J. Black - Laura Cardinal - 01 - Darkness on the Edge of Town

But he also had to think about morale.

In Laura’s opinion, this briefing was unwise; it would raise expectations in the rank-and-file that they would be integral to the case, and other than helping in minor ways, that just wasn’t true.

Officer Billings, one of the few here who had seen Jessica Parris’s body, was enjoying his three minutes of fame. “You know what she looked like?” He paused dramatically. “Judy Garland in the The Wizard of Oz. The girl was too old for a baby-doll dress like that … damn, it was spooky.”

Sergeant Nesmith leaned back and folded his arms over his considerable bulk. “Haven’t heard of nobody dressing ‘em up like that. Sounds like something you’d see on Most Wanted. ”

What no one said but everyone thought: This guy might be a serial killer. Either there had been other murders before this, or Jessica Parris was the first. Everyone here had some knowledge of FBI profile techniques. They knew as well as she did that when a person employed ritual in his killing, he would do it again.

Victor said, “The dress was too small. He must have had the dress first. Why’d he have the dress first ?”

“Maybe that’s all he could find,” said a scrawny cop with a rust-colored, handlebar mustache like Wyatt Earp’s. His nameplate said Danehill.

Laura said, “We need to check the resale and antique shops in the area.”

“He could have gotten the dress anywhere,” said Victor. “Also, there was no tag on the collar.”

“Maybe he tore it off.”

“Or it could be homemade.”

“What, you mean like sewed? From a pattern or something?”

“My wife sews,” Sergeant Nesmith said. “If I could get a look at the dress, I could probably tell. I could get on the Internet, check out dresses like that, see if there are any patterns.”

Laura shifted in her seat to relieve the pain in her back, caught Officer Heather Duffy’s eye. Duffy was glaring at her.

Victor crossed his leg at the knee, played with the tassel on his Italian loafers. “We’ll get photos of the dress and pass them around to everyone. I wonder what he did with her clothes?”

“Took ‘em for a souvenir?” suggested Officer Billings. “A trophy?”

“Or threw them away.”

Chief Ducotte said, “You have someone on that? Checking all the garbage cans around here?”

“We’re on it,” said Nesmith.

They discussed the mesquite leaf found on Jessica Parris’s neck, stuck like a piece of confetti behind her ear—something the killer had missed. This pointed to the possibility that the girl had been killed outside of Bisbee, since mesquite trees were rarely found above five-thousand feet. Unfortunately, the surrounding valleys—some of them only a mile or two away—were thick with them.

Then they came to the doll at Cooger & Darks. “I’m going by there tomorrow and talk to the owner,” Laura told them. “Maybe he saw somebody, someone too interested in the display.”

Chief Ducotte nodded, blinking his rabbity eyes.

Victor said, “Another thing, we’re all agreed he took her up there after she was dead. That means we have three crime scenes. The one where she was abducted, the one where he killed her, and the band shell. Any ideas on that?”

“His house?”

“A motel, if he isn’t from around here.”

Laura glanced in Duffy’s direction and noticed she was looking at Noone with an odd expression. She tried to pigeonhole it: Longing? Anger? Something in between? Duffy’s short, compact body looked like it was about to explode.

Something between Duffy and Noone.

Buddy Holland, who’d seemed preoccupied throughout the proceedings, followed Laura’s gaze. One corner of his mouth came up. Whatever was going on with Duffy and Noone, he knew about it.

Victor was saying, “Motels, bed and breakfasts, apartments, what else?”

“If it’s his crib it’d be pretty much impossible to find,” said Danehill.

“I got some photographs of the crowd by the crime scene tape this morning,” Laura said. “Our guy might not have been able to stay away. As soon as we have them, I want to canvass the neighborhood again. Maybe somebody noticed something unusual, maybe someone they knew did something outside their routine. That is, if he’s local. But I have my doubts about that.”

Detective Holland picked at some invisible lint on his sleeve, stretched his long blue jean-clad legs out and stared at his feet. “I think he is local.”

“You do?” asked Noone. “From here in Bisbee?”

Holland shrugged. His watchful eyes scanned the room, landed on Laura. “Why would he come here? We’re a little off the beaten path. It just doesn’t compute.”

Officer Duffy spoke up. “I think Buddy’s right.”

Chief Ducotte looked at Holland. “Go on,” he said.

Buddy Holland paused, waiting until he had their undivided attention: When E.F. Holland talks, people listen .

“This is a local guy, been working up to this a long time, peeping in windows, maybe caught masturbating outside some little girl’s house. I see it as opportunistic—nobody was around, he saw her, he grabbed her. Maybe it got out of hand. He’s fantasized about this for a long time.” He pushed his chair back, almost pinning Laura’s arm between them. “I think what Ms. Cardinal here said was telling. The doll shop. He could have got the idea from the doll. A local would know the park really well, know how easy it’d be to get up and down with a DB without being seen.”

“How many people from out of town know where West End Boulevard is?” demanded Heather Duffy. “Nobody.”

“He could’ve grown up here and come back,” said Danehill.

“It’s one theory,” the chief said. “But I’ve been thinking there might be an Internet connection. It could be what drew the guy here, like maybe he met her on the Internet. Buddy’s been raising concerns about this—his daughter—” He looked at Holland. “You’re the logical choice, why don’t you look into it?”

“Okay,” Holland said. “We have to cover all the angles.”

Laura knew she should say something before the chief took the briefing over and started making assignments. “Looks like we’ve got a plan.” She looked at the chief. “I know you’re short-handed, but if you could spare an officer to help canvass the houses facing the park once I get the photos from the scene, that would be helpful.”

Chief Ducotte stood up. “No problem. My people are your people. You want Detective Holland to coordinate that?”

Code for: He wanted Detective Holland to work closely with her.

“No,” she said. “He’ll have more important things to do.”

If she’d expected Holland to be grateful, she would have been disappointed.

As the briefing broke up, all of them crowding around to squeeze through the door of the conference room, Heather handed Laura a tampon still in its package. “You drop this?” she asked.

Her voice had the exaggerated sweetness of a bully.

Laura became aware of men shuffling, coughing, some of them amused, no one looking at her. Mention a tampon and you’re back in second grade, never mind most of these guys were married and had umpty-ump kids.

Laura took the tampon, thought briefly about stabbing Duffy in the eye with it. “Thanks, Duffy. I never turn down anything that’s free.”

It took the drive back to the Copper Queen Hotel to get her heart rate back down. Hard to not show how humiliated she was. It took her right back to grade school.

It had been her experience that there were certain women who knew just where the soft underbelly was—an instinct they were born with. A toxic form of cunning. She supposed there were men like that, too, but she hadn’t met any.