Body of Lies Read Free Page A

welcomes a cold germ into the room. To some degree she couldn’t blame them. There wasn’t a cop she knew who had much use for shrinks. But more than that, she surmised that if McKay knew her history these men did, too. She suspected there wasn’t a man here who didn’t blame her, at least in part, for those murders.
    McKay led her to one of the seats before taking his place at the head of the table. McKay puffed out his narrow chest as if he were a bird in search of a mate. “As you all know, we’ve been assembled to find the so-called Amazon Killer that has been working one end of the New England Thruway since June twelfth of last year. His victims, except the last one, have all been young working girls unfortunate enough to venture into his hunting area. This was the killer’s first victim, Shashana Bright, age fourteen.”
    McKay nodded to someone at the back of the room and the lights grew dim. A gruesome picture showed itself on the wall to Alex’s left—a head and torso shot of a young woman with nut-brown skin and short, dyed blond hair. Her face had been brutalized and among other indignities her right breast was missing, not excised, but appeared to have been hacked off in several motions, leaving open, jagged flesh.
    Alex swallowed reflexively, as McKay went on, cataloguing her injuries as if he were discussing cutting up a side of beef. The picture itself wasn’t as disturbing as McKay’s dispassionate droning. She didn’t expect the police to weep over every victim; they’d never get their job done that way. But if investigators were supposed to serve as the victim’s silenced voice, what sort of champion would McKay make?
    As McKay went on, flashing photos of the victims, citing other dates and names and circumstances, she wondered if he had another agenda besides finding out who’d killed all those girls. She doubted it was the thrill of the hunt with McKay, since he showed so little emotion. Perhaps he hoped being lead on this case would advance his career. That seemed a more likely assumption. Or maybe he was just a coldhearted son of a bitch.
    Alex tuned in again, hearing Ingrid Beltran’s name. Her photo was almost identical to every other.
    â€œBeltran was in the area, dressed for a night clubbing after she picked up her friends. We speculate the killer assumed she was a pro.” The photo on the wall remained, though dulled by the fluorescence of the overhead lights. “So, what do you think, Doctor? Could your guy have done this?”
    Alex blinked, trying to adjust her vision. She scanned the faces of the men staring back at her from around the conference table, before answering. She’d noticed that not one of them had made a sound during McKay’s presentation. No expressions of surprise or disgust or even any speculations or questions. This was either the most incurious bunch of cops she’d ever seen or they’d all seen this before. She’d wondered why McKay had bothered to drag her over here in the midst of his briefing, and she thought she knew why now. More than likely, this session had been designed as a public embarrassment, a graphic reminder of what her perceived incompetence had led to. Too bad for him she didn’t cower that easily. Not anymore.
    Perversely, a small smile formed at the corner of her mouth, as she focused on McKay. “So far you haven’t shown me anything to suggest Walter Thorpe had anything to do with these murders.”
    MacKay’s expression hardened. “Perhaps you weren’t paying attention, Dr. Waters,” he said.
    She recognized the man’s attempt to dress her down, but she wasn’t fazed by it. “Perhaps you weren’t, Detective.” She shifted in her seat to straighten her back and cast an icy glance around the room. Most of the men, the most experienced in their fields, looked away when her gaze settled on them. Only one man, an older