Sight Unseen(15)
“Room for what?” Lynch asked.
Griffin stood and grabbed his jacket from the back of the triangular-backed chair. “I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER
3
“I DON’T BELIEVE IT.” KENDRA’S voice echoed in the large space, bouncing off the bare walls and concrete floors.
“Amazing,” Lynch whispered.
They were with the FBI team on the vacant second floor, surrounded by nineteen freestanding bulletin boards. Each of the boards was packed with crime-scene photos, press clippings, and detail sheets of Kendra’s cases.
“This is all of them, isn’t it?” Griffin waved his arms over the boards. “Every one of your murder investigations.”
Kendra couldn’t answer at first. All those faces. All that death. All those places she had tried to forget. They were coming at her from every direction.
“You okay?” Lynch asked.
She nodded. Lynch was the only one who really knew her, who realized how this display might affect her. To the others, these were just her “triumphs,” her “greatest hits.” She finally turned toward Reade and Metcalf. “I’d forgotten I’d been involved with so many cases. I can see why you spent almost all night down here.”
“It’s our case data center,” Griffin said. “We’re calling it ‘the war room.’ These boards have the details of every murder you’ve ever investigated. You’ve only done five for us, but we’ve also included the ones you’ve done for other police departments and investigative units. We’re working with San Diego PD to make sure that there haven’t been others that match some of these.”
Kendra stopped to look at the face of the twelve-year-old Steve Wallach, who had been killed the night after she joined the hunt for the Marina killer.
Steve would have been in high school now, dating, driving, maybe thinking about college. He might even—
“Kendra?” Lynch said softly.
She nodded in acknowledgment and forced herself to look away from that boy’s face.
“Dr. Michaels,” Reade said. “If there’s any relevant information we left off any of these boards, please let us know.”
“Sure.”
“Exceptional job, isn’t it?” Griffin was strolling among the bulletin boards, like a patron at an art gallery from hell. “Since you’re going to be helping us, I thought it might be helpful for you to refresh your memory of these cases. Not to disparage Agent Saffron’s PowerPoint skills, this is probably easier to take in.”
Like a dagger to the heart, Kendra thought. Don’t look at them right now. Don’t let them see how it brought back all the nightmares.
“Doesn’t matter,” Kendra said. “I could never forget any of these cases. I talked to the loved ones of every victim on these boards. That’s not something I could ever forget … as much as I would like to.”
God, she wanted to get out of here.
Lynch quickly stepped between her and Griffin. “Has the medical examiner given you a preliminary report on the victims from the bridge?”
“Yes, it came in last night. Dr. Michaels was spot-on about the couple in the BMW. They were both strangled. The driver of the pickup truck appeared to suffer from blunt-force trauma, but the body was burned pretty badly. You were also right about the accelerant used. It was paint thinner, heavy on the toluene.”
“What about the driver of the minivan?” Kendra asked. “She was burned, too. I didn’t get a good look at her.”
“She was a thirty-two-year-old female from Old Town,” Griffin said. “She had multiple contusions in the chest, consistent with stab wounds. According to the M.E., her body appears to have been refrigerated.”
“What?” Lynch said.
Kendra nodded. “The killer kept her on ice until he was ready to unveil her. Do we know when she disappeared?”
“Four days before the crash,” Reade said. “She was an unemployed teacher. She had a roommate, but when she didn’t come home, the roommate just thought she had taken off for Phoenix to visit her parents.”
Look straight at Griffin. Keep your eyes off those boards. “What about the driver of the pickup truck?” Kendra asked. “Do we have a timeline on him?”
“He disappeared three days before the crash,” Griffin said. “He was a family man from North Park. San Diego PD had actually been working his disappearance.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if his body was also refrigerated,” Kendra said. “Do we have any information on the couple in the BMW?”
Griffin nodded. “They were fresh kills. They had both been to work that day, literally just hours before. They were due to meet friends at a restaurant earlier in the evening.”