Wounds (32 page)

“Maybe. Just maybe. I'll get to work on it.”

“As soon as possible, Millie. This is important.”

“Everything in this department is important, but I get the point.”

Carmen thanked her and walked from the room. Her mind was in 1985.

And in the police file of her sister's death.

Ellis Poe sat in his nearly dark office, a converted bedroom in his condo, and reviewed class notes for the new semester. He had two classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: Synoptic Gospels and the Pauline Prison Epistles. The first class was for first-year students, the second for third year. He had taught both classes many times, so his attention kept wandering from his lesson plan and to the problem facing Carmen and her team. Was he on target? The pattern certainly matched, but the “why” remained.

He was no criminologist, no psychologist, but there had to be a reason. Surely the man had lost his senses sometime in the past. It was the only way to explain such brutality. As far as Ellis knew, the killer was targeting and attacking unarmed people. He was doing so in order, and each death was a message.

Was the message complete? He doubted it. Ellis had already estimated one or two more deaths. He pulled a few sheets of blank paper from his desk drawer and moved his lesson plans to the side.

A blank page. Always a formidable foe. Was there something more he could offer? Could he guess where the next body would be found, or at least narrow the possibilities? He doubted he could pinpoint a place, but he might be able to identify a trend.

First, he made a list based on the columns of information he saw in Carmen's case room. The thought of the place made him recall his embarrassing behavior. He would replay the ladies' room thing for the rest of his life. Maybe someday he would consider it a funny event, but he doubted it.

Two things seemed obvious. Each murder was done in a fashion similar to physical torment endured by Jesus: sweating drops of blood; beaten with fists; beaten with reeds, in this case rods; and strangulation. The last one didn't fit. At least not the method of death, although the purple cloth did. The second set of relational points dealt with where the bodies were found: in a garden, at a rabbi's house, by barracks, near a Jewish-owned mansion that he assumed was meant to represent Herod's palace. Jesus didn't die after each abuse, but that didn't seem the killer's point.

If Ellis's assumption were correct, the next death would be someone whipped to death and the body would have a crown of thorns. He had no idea where a person would get such a thing. He paused, then turned to his computer. A quick Internet search for “crown of thorns” revealed several places one could buy a replica. Would a mass murderer buy something like that from an Internet store? It was worth noting. He imagined that some Christian bookstores—and San Diego had plenty of them—might have a crown of thorns on hand. He made a note to tell Carmen.

He spent the next few hours recreating what he had seen and learned, and then trying to skim new truth from the facts. At first, he told himself that he was wasting time, that he had no special training or gift for this kind of work, but then a more optimistic part of his brain kicked in. In some ways, he had skills that the typical police officer didn't have. He doubted they taught hermeneutics—the ability to properly interpret documents and history in general and the Bible specifically—at the police academy. He had spent his academic career gleaning information from the details in the biblical accounts. It was what theologians did. At least his kind of theologian.

Most people read the Bible; some study it; a few analyze it in depth. Why did Paul use that word instead of a different word? What is the underlying story behind an event? A few years ago he had read a book called
40 Days,
examining the resurrection appearances of Christ, and was overjoyed to learn the unspoken message behind each appearance. There was an old maxim: “The devil is in the details.” For Ellis, God was in the details, the things preachers overlooked and liberal scholars ignored. Maybe he did have something to offer.

Then the doubt returned. Still he pressed on into the night.

It was close to midnight when Millie Takahashi phoned Carmen. She had just arrived home. “I hope I didn't wake you.” Millie's voice always sounded like that of a young girl.

“Nope. Just walked into the house. Grabbed some fast food for a late dinner.”

“Ugh, that stuff will kill you.” Millie was a devout vegetarian.

“I should be so lucky. Did you come up with anything on the lipstick?” Carmen's cases were given priority in all departments. Serial killings tended to do that.

“Some. Here's what I've got. I've sent a sample out for another chemical background. We should have those results by noon tomorrow . . . er, today. I did make some headway. I used our scanning electron microscope and did a few more magical incantations. Bottom line: there is a better than an 80-percent chance that the lipstick recovered on the mirror at Mulvaney's place is a match for that removed from the photo you provided.”

“So it's from the same stick?”

“I can't go that far. I can say that it is most likely the same brand, same shade, and about as old. So on the science side of things, I'd have to say it is
similar
and might be a
match
, but the statement won't hold up in court. Not yet. Micro-spectrophotometry and spectroscopy may nail that down for us.”

The news unsettled Carmen but also gave her a moment of exhilaration. Could it be? After all these years? A clue?

“You still there, Detective?”

“Yes, just thinking.”

A sigh came over the phone. “Okay, I'm gonna ask, and if I'm out of line, just tell me. Does this mean that the killer you're tracking is related to your sister's murder?”

Shelly's murder was no secret. Carmen seldom spoke of it, but the grapevine kept the story alive. No one came into homicide who wasn't taken aside and briefed. The case had long gone into the cold-case files. Twice a team of detectives had been assigned to the case, but nothing came of it.

Carmen sent her own sigh over the phone. “It must, Millie. I don't know why, but the killer is taunting me.”

“Because you did the press conference?”

“Most likely. There are a lot of Raimondis in the world, but not many
Rain
mondis. Some, but not many. He could have associated my name with my sister.”

“And the lipstick, if it is your sister's, is his way of saying he's back.”

A wave of fury washed through Carmen. “Yes, and I'm going to do to him what my sister couldn't.”

Millie went silent. Cops were known for a tendency toward hyperbole and braggadocio. It was a part of the culture that Carmen embraced wholly. Still . . .

Had she crossed the line with Millie or maybe upset her? Hinting violence against an unknown perp was bad form. She was about to apologize when Millie spoke up.

“I'm with you on this, Detective. I and my department will do everything we can to run this guy down. You call me anytime, day or night.”

“And I'll probably find you in the lab.”

“Yeah, well, until my husband gets back from sea tour, I might as well be here kicking bad-guy backsides with science.”

“You get 'em, girl.”

“You too, Detective.”

Carmen disconnected the call. The greasy food she ate in her car, the lack of sleep, and the news Millie had just shared all upset her stomach. She crawled into bed in an attempt to do the impossible: sleep.

34

C
armen arrived at her desk a little after seven, having managed close to five hours of sleep—four of which she considered good sleep. Exhaustion had kept her from dreaming. That and the sleeping pill she took before crawling between the sheets. To her surprise, she found Millie's report waiting for her on her desk. Nothing more than what she had been told over the phone. She would have to wait for the other tests.

“A little light reading?” Bud slipped into his desk chair. He seemed alert but also looked drawn. The long hours and stress were beginning to show.

She held up the papers. “Millie's preliminary report on the lipstick.”

“Hector told me about that. The perp wrote your name? I don't like it.”

“It is what it is.”

Bud grinned. “That's what makes me like having you as a partner. Where else can a man get a lesson in philosophy like that? Apart from a fortune cookie, I mean.”

“Wow, the compliments never cease.”

“Admit it, my humor is irresistible.”

Carmen met her partner's eyes. “Not the word I'd choose. Wanna hear my term for it?”

“Of course not.” He pointed at the file. “So, is it lipstick?”

“Yes . . . look, there's something you should know.” She told him about the lipstick on her sister's photo. “It's a close match with what was on the mirror. Waiting on more science, but it is almost certainly a match.”

Bud's face hardened as if he had just made eye contact with Medusa. He looked away. Looked at the ceiling, then his desk, then the floor. Carmen had seen the man angry before, but this time he looked as if he were going to explode, sending chunks of himself all over the room. “You're saying . . .” He shook his head. “Can't be. The odds. I mean . . .” He whispered a long string of invectives.

Carmen let him vent.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “This must be tough on you. I hated this guy before, but now I want to . . . well, never mind.”

Bud was the only person she had ever allowed to see her broken side during their short relationship—and that was a lifetime ago. “Thanks, partner. I appreciate the empathy.” She pulled a photo from the file. “What do you make of this?”

He took the photo of the message. “Angles on the letters vary. No, they switch back and forth. He wrote some words with his left hand, others with his right.”

“Millie's team thinks so, too.”

“He's not wanting to give us even that much. The guy thinks ahead.”

Carmen thought for a moment. “That switching hands seems consistent with his cautious nature, but the message is far from what I expect from the guy. Why call me out by name, unless—”

“Unless he's connected to your sister.” Bud swore more. This time a little more loudly.

“Of course, but what if he is? So he sees me on TV or reads my name in the papers. He connects the names. Why call my attention to my sister's death?”

“He's taunting you.”

“But why?”

“The guy is nuts, that's why.”

Carmen shook her head. “I agree his train derailed a long time ago, but he's still smart. If not smart, then criminally clever. I'm sure he has a plan. This doesn't fit his MO. Think about Wilton. He didn't fit the scenario, so he got a bullet in the head and a week underwater. Our man has been on a single mission: kill people in such a way that it delivers a message. I don't think I was on his radar until the press conference. Until that time, there was only one note. And I wasn't mentioned, it was just a generic statement.”

“That's two.” Bud quoted the note.

“Now I'm in the picture, and somehow that's made him change.” She leaned back in the chair. “Think about this: We're pretty sure that Mulvaney was killed somewhere other than his apartment. No blood where we found him, and we know he had been bleeding from his mouth and nose. There is no evidence of a struggle at the man's apartment. None of his neighbors heard or saw anything.”

“So the guy went out of his way to go to his victim's apartment and leave the note for you?”

“Yes, and that's a huge departure from everything he's done in the past.”

“I'll give you that, but what does all that mean?”

Carmen shrugged. “I don't know. Not yet, but I'm thinking.”

Bud's face clouded over. “You better not be thinking of doing something stupid.”

“Truth is, Bud, I can't even come up with a
stupid
idea.”