“Yes. Her heart is really pumping, and that blood would be getting loose.”
“And you found that same material, the leather, on her lips. Probably, he clamps his hand over her mouth at some point when he goes for the neck, or maybe to stifle the screams… Okay but there are more cuts on her torso. You note here that you think these came after.”
Crispin said, “With this type of sharp force injury, mostly cut or chop wounds, these are the shallowest across her chest, her upper legs.”
“So it’s almost like she’s not dying fast enough for him. Or maybe there’s anger. Anger at her because of who she is, or maybe even anger that he’s made a mistake; she’s the wrong victim. I mean, to some extent, this is planned. Witnesses said they thought Harriet usually locked her car. I’ve suggested the killer programmed a second key fob, but that wouldn’t work if it was the wrong car… Maybe it’s just unlocked…”
“Maybe she knew the guy,” Crispin said, right on point.
“There’s that. Someone close enough to get her key fob, clone it, or maybe even someone who used a spare…” His mind wandered back to Pritchard.
“Or, I meant, she let him in.”
“Hmm. But if she knows him, why is he in the back seat? Someone you know, and you agree to talk, maybe give them a ride or something, they sit up front, not in back.”
“He wants to surprise her,” Crispin said. “Make her jump.”
“Unless there’s tension,” Mike said, still following the Pritchard thread. “Someone who knows her well enough to copy her fob, but not well enough he’d be invited into the front…”
And so now, he thought, Pritchard or whoever else is sitting there in the back seat. What’s he planning at this point? Take her somewhere? Force her to drive? Or just flat out kill her?
If he’s expecting to get her to drive somewhere, what’s he done with his own car? Is it sitting up on River Street, or not? Is it a white four-door sedan? Or is he on foot, like Pritchard, and Marlene Blackburn picks him up on River Street after the crime, swerving around a surprised real estate agent – Darlene Bilger – as they speed away?
The whole thing was a mess, in more ways than one. Mike flipped to the internal report, which had just concluded that morning. It showed the contents of Harriet’s stomach, among other things. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch that afternoon. Her blood draw indicated no drug use. She was a healthy woman in her mid-fifties.
He closed the file and set it on the desk, looked across at Crispin, whose kind eyes held a glint, as if he knew what Mike was about to ask.
“Well, Doc, you’ve seen far more of this type of thing than I have, I’m sure…”
“You said on the phone you could be linking this to a disappearance; another caseworker. So, I’ll tell you – if this is a serial case, and I’ve seen a few of those, there’s usually a methodology, something repetitive the killer does. Is he a knife killer? Are you going to eventually find this other caseworker sliced up? I don’t know. Maybe more important – and I’m sure you’re asking yourself – is this going to keep happening?” Crispin shook his head, remorseful. “I’ve been at this for four decades, and I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around it.”
“There’s some thought that a killer like this, they had something happen, usually in youth. They were abused, maybe humiliated, and they carry it with them.”
Crispin scowled. “Or there’s something wrong with their neurotransmitters. They don’t have the same emotions. And so that’s why there’s the ritual. To make it special, because their brain doesn’t let them feel like it’s special, and they want it to be.”
Mike was silent, thinking, and Crispin said, “If these two women are linked… you know, you’ve got to look at it like the first one, she’s taken away somewhere, and if she’s killed, it’s in secret. This one, though, she’s left right there for people to see. It’s a deviation from previous methodology; it might be what they call, you know, a ‘quickening.’”
Mike looked out Crispin’s one window, flanked by two towering ferns. “So if there’s another one,” he thought out loud, “this guy’s liable to raise the stakes again. How? Multiple victims? Gun? Something else?”
Mike looked back at Crispin, realizing it wasn’t the doc’s job to figure out such things, it was his. “And you’ve found nothing on Steve Pritchard. No prints, no DNA, nothing under her fingernails.”
Crispin shook his head, no.
Such a mess. Even if Crispin said yes, and they had Pritchard nailed, Pritchard’s motive seemed personal and left out Lavoie. They had one definite victim, one potential victim, several possible motives, numerous possible suspects, and unless they found Lavoie or some physical evidence at Harriet’s crime scene, there was no way to narrow any of it down.
Crispin said, “He grabbed her, this guy, he was rough with her, but he didn’t leave many crumbs behind. I’d say he was young, maybe on the big side – but then, there wasn’t much to her: she’s 110 pounds. In my report I’m saying he’s right-handed. Which doesn’t help much either, I’m sure. You got nothing from her vehicle?”
“We’re running every test we’ve got. Sweat secretions, hair follicles, you name it. This guy, yeah, he’s strong. Either he’s bald with no sweat glands or he’s not in the system. There was a partial boot print that looks like a logging-style boot, the kind with a thick sole, raised heel. But…”
“Well, I’d say the whole thing took less than one minute, Mike. For the killing – I don’t know how long he waited in the car. And the car would have been hot.”
“Yeah, exactly.” Mike stood up, nodded at the file. “That’s mine?”
“Yes, sir, that’s your copy.” Crispin rose from his chair, showing his age a little when he winced at the effort. He reached a hand across the table and they shook. Mike started for the door.
“How long you been with the state police?” Crispin asked.
Mike paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked up, thinking. “Well, I’ve been with BCI for twelve years. I was a trooper before that for a while.”
“Haven’t wanted to retire yet?” Crispin asked. “I thought you had that option at twenty years.”
“You do,” Mike said. “But the longer I stay in, the better the pension, the better the benefits for Kristen.”
“That’s your daughter?”
“Yeah. Plus, you know…”
Crispin smiled. “Yeah, I know.”
“Thanks for talking to me on your lunch hour,” Mike said.
* * *
Outside in the heat, Mike called the Forensic Investigation Center in Albany to check in on the vehicle processing, hoping for something new. Nothing yet.
Lena Overton swung her car into the parking lot and got out. She was wearing a pair of reflective aviator sunglasses, hair pulled back, a light-colored skirt and jacket over her white blouse. Her shoes made crisp sounds across the parking lot as she came toward him.
“You’re all done?” Overton asked.
“Nothing revelatory from the internal, just what Harriet Fogarty had for lunch. We went over the wounds a bit.”
Overton looked in the direction of the medical examiner’s office, asking, “Anything Crispin say that puts Pritchard in place?”
“I’d be jumping up and down.”
“What about Perkins? Heard from tribal police yet?”
“Not since this morning. But he said they’re going to talk to Marlene Blackburn. And if there’s a knife in her place, or something, they’ll tell us. But…” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She faced him, her eyes hidden behind the lenses. “You worried about something?”
“Ah, you know. They’re not obligated to help. And the Kahonsie are pretty effective at keeping their controversies contained. I got a little bit of a feeling.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Pritchard is an outsider, she’s an American Indian. If he was sleeping with her or something… you know? Anyway, if we don’t hear back from him later today I think we could at least drop by the casino where she works, talk to her there. The casino is outside the res.”