The detective who caught the call always brought the kits and supervised as officers on the scene pitched in to dust for prints and bag evidence.
Stokes’s trunk was crammed with junk: a rusted toolbox, a length of nylon towrope, a dirty yellow rain slicker, two bags from McDonald’s. Three bright-colored plastic bead necklaces from a past Mardi Gras celebration had become tangled around a jack handle. Stokes pulled out a latent fingerprints kit and a general evidence collection kit from the neater end of the junk pile.
Stokes cut Annie a sideways look. “We don’t need your kind of help.”
She walked away because she didn’t have a choice. Stokes outranked her. The idea of him and Mullen processing the scene made her cringe. Stokes was a slacker, Mullen a moron. If they missed something, if they screwed up, the case could be blown. Of course, if Jennifer Nolan’s description of events was accurate—not a guarantee with a badly shaken victim—there would be precious little evidence to collect.
Annie walked around the back side of the trailer, putting off the KOD duty. The attacker had come into Jennifer Nolan’s trailer in the middle of the night, gaining entrance through the back door, which was not visible from any other trailer in the park. The chances of a neighbor having seen anything would be slim to none. The phone line had been cut clean. Nolan had made her call to 911 from the home of her nearest neighbor, an elderly woman named Vista Wallace, whom Nolan said was very hard-of-hearing.
Annie took a Polaroid of the torn screen door and the inside door that had been easily jimmied and left ajar. There would be no fingerprints. Nolan said her attacker had worn gloves. He had attacked her in her bed, tying her to the bed frame using strips of white cloth he had brought with him. There was no evidence of seminal fluid on the sheets, indicating that the rapist had either used a condom or hadn’t ejaculated during the attack.
From her studies, Annie knew that contrary to popular belief, sexual dysfunction was fairly common among sex offenders. Rape was about power and anger, hurting and controlling a woman. Motivation that came out of rage against a particular woman in the rapist’s past or against the entire gender, stemming from some past wrong. The attack on Jennifer Nolan had been premeditated, organized, indicating that it was primarily about power and control. The rapist had come prepared, wearing the mask, bringing with him something to jimmy the door and the white cloth ligatures to tie up his victim.
The Bayou Strangler’s signature had been a white silk scarf around the throat of his victim. The bindings in this case would be close enough to generate a lot of gossip if word leaked out. Lack of semen could also be pointed out as a similarity. But in the Bayou Strangler cases the women had been violently brutalized and their bodies left exposed to the elements so that such evidence would most likely have broken down.
The primary difference between the Bayou Strangler cases and Jennifer Nolan’s was that Jennifer Nolan was still alive. She had been attacked in her home, rather than taken to another location; raped, but not murdered or mutilated. Those were also the differences between Jennifer Nolan’s case and Pam Bichon’s, and yet the press was bound to draw correlations. The mask was going to be big as a shock factor.
Annie wondered if either the similarities or the differences in the cases had been intentional. If she wondered it, so would everyone else. The level of fear in Partout Parish was going to be pushed to heights that hadn’t been seen in four years. It had been bad enough when Pam Bichon had been killed. But at least a great many people had focused on Renard as the killer. Marcus Renard had been in Our Lady of Mercy when Jennifer Nolan was attacked.
God, what a mess, Annie thought, her gaze on the ground. The sheriff’s office had come under enough criticism for the Bichon
Stokes’s trunk was crammed with junk: a rusted toolbox, a length of nylon towrope, a dirty yellow rain slicker, two bags from McDonald’s. Three bright-colored plastic bead necklaces from a past Mardi Gras celebration had become tangled around a jack handle. Stokes pulled out a latent fingerprints kit and a general evidence collection kit from the neater end of the junk pile.
Stokes cut Annie a sideways look. “We don’t need your kind of help.”
She walked away because she didn’t have a choice. Stokes outranked her. The idea of him and Mullen processing the scene made her cringe. Stokes was a slacker, Mullen a moron. If they missed something, if they screwed up, the case could be blown. Of course, if Jennifer Nolan’s description of events was accurate—not a guarantee with a badly shaken victim—there would be precious little evidence to collect.
Annie walked around the back side of the trailer, putting off the KOD duty. The attacker had come into Jennifer Nolan’s trailer in the middle of the night, gaining entrance through the back door, which was not visible from any other trailer in the park. The chances of a neighbor having seen anything would be slim to none. The phone line had been cut clean. Nolan had made her call to 911 from the home of her nearest neighbor, an elderly woman named Vista Wallace, whom Nolan said was very hard-of-hearing.
Annie took a Polaroid of the torn screen door and the inside door that had been easily jimmied and left ajar. There would be no fingerprints. Nolan said her attacker had worn gloves. He had attacked her in her bed, tying her to the bed frame using strips of white cloth he had brought with him. There was no evidence of seminal fluid on the sheets, indicating that the rapist had either used a condom or hadn’t ejaculated during the attack.
From her studies, Annie knew that contrary to popular belief, sexual dysfunction was fairly common among sex offenders. Rape was about power and anger, hurting and controlling a woman. Motivation that came out of rage against a particular woman in the rapist’s past or against the entire gender, stemming from some past wrong. The attack on Jennifer Nolan had been premeditated, organized, indicating that it was primarily about power and control. The rapist had come prepared, wearing the mask, bringing with him something to jimmy the door and the white cloth ligatures to tie up his victim.
The Bayou Strangler’s signature had been a white silk scarf around the throat of his victim. The bindings in this case would be close enough to generate a lot of gossip if word leaked out. Lack of semen could also be pointed out as a similarity. But in the Bayou Strangler cases the women had been violently brutalized and their bodies left exposed to the elements so that such evidence would most likely have broken down.
The primary difference between the Bayou Strangler cases and Jennifer Nolan’s was that Jennifer Nolan was still alive. She had been attacked in her home, rather than taken to another location; raped, but not murdered or mutilated. Those were also the differences between Jennifer Nolan’s case and Pam Bichon’s, and yet the press was bound to draw correlations. The mask was going to be big as a shock factor.
Annie wondered if either the similarities or the differences in the cases had been intentional. If she wondered it, so would everyone else. The level of fear in Partout Parish was going to be pushed to heights that hadn’t been seen in four years. It had been bad enough when Pam Bichon had been killed. But at least a great many people had focused on Renard as the killer. Marcus Renard had been in Our Lady of Mercy when Jennifer Nolan was attacked.
God, what a mess, Annie thought, her gaze on the ground. The sheriff’s office had come under enough criticism for the Bichon
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