Now they would learn that all their hope had been in vain.
“Any ID on the body?” Allina asked. The quicker they IDed this woman the quicker they could give her family closure.
“I don’t see anything,” Tracey replied. “Just the body.”
“Jewelry or anything?” she asked.
“Nothing that I can see.”
The woman wasn’t wearing any clothes either, so there was nothing on her that would help them to identify her. Since her face was partially burned, they probably weren’t going to be able to identify her that way either. Dental records or DNA could help them find out who she was. Fingerprints were probably also out since the skin on her hands had been damaged as well. If they were going to find out who had killed her, they needed to know who she was.
Her eyes found their way back to the body even though she didn’t want to look at it anymore. Her mind was running on overdrive wondering what the woman’s final moments had been like. Had she been conscious? Had she known she was about to die? Had she known the person who killed her?
The sight of the woman’s burned body was truly horrendous. Her skin was bright red and blistered, chunks of flesh had been boiled clean off leaving bits of bone visible. From her hips down her entire body was burned, above that the burns were patchy like she had been sitting in something and the water had been poured in. Of her upper body the burns were worst on the right side as though she had at some point fallen over sideways and into the boiling water.
“He didn’t kill her here,” she stated the obvious, needing to say something and unable to think of anything else right now. “I think she was alive,” she said softly.
“It’s days like this I just want to take my kid and my wife and move to the middle of nowhere,” Jonathon said.
“Evil can find you anywhere.”
“I know.” Her partner nodded grimly.
Jonathon’s family had also personally experienced the effects of crime, and she understood his intense desire to protect his wife and son.
“The killer transported her carefully, probably in the blanket she’s laid out on,” Tracey informed them. “Damage to the body is minimal. If he’d just tossed her in his car, driven here, then thrown her out, I’d expect to see a lot more flesh missing.”
“So, he tortures her and kills her in one of the most horrifically painful ways I can imagine, but then takes care when bringing her body here,” Jonathon mused.
“Quiet location.” She glanced up and down the road. They were just on the outskirts of the city, and in the thirty minutes or so that she and Jonathon had been here she hadn’t seen any other cars.
“He probably picked it so no one would see him dump the body,” her partner said.
“Dumped but not ‘dumped’,” she said. “Like Tracey said, he brought her here then very carefully laid her out. Didn’t pose her though, just kind of put her down.”
“He covered her face, it could be a sign of remorse,” Jonathon said.
Allina nodded. The potential show of remorse was completely at odds with the violent death he’d inflicted on the woman. “Although he probably chose this location so no one would see him leave the body he still wanted her found. If he didn’t, he could have buried her in a shallow grave, dumped her in a river attached to something to weigh her down, or left her in the boiling water till there was nothing left but bones and then disposed of those.” Allina had to pause to swallow back the rush of bile that flooded her throat. “He wanted someone to find her.”
“Did the man who found the body see anyone hanging around?” Tracey asked.
“No,” she replied. “He just saw something pale at the side of the road, said he thought it was an animal. He was worried it might have been hit by a car and hurt so he was going to take it to work with him, he’s a vet. When he got out of his car, he saw that it was a body, so he immediately called 911.”
“He didn’t stage the scene,” Jonathon noted. “Just carefully laid out the body then left.”
“He did leave this.” Kane Curtis came up behind them. Kane was Tracey’s husband and worked for the crime scene unit. He and Tracey were in their forties and had been married for seventeen years. They didn’t have any human kids but had a whole houseful of fur babies, most of them rescues.
Allina looked at what the CSU tech held in his gloved hands.
As chilling as the scene of the woman’s body was—and it was chilling—what Kane held was much, much worse.
“Fingerprints?” Jonathon asked.
“No.”
“Did he leave it with the body, or did you just find it lying around nearby?” Allina already knew the answer to that question, but she needed to ask in the slim chance she was wrong.
“It was with the body. Just lying beside her head,” Kane replied.