The Red Queen Dies (6 page)

“If you had a body to get rid of, at least it would get you off the street, away from prying eyes.”

“Unless someone saw you turning down here. Then you're screwed if they could give a description.”

“There is that,” McCabe said. “Of course, for all you know, you're already dealing with the possibility that you've been caught on a surveillance cam somewhere along the way.”

“But maybe you've got that body and the most important thing is to get it out of your car.”

“As the lou pointed out to me, it could be a mistake to assume she was killed somewhere else and dumped here.”

“Either way, you've got a live woman or a dead body and you need to get off the street and finish what you started. So why here? Was this road the perp's destination, or did he just stumble on it?”

Whatever Baxter is, he isn't stupid, McCabe thought.

He brought the car to a stop in the graveled parking area and they got out.

McCabe shifted her field bag to her shoulder and glanced around. Nearby there was a cement platform with the picnic tables that Pete had mentioned when they were looking at the crime scene on the cam. Beyond the picnic area, lay the ramp for launching canoes or other small craft into the Normanskill. Sparkling in the sunlight, the creek surged over boulders and pushed at its banks. After the flooding all summer, they had been lucky that September, and the first couple of weeks of October had been drier than predicted.

McCabe glanced from the creek up toward the bridge where the killer might, if he'd been willing to risk being seen, have stopped his car and looked down here. The nonfunctioning cameras were up there on that bridge. For all he could have known, he might have been on-camera if he had stopped to look. And he would have been blocking one of the two lanes of traffic in each direction.

The uniforms who had been first at the scene had been occupying themselves walking to the end of the landing and back. Now they were headed toward her and Baxter.

“So how do we get started?” Baxter asked.

“We could tramp on into the crime scene and start poking at the body,” McCabe said. “Except that wouldn't make us popular with FIU.” She took a closer look at his face. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. “But this would probably be the time to mention my gag reflex. Ever since I was a kid. I know it's a liability for a cop.”

Baxter hadn't been there for the first two victims. She and Jay O'Connell, who was in court this week testifying in another case, had been the lead detectives.

“So this is your first dead body?” she said.

“No. I saw an accident victim or two when I was on patrol. And a woman whose husband had carved her up … a dead junkie when I was working vice. But I was always able to keep my distance.” He gave a pained grin. “You know, not get close enough to actually embarrass myself.”

McCabe opened her field bag and took out two portable masks and a folded plastic-lined white paper bag. “This mask should help. But barf into the bag if your gag reflex kicks in. We don't want to contaminate the crime scene.”

He took both. “Thanks, partner.”

“We've all been there. Think of this as practice for the autopsy we're going to have to attend.”

“Oh shit.”

“So you didn't do that … attend an autopsy in the Academy?”

“We watched on satellite. No smells.”

“I'm afraid this is going to be up close and in living color.”

The two uniformed officers reached them.

McCabe held out her hand to the older of the two. “Officer Curtis? I think we worked a robbery together last year.”

“Yes, ma'am. Good to see you again. This is Officer Walker.”

“Officer Walker,” McCabe said, extending her hand. “And this is Detective Baxter.”

Baxter shook hands with the two officers. So he understood the need to establish rapport.

McCabe said, “Officer Curtis, would you walk us through this? The usual. What you found when you arrived, how you approached the body.”

Curtis, an old hand at crime scenes, pulled out his ORB and began to read his notes.

“Too bad there's no ID,” McCabe said when he concluded with the notation that no personal identification had been found with the victim. No purse in sight.

“That would have made it easier,” Curtis said. “We did find some bike tracks.”

“Where?”

Curtis pointed toward a patch of dirt. “If the kid who called it in made them, looks like he stopped right over there. Then he must have seen her and turned around and gotten out of here.”

“I don't blame him,” McCabe said.

Baxter said, “The question is, how long had she been down here before the kid stumbled on the body?”

McCabe glanced up at the sky. “In this kind of heat, it doesn't take long for a body to begin to break down. But in the close-up we saw on the cam, she didn't look like she'd been out in the sun for a whole day. Besides, if that kid was down here, this could be a hangout.”

Baxter said, “What you're saying is that if she had been here during the day yesterday, someone might have found her. As hot as it is, you have to think some grown-ups are probably coming down here, too, to get to the water.”

McCabe said, “Yeah, I noticed some beer cans and food wrappers in the trash barrel back there.”

“Wonder how often garbage is collected down here. Makes it harder for the forensic guys.”

“Not too hard if she hasn't been here long. We're interested in the fresh stuff,” McCabe said. “But they'll collect it all and take it back to the lab.”

“Here they come now,” Curtis said.

They all turned to watch as the FIU van came down the hill and drew to a stop. The medical examiner's car was right behind the van.

“We got a regular parade,” Baxter said. “The lou and the commander are bringing up the rear.”

“I hope Jacoby's in place, too.” McCabe said. “We aren't going to have too much time before the media onslaught.”

*   *   *

With the team in place, Commander Paul Osgood and Ray Delgardo, the FIU crime-scene coordinator, discussed the search pattern that they wanted to use. When McCabe passed on Officer Curtis's observation about the bike tracks, Delgardo went over to have a look. When he nodded, Osgood ordered the last patrol car to arrive to go back up on Delaware Avenue and start looking for kids on bikes.

They waited while the assistant ME, who was there subbing for Dr. Singh, the chief medical examiner, had a look at the body and made the official pronouncement of death. Then they waited again until the FIU tech had entered the coordinates of the crime scene into his ORB and made a preliminary video.

Then McCabe motioned to Baxter that they could walk up to the body.

Halfway there, Baxter jumped back. “Geez, what's that?”

Trying to keep the revulsion from her own voice, McCabe said, “Nothing to worry about. Looks like what's left of a dead snake after the insects and other animals got to it. We'll assume for now that it died of natural causes.”

Baxter said, “Sorry. For a moment I thought it was a piece of … that it was from our vic.”

“You okay?”

“Fine. Let's get to work.”

The women kneeling beside the vic looked up and nodded at McCabe. “Caught this one, too, huh?”

“It's getting to be a habit,” McCabe said.

She introduced Baxter to Rachel Malone, the assistant ME, who was finishing up her work prior to transport of the body.

McCabe watched Baxter look down at the dead woman. His eyes widened above the mask he had donned. He blanched and stared off into the distance. But, to McCabe's relief, he managed to keep his breakfast down.

The victim's face was pale, more waxen than it had looked on the cam.

This one wasn't bad compared to some McCabe had seen. No battered face, no blood, no mutilation.

The killer had unbuttoned the short-sleeved white cotton blouse but had left the plain white bra underneath in place. If this vic was like the other two, she had died almost instantaneously when a needle containing poison was plunged into her heart. The ME would be able to tell them if that had been the means of death and what had been in the syringe, whether it was phenol, like the others. He also could tell them if this victim, like the other two, had been rendered helpless with a stunner.

McCabe hunkered down to get a better look at the body without leaning over it. There was a bruise on the victim's right arm. Had she gotten that when she fell?

“How do you think she got the bruise?” she asked Malone.

“Looks like she was struck with something,” Malone said, passing her scanner over the area.

Baxter, who had stepped away, said, “Where's the flower? Didn't I read in the master file that the perp left a flower beside the bodies at the other two crime scenes?”

McCabe nodded. “Silk flowers. A red poppy at the first scene, a tiger lily at the second.”

“But there's no flower beside this body,” Baxter said. “Would a serial killer change his pattern?”

“That's a question for the profiler. But I'd say no.”

“So maybe this isn't one of his,” Baxter said.

“Maybe not,” McCabe said. “It's too soon to know.”

“McCabe and Baxter, see you a moment.”

They turned at the sound of the CO's voice.

Osgood motioned them over to where he was standing with Lieutenant Dole. Unlike some of the brass, he was careful not to trample through his detectives' crime scenes. If the case was important enough, he showed up to coordinate, but he stayed out of the way of the work that was being done.

Osgood wiped his handkerchief across his sun-pinked forehead. “I'm leaving you in charge here, McCabe. As soon as you and your partner get done, get back to the station. I'll have the State Police and FBI on board by then.”

“Yes, sir,” McCabe said.

Osgood scowled at his lieutenant. “Jack, we need to get on this before that idiot Clarence Redfield has the story all over his thread. If we've got a leak, we need to shut it down. Now.”

“Yes, sir,” Dole said.

He flashed McCabe and Baxter a glance that said, Don't screw this up. Then he followed in Osgood's wake, matching his steps to those of the shorter, bulkier man.

“Big Jack” Dole respected Osgood. They had both come up through the ranks when politics were more openly rough-and-tumble than they were now. Osgood, a cop's cop, was in line for assistant chief, and probably chief after that.

*   *   *

The wagon took the body away at a little before noon. By then, it had been photographed and sketched and examined from every angle. At that point, they were looking at it as if it had never been human. Now it was evidence in their investigation.

McCabe watched the medical examiner's assistant drive away. By the time they got back to the station, the ME might have the identification. If the victim had ever had dental work done or gotten a print ID or been arrested and had her DNA entered into the data bank that New York State maintained, they would soon know for sure who she was. Know more quickly than they might have otherwise, because time was precious on this one. Not only because they might have a serial killer who had murdered a third woman but also because they needed to deal with the fallout if the third victim had been famous.

There would be people to notify no matter who she was. People to talk to about the last days and hours of her life as they tried to figure out how she had ended up dead on a boat ramp by the Normanskill.

*   *   *

“We have confirmation that Vivian Jessup was in Albany yesterday,” the lieutenant said when he reached McCabe on her ORB. “Her publicist has been trying to contact her since around seven-thirty yesterday evening. Left a bunch of tags that Jessup didn't return. The publicist was able to put us in contact with Jessup's dentist. Jessup's dental records have been sent to the ME.”

“That should answer our first question,” McCabe said.

“Since Jessup hasn't been heard from in over twenty-four hours, it isn't looking good. The commander has alerted the mayor. How's it going there, McCabe?”

McCabe glanced around her at the search that was under way. “Slow. You know how meticulous Delgardo is about collecting anything that could be evidence.”

“I'm glad he's handling this one personally. I'm going to pull a couple more detectives and get them busy helping out with the canvass.”

“Thank you, sir. We—” McCabe began, then broke off. “How did he—Mike, we've got—”

“See him.” Baxter took off at a sprint.

“What is it?” Dole asked. “What's going on?”

“Clarence Redfield, Lou. You aren't going to believe this, but he's out in the creek in a canoe. He's got a cam.”

Dole cursed. “If we're lucky, he'll drown. Get him out of there.”

“Baxter's trying to talk him in, sir. But it's going to be tricky for anyone to swim out to him with the rocks. Water Patrol hasn't gotten here yet with their boats for the search.”

“Tell Baxter to wait. Water Patrol's en route. They were tied up with a drowning in the river. And tell that son of a bitch Redfield that he'll be under arrest as soon as he sets foot on dry land if he doesn't paddle his canoe away from our crime scene.”

“Yes, sir,” McCabe said. “But I'd be willing to bet he's already called his lawyer.”

The Water Patrol Unit arrived a few minutes later. When they went out after him, Redfield informed them that they were violating his First Amendment rights as a reporter.

“Exactly what school of journalism did that asshole attend?” Baxter asked when they were watching a cruiser drive away with Redfield inside.

“None,” McCabe said. “We looked it up a while ago. He has a degree in chemical engineering. He used to work for the oil companies until he came back here when his mother was ill. She died, but he stayed around and did some consulting.”