CHAPTER 6

When Darrell got into the office at 6am he was surprised to see Gayle at her desk looking over a file.

“Hey I thought I was gonna beat you in today.” Darrell taunted. Gayle watched as he took off his suit jacket and hung it over his chair back.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Gayle said

“There is just something not quite right about this case!”

“Ya, I know.” Darrell nodded.

“I can’t get past that Ketamine thing. What about you?”

Gayle smirked and nodded.

“Ya, there was that and the shaved head thing that bothered me, as well as the makeup.”

“I Googled that damned drug last night.” Gayle looked directly at Darrell. “Well, OK, the neighbor kid who cuts my lawn helped me out. That drug leaves a person paralyzed but fully aware of what is going on around them or being done to them. Nasty stuff. Ketamine is mainly used by veterinarians. So our perp must be in that field or somehow gets access to it.”

Gayle was about to say something when the desk phone rang.

“Homicide, Detective Adams.”

“OK. Ya. Ya, where? 324 Munro Industrial Park. Yep. OK got it. Thanks” Gayle hung up the phone and looked at Darrell who was already getting his jacket on.

“Your turn to drive.”

Darrell threw the keys at Gayle.

When they got to the crime scene Darrell and Gayle noticed the body was right next to the spot where yesterday’s body had been left.

“Over here” yelled a patrolman.

“What do we have here?” Darrell asked the patrolman when he got over to him.

“Well, I found this girl during my rounds. I thought I saw something moving so I put on my floodlights and that’s when I saw her; about 45 minutes ago sir.”

“Did you touch anything Patrolman?” Gayle interjected.

“Just to see if she had a pulse ma’am.”

“What do you think you saw moving?”

“I’m not sure ma’am, maybe a coyote?”

“OK thanks and my name is Gayle or Detective Adams, not ma’am OK?!”

“Yes Detective”

Darrell and Gayle looked at each other briefly before they each took out their handy recorders. “Same as the last girl except this one has no ears. What the hell?” Gayle spoke into her recorder. “She looks like she is younger than the last victim and might be of Hispanic or Mediterranean descent. Head shaved like the last one, same disembowelment, same pose; breasts cut too, but no makeup this time.”

The Junior Medical Examiner hadn’t arrived yet so all the Detectives could do was look around and at the dead girl. When the Junior ME arrived, CSU had collected all the evidence they could see. Darrell and Gayle asked if he could roll the body over to see the girl’s back.

After a few moments, the body was rolled and the sight was exactly the same as the previous one, except instead of a straw lined up next to the girl’s spine her ears were there.

“I think we have a serial.” Gayle said.

“Not yet” Darrell said “But whoever is doing this is certainly catching our attention. And by the way, a little touchy about the ma’am thing?” Darrell spoke to Gayle somewhat teasingly.

“Ya, that’s my mother, not me. I’ve always hated that!” Gayle looked at Darrell, “I guess it is a little obvious!” Gayle snickered then looked at Darrell and shrugged her shoulders.

Back at the office one of the reports from CSU on the Woodrow case was on Darrell’s desk. He handed it to Gayle after reading it and watched her read it.

“Nothing useful!” Gayle handed the paper back to Darrell.

“Not really.” Darrell said putting the paper back down on his desk.

“Now what?” Gayle asked

“Well, now we wait for the rest of the reports, but the dump site is puzzling to me.” Darrell said.

“How so?” Gayle asked.

“Why would you chance dumping a second body in basically the same place one day after the other? What if you are seen, or worse, caught? Why? Why? Why?” Darrell continued,

“And why that site? What is the significance? Who owns that land?” Darrell was getting frustrated with all the questions. To pull out of his frustration he took out his notebook and wrote down all the questions he had on his mind. He then looked at Gayle and asked her to run a background search on the developer of the Industrial park. Gayle was happy to do something other than running through her own list of questions.

“The developer is a Randy Collins and his company, Country Estates, is doing well.” In her best mafia accent she asked Darrell,

“So should we go and find this guy, boss?”

Darrell smiled and that seemed to break the tension he was feeling.

“Ya sure, let’s go see this Collins fellow.” Darrell replied in his best old time ‘copper’ voice.