“So instead he’s taken the garrote with him,” she theorized, “leaving us with next to nothing to work with.”
“Not a whole lot anyway,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Two at a time now. Jesus Christ, what next?”
“Don’t even ask.” She cringed. “You and I both know that, when it comes to this crap, there’s no end to what might come next.”
“I know,” he replied. “Time for me to find another job.”
“That won’t help,” she argued. “Even if you did leave this career, these pictures won’t leave your mind.”
He stopped, looked at her, and asked, “Do they ever leave yours?”
She grimaced and shook her head. “No, they sure don’t.”
“Exactly, how can they?” he noted. “The best we can do is hope for a good night’s sleep at some point before we die.”
She burst out laughing. “You know that it’ll probably be our very last sleep when it happens.”
He grinned. “Very true. I think that’s why they call itgoing to sleep. Forever.”
“Well, that suits me, as long as it comes without dreams. Nightmares, I mean,” she muttered. And, with that, they separated, the coroner heading toward the van. She walked over to where Rodney was talking to forensics.
He looked at her and asked, “Did you get anything from him?”
“A little bit.” She quickly relayed the bits that Smidge had shared.
“So, maybe the rope itself didn’t work on two at a time.” Rodney frowned. “I’m wondering why he tried two at a time anyway, especially if they were both fighting it. And the bear spray would have had them struggling regardless.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure, particularly if he sprayed them right in the face, as he appears to have done. Smidge also noted some bruising on the temple of one of the victims, as if she may have taken a blow to the head.”
“If you think about it, how do you bear spray two of them at the same time and actually get a decent enough shot that it never incapacitates, yet completely disorients and blinds them? They never really get past that, when he’s on them.”
“Especially if he’s there with a rope and a garrote maybe,” she suggested.
“Ropeanda garrote? Now that’s something. And again, I think it goes back to the fact that he tried for two at a time. What was the purpose behind that?” Rodney asked, wondering out loud.
“Instinctively I want to say revenge,” she replied, “but I don’t know against who or why. It doesn’t even mean it’s against our victims, but he chose these two for some particular reason, and it could have just been opportunity.”
“Which is always the worst,” Rodney muttered.
“It never gives us anything better than that for understanding the whys. You die because you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She shook her head. “That just sucks. There’s never a good time or reason to die, I guess,” she added. “But to think that just because you go for a morning jog, to behealthy and fit, this is what happens? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either.”
“But that’s the thing,… murder doesn’t make any sense,” Rodney declared. “Come on. Let’s take a look around.”
“I want to check out the layout from up on the hills around here,” she stated, “just to see where this guy might have been.”
“We have no idea on that yet,” Rodney said. “He could have been another jogger too. Even jogging with them. No way to know.”
“Well, we can case the area and can talk to other joggers who are out here now, but the chances of finding anybody who was here around the same time is pretty slim at this point.”
“Beyond slim,” Rodney declared, “but not impossible.”
And, with that, they headed out to speak to anybody on the trail. The police had cordoned off this trail’s entrance and exit, and the two dead women hadn’t been left right on the path. They’d been placed just off a bit, so anybody who saw that the police were here either had come in out of curiosity or were avoiding the entire mess, thinking that they’d find out what happened via the news later. Nothing would interrupt their jogging.
Kate had met people like that, those who wouldn’t let anything mess up their plans, their day, or whatever it was they were doing; and, if anybody thought otherwise, they were wrong. She often wondered at the mind-set, but then she didn’t give enough of a crap about anything but her job to actually follow through with that mind-set herself. Except for finding out who took her brother. She still refused to saykilledbecause there was absolutely no proof that he was dead, and, until she found his body, no way she would accept that. Just no way.
Two hours later, Rodney had spoken to a few joggers, while Kate spent all that time walking around, checking for any evidence possibly related to this crime. She found threelocations where somebody could sit and see the joggers coming from a good couple hundred yards away. She studied the distance, looking at how far she had to go to get back down on the path, and then called Rodney on her cell. He was down at the other side of the path.
“If you turn and look to the north, you can see me.” Watching as he turned, she lifted a hand, and he acknowledged her presence. “I can see you, and I can see the joggers coming down the pathway,” she noted, “so this is a possible scouting area.”