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THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT was small but clean and well kept. A large front desk separated the lobby from the bullpen. There was one desk shared by Deputies Arnie Powers and Frank Soames, and trainee Jimmy Matea. A dispatcher’s station was set up at the front of the room, where three full time dispatchers, who worked, like the deputies, in eight-hour shifts, sat. Beyond the lobby was the co-ed locker room and restroom. The coffee room was really a closet with a TV tray, a coffee pot, and a chair. Upstairs you could find the interview room that housed one scarred table and three chairs. The three small holding cells also shared the second floor and were currently empty.
Now, Steven Ames was sitting at his desk, in the only private office in the building. He was reading over several sheets of paper, a formal autopsy report from Philip Hodges, the multi-county Medical Examiner.
According to the report, multiple stab and laceration wounds covered the victim’s face, neck, arms, chest, and abdominal region.
The fire marshal hadn’t furnished an official report yet. However, Ames’ deputies had located a cracked bottle of flammable liquid. Based on the physical evidence alone he was not yet willing to deduce foul play. There was no way yet to determine whether the flammable liquid was the accelerant, although the chances it was used was highly probable.
Considering Hodges’ findings, Ames would not need an official report from the fire marshal. He was now ready to enter “death by stabbing—exsanguinations” as the cause of death in his report. The girl had bled to death after being stabbed repeatedly. There was no doubt the fire was an attempt to conceal the true crime. Sadly, murder had come to town again, just as he had feared.
He picked up the telephone and dialed the number for the examiner’s office. Hodges answered the phone on the fourth ring.
“Hi, Phil, this is Ames.”
“I thought you would have called sooner. Has my report made it to your office yet?”
“Actually, yes. That’s what I’m calling you on. I’ve read through it, but I’d like to hear from your mouth.”
“Shit, Steven. Don’t put me in the cross hairs.”
“If anyone’s in the cross hairs, believe me, I’m that man.”
Hodges sighed. “I wouldn’t want your job right now I can tell you that buddy. I can almost see the posse forming as we speak. Anyway, about the body, I got it in my office around five this morning. Those damn smoke eaters are very sloppy, Steven, and if I wasn’t such a good examiner, I may not have been able to make any report. There was extensive tissue damage caused by the damn hoses.”
“Well, you can’t expect much. They are volunteers.”
“Sloppy. Anyway, I got the body at five this morning and immediately started my autopsy. I scraped away quite a bit of surface tissue, to expose the lower layers of the flesh that were not contaminated or charred. Almost immediately, I found the first wounds; a cluster of deep slits in the chest area. Not neat either.
“Further inspection revealed multiple wounds of the same caliber. The jugular vein was severed and was the fatal wound; a lot of blood flowing there. Even the face was slashed well. I used tracing paper to map out the wounds, but I don’t think I got them all. Some of the tissue was too badly damaged by the pressure of the hoses so there may have been many more wounds, but I can’t say with any surety.
“Anyway, I counted somewhere in the vicinity of sixty stab and slash wounds altogether.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ames said and sat up straight in his chair. He started to feel a twinge of anxiety close in on him. It was the Thornton girl all over again. He felt a huge ball of fire drop into the pit of his stomach and he reached into his shirt pocket for the role of Tums. He popped two into his mouth and ground them harshly between his teeth.
“You’ve got that right, my friend. I also found defensive wounds on the body.”
“Say again?”
“Defensive wounds. These are wounds usually found between the wrist and the end of the pinky finger. When someone is being cut or stabbed, or hit with a foreign object, their natural reaction is to protect their face and use their hands to do so.”
“I see,” he said. He’d learned about defensive wounds in his seminar last year. But this wasn’t a lecture hall and he wasn’t a student anymore. He needed to seriously remember everything he’d learned about forensics and start applying those techniques to this case.
“Whoever did this is some sick bastard, Steven. People don’t think about this, but knife work is the most vicious form of murder. The person must be up close, first, usually looking the victim right in the eye. Secondly, they must be able to deal with the feel of the knife piercing the skin, the blood splattering all over them. This guy liked his wet work.”
Ames was silent. His chest was now tightening up and his throat was dry. He didn’t want to hear what Hodges was telling him. He didn’t want to deal with anymore. Things were getting too far out of hand and he wasn’t sure he was equipped to handle this case anymore.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, sorry. What is the official cause of death? Could you determine that?”
“Multiple stab wounds to the abdomen, chest and neck. Exsanguinations, like the report said. Death occurred due to excessive loss of blood. I think the fire was a ploy to cover the evidence. No evidence of asphyxiation. She was already dead by the time the fire started.”
“What about a weapon?”
“Well, like I said, it was pretty messy. I think it was a knife with a serrated edge. The wounds were not neat, and the slashes were rough. I’d say the blade was about six or seven inches long, based on my calculations on the depth of the wounds. That’s all I’ve got right now.”
“All right. Thank you, Phil.”
“You’re welcome,” Hodges said. After a brief pause, he said, “Do you have any idea who is doing this?”
“No. Listen, Phil. I’ve got to go. I have to call in Soames and Powers and get them started on a canvas. And I must go see a young lady who called and left a message. She says she’s concerned about her friend. I think she may have information on what happened last night.”
“Ah, a solid lead. May make the identification process move along a little faster. Have at it, my friend. If you need me, you know where to reach me.”
“Yes, thanks again.”
He hung up, folded his hands on his stomach and leaned back in his chair. From what Hodges had told him, this murder sounded like the Thornton murder. The killer had used a serrated blade to stab and cut on the poor girl, as if she were a piece of meat. Although the Thornton girl’s corpse had not burned, he still wanted to put the two murders together.
During the first murder, the killer was disturbed and forced to flee before he could cover his tracks.
Ames refused to entertain the idea of more than one sociopath in his town. Even one psychotic was too much for him to handle right now. Things seemed to be spiraling out of control. He was up the creek without a paddle and yet he was still too stubborn to cry out for help.
There was much to do, and he needed to get started. He stood from his chair and stepped out into the bullpen. Marlena Cardona, the dispatcher currently on duty, was at the dispatcher’s booth drinking coffee. He walked over to her and leaned on the counter.
“I have to go and talk to Sharon McKenan, the girl that left the message for me earlier. Could you round up Soames and Powers?”
“Should I call Jimmy?”
“No. I need him to make his normal rounds. We have to have a presence on the street.”
“Sure. You want me to tell Frank and Arnie it’s an emergency?”
“Just tell them I need them to canvas. There’s overtime in it for them. That ought to get them in here quick.”
She laughed. “You have a lead?”
“I sure hope so.” He gave her a wink.
He went back to his office and retrieved his .38 from a desk drawer. He clipped the paddle holster onto his belt and put on his hat. He thought about taking his raincoat, but the weather had cleared.
He took the keys for the Expedition and walked through the bullpen toward the front door. Marlena was on the phone with Soames and she was telling him to get in as soon as possible to start a canvas.
The McKenan girl hopefully had something good for him. He had no solid lead to this point and the way things were going he needed all the help he could get.
If I was a praying man, he thought, now would be the time to pray for miracles.