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Boldt encouraged him yet again.
“Conjecture is all. There is at least some circumstantial evidence to suggest the binding was a flexible material. In several weight-bearing places it appears to have pinched the skin.”
“Weight-bearing,” Boldt repeated, for the term caught his ear.
“Yes. That’s the conjecture part,” the man answered. “If I had to guess I would say she was trussed facedown. The ligature was jerked or tugged severely, and was improperly arranged so that maximum stress came here-” he pointed to her shoulders “-and here.” He pointed to her crotch. “It was excessive force, enough to shatter L7 and L8 and to sever the cord.”
“Could she have been dropped?” Daphne asked.
“Dropped? Yes, I suppose that would account for it, but it would have had to have been from a very great height.”
“The elastic cord,” Boldt said. “Could it have been bungee cord?” He leaned in for a close look at the rope burns on her side.
“Indeed,” the doctor said. “Are you telling me she was bungee jumping? The clothes came off during her time in the water?”
“Is it possible?” Boldt asked.
“She was naked,” Daphne said with authority. “He threw her off…I don’t know…a bridge?”
“Threw her?” the doctor asked, “or was it accidental? Too much alcohol, a stupid idea gone wrong.”
“Was alcohol found in her system?” Boldt asked.
“Blood workup will be a day or two, minimum.”
“He threw her,” Daphne repeated, her voice softer. “We’re going to find that the position is important to him. The angel pose. Flying like that. He’s Roman Catholic, or was raised Roman Catholic. Single. Lives or lived with a single parent. He’s under thirty, over eighteen. Uses mass transit, but has a driver’s license. Probably cross-dresses, though not in public.”
“We’re going to need every hair and fiber, every X-ray, every detail of this corpse before it degrades any further.”
“Threw her?” The doctor could barely get out the words. “You’re sure?” This, meant for Daphne.
“He wanted the angel to fly,” she said, having not taken her eyes off the dead woman for the past few minutes. “But he got it wrong, tied it wrong, from what you tell us, and he broke her back instead. Who knows how long he might have kept her alive if she’d have only flown for him?”
The doctor stepped back, as if a few feet might separate him from the truth.
“And the first one?” Boldt asked, also staring at the cadaver.
“I imagine that one went wrong, as well, or he wouldn’t have failed so miserably with her. Poor her,” she whispered. “If she’d only known how to fly.”
The drive back began in silence. Traumatic death had a way of making anything else seem inconsequential and of no importance, even if the discussion was to be the solution of that death. A black hood pulled down over all existence. The road ran before them, people racing to pass, to maintain a position, and to both of them it seemed so insignificant, though neither spoke of it directly. Life’s uglies revealed themselves at such times, man’s clambering for space and position.
“Maybe you should have quit,” she said.
“Then I wouldn’t be in a car with you.”
“Don’t start.”
“Way too late for that,” he said.
“What is it with us?”
He gri
“Do you think we’ll ever-”
“No!” he said, cutting her off. “I try to not think about it.”
“-catch him,” she said, finishing her thought. “But thank you for sharing.”
The grin was vanquished. “Oh,” he said.
“And as to that other thing, I couldn’t disagree more. I, too, try not to think about it, but I find I’m not very good at it.”
“We’ll get this guy,” Boldt said.
“But the window of time…”
“Has closed. Yes. We’re way behind the eight ball. No question about it. But it’s you and it’s me. What chance has he got?”
“You sound like John,” she quipped.
“Him, too,” Boldt said. “I’ve got a guy at the U-dub. Dr. Brian Rutledge. Oceanography. He’s going to make a careful study of this and tell us-” the car rounded a bend and faced a long bridge with a dramatic drop, so Boldt slowed the vehicle “-that she was tossed off this bridge. Deception Pass. He’s going to tell us what day, and at what time she went off, because it’s what he does. We’re going to back up and use traffic cams to spot every car that left the highway for this road at the appropriate time. We’re going to box this guy in.”
He pulled to a stop and the two wandered out on to the bridge. Again, they were gripped in silence-in part because of the majesty of the view, gray water and green island shrouded in a descending mist, in part because of what had happened here. They both could visualize it: the body coming out of the trunk, already roped up. He ties a knot; he throws her over.
“Early, early, morning,” Daphne said.
“Because?”
“First light. No traffic-he’s got to hope for no traffic. But there’s no way this guy is tossing her in the dark. He wants to see her fly. This is about satisfying some need in him. His sister jumped off the barn roof and died when he was a kid. His mother fell from a ladder, broke her back. There’s a payoff here that’s fundamental to the crime.”
“Okay,” he said.
“More than you wanted?”
“From you? Get a clue.” He walked farther, into the very middle of the bridge. He squatted, examining the thick metal rail from a variety of angles.
“I doubt bungee jumping is anything new to this bridge,” he said.
“No.”
“So he can take his time tying it. Rigging it. Getting it just right. It’s pulling her out of the trunk, that’s the trick.”
“A public appeal?” she said.
“That’s what I’m thinking, yes. Someone saw his car. Him. Thought nothing of it. Maybe we jog a memory.” He surveyed the surrounding area: rocks and water and nothing but beauty. He found it difficult to think in terms of crime. “Did he use this same bridge for the first one?”
“Yes, I believe he did,” she said. “It wasn’t the location, it was his rigging that failed. Probably failed a lot worse the first time.”
“So we check the waters.”
“Your oceanographer may be able to help you, from what you’ve said.”
“Yes. Odds?”
“That he sent the first one off this bridge? High. You want a number?”
He spit a laugh. “No. I see your point.”
“With two failures, he may now blame the bridge. If you elect to involve the press, then he’ll certainly abandon the area.”
“So we look for other, isolated locations with significant drops.”
“Maybe with some distance parameters. He’s got a woman alive in his trunk. He doesn’t want to test that, to push that. It’s a means to an end-the trunk. It worries him having her back there, and not just out of fear of being caught. He has more respect for the victim than we’d understand. It’s the sister, the mother, the girlfriend. This isn’t a hate crime. Quite the opposite-it’s reverential, a form of worship for him. He wants to bless her with flight. He wants to give her a chance at resurrection.”
“I can look at dead bodies all day long. But I talk to you for five minutes and I’ve got chills.”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Glad to hear it, buddy.”
A flight of gulls cawed overhead as they played in the wind. Boldt followed behind Daphne back to the car, watching that machine of hers drive her forward.
Could have walked all day.
With the lab work expedited, Boldt had the building blocks for a possible modus by midday the following day, a Wednesday. He was supposed to be working the graveyard, but had already used up several favors to get someone to sub for him-this, in his first week of duty as CAP sergeant. He and LaMoia, who technically was the shift sergeant, rode in LaMoia’s mid-size pool car, a replacement for a series of Trans-Ams and Cameros he’d owned and driven proudly through the years.