Undone (29 page)

The case was twenty-four hours old and he and Faith had a full day — talk to Rick Sigler, the paramedic who had been on the scene when Anna was hit by the car; track down Jake Berman, Sigler’s hookup; then interview Joelyn Zabel, Jacquelyn Zabel’s awful sister. Will knew he shouldn’t make snap judgments, but he’d seen the woman all over the television news last night, both local and national. Apparently, Joelyn liked to talk. Even more apparently, she liked to blame. Will was grateful he had been at the autopsy yesterday, had had the burden of Jacquelyn Zabel’s death removed from his long list of burdens, or the sister’s words would have cut into him like a thousand knives.

He wanted to search Pauline McGhee’s house, but Leo Donnelly would probably protest. There had to be a way around that, and if there was any one thing Will wanted to do today, it was find a way to bring Leo on board. Rather than sleep, Will had thought about Pauline McGhee most of last night. Every time he closed his eyes, he mixed up the cave and McGhee, so that she was on that wooden bed, tied down like an animal, while Will stood helplessly by. His gut was telling him that something was going on with McGhee. She had run away once before, twenty years ago, but she had roots now. Felix was a good kid. His mother would not leave him.

Will chuckled to himself. He of all people should know that mothers left their sons all the time.

“Come on,” he said, tugging Betty’s leash, pulling her away from a pigeon that was almost as big as she was.

He tucked his hand into his pocket to warm it, his mind staying focused on the case. Will wasn’t stupid enough to take full credit for the majority of the arrests he made. The fact was that people who committed crimes tended to be stupid. Most killers made mistakes, because they usually were acting on the spur of the moment. A fight broke out, a gun was handy, tempers flared and the only thing to figure out when it was all over was whether or not the prosecution was going to go for second — or first — degree murder.

Stranger abductions were different, though. They were harder to solve, especially when there was more than one victim. Serial killers, by definition, were good at their jobs. They knew they were going to murder. They knew who they were going to kill and exactly how they were going to do it. They had practiced their trade over and over again, perfecting their skills. They knew how to evade detection, to hide evidence or simply leave nothing at all. Finding them tended to be a matter of dumb luck on the part of law enforcement or complacency in the killer.

Ted Bundy had been captured during a routine traffic stop. Twice. BTK — who signed his letters taunting the cops with those initials, indicating he liked to bind, torture and kill his victims — was tripped up by a computer disc he accidentally gave his pastor. Richard Ramirez was beaten by a vigilante whose car he tried to steal. All captured by happenstance, all with several murders under their belts before they were stopped. In most serial cases, years passed, and the only thing the police could do was wait for more bodies to show up and pray that happenstance brought the killers to justice.

Will thought about what they had on their guy: a white sedan speeding down the road, a torture chamber in the middle of nowhere, elderly witnesses who could offer nothing usable. Jake Berman could be a lead, but they might never find him. Rick Sigler was squeaky clean except for being a couple of months behind on his mortgage, hardly shocking considering how bad the economy was. The Coldfields were, on paper, exemplars of an average retired couple. Pauline McGhee had a brother she was worried about, but then she might be worried about him for reasons that had nothing to do with their case. She might not have anything to do with their case at all.

The physical evidence was equally as thin. The trash bags found in the victims were of the sort you would find in any grocery or convenience store. The items in the cave, from the marine battery to the torture devices, were completely untraceable. There were plenty of fingerprints and fluids to enter into the computer, but nothing was coming back as a match. Sexual predators were sneaky, inventive. Almost eighty percent of the crimes solved by DNA evidence were actually burglaries, not assaults. Glass was broken, kitchen knives were mishandled, ChapStick was dropped — all inevitably leading back to the burglar, who generally already had a long record. But, with stranger rape, where the victim had no previous contact with the assailant, it was looking for a needle in a haystack.

Betty had stopped so she could sniff around some tall grass by the lake. Will glanced up, seeing a runner coming toward them. She was wearing long black tights and a neon green jacket. Her hair was pulled up under a matching ball cap. Two greyhounds jogged beside her, heads up, tails straight. They were beautiful animals, sleek, long-legged, muscled. Just like their owner.

“Crap,” Will muttered, scooping up Betty in his hand, holding her behind his back.

Sara Linton stopped a few feet away, the dogs heeling beside her like trained commandos. The only thing Will had ever been able to teach Betty to do was eat.

“Hi,” Sara said, her voice going up in surprise. When he didn’t respond, she asked, “Will?”

“Hi.” He could feel Betty licking his palm.

Sara studied him. “Is that a Chihuahua behind your back?”

“No, I’m just happy to see you.”

Sara gave him a confused smile, and he reluctantly showed her Betty.

Noises were made, some cooing, and Will waited for the usual question.

“Is she your wife’s?”

“Yes,” he lied. “Do you live around here?”

“The Milk Lofts off North Avenue.”

She lived less than two blocks from his house. “You don’t seem like a loft person.”

The confused look returned. “What do I seem like?”

Will had never been particularly skilled at the art of conversation, and he certainly didn’t know how to articulate what Sara Linton seemed like to him — at least not without making a fool of himself.

He shrugged, setting Betty down on the ground. Sara’s dogs stirred, and she clicked her tongue once, sending them back to attention. Will told her, “I’d better go. I’m meeting Faith at the coffee place across the park.”

“Mind if I walk with you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. The dogs stood and Will picked up Betty, knowing she would only slow them down. Sara was tall, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with him. He tried to do some calculations without staring. Angie could almost put her chin on his shoulder if she rose up on her tiptoes. Sara would’ve had to make very little effort to do the same. Her mouth could have reached his ear if she wanted it to.

“So.” She took off her hat, tightened her ponytail. “I’ve been thinking about the trash bags.”

Will glanced her way. “What about them?”

“It’s a powerful message.”

Will hadn’t thought of them as a message — more like a horror. “He thinks they’re trash.”

“And what he does to them — takes away their senses.”

Will glanced at her again.

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

He nodded, wondering why he hadn’t thought about it that way.

She continued, “I’ve been wondering if there’s some kind of religious angle to this. Actually, something Faith said that first night got me thinking about it. God took Adam’s rib to make Eve.”

“Vesalius,” Will mumbled.

Sara laughed in surprise. “I haven’t heard that name since my first year in medical school.”

Will shrugged, saying a silent prayer of thanks that he’d managed to catch the History Channel’s
Great Men of Science
week. Andreas Vesalius was an anatomist who, among other things, proved that men and women have the same number of ribs. The Vatican almost put him in prison for his discovery.

Sara continued, “Also, there’s the number eleven.” She paused, as if she expected him to answer. “Eleven trash bags, eleventh rib. There must be a connection.”

Will stopped walking. “What?”

“The women. They each had eleven trash bags inside them. The rib that was taken from Anna was the eleventh rib.”

“You think the killer is hung up on the number eleven?”

Sara continued walking and Will followed. “If you consider how compulsive behaviors manifest themselves, like substance abuse, eating disorders, checking behaviors — where someone feels compelled to check things, like the lock on the door or the stove or the iron — then it makes sense that a serial killer, someone who is compelled to kill, would have a specific pattern he likes to follow, or in this case a specific number that means something to him. It’s why the FBI keeps their database, so you can cross-reference methods and look for patterns. Maybe you could look for something significant surrounding the number eleven.”

“I don’t even know if it’s set up to search that way. I mean, it’s all about
things
— knives, razors, what they do, generally not how many times they do it unless it’s pretty blatant.”

“You should check the Bible. If there’s a religious significance to the number eleven, then maybe you’ll be able to figure out the killer’s motivation.” She shrugged as if she was finished, but added, “Easter’s this Sunday. That could be part of the pattern, too.”

“Eleven apostles,” he said.

She gave him that strange look again. “You’re right. Judas betrayed Christ. There were only eleven apostles left. There was a twelfth to replace him — Didymus? I can’t remember. I bet my mother would know.” She shrugged again. “Of course, it could all be a waste of your time.”

Will had always been a firm believer that coincidences were generally clues. “It’s something to look into.”

“What about Felix’s mother?”

“She’s just a missing person for now.”

“Did you find the brother?”

“The Atlanta police are looking for him.” Will didn’t want to give away any more than that. Sara worked at Grady, where cops were in and out of the emergency room all day with suspects and witnesses. He added, “We’re not even sure she’s connected to our case.”

“I hope for Felix’s sake she’s not. I can’t imagine what it’s like for him being abandoned, stuck in some awful state home.”

“Those places aren’t so bad,” Will defended. Before he realized what he was saying, he told her, “I grew up in state care.”

She was as surprised as he was, though obviously for different reasons. “How old were you?”

“A kid,” he answered, wishing he could take back his words, but unable to stop adding more. “Infant. Five months.”

“And you weren’t adopted?”

He shook his head. This was getting complicated and — worse — embarrassing.

“My husband and I…” She stared ahead, lost in thought. “We were going to adopt. We’d been on the list for a while and…” She shrugged. “When he was killed, it all… it was just too much.”

Will didn’t know if he was supposed to feel sympathetic, but all he could think about was how many times as a kid he’d gone to a meet-and-greet picnic or barbecue, thinking he’d be going home with his new parents, only to end up back in his room at the children’s home.

He felt inordinately grateful to hear the high-pitched horn from Faith’s Mini, which she’d illegally parked in front of the coffee shop. She got out of the car, leaving the engine running.

“Amanda wants us back at the station.” Faith lifted her chin toward Sara in greeting. “Joelyn Zabel moved up her interview. She’s fitting us in between
Good Morning America
and CNN. We’ll have to run Betty back home afterward.”

Will had forgotten about the dog in his hand. She had her snout tucked into the space between the buttons on his vest.

“I’ll take her,” Sara offered.

“I couldn’t—”

“I’m home all day doing laundry,” Sara countered. “She’ll be fine. Just come by after work and get her.”

“That’s really—”

Faith was more impatient than usual. “Just give her the dog, Will.” She stomped off back to her car, and Will shot Sara a look of apology.

“The Milk Lofts?” he asked, as if he had forgotten.

Sara took Betty in her hands. He could feel how cold her fingers were as they brushed against his skin. “Betty?” she asked. He nodded, and she told him, “Don’t worry if you’re late. I don’t have any plans.”

“Thank you.”

She smiled, hefting Betty like she was a glass of wine being offered in a toast.

Will walked across the street and got into Faith’s car, glad that no one else had been in the passenger’s seat since the last time he’d ridden with Faith so he didn’t look like a monkey bending himself into the cramped space.

Faith cut straight to the chase as she pulled away from the curb. “What were you doing with Sara Linton?”

“I just ran into her.” Will wondered why he felt so defensive, which quickly led to him wondering why Faith was being so hostile. He guessed she was still angry with him about his interaction with Max Galloway the day before, and he didn’t know what to do about the situation other than try to distract her. “Sara had an interesting question, or theory, about our case.”

Faith merged into traffic. “I’m dying to hear it.”

Will could tell she wasn’t, but he ran down Sara’s theory for her anyway, highlighting the number eleven, the other points she had raised. “Easter’s this Sunday,” he said. “This could have something to do with the Bible.”

To her credit, Faith seemed to be considering it. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “We could get a Bible back at the station, maybe do a computer search for the number eleven. I’m sure there are a lot of religious nutballs out there with web pages.”

“Where in the Bible does it say something about a rib being taken from Adam to make Eve?”

“Genesis.”

“That’s the old stuff, right? Not the new books.”

“Old Testament. It’s the first book in the Bible. It’s where it all begins.” Faith gave him the same sideways glance Sara had. “I know you can’t read the Bible, but didn’t you go to church?”

“I
can
read the Bible,” Will shot back. Still, he preferred Faith’s nosiness to her fury, so he kept talking. “Remember where I grew up. Separation of church and state.”

“Oh, I didn’t think about that.”

Probably because it was an enormous lie. The children’s home couldn’t sanction religious activities, but there were volunteers from just about every local church who sent vans to pick up the children every week and cart them off to Sunday School. Will had gone once, realized that it really was a school, where you were expected to read your lessons, then never went back.