Already Dead, page 4
She either pretended to sleep, or did sleep, for the better part of six hours.
CHAPTER FIVE
“There,” Laura said, pointing ahead of them. There was a police car parked at the side of the road, obvious from its markings and from the way the officer was pacing ahead of it, his hands on his hips. When he saw Laura slowing the car down and pulling up in front of him, he walked towards them, tilting his head to look through the windshield as if trying to identify them.
“Finally,” Agent Won said, practically clapping his hands together in glee at this development. “We’re here?”
Laura nodded up the road a short way as the officer approached her open window. “GPS says the town boundary is just over there. We’re here.”
It was a pleasant day, despite it being winter. Next to the cooped-up air of the plane, the fresh breeze coming off the sea was actually refreshing. It was a picturesque part of the California coast, too – down below their car, past a railing, the waves foamed on rocks that looked to have been placed there perfectly by some Hollywood crew. Scrubby trees and dry, old grass indicated that this was probably a lush paradise in the summer, and ahead Laura could see signs for a turning that would take them to a local beach.
Pacific Cove was obviously a nice place to visit all year round, but much nicer when the weather was warm and the flowers were blooming. Laura was already forming a picture in her head of what to expect. A quiet town, much larger than it needed to be, because they were used to large numbers of tourists coming through. Most likely a close community, where everyone knew everyone. That could make their job easier, and it could also make it harder. Rumors could travel fast, and they weren’t always accurate.
“Ma’am,” the officer said, leaning down to speak to her through the window. He was younger than she’d expected, with sandy-brown hair that seemed to curl in every direction but the one he likely intended when he took off his hat. “I’m Detective Scott Waters with the Pacific Cove PD. Are you the agents we’ve been expecting?”
“That’s right,” Laura said, taking her hands off the wheel to reach for her badge. “I’m Special Agent Laura Frost.”
“Special Agent Eric Won,” Won added quickly, throwing his own badge out in front of Laura so rapidly that she actually had to pull herself back to avoid the danger of being hit with it. “Oh, sorry.”
“Our chief asked me to meet you here and escort you wherever you’d like to go first,” Detective Waters said. “He felt I could be of the most help to you, as I was the first responder on the scene at both murders.”
“Is that so?” Laura asked, lifting an eyebrow. “How big is your police department here?”
“Not big,” Waters shrugged. “There’s five of us, in all.”
Laura nodded. So, a coincidence, then, most likely. If the department had been larger, she might have eyed Waters himself with a lot more suspicion. But since there were so few officers to begin with, the likelihood of the same one finding each of the bodies was a lot higher. Still, it was something to keep in the back of her mind, just in case.
“Let’s go to the latest crime scene,” Laura said. “You’ll lead us there in your car?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Waters nodded respectfully. “I’ll take you there right now.”
He hustled back to his car with a half-run. Laura was pleased, at least, to see a little deference from the locals. Her last case had been something of a nightmare, always butting heads with a Captain who clearly didn’t want them there. This one, though, was young and probably in awe of having real-live FBI agents come to his small town. Her seniority here, with Won rather than Nate, might actually be something of a gift.
Not that it made up in any way for not having Nate around.
Laura started the engine up again as the police cruiser in front of them started up, then pulled out after it. They made a solemn procession down the road that led into town, past aesthetically pleasing rock formations, more foamy cliffs, and that beach, covered in soft white sand below them. From there, they wound between quaint little hillside houses, each of them spaced widely apart, and soon entered the town itself.
Pacific Cove was much what Laura had pictured in her mind: old-fashioned white-fronted buildings flanked both sides of the street, still bearing old-style banners and signs as if the town was stuck in a previous century. The stores and businesses were brightened with painted window frames or facades, with jolly stars and stripes bunting and flags hanging from storefronts and lampposts. It was a tourist town. Even the few modern interventions – a nationally-known chain café tucked beside a barber shop, a couple of luxury hotels and a new block of condos – managed to fit in with the overall style of the place.
And Laura didn’t fail to notice, too, how people watched when they drove by. Staring at the cop car first, then the fact that another was following it. Word was going to spread that the FBI were in town very fast – and that, too, might end up being the kind of thing that could cause them problems.
“It’s beautiful here,” Agent Won said, wistfully.
“Hmm,” Laura replied, her mind on other things. She had a good idea of where Waters was taking them, and she had a feeling it wasn’t going to stay beautiful for very long.
Sure enough, he pulled up suddenly in a spot along the side of the road, clearly an approach to a marketplace. Laura saw the yellow police tape fluttering in the breeze before anything else. This was it.
She got out of the car without comment to Won, figuring he ought to be smart enough to know to follow her if he’d managed to make it through Quantico.
There was a slight possibility that she was being a little unfair, and a much higher one that she was being more unfriendly than Agent Won deserved. It wasn’t really his fault that he wasn’t Nathaniel Lavoie. But that fact rankled in her throat all the same, and Laura hadn’t exactly been given the time required to come to terms with it.
“This is it, up ahead,” Detective Waters said, gesturing ahead. He hung back, as if reluctant to go any closer. “She was put there yesterday evening. We got an anonymous tip from a caller who used that payphone right next to it.”
Laura took in the position of the payphone, against the wall of a nearby business, glancing around quickly. “No camera footage from around here?”
Waters shook his head no. “There used to be a camera up on the corner, but it got defaced last year by some drunk tourist and they took it down. I guess they were getting around to replacing it, but it just never got done.”
Laura nodded. Figured. If it would have been that easy, the locals wouldn’t have needed to call the FBI. “So, walk me through it,” she said. “You were first on the scene. What did you see?”
“Did you get my briefing notes?” Waters asked, glancing at her almost pleadingly.
“We did,” Laura said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Agent Won helpfully holding them up with a grin. He was acting like was on vacation, not attending a crime scene. “But I want to hear it from you, now. Paint the picture for me.”
Waters swallowed, braced his jaw, then nodded. “So, my partner drove down here, and I was in the passenger seat. We parked about where we’re standing now, and we could already see something on the ground, so I got out and rushed ahead.” He walked forward a few paces quickly, as if demonstrating. Laura followed him and couldn’t help noticing Won copying the same quick paces as if he was literally walking in Waters’s footsteps. “As I got around here, I could make out what it was. Ashley.”
“Ashley Christianson,” Laura said, recalling it from the notes.
“She was a twenty-two-year-old local woman who worked at a diner near here, right?” Agent Won spoke up. Like he was trying to prove he’d read the case notes, too.
“That’s right,” Waters said, glancing back at him. Laura wished Agent Won would shut up. Waters was obviously battling emotions right now, and she wanted as much of the story from his mouth as she could get. She wanted the raw, visceral reaction of the person who had been on the scene, because that was more valuable than any impression that she could get from the scene herself – especially now that the body had been taken away.
“Where was she?” Laura asked, prompting Waters to get back on track and hoping they hadn’t lost too much steam.
“Right here,” he said, moving forward and ducking under the tape. It was only a small area that had been marked off, and people were already placing bouquets of flowers all around it. It was a couple of feet from the payphone, right in the center of the street.
Up ahead, market stalls with quaint wooden boards painted with flowers and hand lettering stood empty, no doubt a permanent fixture of this part of town designed to draw in buyers during the tourist season. Right now, their metal frames, devoid of the normal drapes and goods that would pretty them up, seemed almost ominous. The street opened up into a market square which extended towards the shore, making this very obviously a focal point for the town.
“This is extremely public,” Laura said. “Was there anyone else around when you found her?”
“No,” Waters said. “It was pretty late, so I guess no one had come by here for a while. I was the only person on the scene.”
It made sense. That was how the killer had managed to put the body here without being caught. In order to put it down in such a public place, it had to be done under cover of night. A time when everyone else was sleeping. And yet, the candle had been lit – as if drawing attention to her.
“Tell me about the candle,” Laura said. “Describe how she was laying.”
Waters swallowed again, cleared his throat, and quickly shook his head as if to dislodge something. “Sorry,” he said. “I went to school with Ashley, you know? She was a couple years younger than me, but…”
“It’s alright, take your time.” Laura watched him carefully, how he seemed to be trying to put a professional face back on. Was it real? She thought so, by her gut instinct. So far, Waters was checking out. But she’d been fooled before, and she was going to keep her eye on him for the rest of the case as well.
“She was flat on her back,” Waters said. “Fully clothed, and everything. There was blood on her shirt and her chest, where her throat had been cut, but there was no blood on the ground.”
“She must have been moved,” Won spoke up. The obvious.
Waters nodded, his concentration broken momentarily by the distraction. “Um. The candle… she was kind of holding it in her arms, like this?” He held his own hands across his chest, crossing them and cupping them around the base of an imaginary candle. “It was lit, and the wax had started to melt down. There were a few drops on her hands and her chest, but I don’t think it had been burning for long.”
Laura nodded. She reached out and put a hand on Waters’s shoulder for a moment, a brief reassurance. “Thank you. Was the first body similar? Evelina Collins, right?”
“Right,” Waters said. He turned his back on the spot where Ashley Christianson had lain, as if he needed to put it out of his head. “Yes, it was almost identical, I’d say. She was clothed, the same thing with her neck and the blood. She had the candle in her hands the same way. It was earlier in the evening, though. We had that one called in by a local who was walking by the alley and saw her.”
Laura checked her watch. It was already ten in the morning. If this pattern held up – a body at night after two days – then they only had until nightfall to make some progress here.
Standing in the street wasn’t going to facilitate that.
“Let’s go to the coroner,” she said to Waters as well as to Won. “I need to see these bodies.”
CHAPTER SIX
The coroner’s office was tiny, a small and low building right next to the precinct, looking like it had been built as an afterthought at a later date. Laura took it in with a sinking feeling, wondering if they were about to walk into something that was far from state of the art. Waters led them inside with a confident stride, only glancing once at the two cops who were standing outside the precinct door watching them. He even put on a little of a swagger. Showing off to his co-workers, Laura thought.
Once inside, the already cool temperature dropped noticeably. Laura had braced for it and didn’t react but Won shivered. Through another set of double doors, they walked right into the morgue – with no reception desk or any kind of security, Laura noted. Maybe not a good sign.
“Hey, Tone, you here?” Waters called out. Laura had a moment to glance around the small space: two metal trays which held draped sheets over bodies, with no room for a third. A wall at the far side equipped with metal drawers, the kind for storing more bodies, and a large sink on the right. The left held a small desk and an ancient-looking computer.
A door at the back of the room opened, and an elderly-looking woman with wiry gray hair sticking out around thick glasses appeared. She fixed sharp eyes on them that seemed owlishly large behind the lenses, squinting as she moved forwards.
“No need to yell so loudly, Scott,” she said, her voice as sharp as her eyes. Maybe she wasn’t as elderly as she’d first appeared – or at least, not as feeble. “I’m right here.”
“I’ve got the FBI agents with me,” Waters said, indicating Won and Laura with a thumb jerked over his shoulder. “They want to see the bodies.”
Laura glanced at Won at that moment, just in time to notice that his face was extremely pale. She narrowed her eyes.
“Have you done this before?” she asked, hissing it under her breath as Waters and the coroner exchanged a couple of pleasantries.
Won cleared his throat, darting a glance at her before putting his eyes forward again. “No,” he admitted. “I mean, yes. Of course. In training. Just not…”
Laura’s eyes almost bugged out of her skull. “Have you worked a live murder case before?”
“Well,” Won said, which was more than enough to set Laura’s blood pressure skyrocketing. “Not, like, live exactly. I mean, we did a lot of stuff at the Academy. And I’ve done some cases since then!”
Laura wanted to ask him what kind of cases, but she looked up to realize that the coroner was now fixing them both with that same sharp glance. Laura had no doubt that the woman had heard and understood everything, even when they were speaking under the cover of her own conversation with Waters.
“Toni Lisle,” she said, extending a hand with a quick and birdlike movement. Laura shook it, surprised to find how strong her grip was. “Let’s get this show on, then. You’ll be wanting to look at them in chronological order?”
Laura nodded once, appreciating the woman’s businesslike manner. “That would be ideal, thank you.”
Toni nodded sharply back, ambling over to the furthest table. She had that kind of rolling gait that older people often have, a constant compromise between aching muscles and bones. Still, it was clear that her body was the only thing about her that was aged – her mind was functioning as sharply as it ever might have been. She pulled back the sheet with one swift movement, revealing the body of Evelina Collins.
“This, here, is the fatal wound,” Toni said, indicating the gaping opening at the neck. “If you’ll look closely, you’ll see it was a fairly smooth cut. She was not struggling when it happened, and the hand of the killer did not falter.”
There was a gagging noise from behind her. Laura turned just in time to see Agent Won running for a trash can and emptying his stomach into it. Given that she knew what exactly was in his stomach – the same stodgy airplane breakfast she’d been subjected to – she couldn’t say it was much of a loss. It was disappointing, however. She’d figured he was green as soon as she looked at him. But this… he wasn’t just green. He was brand new.
“Get it all out, son,” Toni said, the only person in the room to acknowledge it. Waters was looking at the ground, like he didn’t want to shame another law enforcement officer. Laura realized she was glaring in Won’s direction and took the physical effort required to smooth out her features.
“You can wait outside,” she said, trying her hardest to sound sympathetic.
“No,” Won said, his voice rough, holding up a hand shakily. “No, I’m good.”
“Just make sure you don’t go again all over these ladies,” Toni said sternly. “Now, as I was saying, it’s a smooth cut. Judging by the lack of blood on the skin and the fact we only have lividity on the backs of the bodies, I would say there wasn’t a lot of movement just before or after the time of death.”
“In other words, they didn’t put up a fight,” Laura said. She refocused on the task at hand, trying not to keep thinking about the bucket full of Won’s sick even though she could smell it now. He would have to handle himself. She’d given him the option to leave, and if he wasn’t taking it, that was his choice.
“Didn’t, or couldn’t,” Toni said smartly. She lifted up the arm of the body, letting it sit in the air in front of Laura’s face as if she was giving a demonstration. “There’s a lack of restraint marks. No marks at all on the rest of the body, in fact. But what I did find is traces of chloroform in the blood.”
“He knocks them out, lays them down somewhere, and cuts their throats. Then he carries them away from the blood – maybe washes them, first? And places them in a public spot for someone to find them,” Laura translated. Won made a noise in his throat from the foot of the table and retreated back towards the trash can a couple of steps, though this time he managed not to throw up.
“Then adds the candle,” Toni said, turning the hand in the other direction. Now Laura could see the back of it, the way it was crusted with dried white wax.
“This is very… gentle,” Laura said, though it felt admittedly strange to be saying it in regard to a murder. “They wouldn’t have suffered at all. They’d have felt the cloth over the mouths, or… do you think it was a cloth?”
Toni nodded, pointing to a few things around the nose and mouth area that didn’t look like anything at all to Laura. “Clear signs of inhalation here and here.”
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