All the Pretty Girls

Fourteen

W hen Baldwin and Grimes arrived in the community-hospital parking lot, Baldwin could see a passel of men standing in the northeast corner. Waves of heat shimmered off the black asphalt. Grimes pulled up a few slots away and got out, went immediately to a large dark-skinned man with commanding shoulders and a shaved head. He held himself ramrod straight, and Baldwin pegged him as military from twenty feet away. He followed in Grimes’s path and stuck out his hand for the requisite introductions and posturing. To his surprise, the sheriff flashed him a big smile. He was younger than he initially looked, and Baldwin breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes the locals just weren’t thrilled to have the FBI involved in their cases, and sometimes they were.

“Sheriff Terrence Pascoe,” the man rumbled. “You must be John Baldwin. I read your white paper on anger-excitation killers in the Law Enforcement Bulletin last year. Great stuff. It’s good to have you. Sorry about the heat.”

“Thank you, Sheriff. Not much better in Nashville this time of year. Agent Grimes told me you wanted to tow the car. I appreciate you holding off for me.”

“Not a problem. The locks are popped.” He handed a manila folder to Baldwin. “Here’re the crime scene photos. Nothing much different, ’cept we pulled the keys out from under the car to process. We’ve been holding her cell phone in case any calls come into it.” He held up a bag with the phone. “Already dusted it, so I’ve just kept it on my person until I turn it in to Evidence. We didn’t get anything off it but her prints. Same for the car. No prints other than her and the fiance, which isn’t surprising. We’ve talked to him and let him go back home. He’s praying she makes a call to him. Straight shooter, I highly doubt he was involved in this.”

Noble may have been a small, poor town, but they had a first-class sheriff. Baldwin gave him a nod of gratitude, took the file and glanced at the high-resolution crime scene photos inside. The sheriff was right; other than the keys being under the car, the tableau was identical.

Baldwin pulled gloves out of his pocket and eased himself into the small BMW. He was thankful they’d left the door open, it must have been well past 120 degrees in the car. He felt around the seats, noting the lack of typical accumulation usually present when a woman spends a lot of time in her car. It was very clean, perfectly organized and told a clear story about Marni Fischer.

She kept herself in shape. There was a gym bag on the back seat. Baldwin rifled through it-Lycra shorts, wicking T-shirt, socks and high-end running shoes. A brush, hair dryer, small soap-and-shampoo containers completed the bag. There were medical textbooks stacked in the seat next to the gym bag. The console held lipstick, hair bands and classic Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses. Typical stuff.

Baldwin worked his way through the car, not finding anything out of place. When he opened the glove box, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. He picked it up carefully by the edges and gave the sheriff a questioning look. “You guys see this?”

“Hasn’t been printed, if that’s what you’re asking. I read it, it’s just a poem. Figured her boyfriend gave it to her.”

Baldwin stepped out of the car and looked carefully at the note. It was a poem. A love poem. Typed on a piece of white paper with nothing else on it. He wasn’t surprised the sheriff hadn’t thought twice about it; in normal circumstances, no one would. But Baldwin was a profiler, and his sirens went off as he read the lines.

Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

“Yeats,” he murmured. Grimes and the sheriff looked at him closely.

“You really think a poem could make any difference in this case?” Grimes was shifting from foot to foot, anxious, realizing they may have their first break and it wasn’t because of him.

“Grimes, did you find any poems at any of the other scenes?”

“Not where we found the bodies. I don’t know if anyone checked the victim’s effects. Shit!”

He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Thomas, it’s Grimes.” Baldwin recognized whom Grimes had called. Thomas Petty was Grimes’s partner and had handled the start of the investigation. He had been on-site for two of the murders, present at the death scenes.

Grimes was pacing in circles. “You’re still in Alabama, working that missing-boy case, right? Do you have some sharp contacts that can do something for us? Good, here’s what we need. You need to get in touch with the police in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Have them go back through all the girls’ effects. If they need to call the families, go out and visit the houses, do it. Have them look for a piece of paper with a poem on it. That’s right, poetry. Make sure they look in the girls’ cars, too.” He cleared his throat, his voice sounded jumpy and anxious. Baldwin could read his face-had he missed the most important clue in their case? “Especially the glove boxes. Call me back as soon as you can.”

He hung up and shook his head. “You really think this is from the killer?”

Baldwin nodded. “This guy’s playing games. Surely he wouldn’t leave us hanging with nothing to go on. The hand exchange is one clue. Let’s see if this is another.” He took out his notebook and copied the verses, though he knew the poem by heart. It was one of the most intriguing he knew. He handed the paper off to the sheriff. “Could you get this printed for me, please?”

“Absolutely. I’m sorry we missed it.”

“I may be wrong. But it just seems too out of place to be Marni’s.”

“Why?” asked Grimes, looking uncharacteristically perplexed.

“A girl that structured…A stray piece of paper may not be unusual in your typical car, but I can’t imagine she’d leave this lying around loose in her glove box. All of her information is separated into envelopes, there’re no stray receipts or mess.” He glanced at Grimes. Granted, the man wasn’t a profiler, but it didn’t take a genius to see that Marni Fischer was a control freak. “Nothing else was out of place.”

The sheriff retrieved a sleeve of plastic from the crime scene kit in his trunk and slid the note into it, then handed it off to one of his deputies. The man fairly ran to his car and took off.

“We’ll know quick. I’ve got a good guy in my lab who can find anything if it’s there to find.”

“I appreciate it.” Baldwin shielded his eyes and gazed at the hospital. So far the only thing linking most of these girls was their chosen or intended profession. If there were other notes, then they might have something.

“There was no sign of foul play at Marni’s home?” Baldwin asked.

“Not a thing. I know about the other cases, that they were taken from their houses. This one looks like she was taken right here, just as she was getting into her car. There’s another bee for your bonnet. Is there anything else? I need to get this scene cleared and get started on a rural search. I know you think this guy’s going to take her out of state, but I need to make sure.” Sheriff Pascoe was ready to go, to get his part of the investigation under way. There was nothing more they could do here. Baldwin shook his hand and thanked him for all his help.

He and Grimes went back to town in silence. Grimes parked at the motel and they walked in the strong sunshine to get food and to go over their next moves. Grimes looked rough, unshaven and red-eyed. He was taking every aspect of this case to heart. If Baldwin were to evaluate him from a psychological perspective, he’d say Grimes was teetering on the edge.

They went to Jo’s Diner, a local establishment worn with age. The entire restaurant could have fit in the lobby of their motel. Pictures of locals plastered the walls, some fresh and new, some so old and grainy that the black-and-white images merely suggested their occupant’s features. The walls were yellowed from years of nicotine, and the formerly white lace drapes drooped gray and unhappy over smeary windows. Baldwin and Grimes got looks from tired men who appeared to have grown into the stools at the counter. The smell was intoxicating, and Baldwin realized he was starved.

They sat at a metal table covered by stained and cracked Formica laminate. A huge woman with shoulder-length braids pranced over. Baldwin couldn’t believe how lightly she moved considering her bulk. Her waitress uniform was spotless, and Lurene was stitched in fancy black embroidery above her ample left breast. She slapped down two cups, filled them with strong black coffee and gave the men a look.

“Good morning,” Baldwin said. “We’d like-”

“Let me guess, sugar. The works.” She yelled back over her shoulder to a rheumy-eyed black man with grizzled hair who could be seen in the kitchen. “Eugene, two full plates.” She turned back to them.

“You just let me know if you need anything else after that.” She chuckled, a deep throaty laugh that brought a smile to Baldwin’s face. She gave him a dazzling smile of her own and stepped back to the counter. Every eye in the place was trained on her, and she knew it. She may have been a big woman, but she exuded sensuality.

Baldwin turned back to Grimes, amused to see the look of appreciation in his eyes.

“That’s some woman, huh?” He enjoyed the blush that spread over Grimes’s cheeks.

Their waitress returned with two plates groaning with food. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and a bowl of grits filled platters big enough for ten men. To top it off, soda biscuits paraded off the edges of the plates.

Baldwin couldn’t hold back a laugh. “This is the works, isn’t it?”

“It is, sugar, and you leave anything behind, I’ll have your hiney. You two look like you could use a good meal.” She placed the plates with a flourish, pulled an assortment of jams from her apron pocket, reached behind her and refilled their coffee, all without her gaze leaving Baldwin’s eyes. Her braids clicked softly as she moved about, getting them settled. He sensed she wanted more, so he sat silent, not making a move toward his plate. He was right.

“Sugar, you here about that sweet young doctor that went missing?”

“Yes, ma’am, we are.” Grimes looked at Baldwin, excitement and hope brightening his eyes. Ma’aming a waitress was the universal signal that meant “Please, tell me everything you know.” She obliged.

“You know, she came in here all the time. Had a thing for my Eugene’s pancakes. Said they were the best she ever tasted.” She raised a disapproving eyebrow. “You’re not tasting yours.”

Baldwin tucked his fork into the fluffy mound and steered a bit to his mouth. It was heaven. Marni wasn’t off the mark as far as Eugene’s pancakes were concerned. He told Lurene so.

She nodded gravely. “He’s got a secret, won’t tell me a thing. We’ve been running this place for twenty years, and he still won’t tell me what he does to ’em.”

Grimes had watched this exchange absently while shoveling food into his mouth. He tried to croak out a question, but Lurene gave him a stern look.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Grimes covered his mouth sheepishly, sending Baldwin a mental message instead. Get her to talk, his eyes implored. This could be the best information we get.

“Lurene, you said Marni Fischer came in here often. When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Friday morning. She always comes in before work on Friday, says it’s her treat for the week. Boy, that girl sure could put away some food. Always had what you’re havin’, finished the whole plate and usually asked for more biscuits. They’re my own recipe, you know.”

Baldwin took the hint and demolished a biscuit. He was amazed, he’d never had anything quite so good. Having grown up in the South, that was saying something. He gave Lurene the compliment and she practically purred. Baldwin imagined Eugene must have his hands full.

“So you say you saw Marni on Friday. She didn’t stop in Saturday?”

“Nope, sugar, she didn’t.”

“Any chance you had a stranger in here on Friday? A man, maybe?”

She pursed her lips and thought hard, air leaking out the small O where her lips weren’t entirely closed in a tinny little whistle. “Honey, we have strangers in here all the time. There was a boy in here, cute kid I hadn’t seen before. But he was just a kid. Maybe seventeen, eighteen. He wasn’t legal, I’ll tell you that. Figured he was in here while his momma had an appointment or somethin’.”

“What did he look like?” Eighteen was younger than Baldwin expected the killer to be, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Handsome boy, dark hair, like yours. Don’t really remember much about his features. Just a good-looking kid. Came in, ate and left, he was only here about twenty minutes, tops. Didn’t linger like you men.” She winked at him. “I’m sorry for that girl, I liked her a lot. You finish your breakfast now, y’hear?” She topped off their coffee and left them to their thoughts. They finished as much of the food as they could, and Grimes wisely mopped up the remainder of his eggs with the last biscuit. They got up and went to pay, but Lurene waved them off.

“You just find that girl, okay?”

“We’ll do our best, ma’am. Thank you for a wonderful breakfast.” Baldwin surreptitiously slipped a twenty-dollar bill under a saltshaker on the counter and they made their way out onto the quiet street.

They sat in Baldwin’s hotel room, waiting. At least, Baldwin sat. Thinking about how young his killer could actually be. A kid, that wouldn’t fit. This guy was too organized, too mobile to be that young. He needed his own place, his own wheels and a lot of cash to circulate himself around the Southeast. Naw, that didn’t work.

Grimes paced a few feet away. A member of his team had called a few minutes earlier. Shauna Davidson’s apartment had been searched and a poem found in her desk drawer. Baldwin read and reread the lines Grimes gave him.

How can those terrified vague fingers push, The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? How can anybody, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

This was not good at all. Baldwin closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Grimes’s relentless pacing. He could still hear the man’s shoes passing through the industrial-grade carpet- swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.

As Grimes made his latest turn, his phone rang. He looked at Baldwin. “Finally.” He snapped the phone open. “Grimes.” He listened, then motioned for a pen and pad to write on. He scribbled furiously, nodding and uh-huhing for a few minutes, then hung up and looked at Baldwin.

“I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

Grimes’s admission of the mistake was surprising. An undercurrent of animosity had plagued their relationship from the beginning, yet here he was, ready to confess all his sins, to be absolved by the one man he didn’t want in the investigation. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Baldwin couldn’t justify the blunder, but he could understand it.

“Grimes, you’ve been dealing with three separate law enforcement agencies in three states. Countless people, high-stress situations. Anyone could have missed it.”

“But you didn’t,” he said miserably. “See, I haven’t really been on my ‘A’ game with this. I’ve been having some trouble at home, been thinking about retiring. Turn in the badge, get a real life.” The melancholy in his tone was alarming. “I should take myself off the case. I could have blown the whole thing. I might have been able to save one of those girls.”

Baldwin clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hey, I didn’t find the note in Nashville attached to Shauna Davidson’s murder.” He waited until Grimes met his eyes. “Listen, I need you to keep your head in the game. Yeah, it was a miss. A big miss. But we need to move forward now, okay? I want you on this case. Read me what they found.”

Grimes nodded, swallowing hard.

Jesus, Baldwin thought. Just what I need.

Grimes shook his head, cleared his throat, tried to gain an element of dignity and control. “All right. Let’s see how you do with these.”

“More poetry?” Baldwin felt his heart beating just a little harder. His instinct was right.

“Yep. The notes have been there all along. Each girl had one in their personal effects. According to Petty, Lernier’s and Palmer’s were in their gym bags, Jessica Porter’s was in her date book. We just didn’t see it. God, how could we have missed this? They’ve been collected, they’ve already been printed, but nothing showed. Jesus, I’ve blown the whole case.” Grimes was back off on his “woe is me” tangent, and Baldwin was getting impatient.

“Grimes. The poems?”

“Yeah, yeah, let me read them off to you. Ready?”

“Okay, shoot.”

“This was in Susan Palmer’s car.” He read the verses aloud.

“A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of an angelic light.”

Baldwin scribbled and nodded, murmuring to himself. “Wordsworth. Okay, who’s next?”

“Jeanette Lernier. Here we go.

“A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food For transient sorrows, simple wiles Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”

Baldwin smiled. “Another stanza from the same poem. What was found in Jessica’s dayrunner?”

Grimes flipped the page of his notebook. “Jessica, Jessica…Here.

“A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.”

“Same poem?” Grimes asked.

“No, that’s one’s Yeats. Excellent poet, Yeats.” He reached for Grimes’s notebook. “Let me see that.” Grimes handed it over and Baldwin read the lines again.

“Jessica’s, Shauna’s and Marni’s poems are from ‘Leda and the Swan,’ William Butler Yeats. Jeanette’s and Susan’s are from a William Wordsworth poem, ‘She Was a Phantom of Delight.’ Our killer knows some of the classics.”

Grimes scratched his head. “Apparently you do, too. But what does it mean?”

“See, that’s the problem. It means something different to different people. What I’m concerned about is this stanza of Marni’s poem. Being so caught up, so mastered by the brute blood of the air…indifferent beak… When he started, with Susan and Jeanette and Jessica, he worked hard. He stalked them, took his time, seduced them. Now he’s picking up speed, moving too fast to get involved emotionally with his victims. These girls are a means to an end now, not an object worthy of worship and desire.

“And if he’s become indifferent to their plight, then we’re going to see an escalation in violence. ‘Leda and the Swan’ is classically recognized as a rape poem, a violent poem. Marni has drawn the mention of blood, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t have some sort of brutality done to her that’s more severe than was done to any of the other girls. But I’m just guessing, Jerry.”

Grimes had his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head bowed. “I wouldn’t have known all that. Wasn’t much good with that stuff in school.”

Baldwin drew in a breath. “I think we’d better go regroup. Give you some time to get yourself back together. And give me some time to think about this.”