Now he and Jack stood in a sterile room that smelled of antiseptic and death, and listened to the report being given by Dr. Samuels. Dr. Samuels hadn’t performed the autopsy on Carly Henderson; that had been Dr. Smith, who was currently on vacation. His report was in Carly’s file, and she had been buried in Salem just three days ago.
Their Jane Doe lay on the table. If she weren’t such a strange color and didn’t feel like ice—and didn’t have the Y incision that was the most obvious sign of autopsy—she might have been any young woman catching a few rays. Dr. Samuels droned through the necessary information. Female, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, five feet six inches, one hundred and fifteen pounds. There were no signs of rape or sexual molestation; she hadn’t even been sexually active in the days before her death. She had no tattoos or identifying scars, and she had nearly perfect teeth.
In fact, other than the slice across the throat—performed, according to Dr. Samuels, by a double-edged blade of about six or seven inches and made from left to right—she had been unharmed. No one had beat her, strangled her, dragged her or done anything else to her. Her stomach contents were being tested. However, Dr. Samuels had read the report on Carly Henderson and believed that the two women had consumed identical meals—clam chowder and fish and chips—before they had met their demise. If that turned out to be true, Rocky thought, it could be a clue as valuable as the pentagram medallions.
“So,” Rocky said, moving to use Jack as his mock victim, “the killer came up directly behind her, placed the weapon so—and slashed?”
“Yes, that appears to be what happened,” Samuels agreed.
“The same as Carly Henderson?” Jack asked.
“From what I’ve read, yes.”
“And what about Melissa Wilson?” Rocky asked.
Samuels frowned. “I don’t think I know that name.”
“She was killed thirteen years ago—she was found the same way.”
“I’ll have to look up that report. I was working in San Francisco thirteen years ago,” Samuels told them.
They thanked him for his time and headed back to their car.
“None of them was molested,” Jack said. “I guess there’s a small comfort in that.”
Small comfort? Rocky thought. Maybe. They were all still dead.
“Yeah,” Rocky muttered. “I guess. I don’t think they had any idea they were going to die. It must have been quick.”
“I don’t understand how he pulls it off. This guy has to be covered with blood once he’s done,” Jack said.
“Not that much. He’s behind the victim, and the spray would go forward.”
“But then he’s lowering his victim to the ground—laying her out. And placing the medallion on her,” Jack said.
“Yes, some blood, but not so much that he couldn’t cover it if he’d stashed a jacket nearby. Soon as he’s done he goes home and cleans up. And since we don’t know where home is...”
“Gotta be Wiccans,” Jack said.
“I don’t think we can automatically suspect an entire community. It might just as well be someone who wants to cast blame on the local Wicca community. Maybe some nut job who believes that they’re Satanists and it’s up to him to get rid of them.”
He might have been away from the area for a long time, but he knew enough to know that Wiccans didn’t practice human or animal sacrifice, and did not in any way, shape or form condone murder.
“Yeah, I guess. Everything about this case is one thing or the opposite, isn’t it?” Jack asked. “Either it’s the same killer or a copycat. Either it’s a misguided follower of a nontraditional religion or it’s someone trying to pin it on them. Thank God the witch trials are over, that’s all I can say. All we need is another witch scare.”
“That alone makes it imperative that we keep a lid on the details,” Rocky said.
“Some of them have gotten out, you know,” Jack told him.
Rocky looked at Jack and waited.
“The boy who found Carly Henderson. Luckily the kid was terrified—he saw her and ran. But people know she was splayed out and covered in blood.”
“I have it on my list to talk to the kid, anyway,” Rocky said.
“No problem. Whenever you want to go.”
“How about now?”
Their timing was good. School was out, and Manny Driscoll, the fourteen-year-old boy who had discovered Carly Henderson when he was out on his after-school job delivering Chinese food, was home.
“I’m not letting him work right now,” Manny’s mother, Martha, told them. “Chow Chang, his boss, understands. When this is all over, maybe. Manny can just mow the yard for allowance,” she said firmly. She sat with Rocky and Jack while they questioned her son.
“Did you see anyone leaving the woods or hanging around anywhere nearby?” Rocky asked him.
Manny was a sober boy. He looked at Rocky seriously. “No. I fell off my bike onto the road and...and that’s when I saw her through the trees. Man, I fell down when I got a look at her. I...” He paused and looked around, as if he wanted to make really certain none of his friends were there. “I screamed like a girl—like a little girl,” he said, sounding disgusted with himself.
“That’s all right, Manny. I’ve screamed like a girl, too,” Rocky said.