At Rope's End (A Dr. James Verraday Mystery #1)(24)
“That’s probably when he took the jewelry off them too?”
“Most likely. He probably stores his trophies in some special container that he keeps well hidden and only brings out when he’s either fondling the jewelry or taking new prizes off his victims.”
“And after that? How does he dispose of their bodies?”
“The fact that he has twice left bodies in publicly accessible locations suggests to me that he feels his property is safe enough to kill on, but not safe enough to dispose of a body on. He has enough time to kill them and clean them, but he can’t keep them around because wherever he’s doing this, he fears that other people—public or family members—will find out. So he gets rid of them somewhere else.”
“What’s his process?”
“He would plan that out meticulously too. He uses some sort of vehicle that would be easy to load and unload from, something like a van. It would have some sort of liner, like heavy vapor barrier plastic, that he can remove afterwards and then dispose of in some way that wouldn’t attract any attention, like in an incinerator. The loading area is also some place where he feels safe, where he’s certain that he can take his time without being observed.”
“So either indoors or shielded from view.”
“Yes. And the vehicle would be nondescript. Something that wouldn’t attract attention.”
“What about the choice of dump sites for the bodies?”
“So far we only have the two to go on. Both were fairly secluded places where there was little chance of him being observed. He left Alana Carmichael’s body in a dumpster behind a school, not only late at night, but over the Easter long weekend.”
“So it’s a holiday and there isn’t going to be anybody there to see him.”
“Exactly. He would have scouted the locations, learned the habits of the people around there. Knew when it was least likely that he’d run into police or anybody else.”
“But there was no attempt to hide the bodies in the long term,” said Maclean.
“Exactly. Ditto for the cranberry bog. If he did his research—and I guarantee he did—he knew that the bog would be drained once the cranberries were harvested. He’s so confident that he can remove any evidence tying him to the bodies that he doesn’t need the bodies to disappear forever.”
“Just long enough for him to get safely back to wherever he operates from.”
“Exactly. And that’s something that bothers me about all this. I mean, beyond the fact that young women are being murdered.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s no serial killer who starts out this polished. Pickton, Dahmer, they all made mistakes. They were just lucky enough that the local cops were even more incompetent than they were, otherwise they would have been caught.”
“But you said this guy’s methodical and intelligent. Couldn’t our killer just have done a lot of research? If he’s as organized and painstaking as you say he is, maybe he just knew exactly what he was doing from the get-go?”
“That’s the part I still haven’t sorted out,” replied Verraday. “I don’t care if you’re Stephen Hawking or Usain Bolt. There’s a learning curve to everything. Nobody’s this flawless right out of the gate. Alana Carmichael was not his first victim.”
“So why are we only finding out about him now?”
“He may have lived somewhere else and moved to the Seattle area recently. Or he may have lived in Seattle all his life and is now just getting so confident that he doesn’t care about the bodies being found.”
“You’re saying there are more bodies out there.”
“I’d say the chances against it are almost nil. And unless we catch him, there will be more.”
CHAPTER 11
Verraday was in the lecture hall preparing for his afternoon class in criminal psychology and behavior when he heard his cell phone buzzing in his briefcase. For a moment, he considered ignoring it. But he rarely received calls on his cell during the day and guessed it was Maclean. Students were still trickling in, and the computer he used for his PowerPoint presentation hadn’t quite finished booting up. So he reached in to retrieve it and answer the call.
The soft leather briefcase had been a birthday present from his sister Penny and had a cleverly designed array of internal pockets to keep items separated—perfect for a highly organized person like Penny. Verraday’s problem was that he did not share his older sibling’s predisposition. He’d forgotten which pocket he’d placed the phone in, and its vibrations were spread out evenly, seeming to come from every part of the case’s dark interior at the same time. Verraday fumbled around blindly in pouch after pouch and found nothing. He reached down into one large pocket and, too late, detected the edge of the burlesque house flyer. He’d forgotten to take it out of his briefcase the previous night, and a corner of the sharp, crisply guillotined stock slid in under his index fingernail and gave him a nasty paper cut.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed, managing to keep it down to a stage whisper.
On the fifth ring, he located the cell and finally answered. He could hear the excitement in Maclean’s voice as soon as she began speaking.
“We’ve got a lead. I found a PayPal transfer to Rachel’s bank account, which showed that it came from some place called The Victorian Closet. I Googled it. It’s a store downtown. I checked the phone number, and it matches one of the numbers in Alana Carmichael’s cell records. I got her bank statements and it turns out there’s a payment to her there too. There’s a solid connection to both victims.”