Part 17 (1/2)
Did you know that?
”Is it your father, Robert?”
No. He wasn't going to cry again, G.o.d d.a.m.n it! And he wasn't going to tell her.
Make him stop, he thought. Somehow.
And then he did cry a little.
He wiped the tears away and said nothing.
Fifteen.
Forest
Duggan stamped his feet against the cold leeching in through his shoes and lit himself a Newport Lite off Al Whoorly's Winston. He hated Newport Lites more than any other cigarette he'd ever smoked but he was trying to quit so he figured they were good for him.
Years ago there'd been a brushfire out this way. They'd stopped it just about here. You could see the newer growth off to the left, the older stands of birch and maple to the right.
The girl was nailed to maple.
The ME was just about finished with her. The photographs were taken. In a few more minutes the Crime Scene Unit could bring her down and bag her. She'd go with Whoorly and the other state troopers over to the lab in Concord.
”What I don't get,” Whoorly said, ”is why he left us the IDs. Why make it easy?”
”Considerate,” Duggan said. ”The guy's got heart.”
”You know some of these a.s.sholes actually want to be caught. Maybe he's tired of it.”
”I don't think you'll prove it by this one.”
Her name was Laura Banks-a student at Plymouth State. Her student ID and driver's license were in a brown leather wallet inside her cluttered handbag. The handbag was sitting on top of a stack of neatly folded clothing placed on a rock four or five feet from the tree-coat, jeans, s.h.i.+rt, socks, bra and panties. The girl was the practical type. The s.h.i.+rt was heavy corduroy and the socks were thick red wool.
He thought of how cold she must have been. Unthinkably cold.
Before he got to warming her up some.
Silence lay heavy in the still dry morning air. Six of them out here and n.o.body was saying hardly anything. He guessed they were all a little in awe here. The teenage kid whose big black b.a.s.t.a.r.d Labrador had scented her and then run away into the woods while they were out for their morning walk was down at the station for questioning. The kid had a lot to say but it was just the same thing over and over again because the kid was scared. In a way maybe it scared them too.
Lavore walked over and Duggan shook a Newport out of his pack for him. Lavore was trying to quit just like Duggan but the ME's style was grubbing.
”Okay. You can have her,” he said.
”Cause of death?”
”You're kidding.”
”For the record.”
”Sharpened tree limb. Stake through the heart. Directly through the heart. I mean pretty much dead center. What you're looking for here is a torture-freak vampire-killer who's pretty good with his anatomy. And you know what? He didn't just shove it into her. He pushed it in nice and slow.”
”Time of death?”
”My guess now would be about four A.M. Five, six hours ago.”
”Rape?”
”Plenty of rape. Looks like he got her seven ways to Sunday. v.a.g.i.n.al. a.n.a.l. I wouldn't be surprised if when we pry open her jaw we find s.e.m.e.n there too.”
Duggan pointed to an area by a rock about six feet over to their left.
”You see that?”
”What? The gags?”
Two cotton dishrags had been tossed to the forest floor. One was frozen, drenched with saliva. They were bagging them.
”No. Wood shavings. The guy sat there whittling. Putting a good clean point on his stick. You want to bet she was watching him?”
”Sick,” Whoorly said.
”What about the rest of it?”
”All happened before she died as far as I can tell. Though some of it might be postmortem. I'll be able to give you a breakdown when we get her on the table.”
He looked at her. Lavore was telling him she'd been alive through all of that.
What the guy had done was amazing and G.o.d only knew how much time he took to do it. Maybe all night. Maybe longer.
The body was hanging there like frozen meat in a meat locker. At some point he'd thrown water on her. To revive her? Or just to watch her shake? There was frost and beaded ice in her long brown hair and in her pubic hair and eyebrows. Small icicles actually hung from her toes where they almost-but not quite-touched the base of the tree.
Her arms were spread three feet apart over her head. Each wrist pierced by a tenpenny nail.
She hung suspended.
Her body was blue-white where it was not a brownish red.
But there was plenty of red.