Part 8 (1/2)
”Finding a chunk of a dismembered body on the banks of the air show?” Theresa asked. ”Yeah, I guess.”
”No, I meant two beheaded corpses in the same week. What are the odds?”
”We only found them in the same week. The murders themselves took place seventy-five years apart. Hardly a pattern.”
”I didn't think you believed in coincidence.”
”I have to. I've seen them. Once I had two women come in within a half hour of each other with the same relatively unusual method of suicide, ga.s.sed by a propane tank and a plastic bag.”
”That is kind of odd.”
”No, I found their home addresses odd. They lived around the corner from each other. At first I thought it must be some kind of suicide pact.”
”What changed your mind?”
”Their suicide notes. They both left one-unusual in itself, only about a quarter do-but one was a shopping list of instructions and the other a booklet of poetry, a perfect ill.u.s.tration of right-brain and left-brain orientations. Same action, very different methods and motivations.”
”And you think our two headless corpses are the same thing?”
”Unless we have a ninety-year-old serial killer running around, yes. Miller probably died at the hands of a mobster or Cleveland's Mad Butcher. This girl either had the bad luck to cross the path of a modern-day serial, or she had a fight with her boyfriend.”
”Remind me not to date.” Angela shrugged. ”Oh wait, after the last guy I'll never need reminding again.”
”Now there's a story I need to hear,” Theresa said as she checked between the fingers for trace evidence, finding none.
”No, you really don't.”
Most men were murdered by enemies or business rivals. Most women were murdered by someone who had promised to love them. And now Rachael would be meeting boys, young men, who didn't have to stand in Theresa's foyer and introduce themselves when they picked her up. Only a roommate Rachael had described as silly and neurotic to witness in whose company Rachael left the dorm, the campus....
The county's ambulance crew arrived. Two men, one white, one black, both gently unhurried and neither appearing strong enough to lift the sometimes quite hefty victims who needed a ride to the autopsy room. They stopped at the edge of the seawall and simply absorbed the scene for a moment or two, as every other person present had. The two Port Authority cops conferred in the background, apparently having a good gripe session about the gall of Councilman Greer.
”You're killing me, missy,” one of the body s.n.a.t.c.hers said to Theresa.
”Come on, Duane. I don't get to pick 'em.”
”Twice in one week,” the other, Tom, intoned. ”You must not be living right.”
”I don't see how I could live any more right. I sleep alone, exercise, go to church, and eat tofu, for cryin' out loud. This isn't my fault. At least she's not heavy.”
”You sleep alone?” Tom said. ”I know guys who would pay for that information.”
Duane merely handed her the edge of a white sheet to spread over the rocks so they could flip the torso onto its chest. Moving a dead body could often produce noxious odors as fluids in the body s.h.i.+fted and released, but Theresa smelled only the brisk, fishy water. The skin appeared clean except for some dirt adhering from the rocks.
”Well, she wasn't shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned,” Theresa concluded.
”At least not in this part of her body.” She held up a corner of the sheet and they used it as a hammock, lifting the torso and moving it to an open body bag spread out on the gra.s.s. They avoided the remains of the councilman's last meal.
Theresa pulled off her latex gloves. ”I doubt there's going to be much I can tell you, but we'll see what Toxicology says about her fluids and what the pathologist says about the injuries. I'm sure you've already contacted Missing Pers-”
”Wait.” The first Port Authority officer had returned and interrupted her. ”There's more.”
”More?”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the coastline that spread into the east. ”Another piece.”
”The other half of her body?”
”Not exactly...just a piece.”
The boom of the Thunderbirds, roaring back into the grandstand area, covered Theresa's response.
The group moved half a mile along the seawall to view what else the Port Authority staff had found. Theresa once again crouched on wet rocks with water flooding up beneath her shoes, and saw what the cop had meant. One piece. The head.
Theresa had no doubt it belonged to the same victim. Female, under-weight, short blond hair. Eyes glazed over as if she no longer cared to see the world around her.
Theresa examined the ruined flesh at the neck, looked around for trace evidence, and steeled herself to pick it up and place it on a clean sheet for the body removal crew. Think of it as a basketball, she told herself. A ten-or eleven-pound basketball, with eyes. And a mouth, which might have spoken to her killer, asked him to spare her life. A brain that had held feelings and hopes and dreams. A-okay, now. One. Two. Three.
Theresa lifted and deposited and managed to do it with her eyes open. Well, half open.
Two beheaded victims in the same week.
The lake could have been the one area of Cleveland that hadn't changed since their dead detective's day. If James Miller could have been transported forward seventy-four years to this spot, he wouldn't know any time had pa.s.sed. The water remained the same, knowing, silent, treacherous. The first victim of the Torso killer had washed up in pieces from this same body of water, though not connected to the murderous series for well over a year. The Lady of the Lake, they had called her. She had never been identified. Theresa decided this girl would not suffer the same fate. She would have a name to put on her headstone.
She felt Frank's hand on her shoulder, warm and squeezing gently.
”By the way,” he said, ”happy birthday.”
”Not yet,” she reminded him. ”I have four days left.”
CHAPTER 10.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23.
1935.
Everyone called it Jacka.s.s Hill, the origins of which had been lost in time. A steep slope of Kingsbury Run between the dead ends of East Forty-ninth and Fiftieth, it made for excellent sled riding in the winter but seemed dull and forlorn during fall, that period of time when death stalked the flora. Spa.r.s.e weeds and other haphazard growth covered the ground from the ridge to the valley and poked up between the train tracks. Weeds and cops. Half the detectives in the city had beaten James and Walter there, as well as a good portion of the uniformed division; no matter, since the case would be a.s.signed to more experienced detectives, not them. They had shown up for the same reason everyone else had-curiosity.
Though once James saw what the knot of officers had gathered around, he reminded himself what had killed the cat.
A dead white male lay on his side in the twigs and brush. One leg stretched out at an angle and the forearms flopped in a relaxed position in front of the chest. The man would have appeared to be asleep were it not for the fact that the body was nude (except for a pair of socks) and headless. James could only a.s.sume it was male, since those distinguis.h.i.+ng parts had been removed along with the head.