“Why would she grill you?” Bryce asked. “Why not go directly to the expert?”
“Expert? You mean Bertram?” He raised his chin, clearly prickly over Bryce’s question. “I might not have tenure like Bertram, but I was the one who kept the Ed Dryden research going in the years after Risa Madsen left. Diana did come to the expert.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I answered her questions.”
“And suggested she talk to Dryden herself?”
Yamal held up a hand. “I told her not to go near him. Bertram pushed that.”
“Bertram?” Sylvie glanced back in the direction of Bertram’s office. Had he lied to them? Why? “He said Diana insisted she would visit Dryden whether he arranged it or not.”
“Diana was eager to know about Dryden, no question. But that was it. She never asked to visit him. Until Bertram decided she was the savior of his book deal.”
Bryce arched his brows. “So you’re saying Bertram pushed her into visiting Dryden?”
“Bertram used Diana. And she was happy to let him.”
Sylvie nodded. That much Bertram had told them, if not in so many words. “He implied Dryden agreed to talk to her because she’s a woman.”
Yamal let out a short, barking laugh. “Not just any woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever seen pictures of the women Dryden killed?”
The faces from the news articles Diana collected filtered through Sylvie’s mind. “Some of them.”
Yamal’s smile made her want to squirm. He opened a file drawer and pulled out a folder. Carrying it to a nearby desk, he removed a stack of photos. “One look at these and you’ll understand.”
A nervous flutter lodged under Sylvie’s ribs.
Bryce stepped up beside her. He placed his hand lightly on her arm, as if to offer support.
She pulled her arm away. She could make it on her own. Whatever Sami Yamal was about to show her, she’d deal with it as long as it led her closer to finding Diana.
One by one, Yamal spread a variety of shots of smiling blond women across the desktop. “These are Dryden’s first victims, the ones he killed before he was captured the first time. Notice the similarities? They’re all young. They’re all blond.”
Sylvie didn’t have to look hard to see what he was talking about. “And they all look like Diana.”
He pulled one of the pictures from the rest and held it in front of Sylvie’s nose.
She nearly gasped. The woman in the picture could be her third sister—not identical, but frighteningly close. The style of the woman’s blond hair and the puffy sleeves of her jacket dated the picture. No doubt the woman would be quite a bit older than them—if she had lived. “Is that his first victim?”
He shook his head. “His last. Well, until his later prison escape. But she is the most significant of his early victims.”
Bryce nodded. “His wife.”
“Adrianna Dryden. The theory first developed by Risa Madsen is that Dryden had felt controlled by her, a control he couldn’t fight against, a control that emasculated him. So he killed women who looked like her to claim back the power he felt she stole.” He gestured to the collection of photos with a sweep of his hand. “In effect, he used these other murders to fantasize about torturing, murdering, and mutilating his wife. When he finally worked up enough confidence and excitement, he did what he’d aimed to do all along.”
Sylvie swallowed into a dry throat. “And Diana looks just like her.”
“Exactly why Bertram knew Dryden would talk to her. And Diana wasn’t interested in taking credit for the research or the book. A match made in heaven.” Bitterness turned his voice as brittle as a crust of ice. “Diana Gale never should have been put in that situation. She didn’t know Dryden. She might have hit the microfilm, but she didn’t do the years of research required to learn how to handle someone like him, if it’s even possible. I don’t know if Ed Dryden is responsible or not for your sister’s disappearance, but if he is, the blame lies squarely with Vincent Bertram.”
Val
Val smelled the body before she saw it. The sweet, putrid odor of decay threaded through scents of autumn leaves, nighttime, and lake. She signed in with the officer maintaining the crime scene record, ducked under the yellow tape, and followed the lights illuminating the forest path.
“Glad you could make it down here so fast,” a bulldog of a man said. He motioned her to follow. “Coroner wants to cut her down asap. Rain coming.”
“Detective Perreth, I presume,” Val said to the Madison cop.
“Sorry. Call me Stan. I recognized you from your picture. You know, a few years ago.”
For a while there, Val’s face was all over the media, local and even nationwide. A statement like Stan’s was usually followed by a battery of questions about Dixon Hess and the hell that had unfolded in Lake Loyal. She wasn’t eager to walk down memory lane. “Tell me about what you found.”
“I’ve done some deer hunting in my day, and what he did to her…” Stan paused, as if gathering his composure. “It’s messed up.”
Val nodded. Murder was messed up. And an investigation was always emotionally stressful. As long as she kept it compartmentalized, as if this murder were more a mind puzzle than a horrible tragedy, she could function. Later, after her job was done, she would tackle the job of processing. Now her focus had to be on finding whoever was committing these horrible crimes and helping law enforcement stop him.
“So are you saying she was field dressed, the way a deer would be?” she asked Stan Perreth.
“That’s why I called you. I was a rookie at your county sheriff’s department back when Ed Dryden went on his last spree. This seems a bit too familiar for comfort. And then I heard you have another one, a recent one…”
“You heard right.”
“Copycat?”
“Seems likely. Maybe our county coroner could consult with your M.E?”
“Sure thing. Appreciate it.”
They kept following the trail, the smell growing stronger with each step.
“Was there anything else you noticed?” Val asked.
“He went to certain lengths to hide the victim’s identity.”
As far as Val knew, that was a new twist. “What lengths?”
“Cut off her fingertips.”
Val’s fingers ached in response.
“Took a baseball bat to her face.”
Her cheekbones could almost feel the blows.
“And he… uh, he removed her teeth. The uppers with the bat, the lowers by taking off her jaw.”
Val clamped her teeth together hard.
“I didn’t see anything like that in the reports about your murder.”
Val shook her head. “No, nothing like that. That makes me wonder if the killer knew her.”
“I feel I need to warn you…”
“Warn me? About what?”
“We have a possible victim.”
“How does that require a warning?”
“You might know her.”
A tightness gripped Val’s chest. She’d lost too many people she knew already. If she hadn’t talked to her niece Grace this morning, she’d probably be suffering a full-on panic attack right now. “You have an I.D.?”
“Nothing official. Not yet. But a woman went missing yesterday, and…”
“A woman I know?” Val thought for a moment. She hadn’t been invited to the wedding, but a congratulatory card had been circling through the county sheriff’s department. “Bobby Vaughn’s fiancé?”
The pained look on Stan’s face confirmed her guess. “So you do know her. Sorry.”