Gwen took the stairs one floor up to her office. She was pleasantly surprised to see CC sitting at the spare desk looking over some files.
“Hey there,” Gwen said cheerily. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty well, actually. I slept like a baby last night, and started early. I stopped by the Planton residence and was able to talk to the whole crew…Carl, Tom and Billy were all there, as well as the mother, Pauline.”
“Good thinking,” Gwen said thoughtfully.
“Billy is the only one with a record. He was heavily into car theft with his friends during his senior year of high school. He’s twenty now, seems to be settling down…says he has a serious girlfriend and wants to get married and have a family. He’s been holding down a steady job at Paradise Auto for about six months. Carl, the boy Brad tagged last night, is nineteen. He’s still rebellious, but doesn’t get into too much trouble according to his mother. He spends most of his time in his room playing computer games or downtown at the video arcade.”
She looked at her notes. “The third boy, Tom, is the youngest—eighteen. He’s the one you caught stealing tools at Carole’s. He has a bit of an attitude, but I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble with him. I read them all the riot act and scolded them about interfering with our investigation. I have a feeling they understood what I was going to do with them if I caught them again, with even the slightest infraction.”
Gwen laughed. “You are tough! But thanks. I think it was a great idea to speak with them and give them all a warning about getting in our way again. I had nightmares that we rushed out of The Dive and blew our cover. Had Brad not already had the situation under control, we might have had to step in.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Brad smiled, stepping into the office holding a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
“Of course.” Gwen laughed. “And you’re buttering us up too?” she said, peering into the box and grabbing a glazed doughnut.
“Thought we could all use a little treat.”
“If it’s a bribe, I’m not eating,” Scott said, coming in behind Brad.
“Whatever do you mean, good buddy?” Brad asked in feigned surprise.
“That caramel latte you bought for me yesterday was no way enough payment for those horrible follow-up calls I made for you. Three out of the six were screamers,” Scott complained.
“Hey, I thought they’d be easy. Sorry, guy. I just didn’t want you thinking you were being left out while I was downloading information from the girls’ PCs,” Brad said innocently.
“Yeah, right!” Scott huffed, and dug into the box of doughnuts. “Better be watching your back, buddy.” He smiled good-naturedly.
“You two!” Gwen laughed. “Let’s get back to work.”
“I’ve almost finished checking out the staff and customers at The Dive,” Scott volunteered. “Other than the couple being iffy and us putting a tag on them, everyone seems legit.”
“Which couple?” CC asked.
“Oh, sorry,” Scott apologized. “Jackie and Jeff. They’re people Gwen ran into at the bar, and they’re either very nosy or know something they shouldn’t. I’ve got someone following them for a few days.”
“Still checking out the neighborhood. I didn’t get very far last night because of all the bullshit,” Brad admitted. “Damn, I was so hoping I’d tackled the perp.”
“How bad is the backup of callbacks from the hotline?” Gwen asked Brad.
“I’d say there are at least a couple dozen that should be followed up on. All I’ve had time to do is screen them, and discard the crank calls and those I’m sure aren’t significant to the investigation.”
“CC, if you don’t mind, you and I will stay here tonight and get those caught up. Scott, you can continue your surveillance from the parking lot to make sure no one else disappears, and Brad, that will give you more time to scour the neighborhood.”
“I don’t mind at all,” CC replied. “I think it’s a good idea to mix it up a little. People might get suspicious if we’re hanging around too much.”
“Okay, it’s a done deal. Let’s get ’em,” Gwen said cheerfully.
Gwen and CC split up the calls and got started as soon as Brad and Scott left the office. Most of the time, in Gwen’s experience, people phoned into a hotline out of panic and changed their minds when an officer returned their call; it was difficult to come up with a substantial complaint when it was only a nagging fear that spurred them to make the call in the first place. Often they called to get someone they were angry with in trouble, and ended up recanting their accusations when their anger had a chance to simmer down. Very few calls resulted in capturing the perp they were looking for, and a good detective could weed out the crazies and liars quickly and immediately get someone to investigate the few legitimate tips that might lead to an arrest.
Within three hours, the two women finished the stack of messages Brad had left for them. Gwen went down to the call center and picked up a new stack of about a dozen messages and brought steaming cups of coffee back with her.
“Smells good. Thanks!” CC smiled. “You read my mind.”
“I figured we could take a break before we start in again. My back is killing me from sitting in one spot for so long,” Gwen complained.
Just as Gwen took her first sip of coffee, her cell phone rang. It was Brad.
“I found a body,” he said grimly. “It’s about three blocks from the bar, hidden behind some bushes in an empty field. Thought you might want to take a look. I think it’s Carole Planton.”
“God. Okay, we’ll be there as soon as possible,” Gwen told him.
“What’s wrong?” CC asked, seeing the concern on Gwen’s face and knowing the news couldn’t be good.
“Brad found one of the women. Possibly Carole,” Gwen replied. “Let’s go.”
They made it to the overgrown field in about twenty minutes.
It was cold and dark, but crime scene technicians were already stringing lights around the bare tree limbs and setting up spotlights on poles, making the scene look like a surreal Christmas display. The woman lay on her back, with her head tilted slightly to the right and her knees bent away from the bushes. Her eyes were frozen open with a look of sheer terror, and blood was caked into the folds of her neck. The front of a white T-shirt was stained crimson, like someone had tie-dyed a grotesque splotch onto the neckline and another around the stomach. She was fully clothed, but wasn’t wearing a jacket. Her hands were clenched at her sides into the leaves and soil. Carefully, with one gloved finger, one of the techs lifted the T-shirt to reveal a knife wound to her belly. The intestines were spilling out of the three-inch gash, most likely resulting when the knife was withdrawn.
“There’s too much dried blood to be certain,” Brad spoke quietly, “but looks like the wound to her neck extends from ear to ear. Not deep enough to decapitate her, but clearly enough for her to bleed out. The stab wound to her abdomen was overkill. We found no purse, no ID. But it looks like Carole.”
“Looks like he had a hell of a lot of pent-up anger against his victim,” Gwen observed. “It doesn’t look like he picked her at random. He had a score to settle.”
“The only tie-in we’ve come up with among the three was The Dive. Maybe we should take a closer look at the people there,” CC said to no one in particular, staring off into the distance.
“Hey, Brad, that reminds me. How far did you get with the address book you found at Meg’s?” Gwen asked.
Standing up, he scratched his head. “Shit. I’ve been so busy I forgot all about it. It’s in my desk drawer. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll take a look when we get back,” Gwen said just as the coroner, Doc Maynard, walked up to her.
“My dear Gwen. I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon again.”
“Neither did I, Doc. It’s always a pleasure though,” she said kindly.
“What do we have here?” he said, crouching beside the corpse with reverent interest, unlike the disrespectful mannerisms of some of the officers. He put his case down, snapped on a pair of gloves.
“Any idea how long she’s been out here?” Gwen asked.
“Hard to say.” He picked up a hand, pulled at the skin; it was loose. “With this weather, close to freezing at night and sunny during the day, would be difficult to say with certainty. My guess is three, maybe four days max.”
He gently moved the woman’s head from side to side and then eased the T-shirt up to examine the stab wound to her torso. “Died from the cut to her throat. The cut to her abdomen, although it looks bad, wouldn’t have killed her quickly.”
He pulled glasses out of his breast pocket, and scrutinized the wound more carefully. “Ahh…it was inflicted postmortem. Appears to be lacerated with a butcher knife…something with a long, wide blade. Hmm…that’s interesting.”
He got up and crouched behind the woman’s head, and leaned over her body, waving his hand over her belly. “See here? The cut is moving up toward her head and not down as it is most often with this kind of wound. He stabbed her from this angle.”
“What does that mean?” CC asked, confused.
“Might have been planning on making the mark of a cross, but the knife hit the breastbone and he couldn’t cut through the hard tissue.” He lifted the blouse further to reveal her upper chest. “Yup, see this faint line dissecting the throat? I’ll know more when I perform the autopsy.”
“When do you think you can do it?” Gwen asked anxiously.
“First thing tomorrow. See you at six a.m. sharp?”
Gwen groaned, and then replied, “I’ll be there. Anything more you can tell me now, Doc?”
“No. We’ll get her fingerprinted and I want her clothes vacuumed before I move her. They’ll scour the area and I’ll advise you immediately if anything turns up. See you in the morning.”
Gwen and CC returned to the precinct, leaving the crime scene technicians to process the area and the coroner’s people to remove the body. In the squad room, they reviewed the pictures of the three missing women which were taped next to the white board listing the evidence they’d found so far, as well as other information they thought might be pertinent.
“It’s Carole,” CC said softly, staring at the pictures in front of her.
“No doubt about it.”
“I’ll do the notify if you’d like. I don’t mind,” CC offered.
“Thanks. That would be great. Do you want to attend the autopsy?” Gwen asked.
“If you don’t mind…uh, I’ll pass. It’s not that I’m squeamish, but if I have a choice…uh, and you’ll be there…and after talking to the family, I feel like I knew her…” CC stammered.
“It’s okay.” Gwen smiled understandingly. “I’ll call you.” She was just about to grab CC and give her a reassuring hug when Brad walked in.
“Here’s the address book from Meg’s apartment,” he said, handing it to Gwen.
“Great. I just want to page through it before I leave. Maybe you and CC can work on it more thoroughly in the morning. After the autopsy I have a bail hearing to attend. Captain Wright’s lawyers are trying to get him out on bail.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brad said angrily. “The son of a bitch killed two people and nearly slaughtered a third!”
“Innocent until proven guilty,” Gwen said firmly. “I think we have enough evidence to convince the judge to deny bail. The chief did some personal legwork and found out that Wright has some interesting connections, as well as prime real estate in Florida. We believe he’d bolt out of state if not the country in a flash if he was freed.”
“What kind of connections?” CC asked.
“Several phone calls on his office phone were placed to the Wisconsin State Prison. Chief Ziegler put an investigator on it. One of the jail snitches accused Wright of being on the take for a smuggling mob based out of Tampa. Seems he bungled a couple of investigations having to do with some stolen jewelry and expensive paintings. Mostly we have him nailed on the murders. When his house was searched, we found the boots with the tiny crack in the sole, and the jacket with the square of fabric missing which is an exact match to the swatch CC found on the snowmobile trail. All the evidence leads directly to him.”
“His kind reflects on the entire force,” Brad exploded. “I hope he gets a needle in his arm.”
“The picture we’re painting of Wright just keeps getting better and better,” CC said facetiously.
“Like I said, I don’t think he’ll be freed. We’ll nail him to the cross at trial,” Gwen assured them.
“I sure hope you’re right.” CC sighed.
“Hey, look at this,” Gwen said, paging through Meg’s address book. “Kathy Wright’s name is here. I didn’t know they were friends.”
“No kidding?” CC asked in surprise. “That’s odd.”
“I didn’t find any chitchat between the two of them on Facebook, but I did find some odd e-mails where I hadn’t been able to identify the source. Anyone know what Kathy’s e-mail address was?” Brad asked.
“I seem to remember years ago it was something like ‘Katydid’,” Gwen replied.
“That could be it. I’ll go back and print them out,” Brad said, hurrying off.
“I wonder if Carole or Amy are in here,” Gwen mumbled, paging through the book. “Hmm…there’s a CP…could be Carole. And an Amie with no last name…she could have spelled Amy wrong.”
“I’ll leave this with you, CC,” Gwen said, turning the book over to her. “See if you can find someone who will talk to you who might know the relationships between the missing girls. Have a photo spread made up with Kathy and the three from The Dive. Throw in a couple of other mugshots and see if anyone listed in that book can connect the dots for us.”
“I’m on it,” CC answered.