“We’re sure,” Hammer was saying to West.
“Yes. It’s like the others,” West grimly said as their strides carried them beyond tape, and deeper inside the scene.
“No question in my mind. MO identical.”
Hammer took a deep breath, her face pained and outraged as she look at the car, then at the activity in a thicket, where Dr. Odom was on his knees, working. From where Hammer stood, she could see the medical examiner’s bloody gloves glistening in lights set up around the perimeter. She looked up as the Channel 3 news helicopter thudded overhead, hovering, its camera securing footage for the eleven o’clock news. Broken glass clinked under feet as the two women moved closer, and Dr. Odom palpated the victim’s destroyed head. The man had on a dark blue Ralph Lauren suit, a white shirt missing its cufflinks, and a Countess Mara tie. He had graying curly hair and a tan face that might have been attractive, but now it was hard to tell. Hammer saw no jewelry but guessed that whatever this man had owned wasn’t cheap. She knew money when she saw it.
“Do we have an ID?” Hammer asked Dr. Odom.
“Blair Mauney the third, forty-five years old, from Asheville,” he replied, photographing the hateful blaze- orange hourglass spray-painted over the victim’s genitals. Dr. Odom looked up at Hammer for a moment.
“How many more?” he asked in a hard tone, as if blaming her.
“What about cartridge cases?” West asked.
Detective Brewster was squatting, interested in trash scattered through briars.
“Three so far,” he answered his boss.
“Looks like the same thing.”
“Christ,” said Dr. Odom.
By now, Dr. Odom was seriously projecting. He continually imagined himself in strange cities, at meetings, driving around, maybe lost. He thought of suddenly being yanked out of his car and led to a place like this by a monster who would blow his head off for a watch, a wallet, a ring. Dr. Odom could read the fear the victims had felt as they begged not to die, that huge. 45 pointed and ready to fire. Dr. Odom was certain that the soiled undershorts consistent in each case were not postmortem. No goddamn way. The slain businessmen didn’t lose control of bowels and bladder as life fled and bled from them. The guys were terrified, trembling violently, pupils dilated, digestion shutting down as blood rushed to extremities for a fight or flight that would never happen. Dr. Odom’s pulse pounded in his neck as he unfolded another body bag.
West carefully scanned the interior of the Lincoln as the interior alert dinged that the driver’s door was ajar and the lights were on.
She noted the Morton’s doggie bag, and the contents of the briefcase and an overnight bag that had been dumped out and rummaged through in back. US Bank business cards were scattered over the carpet and she leaned close and read the name Blair Mauney III, the same name on the driver’s license Detective Brewster had shown her.
West pulled plastic gloves out of her back pocket.
She worked them on, so consumed by what she was doing, that she was unaware of anyone around her or the tow truck that was slowly rolling up to haul the Lincoln to the police department for processing. West had not worked crime scenes in years, but she had been good at it once. She was meticulous, tireless, and intuitive, and right now she was getting a weird feeling as she looked at the clutter left by the killer. She lifted a US Air ticket by a corner, opening it on the car seat, touching as little of it as possible as her misgivings grew.
Mauney had flown to Charlotte from Asheville today, arriving at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport at five-thirty p. m. The return, for tomorrow afternoon, was not back to Asheville, but to Miami, and from there Mauney was flying to Grand Cayman, in the West Indies. West carefully flipped through more tickets, her heart picking up, adrenalin coursing. He was scheduled to fly out of Grand Cayman on Wednesday, and stop over in Miami for six hours. Then he would return to Charlotte, and, finally, to Asheville. There were more disturbing signs that were likely unrelated to Maundy’s murder, but pointed to other crime possibly surrounding his life.