“You seen today’s paper?” Terry Schoenfeld didn’t bother with a greeting when Jack answered the phone.
“Yeah, that article and yesterday’s.”
Jack leaned back in his office chair, awkwardly propped up his right leg on the desk, and reread the morning’s article for the fifth time. Focusing on the list with the names and ages of all the victims.
“You remember all that from those killings back then?”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Jack snapped at his friend.
Terry was silent for two seconds. “Sorry, man. It just isn’t something I think about, I guess. I’d forgotten that they’d never found the remains of the killer’s last victim. And how that one gymnast had the shit beat out of her when she witnessed her friend’s kidnapping. And then she testified against the killer. They never did release her name, did they? I wasn’t caught up in it like you were. Christ. I almost choked when I saw Hillary’s name listed along with the other victims. I’d forgotten that you’d dated her.”
Jack grimaced. He couldn’t forget. Six hours of questioning by the police after the discovery of Hillary’s body was rather memorable. He’d been questioned along with all her other ex-boyfriends. And there were a lot of them. He’d been a little dismayed to be a number on a long list of boyfriends. And acutely distressed to be questioned in a murder case.
Mutual friends had introduced him to Hillary. He’d just graduated; she’d been a freshman. They’d dated for a few weeks, no more. He’d been attracted to her. She was pretty, athletic, and into running, but they had absolutely nothing in common and drifted apart. Not a match made in heaven.
He hadn’t seen her in several months when he’d heard she’d been murdered. Hillary had been victim number two.
He needed to get her face out of his mind. “The article doesn’t say anything about Cal Trenton or his badge they found.”
“State police haven’t released the info about the badge. They’re holding it back to sort out the crazies who call in to confess to dumping the skeleton. Trenton’s murder made the local paper down here, but it wasn’t in The Oregonian. The press hasn’t made the connection to the skeleton yet, and we’re not gonna help ’em make it.”
Jack was silent.
“Trenton was one of the good ones,” Terry offered.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jack said.
“How many years did you ride with him? Two? Three?”
“Two and a half.”
“He could be a royal asshole...”
“...but he was doing it for your own good,” Jack finished Cal Trenton’s oft-repeated line with a wry smile. The senior cop had taught him the ropes when he’d been fresh in the department. He swallowed hard as he remembered Terry’s description of Trenton’s death.
The old man hadn’t deserved that. No one deserved that.
Jack scratched at his right leg. The skin was tight, itchy. Why did it itch if the nerve endings had been obliterated? The old scar bothered him at weird times, usually when he thought about the Lakefield police.
“I’m hearing that the doctor at the discovery site was the anonymous witness this article is talking about.” Terry’s voice was low.
“That tall Amazon? She was a gymnast?”
“Fuck, no. Not the black-haired one. The little blonde. The specialist who figured out who the bones belonged to and almost fainted. They’re saying she was the one who was there the night Mills got abducted.”
Jack swung his leg off the desk and sat up, mind spinning. “You mean Dr. Campbell.” The woman had been at the abduction and then ten years later at the discovery of the remains? “That can’t be right. That’s too weird.”
“Seriously. I’ve heard it from two different sources. They say she admitted it to the state detectives on Saturday.”
Jack scanned the newspaper. “Then why isn’t her name in the paper? Why keep her anonymous?”
“Shit. You should know that. Who wants that kind of publicity?”
After the phone call, Jack eyed the byline at the top of the article. Michael Brody.
Jack pushed out of his chair and strode to his office window, gazing down at the winding Willamette River, the bright sun warming his face. Many years ago, his life had suffered a big upheaval when Hillary died. This time the upheaval could be more than big; it could be huge.
He had to prepare to see his name in print again. The facts that he’d dated a Co-Ed Slayer victim and a skeleton had been found on his property would be too juicy for any reporter to pass up. Wait until Cal Trenton’s badge and death were brought into the mix. What would the media print when they discovered Jack had partnered with the man?
What the hell was happening? First the body found on his property and now Cal? Was someone trying to set him up? For fucking murder? Why?
The chance to take shots at Harper Developing was something the media would jump on and relish. They’d ripped at him two years ago in a huge front-page feature about the poor recycling practices of some Portland companies. It wasn’t that Harper Developing didn’t recycle, but that his company could have recycled more.
Jack had admitted the issue, hired the biggest recycling guru he could find, and set up a committee to improve the company’s practices.
Only in Portland was it unforgivable not to recycle efficiently.
Harper Developing had been the big, bad, thoughtless business for two solid weeks in the headlines. Jack had been slammed on the editorial page by dozens of letters. He shook his head at the memory. Wasn’t like he’d dumped raw sewage in the Willamette River.
His successful company was a target. The public was fascinated by stories about serial killers, and reporters were going to dig into every aspect of his background, tying his name with the Co-Ed Slayer.
He threw the paper in the garbage can, swore, and then hauled it back out and tossed it in a recycling bin. He raked his hands through his hair. He and his company were going to be dragged through the mud. Over nothing. And he couldn’t hire an overpriced guru to time-travel into the past and change whom he worked with and dated.
He’d worked hard to make a good name for his company...their company. His dad started it, but Jack had built it and expanded it into the mini-empire it was today. With his father no longer active in the day-to-day decisions, Jack had paved his own way, wanting to be among the biggest and best developers in the city. And he’d done it.
No one else could’ve brought that level of success to the Harper name. He gave money to the right causes, built affordable quality housing and his luxury high rises, and got his picture in the society pages with the right people.
Now it was threatening to implode.
He wouldn’t let all his hard work be for nothing. He wouldn’t let his father’s legacy crumble under whispers and rumors.
Why was the skeleton in his building? Jack rubbed at his eyes. If it’d been in the apartments across the street from his building, today he’d be skimming the front page of the newspaper, then flipping to the sports section. Not pulling his hair out.
Oh, Lord. His breathing froze. He’d forgotten about Melody. He glanced at the clock. She must be sleeping in, since she hadn’t called, demanding an explanation. His older sister was going to be mad as hell. One of her nosy friends was bound to let her know Harper Developing was in the news. Melody managed the philanthropy and public relations aspects of the company and wouldn’t appreciate the published link to murder. Make that serial murder.
He had to do something before it got out of hand. But what?
He felt like he was trying hold on to a fish as it squirmed and wiggled. Things were sliding out of his control, and he was in an unfamiliar position. Powerless.
Who was doing this to him?
Jack paced the perimeter of his office, hands deep in his pockets as he concentrated. He needed more information. Some big pieces of the puzzle were missing. He was tempted to call the reporter, Michael Brody, but he knew better. The timing couldn’t be worse. Besides, anything he asked Brody about would turn up in the man’s next article.
He thought of Lacey Campbell and her dark brown eyes. The one victim who escaped the killing hand of DeCosta. She was as deeply involved as he was. Maybe she could answer some questions. Like why Trenton’s badge had been with the Mills remains, and why both were hidden on his property.
His mind was a mass of confusing, tightening knots.
He had to fight back, make a stand. But how?
He needed to go back to the beginning, to over a decade ago, when this mess all began. The best source was the person who’d been there. Hopefully, Lacey Campbell had some insight about the past, and why it was colliding with the present. He knew exactly where he could track her down. His questions for the protection of his business were the only reasons he’d seek her out.
Not because her brown eyes had been haunting him for two days.
The two dead girls were severely burned. Caught in a fire while sleeping in an abandoned, decrepit Portland house that had pulled in runaways like a magnet. Cheap barbeques had been used for heat while ten to thirty kids slept on the dirty floors each night. It was a well-known location to score every imaginable drug. Each week police cleaned out the house, scattering kids and drugs, but both always came back. Boarded-up windows and doors were nothing to determined teens searching for a place to escape the freezing temps.
Lacey paused before hitting the auto button on the double door to one of the bright, sterile autopsy suites of the medical examiner’s building. Burn victims. Her legs shook slightly as she squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in deep breaths. She’d rather do floaters than burns. She shoved two cotton rolls up her nose under her mask. The scent of burned flesh had a freaky way of making her stomach growl that just seemed wrong. Clutching her clipboard to her chest, she hit the auto button with a hip.
Her father’s silver head bent over a body. The smell seeped through her cotton rolls and she stopped just inside the door.
“Hey, there. You want to take a look first? Jerry already took the films for you.” Dr. Campbell straightened and twisted his back with an audible series of cracks.
“I’ll be quick.” She nodded at Jerry, her dad’s assistant, who recorded weights and measurements on a chalkboard as her father called them out. She commanded her legs to cross the room.
Standing next to the metal table, her digital camera tight in one hand, she studied the length of the pale body that contrasted with the blackened skin of the head. The hands were as severely burned as the head, but the rest of the body wasn’t too bad. Clothes and shoes must have offered some protection. The girl’s hair was mostly gone. Its color not readily obvious. Looked black, maybe Goth. Maybe simply burned.
“Smoke inhalation?” Her voice sounded high.
“Probably. I’ll know soon.”
Soon was right. Dr. Campbell drove through autopsies like Jeff Gordon. He was incredible to watch. His hands steady and sure as he whipped through the Y-cut and peeled back the flesh. He snapped the ribs with pruners identical to the ones Lacey used on her trees and sliced up each organ like the tomatoes on the Ginsu commercial, checking for abnormalities. Every body was handled with dignity; every body was given his best work. Her father was a physically and emotionally skilled examiner.
He opened the jaws of the burned girl for her. Lacey flicked on the digital recorder clipped to her waterproof gown and pointed a tiny, powerful flashlight into the gaping cavity.
Just look at the teeth.
“You need a shield,” her father stated.
Jerry reached over and slipped the band of a clear face shield onto her head, the plastic covering her from forehead to chin. He grinned and winked through his own shield. She already had on protective glasses and a mask, and now she felt like she was in a hazmat suit. She didn’t complain. Dead bodies could expel freaky things at surprising moments.
She quickly took pictures of both arches while her father pulled lips and cheeks out of the way, burned skin tissue peeling and flaking at the movements. Using a dental mirror, she did a quick check of the palate, tongue, and soft tissues, looking for any abnormalities. Her stomach settling, she rattled off the restorations into her recorder.
“Six through eleven have veneers.” Her eyebrows rose. “Same with the anteriors on the mandible. Twenty-two through twenty-seven. No other restorations, but victim had had obvious orthodontics. Posteriors show decalcification on the posterior buccal surfaces in the shape of ortho brackets. Probably used the veneers to cover the scarring on the anterior teeth.” Her heart dropped. “Somebody spent a lot of money on this kid’s teeth,” she whispered.
Her father nodded. “Coat and boots were expensive too.”
Eleven antemortem dental charts lay on her desk back in her office. Charts requested for comparison to the current victims in the morgue by grieving parents with runaway teenage daughters. Lacey hadn’t looked at the charts. She liked to complete her postmortem workup and then compare to the charts. But she had a hunch this was the daughter of the big software executive. The girl had run off two months ago. Her perky picture and wide perfect smile had been plastered on the five o’clock news for a week.
She studied the skull, not seeing any resemblance to the lovely school photo she remembered from the TV. Her lips pressed together, and she stopped her gloved hand before it rubbed at her shielded forehead. She blinked hard.
“Where’s the second one?”
“Next door. I’ve already finished her.” Her father picked up a scalpel and raised a brow at her.
That’s my cue to leave.
Her stomach churning, Lacey spun on a heel and headed for the door, stripping her vinyl gloves and dropping them in the hazardous waste bin.