I said, “No other injuries. No bruising. No sign of a defensive struggle.”
Merriam said, “I agree.”
Deveraux said, “Maybe she didn’t fight. Maybe she had a gun to her head. Or a knife to her throat.”
“Maybe,” I said. I looked at Merriam again and asked, “Did you do a vaginal examination?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“I judged she had had recent sexual intercourse.”
“Any bruising or tearing in that area?”
“None visible.”
“Then why did you conclude she was raped?”
“You think it was consensual? Would you lie down on gravel to make love?”
“I might,” I said. “Depending on who I was with.”
“She had a home,” Merriam said. “With a bed in it. And a car, with a back seat. Any putative boyfriend would have a home and a car, too. And there’s a hotel here in town. And there are other towns, with other hotels. No one needs to conduct a tryst outdoors.”
“Especially not in March,” Deveraux said.
The small room went quiet, and it stayed quiet until Merriam asked, “Are we done here?”
“We’re done,” Deveraux said.
“Well, good luck, chief,” Merriam said. “I hope this one turns out better than the last two.”
Deveraux and I walked down the doctor’s driveway, past the mailbox, past the shingle, to the sidewalk, where we stood next to Deveraux’s car. I knew she was not going to give me a ride. This was not a democracy. Not yet. I said, “Did you ever see a rape victim with intact pantyhose?”
“You think that’s significant?”
“Of course it is. She was attacked on gravel. Her pantyhose should have been shredded.”
“Maybe she was forced to undress first. Slowly and carefully.”
“The gravel rash had edges. She was wearing something. Pulled up, pulled down, whatever, but she was partially clothed. And then she changed afterward. Which is possible. She had four hours.”
“Don’t go there,” Deveraux said.
“Go where?”
“You’re trying to plead the army down to rape only. You’re going to say she was killed by someone else, separately, later.”
I said nothing.
“And that dog won’t hunt,” Deveraux said. “You stumble into someone and get raped, and then within the next four hours you stumble into someone else completely different and get your throat cut? That’s a really bad day, isn’t it? That’s the worst day ever. It’s too coincidental. No, it was the same guy. But he had himself an all-day session. He took hours. He had plans and equipment. He had access to her clothes. He made her change. This was all highly premeditated.”
“Possible,” I said.
“They teach effective tactical planning in the army. So they claim, anyway.”
“True,” I said. “But they don’t give you all day off very often. Not in a training environment. Not usually.”
Deveraux said, “But Kelham is not just about training, is it? Not from what I’ve been able to piece together. There are a couple of rifle companies there. In and out on rotation. And they get leave when they come back. Days off. Plenty of them. All in a row. One after the other.”
I said nothing.
Deveraux said, “You should call your CO. Tell him it’s looking bad.”
I said, “He already knows. That’s why I’m here.”
She paused a long moment and said, “I want you to do me a favor.”
“Like what?”
“Go look at the car wreck again. See if you can find a license plate or identify the vehicle. Pellegrino got nowhere with it.”
“Why would you trust me?”
“Because you’re the son of a Marine. And because you know if you conceal or destroy evidence I’ll put you in jail.”
I asked, “What did Merriam mean, when he wished you better luck with this one than the other two?”
She didn’t answer.
I said, “The other two what?”
She paused a beat and her beautiful face fell a little and she said, “Two girls were killed last year. Same MO. Throats cut. I got nowhere with them. They’re cold cases now. Janice May Chapman is the third in nine months.”
Chapter 20
Elizabeth Deveraux said nothing more. She just climbed into her Caprice and drove away. She pulled a wide U-turn in front of me and headed north, back to town. I lost sight of her after the first curve. I stood still for a long moment and then set off walking. Ten minutes later I was through the last of the rural meanders and the road widened and straightened in front of me. Main Street, in fact as well as name. Some daytime activity was starting up. The stores were opening. I saw two cars and two pedestrians. But that was all. Carter Crossing was no kind of a bustling metropolis. That was for damn sure.
I walked on the right-hand sidewalk and passed the hardware store, and the pharmacy, and the hotel, and the diner, and the empty space next to it. Deveraux’s car was not parked in the Sheriff’s Department lot. No police vehicles were. There were two civilian pick-up trucks there, both of them old and battered and modest. The desk clerk and the dispatcher, presumably. Locally recruited, no union, no benefits. I thought again about my friend Stan Lowrey and his want ads. He would aim higher, I guessed. He would have to. He had girlfriends. Plural. He had mouths to feed.
I made it to the T-junction and turned right. In the daylight the road speared dead straight ahead of me. Narrow shoulders, deep ditches. The traffic lanes banked up and over the rail crossing and then the shoulders and the ditches resumed and the road ran onward through the trees.
There was a truck parked my side of the crossing. Facing me. A big, blunt-nosed thing. Brush-painted in a dark color. Two guys in it. Staring at me. Fur, ink, hair, dirt, grease.
My two pals, from the night before.
I walked on, not fast, not slow, just strolling. I got within about twenty yards. Close enough for me to see detail in their faces. Close enough for them to see detail in mine.
This time they got out of their truck. The doors opened as one and they climbed out and down. They skirted the hood and stood together in front of the grille. Same height, same build. Like cousins. They were each about six-two and around two hundred or two hundred and ten pounds. They had long knotted arms and big hands. Work boots on their feet.
I walked on. I stopped ten feet away. I could smell them from there. Beer, cigarettes, rancid sweat, dirty clothes.
The guy on my right said, “Hello again, soldier boy.”
He was the alpha dog. Both times he had been driving, and both times he was the first to speak. Unless the other guy was some kind of a silent mastermind, which seemed unlikely.
I said nothing, of course.
The guy asked, “Where are you going?”
I didn’t answer.
The guy said, “You’re going to Kelham. I mean, where the hell else does this road go?”
He turned and swept his arm through an extravagant gesture, indicating the road, and its relentless straightness, and its lack of alternative destinations. He turned back and said, “Last night you told us you weren’t
