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After an English muffin and two cups of coffee, I was out of the house early. I followed my client’s husband to the car dealership where he worked then met Elliot the Slim, who would watch the place throughout the workday. Before getting to the office, I stopped at the gym. I tried to work out seven days a week, which really meant three to five times a week, unless it was only once or twice a week. In reality, the gym was a sporadic thing for me. I would work with weights and machines for thirty minutes then spend another thirty on one of the cardio machines. I hated cardio, which was probably why my workouts were so sporadic and definitely why I wasn’t a jogger. I could, however, tolerate a stair-climbing machine, rowing machine, or stationary bike. As I was trying to decide which of those torture devices to mount, my cell phone trilled with an old-fashioned ring. A pity... I had hoped to hear the dulcet tones of Barry White.
By the time I got the phone from my pocket, it had already rung four times, so I answered without checking the caller ID. “Analise Norwood Investigations.”
A gruff man said, “All right, we’ll take you on as consultant.”
After a moment of confusion, I managed to respond, “Who’s this?”
“It’s Baker, San Marco Homicide. We’ll pay your consultation fee. We’d like to hire you.”
Surprise, surprise. “How much do you usually pay? Is it a flat fee, or an hourly consultation? It’s more if I have to go to—”
“I don’t care what you charge,” he said. “You’re hired, and we need you at De Leon Park right now. Do you know where it is?”
“Yeah, I know where it is. Why there?”
“We have another one. Get here now.” He hung up.
I ran out of the gym in my workout clothes, black tights with gray swirly designs, an old gray tank top only months from becoming a rag, and a pair of old ankle-high Keds sneakers. Once in the car, I headed east, struggling to keep my speed low enough that I wouldn’t get ticketed. De Leon Park was a couple of blocks from the ocean. It was surrounded by nice neighborhoods, including the Dunes, an upscale gated community. Most of the beachfront homes there were neo-Florida cracker style: wood frame with metal roofs, oversized windows, and surrounded by wide verandas. They were beautiful homes, but considering the price tag, they better be.
When I took the turn to reach the front entrance of De Leon Park, I was treated to a display of flashing lights atop all manner of law enforcement and emergency vehicles. I felt like I was in a TV cop show as I took in the yellow crime scene tape holding a dozen or so gawkers at bay. A young uniformed officer stopped me at the entrance, and I started to explain why I was there, but at the mention of my name, he instructed me to drive in and leave my car in the main lot. Remembering the photo that Baker showed Nick and me, I parked and sat in my car, preparing myself for whatever I was about to witness. There was a tap on my window. It was Ortega.
I got out. “Detective.”
“Ms. Norwood. Thanks for coming.”
“Call me Lise. Sorry about the...” I used my hands to indicate my gym clothes. “Baker said to come right now.”
Without responding, Ortega took my arm and guided me through a small contingent of uniforms to the head of a trail blocked off with more crime scene tape. He held it up, and I ducked under. He followed.
“We’ll get you files for both murders,” he told me. “At least what we can share.”
That sounded like they wanted me for more than a onetime crime scene interpretation. “Baker said there was another one.”
Ortega muttered, “Another sadistic slaughter. Another pose we need you to identify. This way.” He pointed down the trail and started walking at a brisk pace.
I caught up and asked, “Wires and ropes?”
“Yes.”
“Another young woman?”
“Yes, but a different type. The first one, the Dying whatchamacallit—”
“Dying Niobid,” I said.
“Right. Twenty-three-year-old Kristin Harmon. By the way, thanks for calling Baker with your idea to warn any of Ms. Harmon’s siblings.”
“You’re welcome.”
“A good notion, but she was an only child. She was going to cosmetology school and paying for it working as a waitress at Capello’s Ristorante.”
Capello’s, fine Italian cuisine, always busy. She probably made good tips.
“She lived in the North,” Ortega added. The North was officially San Marco North, an old neighborhood that was mostly affordable housing and rentals. “In a duplex with a longtime friend. Kristin was blond.”
“And this one?” I asked, as we continued down the trail.
“Our new vic is Hispanic. The ID we found with her jogging outfit says Angela Lopez. She was eight years older than our other vic. Kristin’s neighborhood is pretty much blue-collar. Angela lived a couple of blocks that way.” He pointed south of the park, where a number of upscale condominiums were located. “I don’t think our killer has a specific type, other than female and attractive.”
“Kristin was found in her apartment, right?”
“Uh-huh. Her roommate spent the night with her boyfriend and came home the next morning to find Kristin murdered.”
I thought about what it would be like to make that discovery then about how my cousin Gracie’s body had been found by an eleven-year-old boy whose mother had taken him to the park. That boy, who would be in his twenties now, probably still saw Gracie in his dreams.
“You okay, Lise?” Ortega asked, interrupting my morbid reflection.
“So the killer doesn’t have a particular type, and he’s not picky about where to do it.”
“Apparently indoors or outdoors are both fine with him. C’mon, she’s over there.” The trail ended at a small meadow, and Ortega pointed to a fountain in the middle.
I’d harbored hopes of appearing cool and calm when I got to the crime scene; instead my Catholic upbringing took control. “Mary, Mother of God.”
“Yeah,” Ortega said. “I know what you mean.”
A couple of uniforms and a suit were huddled nearby, talking. The suit called out to Ortega.
“You can get closer,” Ortega said before he left me. “Just stay out of the way.”
I inhaled, exhaled, and started across the grass. The fountain was twenty feet across and ringed with a low coquina wall. A massive coquina stone rose about five feet from the center of the fountain, upon which Angela Lopez was affixed. She’d been perched naked on the stone, knees bent, her legs together and to the left. Her left arm was draped casually across her lap, and her right hand rested on the stone beside her as if she were leaning on it. I moved south of the fountain to where I could best see her, and my first real thought was how beautiful she was. Then I noticed both the insects and techs buzzing around the corpse, some seeking nourishment, some seeking clues. I had no doubt about what statue the crime scene copied, but the famous bronze wasn’t beaten and bloody like this poor woman, who was wired in place. Stepping closer, I noticed specific wounds, one on her shoulder and another on her thigh—bite marks caused by enough force to create deep wounds. Blood matted her hair to the right side of her head and had splashed down her neck and shoulder. Her nose had bled, as well, covering shredded duct tape over her mouth and her chin.
“Did he recreate another famous piece of art?” someone behind me asked.
I turned to find Detective Baker. He looked exhausted.
“Yes,” I said. “He copied The Little Mermaid, a bronze sculpture by Edvard Erikson, a Danish-Icelandic sculptor.”
“The Little Mermaid? Okay. Yeah. Even I know that one.”
“Based on the Hans Christian Andersen story. If I remember correctly, it was commissioned in 1909 and put in a park in Copenhagen a couple of years later.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any connection between the two statues?” Baker asked.
“Well, they’re both female nudes, but that’s about it. They were sculpted a couple of thousand years apart. The Dying Niobid is marble, and The Little Mermaid is bronze.”
Baker grunted, shut his eyes, and massaged his temples.
“Find anything helpful?” I asked.
“Michelangelo left plenty of DNA. At both scenes.”
“Michelangelo?” I asked.
“He’s earned a nickname. Hopefully, it stays in the department.”
“Hopefully.”
“He didn’t kill her here. We haven’t located that spot yet.”
“So he killed her and then moved her here and created that?” I nodded toward the fountain.
“Yeah, killing elsewhere and moving the body is different than the first.”
I pointed to the corpse. “He’s a biter.”
Baker took out a pair of sunglasses and placed them on his face. Though he covered the dark circles under his eyes, he still looked like he’d been awake for the past few days. “Yeah. There’s a couple more, on the underside of Angela’s other thigh, as well as on her right buttock. Also chewed on her right ear, worried at it like a dog with a rawhide bone. Some of the ear is missing. Bit Kristin too, the first victim.”
“Twenty-three, waitress at Capello’s.”
“Which pisses me off even more. My wife and I love that restaurant. Anyway, we’ve got DNA. We’ve got bite patterns. What we don’t have is a match to anything on record.”
“Anything else?”
“Medium-length brown hairs at both scenes. The tech geeks feel sure the ones recovered here will be a match to the ones at Kristin’s apartment.”
“You call victims by their first names?”
He gazed at me. “It helps me to remember that they’re people, feeds my drive to solve the crimes.”
Hmm, maybe I found a reason to like Baker after all.
“Here’s something interesting. Even though Michelangelo sprayed semen around Kristin’s apartment like a garden hose, left saliva, hair, and bite patterns, he hasn’t left any prints at either scene.”
“Luck? Gloves? Cleans up?”
“Techs say that he probably wipes everything when he’s done. Both of these cases confuse the hell out of me. On the one hand, the rape, torture, and murder seem spontaneous, fueled by passion. But the careful placement of the bodies indicates a cool calculation that’s further backed up by wiping the scene.” Baker took off his sunglasses and used his tie to wipe the lenses. “I think Michelangelo has his prints on file.”
“Criminal background?”
“Maybe, but people get printed these days for all sorts of reasons. He could volunteer with children or help with a church youth group. Maybe he’s in education or security.”
“Or he’s a private investigator.”
“Got someone in mind?”
“No. Just know I had to get fingerprinted for my PI license.”
“Want to get closer?”
“Not really,” I said but halved the distance to the fountain anyway.
We walked around the back of Angela. A few lengths of wire and rope had been run into the fountain and tied off at a couple of drains. The rest ran from her body to what appeared to be tree limbs hammered into the ground like tent stakes. Baker said, “Same baling wire as the last crime. You could pick it up in any hardware store. Same with the rope. He used some wood with Angela.”
Michelangelo had made a rudimentary base out of tree limbs wired to the boulder with another sturdy branch acting as a support that ran up Angela’s back and to her head. Her head was tied loosely enough to list toward her shoulder, matching the statue.
“He’s strong,” I said.
“To do that? Yeah.”
“He’s a serial killer, isn’t he?”
“Officially? Not until he’s killed three people. But if I was a betting man, which I am, I’d bet that he’s killed before, but the connection with those other murders hasn’t been made yet. So yeah, I think he’s a serial nutjob.”
Tired of taking in Angela’s degradation, I stared across the meadow. “Even if Kristin and Angela are his first two, there’ll be a third, won’t there? Another to make it official?”
“Probably. And then I lose the case to the FBI. They’ll probably take over for a serial killer.”
My attention was caught by a man in his early thirties, in a suit, running out of the trail. A uniformed officer ran right behind him, yelling at him to stop. The man stumbled when he saw the dead woman on the rock, and he fell to his knees. His face contorted in grief and horror.
Baker muttered, “Ah, shit.”