Page 22 of Killer Clone

Her mind cast back to the summer, the last time she found herself in a similar situation, when she was investigating the murder of Martin Lin’s sister. Her heart twinged with sadness for her late colleague.

Still, she had a job to do, and wallowing in her grief wouldn’t help anybody, least of all the family of Patrick Marrion. “Good vintage?”

“No.” Stacy stood up and stepped away. “Recent, I’d say. No more than a day or two. Looks like this public bathroom returned to service as soon as the police tape was removed.”

“Nice. Not what you were looking for? Because forensics has been all over this place.”

“I was hoping they’d missed something. The pictures had no blood. Not a drop. That’s strange, isn’t it? At least, when you compare it to what happened up north.”

“Mm.”

The crime scenes in Claymore Township had been full of blood, the bodies bled out and left at the crime scenes, as though the blood itself was part of the killer’s tableau. Without the gore, the killing would’ve lost much of its meaning.

But Stacy was right. The lack of blood here was yet another difference between this unsub’s M.O. and that of the Claymore killer.

Stella examined the whitewashed wall. The CSI team hadn’t missed any drops of blood spattered between the mold. Thereweren’t even any scratches suggesting forensics had scraped off paint and brickwork to conduct an analysis.

“So he was definitely killed elsewhere.”

Stacy nodded. “Uh-huh. And the body was dumped here out of the way.”

Stella frowned. Their theory that this might be the work of a copycat was losing traction. A lack of blood at the scene. The fact that the victim wasn’t found strung up in a tree. A lack of cuneiform. A second location. It was all so different from the Claymore killer.

There was only one real similarity—albeit a major one—the fact that Patrick Marrion had been completely exsanguinated, after having been strung up like a slaughtered cow. The scratches on the victim’s back might be another similarity. But they still didn’t know if those were made intentionally.

“But we’re not really out of the way. This is the middle of the city. Bring a car up here, and you could drop a body without anyone noticing. But people come through here. Someone was going to find that poor young man eventually. And sooner rather than later.”

“It does smell here, though.” Stacy waved one flap of her coat. “The stench of the garbage would hide the smell of the body and keep regular looky-loos away.”

“People would still see it. They dump garbage. They empty their bladders. Not sure what the M.E. told Hagen and Ander about the time of death, but I can’t imagine the body sat out here more than a few hours before being found.” Stella paced away from the wall.

Something about the scene didn’t add up.

“Usually, when someone dumps a body, they put it somewhere it won’t be found. Or at least won’t be found until they’re a safe distance away.”

“Or dumps the body in a spot that would get rid of trace evidence.” Stacy pointed east. “The Cumberland River is just a few blocks from here. Why not there?”

“Exactly. And there’s no shortage of hiding places outside the city, where a corpse could lie for months before anyone found it. My sense is that you only transport a body here, to an alley in the middle of Nashville, when you don’t want to get caught dumping it but do want the victim found.”

Stacy breathed in slowly. She seemed to regret her choice immediately and coughed, beating her chest with one hand. “So the unsub’s sending a message.”

“Looks that way. I just wish I knew what it meant. And that he’d just sent an email with bullet points instead.” Stella wanted to twist the gold stud in her ear, but her nitrile gloves had been through somethingsthis morning. She kept her hands by her side. “Well, let’s think through the steps of getting a corpse here. What do you need?”

“A vehicle.” Stacy held up one gloved finger. “Even light bodies are heavy.”

“So we need to personally review the footage out on the street and anything pointed to this alley to see if we can find a vehicle.”

“You’d need to cover the body somehow, don’t you think? This area is still pretty trafficked. Someone would notice you hauling a naked corpse around.”

“Maybe he wasn’t naked when he was transported?”

Stacy waved a hand around the garbage-strewn area. “I’ve seen a lot of things around here, but not one set of discarded clothes. The unsub could’ve taken the clothes with them though.”

“Or they used…garbage bags? Rolled him in carpet or blankets?” Stella scanned the hopelessly contaminated area.“We’ll never find fibers here. We should double-check the M.E.’s report to see if he found any kind of material.”

Stacy held up two gloved fingers, then they both almost gagged at the sight of something slimy on her middle finger. “So far we need transportation and some way to temporarily cover the body.”

Stella bit her lip as she pondered her options as a hypothetical body-dumper. “As a killer, I wouldn’t want to leave trace evidence, like DNA or fingerprints. So I’d probably wear gloves.”

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