Whispers of the Dead - Страница 41

‘I’ve never heard of it being done to plant fingerprints before, but that’s how it looks. That’s probably why Noah Harper’s body was so badly decomposed. York wanted the skin from its hands before he switched it with Willis Dexter’s.’

And then he’d waited a few more days before going back to the woods and collecting the sloughed skin from Dexter’s hands as well. Scavengers wouldn’t have bothered with scraps of drying tissue when they’d got the entire body to feed on. And if they had…

He’d just have used someone else’s.

I felt a weary anger at myself for not realizing sooner. My subconscious had done its best to tell me, prompting the deja vu at the sight of my wrinkled hands when I’d peeled off the latex gloves, but I’d ignored it. Tom had been right. He’d told me I should listen more to my instincts.

I should have listened to him as well.

Jacobsen took the evidence bag from me. Her expression was a mixture of disgust and fascination as she studied its contents.

‘Deke said this wasn’t dried out. Does that mean it must have come from a body recently?’

I guessed she was thinking about Irving. Although no one had actually said as much, we all knew that the profiler must be dead by now. But even if he’d been killed straight away, it would have taken longer than this for the skin to slough off. Whoever this had come from, it wasn’t him.

‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘It looks like it’s been deliberately oiled to preserve it and keep the skin supple…’

I stopped as something occurred to me. I looked over at the car windscreen, at the greasy smears left on the glass by the skin.

‘Baby oil.’

Gardner and Jacobsen stared at me.

‘The fingerprint on the film container in the cabin was left in baby oil,’ I said. ‘Irving thought it was proof that the killings were sexually motivated, but it wasn’t. That’s what York’s been using to keep the sloughed skin supple. Its natural oils would have dried out, and he’d have wanted the fingerprints to be nice and clear. So he oiled it like old leather.’

I remembered Irving’s mocking jibe. Unless the killer has a penchant for moisturizing… He’d been closer to the truth than he knew.

‘If York’s been harvesting his victim’s fingerprints, how come he didn’t take the skin from Terry Loomis’s hands as well?’ Jacobsen wanted to know. ‘That was still in the cabin with the body.’

‘If it hadn’t been we’d have noticed and guessed what was going on,’ Gardner said, self-reproach making his voice harsh. ‘York wanted to pick his own time to let us know what he was doing.’

I watched the forensic agents carefully dust another part of the car with fingerprint powder. They were making a thorough job of it. For all the good it would do.

‘So why now?’ I asked.

Gardner looked across at Jacobsen. She shrugged. ‘He’s bragging again, telling us he isn’t afraid of being caught. Obviously, he doesn’t think our knowing this’ll do us any good. Sooner or later we would’ve realized what he was doing anyway. This way he gets to stay in control.’

The other question remained unspoken. Why me? But I was afraid I already knew the answer to that.

Gardner looked down at the manila envelope he was holding. He seemed to reach a decision. ‘Diane’ll drive you to your hotel. Stay there till I call. Don’t let anyone into your room; if someone says room service, make sure it is before you open the door.’

‘What about my car?’

‘We’ll let you know when we’re done with it.’ He turned to Jacobsen. ‘Diane, a word.’

The two of them walked out of earshot. Gardner did all the talking. I saw Jacobsen nodding as he handed her the envelope. I wondered what might be in it, but I couldn’t raise much interest.

I looked back at the white-suited figures working on my car. The fine powder they were using to dust for fingerprints had dulled its paint, making it seem like something dead itself.

There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I watched them. I ran my thumb across the scar on my palm. Admit it. You’re scared.

I’d been stalked by a killer once before. I’d come here hoping to put it behind me.

Now it was happening again.

It started to rain as Jacobsen drove me back to my hotel. Fat drops slid down the car windows in uneven bursts, swept away by the wipers only to reappear a moment later. Away from the hospital, the roads and bars were still busy. The bright lights and bustling streets were a relief, but I couldn’t connect with their normality. I felt separated from them by more than the car window, aware that the reassurance they offered was illusory.

For once I was almost unaware of Jacobsen’s closeness. It was only when she finally spoke that I dragged my thoughts back to the here and now.

‘Dan says Loomis and Harper were strangled with some kind of ligature,’ she said.

I stirred, surprised by the conversational gambit. ‘Probably something called a Spanish windlass. A sort of tourniquet.’ I explained how it worked.

‘That’d fit in with what we know about York. He’d like the power something like that would give him. Literally life or death, and much more satisfying than killing someone straight away. It’d allow him to control the process, decide exactly when to exert enough pressure to kill his victim.’ She gave me a quick glance. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t very tactful.’

I shrugged. ‘It’s all right. I’ve seen what York does. I’m not going to faint because he’s playing mind games.’

‘Is that what you think tonight was?’

‘If he was serious about coming after me, why warn me in advance?’ But even as I said it I realized I’d encountered another killer once who’d done exactly that.

Jacobsen wasn’t convinced either. ‘York needs to assert himself. To a narcissist like him, what happened with Dr Lieberman would’ve been a huge loss of face. His self-esteem’s going to demand something even more spectacular to make up for it. Warning his next victim in advance might be it.’

‘I still can’t see why York would bother targeting me. Tom and Irving were both well known. Why go from high-profile targets to a stranger no one here’s heard of? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘It might to him.’ She spoke flatly, her gaze on the road. ‘He saw you working with Dr Lieberman, don’t forget. And you’re British, a guest at the facility. York might feel that someone like you might make a bigger splash than someone local.’

That was something I hadn’t considered. ‘I suppose I should be flattered,’ I said, trying to make a joke of it.

I wasn’t rewarded with a smile. ‘I don’t think you should take it lightly.’

Believe me, I’m not. ‘Can I ask something?’ I said, wanting to change the subject. ‘Have you heard anything from the lab about the blood samples from the cabin?’

There was a beat before she answered. ‘A full DNA analysis takes weeks.’

That wasn’t what I’d asked, but her evasion told me I was on the right track. ‘No, but they should have found out by now if the blood was human or not.’

At any other time I might have enjoyed her surprise. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Call it an educated guess. So it was from an animal, then?’

The darkened profile gave a nod. ‘We only got the results this afternoon, but even before then we knew there was something not right about it. Forensics weren’t convinced by the spatter patterns in the cabin, although York made a good job of faking them. So the lab ran a preliminary test which suggested the blood was non-human. But we still had to wait until they’d extracted the DNA before we could be sure.’

‘What was it? Pig’s blood?’

I could see the white of her teeth in the darkness as she smiled. ‘Now you’re just showing off.’

Well, perhaps a little. ‘It isn’t as clever as it sounds,’ I admitted. ‘Once we’d confirmed that Terry Loomis had been strangled, then the blood obviously couldn’t have been his. So the cuts on his body had to be post mortem, in which case most of the blood in the cabin had to have come from somewhere else.’

‘I still don’t see how you could know it was pig’s blood…’ she began, then answered herself. ‘Oh, I get it. The teeth we found with Willis Dexter’s body.’

‘I’d wondered if the blood could be animal before then. But once I saw those I guessed it was probably from a pig as well,’ I told her. ‘Seems to be the sort of game York enjoys.’

Jacobsen fell silent. Her face was marbled by the rain running down the windows. In the slanting planes of yellow from the streetlights, her profile looked like a Grecian sculpture.

‘I shouldn’t really tell you this,’ she said slowly. ‘The blood samples from the cabin aren’t the only results we’ve had. Noah Harper tested positive for Hepatitis C.’

God. Poor Kyle. Unlike the A and B strains, there was no vaccine for Hepatitis C. The virus wasn’t necessarily fatal, but the treatment was time-consuming and unpleasant. And even then, there were no guarantees.

‘Does Kyle know?’ I asked, uncomfortably aware that it could easily have been me instead.

‘Not yet. It’ll be a while before he gets his own results from the hospital, and Dan didn’t think there was any point worrying him.’ She gave me a quick look. ‘You understand this is strictly in confidence?’

‘Of course.’ For once I agreed with Gardner. There was still a chance Kyle might escape infection, but I wouldn’t have wanted to stake my own life on so slim a bet.