“I thought Willie might need glasses. He commented once on my how much he liked my wire rims, and how he bet if he had a pair just like mine, he’d be able to see a lot better. I figured Hakeem hired Willie to dig the grave of the stolen corpse. Willie must have taken my spare pair of glasses when he went into the morgue to get the body, then forgot my specs at the site.”
Phil scribbled some notes. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair. If he had time, he might check out the Middle Easterner along with the worm man, but he wasn’t convinced he’d learn anything. He would find out who the principal was on the case and talk to him. Reports didn’t always tell the whole story.
It didn’t matter if DeMarco’s tale had any validity or not, he needed answers to his case. If Hunter believed there might be a connection to the four dead women, he had an obligation to investigate.
“Would you give us permission to check your records, to see if there’s a connection to the bodies we found in North Tampa?” Phil asked. They might get lucky, but he doubted it.
“I’d like to help, but I, or rather the county, closed my business once I was arrested. Because of this...this... misunderstanding, I decided I was through dealing with irrational people. My brother has put the place up for sale. I have no idea if he’s done anything with the records—or if he even kept them.” The sadness in the man’s eye made Phil wince. Hell, maybe he was telling the truth.
DeMarco dropped his head into his hands, and his shoulders shook. When he looked up, tears streaked his cheeks. “I have no idea where to turn. Can you help me?”
Phil couldn’t take it when someone cried, be it man or woman. It didn’t matter if he was acting or not. “I’ll see what we can do.”
Phil stood and Gina pushed back her chair. She probably wanted to stay and console the poor guy, but they had more pressing issues to attend to.
After they stepped outside, Gina ran her hand up and down his arm. “Are you going to help him?”
He was a sucker for a beautiful, aggressive woman, but she had something coming if she thought he’d ever change his principles when it came to police work. He refused to become interested in the boss’s niece. He liked his job way too much.
“I’ll try.”
“You still here?” Jack Andries asked as he ducked into the conference room.
Hunter wanted to ask, “What does it look like?” Instead he admitted, “This case is eating me.” Hunter moved the photos in front of him in a different position to give him a new perspective.
“Don’t they all?” Jack sniffed the air. “You taken to wearing perfume?”
“Kerry Herlihy was here yesterday. Maybe that’s what you smell. She’d been working with the dead all day. I think she splashed on a lot of cologne to mask the stench of death.”
“That so?” Andries quirked a brow. “Why did she stop by?”
“I wanted her opinion on the Jane Doe cases.” Hunter’s tone came off defensive. Christ, he sounded as though she didn’t belong here. Only she did. “She might be the key that unlocks this case.”
“Ah.” His tone lowered as if he didn’t want to tear apart Hunter’s ever-open wound. Jack tossed down another folder. “Did she call today by any chance and mention they’d found a female infant this afternoon?”
Hunter’s heart turned heavy. “No.” Losing a child had to hurt worse than death. If he ever lost Melissa, he wouldn’t be able to go on. He still hadn’t recovered from his sister’s murder, and that was over ten years ago.
“She and Ahern handled the call. The M.E.’s office just sent over the photos. I had assigned Whit Jackson as principal, but his father suffered a heart attack this morning and isn’t expected to make it. He flew out about an hour ago. I thought you could take over. You’re working with Dr. Herlihy on the four Jane Does and thought it would be easier if you two also paired up on this case.”
His logic was sound, Hunter guessed. “Fine.” A strange excitement socked him at working another case with her, though he wasn’t sure why. Yes, she was attractive, but he prided himself on his ability to focus. That trait sure disappeared the moment he met Kerry Herlihy.
As Jack turned to leave, Hunter decided to satisfy his curiosity. “What do you know about this new anthropologist?”
His boss turned and cocked a brow. “Nothing. Why?” A small smile lifted his lips. “You interested in her?”
He shouldn’t be. “No. Just wondering how good she is at her job.” Jack had tried to fix him up several times after Amy had died, but Hunter couldn’t bear losing anyone else he cared about, so he’d politely declined all invitations.
“Ask Ahern. He hired her.”
“Good idea.” Hunter saluted and turned back to the table.
When Hunter didn’t hear the door close, he looked up. Jack was staring at him. “And Gina? How’d her internship go today?”
Damn. He thought Jack wouldn’t ask. So much for his boss’s promise not to interfere with his niece’s temporary position.
Hunter sympathized with the man’s need to know though. “I sent her and Phil to the Orient Road jail. I haven’t heard back from them yet. If a trip there doesn’t turn her off to pursuing a career in law, I don’t know what will.”
“You don’t know Gina. She’s as stubborn as they come. My brother is going to have my head if I can’t persuade her to return to teaching. Just remember, safety first, when it comes to my niece.”
“Yes, sir.”
With that, Jack closed the door behind him.
Hunter leaned back in his chair and rested his eyes, blocking out the photos of the dead women, blocking out his sister’s murder.
In its place, a tall, delicate woman with long, brown, wavy hair, the skin of alabaster and the eyes of an angel stared up at him. He missed his wife, yes, but Kerry awakened something in him he couldn’t attach a label to and he had no idea why. Maybe it was her sad story about her brother that got to him.
He wanted to know more. That shouldn’t be a problem. After all, he hadn’t earned the rank of detective for nothing.
7
Kerry never had the opportunity during the normal workday to start the facial recreation of Jane Doe #1. She figured it was better to create a likeness in a timely fashion than never begin the process, so she brought the skull home.
Guilt pricked her. Maybe she should have asked official permission to take evidence from the morgue, but John had been standing there when she’d boxed up the skull and had said nothing.
When Kerry had asked Dr. Ahern if the department was willing to bring in a high-level forensic artist to do the reconstruction, she received a definitive no. He’d said the citywide budget cuts had put a bite into many of their requests, and that they’d only bring in experts for high profile cases.
Had she not been new, or maybe if she were better with confrontation, she would have asked how many more women this person needed to kill to qualify for high profile.
That meant she’d just have to do it herself in her off-hours. The ends justified the means. Right?
In order to have room to work, Kerry cleared off one end of the kitchen table nearest the pantry. Grandpa had said they could eat in the formal dining room as long as need be. He understood her burning need to find the relatives of the Jane Does of the world. No doubt it was because he was a former cop.
Kerry leaned closer and ran a hand over the face. “I promise I’ll find out who you are.” Not only did this skull have the best teeth of the four women, the cranium was mostly intact, making her the best candidate for the clay reconstruction.
Kerry had already compared the Missing Person photos Hunter had given her to the X-ray of Jane’s face. No matches—at least none that she could be sure about. Without a match, there’d be no dental records, which meant the clay model was her only hope.
“Need any help?”
Kerry jumped. Her grandfather pulled up a chair at the table and sat down.
“I wish you could. This is a long, tedious process.”
“I can sort the stubby rubber thingies if that would help.”
She smiled. “They’re tissue depth markers. Thank you. That would help.” Not really, but she wanted him to feel useful.
Grandpa went to work arranging the twenty-one numbered pieces, lining them up in a neat row. “You know where they go?”