WEBCAM Read Online Free PDF Page B

appeared to be gang-related. The local rags had christened the perp The Scalper. Big surprise there.
    “He cuts off the victim’s eyelids,” Tom answered.
    Tanya nodded slowly, then said, “So she has to watch what he does to her.”
    Tom hadn’t thought of that. Good insight. Also, creepy as hell. “My partner says you may have seen the murderer?”
    “Yeah. After four am.”
    “Are you normally up at four?” Roy asked.
    “Sometimes. I work at home, keep odd hours. I’ll go for walks, go grab an energy drink at the nearby 7-11.”
    Tom glanced down at the witness statement form Roy had started, and saw Tanya lived a few blocks away from Kendal Hefferton.
    “Is that what you were doing that night?” Tom asked.
    “Yeah.”
    He picked up a pen and began to take notes. “What did you see?”
    “I’d just gotten a Red Bull, and was walking back to my place. He came out of the building, almost ran me over.”
    “Like he was in a hurry?” Roy asked.
    “Like he was in a helluva hurry.”
    “Did you get a good look at him?” Tom asked.
    Tanya nodded. “He was white. Forties. Handsome. Like that Ukrainian guy on that reality show. Maddoks Chmerkolinivskiy.”
    Tom stopped taking notes after writing a single M. “Who?”
    “Mad-doks-im Ch-mer-ko-li-niv-skiy.”
    Tom had never heard of him. “Uh, how is that spelled?”
    “I think Maddoks is with a K and S, not an X, and ends in I and Y.” Tanya stuck her hands into her oversized jacket pockets, searching for something. “I forgot my cell. Does yours have Internet?”
    Tom nodded. Tanya reached out a hand and Tom gave it to her. She held it to her face, squinting as she pressed the screen with her thumbs. After about fifteen seconds, she put the phone on the desk.
    “Maddoksim Chmerkolinivskiy. The nose on the guy I saw was wider, eyebrows thicker, but otherwise they looked like twins.”
    Tom stared at the Wikipedia page of the actor, who was, as Tanya said, handsome.
    “What was he wearing?”
    “Long black coat. Jeans. A wool cap.”
    Roy’s turn. “Was he carrying anything?”
    Tanya shook her head.
    “Plastic bags?” Tom asked. “Shower curtain?”
    Another head shake.
    “And he was in a hurry, you said?”
    “He was practically running. Bumped me. Almost knocked me over. For a second I thought it was Maddoks. You know, from the show. But he also had a gut on him.”
    “A gut?”
    “A pot belly. Maddoksim Chmerkolinivskiy does not have a pot belly. He’s got the body of an underwear model.”
    Roy and Tom took turns questioning Tanya for another fifteen minutes, but she didn’t add any more details. Roy ended the interrogation with, “If you had to spot him in a line up, could you?”
    Tanya nodded. “Absolutely. He got even closer to me than I am to you. So close I could smell his breath.”
    “What did it smell like?” Tom asked.
    “Like meat. Like he’d just eaten a really rare steak. You know. Bloody.”
    Tom and Roy exchanged a glance. Then they thanked her, and Tanya left.
    “What do you think?” Roy asked.
    “Send a team to the building. Show all the tenants a pic of Max, or Maddox, or whatever this celebrity’s name is, see if he lives there or if he’s our guy.”
    “How about the blood breath?”
    “I’ll call the M.E. Have him check the body for saliva. If The Snipper is drinking blood, maybe he left some DNA.”
    Roy nodded. “What did you think of Tanya?”
    “She’ll make a good witness. Sure of herself.”
    “Could you tell she was intersex?”
    Tom blinked. “Huh?”
    “Either intersex or transgender,” Roy said. “I’m not sure which. No facial hair, and no equipment—the skinny jeans don’t lie. But big hands and feet, thick wrists, slim hips. She’s either post op, or intersex.”
    “I’m not sure what the difference is.”
    “Transgender,” Roy said, “is when a person who presents as one sex identifies with another. Intersex is when someone is born with no distinct gender.”
    “Like a