Hour Game

King handed him a cup of coffee and then sat down across from him, while Michelle remained perched on the edge of a leather couch. "Wait'll the papers get hold of this one. And poor Sylvia. She'd just finished the autopsy on that girl, and then she had to do two more."

"Who were they?" asked King.

"Students at Wrightsburg High School: Steve Canney and Janice Pembroke. She was shot in the back; he took it full in the face. Buckshot. When I opened that car door, it cost me my breakfast. Hell, I'll be seeing them in my sleep for months."

"No witnesses?"

"Not that we know of. It was a rainy night. Theirs were the only tire tracks up there."

Michelle perked up. "Right, it was raining. So if you didn't see any tire tracks, the killer must have walked up to the car. You didn't find any traces of that?"

"Most everything was washed away. There was an inch of bloody water on the floor of the car. Steve Canney was one of the most popular kids in school, football star and everything."

"And the girl?" asked Michelle.

Williams hesitated. "Janice Pembroke had a reputation with the boys."

"As being… accessible?" asked King.

"Yes."

"Was anything taken? Could it have been a robbery?"

"Not likely, although two things were missing: a cheap ring Pembroke usually wore and Canney's St. Christopher's medal. We don't know if the killer took them or not."

"You said Sylvia finished the autopsies. I'm assuming you attended them."

Williams looked embarrassed. "I had a little problem halfway through Jane Doe's post, and I got tied up while she was doing the other autopsies. I'm waiting on Sylvia's reports," he added hastily. "We don't have an official homicide detective on the force, so I figured coming here and picking your brain wouldn't be a bad thing."

"Any clues?" asked Michelle.

"Not from the first killing. And we haven't identified her yet either, though we were able to fingerprint her and we're running those. We had a computerized facial composite done too, which we're circulating."

"Any reason to believe the killings are connected?" asked Michelle.

Williams shook his head. "Pembroke and Canney will probably turn out to be some love triangle thing. Kids these days will kill you in a second and think nothing of it. All the crap on TV they watch."

King and Michelle exchanged glances and then he said, "In the first killing either the murderer lured the woman into the woods or forced her to go with him. Or he killed her elsewhere and then carried her into the woods."

Michelle nodded. "If the latter, a strong man, then. With the killing of the teenagers the person might have followed them there or been waiting on the bluff."

"Well, that area is well known as a make-out place, if they still even call it that," said Williams. "Both victims were naked. That's why I'm thinking it was maybe some boy Pembroke dumped or a kid who was jealous of Canney. The Jane Doe in the woods will be the harder one to crack. That's where I'm going to need your help."

King looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "The watch in the first murder, did you really notice it, Todd?"

"Well, it seemed a little bulky for the girl."

"Sylvia said the arm the watch was on was deliberately braced up."

"She can't know that for sure."

"I saw that the watch was set to one o'clock," continued King.

"Right, but it had stopped, or the stem was pulled out."

King glanced at Michelle. "Did you notice the make of the watch?"

Williams looked at him curiously. "Make of the watch?"

"It was a Zodiac watch: circle with a crosshairs."

Williams almost spilled his coffee. "Zodiac!"

King nodded. "It was also a man's watch. I think the killer put it on the woman."

"Zodiac," repeated Williams. "Are you saying…?"

"The original Zodiac serial killer operated in 1968 and 1969 in the Bay Area, San Fran and Vallejo," answered King. "I thinkthat Zodiac would be a little long in the tooth. But there have been at least two Zodiac copycat killers, one in New York and another in Kobe, Japan. The San Fran Zodiac wore a black executioner's hood emblazoned with a white crosshairs in a circle, the same symbol that's on the Zodiac watch. He also left a watch on his last victim, a cabdriver, if I recall correctly, although it wasn't a Zodiac. However, the man suspected of being the Zodiac in San Francisco owned a Zodiac watch. They believe that's where he got the idea for the crosshairs-in-a-circle logo he wore that earned him his nickname. The case has never been solved."

Williams hunched forward in his chair. "Look, this is all really speculation on your part, and quite a stretch at that."

Michelle glanced at her partner. "Sean, do you really think it's a copycat killer?"

King shrugged. "If two people copied the original, who's to say a third person couldn't? The San Francisco Zodiac wrote to the newspapers in code-one that was finally broken. The coded letters revealed that the killer was motivated by a short story titled ‘The Most Dangerous Game.' It's a story about hunting humans."