Once Bound

It might well have worn off right here – just before she died.

If so, the poor woman would have had no idea how or why such a terrible thing had happened to her.

Bill scratched his chin as he looked down at the body.

He said, “So maybe this started off date-rape style, with the killer slipping the drug into her drink at a bar or a party or something.”

The coroner shook his head.

“Apparently not,” he said. “There wasn’t a trace of the drug in the other victim’s stomach. It must have been given to her as an injection.”

Jenn said, “That’s odd.”

Deputy Chief Bull Cullen looked at Jenn with interest.

“Why so?” he asked.

Jenn shrugged slightly.

She said, “It’s a little hard to imagine, that’s all. Flunitrazepam doesn’t take effect right away, no matter how it’s delivered. In a date-rape situation, that typically doesn’t matter. The unsuspecting victim maybe has drinks with her soon-to-be assailant for a little while, starts feeling woozy without knowing quite why, and pretty soon she becomes helpless. But if our killer stabbed her with a needle, she’d immediately know she was in trouble, and she’d have had a few minutes to resist before the drug took effect. It just doesn’t sound … very efficient.”

Cullen smiled at Jenn – a little flirtatiously, Riley thought.

“It makes sense to me,” he said. “Let me show you.”

He walked behind Jenn, who was markedly shorter than he was. He started reaching around her neck from behind her. Jenn stepped away.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Jenn said.

“Just demonstrating. Don’t worry, I’m not really going to hurt you.”

Jenn scoffed and kept her distance from him.

“Damn right, you’re not,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure I know what you’ve got in mind. You’re thinking the killer used some kind of choke hold.”

“That’s right,” Cullen said, still smiling. “Specifically, a so-called blood choke.”

He twisted his arm to illustrate his point.

“The killer approached her unexpectedly from behind, then crooked his arm like this around the front of her neck. The victim could still breathe, but her carotid arteries were shut off completely, cutting off the blood flow to the brain. The victim lost consciousness within seconds. Then it was easy for the killer to administer an injection that rendered her helpless for a longer period.”

Riley easily sensed the friction between Cullen and Jenn. Cullen was obviously a classic “mansplainer” whose attitude toward Jenn was condescending as well as flirtatious.

Jenn clearly didn’t like him one bit, and Riley felt the same. The man was shallow, all right, with a poor sense of appropriate behavior when it came to dealing with a female colleague – and an even worse sense of how to behave at a murder scene.

Still, Riley had to admit that Cullen’s theory was sound.

He might be obnoxious, but he wasn’t stupid.

In fact, he might be genuinely helpful to work with.

That is, if we can stand to be around him, Riley thought.

Cullen stepped off the tracks and down the slope and pointed at a space where the ground had been taped off.

He said, “We’ve got some tire tracks, from where he drove down here after turning off the main road back at the railroad crossing. They’re big tracks – obviously some kind of off-road vehicle. Here are some footprints too.”

Riley said, “Have your people take pictures of these. We’ll send them to Quantico and have our technicians run them through our database.”

Cullen stood with his arms akimbo for a moment, taking in the scene with what seemed to Riley almost like a sense of satisfaction.

He said, “I’ve got to say, this is a new experience for me and my guys. We’re used to investigating cargo theft, vandalism, collisions, and the like. Murders are few and far between. And something like this – well, we’ve never seen anything like it before. Of course, I guess it’s nothing really special for you FBI folks. You’re used to it.”

Cullen got no reply and he fell silent for a moment. Then he looked at Riley and her colleagues and said, “Well, I don’t want to take too much of your precious time. Just give us a profile, and my team will take it from here. You can fly back home today, unless you really want to spend the night.”

Riley, Bill, and Jenn looked at each other with surprise.

Did he seriously think they could wrap up their work here that quickly?

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Riley said.

Cullen shrugged and said, “I’m sure you’ve figured out something in the way of a profile by now. That’s what you’re here for, after all. What can you tell me?”

Riley hesitated for a moment.

Then she said, “We can give you a few generalizations. Statistically, most murderers who leave the body at the scene have a prior criminal record. Over half of them are between the ages of fifteen and thirty-seven – and over half are African-American, employed at least part time, and have at least a high school education. Some such killers have had prior psychiatric problems, and some have been in the military. But …”

Riley hesitated.

“But what?” Cullen asked.

“Try to understand – none of this is really useful information, at least not at this point. There are always outliers. And our killer is starting to look like one already. For example, the kind of killer we’re talking about usually has some kind of sexual motivation. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here. My guess is that he’s not typical in a lot of ways. Maybe he’s not typical at all. We’ve still got a lot of work cut out for us.”

For the first time since she’d arrived, Cullen’s expression darkened a little.

Riley added, “And I want her cell phone rushed to Quantico. And the other victim’s cell phone as well. Our technicians need to see if they can get any information out of them.”

Before Cullen could reply, his own cell phone buzzed and he scowled.

He said, “I already know who that is. It’s the railroad administrator, wanting to know if he can get the trains moving again. The line has got three freight trains piled up and a passenger train running late. There’s a fresh crew ready to drive away the train that’s still sitting on the tracks. Can we move the body yet?”

Riley nodded and said to the coroner, “Go ahead, get her into your van.”

Cullen turned away and took the call, while the coroner called his people together and got to work with the body.

When Cullen got off the phone, he seemed to be in a genuinely sour mood.

He said to Riley and her colleagues, “So I guess you folks are going to make yourselves at home for a while.”