“Caught that, huh?” He tapped at the photograph. “The larger prints belong to Flack, the smaller ones are the ones that came back as unknown.”
Fogel thought about that for a second, then looked at the other two photographs, both shoe prints on the grimy alley floor.
“We think those belong to a kid. They’re a size four.”
“Could be a woman.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“A kid didn’t do this. Size four would put them around, what? Ten or eleven years old? Way too small to move a body like this. What did Flack weigh?”
“One seventy-three.”
“Definitely not a kid. I’m not sure I could move him on my own.” Fogel flipped through the printed pages. Six of them had copies of receipts. “What are these?”
“He seemed to like eating at the diner across the street. Krendal’s. Went in a couple times a week. One of the waitresses recognized him from a photo but didn’t have much to add. Quiet, ate by himself. Always ordered a ham and cheese melt with a Coke and fries.”
Faustino turned the folder back around. “I ran into a kid at the diner, Duncan Bellino. I saw him standing around at the crime scene, too. He got real nervous when I cornered him about it. I get the feeling he may have found the body, tried to lift the wallet, and chickened out. I tried to get a warrant for his prints, but the judge wouldn’t sign off on it, too flimsy. Right age, though, and the shoe size looked about right.”
Fogel leaned back in her chair. “That, my friend, would be a dead lead.”
“Probably, but I don’t like loose ends. If he was first to the body, he may have seen whoever dumped Flack there. He got picked up a few years back for some petty shit, so he’s in the system now, but the records are sealed. I tried to get those to match the prints, but no-go. Different judge, same problem—too flimsy. I don’t think the kid did it, but my gut tells me he knows something.”
“Okay, so Flack is a bust, too, no real evidence.” She nodded at the board. “Tell me about 1986.”
Faustino returned to the board and pointed at the photograph under 1986. “She’s our oldest victim on record—forty-seven-year-old black female. No record. She was a cashier at K-Mart. Lived alone. She clocked out on August 6, usually walked home. That was the last time anyone ever saw her. We found her in Baptist Park on August 8.”
“Do you have a date or time of death?”
Faustino shook his head. “The ME couldn’t place it. Because of the condition of these bodies, he flat-out told me he can only provide a best guess. None of the usual markers hold up.”
“That means she was missing at least two days. Your perp might be keeping them alive. Any evidence of sexual assault?”
“The ME didn’t think so, but couldn’t be sure on that, either. We’ve got a wide range of victims here, though, all ages, both sexes, multiple races. Sex crimes usually have a type, and from what I can tell, Flack was the only sexual predator attached to this case.”
“And he’s a vic.”
“He’s a vic.”
Faustino pointed to three more pictures on the board. “’85, ’84, and ’83. ’85 and ’83 were male, ’84 was female. We haven’t been able to identify any of them. All were fished out of the Ohio River anywhere from two miles outside the city to ten. They were all nude. The condition of the bodies tied them to this case, nothing else.”
Fogel said, “1982 looks young.”
Faustino glanced at the photograph of the tiny body—black, dry, and shriveled—next to the picture of a smiling little girl. “Our youngest. Six-year-old Rebecca Pohlman. She was nabbed from Monroeville Mall on August 2 and turned up in a Dumpster behind an Eat’n Park in West Mifflin on August 8.”
“Isn’t that the mall where they filmedDawn of the Dead?”
“The same.”
“Creepy.”
Faustino said, “Her mother was shopping at Sears, browsing clothes, and Rebecca wanted to look at the toys across the aisle but within eyeshot. We have about ten minutes unaccounted for, so we think that’s when she was grabbed. Most stores put the toy section as deep into the space as possible for two reason—kids tend to drag their parents there, so you want the parents to have to walk through as much of the retail space as possible, hoping for an impulse buy or two. The second reason is to get it as far from the exits as possible. Most kids are taken from the toy department. This gives store security a fighting chance at stopping someone before they get outside. When Rebecca was taken, no alarms went up. She vanished.”
He reached back into his drawer, found another folder, and opened it on the desk. There was a grainy eight by ten photograph inside. He handed it to Fogel. “The security cameras didn’t capture anything worthwhile inside, but we got this picture from the parking lot.”
Fogel studied the picture and frowned. “What exactly am I looking at?”
“Four adults, from the back. Female, we think, based on the long hair. Can’t be sure, though.”
