Bloodless (Aloysius Pendergast #20)(32)
“We believe a tool called a trocar, similar to a large-bore needle, was inserted into the femoral artery of the leg. As to what purpose, we have no idea yet.”
When Delaplane tried to move to another questioner, Betts continued. “Is it true that all the blood was sucked out…every drop?”
She arched her eyebrows and fixed him with a steady gaze. “Every drop was taken. We’re analyzing how it might have been done.” Before Betts could continue, she said: “Mr. Wellstone?”
Coldmoon saw a handsome figure in an impeccable suit—gray hair at the temples, horn-rimmed glasses, every inch the professor—nod in acknowledgment. “I have a question for Special Agent Pendergast,” he said in a patrician drawl. “Agent Pendergast, I understand you’re one of the FBI’s leading experts on deviant criminal psychology, especially as it involves serial homicide. Do you think the perpetrator is, in fact, a deviant serial killer?”
Silence fell as the crowd awaited Pendergast’s answer.
“Serial killer?” Pendergast finally said. “Perhaps. Deviant? Perhaps not.” He paused. “Perhaps what we are seeing is the expression of a certain kind of normative psychology, not deviant so much as a deviation from our expected standards.”
“What do you mean by that?” Wellstone asked.
Amen, Coldmoon thought.
But Pendergast said nothing more, and with that Delaplane concluded the press conference.
21
STANDING IN THE MUCK, Commander Alanna Delaplane slapped at a mosquito and cursed under her breath. The dog handler, Boris Strawbridge, was moving ahead of her, his boots squishing along the riverbank as he forced his way through the thick vegetation. Twist, the giant bloodhound he had brought, had the longest tongue Delaplane had ever seen on a dog. The powerful animal’s leash was clipped to a belt around Strawbridge’s waist to keep his hands free for pushing aside vegetation. Behind, she could hear the distant rush of traffic as it crossed the river on the Victory Drive Bridge, but the trees and bushes were so thick she couldn’t see the span. Where they were—along the marshy shores of Sylvan Island—might as well be the damn Amazon jungle for all its impenetrable thickness and whining bugs. The big bloodhound was snuffling about listlessly, more interested in trash that had washed up than any scent connected with the Ellerby homicide.
The body had to have entered the river somewhere, and while it might have been thrown off the nearby bridge, that seemed unlikely, as the roadway carried Interstate 80 traffic and was almost continuously traveled day and night. Dumping the body would have involved hoisting it over a tall cement guardrail, across a breakdown lane, and over a wall: too much time, too many opportunities to be seen. Delaplane figured the body had been dragged down to the river and left there, and judging from where it was found, it might have been anywhere along this stretch of shore. She wondered how the dog could smell anything above the stench of swamp gas and mud coming up from the river, but Strawbridge hadn’t seemed to think it was a problem.
Strawbridge abruptly shouted and tried to haul the dog away from something, and Delaplane could see it had gotten into a McDonald’s bag full of rotting french fries and a half-eaten burger.
“No, no, Twist! Drop it!” Strawbridge yanked on his leash while the dog strained to slop more of the disgusting mess into his mouth. Strawbridge reached over and pulled away the bag, only to have the burger spill out of it, along with a mass of writhing maggots.
“Keep that damn dog moving,” said Delaplane.
This was looking more and more like a wasted idea. They had already been down the cemetery side of the river, with no luck, and were approaching the place where the body had originally been found. If they didn’t pick up a scent here, there was no point in going farther, because bodies didn’t float upstream.
Maybe the dog was no good. In the square, the same dog hadn’t even been able to track the route of Ellerby’s corpse from the spot he was killed—based on where they’d found his finger and bit of scalp—to the nearest street. She supposed the body might have been carried by two people, and thus not left a scent. That itself was a valuable piece of information.
“Find!” commanded Strawbridge yet again, kicking away the maggoty burger and waving the scent object from Ellerby at the dog’s nose. Ahead the woods gave way to a small grassy marsh with a mud bank. At the far end was where the body had been found by some boaters. That was their stopping point. And thank God, because beyond the little salt marsh rose a junglelike wall of green worse than anything they had gone through so far.
“We’ll turn around just before those woods,” she said to Sheldrake, who was bringing up the rear.
“Can’t be soon enough for me,” replied Sheldrake, smacking a bug. She could already see some ugly red welts on his face and neck.
They emerged from the trees into the marsh, the grass about waist high. A breeze sprang up, sweeping the bugs away and providing some welcome relief from the stifling humidity. And now, finally, Twist latched onto a scent. It was remarkable how finding the trail changed the dog’s entire demeanor; how this ungainly, clumsy animal was suddenly focused, straining at the leash, nose to the ground, eyes keen.
“Got a scent,” said Strawbridge, pointing out the obvious.
“Good, good,” Delaplane told him. This was more like it.