At Rope's End (A Dr. James Verraday Mystery #1)(19)

First, Verraday looked at one of the missing persons pictures supplied by Carmichael’s mother to the police department when her daughter first disappeared. It was a snapshot that looked like it had been taken in a back garden on a sunny July afternoon. In it, Alana wore a retro, pastel-green summer dress, something that looked like it was from the early 1950s. Her hair was even darker than Rachel’s, dyed black probably, thought Verraday, and cut medium-length in a Dita Von Teese, rockabilly style. Like Rachel, she had more piercings than most young women, but unlike the other victim, Alana’s were more prominent. She had a stud through her right eyebrow, as well as a nose ring. On her left ear, which was the side visible in the photograph, she had three rings at the bottom, in her lobule, and two more at the top of the ear, along the helix, beside two prominent studs. But what stood out the most was a cupid’s arrow. It was stainless steel, about two inches long and ran diagonally across her upper ear. The entry point, from which the arrow’s fletchings stuck out, was on the upper front helix. The arrow’s head emerged from a point at the back of her ear about three-quarters of an inch lower than the entry point. There was a black-and-red tattoo running down the left side of her throat, curving round her neck. The picture was small, but it appeared to be a cluster of roses. There was a second tattoo on her right arm, stretching from just above her wrist to a few inches above her elbow. This also seemed to be a cluster of roses, but in a more colorful red, yellow, and blue rendering. She held a tray on which there were two glasses and what appeared to be a pitcher of daiquiris. She wore a comically exaggerated expression of cordiality that morphed that “perfect hostess” smile seen so often in midcentury women’s magazines into a satirical “mad housewife” effect.

Clearly something in the visual culture of that era appealed to Alana, and a lot of young women like her, yet they felt the compulsion to mock it at the same time. But despite her sardonic mugging, Alana’s eyes didn’t have the brightness and light of a true smile. There was melancholy behind the vivid colors she surrounded herself with and the wit and style she projected. In another life, thought Verraday, someone with Alana’s highly developed aesthetic sense might have become an in-demand art director, costume designer, or set decorator. He wondered what her story might have been had she never been sexually assaulted by a stepfather, had never experienced all those setbacks that put her on a trajectory that would ultimately intersect with that of her killer.

That was Alana Carmichael in life. Now came the inevitability of observing Alana Carmichael in death. With a sense of foreboding, Verraday slid the first crime scene photo out from beneath the missing persons report. It was an overhead view of a dumpster. On top of broken furniture, pizza boxes, discarded flowerpots, and other detritus of everyday life lay the naked body of Alana Carmichael. Her head was slumped to the left, hanging over the side of a garbage bag. On the inside of her upper left thigh was a green tattoo, a forest or jungle of some sort. Upon closer examination, Verraday saw that it was the Garden of Eden, with Eve, an apple, and a serpent lurking within it.

Then he pulled out another photo of the crime scene, this one showing Alana Carmichael’s face and neck from the same overhead viewpoint, only in close-up. Like the photos of Rachel Friesen from the cranberry bog, it revealed deep ligature marks around the victim’s neck. Whatever the killer had used to strangle Alana Carmichael, it had been pulled so tightly that it had begun to cut into her skin. The blood vessels in her eyes had hemorrhaged from the force of the strangulation, just as Rachel Friesen’s had.

The next photo he removed from the pile was another close-up, this time a view of her left side. It revealed the neck tattoo he had seen in the backyard photo. At first glance, it appeared to be what he had observed before, a cluster of roses at a slightly odd angle. For some reason, beyond the fact that they were tattooed onto what was now a young woman murdered in a particularly vicious fashion, the image gave him a strangely uneasy feeling when he viewed it up close. He lifted the photo up and slowly rotated it around its axis. When he viewed it from a point behind the victim’s left ear, the now nearly upside-down tattoo suddenly revealed itself to be a cleverly macabre optical illusion. Someone viewing Alana close up and from behind would have been surprised, as Verraday now was, to see the roses artfully morph into a black-and-white skull surrounded by fronds and petals. He noticed something else not visible in the overhead shot: that the Cupid’s arrow pin that Alana Carmichael had been wearing in the backyard photograph was missing. He also noted that like Rachel, she had a piercing in her navel, but there was no ring or stud there in any of the crime scene pictures.

Then Verraday pulled out a photo taken at the morgue. It revealed that the victim’s back, buttocks, and thighs were heavily bruised and covered in welts, the same way Rachel Friesen’s were. According to the coroner’s report, the one major difference was that semen had been found on Alana’s panties, and it matched that of the accused, Peter Cray. It was an odd discrepancy. There was considerable forethought in the commission of both crimes. Whoever did this had chosen his victims, as well as his means of killing and disposing of them, with great care. Leaving traces of semen behind had been a major gaffe. Or had it?

Verraday set the coroner’s report down then pulled out Peter Cray’s file, starting with the mug shots. Verraday gazed at the photos and took an immediate dislike to him. Cray was a stocky man in his early thirties, with a neck that seemed bigger in circumference than his head. He had a pugnacious set to his jaw and gazed out from piglike eyes with a look that was simultaneously belligerent and stupid. It was an expression that Verraday had seen scores of times. It was the look of the repeat offender. Verraday’s instinctive dislike of Cray only increased when he read his rap sheet, a revolving door of charges and occasional convictions dating back to age fifteen. There were two arrests for beating up prostitutes and another for indecent exposure. Rounding out his record were several thefts, a robbery, a couple of assaults committed while intoxicated, and a few charges of receiving stolen merchandise that were dismissed because of lack of evidence. There was a break-and-entry charge that he’d beaten only because he was so drunk and high on OxyContin that he had fallen asleep behind the wheel of the getaway car while his partner was apprehended inside the victims’ home. When police questioned Cray, he claimed that he had no idea his friend was planning a break-in. He insisted that he had thought that the man was getting out to relieve himself, and that Cray had nodded off while waiting for him to return. Cray might not wind up on death row through his own efforts, thought Verraday, but he’d likely spend a lot of his life in prison for crimes not yet committed. Unless by some miracle, he rehabilitated himself, which seemed unlikely. Verraday’s eyes were beginning to sting, and his lids felt heavy. He took a sip of his brandy then closed them just for a moment to give them some rest. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sleeping when the motion of his head slumping forward jerked him awake. He pushed his chair away from the desk and headed to his bedroom, where he quickly peeled off his clothes and climbed under the covers before the effects of the natural melatonin could wear off and the misery and bleakness of the photos could creep back into his consciousness.