulls the arm away, and Cara sees a long row of track marks.
“Sampling his merchandise, no doubt,” Ross adds. “Have taken blood samples, so you’ll know more from that.”
“So? Suicide?” Deakin prompts.
“Normally, I’d say yes. But when I started looking closer, there were some odd aspects that caught my attention. Body temp was lower than it should have been, even when you consider how cold it was last night. And much cooler in his core than his extremities.”
Cara frowns.
“Fractures in large tissue masses, such as his heart and liver. Damage to some areas of skin. And this.”
He beckons them over to the microscope and Cara peers down. She can make out strange shapes, but her knowledge of biology isn’t what it used to be.
“Extended extracellular space and shrunken cells resulting from a freeze-thaw cycle,” Ross says.
“In English?”
“This is a body that’s been frozen.”
“What?” Cara starts.
