Chapter Fifty-three
There was already a small mob of police and forensics at the scene when Morris pulled up to the remote stretch of Mulholland Drive where Brenda Maguire’s body had been found. No media or spectators yet. Too early in the morning for that. At least that was one small break.
Morris left his car with Parker on a leash, and spotted Walsh, FBI profiler Sam Goodman, and Gilman gathered together, all of them standing in brush about twenty feet from the road. The forensics team was camped out forty feet past them near a tree, which must’ve been where the body was left. He didn’t see Malevich, but he saw other detectives and officers that he either knew or recognized.
Walsh nodded to him as did Goodman. The mayor’s assistant separated from them so that he could intercept Morris. Gilman was back to wearing a custom-tailored suit, although it now looked loose on him, as if he’d lost weight over the past three days. He didn’t look too happy that Morris had brought his dog, but he probably wouldn’t have looked too happy about anything at that moment. When he got close enough, Parker leaped on him, resting his two paws on him as he grinned in a way that only a bull terrier could, his tail wagging. Morris yanked the dog off of him.
“He likes you,” Morris said.
“Strange.” Gilman frowned at Parker, but he still conceded to give the dog a scratch behind his ear. “I’m a cat person.”
“You have him fooled. I’m guessing you didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“That obvious?” Gilman asked. “You’re right, I didn’t. I spent the night trying to figure out how we were going to handle this if the worst happened, which it has. Yourself?”
“Maybe a couple of hours. I’m not sure.”
Gilman nodded, more to himself than to Morris. “This is bad. Worse than the others, if you can believe it. A coyote got to the body. I don’t even want to think about it.” He blanched then as he must’ve thought about it. “I was really hoping we’d be able to rescue her,” he said dejectedly.
Morris clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re going to get him,” he promised. “Sooner than later.”
“I hope you’re right. I don’t want this psycho bastard killing anyone else in my city.” Gilman clenched his jaw, fighting back either a sob or anger, Morris wasn’t sure which. The mayor’s assistant got whatever emotion he was fighting under control, and asked Morris whether they should keep this from the media. “We could probably hide this from them for another four to eight hours. Any advantage in doing so?”
“None. Let’s get this out there after the body’s moved. Maybe someone saw something.”
Gilman morosely told Morris that he was heading back to his office, and he’d handle the media. Surprisingly for a cat person, he gave Parker another pat on the head before walking off. Morris moved on to Walsh and Goodman. Walsh informed him that they were still waiting on the medical examiner, Roger Smichen, and filled him in on the rest of it.
“She wasn’t killed here. Forensics already determined that. The sonofabitch dumped her out here naked.”
“Something sexual?” Morris asked Goodman.
“Doubtful,” the FBI profiler said. “Most likely he got his DNA on her clothing.”
“When Roger examines her, he’ll be able to tell us whether she was sexually violated,” Walsh said.
Morris heard a couple of horn beeps, and looked up to see Roger Smichen pulling up in his new Prius. A minute later the ME gave them a wave as he jogged past them to get to the body.
“SCK broke her nose,” Walsh continued. “There are other bruises, and abrasions that look like she was dragged over cement. Roger should be able to tell us more, such as any defensive wounds. Unfortunately, if she did struggle with SCK, forensics wasn’t able to find any of his skin under her fingernails.” She showed an angry, strained smile, and added, “A coyote got to the body and whatever SCK had clawed out from her skull wasn’t found at the scene. The animal did other damage to her. A cyclist spotted the coyote dragging her over to that tree, and chased it away.”
Morris couldn’t help grimacing thinking about that. “Where’s the cyclist now?” he asked.
“You know Charlie Dunlop out of West Hollywood, right? He interviewed the guy and told him he could go.”
“That’s too bad,” Morris said. “I would’ve liked to have talked to him before he had a chance to regroup.” Morris then asked Goodman, “Any chance SCK could’ve been this cyclist? Maybe trying to get more of a thrill from this kill by being the one to call us in on it?”
“No, that’s not why SCK’s doing this. He doesn’t care about credit for his murders, or playing mind games with the police. These killings are very personal to him, and performing the act is all that matters to him.”
“Unless he’s changing his tactics,” Morris said. “Like taking off this woman’s clothing.”
“I’m sure he did that out of necessity,” Goodman said.
“This cyclist isn’t SCK,” Walsh argued stubbornly. “I got his particulars from Dunlop. Evan Goldberg. Twenty-four. Average height, skinny, full head of hair, and in not a single way matches the description you got from your Santa Monica parking lot witness. Dunlop did the right thing. Goldberg had nothing else to tell us.”
“Okay, I’m not going to argue otherwise,” Morris said, although he still planned to talk to Goldberg in person. “Any traffic cameras on Mulholland?”
Walsh shook her head. “I already called up the precinct about that. None.”
“That’s a damn shame.”
“If he was speeding, yeah.”
Goodman cleared his throat to get Morris’s attention. “I had an interesting conversation with an FBI colleague, Julie Crasmore, out of New York. She told me about the lead your people are trying to track down, and unless I completely missed with my profile, I can’t think of any situation which would’ve had SCK cutting off that man’s head in Queens. Not unless something very unexpected happened.”
“That’s what I’m betting on,” Morris said. “Something very unexpected happening that night that made SCK need to hide that he was involved in Black’s murder by getting rid of the head. The timing of it is suspicious. Two brutal crimes happening the night SCK was expected to strike next, and you have both victims matching his victim profiles, followed by SCK disappearing.”
Goodman stroked his chin as he considered what Morris had said. “I guess it’s possible,” he agreed. “At least it’s not impossible.”
“My gut’s telling me finding Sheila Jones gives us our best chance of finding SCK. I need to talk to Roger. Either of you willing to watch Parker?”
Walsh volunteered, and Morris handed her Parker’s leash. Fifteen feet from where Smichen and a group of the forensics team were gathered, Morris saw a marker in the tall grass showing where the skull fragments were left. A thin trail of blood could also be seen from that spot leading up to where the body was eventually dragged. From the pictures he’d seen of Brenda Maguire and the description he’d been given, she weighed around a hundred and thirty-five pounds, and he was surprised that a coyote would’ve been able to move her.
“Anything you can tell me that I don’t already know?” Morris asked as he approached the ME.
Smichen shrugged. “Other than that the coyote made a mess of the crime scene? How about that she’s been dead for at least four hours? Does that help?”
Morris glanced at his watch. “She was abducted around one last night, so SCK killed her within two hours of taking her, which is about what I would’ve expected. Any defensive wounds?”
“Some of her nails are splintered. Abrasions on her hands and fingers look like she was dragged over a cement surface. If you find the location, we might find forensic evidence there if he didn’t scrub the area carefully enough.”
“Was she sexually assaulted?”
Smichen shrugged again. “No obvious signs, but I won’t be able to tell you for sure until I complete my examination, which will be done in my lab. I’ll call you as soon as I have anything.”
Morris saw that Greg Malevich had arrived at the scene and was talking with Walsh. He left Smichen so that he could divvy up among Walsh, Malevich, and himself the restaurant customers they needed to check out from the list that the owner, Conway, had made from his credit-card receipts over the last two nights.