Killing Ways

13

Ren and Gary drove through the city of Arvada and ten miles along Highway 72 into the unincorporated part of Jefferson County.

And another jurisdiction joins the party.

The flashing lights of the police cruisers led them to the small collection of warehouses where Donna Darisse’s body had been found by a carload of college kids looking for nothing other than an out-of-the-way place to go through a few six-packs.

Cliff James was standing sentry.

‘Hey,’ said Ren, hugging him.

He held her extra long.

‘How’s Brenda doing?’ said Gary.

‘We’re doing good,’ said Cliff. He smiled, but his eyes were sad. ‘It’s not a pretty sight back there.’

Donna Darisse lay beside a row of dumpsters, outside one of the warehouses.

Robbie, Everett and Janine were gathered a distance away from the body.

Poor Janine. So much for her plan to be unconscious.

Ren and Gary went straight to Donna Darisse’s body. She was naked, except for her bloodstained white cowboy boots, lying on her stomach, facing away from the wall, her arms behind her back, her wrists bound with cable ties. Her face was swollen to twice its size, the flesh bursting and cut and oozing. Her red dress and tiny red lace G-string were discarded ten feet away, along with a blonde wig. Cheap glamor, transformed into something poignant and tragic when met with such boundless savagery.

Ren looked for a moment at the stars above, and breathed in and out, in and out, until she could face looking back down.

This is beyond horrific.

From her lower back, down her bare buttocks, and between Donna Darisse’s legs was a terrible mess that could have been nothing other than the result of a chemical burn.

Acid.

Ren felt like her body was liquefying inside. She felt spikes of pain in the same places where Donna Darisse had been brutalized. Her stomach churned.

I have no words.

They went over to join the others. Everyone looked grim-faced and tired.

‘Dr Tolman is on vacation,’ said Janine. ‘We have a stand-in...’

A hooting laugh broke out. They all looked up, knowing that it meant who that stand-in was: Dr Mark Gaston, the new Medical Examiner for the 18th Judicial District, which covered Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln Counties. Gaston was forty-five, but looked early thirties. His pouting lips were his most striking feature, followed by the prince-from-an-animation hair: light brown, thick, and wavy, the type of hair that marked out generations of the same family, the type that was celebrated in portraits.

Arrogant hair. Book of Wrong.

Gaston walked toward them.

Ren leaned into the others. ‘Gaston always looks like he’s been called away from seducing a nineteen-year-old. “OMG — you’re a Medical Examiner! So hot!”’

Gaston was too close for them to laugh.

‘Is that a dead hooker on the ground or are you making excuses to see me?’ said Gaston, smiling at Ren. He crouched down beside Donna Darisse. ‘Yes, she is dead. Despite all signs to the contrary.’ He stood up. ‘And that’s acid. That’s a man who’s going all out not to leave any swimmers behind. Die, boys, die!’

Swimmers... ugh.

‘How long’s she been missing?’ said Gaston.

‘About forty-eight hours,’ said Ren.

‘I’m guessing she was killed not long after that,’ said Gaston. ‘Not here, though. The scene is too clean. But you don’t need me to tell you that. Let me do my thang and I’ll let your boys in. Stand back, bitches. Dr G is here.’

Dear.

God.

‘I’m going to do you a favor here,’ he said, when he was finished. ‘I’m going to prioritize this little lady. So, if you want to meet me at the autopsy suite at seven a.m., I’ll bump her to the top of my list.’

He’s a hooker with a heart.

‘Appreciate it,’ said Gary.

‘Ren?’ said Gaston. ‘You up for the early-morning autopsy?’ He almost winked.

‘Yes,’ said Gary. He turned to Ren. ‘I gotta go — can I leave this with you? I need to get back.’

To whom?

‘No problem,’ said Ren. She looked at Gaston. ‘You won’t be too tired?’

‘I’ve done a ton of coke,’ said Gaston. ‘I was expecting a different night.’ He laughed loud.

‘Everett?’ said Ren. ‘You up for it?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She turned to Janine. Her face was white, her eyes narrowed in pain. ‘Janine, you go home, sleep,’ said Ren. ‘Robbie, we’ll notify the next-of-kin. Everett — here are the keys to my place. We’ll join you there right after.’

‘What?’ said Everett.

‘I don’t want to waste any time,’ said Ren. ‘You can sleep on the sofa for a half hour. And I promise you high-end coffee on our return.’

Ren and Robbie arrived back to the apartment at four a.m. and woke Everett up.

‘That was suitably grim,’ said Ren.

‘Your sofa, on the other hand, was not,’ said Everett, stretching out his legs, standing up, and walking around the living room. ‘You promised high-end coffee, remember.’

‘A promise I am following through on,’ Ren called from the kitchen. ‘God, though, this apartment depresses me. And this micro-kitchen. I love cooking, and I don’t even cook here. Most of my kitchen stuff’s all packed away in boxes in Annie’s attic. I’ve got all their crappy utensils, blunt knives, shady-looking forks. It’s like the whole place is designed to guide you to the microwave so you can stand — alone — and watch your meal-for-one perform a tragic pirouette.’

‘You are not alone tonight,’ said Robbie.

‘This morning,’ said Everett. ‘Need us to come in there and make the kitchen feel like it’s hopping?’

‘You just concentrate on squeezing yourselves around that table, leaving enough room for me and my expansive mind.’

She came in and set the tray down at the center of the table.

‘I hate glass tables,’ said Ren. ‘I need a tablecloth. But I’m not a big fan of tablecloths either. Actually, that’s wrong — it’s the pressure of keeping them clean that bothers me. I love tablecloths.’ She put a coffee mug in front of each of them.

‘No cookies?’ said Everett, forlorn.

‘Much as I’d love to soften the blow of mutilated genitals, I have nothing,’ said Ren.

‘Toast even?’ said Robbie.

‘I have arugula,’ said Ren. ‘And an angry inch of parmesan.’

‘Mind if I order in?’ said Robbie.

Inward narrowing of eyes. You are replacing sex with food, Robbie Truax. Jesus... does anyone not have an issue with food?

‘You order whatever you like,’ said Ren. ‘As I deliver an apology for the bare cupboards.’

‘Ren has been following the jalapeño popper diet,’ said Everett. ‘You go from bar to bar—’

Robbie looked unimpressed with Everett’s insider knowledge. He picked up his phone and began ordering breakfast from an all-night diner.

‘And dessert is the olive at the bottom of the Dirty Martini,’ said Ren, helping Everett out.

A silence fell.

Stephanie. Hope. Donna.

Rape, murder, mutilation.

‘So,’ said Ren, ‘what the fuck is going on? These three women look remarkably similar... at least Donna did the day he picked her up. So, is he killing the same woman over and over — an ex-girlfriend, an ex-wife, a sister, his mother—’

‘Someone who didn’t return his affection,’ said Robbie.

‘Women in general?’ said Everett. He paused. ‘That happen to be blonde and skinny...’ He laughed. ‘Sorry, maybe I’m too tired for this. This will be going to Quantico for profiling, though, right?’

‘Yup,’ said Ren.

‘That’ll take weeks,’ said Robbie.

‘Well, it’s not like we’re going to sit around and wait for it to guide us,’ said Everett.

‘I swear to God,’ said Ren, ‘if I see another profile that says male, aged between twenty-two and thirty-two...’

Dr Gaston welcomed Ren and Everett to the autopsy suite at seven a.m.

‘First off,’ he said, ‘as we saw, her junk was dunked — her entire body was washed down with bleach. The acid was evidence of super-caution at work, because the bleach should have done the trick. Using acid on the genital area as well seems like a pretty good indicator that she was raped, or why would he bother?’

I’m still at ‘junk was dunked’. Did I hear that?

‘Sorry — run through all that again?’ said Ren.

Gaston raised his eyebrows, but complied.

‘He may not have raped her,’ said Ren. ‘It might have been all about the mutilation.’

‘Well, that’s for your investigative minds to work out,’ said Gaston. ‘I was just throwing in my two cents.’

Please don’t.

‘Cause of death was sharp-force trauma — her femoral artery was severed. Manner of death — exsanguination, which is why we know she wasn’t killed at the scene. There was no blood. I don’t need to tell you this would have been bloody.’

He began examining the external surface of the body. Ren became mesmerized by Donna Darisse’s feet. They were scratched, bruised, and sparkling in the light.

‘Is that glass?’ said Ren.

‘Yes,’ said Gaston. He used his forceps to pluck out the shards — clear, green and blue — then drop them into a stainless-steel dish.

‘Just in the soles of her feet, nowhere else,’ said Ren. ‘I’m presuming she walked on it—’

‘As opposed to the killer using forceps to carefully push the pieces in...’ He looked up and winked.

Oh, fuck off, Gaston.

‘She walked across glass for him, yes,’ said Gaston. ‘Or ran. They’re in quite deep.’

‘Did you see any glass at the scene?’ said Ren.

‘No — not to my naked eyes.’

He managed to make that sound sleazy.

‘And what caused the abrasions?’ said Ren.

‘Probably running on a concrete surface,’ said Gaston.

‘So she could have run away from him,’ said Ren.

‘Not far — or fast — enough,’ said Gaston. ‘Then the particular damage to her heels that you can see here could have happened if she was raped — if she was lying on rough ground, kicking out, trying to get purchase... she also has abrasions on her knees, which would be consistent with her having been raped from behind.’

‘God, and he put her boots back on.’ Jesus.

Feet. Feet. Feet.

Something is clawing at me.