Conduit Read Online Free Page B

visited a crime scene this late in his career, so Lionel surmised
the killings affected Perry as much as everyone else.
    “Twelve hours,” Perry said over his shoulder. “I’ll be more
sure when we get her opened up on the table.”
    “Twelve hours since time of death,” Lionel said when they reached
Perry. An inexact science, when Perry said twelve hours he really meant give or
take several hours, but Lionel always took Perry’s estimates at face value. With
Perry’s experience, he was good at getting close to time of death on first
guess, taking into consideration the condition of the body and environmental
elements where the body was found.
    Shawn turned to Lionel. “He’s dumping them quicker than
before. I wish we knew if that’s a good sign.”
    “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Lionel said. “Maybe I’d like
some hope that he dumped her too fast and he made a mistake.” He bent over Perry’s
open black bag and stole a pair of latex gloves.
    “We all want him to make a mistake,” Perry said, “but I don’t
think we’re getting one today.”
    “Just let my poor, tired soul have some hope.” He pulled on
the latex gloves and walked around Perry. “What can you tell us so far?”
    “Can we get some more photos of the knife wounds on her legs?”
Perry asked the photographer. He shrugged at Lionel. “No traces of blood around
the body. She didn’t die here and he cleaned her up before he moved her.”
    “Just like the others,” Lionel said. Standing at the head of
the body, Lionel regarded the unemotional face of the latest victim. She appeared
younger than the previous victims, maybe twenty-five at best. “No ID yet?”
    “No clothing, no ID,” Shawn said. “Just like the others,” he
added.
    Leaves and dirt framed her olive complexion and matted her
once silky black hair. Soulless eyes, hazy with death, stared toward the
highway, oblivious to the horrors her naked corpse created. Her contorted, open
slit of a mouth looked as if she wanted to tell Lionel something, which was
exactly what she did. Besides appearing to be the youngest of all the victims,
she was also Asian.
    “He’s changed the ethnicity of the victim this time,” Shawn said,
reading Lionel’s thoughts.
    A twinge of excitement ran through Lionel’s body at the
sudden change in ethnicity, but he stifled it, knowing it might not lead
anywhere. “Unfortunately for us, the victimology is so diverse that it might
not matter,” Lionel said. He stared at the body for more clues. “She was dumped
early this morning, after it stopped raining.”
    Shawn raised an eyebrow. “That’s what we figure. Her hair
isn’t wet or even damp, like it would be if she’d been rained on. I’ve got Timmons
checking on the weather to see what time the rain ceased in this part of the
city.”
    Lionel crouched next to the body. The viciousness of her
death claimed all beauty once displayed on the woman. Bruises lined her throat
and traveled over her naked skin, accompanied by angry red knife slashes that
covered almost every part of her body like clothing.
    The injuries were so numerous that they overlapped, and at
some points where multiple wounds collided, Lionel couldn’t tell which
direction the slashes pointed. Perry would tell them later if they were upward
or downward strokes, how deep they penetrated her body, and how many there were.
He would also be able to discern if the knife used on this victim matched the
type used on the others. For a moment, Lionel reflected that the girl suffered
this torture for several hours before her body gave up.
    He put up a wall against that thought. Letting emotion in at
this very moment could result in overlooking something while studying the
victim. Making a mistake, possibly missing an important piece of evidence, could
result in a seventh girl dying, just as six women already had. Emotion could
come later when he was at home with Barbara, safely hidden in his own world
where murder didn’t