Burning Time

17

“Have you checked with Sex Crimes?” Milt asked.

Newt stirred his coffee with a bent spoon. Absently he bent it back into shape. “Yes. No burning or branding cases in San Diego at the moment. Plenty of other kinds of assault, though. They have a rapist that dresses up as Superman, even has a cape.”

They were in the café down the street from the sheriff’s office, talking the situation over. The coroner’s report had been filed. The data on the unidentified dead girl was in the computer. Now they had to wait and see if something came up.

Milt started on his second doughnut. It was heavily frosted with glaze. Whenever he was distressed, he ate. He was silent, chewing thoughtfully.

“What about your friend in Twentynine Palms?” Newt asked. He wasn’t going to eat a doughnut no matter how tempted he got. They gave him heartburn. He kept that heartburn in mind as he watched Milt swallow.

“I was getting to that. I sent him the report, the photographs, everything,” Milt replied, licking his fingers.

“And?”

“And he’s on his way up here to have a look. He says the shape of the brand, or the object that made the burn, was not quite as clear on his victim. The appearance of the burn was altered by a superimposed bacterial infection of the surrounding skin. You know—gas formation, skin slippage.”

“What does that mean to me, Milt?”

“That means the girl in Twentynine Palms may have lived longer. Her wounds became infected before she died. He wasn’t even absolutely sure it was a brand. Except that even with the swelling and blurring around the edges, it had a very distinct shape. Now we have a better picture of it. It’s the only thing we have to go on. Maybe it’s his totem, or something.”

“Christ.”

Milt swallowed some cold coffee. “Real unusual. I’ve never seen anything like this. There’s no physical evidence at all.”

Newt nodded grimly. “That’s what Sex Crimes said. If they mutilate them, they usually kill them first. Very rare to torture them and then let them go.”

“The girl in Palms was found only a quarter of a mile from the road. She may have walked a long way. A little farther and she might even have been saved. You have any idea what it’s like to die of dehydration?”

Newt didn’t answer. He watched Milt take another doughnut.

“It’s a slow, agonizing death,” Milt said, his mouth full. “There’s military medical literature on it from American and Nazi soldiers who fought in the African Campaign in World War Two.”

“I’ll be sure to read it.” Newt shook his head apologetically. “Sorry. I just keep thinking there might be others out there. What do we do, get a copter and patrol a hundred of miles of desert, in case he decides to do it again?”

“Oh, hell do it again,” Milt said.

“Jesus. A serial brander whose victims die of—what would you say—natural causes?”

Milt put some money down. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Maybe we ought to get the computer people on it. Maybe it’s not a local person, and there are cases of it somewhere else.”

“Maybe.”

“But you don’t think so?” Newt said dejectedly.

“Newt, I have no idea. I don’t even know if VICAP would even come in on something like this.”

Milt got up and dusted the sugar off the front of his shirt. After he had been gone for a minute or two, Newt ordered a doughnut.