Skin Deep

70

“Either female autoasphyxia is on the rise or someone’s made the rounds,” Steve said.

An emergency meeting the next afternoon was called with Captain Reardon and Detectives Vaughn, Dacey, and Hogan, as well as the assistant D.A. and two other detectives who had been assigned to the case after Neil French was taken off. In a few days, the unit would be swelled by investigators from different departments as well as reps from the Massachusetts and New Hampshire State Police and attorney general’s office, possibly full of jurisdictional contention now that the investigation had crossed state lines.

Because most homicide investigations were local, police did not regard a yet unsolved murder as the work of a serial killer. But with the stocking identification in the Cobbsville death, Steve went into the database of ViCAP—Violent Criminal Apprehension Program—and found two other cases of females found strangled to death with black stockings.

Each case was officially listed as accidental. On his request, the respective departments had sent records via fax and e-mail. Duplicates had been distributed around the table and at Reardon’s request Steve presented a PowerPoint review of what they had so far.

On the projection screen Steve had displayed victims’ photos, their personal data, pin-mapped locales, some forensic data, and what so far they had determined as common MOs.

“Six years ago, Jillian Stubbs, a fashion model, age thirty-six, was found hanging naked from her bedpost by a single black stocking in her Worcester apartment,” Steve said. “Again, no signs of an intruder nor forensic evidence of foul play nor traces of alcohol or drugs in the woman’s system. She was single, living alone, and had no steady boyfriend. Her death had been ruled an accidental suicide. The M.E.’s autopsy reported that she had dyed red hair.

“Five years ago, Marla Murphy, a thirty-nine-year-old white female and former television reporter for a Washington NBC affiliate, was found hanging naked from a single black stocking in the shower of her beach house in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. She was gay and living alone. Her death had been ruled an accidental suicide. She had naturally auburn hair.”

On the screen was a spreadsheet comparing the women, their physical and vital statistics, and the similarities of their killings.

“Each was a single female between the age of thirty-six and forty-two. They were similar in body size, in appearance, and they all had red hair of varying shades, one natural, three dyed. Each lived alone—two were single, one divorced, the other gay. They were found dead in their homes, strangled with a black stocking—three so far identified as Wolfords.”

“Got to be the same perp,” Hogan said.

“Looks it,” Steve said. “But if it is the work of a single killer, we’re going to have to determine what it was about these women that brought the killer to them.”

That meant examining their private, social, and professional lives for commonalties as well as geographical overlaps just in case there were particular venues where the women had lived or visited that could reveal the killer’s topography.

“It says here that Jillian Stubbs was left-handed, like Terry Farina,” Hogan said.

“Yeah, again making it likely the suicide was staged.”

“According to crime scene photos,” Dacey said, “three of the four victims had beds with headboards. For some reason he shifted his MO from the bed to shower to closet and back to bed.”

“Since Farina’s the latest, maybe that’s his preferred killing venue.”

“Could be he changed to cover the pattern.”

Steve nodded and continued. “On the surface we’ve got a wide spread of professional backgrounds. Murphy was a former reporter, Novak a buyer for Ann Taylor, Stubbs a fashion model, and Terry Farina a personal trainer and part-time exotic dancer. But a common theme to each vic’s employment is female appearance.”

“What do you make of that?” Reardon asked.

“I’m not entirely sure, but I think it may hold a key to how the killer was drawn to them—how he may have even stalked them. It’s something to work on.”

“Given they all had red hair,” Vaughn said, “maybe we should put out an APB at the Irish-American clubs.”

That released some chuckles from the table. Given the mounting tension, had Vaughn told a moron joke he would have gotten laughs.

“What bothers me,” Steve said, “is that he might still be hunting.”