Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
“I’m deputizing them,” Moran went on.
Rus felt his eyebrows shoot up. “What? Who?”
“Jace and Jess. They’re good with an interview, hate to say it, but better than any of my people. They’re also good with communication. If anyone can calm these guys down, Jace and Jess can. And these guys are far from calm. I’m prepared to hear someone shouting and tearing my station apart at any minute. But we don’t have time to deal with that. We need to get to the lab.”
His neck suddenly itched.
“Why?”
“Because they’ve had some time with the stuff they took from the scene. And another break from the Crystal Killer’s MO, the plastic sheeting was wiped down. I don’t know what happened in that motel room. I do know that the coroner is close to finalizing her report, but about five minutes ago, she called and told me, down Brittanie’s right side, the one she was resting on, there are carpet burns. Even if we moved her before you got there, we probably wouldn’t have noticed them. They were reddish marks but came up stronger post-mortem. I think she was taken off the plastic, it was wiped down, then put back on it and struck in the head there. The blood was there, and that was undisturbed. But I think she struggled on the carpet. And I know our perp wiped down the plastic because he worried he left something behind. And he should be worried, since he did. They found a pubic hair that was not Brittanie’s on the very edge of the sheeting. They didn’t get everything, Rus. And it’s viable. The whole shaft, with skin. He left something behind. If we find him, we can put him there on that goddamned plastic.”
It was gut, but he’d learned to go with his gut.
From the minute Thea said, I didn’t say that, he felt the niggle.
But now it was more than a niggle.
A lot more.
Therefore, urgently, Rus ordered, “Right now, you need to send deputies to pick up Ezra Corbin.”
A light lit in Moran’s eyes. “The dominatrix give you something?”
“It’s a little thin, but I think still solid. And if we can break him in interrogation, yeah. It could get way more solid. So we need a warrant to get his DNA. Get on that, and I’ll tell you on the way to the lab.”
And again, Moran reached for his phone.
Rus did not tend to get squeamish.
The FBI normally didn’t investigate homicides unless there were extenuating circumstances. Like the perpetrator abducted their victim and crossed state lines, or it was a serial killer, or the local authorities asked for their assistance.
Still, seventeen years on the job, five more as a cop, four as a soldier, and he’d been deployed, so he’d seen death.
And he’d been in autopsy suites.
Even with all that experience, he’d never learned to divorce himself from the fact that the person on the table had their most precious possession stripped from them against their will. And there were people who cared about them who were grieving.
For Rus, it was always personal.
Standing, listening to the coroner, with Brittanie naked on a table in front of him, the Y-cut on her chest stitched shut, it was the worst in his career.
It wasn’t that he’d investigated her life deeper, felt he knew her better. He worked at being thorough in all his cases.
It was Lucinda.
And Madden burying her face in her mother’s cardigan.
“Bludgeoning,” the coroner was saying. “A mess was made, but there were depressions left consistent with a hammer.”
“Is there something you need to show us on her body, or can we cover her?” Rus asked abruptly.
She startled and looked to him.
“I get she’s a subject to you and you have to be removed from it,” he continued. “But she’s been through enough, don’t you think?”
“Of course,” she muttered, moving to grab a surgical drape.
He felt Moran’s attention on him, but he looked to his shoes while the coroner covered Brittanie.
He lifted his head when she started speaking again.
“Like I reported earlier, there was no skin or blood under her nails. We did find fibers from her fingers, both carpet and hemp. She possibly tried picking at the rope she was tied with. Those fibers are in the abrasions around her wrists and ankles too. Carpet fibers in her toenails, and as I said, fingernails.”
“She was raped on the floor,” Rus said dully.
“It would seem consistent to being on all fours on carpet,” the coroner replied. “I compared the fibers I found with some retrieved from the hotel room, and they’re the same. That said, she only had carpet burns on her side, not on her knees or the palms of her hands. With the way she was assaulted, if it was on carpet, she’d have burns.”
“Any residue around her mouth?” he asked.