Lib Novel Page 83
Damn.
As usual, Kendra’s first emotion was overwhelming sadness, followed by anger. How in the hell could anyone do such a horrible thing to her… or anyone?
Time to focus. Kendra closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and caught a whiff of Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue perfume. But there was something else… It was that trace of ammonia again.
“She was staged in the same old walk-in cooler, wherever it is,” Kendra said. “Just like the last victim. And it looks like she might have gotten some good scratches on her attacker. She’s missing two of her fake nails. And, I’m not sure about this, but it looks like her attacker may have washed her hair after she was killed.”
“Really?” Metcalf said.
“Look at her scalp. It didn’t absorb the conditioner the same as it would’ve if she’d been alive. I don’t think he’s done this before, but he has beautified his victims before displaying them. In the past, it’s just been things like brushing the hair and tweezing eyebrows for the best presentation. I don’t know. Maybe he’s learned some new tricks.”
CHAPTER
15
Early the next morning, Kendra and Lynch were awakened by the sound of Kendra’s phone buzzing. She looked at the caller ID. Griffin.
She showed the phone to Lynch. “It’s your buddy.”
Lynch tried to focus on the screen. “Are you going to answer it?”
“Still deciding.” Kendra finally pressed the TALK button. “Good morning, Griffin. We had a late night in Old Town, and it wasn’t exactly fun. So unless you have something incredibly interesting to say, I’m not positive I’ll be able to stay awake through this call.”
“How about this: Your recent set of deductions have turned out to be incredibly useful.”
Kendra sat upright in bed and put the phone on speaker. “Ooh. Okay, that did it. What are we talking about here?”
“The Bayside Strangler’s first new victim, Anna Mae Robinson, and your thoughts about her being stored in an old leaky walk-in freezer near the waterfront. SDPD took you seriously, and they’ve been combing the bayfront buildings ever since. They found something.”
Lynch sat up and leaned toward the phone in Kendra’s hand.
“Are you going to tell me?” Kendra said. “Or do I have to guess?”
“It was a body in the cooler, another young woman. Looks like yet another one of the strangler’s victims, but this time he didn’t get a chance to display it.”
“Damn. Have they ID’d her?”
“Yeah. I don’t have her name in front of me, but she went missing near Balboa Park a couple of days ago.”
Kendra felt awful for the relief she experienced upon hearing it wasn’t one of the Morgan sisters.
“Kendra?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re up for it, you might want to get down there. The FBI and SDPD are still working this together. It’s gonna be a party.”
Kendra and Lynch loaded Harley into the Lamborghini and drove to Barrio Logan, an industrial waterfront neighborhood just south of downtown. It was a community with a heavy Mexican influence, and in recent years much of the area had become a vibrant arts and cultural scene. That renewal, however, had not reached the address Griffin had given her, a street populated with several abandoned industrial buildings.
The normally quiet street was now teeming with activity, with police cars, forensics units, and FBI evidence collection vans taking most of the nearby parking. Kendra and Lynch found a shady spot down the block, cracked a window open for Harley, and walked to the two-story building.
“Look what you did,” Detective Perry said to Kendra as they approached the main entrance. He smiled and waved his arms around at all the activity. “This is all your fault.”
“Don’t put this on me, Perry. I just noticed what was in front of my face.”
“It was in front of all of our faces, but you were the only one to put it together. Good work.”
“So what’s the story?”