The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(27)

Oh, God. Maggie recoiled in horror, but fought the instinctive urge to turn away, to close her eyes, to run from the tent and throw up the morning’s tea and roll now churning in her stomach.

Instead, she forced her gaze to the woman’s innocent-looking face. You were so young, Maggie thought, her heart heavy. So very young. A surge of anger cut through her. And someone killed you deliberately. Murdered you. But why?

“As you can see,” Durgin said softly, “she wasn’t merely killed—she’s been slaughtered.” The rusty, thick scent of blood was overwhelming.

“Our victim, Miss Doreen Leighton, was found early this morning by the neighborhood’s ARP warden. She alerted the police.” Durgin noted Maggie’s pallor. “You all right?” he asked. “Would you like to return to your Swiss boarding school now?”

“I didn’t come down with the last shower, Detective Durgin,” she countered, squaring her shoulders. There was no time for being emotional. Feelings would come later, in private. “I know my way around blood and bodies.”

“Believe me,” Mark interposed. “Miss Hope has earned her stripes.”

Detective Durgin shrugged, his face still skeptical. “Steady on then, Tiger.”



Maggie found anger helped quell her grief and horror. “That’s Miss Tiger to you, Detective.”

Durgin looked to Frain. “The victim was dead when we arrived. Looks to have been dead for some time, at least twelve hours.” He pointed to the girl’s neck. “Here you can see the first incision, and then the second cuts….” From his inside jacket pocket, Detective Durgin withdrew a magnifying glass and bent low over the woman. He looked through the thick glass at the bruises on her throat.

“Killer wore gloves.” Durgin’s face was stone.

“There’s not much blood.”

“She was killed somewhere else and then moved here. She’s not wearing a coat—she was killed indoors.”

“No signs of a struggle.”

“No, she’s clean,” Durgin agreed. “She didn’t put up a fight.”

“She knew her attacker then?” Maggie asked.

“Possibly. I believe we’re looking for a man. Single. Young. Sadistic tendencies. Wishing he could be doing more with his life. He’s enraged with the cards life’s dealt him. And he despises women—probably had an abusive or absent mother. Look how he carefully arranged her body, her organs. Like she’s a doll. Like she’s a prop. Like she’s a, a thing to him.” Durgin said it softly.

Maggie was baffled. “How could you possibly know all that—just from looking at a body?”

Durgin continued to stare down at the corpse. “He’s arrogant. He’s young, but he’s experienced. This isn’t his first, or his second, murder. But now something’s set him off.”

“But how do you know that?” Maggie insisted.

“I get inside their heads. I think like them, create what I call a profile. It’s a new way to look at perpetrators.” He turned back to the body. “Look at his confidence. He’s been doing this for a while. His cuts are fearless. Even cocky. Only a young man cuts with that sort of arrogance.”



“Any witnesses?”

“I have my men canvassing the area, asking questions. Ah,” he said, as an older woman ducked into the tent to join them. “And this is the ARP warden I mentioned, Mrs. Baines. She has a few things to add.”

Although she had one hand on the head of her silver bulldog walking stick, the woman’s spine was ramrod straight and Maggie could see a lifetime of discipline in her posture. “I was on my patrol at around one this morning, when I saw a man come out of the park, onto the Outer Circle.”

“What did he look like, Mrs. Baines?” Mark asked, taking out a Moleskine notebook and fountain pen from his breast pocket.

“He was big—a big man. Bald,” she explained. “No hat. And he was wearing an apron.”

“An apron?”

“The kind a butcher wears. White, but with stains. Bloodstains, I’d imagine.”

Mark blinked. “And what did he do?”

“I saw him walk to a van and get in, and then he took off in the direction of Park Square. I was close enough to use my torch—the license plate started with an E.”

“Are you sure about the plate, ma’am?” Mark asked.

“I may be old, young man,” the woman snapped, “but I’m not blind and deaf. Nor dumb in either sense, thank you very much.”

“No, ma’am.” Mark had the grace to look embarrassed. “Of course not. Sorry, ma’am.”

“You’re Mrs. Vera Baines,” Maggie exclaimed, remembering the file she’d read in Mark’s office. “You found the other young woman, too—Miss Joanna Metcalf.”

Vera Baines appraised the redhead. “I did.”



“And you know this area well.”

“I do. I’ve lived here all my life. Raised my children here. And I’m taking it personally that this sort of horrible thing is happening on my streets, in my neighborhood, on my watch. Two poor dead girls! We need to catch whoever’s doing this—before anyone else gets hurt.”