CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Laura glanced around as she waited for Nate to follow her out of the car, placing her hands on her hips. They’d been awake and sitting in their car waiting for the cop to lead them by the time he arrived. The extra couple of minutes she’d had on Nate had made a difference, as had the fact that she’d woken up from a nightmare and into full awareness while he still had to fight through the grogginess. She’d managed to jump into the shower for less than five minutes to make herself feel fresh, get dressed, and point a dryer at her hair for a minute before deciding it was done enough and just tying it back. Nate, on the other hand, seemed to still be catching up.
“What are we looking at?” he asked, rubbing his eyes as if he still needed to clear the sleep out of them.
“Over there,” Laura said, nodding at the view through a window into the house, where Captain Ortega was standing with his hands on his hips, his position slightly slouched, looking down at something a few feet away from him. Laura couldn’t see what it was because of the wall blocking their view, but she could guess.
A body.
Nate followed her as she led the way to the Captain, nodding a greeting at him as he glanced through the glass. The scene was strangely quiet, given the fact that it was swarming with law enforcement. The darkness of the night seemed to have instilled a hush in everyone, together with the fact that this was yet another murder in a string that had to be shocking to the locals. The suburban location was another factor – no one wanted to wake the neighbors, even though it was abundantly clear that every house in the vicinity was full of people who were already wide awake and watching through their curtains.
People spoke in hushed tones – two crime scene forensics officers who walked by in white suits were whispering to one another as Laura and Nate passed by them. The red and blue lights from the ambulance and police cars were flickering across everything, bathing everyone in the two alternating shades again and again. Laura shivered, and it was not because of the cold dawn air.
She stepped across the threshold and into the home, though the temperature barely changed – the door had clearly been open for some time, letting the cold air into the house. Round one corner and through another open doorway, and there it was – the thing they had been afraid they would find. Another victim, marked so very clearly with the hallmark of this killer.
Nate made a low whistle under his breath, which just about seemed to sum up the situation for everyone else, too. There was general nodding and murmurs of agreement from the Captain, the two other detectives in the room, and even Laura herself.
It was a strange, eerie sight. The body of a man, his head clearly smashed open with a blunt object just as the other two had been, propped on a sofa as if he was just casually sitting there at the end of a long day. While the first two victims had one neat blow to the back of the skull, this one had two visible injuries – one to the back and one on top of the head.
He was sitting next to a mannequin, as they had been forewarned. The mannequin was posed in a similar fashion, with a seated-style body that was already posed correctly to look as though it was just joining him on the sofa for a movie night. Between them was what had to be the most macabre detail of all, though Laura couldn’t put into words exactly why it sent a shiver of dread down her spine: a bowl of popcorn, popped and ready to eat, set on the cushions between them so that they could lean over and take a piece whenever they got hungry.
Laura turned from the sight and caught more motion out of the corner of her eye: the television was on, set to a movie channel and playing one of their early morning screenings. The black and white film flickered darker and brighter lights over the carpet and the large bloodstain that had been left on it – the part of the floor that the Captain and his detective were meticulously avoiding.
This was not the same as the other cases, where he’d obviously had to rush to avoid being caught. There, he’d had to prop up the victim, set the mannequin next to them, and then run. This time he’d clearly attacked the victim right here, and Laura could see each of the two blows as distinct events: one that had him dropping to the floor and then rolling slightly, trying to move himself perhaps away from the killer, and then the second creating a deeper pool and splatter that ended the victim’s life. She didn’t need a pathologist to tell her that.
Afterwards, he’d had all the time in the world to create his scene. This one wasn’t just about the mannequin and the body. This time, he’d brought props. Spent time in the house arranging it when the victim was there, dead, his body slowly cooling, approaching rigor mortis.
“The sound was off?” Laura asked, gesturing towards the TV.
“No, we turned it down when we came in,” Captain Ortega replied. “We didn’t want the noise to be a distraction.”
“What about the curtains?” Laura asked.
Captain Ortega shook his head. “Those haven’t been touched. They were left open. That’s how the crime was reported to us – a neighbor heading out to an early shift at work spotted him through the window.”
Laura bit her lip, glancing at Nate. She could see the same concern in his own eyes. “He’s putting them on display,” she said.
“Egocentric,” Nate replied, a basic criminal psychology analysis. “He wants us to see what he’s done. Wants the bodies to be found. Maybe he’s trying to send us a message.”
Laura shrugged thoughtfully. “Or trying to make these scenes into some kind of entertainment or show,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because of the window in this one. It reminds me of the Christmas windows in stores, you know? How you see everything set up in this representation of a perfect little winter wonderland or a family enjoying the festivities. In all three, it’s like this idealized state. Spooning with a lover. Having a friend to listen to you. Sitting to watch a movie.”
Nate nodded, with Captain Ortega watching them both work silently. “Question is,” Nate said darkly. “Did he do all of this with the windows open, or did he open them up once he was done?”
“We’re dusting for prints, but there’s nothing yet,” Captain Ortega offered. “Looks like he was probably wearing gloves, like in the other two scenes.”
Laura looked out of the window onto the street, trying to picture it. Trying to put herself into the killer’s shoes. She desperately wanted to touch something to try to get a vision, but with Captain Ortega watching closely, it was too much of a risk. People didn’t usually take kindly to the soiling of evidence.
But she could do what Zach had suggested. She could use her years of experience, her knowhow as an investigator, the things she had seen before.
“I think he did it with the curtains open,” Laura said, thinking out loud, seized by sudden conviction. “He wasn’t afraid of acting in public before – the two alleys were places where anyone could have stumbled across him. He wouldn’t be afraid now. He’s efficient, quick. Maybe he came with the popcorn already made, the mannequin ready. He knew what he was going to do. Why else would he bring a mannequin that was already in a seated position?”
“This was planned and then executed with precision,” Nate agreed. “It looks like the victim was taken by surprise, and the first blow didn’t kill him, which is different from what we’ve seen before. Maybe he got a little second of warning or something. Do we know who the victim is yet?”
Captain Ortega nodded. “The homeowner. Xavier Perez. He lived here alone.”
“So, the killer knew he wouldn’t be disturbed by a wife or housemate,” Laura suggested. “Maybe that’s why he took the risk of attacking him here in his home. Think about it – John Wiggins lived with his parents, and Kenya was in an apartment building. He couldn’t do it where they worked as other people would be around there, too. It had to be out somewhere else. But with Mr. Perez here, he had the opportunity to take his time and do it right.”
“Who was he to the killer?” Nate asked, throwing up another thought. Laura liked it when they could bounce off one another like this, getting into the zone of the investigation, feeling things out quickly. This was how they worked best. “A friend? A family member? It looks like the message is one of closeness.”