Page 13 of Pretty Broken Dolls

“I wish there was an easier way to enter than prying off the plywood,” she said. Then she observed, “There’s no garage.” Thinking about it more, she said, “Let’s go around the back. According to the reports, there is a sliding door. We can check out the crime scene area too.”

McGaven followed Katie.

Normally they would split up when searching an unknown area and report back to one another, but this time they walked together through the open gate and headed to the backyard.

Katie recalled the photos she’d seen in the file of the backyard from the fence perspective and was surprised by how oversized it was in real life. It dwarfed the house. There was a small cement patio partially covered by a plastic corrugated roof attached to the house. Beyond this stretched a sizeable, rural backyard with apparently no landscape design—just untamed wilderness.

The weeds and dried bushes crunched underneath Katie’s boots. “This is…”

“Like a jungle,” replied McGaven.

“To say the least,” she said. “According to the photographs, the body was found at the back part of the property—eastside. There should be wrought-iron fencing.”

“Lead the way.”

Katie tried to image how the killer had gained access.

Did the killer lie in wait in the house?

Did Jeanine Trenton know her killer?

She remembered the condition of the body: Jeanine’s feet were cut and bloody as if she had tried to outrun her killer. Her shoes weren’t found. She had been getting ready for a party, but she never left. The report revealed everyone else invited to the party attended—except two people. One was sick and the other decided to go to another friend’s party instead. During Agent Campbell’s thorough investigation, every person in Jeanine’s life had been questioned and later dismissed as a potential suspect in the murder. Katie and McGaven had skimmed the information.

There was a group of large pine trees in a semicircle. Katie and McGaven squeezed around and immediately saw the black wrought-iron fence along the entire back part of the property. They turned east and stopped. A small piece of yellow crime scene tape was still tied around one of the posts.

“I think this is it,” said McGaven.

“Yeah, it seems right.” Looking from side to side, and then gazing out past the property lines, she saw a large farm acreage. In the distance, cows were grazing. “The killer probably wouldn’t enter this property from this area.”

McGaven was quiet.

“What are you thinking?”

“The other bodies were posed in public places. But…why here? It’s private.”

“That bothers me too. And it’s one of the reasons I wanted to see the crime scene area in person.” She looked at the place which she estimated was where Jeanine’s body had been impaled on the fence. “According to the autopsy report, she had more defensive wounds than the others, which means she fought her killer with everything she had.”

“Maybe the killer didn’t have enough time to take her body anywhere else?” he said.

Katie pondered that idea. “I don’t think there’s much out here that will help us.”

“Except.”

“Except?”

“We know that the killer might have been pushed to do something that they weren’t expecting.”

“And if this killer is indeed a serial killer, as Campbell’s investigation suggests, they would normally become more practiced and comfortable with each successive attack—more confident about creating such elaborate crime scenes,” she said.

“Something seems to have changed here.”

“Let’s take a look inside,” Katie said.

As they walked back to the house, Katie considered what might have happened after the initial attack: Jeanine had tried to get away. If she was being chased the only way she could escape would be to jump the fence and try to get to another neighbor’s house located behind the property. It was probably a few acres away. But why didn’t she go next door or up the street?

“This slider is completely boarded up. Let’s go in the front door.”

“Okay,” she said.