both hands wrapped around his mug, one brow elevated. “Lemme guess. He called you because he wanted me, and you decided to invite yourself along.”
“Something like that,” Grimaldi admitted.
Rafe’s lips curved. “How’d he like that?”
“He seemed fine with it. But I had to promise I’d bring you back with me.”
Of course. “He wants Rafe as a representative for the TBI,” I said, and they both nodded.
“The woman ain’t gonna be local,” Rafe said. “The killer picked her up somewhere along the way. Mighta been Nashville, mighta been farther north.”
“Or south,” Grimaldi added, “if he was trying to throw us off.”
And had dumped her on the opposite side of the interstate than the direction he was traveling. He’d been going south, obviously. Or at least he had dumped the body on the west side of the highway.
Rafe nodded. “Mighta been inside the state, or in Kentucky. Or Indiana or Alabama. Either way, it’s outside county jurisdiction.”
And into the TBI’s. “So you’ll be taking over?”
“It depends,” Rafe said. “First McLaughlin has to agree to it.”
“But he will. Won’t he? I mean, you’re here. Surely it makes more sense to let you deal with it than send someone else down when you’re here already.”
“I imagine he will,” Rafe said. “And if it turns out that the victim was picked up inside the state, then I’m all we need. If she came from outside Tennessee, I’ll have to coordinate with folks from there. Or the FBI, if some bright soul has the idea to call’em in.”
Grimaldi grimaced.
“I guess you’re hoping she’ll turn out to be local,” I said, looking from one to the other of them. “From inside Tennessee.”
“It’d make it easier,” Rafe agreed. “The feds sometimes try to take over. And they can be…”
He hesitated.
“Pushy?”
His lips curved. “I was thinking ‘condescending bastards,’ but pushy works, too.”
I nodded. “So first you have to figure out who she was and where she came from, and then you can go there and start looking around?”
“Something like that. And on that note—” he turned to Grimaldi, “I’ll go get ready.”
She nodded. I busied myself with the hot chocolate while he walked through the kitchen and down the hall. Over by the door, Pearl the pitbull looked up and slapped her tail against the fabric of her pillow a couple of times before she settled back down. The bullet wound on her flank was still pink and puffy against the silvery gray fur that was just starting to grow back around it.
“Good girl,” I told her, and turned back to Grimaldi. “How do you feel?”
She opened her mouth, probably to claim she had no feelings whatsoever, but she closed it again without speaking. And took a few seconds to settle her thoughts before responding. “I’m not sure. I’ve been tracking this guy—or his victims, more accurately—since I came on the job almost a decade ago. They were always left somewhere else. Now that he’s put one where I can actually investigate it, I’m almost afraid to believe it.”
I nodded. I could well believe that. “Worried you won’t be able to solve the case?”
“No.” She sounded surprised I’d even ask.
“He probably isn’t local, you know. You might be able to investigate the crime—” If Bob Satterfield allowed it, since it was his jurisdiction, “but if the murderer isn’t local, you won’t be able to catch him.”
“I’ll find a way,” Grimaldi said.
“As you said, he might not even be in Tennessee.” No reason to think he was. He could be based anywhere along I-65, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes.
That included here, of course. So he might be from here, huge coincidence or not.
Grimaldi nodded when I said so. “That would be nice. But not very likely, I’m afraid. Whoever dumped the body was at the trailer stop. If he lived nearby, he had no reason to stop at the truck stop. He could just go home.”
“Unless he wanted to get rid of the body,” I said. “He wouldn’t want to take it home. It’d be hard to explain away, if he doesn’t live alone.”
“Eighty percent of serial killers are unmarried,” Grimaldi said.
“That means twenty percent are married. He could have a wife.”
Grimaldi shrugged.
“And he has to be from somewhere. I don’t think the truck stop is enough of a clue, though. He could have stopped there simply to get rid of the body. Or to do whatever it is he does to them…”
“Rape,” Grimaldi said distantly, “mutilate, and strangle.”
I blinked. And it took me a second