She spun back to face the alley. This was a shortcut. Drummond could have taken this route through the alley between the abandoned gasworks buildings. A vehicle could have been waiting in this empty lot, accessed from a side road nearer the water. There was no lighting down here.
Angie scanned the ground with her beam. Whatever vehicle tracks might have been made last night were covered with slush. She started to retrace her way back toward the alley, examining the ground inch by inch with her flashlight as she walked. Nothing jumped out at her. She reentered the alley and stood there for a moment, imagining that she was Drummond, just alighted from the bus, hurrying down the bank from the shelter. The kid probably had her head down against the weather, her body hunched into her coat, collar up against her cheeks. Her hat pulled low. Listening to her music. She’d surely have been moving fast through this alley, given the fact her bus was late and that fear in a dark and lonely place like this was instinctive.
Maybe she cut through here weekly, if, as Vaughan had said, his bus was always running late. Maybe someone knew her routine and was waiting for her last night. A crime of choice, not chance.
Angie put her head down, as if she might be Drummond, and walked, examining the ground with her flashlight as she went. She stilled as her beam caught something shiny. Her earlier footprint had exposed an object lying in gravel. Angie crouched down, snapped on her gloves, and picked up a set of small white earbuds attached to a broken cord. She glanced up. She was crouching adjacent to the recess in the wall into which the rat had scuttled. The alcove was set back enough to accommodate an assailant pressing himself against the bricks. He would have been totally hidden. He could have stepped out as Drummond approached or struck her from behind as she passed. The earbuds could have been ripped out of her ears, the cord broken in the violence of an ensuing tussle. Judging by the defensive wounds she’d seen on Drummond’s body, she’d fought for her life. But Drummond would have screamed, surely?
Angie came to her feet, and she cried out, testing sound in the canyon of brick. Her scream fell flat, deadened by moss and lichen and by the layer of slush on the ground. Even if Drummond had managed to scream, no one would have heard her in the storm, in the dark. She’d have been all alone. Completely vulnerable.
“Pallorino!” came Holgersen’s voice. “Hey! Who’s there?” A flashlight bobbed at the end of the alley. Footfalls sounded, running, coming closer. The beam shone in her face, and she saw that her partner had his service weapon drawn.
She dangled the earphones up in her gloved fingers. “Bus driver said she was plugged in. Mom said she had an iPhone. These are standard Apple buds. There’s a vacant lot at the rear of this alley, big enough to park a vehicle. He could have planned this—been waiting right here in this alcove. Knowing she would come. Jumped her, knocked out the buds. He planned this. He picked Drummond for some reason, Holgersen. Hehuntedand trapped her. She fit his fantasy, and we need to find out why.”
“What the fuck, Angie?” He holstered his service weapon. “Youscreamed. I thought you were in danger. Jeeezus. I was looking for you, and then I heard—”
“Sound,” she said, glancing up at the walls, “it’s muffled in here. Go back exactly the way you entered, Holgersen. Retrace your footsteps to minimize further contamination. We need to cordon this place off, get a uniform to stand guard until we can get a forensic team in here in the morning.Thisis our abduction site. I’d stake my life on it. Go!”
He muttered a curse, started retracing his steps. She followed directly in his footprints.
“What did the staff at the Badger say?” she called out from behind him. “You get anything?”
He stopped, turned, glared down at her, anger and adrenaline still simmering off him. “Shift staff that she usually worked with was not there. But the manager said Gracie was a quiet, sweet girl. Empathetic. Private. Didn’t talk much about friends, dates, whatevers. Diligent. Had not expressed any fears, so fars as they knew, nor any problems with other staff. She regularly took a shortcut through this alley. The Badger’s night-shift boss is a stickler for punctuality, so she cuts through here to save like three minutes walking along the lighted sidewalk around the buildings.”
“Good. So we—”
“Good? For crap’s sake, Pallorino. You scared the scat out of me.”
“Go. Keep moving.”
They reached the end. “Go get the barrier tape from the vehicle,” she ordered. “I’m going to call this in.” As she reached for her cell, it rang.
“Pallorino, Metro PD.”
“It’s Vedder.”
“I was just about to call you.” She mouthed to Holgersen, “Vedder,” and made a scooting motion with her hand for him to go.
“We found—”
“I need you to drop what you’re doing—”
“What?”
“I need you to stop what you’re doing, and—”
“No. Wait, we just got a break. I—”
“Pallorino, stop. Right now. You listening to me?”
“Sir. Yes.”
“Homicide caught a case this morning. Young woman found naked and wrapped in a plastic tarp, floating in the Gorge. She’s been genitally mutilated. Lock of hair removed.”
Angie quickly ducked under the cover of an eave. “Crucifix on her brow?” she said.
“Too early to tell either way, but—”
“This and the Drummond case could both be linked to the Fernyhough and Ritter cases,” she said quickly. “You can’t pull me off now, Vedder. I workedboththose sexual assault cases with Hash. I know them inside out. You havegotto let me see this through.”
