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“She’d left that job and was working at a hospital when she disappeared.”
I thanked him, and filled in Neil.
“So he might have had a previous victim, and we didn’t even know it,” he said.
“Looks that way.”
I was walking the hallway, checking the baseboards with a flashlight when I bumped into a bookcase.
It moved.
“What do you want to bet?” I asked rhetorically as I rocked it slightly by leaning into it.
Companies sold things like this on the Internet as hidden doorways. Neil joined my search for the latch mechanism along the inside surfaces.
A half minute later, I’d found the lever, and the case swung inward, books and all. It opened to a landing and stairs going down.
We drew our weapons as we reached the bottom.
Neil opened the door, and I was the first through, with Neil right behind me.
The lights were on, and a girl lay on the disheveled bed in the far corner.
When I reached her, the bad news was evident. She matched her license from upstairs. Evelyn Gossen’s lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling.
I reached down to check her for a pulse, even though I knew the answer. Her skin was cold to the touch. “Cold. Dead half a day at least.”
We’d leave the specifics to the scientists.
Neil looked around. “Well, this is going to keep forensics busy for a while.”
While Sanderson kept the upstairs neat and clean, the basement was the opposite. Aside from the bed in the corner, there was an ugly, soiled chair with restraints, a table with various implements—some sharp—and a small refrigerator in the corner.
“These blood stains are old,” Neil noted, pointing to multiple large stains on the floor. Others were visible on the chair.
The air was disgustingly stale.
I’d handled scenes much worse than this before, but this time I felt ill just thinking how close Kelly had come to being the next victim abused and tortured down here.
“You’re looking a little green, kid.”
I probably looked better than I felt. “I’ll be okay.”
“Good, because we can’t have you puking on the crime scene.”
I needed to push through this, and it wasn’t like we needed the evidence for a trial.
Neil stopped me as I ventured farther into the room. “Best to let the forensics guys get first crack at this.”
“Yeah.” I wanted to check the fridge, but getting to it without walking on the blood evidence would be tricky.
“He probably didn’t clean up the blood on purpose, just to add to the horror factor.”
I imagined how the girls would have felt upon first being dragged down here. Neil was right. The sight and smell would have instilled abject terror.
I turned my back on the scene. “Seems clear this is our guy.” I pulled out my phone.
Neil followed me. “Sure looks like it.” He’d been careful to say he wasn’t certain, leaving that call to me.
