Postmortem(99)

On her desk was a legal pad scribbled with notes and numbers that would look like hieroglyphics to the uninitiated.

“Henna Yarborough’s blood type is B,” she began. “We’re lucky on that count because it’s not all that common. In Virginia, about twelve percent of the population’s type B. Her PGM’s one-plus, one-minus. Her PEP is A-one, EAP is CB, ADA-one and AK-one. The subsystems, unfortunately, are very common, up there in the eighty-nine percent and above of Virginia’s population.”

“How common is the actual configuration?” The plastic peeking out of the top of her pocket was beginning to unsettle me.

She started stabbing out digits on a calculator, multiplying the percentages and dividing by the number of subsystems she had. “About seventeen percent. Seventeen out of a hundred people could have that configuration.”

“Not exactly rare,” I muttered.

“Not unless sparrows are rare.”

“What about the bloodstains on the jumpsuit?”

“We were lucky. The jumpsuit must have already air-dried by the time the street person found it. It’s in amazingly good shape. I got all the subsystems except an EAP. It’s consistent with Henna Yarborough’s blood. DNA should be able to tell us with certainty, but we’re talking about a month to six weeks.”

I commented abstractedly, “We ought to buy stock in the lab.”

Her eyes lingered on me and grew soft. “You look absolutely ragged, Kay.”

“That obvious, is it?”

“Obvious to me.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Don’t let all this get to you. After thirty years of this misery, I’ve learned the hard way . . .”

“What’s Wingo up to?” I foolishly blurted out.

Surprised, she faltered. “Wingo? Well . . .”

I was staring at her pocket.

She laughed uneasily, patted it. “Oh, this. Just a little private work he’s asked me to do.”

That was as much as she intended to say. Maybe Wingo had other real worries in his life. Maybe he was having an HIV test done on the sly. Good God, don’t let him have AIDS.

Gathering my fragmented thoughts, I asked, “What about the fibers? Anything?”

Betty had compared fibers from the jumpsuit to fibers left at Lori Petersen’s scene and to a few fibers found on Henna Yarborough’s body.

“The fibers found on the Petersen windowsill could have come from the jumpsuit,” she told me, “or they could have come from any number of dark blue cotton-polyester blend twills.”

In court, I dismally thought, the comparison’s not going to mean a thing because the twill is about as generic as dime-store typing paper—you start looking for it and you’re going to find it all over the place. It could have come from someone’s work pants. It could, for that matter, have come from a paramedic’s or cop’s uniform.

There was another disappointment. Betty was sure the fibers I found on Henna Yarborough’s body were not from the jumpsuit.

“They’re cotton,” she was saying. “They may have come from something she was wearing at some point earlier in the day, or even a bath towel. Who knows? People carry all sorts of fibers on their person. But I’m not surprised the jumpsuit didn’t leave fibers.”

“Why?”

“Because twill fabrics, such as the fabric of the jumpsuit, are very smooth. They rarely leave fibers unless the fabric comes in contact with something abrasive.”

“Such as a brick window ledge or a rough wooden sill, as in Lori’s case.”

“Possibly, and the dark fibers we found in her case may have come from a jumpsuit. Maybe even this one. But I don’t think we’re ever going to know.”

I went back downstairs to my office and sat at my desk for a while, thinking. Unlocking the drawer, I pulled out the five murdered women’s cases.

I began looking for anything I might have missed. Once again, I was groping for a connection.

What did these five women have in common? Why did the killer pick them? How did he come in contact with them?

There had to be a link. In my soul, I didn’t believe it was a random selection, that he just cruised around looking for a likely candidate. I believed he selected them for a reason. He had some sort of contact with them first, and perhaps followed them home.

Geographics, jobs, physical appearances. There was no common denominator. I tried the reverse, the least common denominator, and I continued to go back to Cecile Tyler’s record.

She was black. The four other victims were white. I was bothered by this in the beginning, and I was still bothered by it now. Did the killer make a mistake? Perhaps he didn’t realize she was black. Was he really after somebody else? Her friend Bobbi, for example?