Allison Brennan - Speak No Evil

Nick said, “She died on him and when he found her, he was angry.”

Jim looked surprised. “Exactly.”

“How’d she die?” Nick asked. “Shock?”

“She choked to death or suffocated. Dr. Chen will know for sure. I have her medical records, and she has a history of allergies to latex, and mild asthma. But shock or stress may have triggered an asthma attack, and she couldn’t breathe.”

Jim shook his head. “But,” he continued, “see the discoloration of her skin? It looks like hives. She may have died from anaphylactic shock. Maybe he wore latex gloves when he assaulted her, and she had an allergic reaction.”

“She could die from that?” Nick asked.

“Absolutely. You’ve heard of people dying from bee stings and peanuts, right? It can take a few hours, but repeated exposure can increase the reaction. I had a case where a guy died ten minutes after a wasp sting. He couldn’t find his epi pen.” Jim looked at them. “Jodi had an epi pen in her purse, which was left in her bedroom when the killer abducted her.”

“Not that she would have been able to tell him with her mouth glued shut.” Nick’s voice was laced with anger and frustration.

“There is good news,” Jim said.

“Tell me there are hidden security cameras.”

“Can’t do that. But by these wounds I think he beat her up with his hands. There is likely biological evidence on her from the killer.”

“DNA.” It was their first real hope at solid evidence.

“And here-” he pointed to the ropes.

“What?”

“There’s some fabric attached to the rope. Possibly a cotton sheet, but we can test it.”

“Did he wash her body, too?”

“Yes, but not as thoroughly as the others. There’s more blood here than with the first two victims. She was dead, heavy, awkward to move around.”

“But the killer is strong,” Nick said.

“To carry a dead body? Absolutely. Someone who works out and is physically fit.”

“Unless there are two of them,” said Nick.

“Two killers?” Jim asked, uncertain.

Carina thought about Nick’s comment. “It’s possible. We can’t rule anything out yet, but Dillon didn’t mention the possibility of a killing team.”

“Just an idea. I’m not even sold on it, but I wanted to mention it.”

Carina turned to Jim. “How fast can you get DNA?”

“DNA takes months, Carina. You know that.”

“I also know that this is a priority case.”

“I can’t even get a sample until the autopsy and we sift through the trace evidence. She’s been washed, he may have cleaned off any evidence. It’ll take a couple days. Then, if I rush it and have no court-mandated tests, I can do it in two to three days.”

“We can send it out.”

“Private lab?” Jim frowned. “Yeah, but Causey has to sign off on it.”

“I’ll worry about the chief.”

San Diego County had its own DNA laboratory, a onetime purchase by the board of supervisors. The city shared it with the sheriff’s forensic department, but they were backlogged, as usual. Too many crimes, not enough resources. When a case was particularly high-profile, they could sometimes get approval to hire an outside lab for DNA testing.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jim said, “but it’ll still take at least thirty-six hours for the autopsy, collection of evidence, and preparing the chain-of-evidence paperwork. Maybe I can clear a machine in the lab and work it myself. If there’s even any DNA to analyze.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“I know.” Jim stared at Jodi’s body. “I’ll be at the autopsy in the morning.”

“Saturday?”

“I talked to Dr. Chen on the way over here. He’s taken this case personally. He wants the killer as much as we do.”

The dinner hour long past, Carina and Nick ate cold pizza late Friday night in the SDPD conference room while running through their notes. Patrick and Dillon came in with a stack of papers. Both looked as tired as Carina felt. Even Dillon, the clean-cut, immaculately dressed doctor, had the sleeves of his button-down shirt rolled up, and the waves he tamed every morning with gel now fell loose across his forehead.

“Both these guys are winners,” Patrick said as he dropped the papers on the conference table.

“I’m tired,” Carina said. “What guys?”

“Bondage and Scout,” Patrick said.

Nick pulled the top sheet. “These look like comments off MyJournal pages.”

“Bingo,” Patrick said, sitting down backward in a chair and grabbing a slice of cold pizza. “This is part of the huge info dump we got from the MyJournal corporate office. Every archived comment made by Bondage and Scout.”

Dillon interjected, “I think we need to focus on Scout. Both may be dangerous, and we’re going to continue to look into Bondage for possible underage solicitation issues, but I think Scout killed Angie.”

“Based on what?” Carina asked, looking at the comments herself. They weren’t exclusively posted on Angie’s Web page, but a variety of MyJournal pages.

One comment from Scout on a page dedicated to cats: My cat Felix died last week. Someone hit him with a baseball bat. He died in my arms .

“You think being upset about a cat dying makes Scout the killer?”

“Scout posted seventeen different times over the last two years that his cat Felix died. Hit by a car, hit with a baseball bat, drowned by his neighbor. All to women who then started an e-mail relationship with him. Interesting, none appear to still be talking to him.”

Carina sat up and grabbed one of the pages. “The cat. Midge at the library said that the man Becca was talking to the night she disappeared told her his cat had been shot to death.”

“That’s a better connection than I have,” Dillon said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not the cat that tipped me off, though it’s suspicious. Read this.”

Dillon handed both Nick and Carina copies of key comments. Carina frowned as she read them.

Women are beautiful. Soft. Delicate. I’m careful with women, because I don’t want them to break. You can’t put them back together.

My girl isn’t broken and I’m being careful. Very careful. When we make love, it’s beautiful. I made love to her three times tonight. She likes it when I use a dildo. Because deep down all women are sluts. I wonder what they think about when men shove their dicks in them. How it feels. What they really want. Why they lie all the time, saying one thing and doing another. Doing one thing, then lying about it. Why can’t people just tell me the truth? Why does everyone have to lie?

I’m the best liar out there. It takes one to know one, know what I mean? I can lie and no one knows. Even people who know me can’t figure it out.

The next was just as disturbing.

All women lie. Even the ones who are nice to your face, they lie behind your back.

You’re all sluts.

In a response to a guy who’d posted a journal entry about how he learned his girlfriend was cheating on him and how he wanted to strangle her, Scout wrote:

All women are cheating cunts who need to be shut up. Whores. Bitches. Sluts. Lying whores should be thrown out with the trash.

Kill your bitch.

“There’s a lot more like this,” Dillon said. “But read this one dated Sunday late afternoon.”

“Angie was still missing but alive.”

“But Scout had time to go online and write this.”

I’ll be bathing my girlfriend soon, cleansing all the impurities from her body so we can unite as one. It’ll be like her first time, and her last time.

Nick said, “Why won’t the MyJournal people do anything? This is obviously threatening.”

“Misogynistic, true, but not threatening to any specific woman. No one with a MyJournal account has filed a report against Scout for any threatening posts or e-mails,” Patrick said. “Even Angie. She banned him, but didn’t use the MyJournal service, which allows members to file complaints.”