Part 8 (1/2)
Avery could tell that he was starting to get ruffled. If O'Malley were also here, he might have been a little more aggressive. Then again, Avery thought, if it gets any more aggressive, this could turn out very bad.
”You really want to make this an issue?” the B3 cop asked.
”We were here first,” Connelly said. ”It seems to me that you're making this an issue.”
”d.a.m.n it! My captain is going to hear about this!”
”You already said that. Now stop threatening me and let us work here, would you?”
The cop looked to Connelly for a moment, as if trying to think of a reb.u.t.tal. When it was clear he had no interest in starting a district versus district fight before going through the proper channels, he retreated back to his car. He kicked up dust and squealed tires out on the road as he left.
”So that's going to be a mess if he actually complains about this,” Connelly said. ”He's actually more right than wrong...so let's do our work quickly.”
Avery wasted no time. She started scouring the area and took note as other cars appeared. Forensics worked quickly and efficiently once they arrived, bagging up the remains and the porcelain shards, taking measurements of the area, and so on. Avery walked along beside them, looking for any additional clues the killer might have left behind.
If he did leave clues, I don't know that they'd be accidental, she thought. It could be another way of him showing off. But if he messed up and left a footprint, a thread, a hair, or some other d.a.m.ning evidence and we miss it because we're so thrown off by the nature of his crime, that could be bad.
She looked around the immediate area bordering the crime scene tape and found nothing. The guy moves like a ghost...which means he's careful and fast. The amount of planning he's doing is borderline obsessive.
Done with the immediate area around the crime scene tape, Avery made her way to the farthest edge of the lot. It was separated from the one-way street that ran alongside the building by a tall brick wall. She walked along this wall, looking for any sort of accidental evidence such as stray fibers, but found nothing. She then checked the other side of the wall, but other than scattered litter, there was nothing to be found there, either.
She then turned her attention to the old flour mill. Just about every window was broken and it was covered in graffiti. There was a large door along the back that was halfway open. It looked to be an old loading door, permanently frozen in a partially open position. She walked up a set of crumbling concrete stairs and slipped inside.
Morning sunlight came in through the broken windows, casting an almost ethereal glow to the place. Dust motes drifted here and there, floating up to toward the high ceiling. The place was nothing more than old posts and a single large machine in the far back of the building. It was all one large room, littered with old broken equipment, rotted pallet boards, and dust.
That's why it was so easy for her to spot the earring on the floor. The fact that the dusty sunlight was reflecting from it made it that much easier. She walked over to it and could tell right away that it had not been here for very long. Unlike everything else around here, it was not coated in dust. The small diamond in the earring still had its l.u.s.ter and s.h.i.+ne.
She heard footsteps approaching, coming up the concrete stairs outside. She looked to the loading door and watched as Ramirez walked in. He took a moment to observe the interior of the place and then looked down at her.
”Good morning, beautiful,” he said.
”Good morning,” she said. ”Hey, can you run out and get someone from Forensics in here? I have something I need them to pick up.”
Ramirez nearly seemed disappointed by her quick transition from flirtatious to professional but nodded anyway. She took no time to think about his reaction; she was looking at the floor, noticing yet another sign of recent activity.
She saw her own footprints, treading across the dusty floor. But she also saw another series of prints...and then another. There were no clear prints, but many scuffed ones, indicating that someone had been moving with urgency. One of the pairs of footprints-the smaller ones-looked as if they were being dragged.
The larger set gave her about three whole prints to go from. It was likely a boot of some kind. A work boot. Around a size eleven or twelve if her guess was correct. The other was a flat-soled sneaker of some kind. Avery thought she saw part of a star in a pattern of tread. It reminded her of the Converse All-Star symbol.
Probably a younger person, then. No older than early twenties.
There had been an altercation here. And while the prints were not brand new, they had certainly not been here for very long. A few days at most.
As she got to her feet and trailed the course of the prints, she saw the earring was directly in the path of the footprints. A woman had been attacked. She had been wearing sneakers, maybe All-Stars, and the man in pursuit had likely been wearing boots.
She stepped back and traced the course of the tracks with her eyes. She tried to picture the chase and struggle. The strides of the prints made her think there had been an element of surprise to the attack.
One of them was in here already when the other arrived. The faintness of the maybe-Converse prints makes it seem like that person was in a hurry, running. So the younger one was running away-probably surprised and terrified. The remains outside probably belong to this person.
Ramirez came back inside with a member of Forensics, breaking her train of thought. ”What do we have here?” the Forensics member asked.
”An earring and some pretty telltale footprints.”
”Goldmine,” Ramirez said. ”Nice work.”
Avery nodded her thanks but was too preoccupied with the prints to pay much attention to him. There was no blood, nor any visible remains. They might be able to get DNA results from the earring post but that was a stretch.
But even that didn't bother Avery as much as the trail of footprints in the dust.
While there was no blood or visible signs of violence, those prints told a story that she did not like at all.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
The day felt weighed down by the discovery they'd made in the morning. By the time four o'clock came around and results had started to pile in, Avery felt like she was wearing a set of lead weights around her shoulders. It was a weight she felt as she walked into the A1 conference room, growing heavier with every set of eyes that fell on her.
As she took a seat across from Ramirez, she noticed the stir of energy in the air. She knew that bits and pieces of information had been coming in (mostly things being ruled out by Forensics) and that the earring had been confirmed as belonging to an expensive set. Other than that, though, Avery had heard nothing concrete. The hushed whispers around the table and the fact that O'Malley was running late made her pretty sure that there'd be plenty to go over in the coming minutes.
She also knew that there was some nastiness going on behind the scenes. The A1 higher-ups were having some very heated conversations with the B3 bra.s.s. While she was not interested in the politics of it all, she knew that if things didn't get settled in a civil way very soon, they were going to have a logistical nightmare on their hands that might hinder the case.
At exactly 4:07, the room was filled with nine officers and the growing volume of rumors. Someone speculated that local media had caught wind of the story and would be talking about it on the evening news. Someone else speculated that the value of the earring suggested the killings were financially motivated, as the earrings were valued at about five hundred dollars.
When O'Malley arrived and finally entered the room, all whispers and rumors fell flat. O'Malley looked anxious and maybe even a little fl.u.s.tered-two words that Avery would have never used to describe him before this afternoon. He held a thin stack of papers in his right hand and his cell phone in his left. When he entered the room, he shut the door a bit too hard. The slamming noise made a few of the officers in the room jump.
”Welcome to one h.e.l.l of a mess, everyone,” he said as he stood at the front of the conference table. He instantly selected two stapled sheets of paper from his pile and slid them across the table to Avery.
Avery looked at the paper and was impressed at how quickly Forensics had gotten results. The paper in her hands identified the victim as Sarah Osborne, twenty-two years old.
”That name ring a bell?” O'Malley asked, nodding to the paper.
”The last name does,” Avery said.
”Sarah Osborne,” O'Malley said. ”Niece of City Councilman Ron Osborne. The earring was confirmed as being hers exactly ten minutes ago. Turns out she also frequently wore Converse All-Stars.”
A pair of Converses and five-hundred-dollar earrings, Avery thought. This was a young lady who was still struggling to find her ident.i.ty.
”We've already got more news crews on this now,” O'Malley continued. ”Given the nature of the killings and the high profile of this victim, we can expect tons of media attention. And that means I'd like to wrap it up before it hits national headlines, especially with the B3 b.i.t.c.hing about it. So someone...please tell me we're making some headway.”
”There are no obvious connections between the victims,” Avery said, still skimming the report on Sarah Osborne. ”They lived in different parts of town and were from different financial backgrounds. I'm currently looking over the records for all traces of arson over the last ten years. It's slow going, but there are no links yet.”
”I'll get three others to help with that,” O'Malley said. ”Meanwhile, let it be known that some of the guys from over at the B3 district are going to be working with us on this case. The newest body was on their grounds and seeing as how the victim had some notoriety about her, they're insisting on staying involved. I'm not a fan of this but it's just not worth the argument or media attention.”