Die Again (Rizzoli & Isles, #11)(57)

“You know how much I hate to agree with Crowe,” said Jane, “but he’s got a point. There’s too much variability in these victims. If it is a single perp, why did he choose these particular victims? They have nothing in common, as far as I can see.”

“Because the common factor we started with was what Dr. Isles first focused on when she saw Jane Doe: the orange nylon cord around the ankles. Same as Gott.”

“She and I have already discussed that,” said Jane. “I didn’t think it was enough of a link.”

Maura noticed that Jane didn’t look at her as she spoke. Because she’s annoyed with me? she wondered. Because she thinks I shouldn’t play cop when my job is in the morgue, holding a scalpel?

“That’s all you have linking these dozen homicides? Tied by cord?” said Crowe.

“For both victims, orange solid-braid three-sixteenth-inch nylon was used,” said Tam.

“Available at every hardware store in the country.” Crowe snorted. “Hell, I might have some in my garage right now.”

“Nylon cord was not my only search term,” said Tam. “These dozen victims were all found suspended upside down. Some from trees, others from rafters.”

“It’s still not enough to make it a killer’s signature,” said Crowe.

“Let him finish, Detective Crowe,” said Maura. Up till now she’d hardly said a word, but she could hold her tongue no longer. “Maybe you’ll see what we’re getting at. There really may be a connection between our two cases and others around the country.”

“And you and Tam are going to pull the rabbit out of the hat.” Crowe took a handful of pages from the folder and spread them across the table. “Okay, let’s look at what you came up with. Victim number one, fifty-year-old white attorney in Sacramento. Six years ago, found hanging upside down in garage, hands and ankles bound, throat slashed.

“Victim number two, twenty-two-year-old Hispanic male truck driver, found hanging upside down in Phoenix, Arizona. Hands and feet bound, burn and cut marks all over his torso, genitals removed. Huh. Nice. Let me guess: drug cartel.

“Victim number three, thirty-two-year-old white male, record of petty theft, found dangling upside down from a tree in Maine, abdomen sliced open, internal organs scavenged. Oops, we already know the perp on that one. An arrest warrant’s been issued for his former buddy. So scratch that one from the list.” He looked up. “Need I go on, Dr. Isles?”

“There’s more to this than just the bound ankles and the cord.”

“Yeah, I know. There’s those three cut marks, maybe made with a knife, maybe not. This is just a distraction. Maybe Tam will play fetch for you, but I’ve got my own case to focus on. And you still can’t tell me when Jane Doe died.”

“I gave you an estimated time of death.”

“Yeah, somewhere between two and twenty years ago. Really specific.”

“Detective Crowe, your partner has put hours of work into this analysis. The least you can do is hear him out.”

“Okay.” Crowe tossed down his pen. “Go, Tam. Tell us how the dead people on this list are all connected to our Jane Doe.”

“Not all of these are,” said Tam. Tempers might be rising in the room, but he appeared as unruffled as ever. “The first list you saw was just our initial set of flagged homicides, based on type of cord and the fact they were found hanging upside down. Then I did a separate search, using the term evisceration, because we know it was done to Gott. And Dr. Isles suspects it was also done to Jane Doe, based on the cut mark in her sternum. VICAP gave us a few additional names, of victims who were merely eviscerated, but not hung by a rope.”

Jane looked at Frost. “There’s a phrase you don’t hear every day. Merely eviscerated.”

“While I was reading through those cases of evisceration, there was one in particular that caught my eye, from four years ago. The victim was a thirty-five-year-old female backpacker in Nevada, camping with friends. There were two women and two men in the group, but she was the only one who was ever found. The others are still missing. Based on insect evidence, she’d been dead between three and four days. The body was still intact enough for the ME to determine that evisceration had occurred.”

“Three to four days outdoors in the wild, and there was enough left of her to see that?” said Crowe.

“Yes. Because she wasn’t left on the ground. The body was found up in a tree, draped over a branch. Evisceration and elevation. I wondered if that combination was the key. It’s what a hunter would do with wild game. Hang it and gut it. Which brought me right back to Leon Gott and his connection to hunting and hunters. I went on the VICAP database again and started all over. This time, I looked for open cases in wilderness areas. Any victims who had sternal cut marks or anything else compatible with evisceration. And that’s when I found something interesting. Not just a single victim, but another missing group, just like those four backpackers in Nevada. Three years ago, in Montana, a trio of elk hunters vanished. All three were men. One man was later found partially skeletonized, and wedged up in a tree. A second man’s jawbone turned up months later—just the jawbone—near a cougar den. A bear or cougar attack was the ME’s theory, but a bear wouldn’t drag a body up a tree. Which led the ME to conclude it might have been a cougar attack. Although I’m not sure if cougars would drag a kill up a tree.”