Page 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Within a half hour, I was transitioning over to State Highway 12, heading east. I slowed onto the exit lane toward the Federal Building in Dallas, then glanced over at Shooter, who had her head down over her laptop.

“I’m out for the autopsy,” she said.

I reminded myself that the members of PAR are not regularly in the field, and that this was the first time we’d be on the road as a team. Usually, we look at files after they’ve gone cold. “If you’re not comfortable around a dead body…”

Shooter looked up, her nose pinched, her mouth a half grin. “I’ve been dressing animals in the field since I was six, Gardner. It’s not that. You assigned me the cameras in New Mexico, the follow-up on the prison visitors, the priest. I’ve had Richie pulling stuff and emailing me, but I gotta review it.”

“How’s he working out?” I asked.

“So far, good,” she said. “But he’s just a rook, you know. I need a desk, a phone, and four hours of quiet to examine everything.”

I nodded. “Stay for the initial look,” I said. “I want a second set of eyes on Tignon. After that, I’m sure you can find an office upstairs.”

Shooter agreed, and we parked in a visitor’s lot. Inside, we showed our IDs and found our way to the ME’s office in the basement.

Dr. Lourdes Abrieu was in her late forties with an athletic figure and olive skin. Her long hair was divided into four sections, two of which were colored red and braided together with her natural brown shades.

We introduced ourselves, and Abrieu got up from her desk and put on gloves. She headed to an adjoining room, where Ross Tignon’s body was laid atop a gurney on a stainless steel tray. The initial incisions had been made on his body, and his skin was loose. The primary cut ran transversely across his thorax, from shoulder to shoulder, just above where the 5–0 had been carved. A second cut formed a T and ran south toward his stomach, where the hole had been cut open by his attacker. Both of these cuts indicated that the ME had done an initial inspection of the body, then waited for us.

“Thank you for holding the body,” I said.

“Not a problem,” Dr. Abrieu replied, wheeling the metal tray into the center of the room where the overhead light was brightest.

Taking her place on the side opposite us, she began by running down the basics of the victim.

“Mr. Tignon was a white male, sixty-four years of age, six foot one and two hundred and thirty-eight pounds,” she said. “His BMI was thirty-two, and his time of death was measured by rigor and body temp as Sunday, January twelfth. Between twelve and four p.m.”

Atop the sheet that covered his legs was a clear bag with Tignon’s jeans and shirt. The Levi’s tag listed a waist size of 36.

“The body was inspected from head to foot and in supine and prone positions,” Abrieu continued. “I noted that an unknown subject had cut Mr. Tignon’s abdomen open and severed multiple arteries. The abdominal aorta, renal artery, and the mesenteric artery.”

“Tignon bled out from those three?” Shooter asked.

“Yes,” Dr. Abrieu said.

Decomposition begins within four minutes of death. As blood stops pumping, the body becomes oxygen deprived, and its enzymes digest the outer membranes of their own cells. In Tignon’s case, this was midday Sunday. Now by Thursday, there was a smell in the air that the fan overhead just couldn’t clear.

I thought about the order of the attack. First, Tignon had to be subdued.

“We left a note with the agent who brought in the body,” I said. “About a puncture wound in the neck.”

“I received that,” the doctor said. “And I collected two samples to test for drugs. One from the heart with a needleless syringe, and the other from the femoral vein.”

Medical examiners took two samples, because while extracts from the heart were inaccurate for drug concentration, they did offer a quick yes or no on foreign substances in the blood.

“What did you find?” Shooter asked.

“He was injected with something, all right,” Abrieu said. “In terms of what exactly, that’s gonna take a few days.”

The ME wore bright red lipstick, and when she wasn’t speaking, she ran her tongue across the front of her teeth, dragging little bits of lipstick with it. Her teeth shimmered the slightest pink color.

“What about suspicions?” Shooter followed up. “Your gut?”

The doctor shrugged, looking from Shooter to me. “By your note, I’m guessing you thought it was a paralytic.”

“I did.”

“And what did you base that on?” Abrieu asked.

“The initial cuts,” I said. “They appeared to be antemortem.”

“Yes,” she said, confirming that the cuts preceded Tignon’s death.

“Our working theory,” Shooter said, “was that the killer wanted Tignon to observe what was going on. To suffer.”

“For what reason?” Abrieu asked.

“Pleasure,” I theorized. “Or revenge?”

The doctor motioned to Tignon’s stomach, where the hole had been carved. “That tracks,” she said. “The initial cuts here are clean and smooth. The victim was not moving when they were made.”

“That also confirms an element of torture,” I said.

“Sure.” Shooter nodded. “A paralytic doesn’t alleviate pain.”

“Was Mr. Tignon’s liver missing?” I asked.

I hadn’t noticed this on the first day of the investigation, but I wasn’t officially assigned the case at that time.

“No,” the doctor said. “But it was cut free of the body on one side. I’m curious—what made you ask that?”

I explained to the ME how Tignon had removed the livers of his own victims, back in 2013. If this new killer had cut only one side of the organ free, perhaps he had been interrupted.

“Maybe his intent was to take the liver with him,” Shooter said, confirming my train of thought. “But he got spooked. A noise? A neighbor?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Abrieu said. “That could explain why one side is so neat and the rest of the slices are rough.”

My eyes moved up to Tignon’s chest, where the numbers had been carved. “Based on these and other cuts, broadly speaking, what kind of training do you think the killer had?”

Abrieu flipped the red and brown braids off her neck. As she did, I noticed that they covered a string of eight or nine bumps, each pro truding approximately three centimeters off her skin. A line of harmless lipoma.

“It’s not someone in the medical field, if that’s what you’re asking. But I’d say they hunt.”

“Based on what?” Shooter cocked her head.

“To remove a liver, you move it around. Laterally. Medially. Up and down. But it’s also covered by a peritoneum, which forms a thick layer. Almost like ligaments, where it sits above the liver, but not true ligaments. You know what I’m getting at?”

“You’re talking surface landmarks,” Shooter said. “They guide you on where you are in the body cavity.”

“That’s how the killer knew where to make the incision?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” Abrieu said. “Your killer removed the peritoneum. Carefully. Then, once he got part of the liver free, and only then, he sliced the thing to all hell. Real messy.”

Like in Daisy Carabelle’s murder.

“What makes that the work of a hunter?” I asked.

Shooter jumped in. “If you hunt deer, Gardner, you want to remove and store the meat. You need to be fast, which means messy. But you need to be careful, too. Remove the hide and peritoneum. But gingerly. Negligence pollutes the meat.”

“But these cuts,” I said, “they’re not from some buck knife.”

“Right, I see where you’re going,” Abrieu said. “But uh… I grew up with four brothers who hunt. I was talking about the approach, not the blade.”

“So what was he cut with?” Shooter asked.

“This.” Dr. Abrieu held up a surgical knife with a short, curved blade. Its shape was similar to that of a paring knife.

“A surgical instrument?” I said.

“Specifically what we call a number twelve,” Abrieu said. “So I think you’re right about the paralytic. I think your killer injected Mr. Tignon. Bled him out fast.”

I took two steps back, processing this. A number of things were still unclear. Tignon was found twenty feet inside his home, behind a kitchen island, with no visible signs that his body had been moved. There were also no signs of a break-in. Did he know his attacker?

Abrieu promised her report in two hours, and we thanked her, moving out into the hallway. There, Shooter and I stood near a work sink.

“I gotta go,” she said. “A friend who works upstairs pinged me. They found me an office.”

“Let me know what you find out after going through those camera feeds.”

Shooter took off, and I used the hall bathroom. As I came out, Dr. Abrieu was waiting.

“You’ve got a call,” she said. “You can take it over there if you like.”

I made my way to her desk. “Camden,” I said, wondering if Frank or Cassie had hit gold during their breakfast meeting with Fisher’s brother.

But it was neither Frank nor Cassie on the line.

“Gardner Camden,” an unfamiliar voice said calmly.

Immediately, I knew it was our killer.