“She was attending the University of Mississippi, studying for premed or nursing, she hadn’t decided which. She was working as a receptionist in the Mississippi Community Hospital so she could get a taste of being around medical personnel. I told you she was volunteering at the local homeless shelter and delivering meals, what’s it called…?”
“Meals at Home?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Meals at Home. She did that two nights a week. In the meantime, she lives with this sweet kid named Amanda Potter. They’ve been neighbors and best friends their whole lives. She was the one that told me about the hair.”
“Grimes, I want to hear everything, even if you duplicate information you think you’ve given me before, okay?”
Grimes was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were turning white. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. Where was I?”
“At her hair.”
“Right. So her friend Amanda tells me that Jessica has this long curly brown hair that everybody would kill to have, but she hates it, so she straightens it. She also told me that they’ve done a little experimenting, with alcohol and such. But Jessica never really liked it, so she’s not a big party girl. She smokes on the sly, her parents don’t know about that. She’s just this smiley, sweet, soft-spoken girl with a head full of smarts. Seemed pretty grounded to me. Her buddy told me that she thought Jessica was a little naive, especially when it came to the boys. She’s definitely a virgin. Or was, until this asshole got a hold of her.”
“Okay, that’s good. Tell me about how she disappeared.”
“She was walking home from work, wearing green scrubs like all the staff. It’s a pretty small hospital, they cater more to the indigents and poorer folk who don’t have stellar health care. So anyway, her usual routine was to walk home, change clothes and go to the gym. Amanda indicated Jessica was pretty insecure about her body, that she spent a lot of time working out. Of course, Amanda thought Jessica was perfect, but you know how young girls are. Never believe in themselves the way their friends do. At least that’s what I get from my daughter. You don’t have any kids, do you?”
“No, I don’t. Please, go on.”
“Okay, okay, don’t get so touchy. She left the hospital at five-fifteen and never made it home. Parents reported her missing around nine that night, and they put out the alert and started the search. Didn’t make a difference. She had to have been long gone by then.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because when you found her in Nashville, she’d been dead for a while. Three days from snatch to find. The M.E. said she’d been dead at least twenty-four hours.”
“Any idea where he held her? I’m assuming he didn’t stay in the apartment with her the whole time?”
“Nope. Roommate came home, found the blood but no Jessica. We checked as many motels as we could along the route from Jackson to Nashville, showed her picture around. Hell, man, there’s tons of motels, hotels, bed-and-breakfasts along the route. Too many to cover in this short a time frame. Plus, he may be local. Have his own place to keep them.”
Baldwin thought for a moment. “I’d be inclined to disagree with that theory. This guy has a plan. I can’t imagine that he’s picking a random motel to do his business. He certainly has a familiarity with each area, but he can’t be local to them all.” He grew silent, wondering. The killer had already covered five states. He’d have to have the geographical forensics team do a workup, see if there was an equidistant point that the killer might be working from. He made a note in his book.
“Let me make a call, I want to hear all the information the Nashville police have gathered about Shauna Davidson.”
He dialed Taylor’s cell phone, happy when she answered on the first ring. “It’s Agent Baldwin,” he said, trying to sound officious.
“Hi, Special Agent.” Her tone was teasing, playful, and he realized she must be alone. He wished he were there with her.
“I’m going to put you on speakerphone. I’m in a car with Special Agent Jerry Grimes, he’s been working the Alabama and Louisiana cases. He’ll need to hear this information, too. You’ve got the background on Shauna Davidson?”
Taylor’s voice rang true on the speaker, crisp and professional.
“We do have her background. Here you go. Twenty-one, five-six, hundred forty pounds, brown on brown. Attended Middle Tennessee State University, studying premed. Parents are Carol and Roger Davidson, both of them are accountants. Pretty well off, which explains the apartment being so nice. She was an only child, a bit spoiled according to her friends. She ran with a group of girls-they call themselves the Posse. Names are Megan, Kimber and Tiffany. They do everything together. They were all out together the night Shauna disappeared.
“They were barhopping, got a little drunk and went on the make. They went into a bar called Jungle Jim’s for their last stop. Megan and Kimber were talking to a couple of guys and trying to get them to buy some drinks. Tiffany had separated from the group when they got there. Her boyfriend showed up and was all kinds of put out, saw her dancing with another guy. She was drunk, he was pissed. She sat with him and got engrossed in their conversation. Shauna was with Kimber and Megan while they were talking to the boys. Apparently she didn’t think things were going anywhere, and when one of the boys made a pass at her, she blew him off. According to Megan, Shauna made the loser sign at him, you know, put her hand up to her forehead in an L, which made Kimber and Megan laugh. Kimber pointed out that Shauna wasn’t an angel, but she was pretty picky about who she’d fool around with. And that’s the last they remember seeing her.
“They’re all feeling horribly guilty about it. They were really drunk, and no one was paying a lot of attention. Megan and Kimber saw Tiffany leave with her boyfriend, and when they were ready to go, they didn’t see Shauna and assumed she’d gotten a ride with Tiffany.”
“Did anyone see her leave the bar?”
“Well, a bouncer thinks he remembers seeing her leave alone. Says he saw her walking north on Front Street, which would be the way she would go if she was walking home. But that’s it. Until she showed up in Georgia, that is. Same guy?”
“Same guy. We found a hand that we think belongs to Jessica Porter at the scene. It’s being processed. But we have a problem.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Another girl’s gone missing. A doctor from Noble, Georgia. We’re headed that way to get some more information. Keep close to the phone, okay? We should have some more information for you soon.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know. Talk to you later.”
Baldwin clicked the phone off. “Let’s talk some more about the crime scenes. What kind of evidence did you find at the scenes where the bodies were recovered?”
“Nada. Nothing. Zip. They were lying on their backs with their arms kinda stretched out, legs crossed at the ankle. But there’s nothing to indicate they hadn’t been just dumped there. We don’t even have tire prints. Just some loose trash that the techs collected from the scenes. Cans, bottles, papers, that kind of thing. Did you get any of that from your Nashville site?”
Baldwin took a deep breath. “No, nothing evidentiary at all. Just Jessica’s body and what’s presumably Jeanette Lernier’s hand. We’ll have to wait for DNA to match it absolutely…”
“Just like here in Georgia. Man, this is totally fucked up.”
“He’s not giving us much to go on, is he? And now we have Marni Fischer missing. She’s been gone how long?”
“Since yesterday after her shift ended, around five.”
“If he’s holding them for three days, that gives us until tomorrow night, right?”
“Yeah. And this guy uses the interstates. So he could be anywhere by now.”
Baldwin looked at the file in his lap. Marni Marie Fischer, age twenty-eight. A beautiful face stared at him with laughing eyes. He perused her features, noting the differences between this new missing girl and the ones before. She was older, he saw that immediately. The first three girls had been in their late teens. And Marni had dark blond hair. All of the previous victims were brunette. He found himself saying a quick prayer that maybe Marni Fischer was simply missing, not the latest victim of the Southern Strangler.
