Her heart sank. Now, she knew who it was. Anthony Mulligan had been a year behind her in college. He'd been a big, fit, sporty guy who'd played football for the school and had also been on the basketball team. He'd served a few years in the police, two of which had overlapped with May’s police career, and had then left to join his father's business, which was a very successful transport company.
"Him?" Owen looked appalled. "What did he ever do to anyone?"
As they hurried up, May was wondering about that. Anthony had definitely been a popular guy, but she'd heard a few whispers that he'd also been a womanizer and hadn't treated his girlfriends as well as they deserved. But now was not the time to think about that!
Now, she needed to focus all her attention on this murder and work out how the killer took another victim.
May stopped outside the open garage door, pulling on her gloves and foot covers, before heading in.
Inside, the garage was half-filled by a low-slung sports car. The other side had no vehicle in it. There was a body, though, May saw.
And it was Anthony, without a doubt. She recognized those broad shoulders, that tousled hair, those strong forearms.
Andy Baker was hard at work, looking grim. May crouched down near him, looking uneasily at the bloodstain on the concrete floor.
"Morning, Andy. Is this the same MO?" she asked.
"Identical. Maced, right in the eyes," Andy said sadly. "And I am guessing, from the preliminary exam, that the time of death would have been about eleven p.m. last night, or perhaps midnight."
"Who found the body?" May asked.
"He was supposed to be training this morning. His personal trainer arrived for a run and a workout. He's here if you want to speak to him."
Andy indicated the door that led through to the house. There, May could see a fit-looking, tanned man in his forties was speaking to police, sounding stressed. She could hear his voice filtering through from the next-door room.
"I arrived for our run, and I called him. He didn't pick up, and I realized I could hear the phone from the garage. I went around to look and saw the window was forced. I called police immediately," the man said, sounding as if he was trying to get a handle on his horror.
"And when was the last time you spoke to Mr. Mulligan?"
"Last night. I called him when he was out with friends. I wanted to tell him we'd have to reschedule our run this morning, make it later than usual, as I was out of town doing a boot camp and had decided to stay overnight. So, we changed it from six to seven a.m. so that I could check out and drive back."
The window had been pried open, the same as the others, but as she looked more closely, May noticed that these marks were rougher, deeper. The frame was bent. It was as if the killer had been getting more impatient. Angrier, maybe.
"Is he jealous?" she muttered to Owen as they moved away, giving forensics room to work.
"Jealous? Of what?"
"Of Anthony's success, his life. The fact that he moved on from being a police officer to being a successful businessman, going from strength to strength."
Owen frowned. "Could be. But then, why kill all these others too?"
They watched in silence as the forensics team worked, and May felt the low grade feeling of dread that had been with her all morning start to intensify as she thought about what might come next. Whoever this killer was, he was getting bolder. What if there was yet another kill before they could catch him?
"Maybe there's a common factor locally," May said. "Maybe this man is jealous of anyone more successful, anyone who is taller and stronger. Maybe he has an inferiority complex.”
“That still leaves a lot of people,” Owen pointed out. “How can we narrow it down further?”
“All three of these victims are from the same wider community, and it’s not a big community,” May said. “They must have something in common. Perhaps they had the same friends or enemies, perhaps they went to the same gym or the same club. I think we need to look for the similarities and see if there is anything that overlaps between all three of them.”
Owen nodded. "That's a good place to start."
May hoped this would allow them to get closer to the truth. With three victims, at least they now had three reference points to check. In this small community, there would hopefully be enough local knowledge to take this further.
A common thread, now, could lead them to the killer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Let's start out by looking at the victims' activities," May said. "Maybe they were all members of a social club, or a weightlifting society, or something like that?"
