Chapter 10

It was completely dark by the time Kendra and Lynch approached the taped-off police line surrounding Pepper Park, a small plot of land in the National City neighborhood south of downtown. Helicopters were circling the area, and Kendra could see at least three harbor patrol boats keeping watch from the adjacent bay.

A uniformed officer moved to stop Kendra and Lynch from ducking underneath the line, but Perry waved them through before it became an issue.

"Who invited you to this party?" he said.

"The FBI. I understand they may be taking over this investigation."

"In negotiation as we speak. If this is what we think it is, that could very well happen."

"The victim?" Lynch asked.

Perry looked at his notebook. "Anna Mae Robinson, age twenty-eight. She worked as a customs manager at the Port of San Diego. They have an office a few blocks from here. She went missing after she left work three days ago, then tonight her body turned up on a slide in that play area over there."

Kendra looked at the cluster of work lights on the other side of the park. "That's a familiar pattern, but what makes you think it's really the Bayside Strangler after all these years?"

Perry lowered his voice. "Something that wasn't released to the media back then. Each of the victims' hands were bound behind them in a specific way."

"I remember seeing it in one of the photos in the Morgan sisters' files," Lynch said. "A handcuff knot reinforced by an overhand knot."

"Exactly," Perry said. "I saw it there, too. The sisters shouldn't have had that picture. They must have bribed someone for it. And the strangler always used the same kind of rope: a green-and-white triple-braid bamboo-and-cotton blend. That's what this looks like."

Kendra nodded. "Wow. That's his MO, all right." She looked around the park. "Any security cameras here?"

"No such luck, but we've already started combing the surrounding area. There are a hell of a lot more cameras in this city than there were fifteen years ago. We'll come up with something."

Kendra took a deep breath, steeling herself for the sight she knew was waiting for her under the work lights. "Take me closer."

"Of course," Perry said. "I know how to show a girl a good time."

He motioned for Kendra and Lynch to follow him across the park to the brightly colored children's play area, which felt oddly incongruous with the grim centerpiece of all the activity. As police officers, FBI agents, photographers, and forensics techs moved around the scene, Kendra caught her first glimpses of the victim, lying upright on the playground slide, eyes open and staring up to the heavens.

This part never got easier.

This poor woman probably started her last day like any other, showering, walking her dog, making breakfast for her kid, or some other mundane task she'd never do again. All of it taken away by some monster who had already caused so much pain in the world.

Lynch squeezed her arm. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." She tried to toughen her facial expression. "I need to see this."

She stepped closer. A few of the investigators on the scene probably recognized her, and others saw her with Perry and just assumed she belonged there. She finally stopped about six feet from the corpse.

The victim looked younger than twenty-eight; she could have passed for a teenager. Kendra had long ago given up trying to guess anything about a murder victim's final state of mind from their facial expression. She had no doubt that young Anna Robinson's last moments were spent in agony, but no one would ever know it from the serene expression on her lifeless face.

There was something particularly disturbing about that expression, Kendra thought, a reminder of how every thought, every emotion, everything this woman would ever be had been so completely erased.

"Who found her?" Kendra asked.

"Someone called it in shortly after dark," Perry said. "She was probably placed here just after sunset." He pointed to the nearby office buildings. "It would be tough to bring her here during daylight hours without someone seeing."

Kendra stepped closer to examine the bruising on her neck. "Strangled by the same rope used to bind her?"

"That's how it looks, just like the others. It appears she was killed around the time she disappeared, but the medical examiner hasn't weighed in on an approximate TOD yet. The killer kept the corpse for a couple of days before delivering it here. No evidence of sexual assault. Every detail lines up with the Bayside Strangler killings."

She heard a grim voice behind her. "I told you. He's back."

She turned to see FBI Special Agent Roland Metcalf. He was on the scene with Michael Griffin, head of the San Diego FBI regional office. She knew Griffin from several prior cases, and although he often seemed to resent her presence, she knew he was the one who usually enlisted her aid in the first place. Confusing.

Lynch smiled. "Hello, Griffin. I thought you were done trudging around crime scenes in the dark of night."

Griffin shrugged. "And I thought you kept busy collecting exorbitant paychecks from our government while barely skirting international laws."

"I still like to mix things up."

Perhaps sensing the tension between the two men, Metcalf stepped forward. "Special Agent Griffin worked the Bayside Strangler case back in the day. He knows more about the case than just about anyone at the Bureau."

"It wasn't for long," Griffin said. "The FBI had only been involved for a couple of weeks when the killings stopped. We barely had time to get up to speed on the work that SDPD had done before it was all over." He looked at Kendra. "Did the police ask you here?"

"No." Griffin obviously didn't know Metcalf had tipped her off. "I'm investigating the Morgan sisters' disappearance. My focus will stay there."

"Obviously, you're considering the possibility that this case may have suddenly become part of yours."

"Difficult to say."

"You have to admit that it's strange that the Bayside Strangler is back after fifteen years, just days after the daughters of one of his victims have gone missing."

Metcalf nodded. "Daughters who appeared to have discovered something while investigating his murders."

Kendra stepped a few yards away, and the others followed her lead. She lowered her voice. "But what could have possibly caused him to resume his spree so many years later?"

Griffin crossed his arms in front of him. "Believe me, our profilers are going to start addressing that question within the hour. But if I was to take a stab at it, it could be that he's been in prison."

"And he just happened to get out now?"

"No. But maybe the jail time broke his rhythm. He's older now, and murders like this take strength and energy. Maybe he's been free and itching to get back in the game for years, but he's had doubts he could pull it off. But then something happened that finally flipped his switch."

"He knew Chloe and Sloane were getting close?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it wasn't that at all. It's possible that the media reports about their disappearance woke something inside him. The Bayside Strangler was back in the news again, and maybe he… liked it."

Kendra thought about it. "Actually, either could be the case. That's pretty good, Griffin. It makes sense."

"Just a possibility."

Griffin cocked his head back toward the corpse. "Your turn. What did you get from that?"

Kendra took a deep breath. "First of all, instead of referring to this poor woman as ‘that' or ‘it,' how about ‘she' or ‘her'? Or maybe her name?" Kendra looked at Perry, who had been keeping a low profile since Griffin and Metcalf's arrival.

"Anna," Perry said. "Anna Robinson."

She turned back to Griffin. "See? That isn't so hard."

Griffin sighed. "Fine. What did you get from her?"

"She was stored in a walk-in cooler. But not a freezer."

Griffin stepped closer to her. "Only two of the five original victims were refrigerated between the time they were killed and when they were finally dumped."

"So I understand. Anna Robinson is another one. Though I hesitate to use the word ‘dumped' when the killer so carefully brought out and posed his victims for display."

Griffin shrugged.

"She was held in an older building, somewhere near the waterfront," Kendra said. "When you look for security camera footage, concentrate on the bay. I think she was brought here on a small boat and literally carried the fifty yards from the water. Our killer is as physically strong as he ever was, so I don't believe we're looking for a geriatric."

Metcalf was smiling. He always enjoyed these displays. "Surely that can't be all."

"Well, did anyone find a pair of eyeglasses?"

Perry cocked his head. "Eyeglasses?"

"Yes. She wore glasses, and the perp took the time and trouble to refrigerate her with her glasses on after he killed her. That's why it's so strange she's here without them. He may have kept them as a souvenir, or they may have just fallen off while he was bringing her here. Hard to say, but it's something to look out for when you start talking to suspects."

Griffin shared a quick glance with Perry and Metcalf. "Good. But before we start searching old waterfront buildings, I'm going to need to know how you arrived at all this."

"Sure. Well, she's obviously been refrigerated. There's skin discoloration but no decomposition odor, which I'm sure I would have picked up."

Griffin nodded. "You don't need to convince me of that."

"But I did pick up a faint whiff of ammonia on her. A lot of older walk-in cooler systems used almost pure ammonia in their pipes as a refrigerant. But as they age, the ammonia can start seeping out in small quantities."

"How on earth would you know that?" Perry asked.

"Hamburgers. There was a restaurant near where I went to school that had an ancient walk-in cooler. The lettuce and tomatoes had a slight off-taste that drove me crazy. It was from ammonia leaking from the refrigeration system. It's not a smell, or a taste, you ever forget."

Perry grimaced. "I guess not."

"There are also a few rust flakes in her hair, which I'm guessing came from that cooler or the old building where he kept her until he was ready to bring her here."

"Good," Griffin said. "But what makes you think she was brought here by boat?"

"First of all, it just makes sense. It's half the distance from the waterfront to the playground by boat than it would be by car, with much less chance of being seen and getting caught. But the cashmere sweater she's wearing is a magnet for the chipping paint we can see on the sidewalk and railings along the waterfront."

"How about the eyeglasses?" Metcalf asked.

"Another effect of the refrigeration. There's more discoloration on either side of her nose bridge, and even more behind each ear. Marks left by eyeglasses. I didn't see them anywhere around there."

"We'll comb the entire park," Perry said. "But I pulled up her driver's license photo a while ago, and she was wearing a pair of cat's-eye glasses. I suspect those are the ones we're looking for."

Kendra nodded, and she suddenly felt a wave of sadness cascading over her. She'd wanted to be here, she reminded herself. But now she just wanted to get the hell away.

"Ready?" Lynch asked.

"Yes." She took a deep breath. "Let's go."

Another helicopter!

Rod Wallace reached into his pocket to bring out his binoculars. He knew he was taking a big chance by staying this close. But that was part of the thrill. Anyway, he had it all planned. All he had to do was get to the next street and then move onto the boat he'd left down at the dock.

And the risk was worthwhile. How he'd missed this heady feeling of power as he'd reached out and taken life after life. It had been stolen from him and he bitterly resented it. No one had the right to take that power from him.

He was getting a text message. He was tempted to just ignore it when he saw that it was Victor Krebb, who was probably going to whine at him. But he decided he'd better reply because this area was crawling with cops and Feds and he might need him to help him to escape. "I'm okay, Victor," he said when he took the call. "One more block. Just have the boat ready."

"Are you crazy?" Victor was almost screaming. "I warned you against doing anything like this. Another murder? How can I keep you safe when you show up as if you'd never left here? The last thing we want is to have them all looking for you again. What in the hell are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I needed this. I deserve it," Wallace said simply. "I've missed the feeling it gave me. It's really quite exhilarating. Now stop yelling and find me a safe house where you can whisk me away from my acquaintances from the FBI. So sad I can't consider them friends any longer."

"Don't get near them," Victor muttered. "You'll end up at Leavenworth. Just get the hell to the boat."

"I'm on my way." Wallace glanced at the sky. Another helicopter overhead. One more block and he'd be on the boat and making plans to go after that final victim who had been getting in his way since she'd appeared in his life. Did she actually think she could bring him down?

Don't worry, it won't be long now, Kendra…