Cold Fear (28 page)

There was something a lot more personal about this murder. Rage was evident. The killer had enjoyed himself and taken his time because bruises had already started to form, different shades of red and blue. She’d been raped, sodomized. This was a very personal kind of murder.

Frazer was struck suddenly by his powerlessness to protect people. Maybe the idea he made a difference was just his own ego and lunacy competing for attention. Giving himself an atta-boy pat on the back to make working the long hours and witnessing the endless suffering seem worth it. He’d been working this case from the very start and women kept dying. Jessica’s pale corpse taunted him like so many before her. He closed his eyes for a moment and there was Helena, and Elaine. Other women, murdered or missing, flashed through his brain in quick bursts that made him open his eyes again. Shit.

Alex Parker had been the first one to figure out Jessica Tuttle was dead—aside from her killer, of course. Parker had been monitoring her social media accounts and had noticed immediately when several obscene images were posted from her cell phone. The first one was with the message “JT blows”. The last was of her dead body displayed here on the sand with the caption “Not good enough though, Bitch”.

Horrifying. Graphic images. Meant to scare and intimidate. Shame and demean. Meant to taunt police and cause the public to lose faith. To incite panic.

Parker had immediately blocked all access to the accounts and tried to track the cell phone, but the killer had been savvy enough to remove the location metadata from the images. And after the photos had been uploaded to Jessica’s accounts, the killer had deactivated the SIM card and removed the battery. Parker had gotten the general vicinity of the cell phone tower but no closer than that.

Chief Tyson stood beside him with his hand resting on his equipment belt. “We looking at a serial killer, Linc?”

Frazer nodded. “The press is going to start arriving soon. In droves.” Compounding a difficult situation and turning it into a damn circus. His influence only went so far, and it was officially tapped out.

“We’re going to need klieg lights and a tent.” Frazer glanced at the sky. There were no choppers yet but in a few hours the spotlight would literally be on them and he didn’t want Jessica Tuttle’s parents seeing their daughter this way. She’d made mistakes—what kid didn’t? But she didn’t deserve this.

The image of blood pooling around his mother’s body seeped into his head and he turned away. He pulled out his cell and dialed Simon Pearl again. If the ME didn’t answer this time he was going to send the HRT team to the guy’s house.

“I was about to call you with the results from the forensic anthropologist,” Pearl said, answering with a tired-sounding voice.

Frazer glanced at his watch. Midnight. “You’re still at the morgue?”

Pearl laughed, but it was an unhappy sound. “My wife asked me the same thing. If she didn’t know how much I love her, she’d think I was having an affair.”

What would it be like to have someone you loved waiting for you? Not a wife who berated you for not being home for dinner, but a partner who cared? His parents had had that sort of marriage. Solid. Strong. Supportive. It was something he’d assumed he’d have too. He’d been wrong.

And now he was obviously delusional from lack of sleep to even be thinking about the M-word.

“What do you have for me?”

“I finished the post on Helena Cromwell and some test results are in. She had very low levels of alcohol in her system. She wasn’t on any birth control and no drugs were found in her system. There was evidence of sexual intercourse. Impossible to say whether or not it was consensual as there were no abrasions or cuts. She didn’t fight. No DNA beneath her fingernails. Condom matched the brand Jesse Tyson said he had in his wallet. She died of asphyxia due to repeated manual strangulation.”

“Repeated?”

“I found bruises in different places on her neck. I think he took her to the edge of death several times before he finished her off.”

Frazer eased closer to Jessica Tuttle’s body and shone his flashlight at the victim’s neck. The bruising was widespread. “I think he did it again. We have another victim.”

Pearl swore. “Fuck. I only just finished with Elaine Patterson. Same MO, but she had coke in her system.”

So maybe he’d gained control of the prostitute with drugs before incapacitating her. It was likely he’d killed before—people didn’t turn into killers overnight. It was a progression—first the fantasy, maybe hurting animals or children, a little voyeurism, perhaps an assault, rape, maybe a fumbled attempted murder. Then, finally going all the way. Prostitutes and runaways had likely been victims of this killer before. There was no direct evidence, but they were easy pickings and a great place for serial killer work experience.

Pearl gave a world-weary sigh. “One of my assistants is on his way. This guy is escalating way too fast.”

One dead girl every day for the last three days. Definitely way too fast.

No one was getting any sleep, but they had to stop him before anyone else died.

“Denker doesn’t have long to get whatever the hell it is he wants.” Sentence commuted to life? Was that really worth the lives of all these poor women? To the killer it probably was. These sexual predators were notorious for believing their victims were worth less than nothing. Frazer wished someone had put a bullet in the guy when they’d caught him, but that would have been too easy. “What did you discover from the bones?”

“Two skeletons. One male, one female.”

“Male?” said Frazer.

“Yes. And the forensic anthropologist is pretty sure the male had been stabbed.”

Frazer frowned. It could have been a similar situation to the attack on Jesse and Helena and the guy had just got in the way. “Any ID?”

“Dental records turned up nothing. We’re running DNA.”

“Any ID on the female?”

“Beverley Sandal. As you suspected.”

The result felt a little hollow. It was a relief in some ways. The end of a mystery as to where she’d ended up. Art Hanrahan would want to talk to the family. He’d known them for a long time.

Frazer thanked the ME and said goodbye, then called Hanrahan and asked for progress on the crime scene at Maysville. They were still digging, but cadaver dogs had shown a strong indication that there was another body in the clearing.

He hung up feeling lightheaded with fatigue. There wasn’t much they could do here until the ME showed up, except protect the scene.

“Erica.” He waved over a CSU and knew he’d been there too long when he was on first name terms with evidence techs. “Can you bag that phone? I want it couriered to Quantico ASAP.”

The body had already been photographed. The CSU tech took care of his request with quiet efficiency. There were dark circles under her eyes that probably matched his own.

Parker had gleaned everything he could online, but it was possible the perp had left DNA on the cell phone, maybe inside the casing. It was also possible he’d brushed it against his own body, or a gloved hand had touched his body as he’d desecrated this poor young woman. And transferred that DNA onto the phone. Skins cells could have been shed, semen might have leaked. Frazer wasn’t about to move slowly on this, or wait for anyone else to die.

Tyson approached him again. Randall was still going through Automatic License Plate Reader databases looking for vehicles leaving and returning to the island around the time of Elaine Patterson’s murder and Jessica Tuttle’s abduction.

The chief spoke quietly. “My son’s two girlfriends are now dead. Is this linked to him?”

Frazer blinked at the guy. It was a connection he hadn’t thought of, which showed what level he was operating on—close to useless. “Did he receive any threats? Report any weird incidents?”

Tyson shook his head. “Honestly, the kid is like the golden child. Everyone seems to like him.”

“Someone could resent that…he still has the guards on him, right?”

Tyson nodded.

“Your wife, Charlene. She know how to protect herself?” he asked, trying not to freak the guy out.

Tyson’s eyes narrowed and his mouth hardened. “She does, but I’ll call and warn her to be careful. This could be linked to someone I arrested.”

Would a killer have followed Tyson to a place like this in order to torture him while helping Denker? Possibly. There were some twisted people out there.

“Can you think of any cases where a perp vowed revenge, or the victim’s family members were pissed enough to threaten you personally?”

Tyson shrugged. “I’ve been a cop for a lot of years. Not everyone is happy with me arresting their loved ones, but generally I get on well with people. I try to do the right thing. I have a good rep.” The smile in his eyes belied the way his hand rested near his holster. The guy was spooked.

“Put together a list. We’ll see if anything pops.” Frazer thought of all the people he’d locked up over the years, all the families he’d failed. His list was longer than he wanted it to be, but he never stopped working at it.

He looked at Jessica, at the increased level of violence the unsub had inflicted upon the poor girl. There was another connection apart from the police chief’s son.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d driven more than eleven hours that day and was operating on a few hours’ sleep over the last four days. He needed to take a break. “Can I get a ride back to Rosetown?”

Tyson nodded. “I’ll take you. Let me talk to a couple of guys to start them knocking on doors first.” He indicated some of the big mansions facing the ocean. They were dark though. Probably unoccupied at this time of year. Just north lay the undeveloped spit of land that eventually turned into Virginia Beach. A quiet dumping ground. The guy knew these islands and had planned the location with enough exposure for the body to be found quickly, but not so fast he couldn’t make his escape.

“I have someone getting a tent set up. Officers from Columbia Police are on their way, and they’ve taken charge of informing the parents.”

Frazer’s stomach tightened. He’d performed death notice duty too many times to count. As awful as it was to find an officer on your doorstep, witnessing someone you loved being murdered was worse. The helplessness. The impotent rage. The void that formed in your soul. Nothing could ever fix it.

He swayed on his feet. The memories of his parents’ murder only resurfaced when he was exhausted. He could do without it.

This was why he’d taken up hypnosis. His unconscious memories blindsided him when he least expected it, and he knew it was the same for others who’d locked away details of traumatic events. The mind protected itself from horror it couldn’t deal with—another survival mechanism he leveraged for his own benefit.

Maybe he’d try some meditation techniques when he got back to the beach house, see if that would put him to sleep. First he wanted to check up on the Campbell women.

He went over to the chief’s vehicle, pulling out the massive box of photographs Mildred Houch had given him. He turned on the dome light and started sorting through them, culling those private ones from images that could have been taken at the school.

He’d use every minute he had to try and catch this killer because one thing he did know for sure, this guy wouldn’t stop of his own accord. Killing was his drug, and he was hooked.

Chapter Eighteen

I
ZZY LAY CURLED
up beneath a thick woolen blanket on the wicker sofa on the deck of her house. Barney was sprawled across her with his cold nose pressed tight against her neck. They both listened to the crash of the ocean that was growing steadily louder as the storm built offshore. The Weather Channel didn’t predict a direct hit, but Izzy knew enough to stock up on bottled water and cans of soup. The generator was fueled, and she had candles up the hoo-ha.

As promised, Kit had called when she left the restaurant and arrived home at ten minutes past ten. Her sister seemed subdued and had gone straight to bed. Izzy was worried about her. What else was new?

Izzy couldn’t sleep. Nothing short of tranquilizers would put her out tonight, and no way was she knocking herself out with a murderer on the loose. She’d lain in bed for a couple of hours, staring at the ceiling, brain still whirling from Helena’s murder and news of this missing girl from Roanoke—who also happened to be Jesse Tyson’s ex-girlfriend. Was someone targeting the poor kid? Did he have some obsessed stalker after him? She tried to push the thoughts aside and despite what the girl had done to Kit, she hoped she was okay. She couldn’t imagine what she and her parents were going through.

Her mind had kept returning to the Feds who’d been staying next door, wondering if ASAC Frazer would come back to the beach house tonight or if he was gone for good. The idea that she’d never see him again cut at her. Crazy. But thinking about the good-looking federal agent hadn’t helped her nod off; instead she’d gotten up to feed her cocoa addiction.

She tensed beneath the blanket as the sound of a car engine grew closer and then slowed in front of the house. Then the quiet slam of a car door before the car drove away. Barney leapt off the couch before she could grab his collar, dragging the blanket with him and exposing her to a blast of frigid air. She stood and leaned over the edge of the railing to see who was there. The outside light was on between the properties, and she’d arranged to get motion sensor lights installed on both homes tomorrow, assuming the storm wasn’t too fierce. No way was she letting someone ambush her from the shadows again.

A figure emerged from the road. ASAC Frazer, carrying a large cardboard box under one arm, a heavy bag in the other. Her pulse gave a little leap as she recognized his silhouette. Dammit. She pressed her hand to her belly and heard him laugh as Barney planted his front paws on his chest and tried to give him a kiss on the lips.

“Just my luck, I get the dog rather than the girl.”

His words made her heart race, and she pulled back out of sight. God, what was wrong with her? The unsettled feeling inside her swelled and throbbed along her nerves. Her nipples tightened, and a tingle formed between her legs. It wasn’t the recent attacks that had caused her insomnia—it was her attraction to this man.