Davica called. âI saw the news,â she said, âabout finding two more bodies. So Iâm ready to accept your apology for thinking I was involved with any of it.â
Teffinger smiled.
âWho is this?â
âNot funny,â she said. âCome over tonight. I have something to show you.â She hung up before he could say anything.
Sydney showed up a few minutes later, walking toward him with a Cheshire Cat grin on her face. âGood news,â she said, handing him three pieces of paperâblack-and-white printouts of a young woman talking on a payphone. âThatâs your anonymous caller.â
âYou sure?â
âPositive,â she said. âThis is definitely the phone used for the call, and the time on the security camera tape exactly matches the time of the call, from start to end. Plus she looks stressed.â
Teffinger was impressed.
âGood work,â he said. âI suppose now you think I owe you lunch or something.â
She punched him in the arm.
âLunch? Dinner at a minimum,â she said. âGot some more news for you too. The head definitely belongs to Rachel Ringer, like our caller-friend said.â
âAny word yet who the other one is? The one without the eyes?â
âNada.â
Teffinger studied the callerâs face again.
âLetâs get a press conference set up ASAP,â he said. âI want her photo on the five oâclock news. Sheâs up to her eyeballs in this and I want to know how.â
Sydney shook her head.
âIf all Iâm getting out of this is a lunch â¦â
âYouâre also being paid, donât forget.â
âRight, but I would be extra motivated if there was a dinner involved.â
Teffinger held his hands up in surrender.
âOkay,â he said. âFine. But this is blackmail, for the record.â
She smiled. âBlack female, actually. I choose the restaurant.â
Ouch.
âJust be sure they have a two-for-one special.â He looked at his watch for the first time in hours: 3:25. Shit. âI got to run,â he said over his shoulder. âBe back in an hour.â
He headed over to see how Marilyn Black was coming along. It was turning out that she was more alone in the world than he first thought. Her father skipped out when she was just a baby. Marilyn ran away from home when she was fifteen and had been on the streets ever since.
When he walked into her room she was asleep.
He held her hand for a half hour and then told the orderly, âBe sure she knows I was here.â
On his way back to the railroad spur, Teffinger called Leigh Sandt, Ph.D., the FBI profiler who had proved to be so invaluable on both the David Hallenbeck and Nathan Wickersham cases. She was a Supervisory Special Agent assigned to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) at Quantico, Virginia. Luckily, he actually got her on the line. As usual, she listened patiently as he explained the situation.
âThe thing that puzzles me the most is the four different methods of murder,â he said, referring to stabbing, beheading, suffocation, and slitting of the throat. âOh,â he added, âI almost forgot to tell you, the last one we foundâthe one with the slit throatâhad her eyes gouged out too. We havenât found them yet. The guy ate them for all we know.â
She asked a number of questions.
The ages of the victims.
Physical descriptions.
Similarities.
âThis is a tough one,â she said. âGiven the widely divergent causes of death, Iâm leaning towards multiple murderers, maybe a cult of some kind, or a gang initiation. But Iâm also not inclined yet to totally rule out one murdererâmaybe someone with multiple personalities, or one personality but multiple fantasies.â She cleared her throat and added, âLooks like youâre going to be all over the news