“I don’t understand how this serial killer’s working,” Meg heard herself say as they headed south down I-95. “Maybe this case isn’t connected. Maybe we’re grasping at straws. I can see how a serial killer might move on to an area close by, but...DC and Richmond? The traffic between the two is horrendous. Plus, there are only a few days between the murders.”
“It’s quite possible there is no connection. It’s the human need for a comprehensible narrative. We want a plot, connection, something that reeks of conspiracy. There’s one theory that Jack the Ripper was in line for the crown of England. The most recent theory has it that he was a German hairdresser. He could’ve been a deranged butcher of some kind, someone who could hide in plain sight in Victorian England because there were so many slaughterhouses in the area and many people walked around covered in entrails and blood. What’s scarier, of course, is the Ted Bundy kind of killer—charming, hiding behind an appearance of such normalcy that he was instantly trusted,” Matt said.
“Like a congressman,” Meg put in.
Matt laughed. “Really? Who trusts Congress these days?”
She smiled at that. “Well, we don’t trust them with our taxes anymore, but that’s a far cry from murder. And murder like...this?”
“Hopefully, this young woman will be the last,” Matt said. “And hopefully, we’ll find your friend alive and well.”
Meg didn’t reply.
“It’s possible,” he said.
“I know you doubt me about seeing her. But I did.”
He was quiet for a minute. “I don’t doubt you. If you’re in the Krewe, you understand that there’s another plane between life as we know it and what comes next. Our more scientific members believe that it’s a matter of energy. Energy can’t be destroyed, it can only find new forms. I’m not that scientific. But maybe this is about science. Maybe seeing that energy is what we do. But I believe that if energy can project itself after death, it could also happen in extreme, life-threatening circumstances. In other words, it’s possible that you saw her because she desperately needs your help.”
Meg glanced at him, surprised. He’d mentioned the possibility before; now she saw that he really believed it.
He shrugged, then reached forward, flicking a dial on the SUV’s sound system.
He cast her a quick look before returning his focus to the road. A slight smile curved his mouth. She suddenly heard Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear break into song with “Movin’ Right Along.”
Meg laughed.
“Well, it is a road trip, isn’t it?”
“I just never imagined you as a Muppets fan.”
“I love the Muppets, grew up on them. I think Jim Henson was brilliant and he left an impressive legacy,” he said.
“The Dark Crystal?”
“Love it. Fantasy—and sci-fi.”
“And did you enjoy Sharknado?” she asked. “You saw it?”
“Every campy minute.”
“Well?” she asked.
“I especially liked the part where he broke out of the great white’s belly with a chain saw—and rescued the previously consumed young woman,” Matt said.
Meg eased back in her seat. Maybe he wasn’t going to be quite so bad.
The Muppets were followed by Led Zeppelin and the Animals and a mix that just about incorporated everything out there.
They got to Richmond in no time, and decided to head into the office of the OCME first thing.
“You can move through traffic, Bosworth,” Meg said. “I’ll give you that. And your choice in music isn’t bad, either.”
She realized she’d actually relaxed in the car. She knew it because she felt her muscles and stomach knotting again.
“We do this for a living. Of course, this is never just a job. But if we take the monsters out there with us every second, we’d go a little crazy and quit being useful. Glad you liked the mixes!” he told her.
Standing by the passenger’s side door, she nodded grimly. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“We know this victim’s not your friend,” he reminded her.
She nodded and turned toward the building. There was hope.
Because if Lara was dead, why hadn’t she washed up on a riverbank yet? The way this new victim had appeared on the banks of the James?
*
Maybe Meg Murray isn’t such an incompetent new agent, Matt thought.
She could stand stoically by a corpse without falling apart—and yet there was an empathy in her eyes that meant she did feel the pain. It was necessary to feel, especially for Krewe members.
She’d fallen to pieces the other day, but...
How well had he done the first time he’d seen a loved one on a gurney?
Dr. Aubrey Latham, the ME on the case, had a droning voice that might have resulted from years on the job. He went through a rundown of the injuries inflicted on the body, stating that the cause of death had been the slash to the throat, the severing of the carotid artery. All the other injuries had been postmortem. Pieces of her organs were missing—probably loose in the waters of the James or consumed by river life. She’d been blonde, young, pretty, twenty-seven years of age. There was chloroform in her system, along with propofol.