Powell turned to face the room and stepped out of the light. “What this means is that our killer is anatomically savvy and very precise. He might even have some kind of medical training.”
A hand went up in back, from just ahead of the projector.
“What’s a line of cleavage?” a voice asked from the darkness.
“The ME could explain it better than I can, but essentially muscle tissue in the body runs in groups that continue in certain directions. These directions are called ‘lines of cleavage.’ If you cut along, or parallel to these lines, then the wounds tend to remain closed, depending on the depth of the incision, of course. If you cut across these lines of cleavage, then the incised wound will be gaping or open and generally much nastier.”
“So our boy wasn’t trying to chop these girls up?” Bransford asked.
“Quite the opposite,” Powell said, turning again to the slide and pointing. “Try to look past the gore. What we’ve got here is a situation where Allison was tied up and then patiently, carefully-and extremely painfully-bled to death.
She also experienced violent sex as well, with both moderate to severe anal and vaginal tearing. However, I’ll have more on that aspect of the scene later.”
“Was she raped?” Maria Chavez asked.
“There was no evidence of semen found on either body during crime-scene examination and the autopsy,” Gilley offered.
Maria turned, faced Gilley. “Kind of a quick determination, isn’t it?”
“We took swabs, ran acid phosphatase and microscope examination. We’re waiting on the P30,” Gilley said, referring to the test for a specific glycoprotein found only in seminal fluid.
“In the past murders, we haven’t found semen, either. So we’re going to take for granted at this point,” Powell said,
“that the sexual violations were with foreign objects or by a condom-wrapped penis.”
“So the guy goes into what’s essentially a massage parlor,” Maria Chavez spoke up again, “pays his money, goes to a back room with the girl, where, say, the guy offers her an extra fifty or hundred to let him tie her up. Once she’s tied up, the guy takes his time on her.”
“Let’s hold judgment on that for the time being,” Powell said. “For now, just examine the scene. Notice one thing, up here on the wall opposite the table-”
“The letter M,” Jack Murray said. “The guy’s signature!”
“Yes,” Powell answered, “but look at this next set of slides.” He motioned for the next slide.
Soft, low moans erupted again as the slide of the second victim flashed on the screen. Exponentially more brutal than the first slide, and more brutal than anything most of the investigators had ever seen, the second slide depicted a victim who must have died in unimaginable agony and terror. Sarah Denise Burnham’s last moments of consciousness had to have been as close to hell as any living human could get and still be drawing-even if only for a few moments more-breath.
Behind him, from off his left shoulder, Powell heard retching disguised as coughing. He’d heard this sort of reaction before from even the most hardened veteran homicide investigators. No one could remain unaffected by a scene like this one.
“As you can see,” Powell said, “our boy was considerably more thorough with this victim. The ME estimates that he must have spent at least two hours in this room. What you’re seeing is essentially the beginning of an autopsy performed on a live human being.”
Maria Chavez let loose a sound that was a cross between a gasp and a squeak. “Surely,” she croaked, “the poor girl wasn’t conscious!”
Powell turned. “Your ME estimates that it’s possible the victim could have retained some level of consciousness perhaps even up the point where the thoraco-abdominal incision was complete.”
“The what?” a voice asked from the back.
“The Y incision, which in the female begins roughly in the area of the navel and extends upward through the anterior ventral cavity, between the breasts, and then branching out to the shoulders.”
Powell turned back to the slide. “However, it’s extremely likely that the victim was in a state of severe shock by then and was hopefully rendered insensate. Let’s hope so, anyway, for Sarah’s sake.”
“Mi Dios,” Maria Chavez whispered, her voice choked.
“If you examine this photograph closely, you’ll see that following the completion of the thoraco-abdominal incision and the removal of the breastplate, our killer then manipulated the internal organs of the victim. According to the ME, the muscle tissues of the heart were constricted and bruised in a manner consistent with a kind of strangulation maneuver. This is another signature aspect of the Alphabet Man’s murders. In all instances up to the first victim you saw here this morning in the previous set of slides, the killer has performed the beginnings of a surgical-quality autopsy and literally stopped a beating heart with his own hands.
Then he has removed and manipulated various interior organs before replacing them back in the body cavity.
“Keep in mind that this is not your typical postmortem evisceration and savage mutilation consistent with the psy-chotic, disorganized work of a delusional, out-of-control madman. What we have here is the very careful and precise work of an organized, psychopathic sexual sadist. And while I know you’re all quite sick of this much detail, there is one other signature aspect of these homicides.”
“God,” Jack Murray moaned from the back, “we’re afraid to ask.”
“But you need to know,” Powell said calmly. “Before beginning the thoraco-abdominal incision, the Alphabet Man removes the nipples of his victims and forces the victim to consume them.”
Maria Chavez, still seated in her chair, bent over at the waist, gagging and retching, then stood up and bolted for the door. Two other male investigators, hands held to mouth, ran after her.
Powell looked down at Bransford. “Don’t be too hard on them,” he said. “That’s not the first time that’s happened.”
A hand from the back corner went up. “Yes?” Powell asked.
“Do we have any indication of the type of weapon used?”
“Good question,” Powell said. “Unfortunately, it’s one that we don’t have a complete answer for. You’re looking for a small, thin-bladed weapon that’s surgically sharp. It could be a straight razor, a scalpel, probably not a box opener. Perhaps an X-Acto knife. And our guy knows how to use it.”
“Which means what?” Gilley asked. “Is he a doctor or something?”
“Probably not, but he may have some kind of medical training, perhaps a biology background.”
“He sure as hell has some dissecting skills,” Bransford added.
“Maybe he’s a butcher,” another voice from the shadows behind the projector suggested.
“Don’t think so,” Powell noted. “I’ve reviewed our case files on every murder committed by a butcher going back about thirty years, and in not one have we seen this degree of precision and care. So I’m not ruling it out, but it’s not probable.”
To Powell’s left, the door opened and a shaken Maria Chavez stepped into the room, still swabbing a wet, dark brown paper towel across her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said weakly.
“Please, Detective, don’t be,” Powell offered soothingly.
“You’re by no means the first.”
Chavez forced a smile. “Murray’s still in the men’s room.
I could hear him through the door.”
“Why don’t we kill the slide projector and bring the lights up,” Powell said. “We’ve seen enough of this for now.”
As Gilley stowed the projector and Hank Powell switched the lights back on, the other two ill detectives filed back into the room looking distinctly hangdog and took their chairs.