“Yes, sir,” two officers said and headed in my direction.
I tucked my head and walked past them as if I belonged there. I kept walking. When I was close enough to catch a glimpse in an officer’s light, I stopped. My stomach coiled, threatening revolt. I took a deep breath.
“Shit!” Avery exclaimed as he came to stand beside me. “How in the hell did you get out here?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” My voice strained for control.
He took my elbow and steadied me. “Don’t you dare mess up my crime scene,” he said.
“I won’t,” I promised.
“And don’t go any closer!”
“I won’t.”
“Are you okay?”
I nodded.
“Stay out of the way and don’t move. Mitch will be here any minute. He can take care of you.” He released my arm and went to talk to two officers.
I stared at the dead girl. She slumped on a bench, blood pooling around her hips and slowly dripping onto the pier. She looked as if she was smiling, but it was a trick of death. The rictus of her face was a strange imitation of the slash that had opened her throat.
She was naked, except for the bridal veil that floated softly in the chill breeze.
6
Standing in the shadows, I leaned against the rail and listened to the water. Out here, away from the beach, it was calmer. A boat bobbed about a half mile offshore, the lights swaying with the gentle swells. I took some deep breaths and conjured up a mental image of the humiliation I’d suffer if I fainted or threw up. I’d seen death wear a number of faces, but this girl was so young. Her body bore the beginning of a summer tan. Bikini tan lines. A pretty blue-eyed blonde. Somebody’s baby girl.
The breeze off the water was steady, and it lifted the gossamer veil in lazy drafts. Lace fluttered against her pale face. It was a beautiful veil with a band of seed pearls forming the delicate headpiece.
The police officers were busy setting up portable lights. No doubt Avery was watching me, but I moved a little closer. When the floodlights came on, I was able to check the girl’s left hand. The ring finger had been severed. I turned away, horrified by what I finally understood.
Mitch arrived. He talked to the policeman working the sign-up sheet for all law-enforcement officers on the scene. He moved on to Avery, talking in a terse whisper. At last he came to me, his face registering only annoyance.
“How the hell did you get here?”
“I followed the squad cars. They hadn’t set up the perimeter yet.”
“Carson, this is strictly off-limits.” In the glare of the lighting two policemen had rigged, I could see the white around the corners of his mouth and nose.
His anger stabilized me. “Take it easy, Mitch. I couldn’t write anything until Sunday’s edition even if I wanted to. I’m not going to jeopardize your investigation. I want this person caught as badly as you do.”
“As you so succinctly put it, you don’t have control over what’s printed. Brandon Prescott rules that paper, and he doesn’t give a damn about this investigation.”
I couldn’t argue that. “I don’t tell Brandon everything and you know it. As long as I’m kept in the loop.” It wasn’t a threat; it was just a statement of fact. I’d worked well with the Miami PD. I often knew more than I printed, until the time was right. “I’ve figured out the hair combs,” I told him. “Bridal veils. They attached the veils to the victims’ hair. Those five dead bodies were buried with bridal veils.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.” He turned so that his profile was to me.
I noticed then that Mitch was sweating, and his pasty color had nothing to do with anger. He was deeply affected by the murder. “But why would someone kill four, probably five, women in 1981, stop for twenty-four years and then start killing again?” I spoke more to myself than Mitch, but my words made him look at me. “It’s because we found the bodies.” I saw that Mitch thought the same thing.
“We have to stop him,” he said.
“You’re assuming it’s a man, or do you have evidence?”
He hesitated. “That was an assumption.”
“An easy one to jump to,” I agreed. Women killed other women, but not often with the trappings of nudity and a bridal veil. Also, the killer would have had to be pretty strong to restrain a young woman and slice her throat so deeply with one stroke. I wasn’t a forensics expert, but it certainly looked like a clean stroke to me.
“The ring finger’s missing,” I said. “Jack says he’s a trophy taker.”
“Jack’s not a forensic profiler. I wouldn’t print that,” Mitch snapped.
“Okay,” I said. “I won’t print it. But what are the cops thinking?”
“We thought we were working a crime that was twenty-four years old,” Mitch said with a hint of bitterness. “Carson, I’d like to keep you in the loop, but I need to know that you’ll work with us. Even when it means holding out details.”
Brandon would skin me alive. That wasn’t so bad, but there were ethical considerations. Brandon paid me to do a job that included digging up facts that no one else had. A story that the police were looking at a killer who took fingers as trophies—and this killer was current, not some cold case from another century—was a big deal. I had to figure out my obligations. “There are people’s lives at risk here. My job is to keep the public informed.”
He took a long breath. “I know that, but panicking the public won’t protect anyone. In fact, printing too much detail could screw up our chances of catching this guy.”
“I don’t intend to do that.” There was a fine line to walk between informing the public and damaging an investigation, and it was a boundary that had to be redrawn with every case. The problem was that both the police and the newspaper wanted to be the one to draw it.
“And what does Brandon intend?”
It was a good question because we both knew the answer. A panic would be right up Brandon’s alley, especially if the Morning Sun was leading the charge. I didn’t say anything.
“If Brandon gets hold of the words serial killer, trophy taker or anything similar, it will be blown way out of proportion, and you know it.”
I wasn’t certain that the facts could be distorted to seem worse than they were. In all truth, however, I couldn’t argue Brandon’s reliability, or lack thereof. I shifted the topic. “Do you think this is a copycat killer or the original?”
He took another breath. “If I talk to you freely, will you promise to work with me?”
I nodded. “We’re off the record, until I say otherwise.”
“The detail of the missing fingers on the five corpses was never released to the other media. If this is a copycat, that person had privileged information.”
“Either the original killer, a police officer or—”
“You,” he said. There was no hint of teasing in his face. “See how easily facts can lead to an illogical conclusion?”
“I have to go to Leakesville tomorrow.” I wrote my cell phone and my parents’ phone number on a slip of paper that I dug from my purse. “Call me by five o’clock. I have to have my story by six for the Sunday paper. And I have to tell Brandon about this girl. I won’t mention the finger.” I looked out at the dark water. “I’ll wait until daylight to tell him. I’m not responsible for