Page 83 of Fallen Creed

“Do you remember seeing a brand name logo?” she asked.

“Let me get my photos.”

Pacing only made things worse. She sat on the edge of the bed. She grabbed a water bottle from the nightstand and guzzled half of it.

“Looks to be Columbia,” Lucy said. “I’ve had a chance to examine it. I don’t believe it was the victim’s. The blood spatter indicates the person wearing it was facing the victim when the trauma happened. All the blood is on the outside. There isn’t any soaked from the inside.”

It was more information than Maggie needed right now. Much more than she wanted.

“So one of the perpetrators was wearing the jacket? Someone who participated?” Maggie asked.

“That’s my theory. Of course, a blood spatter expert could give you more exact details. Maggie, it’s a woman’s jacket.”

“I know. I spent most of the day looking at the young woman who was wearing it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’ve been reviewing the video from the hardware store’s security cameras. On the day Darrow disappeared from work, there was a middle-aged man with two young women inside the store. It looks like they bought everything they needed to kill her.”

“From the store where she worked?”

“Yes. While she was still working. I just watched the man follow her and point her out to his accomplices. One of the women was wearing that white jacket.”

Lucy went quiet. Maggie waited.

Several years ago, she had stayed at Lucy’s home outside of North Platte. She watched her one morning in her meditation stance: eyes closed, body completely still. She was used to the woman’s calm demeanor, her ability to spiritualize the madness and violence. Dismemberment was especially difficult for most seasoned forensic investigators. Yesterday, Lucy admitted that even she had a difficult time with the brutality of this murder.

Finally, Maggie heard the hiss of a long drawn-out sigh, then Lucy said, “Well, I suppose that might explain the bite mark. I thought it was much too small to be a man’s.”

Maggie ran her fingers through her hair and resumed pacing. She avoided looking over at Ryder’s belongings. Finally, she said, “This is turning into something much stranger and complicated than any of us expected. I’m not sure if the young women are willing accomplices or if they’re abused and manipulated captives.”

She paused at the window again, the images from the video surveillance still played in her mind. “They look like teenagers. Libby Holmes is only seventeen, and they don’t look much older.”

“You’re thinking they may have been coerced to participate?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Maggie said. “Some version of Stockholm syndrome. Young victims can easily be manipulated. There’s a trauma bond that forms, and a captive starts to identify with the captor, even complying with the captor’s demands and his agenda.”

“You’re thinking like an FBI profiler.”

“I am an FBI profiler.”

“But perhaps it’s simpler than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Humor me for a minute,” Lucy said. “For the last several days, you and Pakula have focused on human trafficking. The things you’ve seen and experienced have changed your perceptions. Which was absolutely necessary for many of us in law enforcement. A decade ago, kidnapped and runaway teenaged girls were being arrested for prostitution instead of the men selling and buying them. No one realized the magnitude of what was going on. In some ways, it was beyond our imaginations and comprehensions.

“But at the same time, perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to relieve every teenage girl of responsibility for a crime just because we aren’t able to conceive that a young girl would be capable of such a heinous crime. There are still people here in Nebraska who debate whether Caril Ann Fugate was Charlie Starkweather’s partner or an innocent fourteen-year-old girlfriend forced to go along on his killing spree.”

Maggie had little experience with killer couples, let alone a group of three. The dynamics of peer pressure, competition, or simply pleasing one another could all play roles in how far things could go. It made the situation more incendiary.

One vicious killer was dangerous. But three working together? Perhaps that explained their boldness. They were brazen enough to buy their murder instruments at the victim’s place of employment then wait for her to get off work. They even came back in to buy soft drinks while they waited.

“I haven’t dismissed the idea that they’re willing accomplices,” Maggie said. “I just watched them buy gallons of bleach, drop cloths, a hacksaw and box cutters like they were preparing for a DIY home project.

“I have to tell you, Lucy, all my experience and research of criminal behavior doesn’t help explain the psychology or mindset it takes for what looks like two ordinary young women to plan and take part in methodically killing then dismembering another young woman.”

“We don’t know the facts yet,” Lucy told her. “And you might be right. This man could have control over them. But I will tell you this: the bite mark is post mortem. There are many things one person can coerce another person to do, but whether forced or agreeing to bite the flesh of a corpse, seems beyond the pale.”