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10:45 a.m.
John should have known Whiskey would be all up in this mess. And Greg was letting it happen so he could make the arrest and get the credit for taking him down on drug charges. Women were dying left and right. Did that not matter to him? When had the lines of justice blurred? Drugs were killing human beings, and some dastardly killer was too. Both were like an open grave, never satisfied, satiated. Just a hollow throat swallowing up its victims and salivating for more.
He’d try once more to talk to Greg. To convince him to work together. Who knows, maybe they could secure one of these frightened women who ran drugs to turn on Whiskey in exchange for shelter from a killer that he clearly couldn’t stop.
Unless he was doing it himself.
Or protecting someone else.
John hated the idea of using a potential victim to meet an agenda, but it would save lives in the end, and quite frankly, he was desperate.
“What sounds good for lunch after this?” Violet asked.
John glanced up at the coroner’s office in front of him. After interviewing Jimmy Russell, he and Violet were tasked with being present for the autopsy findings, then questioning Dr. Crocker. How many women had he provided medical care to under Whiskey’s orders? Asa was looking into bringing another coroner in since Dr. Crocker may not be able to be trusted. If Whiskey or his men had anything to do with these murders, they might be paying Dr. Crocker to fudge his findings.
“Ask me that after the autopsy. As many corpses as I’ve seen, I never ever get used to it. Not the appearance or the smells.”
Violet grunted. “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. It’s normal. I take the scientific approach.” She walked to the glass doors. “I do hate the smells though.”
John couldn’t see it quite as sterile as Violet. But if that was what she needed to do in order to handle the gravity of the situation surrounding most victims they saw, then he wouldn’t judge.
Before they entered, John paused. “You think Dr. Crocker is in on this? Or a witness to the drug trafficking?”
Violet left her hand on the metal knob. The wind whipped her hair around her face. “I don’t know. And depending on how well Whiskey is paying him for his medical services, we may never know.”
She had a point. Money talked or, in this case, kept jaws wired shut.
“So you know, I noticed your silence on the way over. Not that you’re normally a well of words,” he grinned, “but you have this extra furrow in your brow when something’s plaguing you.” He’d noticed. Studied her. Was tipping his hand.
“Uh. Huh,” she softly commented but gave no indication she was upset or even a little excited to know he’d been learning about her. “Well, I do have something on my mind.”
John waited, hoping she’d share. Open up. She was tightly bottled. She hesitated, and he glanced at the door, expecting her to open it, to keep her thoughts private.
“Someone stole my underwear sometime before I came back into the bed and breakfast last night.”
John did a double take. Startled she shared, even more taken aback by what she confessed. “What?”
“Well, you asked,” she said. She shrugged. “I should be thinking about the case, but...maybe I am,” she murmured.
Confusion wrapped around his brain. He couldn’t process fast enough. “Back the bus up, Violet. Someone stole your underwear? All of it? Are you sure?”
An eyebrow raised, but her eyes were clear. “Not all of it. Only a pair. They were there yesterday, and this morning they weren’t...so yeah. I’m sure,” she said with a measured degree of irritation. She didn’t like being questioned. If she said it, then it was so. She wasn’t one to mince words or be dramatic or even shoot off without considering.
“Okay. I believe you. Anything else?”
“Just the feeling of being watched. And one of the dolls in my room was facing me last night. I turned them all facing away from me the first night. They’re...unnerving. Plus there’s the doll we found by the creek bed. A piece isn’t fitting here. Dolls. Eyes. Undergarments. I wonder if the victims had undergarments stolen prior to their deaths.”
“Did you tell Asa?”
“No. I haven’t said anything to anyone. No time.” She dropped her hand from the door and pocketed both in her blazer, eyes squinting in the wind. “The dolls. They’re female, obviously. He singled out one of them. One with dark painted hair. Is it me? Is he leaving me a message that I’m next?”
John’s stomach turned. He hoped not.
“Fiona worked a case a couple years ago when she was with the Midwest Division. Caught the Paper Doll Killer. He had an agenda to string together human paper dolls. They’d decay and he’d start over...this isn’t that, but...he collected women. What’s our killer collecting? Initially, is it undergarments and then later the eyes? What’s he do with their eyes? Does he have an agenda? Is he keeping them? Do the dolls represent his victims?”
Eyes—the sclera at least—could be frozen for eye graphs. They could possibly be preserved for a portion of time under the right circumstances. “I don’t know.”
She tucked her long hair behind her ears. “Why not leave their eyes with them? Like in their hands. They’d wake up and feel something mushy...not realizing until they panicked, ripped out the stitches, and then the awareness would zap them. Then they’d know they were holding their own eyes. That would be cruel. Sadistic. It fits what he’s doing. Where are the eyes?”
