Not too much mixing, as a rule.
"One other missing girl is black. Student from North Carolina Center University. Two bodies we found were white. All the women who've disappeared are extremely attractive. We have a bulletin board up with pictures of the missing girls.
Somebody gave the case a name: “Beauties and the Beast.” It's on the board in big letters.
Right over the pictures. That's another handle we have for the case.“ ”Does Naomi Cross fit his pattern?“ Sampson asked quietly. ”Whatever the crisis team has established so far?"
Nick Ruskin didn't answer right away. I couldn't tell if he was thinking about it, or just trying to be considerate.
“Is Naomi's picture up on the FBI bulletin board? The Beauties and the Beast board?” I asked Ruskin.
“Yes, it is.” Davey Sikes finally spoke. “Her picture is on the big board.”
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 13.
DON'T LET THIS be Scootchie. Her life is just beginning, I silently prayed as we sped to the homicide scene.
Terrible, unspeakable things happened all the time nowadays, to all kinds of innocent, unsuspecting people. They happened in virtually every big city, and even small towns, in villages of a hundred or less.
But most often these violent, unthinkable crimes seemed to happen in America.
Ruskin downshifted hard as we curled around a steep curve and saw flashing red and blue lights. Cars and EMS vans loomed up ahead, solemnly gathered at the edge of thick pine woods.
A dozen vehicles were parked haphazardly along the side of the two-lane state road. Traffic was sparse out there in the heart of nowhere.
There was no buildup of ambulance-chasers yet. Ruskin pulled in behind the last car in line, a dark blue Lincoln Town Car that might as well have had Federal Bureau written all over it.
A state-of-the-art homicide scene was already in progress. Yellow tape had been strung from pine trees, cordoning off the perimeter. Two EMS ambulances were parked with their blunt noses pointed into a stand of trees.
I was swept into a near out-of-body experience as I floated from the car. My vision tunneled.
It was almost as if I had never visited a crime scene before. I vividly remembered the worst of the Soneji case. A small child found near a muddy river. Horrifying memories mixed with the terrifying present moment.
Don't let this be Scootchie.
Sampson held my arm loosely as we followed detectives Ruskin and Sikes.
We walked for nearly a mile into the dense woods. In the heart of a copse of towering pines, we finally saw the shapes and silhouettes of several men and a few women.
At least half of the group were dressed in dark business suits. It was as if we had come upon some impromptu camping trip for an accounting firm, or a coven of big-city lawyers or bankers.
Everything was eerie, quiet, except for the hollow popping of the technicians' cameras. Close- up photos of the entire area were being taken.
A couple of the crime-scene professionals were already wearing translucent rubber gloves, looking for evidence, taking notes on spiral pads.
I had a creepy, otherworldly premonition that we were going to find Scootchie now. I pushed it, shoved it away, like the unwanted touch of an angel or God. I turned my head sharply to one side as if that would help me avoid whatever was coming up ahead.
“FBI for sure,” Sampson muttered softly. “Out here on the Wilderness Trail.” It was as if we were walking toward a mammoth nest of buzzing hornets. They were standing around, whispering secrets to one another.
I was acutely aware of leaves crumpling under my feet, of the noise of twigs and small branches breaking. I wasn't really a policeman here. I was a civilian.
We finally saw the naked body, at least what was left of it. There was no clothing visible at the murder scene. The woman had been tied to a small sapling with what appeared to be a thick leather bond.
Sampson sighed, “Oh, Jesus, Alex.”
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 14.
WHO IS THE WOMAN?“ I asked softly as we came up to the unlikely police group, the multi jurisdictional mess,” as Nick Ruskin had described it.
The dead woman was white. It was impossible to tell too much more than that about her at this time. Birds and animals had been feasting on her, and she almost didn't look human anymore.
There were no fixed, staring eyes, just dark sockets like burn marks. She didn't have a face; the skin and tissue had been eaten away.
“Who the hell are these two?” one of the FBI agents, a heavyset blond woman in her early thirties, asked Ruskin. She was as unattractive as she was unpleasant, with puffy red lips and a bulbous, hooked nose. At least she'd spared us the usual FBI happy-camper smile, or the FBI's famous “smiling handshake.” Nick Ruskin was brusque with her. His first endearing moment for me.
"This is Detective Alex Cross, and his partner, Detective John Sampson.
They're down here from D.C. Detective Cross's niece is missing from Duke. She's Naomi Cross.
This is Special Agent in Charge Joyce Kinney." He introduced the agent to us.
Agent Kinney frowned, or maybe it was a scowl. “Well, this is certainly not your niece here,” she said.
“I'd appreciate it if the two of you would return to the cars. Please do that.” She felt the need to go on. “You have no authority on this case, and no right to be here, either.” “As Detective Ruskin just told you, my niece is missing.” I spoke softly, but firmly, to Special Agent Joyce Kinney. “That's all the authority I need. We didn't come down here to admire the leather interior and instrument panel of Detective Ruskin's sports car.”
A thick-chested blond man in his late twenties briskly stepped up beside his boss. “I think y'all heard Special Agent Kinney. I'd appreciate it if you leave now,” he announced. Under different circumstances, his over-the-top response might have been funny. Not today. Not at this massacre scene.
“No way you're going to stop us,” Sampson said to the blond agent in his darkest, grimmest voice. “Not you. Not your Dapper Dan friends here.” “That's fine, Mark.” Agent Kinney turned to the younger man. “We'll deal with this later,” she said. Agent Mark backed off, but not without a major-league scowl, much like the one I'd gotten from his boss. Both Ruskin and Sikes laughed as the agent backed down.
We were allowed to stay with the FBI and the local police contingent at the crime scene.
Beauties and the Beast. I remembered the phrase Ruskin had used in the car. Naomi was up on the Beast board. Had the dead woman been on the board as well?
It had been hot and humid and the body was decomposing rapidly. The woman had been badly attacked by forest animals, and I hoped that she was already dead before they came. Somehow, I didn't think so.
I noted the unusual position of the body. She was lying on her back.
Both her arms appeared to have been dislocated, perhaps as she twisted and struggled to free herself from the leather bonds and the tree behind her. It was as vicious a sight as I had ever seen on the streets of Washington or anywhere else. I felt almost no relief that this wasn't Naomi.
I eventually talked up one of the FBI's forensic people. He knew a friend of mine at the Bureau, Kyle Craig, who worked out of Quantico in Virginia. He told me that Kyle had a summer house in the area.
“This shit heel real savvy, real smooth, if nothing else.” The FBI forensic guy liked to talk.
“He hasn't left pubic hairs, semen, or even traces of perspiration on either of the victims I've examined. I surely doubt if we'll find much here to give us a DNA profile. At least he didn't eat her himself.”