Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(13)
Shauna almost laughed at the look on Stephanie’s face as she watched Zach furiously texting. Ronan put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Steph, any chance you could print out a guide for us? I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
“Sure, you bet.” She swiveled in her chair and began to click through folders as Shauna spoke to Ronan. Zach pinched the bridge of his nose and counted under his breath. She wondered if counting was his way of calming his temper.
“We need to talk to that hockey team,” she said. “And I say we haul them and their parents in here. Let them see how serious this is instead of going to them on campus.”
“Agreed,” Ronan said. Zach continued to count but nodded his head.
They exited Stephanie’s office and moved toward the bullpen, but hadn’t gotten far when Zach’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen.
“Doc Kane is ready for us,” he said grimly. Once again, Shauna was struck by the nature of the case. Zach now had to walk into the medical examiner’s suite and see a girl who would likely bring up thoughts of his niece lying dead on a slab.
Christ, she didn’t envy him.
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Chapter Eight
The drive to the medical examiner’s office was long enough for Zach to get his anger under control. He’d been shocked listening to the description of teenage boys getting into girls’ pants just to brag with the other guys about how far they’d gotten.
But shit, had he been that bad as a kid? Maybe it only seemed worse because they were able to share pics of the girls to Facebook groups with codes and scoring and shit nowadays. He sounded like an old man as the words back in my day ran through his mind.
He shook his head, thinking back. No, it wasn’t just the technology. He wouldn’t have rated girls and assigned codes to them. He and his friends didn’t make a game out of trying to get a girl into bed just because they knew she wanted to hold onto her virginity. He’d been an asshole at times, but there were limits. He’d never had sex with a woman who didn’t want him, and he never coerced and cajoled to get that consent.
They walked into the medical examiner’s suite and he shoved aside his feelings as he looked at Adrienne’s body covered to her shoulders by a sheet. He couldn’t let his emotions get the better of him right now. Stopping this killer needed to take all his focus.
“Mary Kane,” Dr. Kane said as she stuck her hand out for Shauna to shake. “You must be the detective the state sent to work with our boys.”
“Shauna O’Rourke.” Shauna grinned as she pumped the doctor’s hand. “Your boys?”
Dr. Kane shrugged and returned the smile, but turned almost immediately to her table. She was never one to waste a lot of time chatting.
“Cause of death was, as we suspected, manual strangulation. I trust you saw the images of the marks on the back of the vic’s neck?” She rolled Adrienne slightly and showed Shauna the mark on Adrienne’s neck. Shauna bent and looked at the twisting bruise where they speculated the killer might have used a tool to screw the rope, before moving aside to let Zach and Ronan do the same.
Dr. Kane continued, voice businesslike, but there was a somber edge to it. “I’ve taken oral and vaginal swabs. Semen was present in both. No signs of assault, but I did find evidence of gamma-hydroxybutyrate in her system.” She glanced up at the group. “GHB.”
Zach cursed under his breath. He was doing too much of that, but damn, this case just got worse and worse.
“That’s all new. No drugs and no sexual activity in the old cases,” Dr. Kane said.
Shauna nodded. “No sexual activity with our guy. That’s not to say the killings weren’t sexual in nature, of course. But never any evidence of intercourse or other activity. And no drugs in our vics.” She turned to Dr. Kane. “How long to run the semen through the system? I can send it up to our lab if that helps?”
Dr. Kane nodded. “That would probably be faster. I can put a rush on it, but with our backlog ...”
“No problem.” Shauna looked to Zach and Ronan. “I can run it up to our lab while you guys make some calls and get those hockey players in?”
“Sounds good. We don’t have enough to get warrants on any of these guys yet. I wish like hell we did. I’d love to see if any of these little pissants match the semen you found, Doc.” Zach looked back at Adrienne Edwards. “Maybe we can get them in for voluntary interviews and then pin them down on something that will let us get warrants for DNA.”
Ronan held up his phone. “I’m going to start making calls. Do we want to pull in the whole hockey team?”
“I think so,” Zach said. “One of them will be weak enough to hand over their social media accounts, even if the first line guys stick together and back their captain.”
“Got it.” Ronan walked out, phone already at his ear.
Shauna turned back to the medical examiner. “How sure are you that the rope and the lipstick are a match to the crime scene, Dr. Kane?”
The doctor’s brows only went up a hair, but Shauna noticed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to question your results. It’s just that so many aspects of this scene don’t fit with the old crimes. I just want to be sure before we link these together.”