Free 14 BOOK 2 by J.T. Ellison

previous employment as a child’s bedroom. There was a plush, soft chocolate chenille couch and a cherry desk with two ladder-backed chairs on either side. Three weathered brown corrugated boxes sat on the desk. They bore the mark of private evidence files. All investigative cops had one or two stashed away.
    They got settled, Taylor and Fitz on the couch, Kimball leaning against the desk. Taylor took the chance to size the man up.
    Kimball’s hair was gray, cut in a military-style bristle top. His face had a permanently mournful expression, his eyes hangdog. His clothes were old-fashioned, from a previous generation. He wasn’t old, but he was certainly not doing anything to make himself seem any younger than his sixty-four years.
    He was soft-spoken, and Taylor imagined he’d been a shy man once, with jug ears and a slow, sad smile. Retirement had eased some of the pressures on his mind, but the years were etched on his face. He’d seen too much, witnessed too many vicious crimes, to have a smooth, carefree aspect. He stooped slightly, and Taylor wondered if it was the weight of all he had seen in his years on the force.
    Fitz had told Taylor that Kimball was the detail man of the old homicide unit, the one attuned to every nuance and ripple in a case. He was the homely one, the man any victim would confide in, the man every criminal confessed to.
    He rested against the desk and waited for them to speak. Just like the old days, she assumed. No sense pushing an issue if it was going to come to you, anyway. Satisfied they were in good hands, Taylor started. “We wanted to talk to you about the Snow White murders. The early ones. We’re pretty sure these new ones are a copycat, but you’d be the best person to confirm that with. The DNA isn’t back yet, but you know this guy. You can tell us if it’s him doing these crimes or if it’s someone else.”
    “Okay.” Kimball walked behind them and shut the door. No sense in scaring his granddaughter if he could help it. Fitz got up and examined his friend’s bookshelf, whistling softly.
    Kimball reperched himself on the edge of the desk.
    “What do you want to know?” He held up a hand. “No, let me ask you something first. Why do you think this is a copycat?”
    “To start with, the wound tracks are inconsistent. Snow White was left-handed, you confirmed that with all the original autopsy findings. This guy looks like a righty trying to make himself look like a southpaw. He’s cutting them from the front instead of from behind. There are two other major discrepancies—the news articles placed in the vaginas, and there’s a cream on each girl’s temples. It looks like it’s arnica cream, and we’ve found the composition includes frankincense and myrrh. We can’t be sure that the substances are combined or separate just yet, but regardless, it’s a big deviation from the original murders. We’re tossing around the idea that this might be some sort of religious ritual.”
    “So there’s no hair evidence?”
    “You mean at the scenes? Not that we’ve found.”
    “No, I mean the new victims’ hair wasn’t pulled out at the roots like the first girls’?”
    Taylor and Fitz exchanged a glance, and Fitz answered,
    “Not that we’ve come across, no.”
    Kimball went to the boxes on his desk, flipped the lid off the center box, slipped on a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses. He thumbed through the center of the files and pulled out a manila folder marked Photos. He paged through until he reached one he liked. He held it out for Taylor to look at.
    “That picture is of the back of Vivienne White’s head. See that little bald patch? We always figured he was yanking their heads back so hard that he pulled the hair out at the roots. It was the same for all ten girls. A bald patch, right at the nape of their necks. I don’t know about any cream being found on the bodies, but the missing hair was a big deal for us.”
    Taylor’s lips were pursed. “That