J Duncan - Deadworld

Jackie shook her head. “Unless you think we need to. We had our own look yesterday.”

Dr. Liyang gave an absent shrug. “Not really. I have all the info here. No reason to subject you to that again.” She smiled at Laurel this time, fully aware of her weaker stomach. They had gone out for drinks a couple years back to celebrate the capture of a serial rapist, and Emily had sent Laurel to the bathroom with an increasingly graphic description of some of the bodies that had come through her office. Jackie had listened with half a curious ear. She found forensics intriguing but had no desire for the work. Slapping the handcuffs on the bad guys was far more rewarding.

The photos laid out on the desk showed Archie in the various stages of autopsy, taken from a variety of angles. “Pretty straightforward, at least from the initial investigation. See here?” she said, pointing at the first picture. “The boy was bound with zip ties. You can tell by the unique marks. They go all the way around, wrists and ankles, so I’m guessing he was laid out on a table or the ground. Little evidence of struggle, and just a few bruises you might find on any typical twelve-year-old.

Jackie studied the pictures, leaning over the desk along with Laurel, looking for signs of anything they might have missed from the day before. I was a lot more banged up than that at twelve years old, she thought, rubbing at the dull ache that appeared in her own wrists as she studied the pictures. All he’d wanted was to get away, and he’d stepped into the arms of a killer. Jackie suppressed a shudder and continued to follow Dr. Liyang’s summary.

“Puncture wound here on the left arm is where the blood was drained out of him. Everything indicates he had been dead a good ten hours before you found him. No signs of sexual abuse. There were a few fibers we lifted off him that we’ll analyze, but other than that, he was pretty clean. I think he may have been washed, but this is the one intriguing thing I found.” She tapped at Archie’s head in a close-up picture of his face from the eyebrows up to the hairline.

Jackie noticed right away. Without the close-up, it had not been obvious before. “He colored his hair.”

Emily smiled at them. “Sure, if he was a zombie.”

Laurel’s mouth formed an O of understanding. “He was already dead when this happened.”

“Yep. At least I’m almost positive. I’ll know definitely by tomorrow and let you know, but it seems your killer wanted him to have different hair.”

“Was it cut, too?” Jackie wondered.

“The clothing will be gone over later today. If we find any evidence of that, I’ll call you, Jack.”

“Thanks. Why would a perp want to do that?”

Dr. Liyang shrugged. “That’s what you girls get paid the big bucks for.”

Driving back to headquarters, they continued to discuss that question. Jackie sped in and around traffic, absently maintaining the speed she knew would allow her to make all the lights through that part of town.

“Could be a fetish thing,” Laurel suggested. One hand clutched tightly on the door handle, while the other was braced against the armrest in the middle between them. “Sweet mother, Jackie! Knock it off already.”

She backed off the pedal and was forced to brake for the next light. “Damnit. What’s the matter?”

“Quit driving like you’re taking your expectant wife to the hospital.”

Jackie looked at her, imagining that soft belly expanded to the size of a basketball. Laurel’s body was built for babies. The smile vanished when she realized Laurel would likely never have one.

“I would race you to the hospital, though, if you were about to pop one out.”

Laurel shook her head and waved at the window. “Just drive normal, please.” There was silence for moment, and she continued. “You don’t think it was a fetish thing though, do you?”

Jackie shook her head. “No. It fits too much with the whole neat-arrangement-in-the-park scene. I think that boy was put there like he was on purpose. Someone went to some trouble to prop him up there and have him look a certain way.”

“Okay, I can go with that,” Laurel said. “But who and why?”

“No clue.” She drummed her fingers along the steering wheel. “Care to bet any money that Nick Anderson has an idea why?”

“Not really,” she said. “I think I’d lose that bet.”

“You would,” Jackie agreed. “Right now, I want to have a little sit-down with the geeks and see what else they’ve dug up. I want some proof we aren’t dealing with a recurring case of serial murders involving a hundred-year-old man.”

“He makes a good case for dating older men.”

Jackie glared at her and then rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. That, and drinking blood. That’s right up at the top of my list, too.”

They found Hauser at his desk, the computer screens turned into a bank of old photos and newspaper clippings. He had pictures loaded up on three of them, two of which Jackie recognized. They were the old newspaper clippings Laurel had showed her earlier. He spun around in his chair to greet them when Jackie knocked once.

“Hey! How are Chicago’s loveliest agents today?” He gave them a devilish smile.

Jackie thrust her hands into her pockets. “Hungry.”

“Got half a chicken-salad sandwich here you can have,” he said, and when it got no response, the grin faded, and he continued. “Okay, sourpuss, look here. This is some weird-ass shit I’ve found. These are the two clippings you’ve already seen, the first from 1970, the other from 1934.” He wheeled his chair over by the screens and pointed. “You can see the similarities in them, might even say they look like the same guy.”

“They’re thirty-six years apart though,” Jackie said. She had a sinking feeling she already knew where Hauser was heading with this.

“Yeah, I know. How could it be the same guy, right?” He pointed at the next screen. “Here’s another photo, thirty-six years before those.”

It was a yearbook photo from Princeton University. The name listed beneath it was Nicholas Rembrandt. The image looked slightly younger than Nick Anderson, but not by much. The skin was smoother, without the crinkle in the corners of his eyes, and he wore small, round glasses, just enough to cover the eye, but the bright glaze on them was still evident, even in a black-and-white photo.

Jackie leaned over and scanned the page. “Hauser, this pic is one hundred and eight years old.”

He grinned with the evil glee of a thirteen-year-old who has uncovered his dad’s secret stash of porn. “Yeah, pretty freaky, huh?”

“You telling me it’s the same guy? Please tell me you aren’t.”

Hauser nodded. “Had Platt take the scans and analyze them. ’Puter is ninety-eight point seven percent sure the guy in all these photos is the same guy. It is statistically impossible that relatives could look that closely alike.”

“Great.”

“Oh, it gets better,” he said, chuckling. He switched the third screen over to another picture. “Look at this one.”

Laurel leaned in with her to get a close look. “Sheriff Nicholas R. Anderson and family. Is this the real guy here?”

“So says the great god of circuitry,” he said.

Jackie glanced at the article, which spoke of welcoming the new sheriff to the area and looking forward to his services and ability to keep the area protected. It was from some place in Wyoming Jackie had never heard of before. They looked like a typical Old West family: father, two teen sons, a young daughter, wife, and someone who looked to be a grandmother. “This is impossible, Hauser.”

“You’d think.”

“It’s him,” Laurel added, sounding far more sure of herself than Jackie wanted.