Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag Read Free Book Online Page B

of the woman's clothing. Color against the absence of color; the fanciful vibrance of a triangle of undamaged red skirt against the grim reality of its wearer's violent death.
    “Were the others wearing clothes?”
    “I don't know.”
    “I'll want to see those photos too. I'll want to see everything they've got. You have my list?”
    “I faxed a copy to the homicide detectives. They'll try to have it all together for the task force meeting. Hell of a sight, isn't it?” Walsh nodded to the photograph. “Enough to put a person off barbecue.”
    Quinn made no comment as he further studied the photo. Because of the heat of the fire, the muscles and tendons of the limbs had contracted, pulling the victim's arms and legs into what was technically known as a pugilistic attitude—a position that suggested animation. A suggestion made macabre by the absence of the head.
    Surreal, he thought. His brain wanted to believe he was looking at a discarded mannequin, something that had been dragged too late out of the incinerator at Macy's. But he knew what he was looking at had been flesh and bone, not plastic, and she had been alive and walking around three days earlier. She had eaten meals, listened to music, talked with friends, attended to the boring minutiae of the average life, never imagining that hers was nearly over.
    The body had been positioned with the feet pointing toward downtown, which Quinn thought might have been more significant if the head had also been posed or buried nearby. One of the more infamous cases he had studied years before had included the decapitation of two victims. The killer, Ed Kemper, had buried the heads in the backyard of his family home, beneath his mother's bedroom window. A sick private joke, Kemper had later admitted. His mother, who had emotionally abused him from boyhood, had “always wanted people to look up to her,” he'd said.
    The head of this victim had not been found and the ground was too hard for the killer to have buried it here.
    “There're a lot of theories on why he's burning them,” Walsh said. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet, trying unsuccessfully to keep the cold from knifing into his bones. “Some people think he's just a copycat of the Wirth Park murders. Some people think it's symbolism: Whores of the world burn in hell—that kind of thing. Some think he's trying to obscure the forensic evidence and the victim's identity at the same time.”
    “Why leave the DL if he doesn't want them identified?” Quinn said. “Now he takes this one's head. That makes her pretty damn hard to recognize—he didn't have to burn her up. And still he leaves the driver's license.”
    “So you think he's trying to get rid of trace evidence?”
    “Maybe. What's he use for an accelerant?”
    “Alcohol. Some kind of high-test vodka or something.”
    “Then the fire is more likely part of his signature than it is part of his MO,” Quinn said. “He might be getting rid of trace evidence, but if that's all he wanted, why wouldn't he just use gasoline? It's cheap. It's easily had with little or no interaction with another person. He chooses alcohol for an emotional reason rather than a practical one. That makes it part of the ritual, part of the fantasy.”
    “Or maybe he's a big drinker.”
    “No. A drinker doesn't waste good booze. And that's exactly what he'd call this: a waste of good liquor. He may be drinking prior to the hunt. He may drink during the torture and murder phase. But he's no drunk. A drunk would make mistakes. Sounds like this guy hasn't made any so far.”
    None that anyone had noticed, at any rate. He thought again of the two hookers whose death had preceded this woman's and wondered who had caught their cases: a good cop or a bad cop. Every department had its share of both. He'd seen cops shrug and sleepwalk through an investigation if they didn't feel the victim was worth their time. And he'd seen veteran cops break down and cry over the violent