“Hey, you ready to go to the M.E.’s office? They said they’d do the autopsy pronto for us.”

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“Baldwin, you go on ahead. I’m going to stay out here with the crime scene people, see if we can find anything, something useful before the rain washes away any evidence.”

Baldwin nodded and looked for the red-haired sergeant. Within an hour, he found himself gloved and smocked.

He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the medical examiner, a kind young doctor named Rusty Sampson.

“Aha.”

“Aha what, Doc?”

“She fought him, hard. See the bruises on her forearms? Defensive wounds, no doubt. She’s got a knot on her head, too—may find a subdural hematoma when we get to the brain. She got knocked pretty good, that might have put her out. And there’s a hyoid fracture. Could see the bruising around her neck pretty well out in that field, but here it is.”

“He strangle her before or after he cut her up?”

“There was some clotting in the knife slashes on her face, so I’d have to say it was perimortem. But her hands were definitely cut off after she was dead. Not that that helps, he really tore the poor thing up.”

“Was she raped?”

“I don’t know if I can say ‘rape’ definitively, but look what I found in her.” He held up a petrie dish with a small clear fragment of what looked like translucent skin in the center.

“Part of a rubber. It’s torn off the rolled edge. Got lost inside her. Doesn’t look to have semen on it, though of 182

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course we’ll get it sent for testing. She had some lateral bruising, too. I’m not much for speculation, but it could be he lost it and had to go searching, you know? They aren’t as strong as they look, a fingernail could rip it easily.”

“I wonder…” Baldwin stepped away, his eyes unfocusing. Could the killer have realized the condom had slipped off, and that’s why he punished Marni’s body so severely? It was a possibility. He could have been desperate to retrieve the condom quickly and unable to find it. A simple issue for a normal couple. For a killer trying to hide his identity, a whole different matter. A failure of any kind would be enough to set him off. Another rung up the escalation ladder.

“Care to give me an estimate on time of death?”

“Well, the buffet line had been open for a day at least.”

Baldwin shook his head. “Haven’t heard that one before. Buffet line? Where do you guys come up with this stuff?”

“Think I heard that one on Law and Order. But in all seriousness, she’d been dead at least eighteen to twentyfour hours when you found her. Maggots in the wrist area, plenty in her other orifices, some hatchlings from the blowflies. It was hot out there and they got moving quickly. Add the sun and you’ve got yourself a virtual party.”

“She’d only been missing for two days.” Baldwin didn’t add the rest of his thought. He hadn’t wasted a lot of time before he killed her. This one he’d grabbed, killed, taken for a drive and dumped. He’s got another jump on us. “Anything else?”

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“Naw. I’ll get more after tox comes back.”

“Okay. Thanks, Doc. Let me know if there’s anything else good.”

Another one down, he thought as he left. Better go find Grimes, get him filled in.

Twenty-Four

Metro had drawn ranks around Betsy Garrison. The buzz was nearing epic proportions. Many officers still didn’t know the identity of the latest Rainman victim, but almost all of them knew it had been someone on the force, and Betsy’s name had come up more than once. After repeated threats, the media had agreed not to release Betsy’s identity to the public, but they were having a grand time with their reports. The national cable outlets had gotten on board, as well; all the majors were carrying the story. Speculation was rampant, true-crime aficionados were calling for interviews and the entire department was bogged down. The Rainman was getting as much attention as he could ever possibly want, and Metro was paying the price.

With implicit instructions to step up the pace of the investigation, Lincoln Ross and Marcus Wade were chasing down leads and rumors as fast as they came. The most important was interviewing the previous All the Pretty Girls

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Rainman victim, the one who had intimated to Betsy that she knew who her attacker was.

Lincoln pulled the unmarked up in front of a small, 1940s bungalow. The paint was peeling, the window screens were torn, the yard dusty and grassless. In this neighborhood, where the houses started selling in the high 800s, this home was one of the few bungalows left. The trend in Nashville real estate was to buy up the smaller homes on the pricey land, then raze the house and build a monstrosity. Value-added real estate, and it was an overwhelmingly popular choice. Marcus looked around and voiced Lincoln’s thought. “She doesn’t really fit the profile of the others, does she?”

Lincoln shook his head silently, still staring at the house. Six of the victims lived in beautiful, wellmaintained homes in gated communities. Even Betsy Garrison’s house was in a trendy, up and coming neighborhood. It was part of the fear-mongering done by the Rainman—if he could slip in past the guards and wrought iron, he could get anywhere. He seemed to prefer his victims to be a little upscale. This woman, judging solely on the appearance of her squalid home, was not his typical catch.

They got out of the car just as an overweight beagle came tearing around from the back of the house. Sounding more vicious than he possibly was, he barreled up to Lincoln, baying like a full-grown bloodhound. His wagging tail betrayed his fierceness, and when Lincoln reached a hand down, the dog became all puppy. He quit barking and started whimpering in pleasure, thrilled to be getting some attention. 186

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A voice screeched out the front screen door. “Wally. Waallleeee! Stop that racket now.”

Lincoln and Marcus looked at each other. Lincoln shrugged, gave the dog one last pat and walked to the sagging gray porch. The steps squeaked in protest as he walked up them. The slight scent of marijuana wafted to his nose. He rapped hard on the screen door.

“Metro police,” he announced with authority. He heard Marcus guffaw in the background, ignored him and knocked again. There was rattling from inside the house, then a tired-looking woman with stringy brown hair appeared at the door. Her eyes were bloodshot, but she didn’t show any other obvious signs of intoxication.

“Yeah? Whaddaya want?”

Lincoln put on his polite face. “Lucy Johnson?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We’re here to talk to you about the incident you reported. The, uh, rape.” Lincoln looked to Marcus for support, but Marcus was very busy scratching Wally’s belly. Lincoln pursed his lips and turned back. There was a reason he was in homicide, a reason why he loved computers. He dealt with the dead, the inanimate, better than the living.

Lucy Johnson screwed up her face as if she was about to burst into tears. Lincoln looked at Marcus, beseeching him to come rescue him. Marcus left the dog and came to the door.

“Ms. Johnson, we just need—”

“Miss.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Miss Johnson.” The threat of tears past, she smiled winningly at Marcus. He glanced at Lincoln out All the Pretty Girls

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of the corner of his eye. Maybe she just didn’t like big black men in designer suits. He stepped around Lincoln and motioned at the door.

“Can we come in, Miss Johnson?”

She threw a quick, desperate look over her shoulder.

“Naw, let’s do it outside. This place is a mess.” She banged open the screen door, and Lincoln jumped out of the way before it came into contact with his suit. Marcus covered a laugh by clearing his throat. In the daylight, Lucy Johnson didn’t look quite as rough as she had in the shadows. Her hair was a day past fresh, but she had short shorts and long legs, attributes she wasn’t past using to get on the good side of the detectives. She slipped her feet into a pair of ratty plastic flip-flops and walked out into the yard, swishing her hips for maximum effect. The beagle cowered for a moment, then went to his mistress, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.