LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Yeah, I’d like that.” Gannet grimaced. “Maybe my wife will let me come.”

      “Bring her.”

      “She’s not big on beer.”

      “We’ll get her a bottle of wine.”

      “I’ll take you up on it, one way or the other, soon enough,” Gannet assured him.

      “Dr. Gannet, Detective Dilessio?”

      Jake turned. Mandy Nightingale was back. “Are you ready to move the body and let me get the rest of the scene?”

      “I’m good to go, Mandy,” Gannet said.

      “Jake?” she inquired.

      He nodded. “If Gannet’s ready, so am I.”

      “Good. You should know then, Jake,” she said softly, “that they’re holding back a slew of reporters over there.”

      “Want me to handle them?” Marty asked Jake.

      Jake shook his head. “No, it’s all right. Get some of our men started on a door-to-door. I know the doors are pretty far apart around here, but someone might have seen something. I’ll take care of the press.”

      “Are you sure? I saw your eyes. It’s all coming back, and you took the entire thing way too personally before—”

      “Martin, I’m all right. We’re talking about something that happened five years ago. I’m a cop, this is my job. Just keep an eye on things here, Marty. We can’t let anything, not the most minute clue, slip away.”

      Martin nodded. Jake walked from the scene and across the road, where the uniformed officers were holding the onslaught of reporters at bay.

      “A murder, right? A young woman?” Jayne Gray, from one of the local stations, called to him.

      “Jayne, I’m afraid there’s not too much we can say right now. We’ve got the body of a woman who has apparently been dead several weeks, even a few months. We’ve yet to determine anything else as fact, but as soon as the M.E.’s office has further information, I know they’ll share it. And when that happens, you know that a police spokesperson will be telling you all that they can. There’s nothing else you can learn here right now, folks.”

      “But, Detective Dilessio, there must be more you can give us.” Bryan Jay, an obnoxious, heavy-set man from the local paper, called out. “It’s a murder, right? You’ve found the victim of a murder, in the mud, off the side of the road.”

      He was tempted to give Jay a real wise-ass reply. Hell, no. She decided to drop herself off there, lie down and die.

      “Mr. Jay, give the medical examiner time to do his work,” Jake said firmly.

      “Right,” Jay replied dryly. “Come on, Jake, give us something.”

      “I’ve already explained that we have the body of a woman, Mr. Jay.”

      “Think we have a single crime here, or do we have a serial killer on the loose? Isn’t this the way the first victim was found in those serial killings years ago? Are there any mutilations?”

      Leave it to Jay to home in on an uncomfortable suspicion of his own, Jake thought.

      “Unfortunately, this is a big city. We have a lot of murders every year.”

      “Still, this seems awfully similar to me. The kid who supposedly did the killing back then is dead though, right?”

      “A man who claimed to have committed the murders committed suicide, yes.”

      “But the case was never officially closed, right?”

      “No, Mr. Jay, it was not.”

      “The police cracked down on the local cults back then. Papa Pierre, alias Peter Bordon, was a suspect, right? But he’s been locked up for years now, right?”

      Jake heard the blood rushing in his ears. He gritted his teeth, desperately fighting the temptation to step forward and bash Bryan Jay in his smug, jowly face.

      “Come on, Jake!” another woman called out.

      He knew her, too. Crime beat from a Broward paper. She’d moved fast to get down here, he thought.

      “Peter Bordon is in prison in the center of the state. As anyone on the crime beat is surely aware, he was never tried for or convicted of murder,” he said.

      “That’s right. Neither was the crazy guy who killed himself in jail. Harry Tennant. He was just a homeless junkie, huh? He claimed to have been the murderer, but then, lots of sickos like to claim they’re responsible for sensational murders.”

      “Due to Mr. Tennant’s death, we weren’t able to investigate his story, Mr. Jay.”

      “Looks like he wasn’t a killer, though, huh? You guys didn’t follow up, and it looks like the murderer is out there and at it again,” Jay said.

      “Mr. Jay, I’m sorry, we’re trying to deal in fact, not supposition. There’s nothing else I can give you right now,” Jake said firmly. He forced himself to speak a level tone. “We live in a great country, and I respect the press beyond all measure. I will not, however, stand here and spout off a bunch of theories when I haven’t got any facts. Journalism deals in facts, right? As soon as we’ve got something to give you, we will. Thanks, and that’s all for right now. We like to let you do your work, and we’re damned appreciative when you let us do ours.”

      He turned and walked away. First thing on his list was a long talk with the jogger who had found the body—before the press got to her. Then he had to work this like a regular case. Swallow the haunting images and bitterness of the past.

      The forensics experts would study soil samples and any microscopic clue that the crime scene investigators could bring in. Gannet would do the autopsy. They had good people working on the case; they would have more to go on as the reports came in. He depended on his associates. He knew that they could practically pull rabbits out of hats. Still, they weren’t magicians, and they couldn’t work miracles.

      As to the obvious…

      A woman had been murdered. Brutally.

      She had been dead for at least several weeks, maybe several months.

      Her ears had been slashed, as if it had been a ritualistic killing.

      He knew damned well that he had to be careful; he couldn’t assume that her death was a continuation of a killing spree from the past. Every possibility had to be explored.

      “Copycat!” Bryan Jay shouted out as he walked away. “There could be a copycat killer out there as well, right?”

      He refused to respond.

      Copycat…

      Yeah, copycat…

      Maybe. And maybe not.

      As he once again approached the murder scene, he saw that Marty, Doc Gannet and Mandy Nightingale were talking together.

      Marty glanced his way, and he knew. They were talking about him. Worrying about him.

      Well, there was no need.

      He was fine.

      This time, he damned well meant to catch the real killer.

      CHAPTER 4

      First thing Monday morning, Ashley was busy digging through the stacks of newspaper Nick had bundled neatly at the back door, ready to go out with the recycling. She was startled when she heard her uncle behind her. “Ashley, what are you doing?”

      She jumped, sorry that she had woken him in her frenzy. The stacks were no longer neat. She had tried first for Saturday’s paper, thinking the accident would surely have been written up in the local section. But she hadn’t been able to find

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