And that should have been it.
But Jake and most of his task force hadn’t believed that one crazed man had been responsible for a series of killings that had been so meticulously carried out. The case had never been officially closed, but with the death of the man who had confessed, the imprisonment of Bordon based on what they were able to bring into court, and the fact that no more bodies had been discovered, they had been forced to move on to new investigations.
Jake had never been satisfied, though. For him, it had never ended.
They hadn’t gotten Bordon on murder.
Bordon had been involved. He was sure of it. But there was no proof. Jake had never thought that Bordon had physically carried out the crimes; they had been done at his command.
Now he was in prison, but there was no reason in hell why he couldn’t be calling the shots from his cell.
Bordon had a power far greater than strength or any material weapon. He had the ability to manipulate men and women. To get into their minds.
He didn’t need to dirty his own hands with the blood of others.
Planning a murder, however, could bring the same penalties as the act of carrying out the deed. But complicity had to be proven.
Five years ago, the task force had plowed through Bordon’s records, desperate to get him on something. They had never gotten him for ordering the killings, but just as, decades ago, the law had managed to put away the infamous Al Capone, they had at last gotten him on tax evasion and fraud.
Unsatisfactory, but at least he’d been locked away.
The murders had stopped. Most people seemed to assume that had been because the man who had confessed to the killings had committed suicide in a jail cell.
But now it seemed that the killings hadn’t stopped.
There had just been a hiatus, because here was another body, jarringly reminiscent of those they had found in the past.
“Jesus, Jake, don’t look like that,” Martin said softly. “Maybe you shouldn’t even be on this case.”
Jake stared at him, dark eyes hard as coal.
“All right, all right. Sorry.”
“Gentlemen, may I get back in there? I’ll give you my initial findings.”
Jake turned. Dr. Tristan Gannet made his way back over to them. Jake was glad that it was Gannet on the case. He had been with the M.E.’s office almost twenty years and had had experience with the previous murders.
“Glad to see you, Gannet,” Jake said. He quickly scanned the scene again himself before joining Gannet down by the body. No apparent materials or fabrics. No sign of footprints, but if they were right and the body had washed down here with the rain, there wouldn’t be. No obvious sign of cause of death, most likely because the body was so decomposed. Victim was most probably a young woman, a few strands of long dark hair remaining. The first patrolman to arrive on the scene had done a damned good job of taping the scene off and keeping it untainted. This was no instance of a dozen officers arriving and contaminating the area. There was just so little to be found when a body had been given time to decompose. Of course, there was always the hope that the specialized crime scene investigators could find a clue that wasn’t visible to the naked eye.
Jake had a feeling this one would be hard work for the crime scene investigators. When a murderer was careful and knew that minuscule clues could give his or her identity away, there was often little to go on.
There was still hope, of course. His associates might find a hair, a fiber, trace evidence. Doc Gannet might find a microscopic clue on the pathetic remains.
No chance of finding flesh beneath the fingernails, though. The fingernails were gone. For that matter, there would be no identification through fingerprints—no flesh remained on a single finger or on the thumbs.
“And no one will recognize her from her face,” he murmured.
“Dental records are usually our best bet anyway, often,” Gannet said. “We’re lucky here, I think. I’m willing to bet the flesh was cut from the fingers, before the animals and the environment had a chance to do their work.” He looked at Jake for a moment, and he knew they were both thinking along the same line.
In the previous murders, the ears had been slashed, and the flesh had been cut from the fingers. Why bother destroying fingerprints, then leaving the head and teeth so that an identity could be culled from dental records?
Were they back to where they had started?
Or was there a copycat killer out there?
“Could be a copycat,” Gannet said, as if Jake had actually voiced his thoughts.
“Yeah,” Jake said.