The Laura Cardinal Novels Read Online Free PDF

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    What no one said but everyone thought: This guy might be a serial killer. Either there had been other murders before this, or Jessica Parris was the first. Everyone here had some knowledge of FBI profile techniques. They knew as well as she did that when a person employed ritual in his killing, he would do it again.
    Victor said, “The dress was too small. He must have had the dress first. Why’d he have the dress first ?”
    “Maybe that’s all he could find,” said a scrawny cop with a rust-colored, handlebar mustache like Wyatt Earp’s. His nameplate said Danehill.
    Laura said, “We need to check the resale and antique shops in the area.”
    “He could have gotten the dress anywhere,” said Victor. “Also, there was no tag on the collar.”
    “Maybe he tore it off.”
    “Or it could be homemade.”
    “What, you mean like sewed? From a pattern or something?”
    “My wife sews,” Sergeant Nesmith said. “If I could get a look at the dress, I could probably tell. I could get on the Internet, check out dresses like that, see if there are any patterns.”
    Laura shifted in her seat to relieve the pain in her back, caught Officer Heather Duffy’s eye. Duffy was glaring at her.
    Victor crossed his leg at the knee, played with the tassel on his Italian loafers. “We’ll get photos of the dress and pass them around to everyone. I wonder what he did with her clothes?”
    “Took ‘em for a souvenir?” suggested Officer Billings. “A trophy?”
    “Or threw them away.”
    Chief Ducotte said, “You have someone on that? Checking all the garbage cans around here?”
    “We’re on it,” said Nesmith.
    They discussed the mesquite leaf found on Jessica Parris’s neck, stuck like a piece of confetti behind her ear—something the killer had missed. This pointed to the possibility that the girl had been killed outside of Bisbee, since mesquite trees were rarely found above five-thousand feet. Unfortunately, the surrounding valleys—some of them only a mile or two away—were thick with them.
    Then they came to the doll at Cooger & Darks. “I’m going by there tomorrow and talk to the owner,” Laura told them. “Maybe he saw somebody, someone too interested in the display.”
    Chief Ducotte nodded, blinking his rabbity eyes.
    Victor said, “Another thing, we’re all agreed he took her up there after she was dead. That means we have three crime scenes. The one where she was abducted, the one where he killed her, and the band shell. Any ideas on that?”
    “His house?”
    “A motel, if he isn’t from around here.”
    Laura glanced in Duffy’s direction and noticed she was looking at Noone with an odd expression. She tried to pigeonhole it: Longing? Anger? Something in between? Duffy’s short, compact body looked like it was about to explode.
    Something between Duffy and Noone.
    Buddy Holland, who’d seemed preoccupied throughout the proceedings, followed Laura’s gaze. One corner of his mouth came up. Whatever was going on with Duffy and Noone, he knew about it.
    Victor was saying, “Motels, bed and breakfasts, apartments, what else?”
    “If it’s his crib it’d be pretty much impossible to find,” said Danehill.
    “I got some photographs of the crowd by the crime scene tape this morning,” Laura said. “Our guy might not have been able to stay away. As soon as we have them, I want to canvass the neighborhood again. Maybe somebody noticed something unusual, maybe someone they knew did something outside their routine. That is, if he’s local. But I have my doubts about that.”
    Detective Holland picked at some invisible lint on his sleeve, stretched his long blue jean-clad legs out and stared at his feet. “I think he is local.”
    “You do?” asked Noone. “From here in Bisbee?”
    Holland shrugged. His watchful eyes scanned the room, landed on Laura. “Why would he come here? We’re a little off the beaten path. It just doesn’t compute.”
    Officer Duffy spoke up. “I think