The Informant Read Online Free PDF Page B

enough, they come from six different states, six very different communities. Manhattan. Eugene, Oregon. Miami.
    Cleveland. Fayetteville, Arkansas. And now Hainesville.”
    “Don’t see much of a common thread there. What makes you think they’re all related?”
    “That’s another benefit of VI-CAP. The computer helps link up crimes from different jurisdictions that might otherwise never be connected—you know, the old joke about a killer signing his name on the victim’s forehead in Oregon, while the cops in Cleveland are looking for the same guy but don’t know a thing about it. VI-CAP
    gave us a match after the third victim was found in Miami.
    It was the bizarre MO. Granted, it’s still the only thing that links the victims to each other or to any one person who could be their killer, but it’s a strong link—more like a signature than an MO. All were stabbed, multiple times.
    And each one had their tongue extracted from their mouth.”
    Dutton cringed, thinking how much it hurt just to bite his own tongue. The image of the dried blood on 34
    James Grippando
    Gerty’s lips suddenly returned. “When you say extracted,”
    he said warily, “you mean cut, I suppose.”
    “Partly.” She stared out the window, deep in her own thoughts of five other victims who came before Gerty.
    “But mostly I mean ripped.”
    She heard the sheriff breathe a heavy sigh, and they rode the rest of the way to the morgue in silence.
    “Looks like myocardial infarction,” said Dr. Percy Ackerman, medical examiner. He was short and stocky with a very round head covered by a salt-and-pepper stubble that was no longer than a five-o’clock shadow. He stood at the head of the autopsy table, bearing the stains of various bodily fluids on his green surgical scrubs and latex gloves.
    Victoria peered down at the old woman’s naked, gray body. Two deep incisions ran laterally from shoulder to shoulder, across her breasts at a downward angle and meeting at the sternum. A long, deeper cut ran from breastbone to groin, forming the stem in the coroner’s classic “Y” incision. The liver, spleen, kidneys and intest-ines were laid out neatly beside a slab of ribs on the dissection tray behind Dr. Ackerman. The cadaver was literally a shell of a human being, strangely reminiscent of the hollowed-out half of a watermelon on a table of hors d’oeuvres. Victoria smeared another dab of Vicks Vapo-Rub beneath her nostrils, taking extra care to cut the odor.
    At moments like these she would swear that a degree in medicine was the only thing separating serial killers from forensic pathologists. That, and a conscience.
    35
    THE INFORMANT
    “You mean Gerty died of a heart attack?” Sheriff Dutton asked incredulously.
    “I’m saying she was literally scared to death. Medically speaking, extreme terror or fear can cause a sudden and massive release of epinephrine—better known as adrenaline—causing ventricular fibrillation of the heart. That seems to be what happened here. I would point out, though, that her rather advanced arteriosclerosis made her somewhat susceptible to V-fib.”
    “Well,” said Victoria, “you can’t crack somebody over the head with a lead pipe and then defend yourself by saying his skull was too thin. A killer has to take his victim with all her weakness, all her vulnerabilities. The mechan-ism of death may have been myocardial infarction, but surely you agree that the manner of death was still homicide.”
    “Absolutely.”
    She walked around to the other side of the table, looking more closely. “Tell me more about what scared her.
    Was it something the killer did to her? Or does it look like she just saw him standing in the doorway and that was all her poor heart could take?”
    “Gerty Kincaid was no scaredy-cat,” the sheriff scoffed.
    “In this case,” sighed Dr. Ackerman, “I’d say she was too strong for her own good. An immediate death of natural causes would have been a blessing.”
    Victoria glanced