The Absence of Mercy (26 page)

“Are you finished?” he asked his partner coldly. “Because I'd like to talk about the case now. That is, if it's okay with you.”

Danny nodded, handing the picture back to Ben. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his notepad. “Sorry,” he said, eyes cast downward onto the pages in front of him.

“Thank you,” Carl replied. He turned to the doctor. “What do you make of the face? Was he trying to make it difficult for us to ID the victim?”

“I don't think so.” Ben frowned. “He also amputated several of the kid's digits, but I don't think it was an effort to avoid fingerprinting. He left some of the fingers intact. In addition, all of the amputated digits were either found with the body itself or simply tossed aside in proximity to the crime scene.”

“So why destroy the face? Does that suggest any significance for psychological profiling?”

“Psychological profiling is not my area of expertise,” Ben replied. “But provided we think this is the same guy—which we do—I'd say no. The faces of the other two victims were damaged, but their general features remained intact. It doesn't fit his MO.”

“Which is?”

“Judging from the injuries to the bodies, I'd say that each one has been progressively worse.”

“You think he's getting better at desecrating them?” Detective Schroeder asked, glancing toward the metal table in the next room.

“No,” Ben said. “I think he's experimenting—seeing just how creative he can get. I think his enthusiasm for this sort of work is growing.”

There were a few more questions, but they were mostly formalities. By now, they all knew what they were dealing with. In a way, they each shared a certain intimacy with the killer, wading through the aftermath of each successive massacre and getting to know him by the tattered pieces he left behind. Detectives Schroeder and Hunt thanked Ben once again for his time. “If you discover anything else that might be of assistance,” Carl reminded him unnecessarily, “please give us a call.” Ben assured them that he would.

The detectives took their leave and made their way across the parking lot to the unmarked cruiser out back. “You know,” Carl said as they pulled the doors closed against the bitter chill, “you really ought to try concentrating on your job for once.” He popped the key into the ignition and started the Chevy, but left it idling in neutral. “I mean, what in the hell was
that
all about back there? Is this case boring you? You'd rather go white-water rafting with the doc this weekend?”

“Sorry,” Danny replied. “I wasn't trying to irritate you.”

“You think I'm out of line?” Carl challenged. “You think I shouldn't be irritated?” He dropped the car into reverse and backed away from the building. He tried to let go of his frustration, telling himself he was overreacting, that the stress of the case was getting to him. Still, it was hard to let the anger go once it had taken hold of him. “I mean, why don't you try getting your head out of your ass and start acting like you really care about solving this thing. I could use a little help here. You think you could manage that?”

Danny remained quiet, looking out through the passenger window. His right hand fidgeted with the armrest. Carl watched him for a moment, then shook his head in exasperation. There was no fight in the boy; that was the problem. If anyone had given Carl the type of verbal flogging he'd just dished out, he would've told them to go to hell; it wouldn't matter
who
they were. Instead, the kid just sat there and took it.

He guided the car out of the parking lot and shot down the street in the direction of the station, the tires screeching slightly on the asphalt as they accelerated. Neither of them spoke for the remainder of the trip. Small homes and businesses streaked past them on either side. It wasn't a huge town: one high school, a couple of gas stations, a few bars and restaurants for evening entertainment. Not much, really. But it was
theirs
to protect,
theirs
to safeguard. The thing was, nobody around here had been outwardly vocal about the delay in catching this guy. No one had stood up and said, “
Why ain't the police doin' their job? That's what I want to know!
” It simply wasn't that kind of place. These people were Carl's friends and neighbors, and he knew most of them by name. For the most part, they were decent folks. People trusted that their Sheriff's Department was doing everything in its power to put an end to this. The town seemed to have faith in that, and most people understood that a barrage of criticism wouldn't make the department's job any easier. That made it all the more frustrating for him that the investigation had failed to make any real headway since the last attack. The DNA sample from Clarence Bedford, the escaped psychiatric patient, had not matched any of the DNA left behind on the bodies by the perpetrator. And just like that, their most promising suspect—their
only
concrete suspect—had been swept off their list, leaving them with no one. That setback left Carl feeling angry and ashamed, and ready to bite the head off anyone who he judged wasn't doing their part to get this case solved. That's where Danny came in. The kid needed someone to light a fire under his ass, and by default Carl had been the one to do it.
If I hurt the kid's feelings,
he thought as they pulled into the station ten minutes later,
well, tough shit
. If it yielded something useful, it would certainly be worth it.

For his part, Danny had sat quietly in the front passenger seat during the short ride, gazing thoughtfully out through the window at the parade of storefronts and side streets they passed. He cared very little about the rebuke he'd just received from his partner. His hide was considerably thicker than Detective Schroeder presumed. Nor did he need a fire to be lit under his proverbial ass, as his partner imagined. He had taken the case seriously from the start, and had logged more hours than anyone during this investigation, sifting through the BMV photos until their images appeared before him even in sleep. He'd carefully reviewed the evidence over and over, looking for something to stand out from the background noise. The results of his efforts had been as frustrating to him as they had been for Carl. He didn't know why this should be the case. Hard work had always paid off for him in the past. Maybe he'd simply been thinking about it too much, trying to will something to happen when it clearly wanted to take its own sweet time coming to him. If that was so, the price of patience had been another dead child. That had pushed him back into a state of action once again, no matter how futile those actions might turn out to be. It was what drove him to bring his own digital camera to the autopsy review today. The body had already been thoroughly photographed by the crime scene investigators at the time it was originally discovered. Extensive pictures of the injuries were also taken during autopsy. Every wound had been well documented. It had not been necessary for him to repeat the process today. And yet he had felt the need to do so, if for no other reason than to involve himself as intimately as possible with the available evidence. And so, for twenty minutes he had remained with the body in the autopsy room while his partner and Dr. Stevenson talked further in the pathologist's tiny adjacent office. When Danny had finished, he'd returned the camera to its carrying case and had joined the others in the next room. And then . . .

“The bodies of the victims took quite a beating,” he observed now offhandedly, breaking the silence as they nosed into a parking spot.

“You just noticing that, are you?” Carl responded.

Danny barely registered the remark. His tone was thoughtful: “One hand and multiple fingers amputated. Deep stab wounds. Genitals amputated on the first victim. Most of the face abraded away on this last one.”

“Yeah. It's amazing how you're putting all of this together,” Carl replied.

“You can't inflict those sort of wounds with your bare hands.”

“I think we've already established that there was a weapon involved.”

“Several, most likely. Pretty tough to abrade someone's face away with a regular knife.”

“Uh-huh.” Carl killed the ignition.

“And the amputations: You ever tried cutting through bone with a knife, even a really sharp one?”

“I've done some hunting.”

“So you know it isn't easy, especially if you're going to do a bunch of them in a short enough period of time to minimize your chances of being caught in the act.”

“Is there a point to any of this?” Carl asked, impatiently. “Or are you just playing catch-up?”

“While I was photographing the injuries today,” Danny replied, studying the palms of his hands, “I was just thinking about what type of weapons—or specialized tools, if you will—might be necessary to carry out something like that.”

“And?”

“And I noticed a lot of them either lying around in the sink or stored away in drawers in that very room.”

“Now, wait a minute.” Carl stopped him. “If you're implying that the doc or his assistant might have had something to do with this, you're way off the mark. If you'd been paying attention, you'd remember that we actually checked on that, mostly because we had nothing better to do. Both of them have solid alibis during at least one of the three attacks. And the DNA analysis from the assistant didn't match the biological samples obtained from the bite wounds.”

“True. I'm just saying that the Coroner's Office would make a nice source for acquiring some of the necessary instruments. I'll bet some of the tools might not even be missed. Or perhaps,” he said, “they might have even been returned without anyone noticing. Think about it. What a great hiding place for a murder weapon: in an autopsy room in the midst of scores of similar instruments used to dissect cadavers on a daily basis. Hell, they might even have been cleaned by the CO staff between murders.”

“Interesting theory,” Carl replied. “But they keep that place locked up when there's no one there. No security guard with an extra set of keys. Who would that leave? The secretary? You think she's got the strength to carry out those kinds of attacks?”

“No,” Danny answered. “Besides, most of the stab wounds have upward trajectories—more consistent with a male attacker. Women tend to hold the weapon over their head and stab downward.”

“Generally, yes,” Carl agreed. “So would that imply a break-in? We could check, but I don't recall the Coroner's Office reporting any break-ins over the past year or so.”

“No, they didn't.”

“So, according to your theory, we would be looking for someone with access to keys to the CO, but not necessarily the staff itself. Friends, family, lovers. That sort of thing?”

“Right.”

“Well . . . we could check into it—talk to a few people and see if anyone fits the profile—but I think it's a real stretch. I wouldn't get your hopes up, Sherlock Holmes, but I do appreciate your willingness to get your head back into this invest—”

“There's one other thing,” Danny said.

“What's that?”

“The bite wounds. I can't stop thinking about the bite wounds.”

“What about them?”

“Well, for one thing, it just seems . . . I don't know . . . so animalistic. So savage. I find it the most upsetting factor, don't you?”

“The
whole thing's
upsetting, as far as I'm concerned,” Carl said. “I mean, that obliterated face today was pretty disturbing. But we're in a gruesome business, kid. You've got to get used to stuff like that.”

“I know.” Danny was studying his hands again. “But I was photographing the bite wounds today.” He looked up and smiled thinly, a little painfully. “I had to focus in pretty close to get the detail clear enough.”

Carl sighed. “Yeah?” With the ignition off they'd lost the heater, and the late December Midwest cold was starting to settle into the passenger compartment. He wanted to get into the station where it was warm instead of sit out here and listen to his junior partner go on about things he could've discussed during their conversation with the doctor at the CO.

“Do you remember that abnormal gap between the upper left canine and the first premolar that the dental expert identified from the silicon castings of the bite wounds? He called it a diastasis.”

Carl nodded. “Of course. We looked into it. Nothing panned out.”

“Well, it looks to be consistent with at least one of the superficial impressions left on the skin of this body, too. It's clearly evident, provided you know what to look for.”

“Which means the guy who killed this kid is the same one who attacked the other two. As suspected.”

“Right.”

“So? I don't see how that moves us any closer than where we already were.”

Detective Hunt stopped studying his hands and looked up at his partner. He looked a little ill. Carl wondered if he might be coming down with his first winter cold of the season. Probably end up getting him sick, too.

“I noticed the diastasis twice today,” he said. “Once while I was photographing the body, and a few minutes later in the doc's office. I don't think it would've even registered in my mind if I hadn't gone through all those BMV photos this past summer. I just looked across the desk and there it was. I had to get a closer look to be certain, but yeah—plain as day.”

“What are you talking about?” Carl asked, but something in his gut had begun to stir, and he thought he knew what his partner was about to say next.

“The photograph on the doc's desk,” Danny replied. “The one of the whole family posing for a snapshot on the riverbank. Big smiles all around.”

“Who?” Carl asked. His mouth suddenly felt dry and unpleasant, as if he had been eating old mothballs extracted from his grandmother's closet.

The young detective held his gaze. His face was as still and solemn as the autopsy room they had just vacated.