I was listening; Jam had my full attention.
“In both of the cities, the medical examiners really got into the case, really tried to help. As you know, we exhumed in San Luis Obispo. Then Guy Millner, the M.E. in San Diego, did the same. I won’t bore you with all the details right now, though I can overnight them to your hotel.”
“That would be great. Obviously, no faxes on any of this material.”
“Here’s what we’ve found out. In both these murders, the teeth marks are different than in San Francisco or L.A. The marks were made by human teeth, Alex. But the killers were not the same ones. The evidence is pretty conclusive.
“Alex, there are at least four killers out there working. At least four. We’ve identified four different sets of human teeth so far.”
I was trying to make some sense of what I’d just heard. “These are bodies that were exhumed? Human teeth could leave bite marks on bone?”
“Yes. The M.E.s agreed on that. The enamel on teeth is the hardest substance in the human body. Also, as you know, the killers might have been wearing enhancers.”
“Fangs?”
“Right. There was gnawing on the bones in San Diego. That’s another reason why there were clear marks.”
“Gnawing?” I winced.
“You?
??re the psychologist, not me. Gnawing entails strong, repetitive, intentional action. It could definitely account for teeth marks. The victim was in his fifties. That helped us some too. According to my sources, his bones had less density due to osteoporosis. Thus the clear marks. But why gnaw on the bones? You tell me.”
I was thinking about it. “How about this? Inside the bone is the marrow. And the marrow is rich in blood vessels.”
“Oh, Alex, yuck,” Jamilla said. “That could be it. How perfectly awful.”
Chapter 36
THE MURDERS of the two actors exploded the media awareness of the case.
Suddenly we had hundreds of tips to check and way too many bogus leads to follow. According to the tips, Dara Grey and Andrew Cotton had been spotted in nearly every club and hotel in Vegas. It was just what we didn’t need to deal with. We had decided not to release the information that there might be more than one set of killers. California and Nevada weren’t ready for it.
Kyle Craig decided to stay out west for the next couple of days. So did I, of course. I didn’t have much of a choice. The case was too hot and seemed to be revving up even more. Over a thousand local police and FBI agents were involved on some level.
Then the killings simply stopped.
The pattern that had seemed to be escalating and building ended; the killers, who had seemed to be getting bolder, just vanished. Or maybe we weren’t finding the bodies anymore.
I was talking daily to profilers in Quantico, but none of them could discern a pattern that made sense to any of us. Jamilla Hughes couldn’t come up with interesting leads or theories either.
Everyone was completely stumped.
The killers just stopped killing.
Why? What was going on? Had the publicity scared them off? Or was it something else? Where had the killers disappeared to? How many were there?
It was time for me to go home. That was the good news, and I took it for what it was. Kyle agreed, and I headed back to Washington with the uncomfortable feeling that I had failed and that maybe the murderers would get away with what they had done.
I got to the house on Fifth Street at four on a Monday afternoon. The home front looked a little worn but also comfortable. I made a mental note that I had to paint the outside. The gutters needed work. Actually, I looked forward to it.
Nobody was home. Nobody was there. I’d been away for fourteen days.
I had wanted to surprise the kids, but I guess that was another bad idea. They seemed to be coming in clusters lately.
I wandered around the house, taking it all in, noting little things that were different since I had left. The kids’ all-the-rage Razor scooter had a broken back wheel. Damon’s white choral robe, sheathed in a plastic dry-cleaning bag, hung over the banister.
I was feeling guilty as it was, and the quiet, empty house didn’t help. I looked at a few framed photos on the walls. My wedding photo with Maria. School portraits of Damon and Jannie. Snapshots of little Alex. A formal picture of the Boys’ Choir taken by me at the National Cathedral.