Read Online Body Count by P.D. Martin - Free Book Online

worked his way up to women like Teresa. He would have loved it. Got off on it even. Ultimately he knew he had all the power. He knew that, deep down, she must have been scared shitless, despite the business front.” I finger two photos ofTeresa—one from the crime scene and one from when she was alive. It’s hard to recognize her features in death.
    â€œSo he played with her. Maybe even made her think he was coming around. That he was going to release her,” Sam says.
    â€œYep. He would have beaten her down. He wanted her to go from believing she still had some sort of control over the situation to admitting defeat.”
    â€œAt his mercy.”
    â€œThen as soon as she broke, he killed her. He’d won and the challenge was gone.”
    In Teresa’s case he’d inflicted multiple cuts, like Jean, but the cause of death had been one massive knife wound across her throat.
    I look at the photos, then at Sam. “How long did he have her?”
    â€œThe body wasn’t found for a while, but the coroner’s time of death puts us at eight to twenty days after abduction.”
    â€œThe lower end sounds more likely, given the pattern with Jean.”
    â€œI agree,” Sam says.
    â€œThat whole time was a war between their minds. After eight days or so, she finally begged him for pity. For mercy.”
    â€œAnd he gave it to her, in a form. The son of a bitch killed her.”
    We both pause for a moment.
    Sam sits down on the sofa. “It looks like he raped her several times. Again, the coroner says it’s hard to say because of the length of time and the lack of bruising and other signs of sexual violence.”
    â€œHow do you think she would have responded to the rape?”
    â€œMaybe used it in her negotiations. Made him think sex was something she could offer him. A bargaining tool.”
    â€œShe was tough, all right. She lasted through eight days of torture. I think we can assume that after the first struggle, she may have stopped struggling. She would have been planning her escape. Looking for a way out. Maybe even trying to convince him to undo her hands and legs under the pretense of being able to sexually satisfy him.”
    â€œBut her tied up at his mercy was what aroused him.”
    â€œYeah. Still, I reckon she tried damn hard to get out,” I say.
    â€œConcentrating on getting out alive. Negotiating or escaping.”
    â€œShe would have distanced herself emotionally from what was going on, so she probably didn’t struggle too much with the rapes. This would have fed his fantasy of her as the girlfriend.”
    I’m drawn back to Jean by a photo of her. I pick it up and look into her eyes. They are open in death, and the killer has chosen not to close them. It’s the same with Teresa. Jean stares back at me and I can imagine her tied down, wondering if she is going to live or die and praying for release. Just as she looked at the killer and begged for mercy, now she looks at me and begs for justice.
    I answer her call. “Let’s go back to Jean.”
    I will have to think about the case properly later, when Sam isn’t here. Usually about now, once I have all the facts, I close my eyes and imagine the killer. I see the killer.I become the killer, stepping into his world. Somehow my subconscious takes over, and I find myself so fully immersed in the process that I don’t usually come to for hours. I don’t know whether it’s like that for the others or not. I probably shouldn’t get so involved in the cases.
    Sam stands over the dining table. “Jean was ambitious. In fact, this baby wanted to work in front of the cameras. She was working her way up, trying to get noticed within WX40. She wanted to be an anchor someday and had a pretty good reel together.” Sam picks up her notepad. “Everyone who knew her described her as…” She reads from her notes, “‘Outgoing,’