Dying Scream (23 page)

Tess found him in the autopsy room at the head of a chrome exam table studying the brain of a sixtysomething male cadaver. Across from Alex was his assistant, a short plump woman with lots of red curly hair peeking out from her surgical cap. Dee something. Both were dressed in scrubs, wore plastic gloves and splashguards to protect their eyes.

As the sound of the door whooshed open Alex and Dee looked up. Even through the thick protective glasses she saw Alex’s ice blue eyes darkened with curiosity. “Tess, what brings you here?”

With both of them staring at her, she felt just a little flatfooted.
I’ve no life
. “I came to ask you a couple of questions about the Jane Does.”

Alex straightened to his full six feet. “I performed a very thorough examination. What more do you want to know?”

“You’ve already looked at the bodies?”

“Detective Hudson seemed anxious for information. What do you need?”

Something about the remains bothered and pestered her but she couldn’t put it into words. “I just keep thinking that I need to see both side by side.” She glanced at her empty hands, wishing now she’d bought donuts or something. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you asked for favors? Instead she just tucked them in her jeans pocket.

“I’m just wrapping up this case and then I was breaking for lunch.”

“Oh right, I know I came without calling and that you have a full schedule. You don’t have to stick around. I could just look at the bones alone.”

His gaze dropped to the body. “Chain of custody makes that impossible in this situation.”

He was right, of course. The bones were in his possession. Chain of custody couldn’t be broken. Coming here had been a bad idea. “Oh, yeah, right. I should have thought about that. I’ll leave you to your work. I know you’re logging a lot of hours.”

Alex shrugged. “Part of the territory.” His gaze skimmed her worn jeans and polo shirt. “You didn’t work today.”

“No. Day off. And like I said, I was just curious.” She should have turned and left, but she didn’t know where to go. It felt odd, sad even, not to know what to do with her spare time. So she lingered as he finished the autopsy.

Minutes later, Alex glanced up at Dee as he pulled the sheet over the corpse. “I think we’re finally done here. Why don’t you head on out to lunch.”

Dee stretched her back. “You don’t have to tell me twice. Unlike some people, I can leave this place behind and have a little fun.”

The barb hit its mark with Tess, but she shrugged as if it didn’t matter at all. “Stop, Dee, you’re going to make me cry.”

Dee grimaced. “Please. You’re bulletproof, Tess Kier.”

“I’m Super Girl, baby.” Tess lingered, not sure if Dr. Butler had asked her to stay or go. She opted to stay, figuring he’d toss her out if and when she wore out her welcome.

Alex had stripped off his gloves, goggles, and gown. He turned toward the sink when he spoke. “Okay, Tess, we can have one more look at the bones.”

“Don’t you want lunch?” She wanted to give him an out, to be polite, but honestly, his stomach didn’t concern her.

Alex’s direct gaze held no hint of emotion. “Buy me a sandwich after.”

“Sure.” It was a straightforward transaction: food for information.

“All right.” He washed his hands in the sink and removed his outer surgical gown.

“I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” Dee said.

Both Tess and Alex ignored the comment. Neither needed to say
that
they were about the most non-romantic people in town.

“So what are you looking for with the bones?” His voice lacked inflection.

Sometimes she had the sense that he viewed her as a novice. “I just know these women deserve better.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been careful with the specimens. I’ve conducted x-rays, extracted DNA from the teeth, and studied each bone very carefully.”

“I know you’ve nailed the science stuff, but you see them as specimens.” Irritation crept into her voice.

“Exactly.”

“To me they are more than specimens. They were women.”

Alex shook his head. “Their humanity is long gone.”

“How can you be so callous?” She’d been looking for a fight since she got up this morning and realized she might just have found one.

“It’s not callous. It’s logical. Humanity is more than bones. And I deal in facts, Tess. Not emotions. Period. If you’re wise you’ll do the same.”

The force behind the words surprised her and stoked her temper. “I can’t just deal in facts. Who the victims were, how they lived, who they loved plays a part in how they died.” She squared her shoulders.

“Reasonable. But you are listing facts.”

“It’s more than facts. What did they want from life? What were their dreams? Likes? Dislikes? All that makes up their humanity.”

“All I have are bones.” He sounded so damn reasonable.

“I know.” She sighed. “It’s very important to me that Jane Doe is identified.”

“Why is this so personal to you?”

Jesus, didn’t the guy have any feelings? “There might be people looking for her, worrying.”

He cocked his head a fraction. “Yes, but why is that important to you?”

“There were no clothes on the body. Not a shred. Even a few years in the ground aren’t enough time to eat away at most fabrics. She was naked when he buried her. No man who takes a woman to the woods and strips her naked is doing good things. Her last hours must have been terrifying.”

“Perhaps he stripped the body postmortem so there’d be no identifying bits of clothing.”

“That’s always a possibility, but I don’t think so. Whoever did this is a sadist.”

“No facts to support that, but your theory isn’t without merit based on what the bones reveal.”

Tess ran long fingers through her hair. “I really want to catch this guy.”

He nodded. “Our goals are the same, Tess, but I realize that odds are minimal after the passage of so many years.”

“Alex, don’t you ever go on your gut instinct?”

“No.” His voice held no hint of emotion. “I either have the facts or I don’t.”

Tess could feel her frustration growing and knew she needed to get a handle on it. Dial it down a notch or she just might burn another bridge. “So can I see the bones?”

A silence settled in the room and she half thought he’d tell her to get lost. He didn’t. “Follow me.”

She trailed him into another, smaller tiled room. There were two tables in the room and laid out on each was the completely assembled bones of the victims. The guy must have been up all night for a couple of nights in a row assembling them. Suddenly, she felt bad about what she’d said. “I can be a bitch when I’ve got an unsolved case.”

“Understandable.” Alex looked tired. His face was pale and dark circles smudged the soft skin under his eyes.

“You didn’t sleep last night, did you?” Tess said.

“No.”

Tess leaned in, noting the bones smelled of mold and musk.

Curiosity brightened Alex’s eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to imagine her last day.”

“Why?”

She walked around the table studying the earth-stained bones that had once supported the bodies of two young women. “You think I’m crazy.”

Alex shrugged. “I’m reserving judgment.”

That made her smile. “Me, too.”

She stared at the hands, the arms, the face, and the legs. “He didn’t kill her in the woods. Because he needed privacy for what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to be disturbed.”

Alex shook his head, genuinely frustrated. “This is not a person on the table. It’s a case. It’s evidence. If you want to catch the killer, these bones can’t be a person.”

Tess tempered her voice. They could go round and round forever. “Please, just humor me. Your brain is not going to short-circuit if we just toss out theories.”

“Theories.” He seemed to like the sound of that word. “I can do theories.”

“Theories. Stories. Let’s see what she can tell us.” His frown had her smiling. “What the evidence can tell us.”

Alex picked up the skull. “Caucasian female. Late twenties. Five six or seven. Dancer or waitress. Had at least one child. Slight hyperextension in her spine. Four cavities. No fillings or signs of dental work.”

“Single mom becomes a waitress to support her child. It’s hard to get out and date, but she wants to. The best place to meet a guy is at work.”

He ignored her. “Victim number two identified as Rhonda Minor. Working-class family. Art student. Painting. Petite. Brunette. Knew Craig Thornton. Student at VCU.”

“He liked the artistic types.”

“Thornton owned an art gallery. He had an appreciation for art.”

Tess studied the bones. What was wrong? “We didn’t find them this way in the ground.” She reached in her satchel and pulled out pictures of the skeletons as they lay in the graves. “Do these bodies looked posed to you? Note the way the left hand appears draped over victim one and two’s chests. Number one is looking to the right. Two might have been if Miller’s crew hadn’t sliced into the skull.”

Alex raised a brow.

“He’s posed them like models.”

“The killer thinks of himself—”

“Or herself. We’ve no evidence to support the fact that the killer is a man.”

He nodded. “Point taken. Herself.”

“As an artist. The question is what or who is his inspiration?”

The call from Tess had detoured Gage’s morning plans.
The killer considers himself an artist
. Far-flung, but then he thought about all the paintings in the Thornton house. The gallery. It wouldn’t hurt to look at them. He’d intended to go through Thornton’s financial records but instead had pulled Vega along with him to the auctioneer’s warehouse, which now stored all the Thornton paintings.

Vega slid his hands into his pockets. “So what are we looking for?”

“Don’t even have a clue.”

Vega shook his head. “This artist theory is a stretch.”

“Agreed. But it doesn’t hurt to look at the paintings.”

“You know anything about art?”

Gage laughed. “Could fit what I know in the eye of a needle.”

“Even if this art theory holds true, it just points more to Thornton as the murderer. Thornton made his living by brokering art.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re busting our humps to prove a dead man killed these women.”

“Maybe. But I want to prove it.” And he wasn’t naïve enough to believe solving this was all about justice. A small part of him wanted to prove to Adrianna that she’d chosen wrong when she’d left him four years ago.

The appraiser, Mr. Kingston Willard, greeted them. Though he couldn’t have been more than thirty, the auctioneer was clad in a gray suit, white shirt, bow tie, and tortoiseshell glasses. “Gentlemen, the Thornton paintings are in the back room. We’ve been reviewing them and getting them ready for next week’s sale.”

“This a big auction for you?” Gage said.

“Mid-sized. None of the works are hugely valuable. But we do have some early works of Thomas Cole and John Singleton Copley. Both their pieces should fetch a nice price.” He opened the door to the storage room.

“Who are Cole and Copley?” Gage said.

“Early American mid-nineteenth-century painters. Best known for portraits and landscapes. They went on to create some very valuable works, but what’s in the Thornton collection represents some of their earliest, less valuable pieces.”

“Break it down for me,” Gage said. “How much is this stuff worth in dollars?”

“Assuming the whole collection sells and it’s a good night?”

“Sure, why not?”

“A million dollars.”

Gage whistled. “Damn. That’s a nice chunk of change.”

Willard adjusted his glasses as he took them down a row of paintings explaining each one’s history and potential value. None held any real interest for Gage and he didn’t see why they were such a big deal. However, when they reached the last portrait he stopped. It was of Adrianna and it looked to have been done about four or five years ago. She wore a light blue dress, her long blond hair draped over her shoulders, a pearl choker wound around her neck and matching pearls dangling from her ears.

The sight of her made him catch his breath.

“She’s stunning, isn’t she?” Willard said.

Gage felt foolish for being caught staring. “Why’s she selling this?”

“Said she had no need for it. Apparently, she sat for the picture as a favor to her late mother-in-law. It was traditional for the new Thornton wife to sit for her portrait.”

“You think it’ll fetch much?” Gage said.

“It will do well. Twenty thousand, maybe. The artist is up and coming and Ms. Barrington is stunning. I’d be tempted to buy it myself.”

Gage didn’t like the idea of someone else gawking at Adrianna. But twenty grand was too damn rich for his blood. “You find anything unusual after you transported the pictures?”

“No. The entire move went like clockwork. But it always does with Wells Moving. They are very professional.”

“Nothing taped behind a painting?” Vega said.

That seemed to amuse Willard. “Like a secret message? No.”

Gage stared at the painting. And then it hit him. Adrianna’s face was turned to the right and her left hand was draped over her chest. “Vega, look at Adrianna’s portrait.”

“Pretty.”

“Look at her hands and face.”

Willard studied the painting. “That’s a very traditional pose. Hand over the heart symbolizes love and affection.”

Vega nodded, seeing the connection. “The pose is the same as…” He stopped short of saying
bodies
in front of Willard.

Gage’s jaw tightened.

Adrianna’s pose mirrored the position of the two murdered women.

Chapter Sixteen

Friday, September 29, 12:19 p.m.

“You alluded to problems at the estate?” The question came from Adrianna’s attorney, Reese Pearce, who sat across from her in the Grove Avenue restaurant. Reese’s sharp gray eyes suited his hand-tailored shirt, dark suit, and red silk tie. Thick dark hair, cut short, emphasized skin tanned by hours spent sailing, his one passion when he wasn’t practicing law. Reese was in his early fifties and he’d been the Thorntons’ and Barringtons’ attorney for two decades.