Homecoming Homicides by Marilyn Baron Read Free Book Online Page A

in a different manner. But the signature is always the same. In this case the dump site. He always dumps the bodies in well-known locations on campus.
    “And in every case the left side of the victim’s face is burned, pre-mortem. Our killer may have been obsessed, but he didn’t take anything of real value from the victim. Not their money or their good jewelry. Maybe some trinket or keepsake we don’t know about. Just part of her face, her identity. In essence, he robbed her of her beauty. None of this gets out to the media, understood? We’re telling the public only what they need to know right now. We have to hold back certain facts that only the killer would know. That’s standard procedure.”
    “I know how the game is played. But it’s always best to be honest with the press. Once you realize there’s a risk, you should go ahead and put it out there. Otherwise both of our departments could get sued and we’d be putting more girls at risk.”
    “But first we have to figure out what is driving the killer,” Luke explained. “We have to determine if he knew his victims or if they were strangers. Even if they were strangers, there is probably a personal connection. Maybe the girls reminded him of someone he knew, or their behavior reminded him of someone or something he hates. You knew all the girls. What’s your take?”
    “It sounds like he hates beauty queens,” Flippy reasoned.
    “It seems that way,” Luke said. “But why? If we can figure that out, it could lead us to the killer. Let’s review what we do know.” Luke began ticking off the facts.
    One year later, another homecoming queen had been found dead in the stadium right before she was due to be crowned at the homecoming football game, and one girl from the homecoming court almost every week since had gone missing and then been found dead days later. It had stopped when the girls headed for home over winter break.
    “The killer could be a student,” Flippy said.
    “We thought of that.”
    Apparently the Graysville police force wasn’t too swift in the brains department. It had taken some time before the police even started putting the pieces together that all the girls were homecoming contestants. They had labeled the first death a random crime and the second a horrible murder. They were on their way to explaining away the third as another unfortunate tragedy when Flippy finally connected the dots and realized the murders weren’t coincidental or unrelated.
    “The newspaper says the Graysville police have strong leads and that you’ve conducted interviews with persons of interest. What can you tell me about that?”
    Luke shifted in his seat, causing the chair to creak under his weight. “The truth?”
    “No, I want you to lie to me. I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me. What do you have?”
    Luke turned serious. “Honestly, we’re coming up empty. The only lead we had was a city bus driver who went missing last week, the same night as Traci Farris disappeared. It’s probably totally unrelated to the case, but we found the burned out hulk of a city bus in a deserted field outside of town, but the bus driver was not on the bus. His wife reported him missing. He was just about to retire. His disappearance doesn’t make any sense. But it’s the only reported crime in the city other than the murders, so we’re looking into it for crossover possibilities. The chief thinks that if we find him he may be the key to solving this thing.
    “Otherwise, we’ve got nothing to go on. Nothing that connects the girls except the fact that they were all homecoming contestants and their bodies were all dumped on campus. It’s not about one girl now, it’s about all of them. We don’t know if the first murder was premeditated or if the killer saw the girls in the pageant and snapped. We don’t know anything about the killer or what motivated him.
    “We do know something about the victims, though,” Luke continued. “All