14

Four

Nashville, Tennessee Tuesday, December 16 6:40 a.m.

T aylor rose early, gritty-eyed from the lack of sleep. She left Baldwin in the bed, tucked a pillow in his arms, and felt her heart break when he smiled and murmured into it. Seeing him like that, remembering what he’d done to finally get her to sleep, made all her worries about the wedding seem silly.

Long legs ensconced in a pair of jeans, she slipped into her favorite old Uggs and pulled on a creamy cable sweater. She stopped in the kitchen briefly, grabbed a banana and a granola bar, then got in the 4Runner. She backed into a drift of snow in the driveway, but the powerful truck slid through it easily.

The neighborhood was beautiful, sheer and pure, a white only produced by snow fallen from a crisp wintry sky. She felt like she was in the mountains; the deciduous trees masquerading as heavy evergreens with black trunks and feathery limbs coated in ice, the sky cerulean, a shade rarely seen during a Southern winter. The beauty cheered her, and she left the quiet subdivision in a good mood. Moved by the weather. Sheesh. She was getting soft.

Out in the suburbs, the side roads were unplowed and impassable to all but four-wheel drives, but the main roads were relatively cleared and not yet icy. She was careful, made her way to the Starbucks drive-through, got her now standard nonfat, sugar-free vanilla latte and headed toward work.

The autopsy of Janesicle was scheduled for seven, and Taylor intended to witness. Maybe Sam would have the results back from the LCMS tests. If this was definitely victim number four, it would be a hard secret to keep.

She flipped on the XM, used the remote to scroll through the stations until she found some music she liked. No talk radio for her this morning, and she’d given up on the holiday channels after the third murder. It just didn’t feel right to be listening to such joyful exuberance when girls’ bodies were stacking up like cordwood in the morgue. She needed mindless noise, distraction. She settled on a U2 tune and mouthed the words as she made her way down the highway. The roads were virtually empty and she felt freer than she had in months.

Little by little, as she closed the distance to Forensic Medical, her heart grew heavier. When she entered Gass Street, she turned off the radio.

Sam’s offices were housed in a corporate-looking building up the road from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Taylor had been here so often that Sam had issued her a badge that allowed her access after hours. Or before hours, when necessary. They’d have a skeleton staff on a day like today, but Taylor knew Sam would be there.

And she was, already prepped. Taylor could see her, distorted through the crisscross wire embedded in the glass of the industrial door. The air was cool and clean in the compartmented vestibule where she slipped out of her clothes and boots, sliding blue plastic clogs and doctor’s scrubs on. She put her street clothes in a locker. No sense making her clothes reek for the rest of the day. With the new gear in place, she went through the door into the autopsy suite. The chemical scent of death greeted her like an old friend. She hardly noticed it anymore.

Sam nodded as she entered the room, already dictating into a hands-free mike clipped to her headgear.

The body of Janesicle Doe lay on the cream-colored plastic slab that encased the stainless-steel table underneath. She was so white; cold, clammy flesh, with that big, black grin across her throat. Taylor felt the gorge rise in the back of her own throat and swallowed hard. Inappropriate reaction. She hoped Sam hadn’t noticed. Taylor was as detached as the rest of them, but something about this girl was breaking all her protocols.

The individual murders hadn’t bothered her in the beginning. Well, not that much. Not like this.

“Taylor, did you notice? She’s got that same stuff on her temples.”

Taylor stepped closer, bent over the body. On either side of the girl’s face, two smears of a whitish substance glistened under Sam’s light. They looked like streaks of moonlight.

“Appears to be identical material. Any chance the labs are back on it?”

“We should have an answer by the time I finish her up. We didn’t get anything usable from the earlier samples, they were too degraded.” Sam started working her way systematically through the Jane Doe’s hair.

“You said it wasn’t biological.”

“Right. No DNA to obtain. There was plenty of it on this body, though, nice and fresh. I put it into the LCMS.”

“That’s your special little machine that spits out the chemical compositions, right?”

“Special little machine? How about liquid chromatography mass spectrometer? I’d like to spend more time, do some sophisticated testing to see its composition, but I need a comparison sample with the actual material that’s leaving the marks to be sure. In the meantime, we have enough to at least get an idea of what we’re working with.”

Sam continued her examination, and Taylor stood beside the body, lost in thought.

Two months ago, Taylor had been called on the murder of Elizabeth Shaw, a senior at Belmont University. Elizabeth had disappeared walking home to her apartment from class. The city buzzed, searches were initiated, but it was all too late. Her body was found in the tall grass in a gulch off of Interstate 24. Thrown out of a car door like litter, she’d lain in the gulch for at least two days. The postmortem damage to her body had been animal related. The biological evidence was copious; her arms and legs were hog-tied. They hadn’t determined where she was actually killed.

Elizabeth Shaw’s murder scene didn’t look precisely like the original work of Snow White, but during her autopsy, flakes of red Chanel lipstick were recovered from her mouth. They reexamined the knots on the ropes, found them to be much more complex than they originally appeared. And in a touch that alarmed even the most seasoned law enforcement officials, a two-decades-old newspaper clipping about the first murder in the original Snow White case had been pulled from her vagina. All thoughts of this being a simple murder flew out the window, and the homicide team found themselves quietly reopening a twenty-year-old case.

In quick succession, two more girls were taken and murdered. Candace Brooks was killed three weeks later, left by the side of Interstate 65 this time. The press started attributing the killings to “The Highwayman”-the interstates being the one common denominator between the two crimes. Candace’s autopsy was eerily similar to Elizabeth Shaw’s, right down to the newspaper clipping-though this one detailed the twenty-year-old report about the Snow White’s second murder.

When victim number three, Glenna Wells, showed up on a boat ramp on Percy Priest Lake, the media beat the medical examiner to the scene. A sharp-eyed young reporter had managed a glimpse of the body, saw the glowing crimson lips, the presentation of the body, and ran back to her producer with video footage. The producer was an old-timer, recognized the tableau from his early days on the crime beat. The Highwayman was relabeled the “Reemergence of the Snow White Killer.” Taylor and the rest of Metro were lambasted for not warning the area that a serial killer long dormant was back in their midst, and the media frenzy began. Glenna’s body gave them a third newspaper clipping and no more clues.

And now there was a fourth.

The girls were linked in death by gaping neck wounds, the newspaper clippings, the knots and that damnable Chanel lipstick. Blood tests indicated they were over the legal limit for intoxication, with BAL’s in the 1.5-2.0 range. Rohypnol showed on the tox screens. It was obvious they’d all been killed by the same man. Whether it was the original Snow White or a copycat was still up for debate. A marked difference in the new murders versus the 1980’s slayings was the slick, creamy residue on the girls’ faces. Hindered by the fact that they couldn’t do their own DNA testing, Sam was still waiting on DNA results. The DNA would tell the truth-a copycat or the original killer. Taylor leaned toward the former. The differences were subtle, but there.

“Yo, earth to Taylor? Can I get some help here?”

“Oh, gosh, Sam, sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

Sam gave her a sharp glance, then pointed at the girl’s lower body.

“Can you pull up her right leg for me? I should put her in stirrups, but since you’re here…”

“Sure, of course. Yeah, no problem.”

Taylor reached for the dead girl’s leg, ignoring the bizarre sensation of dead flesh against her thin latex gloves. It felt a bit like the skin on a store-bought chicken breast, rubbery, loose. Her hand almost slipped, and she chided herself. Jeez, girl, get a frickin’ grip already. She took a better hold and pulled the leg back, exposing the girl’s genitals. Sam was already at work, swabbing, following the necessary indignities. Taylor tried to watch the back of her friend’s head, but saw something glint, a reflection of the light. She looked closer.

“A clit ring?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied, a bit of disgust in her voice. “You’d be amazed at how many I see. Not someplace I’d particularly enjoy having a needle shoved through, but hey, that’s just me.”

Taylor shuddered at the thought. Ouch.

“Here it is.”

Taylor’s heart sank as she watched Sam ease a small package out of the girl’s vagina. Wrapped in cellophane, it was coated in junk-blood, sperm and whatever else-Taylor really didn’t want to know. Sam eased the package, no bigger than a business card, onto a stainless-steel tray. She gestured to Taylor.

“It’s all yours, if you want.”

“No, I think I’ll let you dissect it for me, but thanks.”

“You’re never going to get the hang of this, are you?”

“Sweetie, that’s the reason I didn’t go to med school and you did. Open it up, let’s see what we have.”

Sam picked the packet open gingerly, putting aside the cellophane for later testing. “Trace is going to have a field day with that,” she murmured.

Taylor gazed at the body. What was it about this one that felt different?

“How long had she been dead, Sam?”

“By the time I got there? No more than an hour.”

“So we just missed him. Why did he change his MO?”

“Beats me, T. You’re the detective. Detect.”

Taylor gave her a brief smile, then grew serious again.

“How is no one missing this girl? All three of the other victims had missing-person reports on file. She looks maintained-fresh manicure, eyebrows shaped, hair’s healthy and well cut. She got drunk somewhere, with someone. She’s not lost. We should have a report on her.”

“You’re right, we should. She’s younger than the earlier victims. Look at her X-rays over there. The dental series shows that her third molars are still developing. If I had to wager, I’d say she was between fifteen and seventeen. I don’t know, sweets. Maybe the system just hasn’t been updated, or her parents are out of town and don’t know she’s missing.”

Sam finished tweezing out the contents of the little cellophane package. It was a piece of paper, newsprint. They both knew what it would say once they got it open.

They were right.

MURDER IN NASHVILLE SNOW WHITE KILLER STRIKES AGAIN .

The date on the article was December 14, 1986.

Sam was staring at the body, a troubled expression clouding her face. Taylor watched as she bent over the girl’s neck, then stood abruptly and walked out of the suite. She disappeared for a moment, came back bearing a large magnifying sheet. She held it over the spot she’d been staring at before, her lips white.

“Sam, what is it?” Taylor bent over the girl’s neck wound and looked through the magnifier. Her finger shook as she pointed toward the lower edge of the slice, horrified.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Sam’s face was pinched. “I’ll have to do a swab, but it looks like it.”

That was enough for Taylor. She held up a hand in apology, scooted to the nearest sink and lost the latte.

Twenty minutes later, once she was feeling better, Sam handed her the details of the LCMS findings. The amount of slick material on the earlier bodies had been minute, but their newest victim had plenty to test thoroughly. The base compound was an arnica emulsion. There were traces of other ingredients; more tests would be needed to confirm all the components of the matter. But two listings from the LCMS stood out from the rest.

Frankincense oil and myrrh oil.

Taylor sipped a pygmy-size ginger ale and reread the LCMS findings. “What in the world do you think this is about, Sam? Should we be looking for three wise men?”

“You’re hysterical, you know that? Feeling better?”

Taylor swallowed hard and nodded. She despised throwing up.

“If I had to guess, there’s something sacred about the oils. But its base is arnica cream, which is a common homeopathic remedy for bruises and sprains and such. Those are the initial findings, they could be off the mark. Without a control sample and more tests, I can’t be absolutely positive. They could be separate items or they could all be from one place.”

“Frankincense and myrrh, though? Surely there’s something more important there. And the fact that’s it’s on their faces, like he’s anointing them…”

She trailed off. Sam met her eyes and nodded. “That makes the most sense. He’s done so much to their bodies. Maybe he feels guilty and is trying to redeem himself. Maybe he’s just a sicko and likes the way it smells on them while he’s raping them. I don’t know, Taylor. Go catch him and you can tell me. No matter what, this latest girl was treated differently. Could be her age, could be she said or did something while he held her, but she was marked.”

Taylor nodded. “And by marking her, he deviated from the pattern.”