the detective brought the items out.
Jones put the trays on the butcher block, and despite his training, Dr. John gave an involuntary wince. On the first tray was the head of a female and next to it the head of a male. The male was approximately thirty years old, maybe ten years older than the female. The man’s head was intact, but the female’s eyes had been carved out of their sockets, and the teeth and lips were smashed and crusted with blood.
This wasn’t the first time Harrisburg had requested him to examine decapitated heads. It’d had three others in the last four years. But the level of violence that had been inflicted on the young woman before him was the work of someone truly evil.
“Is the coroner on his way in?” Dr. John asked.
Jones explained, “Les Winters is the coroner now. He was a city councilman, but after Dr. Wilbert passed away he ran for coroner. Just between you and me, I don’t expect he’ll keep this job. He was at the scene all of one minute before he barfed and said he was going home sick.”
“Where exactly did you find the heads?” Dr. John asked.
“We found these side by side on the back steps of the Rent-A-Center. Just down the street a few blocks. A big dumpster was ten feet away from them, so whoever did this didn’t try to hide them, or they could have chucked them in the trash.”
“The bodies?” Dr. John was thinking of the earlier murders. The police had found the heads of the victims, but no bodies were ever found.
Jones shook his head. “No sign of the bodies. But they weren’t killed where they were found. The site was staged. Not much blood. One of our patrol cars spotted them around noon, and I can tell you, the officer damned near messed his drawers. I’ve put it all in the report.” Jones handed Dr. John a big manila envelope. “Near as I can figure, they weren’t there before eleven last night, so they were put there sometime between then and noon today.”
Dr. John started to take some digital pictures.
“My narcotics guys think they know who did this,” Jones said, adding, “and I’m pretty sure I know who these belong to.”
Harrisburg was a tiny town, so Jones’s remark came as no surprise to Dr. John. But even so, a legal identification would require more than that. Forensic dentistry might be able to identify the remains of the female’s mouth and jaws, but the amount of damage done meant he’d have to get DNA to confirm the identities.
“We’ll need DNA on both of these if we ever get to court. So, who do you think they are?” Dr. John asked.
“I’m eighty percent sure her name is Hope Dupree. She was in the hospital a few days ago. Domestic violence. Her pimp beat her up.”
“And the man?” Dr. John asked.
Jones grinned and pointed at the male’s head. “That’s her pimp.”
“Ahh, of course it is.”
As Jones took a sip of his coffee, his eyes searched the doctor’s face. “You did the older cases, right?”
Dr. John absentmindedly raked his bottom lip with his teeth as he glanced again at the horrors on the table in front of him.
“It was a field day for the news media back then. Two heads propped up in the middle of Main Street, in a small town. It had news written all over it. But then another head was found two years later. Hell, even the national stations sent crews to cover the discovery. I think it was even given a mention on the Today show in New York.”
That head had been found behind the same Rent-A-Center. With the rise of drug sales came the proliferation of violence and death. But he had determined the other heads were hacked from the bodies, not cut cleanly like these two. Dr. John added, “Also, those victims weren’t beaten after death like this woman.”
He looked with foreboding at Jones. “Do you think it’s starting again?”
Jones tossed his paper cup in the trash. “Sure as hell hope not, Dr. John. I still have nightmares from that time.”
“Let’s get these bagged by your crime-scene guys, and I’ll take them with me back to Evansville.”
“I’m doubling as crime scene today, Doc,” Jones said. “Harrisburg PD isn’t big enough to have a full-time crime-scene technician on weekends.”
Dr. John suspected as much. “By the way,” he said, “I’ve got another one of these severed heads waiting for me at home.”
“Seriously?” Jones