Page 20 of What’s Left of Me (What Left #1)

Nine days later, on the cusp of March, body number three appears.

I’ve left Jo and Vinny alone for the most part since they spoke with Alastair, but at this point there’s nothing I can do about their involvement.

Vinny warned me that if a body didn’t appear today they would be leaving tomorrow, and I don’t want to call a dead body good luck but it should keep them here a bit longer.

After not so discreetly asking, I’ve learned the two of them filled their days going to Tallahassee and staying inside as often as possible while they’re in town.

I haven’t even gotten to the crime scene when my deputy director phones me. “This is getting out of hand, Gideon. I need something more than a pissy police captain and three bodies with no leads.”

I blow out a breath, glancing at Jensen who had been listening from the passenger seat.

He just raises an eyebrow in solidarity.

The call came into the station and an officer, not the Police Captain, phoned me about it.

We burned bridges with Captain Lance Wallsburg when we interrogated his son.

Running Kyle’s background check turned up a couple issues with ex-girlfriends who complained he was a little rough, but no charges were ever filed.

He may have an alibi for Swan’s murder but all he would say about the night Estrada died was that he was off-shift.

Now we’ll have to see what he was up to last night.

“Wallsburg is still on my suspect list,” I explain to Deputy Director Zach Pabst who recently took the position in the last year.

He takes his job seriously. A lot of people are watching him now, and with my team out on this case, he’s taken an extra special interest in me.

“We’re running an expanded search on the workers for the penitentiary, and anyone contracted for work by the state or hired out for odd jobs.

We’ve put in a search for all practicing locksmiths, carpenters and trade workers too. ”

“Trade workers?” Pabst has a hint of doubt in his voice.

“Yes Sir,” I say. Tyler and Gabe are already heading over to check out the crime scene, and I spot their vehicle parked just behind the one I road in with Jensen.

I can see lights on the house, and this is about to turn into a huge mess.

“We’re following up on a third body now. I’ll have the details for you soon.”

“Is this about the keys I heard Finley Soto was researching?” Pabst asks wearily.

“The search through VICAP revealed they were both duplicate keys, likely done at a kiosk or a private lock shop. The original case claims that Odell’s lock was jimmied, and the responding officers assumed someone picked the lock.

But an incorrectly-cut key might fit without fully unlocking a door, meaning the killer would need to apply pressure to get the door open. ”

He’s quiet for a moment, and I watch my team disappear through the throng of people ahead.

I can see spectators gathering, and I’m sure that this will draw more attention than when we were investigating Swan’s apartment.

“The original killer is Alastair Constantine. If the keys are still shoddy duplicates maybe you can find who cuts them-”

“And find a connection to the copycat,” I finish. “That’s the idea, sir.”

Pabst grunts. “That’s good work. Let’s hope it’s more than a theory. And Gideon?”

“Sir?”

He sighs. “Don’t talk about Constantine like he isn’t at fault for the first fifteen deaths. Let’s not confuse the two killers.”

I bite back a response. I know that, but something about the keys bothers me. I just haven’t put my finger on it yet. “We’ll keep you updated as the case progresses, sir.”

“You do that. If this thing makes national headlines again let’s hope it’s for the arrest of the Citrus Grove Copycat Killer.”

The call disconnects, and I close my eyes and drop my head back to the headrest. This is shaping up to be a grand morning. When I open my eyes again there’s two people walking out of the house.

Well shit.

I get out of the car and jog over to Jo and Vinny, and it’s only then that I realize that Tyler is walking with them.

I assume she went up to the door, but with the flashing lights it’s possible they came out to her.

We meet at the sidewalk, and I catch the tail end of what she’s saying. “...take a statement.”

“We don’t have a statement,” Vinny says, and I wouldn’t claim that his tone is friendly. “We were asleep. The security cameras will tell you more than we can.”

I pause beside the three of them and immediately look up.

Sure enough there are cameras around the outside of the house that I can spot in the morning light, but if the copycat is as intelligent as we’ve been led to believe, I have a hard time imagining that he’d let himself get caught on camera.

“We’ll want a copy of whatever is on those. ”

“I’m sure Russell could send it to you,” he replies dryly.

“Who?”

Vinny waves a hand as Jo shrugs him off. “No one, Sterling. He’s the tech guy at our club. He updated the security system remotely. It should kick back on automatically unless someone physically destroys the cameras.”

I look up again. Those cameras look to be in good working order; maybe we’ll finally get lucky.

“Just ask us your questions,” Jo says, her voice full of exhaustion. It was still early – my guess is they were both asleep when someone on their way to work spotted the body. “That’s the next step, right?”

Nodding, Tyler gestures to the two of them. “Are you sure you’d rather not talk inside? We need the area clear so that we can deal with the body-”

“It’s fine,” Jo cuts in, looking between the two of us. “I haven’t seen a cut up victim that looks like me yet. We’ll call it morbid curiosity.”

My gaze immediately drops. I’ve been surveying the scene and watching what my team is doing, looking for a bystander who is a bit too interested in what’s going on.

Now I realize Jo is wearing shorts. And a tank top.

As the sun rises it highlights the thin slivers of scars all down her body, and my jaw snaps shut.

Now that the wounds are healed, the silvery lines are harder to distinguish. They’re there and numerous, but if you don’t immediately know what you’re looking at it's hard to realize that it’s a map of scars. Just as the reports stated, they’re everywhere.

When Jo catches me staring, I expect her to step back and hide like she’s done before with her clothing. Instead her eyes narrow, and she steps closer to me, holding out her arm. “Take a good look, Gideon. You’ll never see this much of my skin again.”

My body heats at the comment. It’s angry, and should make me take a step back, but I can’t stop staring at her. There’s something… suggestive about her words? Maybe I’m just sleep deprived and making shit up, but she doesn’t step back after the comment either.

I find my gaze glancing over her head towards Vinny, but he doesn’t look particularly concerned about what Jo just said. It’s definitely in my head.

“I’ll take you two back in to start the questioning,” Tyler says, shooting me a look.

This time Jo shrugs and pivots on her heel, turning back to the house.

But she doesn’t go in. There’s reporters arriving now, and the cops are with my agents, covering the body.

I can see Jensen breaking off to go around back, following another cop who’s pointing towards something.

For a moment with the lights from the police cruisers, we can see the body. She’s hard to make out from over here, just the vague design of a body lying in the dewy morning grass. Dark red puddles surround her, and the neck is twisted away so her face is hidden.

Jo shudders, and hurries back to the house. I don’t know what she wanted to see, or why Tyler let her come outside during an active crime scene, but Vinny shoots me a look before turning to follow her.

“You should go examine the body, boss,” Tyler says, eyeing me. “Maybe go with Gabe this time if you’re up to it. All the way over here he kept mentioning that he has thoughts on the new coroner in town.”

“Dr. Quinton Briggs, a pleasure.”

My eyebrows lift as the coroner removes his gloves to shake my hand, immediately going to put on another one the moment I let go, I guess it doesn’t matter to him that I’m also wearing gloves. “Special Agent Sterling Gideon. We’ve met before.”

“I’m not so good at remembering faces I’m not examining,” he replies with a chuckle, and that sounds familiar. “Dr. Whitmore had a lot of reports from an Edwin Gideon, I’m assuming there’s a relation? Agent Lapin had me look for the original files after finding the first body.”

I nod, glancing at Gabriel who just grins. “You dug out the original CGS files.”

“Yes and I have some issues with the documentation,” he tells me, closing up the bag he brought. He turns to one of the cops standing by. “If the FBI doesn’t mind I’m ready to bring her back to my office. Someone said they recovered the ID?”

Gabe nods. “One of the officers found it during the search. It was in the bushes in the back, either dropped or chucked.”

The three of us turn to look out towards the backyard. These houses don’t have fences, extending to a small, shallow creek in the back that I can see two officers wading into up to their ankles. “We’re lucky today. Had she sat out here much longer we could be dealing with gators.”

I scowl and stare around us. Crocs were always an issue when I was a kid, gators too. The swampland up here is their ideal habitat, and even though this isn’t the Everglades it’s close enough. I was always warned as a kid to watch out for those scaly beasts. “That would complicate things.”

“Indeed. I just had a body come through a few days ago from the next county over. You wouldn’t believe the bite this bastard took out of the guy-”

“Let’s stay on topic,” I tell him, and Quinton shrugs but that smile stays in place. “You’re here because…”

“I’m a naturally curious person so I was reading the files. I noticed Dr. Whitmore had some documentation missing from the files, or information omitted. They looked incomplete, every single one of them. I phoned Whitmore but he hasn’t called me back yet.”

I focus on Gabriel. “Call Soto and ask her to look into what VICAP has. Whitmore should’ve submitted complete files.”

Gabe nods and grins, looking between us before he takes a few steps away and dials the number. I doubt Briggs shared something like that with him, or we would already be looking into it. “Was that something you just noticed, Doctor?”

“I mentioned to your agent that Dr. Whitmore appeared scatterbrained in his old age and that I had some serious work to do. I discovered the inconsistencies last night when I was reading through the initial file. When I checked the rest, I realized they were all the same.”

My curiosity grows, and we follow the gurney towards his ride. “Did you read about the final victim, Porscha Surwright? Her daughter-”

“Sure, I read the Surwright files,” he interrupts with a chuckle. “He had a lot of notes in there but not a lot of it made sense. There must be another page somewhere. Her body was identified, wasn’t it?”

I stop walking, pinning him with my gaze. “Yes. By the dental records.”

“Huh.” He pauses and drags a hand across his chin, looking interested. “It’s not listed that way in the file. Too bad she’s buried. I wouldn’t mind looking at the remains.”

“Why?”

“Well, because the corpse wasn’t whole,” he says casually, and that’s true.

I remember Dad mentioning that the corpse had a little bit of blonde hair remaining, but no hands.

Her teeth were ripped out, indicating a whole different level of torture for Porscha, but there were enough teeth intact to make a positive ID.

“With her hands missing there’s no fingerprints, and just because her blood type matches, that’s not enough to identify a person.

I saw the teeth documentation, but the photographs show some recent dental work too.

How do you know the body wasn’t further tampered with? ”

I swallow, because that’s just nutty. Porscha was identified.

Her daughter recounted the tragic end of her life and made a formal ID before claiming the remains.

“Dr. Whitmore’s findings were confirmed and passed scrutiny through a rigorous trial.

Challenging his determination that the corpse was Porscha Surwright changes the entire case. ”

He makes some sort of displeased noise in his throat at that. “Perhaps Whitmore just likes shorthand a little too much. I’ll try to ring him again to go through the discrepancies. I want to be thorough with my comparisons when I analyze the bodies. And I’ll want to do the newest victim justice.”

“Chelsey Jackson,” I say automatically, remembering the name from the ID. We’ve already forwarded the information to Soto and are in the process of contacting her next of kin.

“Well, Ms. Jackson deserves the utmost respect on her final journey,” he says seriously. “I’ll begin the autopsy as soon as the family is notified. I need time to prepare as is.”

I nod, and the sound of a motor catches my attention. Glancing over, past the crowd of red and blue lights, I see Vinny backing out of the driveway. He’s got his window down, and appears to be focused on chatting with Jo in the passenger seat.

They seem to be heading out in a hurry. Can’t say I blame either of them for not wanting to be here, and I watch as he turns away from the crowd and cruises off. He’s going in the opposite direction that I expected, heading towards town in lieu of the highway.

Saying goodbye to Briggs, Gabe meets me at the driveway to the house. The car Tyler drove over in is gone, and he cocks his head that way. “Harrsion said they were going to check out Jackson’s residence. You were busy talking to Briggs.”

“Great,” I say, not lifting my gaze from Jo and Vinny’s car as it disappears around a bend. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if those two headed out of town for the day. It would look suspicious, but waking up with a dead body outside your window is a lot to handle.”

Gabe shrugs. “You know what’s off in that direction, don’t you boss?”

“The town?”

“And the Ajello Grove,” he replies with a grin. “Vinny’s probably heading off to speak with his family.”