Cavanaugh's Missing Person. Marie Ferrarella

closed again.

      Hunter shook his head. “Takes all kinds,” he murmured under his breath.

      He wasn’t particularly anxious to see a dismembered head either, but if it brought closure to the case he’d worked on over the last few years, it would be well worth it. Maybe now he could go through the database and put a name to the headless, handless person who had been his first case. Put a name to him and possibly bring closure to a family if the murder victim actually had one.

      In any event, as long as the fingerprints weren’t burnt off—and he really doubted that they would be, because why get rid of the hands if you could burn off the prints more easily—he stood a good chance of at least giving the victim a name.

      The moment Hunter stepped into the medical examiner’s room, he knew that the head and hands didn’t belong to the man whose file was in his desk. The head and hands on the ME’s table looked much too fresh, as if whoever had been dismembered and buried had suffered the indignities less than a week ago. Decomposition hadn’t gone too far yet. The victim in his cold case file had been killed several years ago and his hands and feet—unless extraordinary measures had been taken to preserve those body parts—would have been badly decomposed.

      Still, he was here so he might as well ask a few questions, Hunter thought.

      “What do you have for me, Doc?” Hunter asked, walking in.

      “Not all that much yet I’m afraid,” Dr. Alexander Rayburn said, gesturing toward the three body parts on his table. “The crime lab techs just brought this lovely package to me about two hours ago.”

      The head he was looking at had gray hair and a very pale complexion. If nothing else, the victim hadn’t been a sun worshipper, Hunter thought. “Can you tell me how long he’s been dead?” he asked the ME.

      “Well, all this is still preliminary, but my guess is that he’s been dead for about a week, possibly less, maybe a little more. Judging from his face, I’d say that he’s a man in his later fifties. A professional man,” the doctor added.

      Hunter looked at the ME, puzzled. “How can you tell that?”

      “The hands,” the doctor answered. He picked up one carefully in his gloved hand. “There are no calluses on his hands, no rough skin. He didn’t work with his hands, he worked with his brain.”

      “Which it seems was generously delivered to you, as well,” Hunter commented, looking at the victim’s head. He circled the table slowly, looking at the three dismembered parts that were laid out on the table. “What kind of a person does this, Doc?”

      “That’s an easy one to answer,” the ME said. “A sick person. A methodical person. And an extremely organized person.” He looked at Hunter. “These cuts weren’t made hastily, or haphazardly. The killer knew exactly where to cut for minimum damage and bone resistance. My guess is that the victim was anesthetized—or more likely, already dead—when he was cut up.”

      Hunter separated himself from the deed that the ME was describing. It was a coping mechanism he’d learned to use on his first case. Otherwise, he’d be spending every available moment in the men’s room, throwing up his last meal.

      “Anything else?” he asked the ME.

      “Yes.” The doctor looked up at Hunter and said with atypical passion, “I hope that the bastard who did this rots in hell.”

      “You and me both, Doc,” Hunter agreed.

      Well, he’d gotten what he came for. This didn’t involve his cold case. Even so, Hunter remained in the room and continued to thoughtfully look at the body parts that were laid out on the ME’s table.

      “Something on your mind I can help you with, Detective?” the ME asked, glancing at Hunter over his shoulder. “You said these aren’t the missing parts from your cold case.”

      “They’re clearly not,” Hunter agreed.

      “Well, I know that it isn’t my scintillating company that’s keeping you here,” the ME said, “so what’s the problem?”

      Hunter went on studying the dismembered parts on the table. He had an eerie feeling about them. About this whole thing.

      “The problem is that I think my cold case might very well have been the first victim for whoever killed this man.”

      The doctor looked up from the notes he was taking and looked pointedly at the detective. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

      Hunter nodded. “I think we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”

      “Correct me if I’m wrong,” the doctor said, pausing, “but doesn’t it usually take three victims before someone can be declared to be a serial killer?”

      Hunter nodded, but even as he did, he said, “I’m sure there’s a third body out there somewhere. And possibly a fourth and a fifth. I’m going to take a cadaver dog out there with me and check that whole area where these hands and head were found,” he informed the ME.

      The ME sighed. The doctor had a very clear picture of what lay ahead if Hunter was successful in his “mission.”

      “I’d say ‘good luck’ but I’m not sure which way that would be,” the ME told Hunter.

      Just as Hunter was leaving the room, he almost walked right into MacKenzie Cavanaugh. Backing up, he inclined his head as he smiled at her. “Kenzie.”

      She nodded, as well, uttering a crisp, “Hunter.”

      “Suddenly there’s a really cold chill in the room,” the ME commented.

      “Well, Brannigan’s on his way out, so the chill’ll be gone soon,” Kenzie told the medical examiner.

      The doctor looked in her direction. “What brings you down here?”

      Kenzie wanted to make sure that she wasn’t trying to locate a man who was already dead, so starting out in the ME’s office made sense. “I came to find out if you have any unclaimed bodies down here.”

      “Only mine,” Hunter volunteered, speaking up from the doorway.

      Kenzie chose to ignore him. Hunter Brannigan might be really close friends with two of her brothers, but she had no intention of encouraging the ladies’ man to talk to her any more than absolutely necessary.

      “Who are you looking for?” the ME asked Kenzie.

      But at that moment, Kenzie had glanced down at the dismembered head on the table and her mouth dropped open.

      “I’m looking for this man,” she said, the words almost dribbling out of her mouth as she held up the photo that Connie had given her.

       Chapter 3

      The medical examiner looked briefly at the photograph that Kenzie had in her hand. There was no doubt about the match.

      “Then I’d say you found him. Or what there is of him at the moment,” the doctor amended.

      Kenzie felt shell-shocked. This was so much worse than what she’d expected. Connie was going to be devastated when she broke the news to her.

      “When—when did this happen?” Kenzie asked, trying not to let the scene get to her. It wasn’t the gruesomeness of the crime so much as the crime itself that she found unnerving.

      The medical examiner looked at her. “You’re the second person to ask me that in the last few minutes. I’ll tell you what I said to Detective Brannigan—” Dr. Rayburn got no further.

      Kenzie looked at the ME sharply. “Detective Brannigan?” she echoed in surprise.

      “That would be me,” Hunter said, raising his hand as he walked back