TWENTY-FOUR
When Colin walked into the crime lab, Evelyn Klein, longtime friend and forensic pathologist, was waiting for him. They both wore blue, ankle-length, long-sleeve surgical gowns, shoe covers, and latex gloves.
On the steel table in front of Evelyn was Garrett Ramsey, his pale, ashy flesh stretched tautly over bone. His feet were swollen, blackening; his eyes were bulging, marked by severe trauma; and his throat stretched and circled with a reddish-purple welt.
“His expression says it all,” Evelyn said.
Colin nodded as he continued his own examination. The burn marks on Garrett Ramsey’s legs were easy to identify, same with the markings made from a whip or belt across his abdomen. He pointed to the bloody holes in the man’s hands. “Any idea what caused those?”
“Looks like nails.” She picked up a hand to show him that the hole went clear through. “This man was tortured in every way imaginable. These stab wounds,” she said, her gloved finger following the path along the length of his arm, “were made postmortem.” She sighed. “This is what I do every day. I thought I’d seen it all. But this nonsensical mutilation after a body has already begun to decompose is beyond comprehension. Plainly put,” she went on, “we’ve got one sick fuck out there roaming the streets, and I’ll be sleeping with one eye open.”
“What about the twins?”
“One of them was hung by the feet. That would have been a slow, painful death. The other girl looks a lot like this man. Poked and prodded, burned and mutilated with multiple objects. We’ll know more later, but it’s my opinion the twins have been dead over a month. Some of the injuries had time to heal; others were newer, which tells me, based on the dates they were reported missing, they were tortured continuously during their captivity. Once they passed, their bodies were preserved in cold storage before the final staging.”
“How could you tell?”
“The photographs taken at the site of disposal show surface ice crystals and condensation on the skin. By the time the bodies got to me, the bodies had thawed, but some of the organs were still hard. The freezing didn’t hide the mutilation or torture, but it does make it more difficult to calculate time of death.” She gestured toward pictures clipped to a corkboard. “I was using pictures to see if I could make comparisons between the twins and Garrett Ramsey. You can see that the girls’ skin, after thawing, is red, fading to a leathery brown instead of yellow. Nose, ears, and tips of fingers on both girls are blackened.”
He walked that way to examine the pictures. Sure enough, the areas mentioned looked like freezer burn. Feeling nauseated, he went back to his place on the other side of the dead man and decided not to absorb the information until later. To think about what those girls had been put through would not help him move forward. “What about sexual abuse?”
She shook her head. “Hymens are intact—both girls. No signs of sexual abuse on any of the three victims.”
That information was consistent with the Heartless Killer’s MO. He wasn’t a sexual predator. This was about control. He tortured and killed because it made him feel powerful. Some might argue he was simply a psycho who gained pleasure from the acts he committed.
“After CT scans were completed and blood was drawn,” Evelyn said, “my preliminary examination revealed something I knew you would want to see.”
He followed her to the counter that ran along the back wall by the sink. She removed a green surgical towel from atop a metal tray. Underneath was what looked like a small, bloodied organ about the size of his thumb. “What is it?”
“The heart of a chicken,” Evelyn said. “It was found lodged in Garrett Ramsey’s throat.”
Before he could ask, she added, “Same with the girls.” Evelyn then reached for a lone glass slide, the kind you would put under a microscope, and held it up for him to see.
“It looks like a hair.”
She nodded. “Identical hairs were found on both girls.”
“Human or animal?”
“The lab is still processing, but I think you should know I grew up on a horse farm. The hairs found are coarse and have a mosaic pattern, which are consistent with horsehairs. I should note, however, that animal hairs, as a rule, do not possess enough individual microscopic characteristics to be associated with a particular animal to the exclusion of other similar animals.”
He felt lightness in his chest. “So, there’s a good chance the killer could be living on a farm?”
She shrugged. “Could be a ranch, a farm, someone who owns or works with horses. But you didn’t hear that from me,” she said. “It would be wrong of me to suggest one thing or another before the final analysis and diagnosis has been reached.”
“Got it.” Although it was too early to jump to any conclusion—especially one that could easily lead him and his team down the wrong path—he was hopeful. If the final analysis proved that the hairs could be identified as horsehair, it was more than they had at the moment. And it was the first time a hair from a victim of the Heartless Killer had been identified as not belonging to the victim. There were few, if any, cases he could think of where the case was solved as a result of animal-hair findings. But this was different from finding a cat or dog hair. “Anything else I should know?” he asked Evelyn.
“No. I’ll call you if anything else comes up.”
“Thanks.” Colin peeled off his gloves and tossed them in the garbage.
When he got to the door, she said, “Catch that guy, would you? I need to get some sleep.”