“Are you telling me you aren’t up to the job?”
A tactical challenge lurked behind the comment. Management 101. Despite recognizing this classic maneuver, he wasn’t immune to the ploy. Challenges and puzzles kept his mind engaged on the present and away from troubling replays of the past. “I’m very capable and willing.”
“Good.”
A half hour later, pasta in his belly and a double espresso in hand, Andrews returned to his office to find four dusty boxes on his desk. Sipping his coffee, Andrews moved to the first box and flipped off the lid. He’d barely thumbed through the first box, filled with handwritten notes of the police chief’s interviews, when Bowman reappeared.
Without turning, Andrews set down his cup and said, “No filing system, only clumps of papers, some of which are rumpled and stained with what looks like pizza sauce. No organization. No patterns established.”
“Making sense out of chaos is what you do best.”
Absently, Andrews scratched fingertips over well-mapped rough scars on his left hand. “I do.”
“If you need any assistance, ask,” Bowman said. “I want this case resolved as soon as possible.”
“I’ll get started on this straightaway.”
“Great.”
Alone, Andrews opened the next box and found stacks of photos. Some had been identified on the back and others left blank. As he shifted through the pictures, he found an image of four young girls dressed in jeans and sweaters in front of what looked like a college dorm. They all grinned, and interlocked arms suggested they were close. On the back there were four scrawled names. Diane, Kara, Tessa, Elena.
He dug deeper into the files and found an image of a much younger Sharp with the girl who closely resembled him. He wasn’t more than early twenties, and she must have been about twelve. He was young and slim, and the smile on his face exhibited an exuberance Andrews suspected had long since been tempered by life.
The remaining boxes were filled with an odd mix of police files, which he suspected had been copied without permission. Cops made duplicates of case files that mattered, and clearly the case had meant something to the former police chief.
Andrews’s first order of business was to sort all the papers into stacks. Organization would need to be forged from the chaos. He began to work, grateful to let time pass and the outside world fade.
The Dollmaker sat in the dimly lit basement room, staring at the pictures he had taken of Destiny in the very early hours of the morning. Then he scrolled back more frames to pictures snapped in this room. He’d posed her in a variety of ways. Sitting. Lying down. Poised on the bed in a seductive manner.
Remembering their time together, he scrolled through the snapshots, stopping on one that captured her perfect face. He’d not used his flash for this picture, and moody shadows crossed her high cheekbones. But her eyes had been closed, and he’d felt cheated that she couldn’t see him.
“Still, such a pretty girl, Destiny. I already miss you.” He enlarged the picture and studied the fine detailing around her eyes and her mouth.
He’d worked hard to perfect his art, practicing first on himself, marking up his thighs until they were covered in ink, and then on the random whores who worked the streets. They’d been easy to drug, easy to keep for days because no one missed them. No one cared about them.
Some of the whores he dumped back onto the street, drugged and dazed. Others he’d practiced on too long and ruined their faces. Letting them go would have brought the wrong kind of attention to himself, so it had been easy to overdose each with a lethal hit of heroine before disposing of their bodies.
He scrolled through more pictures to another woman’s face. This picture he’d snapped at the mall today. She’d been buying cosmetics. Her long dark hair framed her round face and drew attention to large eyes. Her skin was pale and flawless. A high slash of cheekbones.
Pretty enough that he’d grown hard while he’d been following her and taking pictures. But the longer he watched her, the more flaws he noticed. Pretty but not perfect.
She would be his new doll. She would be his new work of art. And he’d already picked out a name for her.
“Harmony. Harmony. Harmony.” He said the name out loud several more times, liking the way it rolled off his tongue.
It wasn’t really wise to make a new doll so soon, but he could feel the pressure of loneliness building inside him. In the past he’d wait months, even years before creating a new doll.
But waiting was too hard when he remembered Destiny. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted someone to love. To taste. He needed to wait, but he could not.
He reached for a packet of matches and lit one, watching as the flame danced and swayed. A fire would calm him. It had when he was a boy. He’d not set any fires in town in over three years, so one small one now would likely go unnoticed.
Holding the match until the flame died, he smiled. One small fire. And then he’d bring his Harmony home to live with him for a long, long time.
“I’m going to make you perfect, Harmony.”
CHAPTER NINE
Wednesday, October 5, 5:00 p.m.
Under the glare of a portable lamp, the forensic crew worked the doll victim as Sharp walked through the woods to the condos adjacent to the park and knocked on the doors of the units facing the woods. No one had seen or heard anything last night. Retracing his steps, he stood at the edge of the crime scene, watching as the forensic technician photographed the body.
Judging by the victim’s bone structure and build, she’d been a beautiful woman in the prime of her life. But the garish tattooing had disfigured and perverted her features.
The medical examiner’s van arrived. Dr. Kincaid and Tessa got out with somber expressions, taking time to gather their gear. Tessa’s long black hair was pulled into a thick ponytail, and she was dressed in khakis, well-worn boots, and like Dr. Kincaid, a dark-blue slicker that read “Medical Examiner” on the back. Sharp stood straighter, watching as she and Kincaid removed the stretcher from the back of the van. He thought he could handle working around Tessa, but he realized it was going to be harder than he’d first thought.
Julia Vargas approached Dr. Kincaid and Tessa. They listened to the agent give her report on the body before moving toward the crime scene tape. When they ducked under it, he followed.
Dr. Kincaid extended her hand to Martin Thompson and smiled as she introduced Tessa. “Dr. McGowan is a forensic pathologist. You’ll be seeing more of her.”
Martin shook her hand and only tossed a quick questioning glance at Sharp. “Welcome.”
If Tessa read Martin’s questioning gaze, she gave no sign of it. “Thanks.”
The older man’s normally banal expression actually softened, and he held her hand an extra beat. “Glad to have you on the team.”