Body Dump by Fred Rosen

the car had been used for anything other than simple transportation. Had they done so, they would probably have come up with microscopic traces of the people who had traveled in it, including loose hairs from the missing women. That would tie Francois forensically to the crime.
    Francois was no dope. He wouldn’t let that happen.
    Police records show that Kendall L. Francois retrieved his car from the town of Poughkeepsie impound lot on October 31. He knew, then, that he needed to get rid of it, but he decided not to sell it.
    Selling the car would be stupid. The cops could track it down to the new owner. Instead, he abandoned it where the police would never find it. He got rid of the plates, too. It was a disappearing act that a professional magician might envy. But he still needed transportation. Otherwise, he couldn’t continue in his work.
    As a human being, Francois was a slob. But as a killer, he was terribly neat and efficient in covering his tracks. He had become a real professional in his death work. If that was to continue, Francois needed a set of wheels, so he bought a new car, a late-model, white Toyota Camry. It was time to begin again.
    November 1, 1997
    It had been just over a year that the serial killer had been spreading his quiet terror through the Poughkeepsie community. People knew what was going on.
    In the small coffee shop on Main Street called the Top Tomato, people sat at the counter and between gulps of bitter hot coffee, they discussed the missing women and what the hell the police were doing to bring the killer in. Talk turned to how the rival police departments from the town and the city were handling the investigation.
    It was generally agreed that this rivalry was keeping them from pooling resources. While they twiddled their thumbs, women died. And why didn’t the state come in? They had a killer on their hands who was killing with impunity.
    No one was pacified by the elemental fact that the state had no jurisdiction to come into a murder investigation. The rationale was since the locals weren’t doing anything, they should turn it over to the state, which could be done, and let them use their vast resources to solve the case.
    “Pride goeth before the fall,” and that was what was happening, residents believed. Neither the city nor town police departments would admit they were overwhelmed in the investigation. So the killings continued.
    Bill Siegrist knew what people were thinking. He rode the streets of the city daily in his unmarked car. He stopped at Top Tomato on Main for coffee, at sandwich shops for submarine sandwiches. In over thirty years as a cop, he knew that was the best way to take the public pulse.
    If the truth be known, Bill Siegrist was frustrated and feeling, not so much guilty that he couldn’t do anything about the situation, but rather impatient. He wanted things to move . What he got was another missing girl. Strangely enough, this time the report came through the police directly.
    In October, Mary Healey Giaccone’s mother died. Mary’s father, a retired New York State corrections officer, personally came to the police to ask for help in locating his missing daughter. He had reported her missing on November 13, 1997. Her parents had not spoken with her in months. Siegrist soon discovered that the girl had actually been missing since February.
    He checked around. No one had seen Giaccone. No one knew where she was. She had vanished without a trace. Siegrist looked at the description of the missing girl and saw that it matched the rest. That made five. If Eason was added to the mix, six.
    Winter had come early to the Hudson Valley. The temperature hovered in the low thirties. And still the girls worked. Siegrist saw them on his way home to Pleasant Valley. They were out on Main Street plying their wares, selling their bodies for the money to feed their addiction. He shivered and it wasn’t from the weather.
    December 14, 1997
    Finally, finally, the Poughkeepsie