Deep Dark (5 page)

CHAPTER 4

“So what was wrong at the autopsy?” Jay asked as he stepped into the conference room. He plunked a giant Frappuccino on the table, and Reed immediately regretted not stopping for caffeine.

Reed handed him a copy of the pathologist's report, which he'd just pulled off the printer.

“ME spent a lot of time looking for things he didn't find,” Reed said.

“Semen?” Veronica asked, getting straight to the point.

“Negative.”

“Wait, back up.” Lieutenant Hall pulled out his reading glasses.

The fact that the lieutenant wanted to sit in on this Saturday-morning meeting underscored the importance being placed on the case by the top brass.

“What's the cause of death?” Hall glanced at Reed.

“Blunt-force trauma.”

“Weapon?”

“None recovered.”

“He took it with him,” Veronica added. “You can tell from the spatter pattern.” She pulled a crime-scene photo from a file and slid it toward the lieutenant. “See how the droplets are comet shaped? The tail of the comet points toward the door, which is consis
tent with an object dripping blood as the perpetrator leaves the scene.” She slid several photos to Reed and then Jay.

Reed studied the pictures. The tiny blood drops were denoted by evidence markers. Magnification revealed a clear pattern.

Hall glanced up from the photo in front of him. “What do we know about the weapon?”

“A hammer-like instrument, based on the skull fracture,” Reed said.

“Hammer-
like
?” Hall's gaze narrowed.

“ME doesn't think it's a regular hammer but some sort of specialty tool. She was killed by a blow to the left parietal bone.” Reed flipped through the pages to the diagram. As he studied the picture, something niggled at his subconscious, but he couldn't pinpoint it.

“What about the bruises?” Jay asked.

“She had bruising on her legs and torso,” Reed said. “Plus a broken arm. By the looks of it, she was alive for most of the attack, resisting him, and then he killed her at the end.”

The door opened, and Reed turned around to see Jordan Lowe stepping into the room.

“Sorry I'm late,” she said, grabbing a chair next to him. She wore street clothes and a badge that dangled from a lanyard around her neck. Jordan was a homicide detective, but lately she'd been doing undercover work for vice.

What'd I miss?
she mouthed, and Reed slid the autopsy report in front of her.

“Okay, what else?” the lieutenant asked. “I assume we searched the surrounding area for this hammer?”

“We covered everything,” Jay said. “But you know,
chances are he ditched it. Town Lake is just across the street.”

Reed wasn't convinced he'd ditched the weapon, but he kept his theory to himself for now.

“Also missing,” Reed continued, “saliva, bite marks, hair, or skin cells belonging to the assailant, despite obvious signs of rape.”

“So he wore a condom,” Jay said.

“Tested positive for lubricant. Still working on a brand.”

“I'm not surprised by the condom,” Veronica said. “This guy's a real neat freak.”

“Why do you say that?” Jay asked.

“No un-ID'd prints in the apartment. No outside hairs that we were able to find. Only one partial footprint, and that in itself looks weird.”

“How come?” Reed asked.

“Shoe pattern's obscured.” She passed him another photograph, this one showing a faint oblong shadow on the victim's Saltillo tile floor.

“You're sure this is a shoe print?” Reed asked.

“Positive. There's actually a trace of blood there at the bottom—the victim's blood—and it's clinging to a white fiber consistent with the synthetic material manufactured by Tyvek.”

“You're saying he wore
shoe covers
?” Reed didn't bother to hide his disbelief.

“Looks that way.”

Jay whistled. “Man, that's what I call premeditated.”

Reed sat back in his chair, even more disturbed than he'd been during the autopsy.

“You're sure
we
didn't leave that print?” the lieutenant asked.

Veronica bristled. “Absolutely. The footprint was one of the first things the photographer captured when she arrived at the scene. Only person who'd been in there beforehand was Gutierrez, and she'd neglected to put booties on for her initial walk-through, so it wasn't her.”

Reed flipped through the file, still digesting the implications of everything. No semen, no hair, no fingerprints. The victim's fingernail clippings had come back negative for skin cells, even though there were clear signs that she'd put up a fight. Reed had first thought the killer had gotten lucky, but now he thought maybe he'd worn long sleeves. And he might have worn some sort of head covering, too—maybe panty hose—to keep from leaving other trace evidence. Hell, maybe he'd even shaved his head.

“I did find some hair around the back door,” Veronica continued, “all belonging to a cat, probably a calico, based on the coloring.”

“No cat recovered, either,” Jay said, trying to lighten the mood.

“What about method of entry?” Jordan asked.

“Unknown at this point,” Reed said. “No sign of forced entry, but her sister said she was very conscientious about security, so it's unlikely she left her doors unlocked at night.”

“You're thinking she let him in?” Hall asked.

“I wouldn't jump to that conclusion yet,” Veronica said.

Reed looked at her. “You come up with something on the door?”

“No, but I'm working on it.”

Hall turned to Reed. “What's this I hear about the
victim being on a dating site?” It was an abrupt change of subject. Maybe they were getting around to the real reason Hall had wanted in on this meeting.

“She has a profile on a site called Mix,” Reed told him. “They're headquartered here in Austin, coincidentally. In terms of suspects, we're checking out guys from this site, but there are a lot.”

“How many?” Hall asked.

“Thirty-six thousand and twelve, to be exact,” Jay said. “And almost eight hundred who live locally. From the messages, it looks like she only maybe went out with two of them. This was back in October, and both have alibis for the night of the murder.”

Reed looked at Jay. His partner had interviewed the men personally, and he had good instincts about people. The alibis had checked out, but Reed still wasn't ready to let it go.

Delaney Knox seemed to think Mix was a good lead. Reed had no idea why that should carry any weight, but it did. The girl might be prickly, but she was smart. Plus, she knew the victim, which gave her a perspective he didn't have. He thought of the way she'd looked at him last night. She'd been guarded, but there was something else there, too—an expectation she seemed to have of him.

“She might have contacted some other people from this site off-line,” Reed said. “So we're still checking her phone and email records.”

“This dating-site thing, that sounds like a huge time sink,” Hall said. “Unless we turn up a specific suspect, let's wrap up that avenue as fast as we can. We definitely don't want that angle leaking to the media, not with the local connection.”

Reed didn't respond. He disliked the media as much as anyone, but why should he worry about bad PR for some company, local or not? Reed despised this kind of politics. This case was bad enough already, with a young woman murdered inside her own home and not a single decent suspect four days in.

Hall looked at Jay. “What about people she knew at work?”

“We're checking into it.”

“We're also investigating a phone number,” Reed said. “It was scrawled on a receipt found in the victim's car.”

“The receipt is dated the day of her murder,” Veronica added, looking at Reed. “What'd you get on that?”

“Number comes back to a wellness studio on Barton Springs Road.”

“Wellness studio?” Hall asked.

“Yoga, Pilates, meditation. They've got a health-food restaurant on-site.” Reed's phone
dinged
with an incoming message. “I'll go by there later today.”

“Who's going to the funeral?” Hall asked.

Silence.

“It's at noon, Sacred Heart Church,” the lieutenant added.

“I'll go,” Reed said.

Jordan looked at him. “No, you covered the last one. I'll take this one.”

“I'll go with you,” Jay offered, much to Reed's surprise. Jay hated funerals. Reed did, too, but they were part of the job. They offered a good chance to observe people close to the victim and sometimes a chance to pick up on any unusual family dynamics.

“Fine, Novak can cover the wellness studio, and
you two are on the funeral,” Hall said, “but keep it low-­profile. The press is going to be all over this one.” He checked his watch and pushed back his chair as Reed read his text message.

SBUX ACROSS THE ST 5 MIN
. Once again, the number belonged to the chief of police. Reed muttered a curse.

“Novak?”

He glanced up. “Sir?”

“Send me an update later today, and I want progress.” Hall glanced around the room. “The minute that funeral ends, the media's going to be ringing my phone off the hook.”

•   •   •

Delaney Knox wasn't hard to spot. She was the only one outside the coffee shop who wasn't drinking or staring at a phone, and she turned to face him as he approached her.

She wore faded jeans ripped at the knees, chunky black biker boots, and another tight-fitting black T-shirt. Her streak of pink hair was braided and tucked behind her ear today.

Reed stopped in front of her, and she gazed up at him with those brown-black eyes.

“Detective.”

“Delaney.”

“It's Laney.” She looked away. “Let's go over there. This shouldn't take long.”

He followed her to a circular fountain surrounded by stone benches. Reed glanced around, checking people's faces and body language, looking for suspicious
behavior, but everyone seemed mellow on this sunny Saturday morning.

Reed took a bench in the shade. Laney remained standing and tucked her hands into her back pockets.

“You didn't tell me you worked at the Delphi Center,” he said.

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Yes.”

She watched him for a moment, then sat down on the bench, leaving plenty of space between them. “You've been checking up on me,” she said.

“I have.”

“That mean you've been checking up on my lead, too?”

“We're looking into it.”

She stared out at the fountain, and he had a chance to study her profile. The hostility from yesterday was gone, but still she seemed tense. She appeared to be gathering her thoughts, and he took the time to look her over, fascinated by her smooth, bare arms. They were toned but pale, and he figured she spent most of her time indoors. His gaze drifted to her breasts again in that tight T-shirt.

Twenty-freaking-four
, he reminded himself, looking away.

“Not to be rude, but—” He checked his watch.

“There's something you should know. Last night you were asking about Mix. About why I thought April was targeted through a dating site.” She tucked her feet under the bench and glanced at the fountain, and he could tell she was uncomfortable with this conversation.

He waited.

“That's where he found her.” She looked at him. “I can't prove it, but I believe he found her through that damn website.”

“What makes you so sure?”

She sighed. “You know what I do, right?”

“You're a hacker.”

“A white hat, the good kind. As opposed to black hat.”

“Okay.”

“So Mix was one of our clients. They hired us to check out their systems, run pen tests—penetration testing,” she explained. “Looking for security holes, back doors, that sort of thing. Anyplace they'd be vulnerable to attack. I was tapped to be on the red team, the team that tries to sneak in.”

He settled back against the bench to listen. He was intrigued by the fire he saw in her eyes. She seemed to like this topic. “When was this?”

“About ten months ago. They were concerned about operational security.”

He smiled.

“What?”

“You make it sound like they were conducting nuclear tests,” he said. “We're talking about a dating site.”

“Do you have any idea how much money the online-dating industry is worth?”

“No, but I have a feeling you do.”

“More than two billion a year. And it's a growing business.”

He tried to look contrite.

“More important, it involves the private information of millions of people.”

“Names, credit-card info?”

“And personal stuff,” she said. “Location, physical description, sexual preferences. Some of the compatibility surveys get very personal. It's a predator's wet dream.”