Part 10 (1/2)

Suzanne slid across the gla.s.s coffee table a list with the locations of the bodies and the estimated day the victim was killed. ”We need to know who organized these parties. We think we know who put on the parties in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but the frat party here, and then the Harlem party, we need more info. Any ideas?”

Barnett looked at the list. ”The frat party is a college thing; I don't know much about that. You should talk to Alpha Gamma Pi-they're not the biggest frat at Columbia, but they're on the ball.”

Suzanne made a note, though she was pretty confident that she'd read in Panetta's reports that he'd canva.s.sed all the frats and didn't get anything useful.

Panetta opened a file and showed Barnett the photographs of the four dead women. They weren't the morgue photos, but pictures provided by their families or the DMV.

”Do you know any of these young women? Maybe you met them at a party, or through business or college?”

Barnett stared at the pictures. His face was blank, almost impa.s.sive, but Suzanne noticed he swallowed several times.

He shook his head. ”No,” he said. He cleared his throat. ”Sorry.”

Suzanne would bet her pension that he knew at least one of the girls. Maybe all of them. Maybe she was facing a killer.

Panetta also picked up the strange vibes. He glanced at her and gave a brief shake of his head, and she concurred. They needed more information, and then they'd bring him in for a formal interview at the station.

Suzanne stood and said, ”Thank you for your time, Mr. Barnett. If you think of anything else, or hear something that might help us narrow down which parties this murderer may be targeting, please call either myself or Detective Panetta. You have our cards.”

Outside the door, Suzanne lowered her voice. ”Something's going on. He knows at least one of these victims.”

”Absolutely. And either he's surprised that someone's dead or he's surprised that we're on to him.”

”Either way, he's a person of interest.”

Suzanne talked Panetta into grabbing a drink at a bar to discuss the case. He agreed, provided it was near his subway stop. He called his wife and said he'd be an hour late. By the time he'd disconnected, there were two beers in front of them.

They toasted. ”To catch a killer,” Panetta said.

Suzanne sipped her bottled Samuel Adams, a favorite of hers since college. Panetta drank Coors Light on tap. ”Barnett,” she said.

”b.a.l.l.sy. Arrogant. Until he saw the pictures.”

”Guilty?”

”Of something. But murder? He doesn't seem the kind of guy who'd kill a girl with a plastic bag over her head.”

”He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd beat them to a pulp, either. Did you notice his hands?”

Panetta laughed. ”Manicured.”

”Soft. No hard labor. He's more the type of dude who'd push a girl off a bridge in a moment of rage.”

”Really?” Panetta looked at her as if she were an alien.

She shrugged. ”I know, sometimes you can't tell who's a killer by looking at them, but I a.s.sess people by how they'd kill-if they were driven to it. He doesn't appear to have the personality of a serial killer. But I'm going to run him up the flagpole, get a full background and psych profile on him based on what we know. Ted Bundy didn't look like a serial killer on the surface.”

”Do you think he was feeding us a line about the fraternity? Trying to steer us away?”

She sipped her beer as she thought. ”Maybe, but we need to follow up anyway. You talked to the frats, right?”

”Hicks and three officers spoke to the president of each fraternity at Columbia, and all denied that they'd organized the party. But three of the four victims were college students, two at Columbia.”

”It was the second victim who wasn't a student, right?”

”Erica Ripley. She was twenty-one, worked at a coffeehouse.”

”Still, three of the four-”

”Underground parties are a favorite of the college crowd.”

”With how many colleges and universities there are in New York City, two of the victims were at Columbia?”

”I can a.s.sure you that we followed up with what we had,” Panetta said, slightly defensive. ”But we had s.h.i.+t. No one came forward. Of those we spoke to afterward, they were either surprised the victim was at the party, or they said they'd warned the victim that the parties were dangerous and to be careful. We have little physical evidence.”

”I wasn't second-guessing your investigation.” Suzanne hoped she hadn't come off as overly critical. ”Just thinking out loud.”

After a moment, Panetta said, ”I agree, we should take another walk through the frats.”

”We can split them up.”

”I'll get the list from Hicks.”

”What happened to the roommate of the first victim?” Suzanne asked. ”Did you say she dropped out and moved back home?”

”Jill Reeves,” Panetta said.

”You remember her?”

”It was the first interview of the case. She took it hard. She and the victim had been best friends since they were kids.”

Suzanne hadn't been involved in the investigation at that point. ”I'd like to talk to her, if you don't mind. Now that we know more, maybe she'll have additional information that didn't seem important at the time.” The first victim, Alanna Andrews, had been killed the last week of October. The other three were all killed since the beginning of the year.

The murders themselves stuck out because of the lack of violence. No rape, no blood at all. All the victims had s.e.x prior to their murders, but not with the same men. It was theoretically possible for the killer to have used a condom and not left his DNA on the victims, but even with protection there would likely be hair and other trace evidence to match up. But until they had a suspect, getting any of those results was impossible.

”Have the victims been tested for the standard date rape drugs?” she asked. ”It might explain lack of physical evidence of rape.”

”I don't recall. I think not, because there didn't seem to be a s.e.xual component to the crimes. With the budget being so tight, the lab is being careful with what we order, but they'd preserve blood and tissue for future testing. If they were intentionally drugged, would that change anything?”

”It might change the profile of the killer.”

”Do you have a profile?”

”Not officially.” When she first got the case she talked to Quantico, but they didn't have enough information to develop a working profile. She should send the new information and physical evidence to them and see what they could come up with psychologically. ”Would you mind if I contact the NYPD lab and have them send blood and tissue samples to Quantico to run a pattern of drug tests?”

”Be my guest.”