give him the pleasure.
Forcing a calm to her expression that belied the trembling inside her, she knelt by the woman and mentally made notes of the scene. She was young, mid-twenties probably, blond, and she’d been strangled to death with a pair of silk panties just as the paper had reported that the first two victims had. However, they had omitted details. The way her body was posed, the bruises on her torso and neck, the bugs nibbling at her flesh.
“What is her name?” she asked softly.
“Judy Benson,” Detective Cortez said. “We found her purse over there behind those oaks. She’s twenty-two, lives in an apartment in town.”
A commotion sounded behind her, and Captain Black cleared his throat. “It’s the press. I’ll take care of it. Stay here, Cortez.”
The air stirred with humidity, made hotter by the tension humming between her and Cortez. A fly buzzed around her face, and she swallowed back bile at the acrid smell of the decomposing corpse.
Determined to hold herself together until she was alone, she honed in on the visual details of the crime scene. His MO, his choice of the underwear as a killing tool, the way he’d left the body exposed, all were signs that would help her get inside the killer’s mind and create a profile.
The perpetrator had spread the girl’s legs as if to suggest a sexual crime, but he’d folded her hands together as if she was saying a prayer and laid them across her bare breasts. Maybe he was conflicted?
A prayer or was she supposed to be asking for forgiveness? Maybe she was supposed to be worshipping him? “Was she raped?”
“We won’t know for sure until the ME gets her on the table. With the other two, there were indications of sexual intercourse, but not clear signs of rape. Sex could have been consensual but something snapped with the guy and he killed her.”
“Or he may have killed her during sex—some men can only achieve sexual satisfaction through violence,” Jenny said. “Were the other two girls posed like this? Legs spread, hands folded?”
“Identically.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. “How long was she missing before you found her?”
“Her roommate said she disappeared Thursday night after happy hour from a bar on River Street.”
“And the other girls?”
“The first victim, Dodie Tinsley, a waitress, disappeared after work one night. She was found two days later. The second girl, Penny Ann Wayling, was last seen at the Java Monkey where she was supposed to meet a date. A coed discovered her body the next day while jogging.”
Jenny angled her head. “Any leads so far?”
He shook his head, his jaw tight. “We’ve interviewed old boyfriends, roommates, neighbors, friends. And we’re checking their computers for e-mails, chat rooms, to see if the girls might have tried one of the online dating services. But so far we don’t have any viable suspects.”
“How about the underwear? Did it belong to the victims or did he bring it?”
“He brought it. We think he took the victims’ as a trophy.”
“I see. Did he always use black?”
Raul nodded. “We’re trying to trace where he purchased them.”
Jenny pushed to her feet, needing to escape. The girl’s sightless eyes screamed for help and were tormenting her. The cops would have pictures of all the crime scenes. She’d review them, compare them, see if she noticed anything else.
The detective cleared his throat. “Now what can you tell us, Dr. Madden?”
Again he said the word doctor as if it was a four-letter word.
“Listen, Detective Cortez,” she said, facing him. “I don’t know if you’re always this rude, or if you’ve just decided to grace me with your bad attitude, but I didn’t ask to be here today. So if you don’t want my help, that’s fine. I can leave now.”
She started up the path, trembling as she tried to escape the awful smell and the image of that poor girl lying so hopelessly dead. Because no matter what she or he did, they couldn’t bring her back.
And she didn’t intend to show her grief for the victim to this cold-hearted bastard.
R AUL WANTED to let her go. But Black was approaching with a scowl on his face, and he knew he’d better shape up.
“Captain Black requested you come, so he’ll want to hear what you have to say.”
Her eyes blazed, and she hesitated. “And you, Detective?”
He couldn’t lie. “You like sexual deviants. I have trouble with that.”
“Like?” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “If that’s how your thought processes work, then you like criminals.”
His eyes glittered with disdain. “I hunt them down and put them behind bars to get justice.”
“And I treat sexual deviants to alter their negative behavior.”
“They don’t deserve to be coddled or to be released on some stupid insanity plea.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But they’re human, and if I can help one of them, keep one from committing a crime, from killing an innocent person or themselves, then I’ve saved a life, and that makes my job worthwhile.”
Captain Black strode toward them, his jaw set in granite. “Dr. Madden, is there a problem here?”
She turned her gaze toward him, and Raul scowled. Let her run to his boss, whining that he’d insulted her pride.
“No,” she said instead. “I was just coming to relay my initial assessment.”
Black shot Raul a dark look. “Good. We need all the help we can get on this case.”
She nodded, a sheen of perspiration glistening on her face. “All right. Given the way the body has been posed, it suggests a sexual predator.”
“Even though the girls weren’t obviously raped?” Black asked.
She nodded. “Yes, perhaps he sees them as sexual beings, but he thinks they’re dirty girls and wants to expose them for what he perceives they are. He also may be conflicted. He likes them, is tempted by them but blames them for his fall from grace so he shames them. Ultimately, he has to kill them so they won’t entice him or any more men.”
“That makes sense,” Black said. “Go on.”
“Your killer is probably in his early twenties. He may have suffered a psychotic break meaning his reality is altered. Skewed. He’s attractive, appeals to young girls, or else he wouldn’t be able to approach them and convince them to go with him. He looks trustworthy, like a nice guy.” She exhaled shakily and Raul realized she wasn’t as cool as she’d acted. The girl’s death had disturbed her.
“Although
