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Captain Ory Fortier called Northcutt and Cantin to his office.
“Put yourself in the shoes of the killer and the victims, men. Take a few minutes to soak up the details.” Fortier lifted the newspaper on his desk. Flung it forward so it landed face up to show the bold headline featuring another dark alley killing.
He wasn’t ready for the media to take off on the case and screw it up for them. “We can’t have this nonsense. A bokor? Voodoo? Witchcraft? Really? That’s their brilliant deduction? I’m assigning every available officer to work on this case. We have to stop this maniac before he kills anyone else,” Fortier shouted, rapidly pounding a fist on his desk. At age fifty-seven, the tall man with graying cropped black hair had seen more than his share of death.
“One thing we noticed,” offered Gary, “the scene didn’t look staged. He apparently hit them before they knew it was coming. Their bodies weren’t posed in a sexual manner. Which is kind of unusual. Makes me think he didn’t want to dehumanize them any more than he had to, except for leaving them partially nude. Okay. That makes no sense. There are other things, though. Rats. Boils. I’d be in hog heaven if I could figure this one out.”
“I want to point out another obvious connection,” said Lucas. “Their eyes were missing. Nolin’s were cut out. Luce’s appeared to have been devoured. It’s as if the killer, or killers, didn’t want them to be able to identify him or her, even from the grave. The killer may’ve been someone the women knew.”
“Except the two of them came from differing walks of life, so to speak. I doubt they knew the same people.” Gary snapped his fingers once. “No. The killer may’ve been a customer. To each of them.”
“Aha! I get your meaning,” said Fortier.
“Isn’t there a quote in the Bible about plucking out offending eyes?” Lucas asked.
“I think so,” said Gary. “I sure hope we don’t have some religious fanatic on our hands.”
“You know, standing there looking down at both women,” Lucas said gently, “you can recall feeling the fear and the pain of other women who’ve been attacked, and were lucky to live to tell the tale. In these two cases, however, I have a feeling it was a blitz attack. I don’t know. Their bodies were stiffer than a tailor’s dummy. Kind of paralyzed. I hope they weren’t conscious to experience the horror of it all.”
“Which only makes me wonder why the killer didn’t want them to experience the pain. Isn’t this the best part for a psycho, other than gaining attention? We didn’t know the Nolin woman, but we sure as hell knew Sarri,” said Gary. “The only piece of this puzzle that doesn’t fit is the writer, BJ Donovan. Last night she received a threatening email, possibly written by the killer of those two women.”
Lucas glimpsed at Gary.
Fortier continued to stare at the newspaper headline. “You need to evaluate the range of evidence and data collected so far, and you need to be able to recreate the crime scene in your minds. You also need to learn as much about both victims as you can, in order to get a feel for the case. Gary, Lucas, go over the body-related findings, if any, and read the initial report. Go back and talk to the first officers who arrived on the scene. Maybe one or the other remembers something else. Ask them again, what did they see. Maybe the scene had been altered somehow or some way.”
“We’ve viewed the photographs already, and we’ve asked for a schematic drawing of the crime scene,” said Gary.
“Yeah,” said Lucas, “and we’ve already re-read the medical examiner’s report, Captain.”
“Good, good. I’ve been wondering about this email stuff. How do we trace it back to the sender?” Fortier asked.
“Using his email address, we can contact his internet service provider and get his identity,” said Gary.