They had walked through some chalky white corridors to the unknown junkie's cell. It was not lunchtime, which was good. Because it was lunchtime, some inmates were running around with forks. And they liked to stab with them. Especially they would go after people they didn't know.
Katherine nevertheless kept her back to the wall as they crossed one of the typical atriums with several benches. Some occupants sat rocking back and forth on the benches, some with happy - or too happy - faces, others scowling.
"One of my classmates in New York once got a fork stuck in his neck," Katherine said, and Galloway glanced briefly over her shoulder. "Four parallel scars are running in a round shape. It was a plastic fork at that."
"Where did that come from?" wanted Elizabeth to know.
"From a pizza place."
"The man ordered a pizza?"
"Yes. With a cell phone he never officially had."
Galloway went on. "That's saddening, but there's no such thing as complete certainty. After all, we don't have steak knives here. And you know what really puzzles me?"
Elizabeth's eyebrows drew together. "What?"
"I flew to New York the other day. And you know the first thing you get on the flight? A nice white tablecloth and a knife and fork. Made of metal."
"And before that, you get more frisking at security than if you wanted to get into the White House," Elizabeth replied.
"Right," Galloway agreed, "but knives will still be there."
xxx
"Like Slipknot, just like that," exclaimed the junkie, who was fixated on his bed. His face was gray and sunken, while the massive bandage on his head, as one had opened his skull, resembled a turban, giving him a bizarre appearance. Saliva flew from his mouth as he spoke, and Elizabeth and Katherine automatically kept their distance. Galloway anyway.
Galloway stood there, raised an eyebrow, took a deep breath, and regarded her patient as a mother would regard her wayward son.
By then, the junkie was yelling again, "Slipknot! He looked like Slipknot!"
Elizabeth gave Galloway an irritated look.
"Like Slipknot," the junkie continued to yell, raging just as much after the surgery.
"The BodyCounter?" asked Katherine with a furrowed brow.
"Yes. Like Slipknot! Or King Diamond. Or no ... Marilyn Manson!"
Elizabeth's eyebrows drew together. "Those are rock bands, right?"
Galloway closed her eyes momentarily and raised her shoulders as if to say, All a wasted effort ...
"Not rock bands!" The junkie tried to turn toward Elizabeth, but the straps held him in place. Only his saliva flew up to the heater and the window pane. Elizabeth took even further cover as a precaution. "That man was Marilyn Manson. He gave me the package! I just saw him yesterday ... Yesterday! What a show! Yes! Yes!" He jiggled the straps that secured him to the bed, causing him to bounce forward with the bed.
Katherine and her mentor looked at each other. How could he have seen anyone yesterday? "You saw him yesterday?" asked Galloway.
"Yes!" The man nodded so vigorously that his chin hit his chest, and his teeth chattered without him realizing it. "Bizzare festival! Antichrist superstar tour! The Manson ... That kind of guy. He wiped his ass ... on stage with the USA flag!"
Katherine's eyebrows drew together. "And when exactly was that?"
"Yesterday! Yesterday! Or the day before!"
Elizabeth pulled out her smartphone and typed in a few terms. She showed it to Galloway and her sister the search results. "Here," she muttered, "Told you. Antichrist Superstar by Marilyn Manson. The tour was in 1997, and the mentioned Bizzare Festival was also in 1997."
"That was forever ago," Katherine muttered. She looked at Galloway. "Then his short-term memory is completely shot. Like Alzheimer's patients."
Galloway nodded. "Or maybe even a permanent loss of consciousness. Told you ... Some nasty drugs. You shouldn't expect much."
The junkie stirred again. "You don't believe me?" He looked at all three with his mouth open and strings of saliva hanging out. "Then don't! Then don't! Then you die! You die! Do you die --" With these words, he went limp and instantly fell into a motionless sleep.
Elizabeth rubbed her forehead strained. "Okay, okay. I think there is indeed nothing to be done here for now. Especially since the latest thinking is that the junkie isn't the sole culprit anyway."
Galloway nodded. She knew the current medical record,
"Interesting, though," Katherine said, "that he just mentioned Marilyn Manson."
"Why?" the detective wanted to know.
"Well, all the band members in the 1997 lineup had the first names of show business divas and the last names of serial killers."
Galloway considered for a moment. "Marilyn Manson, Marilyn Monroe, and Charles Manson."
"Marilyn Manson," Katherine repeated, "then Twiggy Ramirez, Ginger Fish, Daisy Berkowitz, and Madonna Wayne Gacy."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "About time we got back to work."
But work was already coming to them. Elizabeth's cell phone rang.
It was dispatch.
xxx
Dispatch had said a woman's body was in a dumpster at the airport.
The body had been found on the east side of the airport. To the west were Terminals A, E, and D. To the east was Terminal C. Dogs had detected a noticeable odor in a dumpster near Gate C60, where Customs and Border Control was also sitting.
The area was cordoned off as Katherine's car was waved through by security. Rain pelted the desolate, cracked asphalt, and blue lights blinked silently into the autumn morning. A large white tent had been erected near the container. In front of the tent various plastic tarps on which the garbage bags were laid side by side. An improvised tarp had also been stretched over it to keep out the rain. Some cops and other officers had taken shelter, smoking, at one of the personnel entrances from Terminal C.
Maggie and her techs were already on the scene. They were poking over the plastic tarp in their Tyvek suits and using latex gloves to open the other trash bags to see if anything was suspicious. A slightly pungent smell was in the air, which would have been worse without the wind and rain.
Walter Bisping, an officer from Customs, was standing next to it with two dogs, chewing gum. Raindrops ran down his cap peak. He greeted Elizabeth and Katherine curtly and led the two women into the tent. "Here she is."
Elizabeth knew the drill. Trained K9's didn't bark. Barking stood out. These dogs were trained not to stand out. Not bark, but put down, was the technical term for it.
"And do they recognize dead bodies?" wanted Elizabeth to know. "I thought they specialized in drugs?"
"Dogs detect the smell of bodies and carrion," said a voice from behind. It was Maggie, holding her voice recorder, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "As long as it's not the carcasses of other dogs. And these are cadaver-sniffing dogs, too, right?"
Bisping nodded in agreement. "Yes. They find drugs as well as live animals and carrion. A lot of that stuff sometimes likes to be smuggled across the border."
"Can you check to see if more bodies are in the container?"
"We've already emptied it all out," Bisping replied, "That's all there is." He tossed a thick rope knot to one dog, who immediately began playing with it.
"Belgian shepherd, right?" asked Elizabeth, who knew a little about dogs through her daughters.
Bisping nodded appreciatively. "Right. German shepherds are all overbred, suffer hip dysplasia, and the whole back is slanted. They don't go through that for so long. The Belgian shepherd does. They're the best there is."
"Do you know where the body was brought from?" The detective looked around. She knew how these particular dogs were trained. These ones wore harnesses and leashes. That meant work from here on out. Dogs that wore harnesses and were on the job turned. Elizabeth had seen K9's that were friendly and playful without harnesses but highly dangerous with harnesses. And these dogs took pride in their type of uniform, too. Usually, the dogs' favorite toy also had the smell of drugs, so they were immediately accustomed to that smell. And when they found something, they were rewarded. Operant conditioning and positive reinforcement, they called it. Elizabeth looked around.
In the back was the underground parking garage; below Terminal C was a covered parking lot. The streets rushed some distance away. Perfect escape routes everywhere.
Bisping nodded slowly. "From the parking lots down there. We've already got the place cordoned off. From the looks of it, the body was brought here in a plastic bag by car. The killer, probably under cover of darkness, carried her up here and dumped her in the dumpster. It must have been tonight. Or early morning, when it was still dark."
"Are there cameras?"
"Yes." Bisping nodded slowly. "The evaluation is already on its way to the BPD."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Elizabeth looked slowly at Katherine.
Katherine pursed her lips and nodded slowly. "A similar signature to the others. And also very close to the other body. Regional focus. This already looks like a serial killer!"
"That's possible," Maggie said suddenly. "We found traces of sex on the body. So far, no semen or anything like that, but there's a lot to suggest the body was abused."
Elizabeth gritted her teeth. "When?"
"Two or three days ago. Maybe less. The rot hasn't progressed too far yet."
"The body in the pond hasn't been abused, has she?" Elizabeth turned to her wife, who wasn't supposed to be here.
Maggie shook her head. "Anyway, we haven't been able to find anything."
"Don't tempt us," Katherine muttered suddenly.
Elizabeth's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "What?"
Katherine blinked a few times and then slowly looked at her sister. "Maybe with the first body, the killer could just restrain himself. And not with this victim. Only with this woman, he had to end it eventually, too. Had to keep the body safe from himself."
"And that's why he threw her in the dumpster? So he couldn't get to her again, even if he wanted to?"
Katherine nodded hesitantly. "Sort of a forced renunciation."
"Don't tempt us," the detective now muttered as well. "We haven't found a cross, have we?"
Maggie frowned deeply, looking first at the dislocated corpse among the trash and then at Elizabeth. "Not yet."