Consumed Read online

  “What does that mean?” Beth asked.

  “Just that penetrating the skull is one thing, but removing a knife after you do is something else entirely. The brain makes a suction effect on the blade.”

  The thought sent a shiver up my back.

  “Continue. What did you find?” I asked.

  “Her hair came away from behind her ear as we rolled her. She has the same tattoo as the girl I looked at yesterday. It’s a—”

  “Moon and stars?” I asked.

  He looked over at me. “You know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yeah, I saw it on the woman’s remains yesterday.” I took another step toward him and placed my hands on my knees as I bent over to get a better view. The woman had the identical crescent-moon-and-star tattoo behind her ear.

  “What do you make of that?” Dave asked.

  “Well, either they are connected, or it’s about the most ridiculous coincidence in the world. Odds say they are connected.” I looked at Chief Deputy Whissell, who was leaning against the side of his sheriff’s SUV, seemingly not interested in doing anything other than observing. His face still showed annoyance. “Know anything about moon-and-star tattoos on women around here?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “You sure they’re the same?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Dave turned toward the chief deputy. “I agree. They are the same.”

  “Well, we’ll have to find out what it means, I guess.” He went quiet after the comment.

  I shook my head at his disinterest, unable to figure out why he was even there. “You have photos of everything, Dave?”

  “Yeah, I’m through. I’m just going to give Jeff here a hand loading her up, and it’s on to the next one.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Can you send a photo of her face and a photo of the tattoo to my e-mail? I’ll need them to show the Nashville PD when we head out there.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  I gave him my e-mail address.

  Tom, Beth, and I left them to load the remains, and we headed back toward Tom’s car. I looked at him. “Tom, you said you’ve known the chief deputy for a while. Is he always like this?” I asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Just seems like he doesn’t care about this,” I said.

  “Nah. Normally, he’s pretty straightforward. I just think it’s the fact that he’s not in charge of this that has him all pissy. Either that or he had to come in on a Saturday. I don’t know—you have to think it makes him look bad that this is happening in his jurisdiction and someone else had to come in to handle it. I noticed what you’re saying, though.”

  “I’m going to make contact with the Nashville PD. If these women were both from Nashville and both had the same tattoo, maybe it means something. We also need to get ourselves a contact there for when we stop by.” I glanced at my watch—a bit past nine. I figured a noon meeting with them sounded about right. I pulled out my phone, searched the number, and dialed.

  “Nashville Police Department. Is this an emergency?” a woman asked.

  “No, ma’am. My name is Agent Rawlings with the FBI. We’re over here in the Clarksville area, investigating a number of homicides. We’re looking to stop by your station this afternoon and meet with someone regarding our investigation. We believe there to be a connection between the two cities.”

  “Okay, did you want someone in homicide?”

  “A captain or lieutenant, ideally,” I said.

  “Sure. One moment. I’ll put you through to Captain Munro.”

  “Thank you.”

  I heard a click in my ear, followed by music, followed by ringing.

  “Captain Ken Munro,” a man answered.

  “Hello. Agent Hank Rawlings with the FBI. We’re out here in Clarksville, investigating these torso murders. Are you familiar?”

  “Unfortunately,” he said.

  “Okay. Well, we have a connection with the victims and Nashville. We’d like to stop into your station today and discuss what we have. We also believe these victims to be prostitutes in your area there. Ideally, if we had someone there familiar with that, it would be helpful. We’ll bring some photos.”

  “Sure. You’re with the local FBI there?” he asked.

  “No. Another agent and I were sent in from Manassas, Virginia. We’re in the serial crimes unit, homicide.”

  “Specialists.”

  “It’s our job,” I said.

  “All right. Tell you what, let me get on the horn with a few people here and see what we can come up with as far as putting a little meeting together. You said you wanted to do this today. What time were you thinking?”

  “Noon or so?”

  “Um, I have something already on the books at noon. One o’clock works.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  “And you said Agent Rawlings?”

  “Yes. There will probably be three of us. Agents Hank Rawlings, Beth Harper, and a local agent, Tom Clifford.”

  “Got it. I’ll make some calls, and we’ll see what we can come up with.”

  “Appreciate it. One more thing, while I have you on the line. We have two victims with matching tattoos. The tattoo looks like a crescent moon with a couple of stars, located behind their ears. Does that ring a bell with you at all?”

  “Can’t say it does off the top of my head,” he said. “I’ll ask around the station and see if it does with anyone else, though.”

  “Great. Just ask for you when we arrive, then?”

  “Yeah. Captain Munro.”

  I pulled my notepad out, pinched my phone between my shoulder and ear and wrote down the captain’s name. “Okay. We’ll see you in a few hours.”

  “Yup,” he said and clicked off.

  I put my phone back in my pants pocket and my notepad inside the inner pocket of my suit jacket.

  “Nashville PD is going to meet with us?” Beth asked.

  “One o’clock,” I said.

  “That should give us plenty of time at the next scene and enough time to maybe grab a bite to eat on the way back out to Nashville,” she said.

  “You’re ready to eat after looking at what we just looked at?” Tom asked.

  “A girl’s gotta eat,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Looks like they’re loaded up,” Tom said.

  Dave was heading back toward us and said a few words to Chief Deputy Whissell as he passed. He stopped at the side of Tom’s car. “We’re ready to head over to the next spot if you are.”

  “Yup. Let’s do it,” Beth said.

  Whissell’s SUV pulled from the line of cars and headed down the road.

  “Is the chief deputy meeting us there?” I asked.

  “He said he had to get back to the station,” Dave said. “He just wanted me to let him know what we found at the next scene when I get back.”

  “Okay. Do you know where we’re headed?”

  “Yeah, I have the area already on my GPS. You guys just want to follow me over there?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Lead the way.”

  He walked toward his car.

  Beth and I got into her rental. She fired up the engine and waited for Dave to pass us. Tom pulled out behind him, followed by us and finally Jeff in the coroner’s van. The drive took us almost twenty minutes.

  We spotted the scene down a long, winding, wood-lined road—only a few sporadic houses, farms, and fields had broken up the woods in the previous mile. A single sheriff’s cruiser waited along the side of the road. Our convoy of vehicles pulled in behind the cruiser and parked. We stepped out, and our group approached the single deputy, who waited alongside his car. To our right, I spotted a yellow tarp maybe ten feet from the road’s edge.

  I looked back over my shoulder. Jeff had remained in the coroner’s van, seemingly getting it ready to accept another body. We continued walking. Dave, with his kit in hand and camera around his neck, went straight to view the remains. Tom, Beth, and I went to the deputy.

>   “Deputy Carey,” he said. He was thin and maybe an inch or two under six foot. His face was clean shaved, with a pair of eyes that could have been referred to as buggy. He wore the standard Clarksville County Sheriff’s uniform, consisting of a light-blue long-sleeved shirt with black breast pockets and a pair of black slacks.

  “We’re Agents Rawlings, Harper, and Clifford with the FBI.” I pointed at each of us with our corresponding names. “Just you out here?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Been here for an hour and a half,” he said.

  “Who called it in?” Tom asked.

  “Anonymous,” he said. “Not sure how someone spotted it. She’s in there a bit. Whoever called it in had to be in a truck or something. Higher line of sight.”

  I nodded and looked over to where Dave stood near the body, taking photos. The deputy had made a good point—she wasn’t really visible from the road.

  “Didn’t touch the body, did you?” Dave called from the ditch.

  “Nope. Just laid the tarp. That’s it.”

  I looked at where the remains were, in relation to the street. I took a few steps and surveyed the ground, trying to see if I could spot blood anywhere on the road’s surface, like the last scene, or the gravel of the shoulder—I saw nothing.

  “Can we come down, Dave?” I asked.

  “One second. Let me just snap a couple more pics of the surrounding area before it’s disturbed further.”

  Beth, Tom, and I waited at the edge of the street until Dave gave us the go-ahead to come over. Then we stepped through the knee-high weeds to get to him and the body. The smell increased with each step. I put my sleeve over my nose and mouth. Dave had pushed some of the grass where the woman lay to the side and knelt next to her. His kit was open, his hands gloved. I stopped at his side and looked down just as he began to pull back the tarp. Tom and Beth came to my right. As soon as Dave moved the tarp, a handful of flies scattered. I shooed them from around my head and tried to focus on the remains. I saw white-blond hair, matted red and brown with blood. The woman’s eyes were closed, and her mouth hung open a bit. A single fly was walking around on her forehead. Her throat had been opened wide, ear to ear. She was wearing a loose-fitting hot-pink top, and I saw various stab marks in her chest and abdomen area. Her arms had been removed at the shoulders. Dave pulled the tarp completely from her. She wore a leopard-print skirt that hung from the bottom of her remains, due to the lack of legs. I looked back up to her hair and face—something looked off. Her hair and the way it lay looked unnatural.

  “I think that’s a wig,” I said.

  Dave nodded. “Yeah, it is. It looks like she’s got short brown hair underneath.”

  “She’s got a tattoo there.” Beth pointed at the area around her right collarbone, which her shirt was concealing.

  Dave moved her shirt down an inch. “It says Candy.” He inspected the body further. “Knife wounds look to total around seven or eight. Some of these wider ones might be straight through. Can one of you grab Jeff? I’m going to need him to help me roll the body.”

  “Sure,” Tom said. He walked toward the street.

  Dave looked up at us from his kneeling position. “Another prostitute, I’d guess. She looks to be in her late twenties, maybe thirty. Dave moved her bottom lip down a bit with his finger. Teeth look like she may have been a meth user.”

  “See anything around the body?” Beth asked.

  Dave shook his head. “Zip.”

  Tom walked with Jeff toward us from the back of Jeff’s coroner’s van. They left the street and took the few steps through the weeds toward us.

  “Need a hand?” Jeff asked.

  “Just with rolling the body,” Dave said. “I’ll take a few photos, and then I can give you a hand loading her up.”

  “Sure,” Jeff said.

  Beth and I spread apart so Jeff could assist Dave. We watched as Jeff gloved his hands and then helped roll the remains onto their side. The wig fell from the woman’s head to the weeds beside her.

  Beth swatted my shoulder and pointed. “Crescent moon and stars.” She pointed at the woman’s ear.

  “Are those more of the same tattoos, Dave?” I asked.

  He took the camera from his eye and tilted his head to get a look behind her ear. He look back at Beth and I. “Yeah, same,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Richard sat on the couch in the living room, staring at the television, which was currently airing an infomercial for a juicer. Over his lap rested a TV tray with his breakfast—four eggs and a four-inch roast of Peaches’s calf, slow cooked and seasoned to perfection. The meat, having been in the slow cooker overnight, shredded with the lightest touch. Peaches had won Richard’s own personal taste test between the two hookers. He sliced his eggs with a fork and knife and shoveled a forkful into his mouth. He mixed some of the wet yellow egg yolk with some of Peaches’s shredded calf meat and brought it to his mouth.

  He chewed and savored his breakfast—the meat carried a flavor similar to a pork roast, though Richard hadn’t eaten pork in quite some time. While pan frying, grilling, and baking were all suitable methods for cooking the women he’d selected, Richard always preferred the tenderness that slow cooking provided.

  He heard a car pulling up the driveway. Richard slid the TV tray from over his lap and went to the window to look out. “Shit.” Richard scratched at his beard.

  “Who is it?” he heard his mother ask.

  “It’s your cop son. Come on.” Richard went back to the couch, picked her up, and carried her to the basement door.

  “Mark came to visit me?”

  “He’s not here to visit you. Just be quiet.” Richard opened the basement door, walked down the steps, and set his mother in the corner. “Keep your trap shut,” Richard said.

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” he heard.

  Richard jogged back up the basement stairs, closed the door at his back, and walked through the living room to the kitchen. He looked through the screen door leading outside—Mark was getting out of his sheriff’s SUV. Richard knew why he was there. He retreated back to the living room and took his seat again on the couch. He pulled the television tray with his breakfast on it back over his lap. His eyes darted in between the kitchen door, his food, and the television.

  “He looks angry,” Richard heard his mother say from the basement.

  “Shut up. He’s coming.”

  Richard heard the tinny crack and rattle of the screen door slamming into the outside wall of the house.

  “Where the hell are you?” Mark called.

  “I’m eating breakfast in the living room,” Richard said. His right hand went to his hip and flipped open the snap that secured the handle of his knife to the sheath.

  “Don’t you hurt your brother, Richie,” he heard his mother say from below.

  “Be quiet,” he snapped. “If he tries getting rough with me, I’m going to stab him in the face. He tried getting tough with me last night. I didn’t like it.”

  The sound of stomping footsteps thumped through the kitchen.

  “Who the hell are you talking to?” Mark asked. The footsteps came around the backside of the couch, and Mark appeared in front of him. “I asked who you were talking to.”

  “Mom,” Richard said.

  “Mom is dead, dipshit.”

  “She still talks to me,” Richard said. “Every day. She keeps me company.”

  Mark snapped his fingers. “Back to reality, Richie. Mom is sitting in hell, pissed off that you killed her.”

  Richard said nothing. He focused on the television and scooped some eggs into his mouth. He could see Mark shaking his head from the corner of his eye.

  “Richie, what the hell did I tell you to do last night?” Mark asked. He shooed a fly away from his face with his hand.

  Richard looked down at his food. He picked up his fork and began to stab at the shredded meat, filling the fork’s tines.

  Mark pulled his hand back and swatted the TV tray, se
nding the tray, the knife, the plate, and Richard’s breakfast flying across the living room. “What did I tell you to do?”

  “Hey! That was my breakfast, dammit!” Richard shouted.

  Mark stared at him, waiting for a response.

  Richard ate the meat hanging from his fork and set it on the table beside the couch. “You told me to pick them back up. But I couldn’t find them. I drove around for a long time. I just couldn’t find where I dumped them.”

  “That’s not acceptable. You know what I just did for the last hour?”

  “I don’t know.” Richard leaned back into the couch’s cushions. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me, though.”

  “You’re damn right I’m going to tell you. I stood on the side of the road while a couple of feds looked over what you left.”

  Richard shrugged. “I couldn’t find them. What can I say other than that? I drove around for, like, three hours, trying not to fall asleep. I was really tired. I couldn’t do it anymore. Look, I’m sorry, but we wouldn’t be having this talk if you did what you were supposed to.”

  “What I’m supposed to do? I’ve been taking care of your dumb ass for how many years, making sure you don’t get found, making sure the girls disappear. You dumping these whores on my streets is going to get you caught. Because you couldn’t wait for me, now there are a pair of feds that have been sent in from out of state. If they find you, there’s a chance they will find out who I actually am. I’m telling you as your brother I will put your ass in the ground before I let that happen. I don’t care. I’m not sitting in prison for you.”

  “I just needed the bodies away from me, and you stopped coming to take care of them. I can’t call you. I can’t come looking for you. When I’m done with them, they have to go away. It was the same with Dad. You don’t understand how bad the voices get because you don’t have the disease.”

  “Disease.” Mark cocked his head to the side. “You’re calling it a disease now? Why don’t you call it what it is, being a damn nut that hears voices. You don’t see me sawing up whores and eating them. You don’t see me having conversations with ghosts. And don’t bring Dad into this.”

  “I still don’t believe you’ve never found him.”