stiffness in his legs. His forty years were starting to slow him down, at least a little.
“She’s been tortured,” he observed, exhaling sadly. “Look at all the cuts. Some are starting to close up.” He shook his head grimly. “Someone worked her over for days before doing her in with that ribbon.”
Spelbren sighed.
“The perp was pissed off about something,” Spelbren said.
“Hey, when are we gonna wrap up here?” one of the cops called out.
Bill looked in their direction and saw them shuffling their feet. Two of them were grumbling quietly. Bill knew the work was already done here, but he didn’t say so. He preferred keeping those bozos waiting and wondering.
He turned around slowly and took in the scene. It was a thick wooded area, all pines and cedars and lots of undergrowth, with the creek burbling along its serene and bucolic way toward the nearest river. Even now, in midsummer, it wasn’t going to get very hot here today, so the body wasn’t going to putrefy badly right away. Even so, it would be best to get it out of here and ship it off to Quantico. Examiners there would want to pick it apart while it was still reasonably fresh. The coroner’s wagon was pulled up on the dirt road behind the cop car, waiting.
The road was nothing more than parallel tire tracks through the woods. The killer had almost certainly driven here along it. He had carried the body the short distance along a narrow path to this spot, arranged it, and left. He wouldn’t have stayed long. Even though the area looked out of the way, rangers patrolled through here regularly and private cars weren’t supposed to be on this road. He had wanted the body to be found. He was proud of his work.
And it had been found by a couple of early-morning horseback riders. Tourists on rented horses, the ranger had told Bill. They were vacationers from Arlington, staying at a fake Western ranch just outside of Yarnell. The ranger had said that they were a little hysterical now. They’d been told not to leave town, and Bill planned to talk to them later.
There seemed to be absolutely nothing out of place in the area around the body. The guy had been very careful. He’d dragged something behind him when he’d returned from the creek – a shovel, maybe – to obscure his own footprints. No scraps of anything left intentionally or accidentally. Any tire prints on the road had likely been obliterated by the cop car and coroner’s wagon.
Bill sighed to himself.
Damn it, he thought. Where’s Riley when I need her?
His longtime partner and best friend was on involuntary leave, recovering from the trauma of their last case. Yes, that had been a nasty one. She needed the time off, and the truth be told, she might not ever come back.
But he really needed her now. She was a lot smarter than Bill, and he didn’t mind admitting it. He loved watching her mind at work. He pictured her picking away at this scene, detail by minuscule detail. By now she’d be teasing him for all the painfully glaring clues that had been staring him in the face.
What would Riley see here that Bill didn’t?
He felt stumped, and he didn’t like the feeling. But there wasn’t anything more he could do about it now.
“Okay, guys,” Bill called out to the cops. “Take the body away.”
The cops laughed and gave each other high-fives.
“Do you think he’ll do it again?” Spelbren asked.
“I’m sure of it,” Bill said.
“How do you know?”
Bill took a long deep breath.
“Because I’ve seen his work before.”
Chapter 2
“It got worse for her every day,” Sam Flores said, bringing up another horrific image on the huge multimedia display looming above the conference table. “Right up to when he finished her off.”
Bill had guessed as much, but he hated to be right.
The Bureau had flown the body to the BAU in Quantico, forensics technicians had taken photos, and the lab had started all the tests. Flores, a lab technician with black-rimmed glasses, ran the grisly slide show, and the gigantic screens were a forbidding presence in the BAU conference room.
“How long was she dead before the body was found?” Bill asked.
“Not long,” he replied. “Maybe early evening before.”
Beside Bill sat Spelbren, who had flown into Quantico with him after they’d left Yarnell. At the head of the table sat Special Agent Brent Meredith, the team chief. Meredith cut a daunting presence with his broad frame, his black, angular features, and his no-nonsense face. Not that Bill was intimidated by him – far from it. He liked to think that they had a lot in common. They were both seasoned veterans, and had both seen it all.
Flores flashed a series of close-ups of the victim’s wounds.
“The wounds on the left were inflicted early on,” he said. “Those on the right are more recent, some inflicted hours or even minutes before he strangled her with the ribbon. He seems to have gotten progressively more violent during the week or so that he held her captive. Breaking her arm might have been the last thing he did while she was still alive.”
“The wounds look like the work of one perpetrator to me,” Meredith observed. “Judging from the mounting level of aggression, probably male. What else have you got?”
“From the light stubble on her scalp, we’re guessing her head was shaved two days before she was killed,” Flores continued. “The wig was stitched together with pieces of other wigs, all cheap. The contact lenses were probably mail order. And one more thing,” he said, looking around at the faces, hesitant. “He covered her with Vaseline.”
Bill could feel the tension in the room thicken.
“Vaseline?” he asked.
Flores nodded.
“Why?” Spelbren asked.
Flores shrugged.
“That’s your job,” he replied.
Bill thought about the two tourists he’d interviewed yesterday. They had been no help at all, torn between morbid curiosity and the edge of panic at what they had seen. They were eager to get back home to Arlington and there hadn’t been any reason to detain them. They had been interviewed by every officer on hand. And they’d been duly cautioned to say nothing about what they’d seen.
Meredith exhaled and laid both palms on the table.
“Good work, Flores,” Meredith said.
Flores looked grateful for the praise – and maybe a bit surprised. Brent Meredith wasn’t given to making compliments.
“Now Agent Jeffreys,” Meredith turned to him, “brief us on how this relates to your old case.”
Bill took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.
“A little over six months ago,” he began, “on December sixteenth, actually – the body of Eileen Rogers was found on a farm near Daggett.
