Twenty-Nine
Death was everywhere. Nothing had changed except for Zach’s perspective. Sometimes it felt as if happy endings were very few and far between and fate was nothing but fickle and random. Even the poor woman who went in for heart surgery hadn’t survived a “routine” operation. He hated thinking of life in such a negative way, but ever since he realized this could be his last case, he was looking at everything differently. The fact that he and Paige were on the way to an autopsy wasn’t cranking up the positivity. And he hated feeling that way, even on a small scale. He had so much to be thankful for—good friends, Sheri, their baby.
Zach crept the SUV forward and tapped his hand on the steering wheel. This morning’s traffic was a nightmare. They’d hardly moved in the last fifty minutes, and it would be nice if he and Paige got to the morgue before nightfall.
Move forward two feet. Wait ten minutes… Move forward two feet. Wait ten minutes…
Paige reached for the radio knob. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all. Maybe some music will make all this less painful.” He gestured out the windshield at the BMW whose bumper was inches in front of them.
She tuned in to a rock station and turned the volume low enough to easily talk over.
They rarely listened to music while working a case, even on the road, but sometimes diversions for the mind worked wonders for a case. And music was fine with him anyhow, as he had a lot to think about. Where was he going to find the strength to leave the team?
“How did you make out with Sheri last night?” Paige asked. “What did she say when you told her you are thinking about leaving the BAU?”
“I didn’t tell her.” He’d called Sheri last night, just as he’d promised, but left the topic of work off the table. He had a feeling she’d try to talk him into staying or, worse, feel responsible for him considering a desk job. The last thing he wanted was for her to shoulder that responsibility. If he left, that would ultimately be his decision and all on him.
“Oh.” Paige paused. “Have you made up your mind?”
He was relieved Paige didn’t get into how he should have bared his soul to Sheri. “Not yet.”
“There’s still a chance you’ll stay, then?” A subtle smile. “I still think you should talk it out with her.”
“It’s really my call.” He glanced over at her, and she pursed her lips. Her gaze chastised him.
“You’re going to be married. It’s best to—”
“It’s my career, Paige, not Sheri’s.” His words came out sharper than he’d intended. He’d been naive to think she was going to let the matter go.
“Of course it is,” Paige said.
Zach wasn’t sure what to make of her response. Was she agreeing with him or harboring underlying judgment that he should discuss the matter with Sheri? He couldn’t bring himself to worry about what Paige was thinking too much; he had enough going on in his mind as it was.
They got to the morgue and met up with Lily. Dominick Banks’s corpse was lying on a metal slab, naked and prepped for autopsy. Lily was in a full apron and had on a hat with a face shield.
“You two ready for this?” Lily asked them, almost as if she didn’t think they’d been through the process before. Zach had lost count of how many autopsies he’d attended.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Paige said.
Her response pretty much mirrored Zach’s feelings on the matter. It wasn’t his favorite thing to watch, that was for certain, but it was a necessary step in an investigation. Sometimes small things came to light under the scrutiny of an ME during a preliminary and throughout an autopsy that helped collar killers. It was best that they were present so they could respond to any potential leads sooner rather than later.
“I’ve already conducted a preliminary and collected some evidence from the body,” Lily began. “Given the shape of the contusions on the neck, I’d say he was strangled by hand. Based on their size, I was able to approximate the span of the killer’s hands and from there estimate height.” Lily held her head a little higher when she said, “Six three or thereabouts.”
That lined up with their unsub to within an inch.
Lily continued. “Usually I fill in detectives on fibers and trace after I’ve finished up, but did you want to know now?”
Zach bobbed his head. “Now would be good.”
“All right.” Lily glanced at the body, seeming eager to get started on the autopsy. She looked back at Zach. “A fiber was pulled from the deceased’s hair. It will be going to the lab, but I’d say it was a carpet fiber.”
Banks had been lying on his hardwood floor. “From where?”
Lily smirked. “That’s for you and the lab to figure out, but I’d say that it came from a low-pile carpet.”
Zach’s gaze went to the lividity showing on Banks’s side and the fact that he hadn’t spent his first few hours of death supine. Zach deduced that the killer likely had to conceal the body while returning it to Banks’s home and staging it. Unless he drove around town with Banks’s corpse in the front passenger seat playing out Weekend at Bernie’s. “Could it be carpet fiber, say, from the trunk of a car?” Zach asked.
Lily looked at him and nodded. “Sure, I would think that’s possible.”
Zach turned to Paige. “The unsub did put him in the trunk after he killed him.”
“If that’s the case, he would have needed to be there for a couple of hours,” Lily said, “for the lividity to form the way it did.”
Zach nodded. “Can I see the fiber?”
“Be my guest.” Lily grabbed a small plastic evidence bag from a table. Inside, the fiber was tiny and charcoal gray.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” Lily replied, putting the bag back on the table.
“What else? You mentioned trace?” Paige asked. “Did you pull DNA from under his nails?”
“Possibly. I’m not sure yet. I can tell you that he didn’t fight back, though.” Lily’s face fell. “But there’s something else.”
Paige glanced at Zach and back to the ME.
“I don’t see this often, thank goodness. It turns my stomach like nothing else. I can handle mangled corpses of any shape or size, but this…”
Zach could imagine that Lily had seen it all in her career, and for this finding to upset her, it had to be revolting.
“There’s evidence that the body was sexually assaulted.” Lily put a hand over her stomach. “And I’m talking about…”
“After death?” Paige blurted out.
Lily pressed her lips together, pointed a finger at Paige, and nodded.
None of them said a word for a few minutes. Necrophilia was a whole other layer of their unsub to unravel. What had pushed him to that? Zach was aware of the textbook answers: the love maps that formed early in life. Role models in a child’s life helped teach what was and wasn’t accepted sexually, what was considered normal and healthy and what was considered deviant.
“See? It turns the stomach.” Lily let her hand fall from where she’d been rubbing her gut. “I don’t know what it was done with yet, but there was a pointed sculpture taken from the deceased’s home. It is being tested.”
“A foreign object?” Zach asked. Typically, that could indicate erectile dysfunction or castration, but their unsub had a girlfriend.
“Yes. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather just dig in.” She motioned her head toward the cadaver.
Zach gestured for her to go ahead, despite being queasy himself now.
Lily sliced into Banks, making the Y-incision with skill and precision. She lowered her face shield and armed herself with a bone saw. “Too bad we’re nauseated. I’m about to serve up a couple of ribs.” She attempted to smile at her joke, but the expression fell short.
“Oh, it’s too early for ribs anyway,” Paige said, playing along.
Zach and Paige stayed and watched the entire autopsy, but compared with the news Lily had delivered before starting the process nothing enlightening was found. They thanked Lily and headed back to the SUV.
“What do make of all that?” Paige said, buckling her seat belt.
“Safe to say our unsub likely had a very traumatic childhood,” Zach said. “He experienced abuse in some way when his love map was forming.”
Paige nodded. “You think he was sexually abused?”
“Dr. John Money first came up with the love map theory in the eighties,” Zach said, probably unnecessarily because when the theory was first proposed had little relevance to its implications.
“Well, I’m aware that all of us learn what relationships are from those closest to us—mostly from our parents.”
“Right. That was Money’s theory. Our parents, to start with, provide us with an inner gauge of how relationships should work, the appropriate conduct and so on when it comes to sexuality,” Zach explained. “Our love maps are formed as children and continue to develop as we grow older. When a child is sexually abused, it taints their view on sex, love, intimacy, and lust. Statistics show that such children are at risk of developing bizarre sexual fantasies later in life.”
“Like necrophilia,” Paige replied.
“Just one of the ugly possibilities.”
“Probably one of the ugliest.”
“Not going to argue with you there. That and the fact the violation was done with an object gives us insight into our unsub.”
“Yeah. In his case, I’d say he’s distancing himself from the assault.”
Zach nodded. “Now that we’ve discussed that, let’s move on.”
“Amen to that!” Paige steepled her hands as if praying.
Zach drove them to the lab, and a guy named Barry gave them some of the forensic findings. Not that any of them were helpful to tracking down their unsub’s identity. Prints lifted from the Cuban restaurant were processed and met with no hits in the system, not even matching ones lifted from the Checker Limousine vehicle. Not that it surprised Zach. Their unsub hadn’t been prepared at La Casa de Jose; he could have worn gloves when driving the car. The results from the DNA taken from the restaurant would take longer to get back, but Zach wouldn’t be holding his breath for any solid lead there, either.
While the fiber that Lily collected still needed to be processed, as did the suspected violating statue from Banks’s home, the carpet in the trunk of the Chrysler seemed to be a color match for what she’d taken from Banks’s hair. Maybe they’d be able to connect Banks to the trunk. What they really needed was a connection to their killer. He needed to be stopped before someone else paid with their life.
Zach’s phone rang when he and Paige were coming out of the building. “Agent Miles,” he answered and held his breath as the caller relayed their message.