Adler’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but he let it go to voicemail. He was standing in the medical examiner’s autopsy suite with Quinn and Dr. McGowan. On the two stainless-steel tables were separate sets of bones. Neither set had yet been arranged in anatomical order.
Dr. McGowan clicked on an overhead light. Gingerly she lifted the first skull. “We’ve already taken X-rays and cross-referenced dental records. This is Gina Mason. She’s finally come home.”
He studied the skull cradled in the doctor’s hands. Images of the young woman’s smiling face stoked his anger. This kid had not deserved such a violent fate. “And the other one?”
Dr. McGowan had set the first skull down and picked up the second. “Female. Under the age of twenty, I think.” She turned the skull to the side and traced her finger down a fracture. “Someone hit her hard on the back of her head. The blow was enough to knock her out and maybe kill her. I also noticed that her pelvic bone is broken, suggesting there was more trauma. I can’t tell you if that occurred ante-or postmortem. The pelvis is very vascular, and if she were alive, this would have caused tremendous bleeding and pain.”
He hoped to hell it was postmortem. “Can you determine the cause of death?”
She gently set the skull down and lifted one of the victim’s ribs. “There are distinct markings here.” She ran her finger along an angled indention. “It was caused by a large knife. If you look carefully you’ll see the edges are slightly serrated. Maybe it was a hunting knife. If you found the knife I’m confident I could match it.”
“How long has she been dead?” Adler asked.
“I’d say a couple of years longer than Miss Mason.”
“And Miss Mason was also stabbed?” Quinn asked.
“Yes. There are knife marks on at least two of her left ribs. If you look closely at the marks, you’ll notice the blade is serrated and matches the other rib we just examined.”
Quinn shook her head with contempt. “Two women murdered within a couple of years. Hayward goes to prison on drug and burglary charges, and within four weeks of being out, he knifes a woman to death.”
“The knife recovered from the convenience store murder was a hunting knife,” Adler said. “That victim was stabbed in the ribs.”
“You just took the words right out of my mouth,” Dr. McGowan said. “I pulled the complete set of records from that autopsy. The knife that killed that victim was also serrated.”
“Hayward said he went up to the barn after he was released from prison,” Adler said. “He finds the murder weapon he stashed fourteen years ago, thinks enough time has gone by, and the stupid shit pockets it.”
“He saved the knife as some kind of trophy?”
“That’s my guess,” Adler said.
“Do you really think Hayward would be so stupid to take us to Gina’s body knowing Jane Doe is one hundred yards away?” Quinn asked.
“I think he’s that arrogant and also that desperate. Gina was his one shot to save himself.”
“So he assumes our attention would be exclusively on unearthing Gina’s body and bets we won’t look anywhere else,” Quinn said incredulously.
“Have the GPR technicians found any other bodies near these two?” Dr. McGowan asked.
“No. Not yet,” Adler said.
“You think Blackstone knew about the second body?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know,” Adler said.
Quinn’s grin was sly. “The immunity deal with Hayward covers the Gina Mason and convenience store murders only, correct?”
He smiled. “Correct. It does not cover Jane Doe.”
“So if we can tie Hayward to Jane Doe’s murder, we can charge him with murder.”
“That’s the goal.”
They spent several more minutes discussing the cases before Adler could step away and check his voicemail. He played back Kaitlin’s message.
He didn’t like the idea of her chasing Blackstone. If Blackstone had been covering for Hayward all these years, he had a lot to lose. And that made him very dangerous.
Adler dialed Logan’s number. He answered on the second ring, his voice thick and heavy with sleep.
“Did I wake you up, Logan?”
“Up until four a.m.”
“I didn’t sleep all night.”
“Aren’t you a badass?” Logan coughed. “What do you need other than to hear my manly voice?”
The sarcasm was a good sign. Soon Logan would be back to his old smartass self. “Randy Hayward dropped out of college during his sophomore year. We all assumed he left because of the drugs. But I looked up his school record. He was making the dean’s list right up until he left, so if he was using, it wasn’t interfering with his schoolwork.”
He told Logan about the second set of remains. “Check to see if any girl went missing about that time in that area.”
“Will do.”
Adler and Quinn arrived at the city jail. They didn’t have to wait long before Hayward arrived cuffed and wearing a shit-eating grin.
Hayward’s chest puffed with the bravado of a card player holding a royal flush. He sat and sniffed. “You don’t look like you slept so well, Detective.”
Adler shook his head. “It was a long night.”
“I slept like a baby,” Hayward said and winked at Quinn.
Adler allowed Hayward to bask in the glow of immunity. “The medical examiner identified the remains. They belong to Gina.”
“I told you. I don’t lie when it comes to important shit like that.”
“Your deal with Ricker is ironclad,” Adler said. “Blackstone made sure of it.”
“Gotta love that buddy of mine.”
Adler sat back while Quinn leaned forward with the next question. Anger burned in his belly, but a good hunter was always patient when stalking his prey.
“Can you tell me what happened with Gina? It won’t make a difference to anyone now.”
“It will to Kaitlin. Sweet Kaitlin will want to know all the terrible details.”
“Yes, she’ll want to know,” Adler admitted.
“Tell us what happened on the road that night,” Quinn said.
Hayward scratched his head. “Nothing complicated. I liked Gina. I’d been watching her for years. So perfect, so sweet.”
“Did you get Erika to drug their booze?” Adler asked.
“No, that was all Erika.”
“Erika said it was Brad’s idea to drug the girls.”
“She’s a liar. I heard her telling Brad she was going do it. She and Jennifer wanted to really fuck with Kaitlin’s sobriety. Like the booze wasn’t bad enough. All I had to do was sit and wait.”
With Erika dead, there was no way to prove if she’d lied or not. “So Jennifer and Erika leave. How did you get to the river?”
“I drove upriver a quarter of a mile and parked the farm truck.” Hayward hesitated. He’d been in and out of the system long enough to know deals could sour. “Why do you want all the gritty details?” His voice now took on a more serious tone.
The slow burn of anger in Adler’s gut grew hotter. “For posterity. This case will be talked about for years to come. Besides, I can’t touch you.”
Hayward shrugged with false modesty. “When I saw Gina come stumbling down the road, I grabbed her. Kaitlin ran up and tried to save her cousin. I sliced off Gina’s ear, and little Kaitlin ran wee-wee-wee all the way home.”
“What did you do with Gina?”
“I taped up her hands, feet, and mouth, tossed her in the bed of the farm truck, and covered her with a tarp. I took her to the barn.”
“Who owns that land?”
“It used to be owned by the Blackstone family, but they sold it twenty years ago. But Derek has permission from the new owners to hunt.”
“And if Derek had access, so did you.”
He tapped the end of his nose. “Bingo.”
“The farm truck was from that land.”
“It was.”
“What happened next?”
His eyes brightened. “When I untied her, I told her I didn’t want to hurt her. I just wanted to have fun.”
“She must have been bleeding badly at that point,” Adler said.
“When I taped up her mouth, I also taped the ear. It wasn’t so bad by then.”