“Nobody knows how they’re going to react on the business end of a gun,” Dodds said. “Anyway, look.” He leaned back and yelled for the sergeant. “Did you folks make this?”
“No, detective.” She was huffy about it.
The grass was pulled up a few feet from the body, with fresh dirt exposed. Next to it were indentations on the grass.
“Maybe he did try to fight.”
“Quiet part of a quiet cemetery,” Will said, halfway to himself. “A fight or calls for help wouldn’t be heard. Killer could have gagged him at first. Actually, you can probably get a lot of noise from the trains at Queensgate Yard, especially in the middle of the night. Maybe you can build on the respectful relationship you’ve started with the sergeant and get some unis canvassing the houses across on Winton Road, see if anybody heard anything. We should talk to the groundskeepers, see what kind of security they have here. Looks like a place where anybody can jump the wall and be easily hidden.”
“Smell that?” Will said.
“Bleach.” Dodds pointed to the gore of Smith’s groin. “He poured it down there.”
“Exactly like with Gruber,” Will said. “When I first heard about that I thought the killer might have thought he would mess up the DNA analysis, that he had left semen inside her. But this tells me…”
Dodds completed his thought: “He did it to torture them. Let it burn in the wounds as they died.”
They looked over the scene silently for several minutes.
“This guy’s got balls,” Dodds said. “The killer, I mean, not the vic. He does this guy in public, in one of the most prominent landmarks in the city. If his note is accurate, he set out to kill three healthy young people in one shot. Thinks he’s the god of murder.”
“Those are the ones I like to take down,” Will said. “I’d love to know where the lawyer was over the past twelve hours.”
“You think this Kenneth Buchanan is really the one?”
“I don’t know,” Will said. “He had a connection to Kristen. A motive, too, if he was jealous of her other lovers. A crime of passion, however twisted. But maybe the asshole is really a psychopath? So he kills the girls up at Oxford for the fun of it and then has this guy for dessert.”
Will drifted into thinking again about John, about his stepson’s visit earlier in the week, and about the shoeprint found on Kristen’s boat.
Dodds said, “You don’t like his ass because he reminds you of Cindy’s new husband. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to send a lawyer to the express lane at death row. But we’re going to need more before command will let us lean on him.”