Free Last Breath by Michael Prescott Page A

pointy end in pigment, and drives it into the skin with a mallet.”
    Expressions of dismay and a grunted “ouch” made their way around the table.
    “They tattoo every part of the body that way,” Merriwether went on imperturbably, “even the genitals. It’s a test of manhood.”
    “Really?” Donna Cellini said with a smile. “That’s a test none of you guys would pass.”
    Laughter broke through the temporary discomfort in the room.
    “Anyway,” Merriwether said, “instead of chiseled bone, our guy has needles, and instead of soot and water, which the Polynesians and the Samoans used, he buys ink. It would take him maybe half an hour to apply the tattoo postmortem. He uses a 0.3-inch diameter needle for line work, 0.36 for coloring. Standard sizes, don’t lead us anywhere. The ink is standard too—couple hundred thousand bottles sold each year.”
    “How about the hourglass design?” Walsh asked.
    “It could be a stencil, which would speed up the process, but if so, it’s one he made himself, not a commercially available variety. The fact that it’s a geometric pattern—two triangles—might or might not be significant. The Polynesians were really into geometrical designs. They had this pottery done in what’s called the Lapita style, and they used the same designs when making tattoos. So our guy might be knowledgeable about ancient Polynesian culture, but it’s just as likely to be a coincidence. Most of the Polynesian designs were a lot more complicated than an hourglass. It was a real art form, the way they did it.”
    “Sounds like you’re really getting into this stuff,” Ed Lopez remarked. “You sure you haven’t got ‘To Protect and Serve’ tattooed on your butt?”
    “Ask your wife,” Merriwether responded placidly, to general amusement.
    “Okay,” Walsh said, “since the tats are a dead end, I want you two to go back to working the index cards.”
    “Shit,” Stark groused, “that got us nowhere. They’re ordinary three-by-five cards. You can buy ’em in any stationery store.”
    “Work them anyway.” Walsh sank back in his seat. “Ed, Gary, you have any better luck with the victims’ background checks?”
    Ed Lopez fielded the question. “We haven’t found anything that ties Nikki Carter to Martha Eversol.” Eversol had been assumed to be the Hourglass Killer’s second victim even before her body was found; the date of her disappearance had fit the pattern begun by Nikki Carter. “Checked out their doctors, dentists, employers and their colleagues at work, neighbors, landlords, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, every damn thing we could think of. No links.”
    “There’s supposed to be six degrees of separation between any two people on earth,” Gary Boyle added, “but not here.”
    Walsh shook his head. “Donna and Len, give me some good news.”
    Len Sotheby simply threw up his hands and said, “Nada.”
    Donna Cellini was more forthcoming. “There are unsolved stranglings all over the map, obviously. But we didn’t find any parallel with the tattoos anywhere. Either our guy is new at this, or the tats are a new twist. I’m guessing the latter.”
    Lopez asked why.
    “Didn’t you read the profile?” Cellini sounded irritated. “It said the unsub was experienced.”
    “Unsub,” Stark echoed with a smirk. The term was FBI jargon for Unknown Suspect. “Maybe you’ll be enrolling in Quantico before long, huh, Cellini?”
    “At least I’d associate with a better class of people.”
    “Any of the unsolved cases look promising?” Walsh asked.
    Cellini consulted her notes. “There’s a bunch of stuff that has possibilities. Serial strangulations of prostitutes in Portland, Oregon, 1996 to 1998. A coyote—you know, a guy who smuggles illegals across the border—suspected of strangling female clients in the southern Arizona desert near Nogales, circa 1995. Never caught. Guy named Charles William Baron, real estate broker in Philadelphia, strangled his wife