footprints. In Minnesota and Portland he used a broom in each case, here a mop. He uses a scalpel or scalpel-like knife for the incisions, and a bone cutter, not a noisy Stryker saw to detach the spine fully from the body.”
“Obviously, you've given this a lot of thought.”
“You're going to find that he used a bone cutter to remove the Olsen woman's ribs, too.”
“How long have you been working on this, Reynolds?” Jessica asked.
“Since things in the Oregon case didn't add up to me. I don't believe Towne's guilty of any of this. In fact, he claims there is-floating around somewhere-a photo of him at a lake at the Canadian border where he was fishing with a friend when his wife was being murdered.”
“Gone fishing? That's an awful alibi. I could cite you hundreds of foolish men who used it, including Scott Peterson.”
“But in Towne's case, it's true. He's an avid fisherman and hunter.”
“Who owns a deboning knife, a rib cutter, and a ball peen hammer, I'm sure,” said Sands with a shake of the head.
“And a bow and arrow, and a collection of hunting rifles rivaling Sears Roebuck.” Reynolds dropped his head, nodding. “All of which was carted into the courtroom to prove him some sort of animal.”
“Then why the hell did he confess?” asked Petersaul.
“He was out of his mind at the time.”
“What's the source of your information?” asked Jessica.
“All right, there is a personal connection. An old friend of mine is on the defense team, and I can assure you Towne couldn't afford a Roy Black. They started an appeal but Towne, shown of sound mind at the time, refused any appeals made on his behalf.”
“So you're saying that the Minnesota case, and now this awful butchery, that this constitutes new information for Towne's defense?”
“I've always maintained he could not have done the Minnesota killing. I've already faxed the broad outlines to Oregon, but they've wired back that the governor's not buying it. The DA's somehow gotten the time of death changed by a day to counter claims that Towne was in Canada at the time.”
“I see.”
“So much for that. The governor can't be convinced of a stay of execution, citing the fact that Towne himself refuses any further appeal!”
“Meanwhile, you uncovered all this coincidence surrounding the murders.” Jessica put a fiber slide together as she spoke. “Like the sketches left at the murder scenes in both Millbrook and Portland, and now here in Milwaukee.”
“According to my experts, done by the same hand,” added Darwin. “And Towne has no history of artistic ability whatsoever.”
“How do you know that?”
“Let's just say that I've seen what he can't do with the back of a napkin.”
“So you're maintaining that he can't have created the charcoal sketches,” said Abrams, still playing devil's advocate, “and I gotta agree, not here with the Olsen woman and her dog since he's sitting on death row. But this could just be a copycat killing. Your boy Towne could've done the bird lady in Minnesota, and his wife.”
This drew some laughter.
Darwin dropped his head as if defeated. Jessica saw his frustration as he realized he could not change any of their minds. She jumped in, asking, “Agent Reynolds, when Towne was in his insanity phase, did the defense use schizophrenia as a mitigating circumstance?”
“Afraid so, yes, but-”
“And so, did he ever in any other personality show any artistic-”
“None, I tell you.”
“And you have the autopsy reports on the two other crimes?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact…”
“I'll be happy to look them over, but I must tell you, I am skeptical, at least as skeptical as Dr. Sands and Chief Abrams.”
“Understood.”
“But I am also equally skeptical anything can be done to save Towne from execution at this late date.”
“Skeptical is fine, perfect actually. I want your skepticism, Dr. Coran. It's what makes a good M.E., correct? And when you are convinced, it will mean something to Oregon.”
Skepticism is the hallmark of the medical examiner, she thought. “But for now I have, as Dr. Sands says, my hands full.”
Reynolds held up his hands in the universal gesture of retreat, and he did just that.
“I'll give you transport to the crime lab,” Darwin Reynolds offered Jessica when it became apparent that she and Dr. Sands could do no more at the scene. “I'm sure you can trust Ira and his people to maintain the chain of evidence, Dr. Coran.”
She'd automatically begun to search the room to see what final steps needed to be taken before leaving the crime scene. “Once we let it go,” she said, her gaze sweeping over everyone and everything remaining, “it's gone. No longer ours. Any mistakes we make now. All that.”
Even as she and Reynolds started toward the door, Jessica couldn't help but again regard the smoothed out dried blood running from the body to the door where it had been purposefully disturbed-mopped. She noticed the techs placing plastic bags over the mop ends and rubber-banding them. Another pair of men zipped up a body bag, having lifted Joyce Olsen's remains up and into it. Jessica's last glance met the woman's features, a mildly chiding reproach in the dead eyes. Now, in the hands of God, the eyes of the victim shone on Jessica like some sort of scolding preternatural light that insisted “find my killer.”
Such had fallen to her countless times before, and the responsibility and burden only grew as more was learned of the victim. Joyce had been a librarian who walked to and from her job, kept a steady schedule of walking her dog, Shep, in the nearby park, and according to a diary entry, read by Darwin, as Jessica and Sands had worked over her corpse, she adored the roasted sweet corn at the West Allis Fairgrounds during the state fair, a place the librarians and their relatives went each year to celebrate and party. She had had to go alone for the past two years, and Joyce lamented about this in her private book.
At the elevator doors in the hallway, Dr. Sands was already swamped, surrounded and captured by newspeople who'd finally gotten past the uniforms below. Sands appeared to revel in the attention. Reynolds snuck Jessica out via a back stairwell. Behind them, Jessica heard Sands saying, “Boys, whoever the devil is, he's pretty well destroyed any chance at blood spatter evidence of any sort.”
“What kind of weapon'd he use on her, Doc?” came a question.
“From the neatness of the incisions, I'd say our killer used a scalpel or a very good deboning knife.”
“A deboning knife?” went up the cry.
“Damned handy with it, too.”
“Is it true that her entire spinal column from top to bottom was extracted, Dr. Sands?” asked a female reporter, her voice shivering with the words.
Sands regarded her. “Scary as hell, isn't it? The very idea. The man used rib cutters or a bone saw to extricate the thoracic vertebrae. My guess is rib cutters.”
“Why rib cutters?” another reporter came back.
“No one in the building heard anything like a bone saw. Bone saw sends up a noise like a wailing woman. Whereas bone cutters just toss off these snap, crackle, pop sounds.”
“Why? Why'd he do this? Why'd he take, of all things, the spine?” asked the lady reporter. “It's horrifying… maddeningly so.”
“No one knows. If we knew, Briana, it might help lead us to him,” replied Sands.
Jessica realized that Sands did love the attention. At his age, he had learned to play the press to his advantage, and it appeared he made no excuses to his superiors.
Reynolds pulled Jessica away and guided her through the stairwell door. “I'm sure you don't want to be part of the circus.”
“Absolutely right about that, and I'm not so sure I like Sands giving up so much of what we have. It's not
