“Are you wondering aloud, or asking me?”
“Both?”
I rolled my eyes to stare at the sky and tugged my jacket closer to my shoulders. I hadn’t dressed up for the drive to Wisconsin—at least, not on purpose. I’d worn a pair of black jeans and low heels, along with a long-sleeved, red V-neck sweater and a thick jacket. The swipe of mascara and lip gloss along the way hadn’t had anything to do with the fact that I had suspected I might see Russo. Absolutely not.
“Look, Rosetti. I asked you here for a reason. You’re the smartest cop I know, and you have personal experience with Wilkes.”
“Lucky for you.”
His eyes narrowed on me. “What happened with him?”
I glared back. “Did you ask me here for my help on this case or to rehash the past?”
“The past can affect the future.”
“Not this time,” I said. “You can have my help if you want it, but the past stays private.”
“That bad?” Russo watched me carefully. “I’m sorry, Kate. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”
“Well, you did, and now it’s too late. I want to see this asshole behind bars, and the sooner the better. Where’s the body?”
Russo wisely let our conversation drop and led me toward the front door. The unassuming home was flanked by two neighboring residences that were close enough to touch if I extended my arms and stood between them.
“Did anyone hear anything?”
Russo scanned the neighboring homes. “Nothing. This is a college neighborhood. The house to the left was having a little party—kids inside were bumping music and drunk. Nobody heard a thing. The house to the right was empty all night—a group of college girls live there, but they were away. Over at boyfriends’, family, whatever. Wilkes got lucky.”
“He doesn’t get lucky,” I corrected. “He chose this place for a reason. I don’t know what it was yet, but there was a reason.”
“Why’d he choose his last victims?”
I steeled my jaw. “The ones he killed, he chose for... sport.”
Russo pushed the door open, waited for further explanation.
“He started with the females,” I said. “There was never anything sexual about his killing—no rape or anything of the sort.”
“Thank God.”
I quirked one shoulder up. “Small miracles. The things those women and men went through, it’s hardly any relief to know...”
“I understand,” Russo said quietly.
I shook off the chill that settled over my shoulders as we climbed the stairs to a bedroom on the upper level. “Over time, he selected his victims according to the challenge each one presented. His first victim—Marla Kismet—was a prostitute.”
“Easy prey.”
“She weighed about eighty pounds soaking wet and didn’t have many people who’d miss her,” I agreed. “The second victim remains a Jane Doe to this day.”
“Another prostitute?”
“Probably,” I said. “But she was bigger in size, and she had defensive wounds on her hands.”
“She fought back.”
“Hard. But it wasn’t enough.”
“He liked the struggle,” Russo said. “His third victim was a man?”
“William Thompson,” I said. “Respected businessman. Fit, intelligent, well-liked by all accounts.”
“Defensive wounds?”
“Not much,” I said. “Wilkes prepared. He drugged Thompson and tied him up. He was waiting for him after work inside his house. He finished the murder and left the house just five minutes before the wife returned home.”
Russo cursed under his breath. “Cutting things close.”
“You could say that. An awful thing for the wife to come home and find,” I said. “Was this guy married?”
Russo stopped inside the doorway to the bedroom and gestured to the sparse, lived-in space with a lack of enthusiasm that told me he was already exhausted from Wilkes. The bastard had the tendency to wear law enforcement down. He defied rhyme or reason, acted in chaotic patterns. It was difficult to predict Wilkes’s next moves, and even harder to predict the logic behind them.
After he’d been arrested the first time, I’d interviewed him. I’d tried to understand how he’d done it—both logistically and mentally. How he’d justified the killings, and more importantly, why. I’d tried to unravel what had gone wrong in this man’s life to turn him so evil, but the only thing I’d deduced was that Ramone Wilkes had been born bad.
“Not married, but we believe he was in a relationship with a woman,” Russo said. “Judging by the extra toothbrush in the bathroom, the feminine soaps in the shower, and the call log on his phone. We’re trying to get in touch with her to confirm.”
I stepped further into the room and wrinkled my nose against the smell. Death and decomposition mixed with stale air and burnt flesh was enough to make my stomach roil. It didn’t take long for me to size up the scene. While I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, it looked like Wilkes.
The man—identified by Russo as Jonathan Tate—appeared to be in his early thirties, Caucasian, in average shape for a man of his age. It was hard to tell if he might have been called attractive due to the heavy bruising and swelling around his face.
I gloved up, nodded at the ME, and knelt before the body. When I gestured toward Tate’s mouth, the ME cracked it open for me. I winced at the now-gaping mouth—bloody sockets where teeth belonged.
“I’m guessing you haven’t found the teeth yet,” I said.
The ME shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard.”
“You won’t,” I said dully. “This is Wilkes. His hands?”
The ME moved his gloved fingers down and exposed the palms of Tate’s hands. “Severely burned. No prints.”
“Of course not.” I sighed, raised myself to my feet. “Any other initial findings?”
“No signs of any defensive wounds as of yet, but I’ll be scraping what I can from under the fingernails and checking more thoroughly during the autopsy. See here?” The ME gestured toward the smallest prick on Tate’s neck. “I’m guessing he was drugged. Made it easier for the killer to perform the rest of his rituals without having to worry about a fight. We’ll run tests, see what—if anything—was in his system.”
“Etorphine.”
The ME looked up. “That’s strictly used for animals. How would he have gotten his hands on it?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “He must have had a stash from before he went to prison. We always suspected he had money, a go bag, the necessities stored somewhere. Figures he’d have his drug of choice, as well. If not that, he might’ve knocked Tate out with sevoflurane first, then tied him up.”
The ME looked at his wrists. “He was bound—looks like a thin rope.”
“It’ll be standard, hardware store rope,” I said. “Tracing it will be a dead end, but I imagine you’ll test the fibers anyway.”
“It sounds as if you have some experience with this killer.”
“If it’s who we believe it is,” I corrected. I reached into my pocket, grabbed a card. “Give me a call when you get the results, will you? I’d like them sent over to the TC Task Force up in St. Paul. Dr. Melinda Brooks performed autopsies on the other three victims we believe this man also killed. I’d like the two of you to pow wow and come up with the probability that we’re looking at the same guy.”