Elizabeth was standing inside Steven Foreman's apartment. The emergency services were waiting outside. The lights were working again; apparently, the fuse had been replaced. But the blinds were still down, and that was a good thing.
Going to a crime scene again was like déjà vu for the detective. Sometimes she would see things she had seen before in a different place. And sometimes, she saw things that had escaped her before.
She knew the sequence precisely what to do when you first arrived at a lost property or crime scene. Because in her cases, the lost and found quickly became the crime scene, and the crime quickly became the murder.
Narrow down the crime scene. Secure it. Get an initial overview. Draw up a room plan. Secure fingerprints and DNA. All that was the duty. The free skate was to revisit a crime scene, even though everything had already been done there.
Elizabeth made a face. Revisiting a crime scene was a habit she shared with the killers she hunted. Many of them revisited the place where they had killed. Especially if it was the place where they had committed their first murder, then that place took on a symbolic, almost religious significance. Jason Marsten, the man who had sexually abused Elizabeth's first wife Sarah as a child and driven her to suicide years ago, had even made a habit of showing up at his victims' funerals. He had also shown up at Sarah's funeral. In a black suit, as if he were one of the mourners. He had taken pictures of the gravestone, developed them at home, and masturbated at the sight of the images and the grave. Some murderers even went so far as to dig up the bodies and bring them back to the place of the murder to kill them again symbolically.
What had Aristotle taught? Recognition was always recognition; one could only see what one had seen before. And sometimes you could only see things when you saw them for the second time.
Elizabeth stood in front of the table where the body had been found. Now everything had been cleared away; only the pool of blood on the floor was still visible.
Why does the killer kill such people?" the detective pondered. "Could it have been a woman who hates men?
No, only a man could have that physical strength. But when a serial killer is heterosexual, women are almost always his victims. This killer, however, was a man, and so were his victims. Was the killer homosexual? But nothing about the body had indicated a sexually motivated crime.
And another thing was strange: most murderers cared about showing their dominance. To be stronger than their victim. That had happened here, too. But most murderers left nothing to chance. They wanted to make sure they dominated their victim and were the stronger ones. This killer had not done that. He had gotten involved with a physically strong opponent, which always meant taking a risk. Or was it essential for this killer to take that risk? To show the victim that he was the stronger one, no matter how strong his victim might be? Like he was trying to prove something to himself?
Elizabeth let her eyes wander around the room.
In the other corner, a staircase led up to the second-floor gallery. There was a bedroom and bathroom. Next to it was another guest room.
From there, the detective reasoned, you must have a good view of the apartment. And whoever is up there has an excellent view of the table where the body was lying.
If this killer cared about defeating physically strong people to prove something to himself, he wanted to see the results of his work ...?
Of course!, it shot through Elizabeth's mind. Of course, he wants to see the result of his work! And from up there, from a position of strength and superiority, to savor his triumph from there!
Have the forensics thought of that?
Elizabeth hurried up the stairs with quick steps. A balustrade lined the gallery, from which one could look down on the lower floor like a ruler. Like a king looking down on his kingdom.
Elizabeth walked across the carpet, which was heavy, thick, and fluffy. Where was the spot from which the table, and therefore the body, had been best seen? At the door to the roof terrace?
Elizabeth kept looking down and finally stopped.
Here. Right here!
The detective looked down. Saw the table. Imagined the body on that table. The head towards the big TV, the feet towards the exit. Yes, exactly; this was the best way to see the body.
This is where the killer had been standing, and he had looked down.
Had he had the heart with him, which he had packed downstairs so that there were no traces of blood? Possibly. What else had he done? Had he perhaps masturbated in front of the scene? Were there any traces?
Elizabeth glanced at the fluffy carpet.
And then she saw it.
Excited, she took a glove and a small plastic bag from her pocket, slipped the glove on, reached into the fluffy carpet, and gently pulled out what she had discovered.
It was not semen, and it was consistent. A small, rosy piece of flesh. At least if her first impression didn't deceive her, it was some organic tissue. What exactly it was, the detective couldn't tell. But she had a hunch.
Instinctively, she dialed Maggie's number. The doctor picked up after three rings. "Are you still in the office?"
"Seriously, now?" retorted Maggie, taking a deep breath. "Do you know what time it is? But well, yes, I happen to be there still. Not for long, though."
"Will you stay fifteen minutes longer? I have something for you. I'm sure it'll be worth it if you wait."
"It better be, Liz."
Elizabeth put the bag in her jacket pocket, hurried down the stairs, got into the car, and drove toward the BPD.
xxx
Maggie was waiting for her wife at the front door of the BPD, demonstratively looking at her wristwatch. "Looks like you and I are the only fools left working at this hour," she said, scowling at the sky. Black rain clouds were piling up over them.
"Yeah, sure, seems like it," Elizabeth replied, locking her unmarked car. "The first day of work after vacation should be different."
"Tell me about it," the redhead said as she and her wife entered the building.
Once in the lab, the detective showed Maggie the evidence bag. "I have a tissue sample here from the crime scene."
Maggie looked at the detective in wonder. "Didn't forensics notice that?"
"I don't know. They probably weren't up there."
"Up where?"
"In the gallery in Foreman's apartment. There were stairs leading up to it, and you could see the whole apartment. Also, the table where Foreman's body was lying."
"And that's where you found that tissue sample?" asked Maggie with furrowed brows.
Elizabeth shook her head. "No. There's a rug in the gallery, and you can miss quite a bit there, black, deep and fluffy."
Maggie nodded slowly, eyeing the evidence bag. "I see. Something like this, for example."
The detective nodded with furrowed brows. "Exactly. I need to know what this is and if it contains Foreman's DNA."
"We can find out relatively quickly."
"How quickly?"
"If it goes to the lab tonight, you'll have the results later tomorrow. We have Foreman's DNA stored here. Come on." Maggie placed the tissue sample on a slide under a giant microscope and peered into the instrument. "That's muscle tissue, by the looks of it," she murmured, "and red blood cells."
Elizabeth raised her head. "Could it be heart muscle?"
Maggie changed the magnification setting on the microscope. Then she nodded. "Yes, in fact, it's heart muscle tissue. Unlike skeletal muscle tissue, the nuclei are in the middle, not on the edge. And I see the typical shiny streaks. Now we have to wait and see what the DNA comparison says tomorrow." She opened a program on the computer and searched a database for Steven Foreman's DNA.
"I'll get the results later tomorrow?" the detective asked with furrowed brows.
"Yes."
"Can't you do it sooner?"
Maggie looked slowly over her shoulder. "DNA tests take their time, Elizabeth. And, yes, we can already establish that this is muscle tissue that may have come from Foreman's heart. If the victim is him."
"Could be ... if... Isn't there some way we can speed up the DNA analysis?" echoed Elizabeth. "Not that we're getting hung up on a piece of dog food here."
"I can rule that out. It is human heart tissue. Even a Deathguard boss wouldn't be allowed to feed his attack dog human flesh." Maggie looked again at the microscope, then at the bag. "Why was that up there on the balustrade?"
"That's what I'm wondering," Elizabeth replied with a frown. "And why is the piece so small? I --" She fell silent as she saw the blinking on the computer.
"Interesting," Maggie muttered again. "There are traces of another DNA." She looked into the microscope. "That's bacteria like you'd find in the mouth lining."
"In saliva?"
"Yes."
"Could this other DNA have come from the killer's saliva?"
"Yes, quite possibly," Maggie said.
"Then why don't you check tomorrow to see if this DNA matches the killer's."
"You mean the John Doe who isn't in any database?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath. "Yes. That should work. Even if we don't know who the DNA came from?"
"Sure. We can check if A equals A even if we don't know who A is."
"Very good," the detective replied with a nod. "Let's recap. If it is Steven Foreman, we have muscle tissue, maybe the heart, and saliva from the killer. If we assume that the killer took the heart with him, perhaps up onto the balustrade, then that's where he --" She fell silent, thinking for a few seconds. "Then he ate at least a piece of the heart there. Or he bit into it. What do you think? Do you have another explanation?"
Maggie weighed her head, exhausted. "Could be. Maybe he bit into it and got some fibers between his teeth, and then traces of that fell on the carpet."
Elizabeth frowned deeply. "Kate was talking about cannibalistic killers taking organs. Could it be that we're dealing with a cannibal here?"
"He certainly didn't eat the heart," Maggie replied, looking at her wife in depth.
"Why?"
"Because you can't practically bite raw muscle. Not human teeth, anyway. Not even predators. They grab the meat with their canines and tear it apart when they bite down." Maggie raised her index finger. "That's why they say the lion tears its prey."
"Hear, hear," the detective replied with a hint of a smile. "Still, it's possible he took the heart up to the balustrade and bit into it there, isn't it?"
"Sure. Only I don't see why he would." Maggie shrugged. "But if it makes him happy. Man's will, as we all know, is his kingdom."
Elizabeth got up from her chair and held her hand to her wife. "Come on; it's late, and let's go home."
Maggie sighed with relief, took Elizabeth's hand, and let the detective pull her to her feet. But then she looked at the table again. "I'll give the sample to the lab first thing in the morning and make sure you get the results tomorrow. As soon as possible, I'll put the rest with the other evidence."
"Okay."
"A crime scene sample," Maggie said as she finished her work, "that comes from the heart."
Elizabeth looked at her wife reprovingly but said only, "Come on, let's get going."