Dr. Daniel Sarte, who Yardley had briefly mentioned to the St. George PD, had written the definitive personality inventory for determining psychopathic traits. The FBI frequently used him for drawing up profiles and then helping with interrogation tactics once the suspects were caught. He had helped Yardley understand the way psychopaths and sociopaths interpreted the world, and she had helped him understand how to better handle cross-examination in court after a particularly poor performance in a trial involving a defendant accused of bombing his former employers.
Baldwin nodded. “I gave him a call last week, after I knew what it was. He’s reviewing the files and said he would get back to me.” He watched her a second. “What do you think, though? Just a guess?”
“I think the unsub that killed the Olsens and the Deans was extraordinarily organized and thoughtful. Not someone with paranoid delusions and psychotic breaks. He would appear, on the outside, normal to everyone else.”
His gaze drifted toward the apartment. “That’s what I thought. But you never know. Maybe we got lucky?”
10
By the time Yardley got home, she felt fatigue climbing its way up her legs and into her muscles like a fast-moving disease. She and Ortiz had never gotten that burger, but the last thing she wanted to do now was eat.
A note on the counter from Wesley told her he had to be at a free clinic for the Guardian ad Litem’s Office and would be back around nine. Tara’s bedroom door was shut—and probably locked. Yardley listened for a moment and heard her on the phone with Kevin. She softly touched the door and then went to the kitchen.
She forced herself to take some vegetables out of the fridge and made a salad, eating alone at the kitchen table. Tara came out of her room but didn’t say anything as she got a soda out of the fridge.
“Tara?”
“What?”
“I think we need to discuss Kevin.”
She took a few steps toward her mother and leaned against the kitchen island. “What about him?”
“I spoke with the school officer after the drinking incident the other day. Last year, Kevin was suspected of impregnating a girlfriend, who then transferred schools. I’m guessing he’s never told you that. And did you know he was nearly arrested last week for breaking into cars in the school parking lot?”
“It wasn’t him.”
“The officer believes it was.”
“Innocent until proven guilty. Right, Mom?”
She stayed silent a second, watching her daughter’s cold blue eyes. “I don’t think he’s appropriate for you.”
“It’s not your choice.”
“I don’t want to fight. I really don’t. I’m just telling you that he’s the type of boy that uses girls. And when he’s done using them, he discards them. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’re one to talk about picking men, right?”
“What did you just say to me?”
Tara folded her arms. “I think you heard me. It must be difficult to find out that the man you shared your bed with was sharing it with the dead, too. Do you ever wonder, Mom, what attracted you to a monster like that? Do you think there’s maybe something inside you that knew who he really was the whole time?”
Yardley’s jaw muscles contracted, but otherwise she remained motionless. Tara had an ability to see a person’s most vulnerable spot and cut it with a razor. It was a trait that had, on more than one occasion, made Yardley wonder what type of person her daughter would turn out to be.
“I don’t regret my time with Eddie Cal for one reason and one reason only: because it gave me you.”
Tara blinked softly but said only, “I’m going to my room now.”
Yardley watched her brilliant, troubled daughter shut the door to her bedroom. Did Tara understand she had a choice in who she became? Eddie Cal’s parents were good people and loving parents, and they’d created something less than human. It was proof that environment and genetics couldn’t determine who you chose to become, and some days it seemed like all Yardley could do was hope that Tara chose well.
Wesley came home a little before nine. She was in bed with her glasses on, which she only wore around him, reading a book on the history of the Byzantine Empire. He crawled onto the bed and kissed her.
“I missed you,” he said, his face a few inches from hers, staring down at her lips.
“I missed you. How was the clinic?”
He rolled his eyes and sat on the edge of the mattress, sliding off his shoes and suit coat. “One awful case after another. You can’t believe the things people do to their children during a divorce. How was your day?”
“Interviewed eight sex offenders and found a young woman tied up in a closet.”
He stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
He raised his eyebrows as he stood. “Wow. Here I was feeling sorry for myself. You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just haven’t been in screening for years, so I forgot what it’s like to actually interview people as part of an investigation.”
“Do you miss it? Seems like being in court every day is more your thing.”
“It is. But I have to admit there was something about it. The excitement. I saw him run, the man that held her. It was exhilarating.”
She wouldn’t tell him about going into Dilbert Morgan’s apartment by herself. He had already mentioned several times during the past year that he had contacts at every large law firm in the state and that she could easily make three times what she made as a prosecutor if she went into private practice. She figured he was uncomfortable with the type of cases she prosecuted. If a serial rapist got acquitted or released on bail, it wasn’t impossible that he’d target her. Career criminals blamed the prosecutors and police for their misfortunes. And violent sex offenders were typically unable to take any responsibility for their actions, sometimes even believing the victims secretly wanted the assault. A female prosecutor trying to send them to prison became an easy scapegoat for their problems.
“Well, don’t get used to that exhilaration. You know, once we hit thirty-five, it’s a fact of life that our bodies begin to deteriorate. You’re thirty-eight now and starting to feel it. I did, too, at that age. You start looking for things that make you feel young, and they’re rarely the things that are good for you.”
She laughed. “I’m not racing motorcycles, Wesley. I just enjoyed being out of an office or courtroom for once.”
He slipped off his shirt and threw it in a hamper in the closet before undoing his belt and pants and walking into the bathroom. “I’m just saying,” he said as he turned on the shower, “be cognizant of how you feel. If you think you’re fighting evil, your brain can trick you into doing things you never thought you could.”
She listened to the soothing sound of the water until a text message pinged on her phone. It was from Baldwin. They’d caught Dilbert Morgan.
11
The interview room at the St. George police station was little more than a table, a few chairs, and a window looking out over some trees between the building and the offices next door, all dark at this time of night. Television shows depicting police work had the two-way mirrors and sophisticated recording equipment, but that was rarely reality. Reality was that every time a city hit a budget deficit, they cut funding to their police force and told them to do more with less. People rarely understood that technology, not sleuthing, was responsible for most arrests, so when an officer had a laptop in his cruiser that was fifteen years out of date, he was not going to make the kind of connections he could with a new one linked to every law enforcement agency database in the country. Serial sexual predators were masters at slipping through the knowledge gaps that formed between law enforcement agencies.
Yardley watched Dilbert Morgan through the square window on the door of the interview room. He had several tics, and his hands trembled to the point that he had difficulty keeping them on the table because his fingers would tap
against it. The man who’d killed the Olsens and Deans would likely be calm and collected. Even in a police station, his pulse would stay low, and he would smile and answer questions with courtesy, deflecting accusations softly and expertly. Dilbert Morgan appeared like a man about to have a heart attack.
Baldwin stood outside the room with her and had Dr. Sarte on the phone from Boston. Yardley could hear what he was saying.
“I’m not sure he fits the profile I’m drawing for you,” Sarte said. “Many predators are proud of their accomplishments and can’t wait to brag, but this particular person has taken great pains to remain undetected. He does not want the attention. At least not yet. Keeping a woman bound in his closet and then running from you, when he likely could’ve spoken with you and diverted your attention away, isn’t what your subject would do. At least not the man that killed the Olsens and Deans.”
The fact that Sarte had said “accomplishments” to refer to murders sent a jolt of revulsion through Yardley.
“Well, take a look at the psychiatric files I’m sending over,” Baldwin said. “He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at twenty-one and has spent most of his life in institutions of one kind or another. We checked his meds, and it looks like he stopped taking them two months ago.”
“He might be too unstable to interview right now, Cason. You may want to commit him and then approach him when he’s calm and medicated. He may even have remorse for his actions and be willing to discuss them.”
Ortiz approached with an unopened soda in his hand.
“He might lawyer up when he’s more with it and I’ll have missed my shot.” Baldwin paused. “Is there anything I can do to maybe set him off? If he loses it, maybe we’ll—”
“You know I would never help with that, don’t you?”
Baldwin sighed. “Yeah, I do. Worth a shot. Thanks, Doc.”
Yardley watched him a moment. There had been a case once where Baldwin had contacted a witness who was set to testify against a serial rapist. The defense argued that Baldwin had shown her photographs of the defendant before the lineup. Baldwin had denied it, as had the witness, but Yardley had always wondered if it could be true. His motives were pure, she didn’t doubt that, but there was a thin line between pushing hard for a justified conviction and convicting an innocent person. As a prosecutor, she couldn’t allow that line to be crossed.
He hung up and said, “You ready?”
“After you,” Ortiz said.
They entered the room as Yardley watched through the glass. Dilbert Morgan rocked back and forth, his arms across his chest. He wore glasses that had fallen halfway down his nose. His thin frame gave him the appearance of a stick figure come to life, and Yardley noticed that his lips were so chapped they were bleeding in several places.
“I n-n-need t-to go h-home.”
He spoke with a thick stutter and avoided their eyes. Ortiz opened the soda and set it in front of him. “Thirsty, Dilbert? You were out in them sand dunes a bit.”
Morgan picked up the soda and took a long drink, some of it dribbling down his chin and onto his shirt. He belched, put the soda down, and then folded his arms again, resuming his rocking. Baldwin and Ortiz sat down across from him.
“Rachel’s okay,” Baldwin said. “She wanted you to know she’s okay.” He paused. “Do you remember what happened, Dilbert?”
“Sh-sh-she was j-just going t-to t-t-turn me in.”
“Turn you in for what?”
He shook his head. “I w-want to g-go home.”
“I know, Dilbert, but we can’t have you go home until we know what’s going on. You could have really hurt Rachel. Now, I know you didn’t want to hurt her, right?”
He shook his head vigorously.
Ortiz said, “Dilbert, have you ever hurt anyone else like you did Rachel? I mean, I know you don’t mean to hurt them, but was there anyone else?”
“I w-want t-t-to go h-home.”
“I know, but we can’t have you—”
Yardley opened the door. “Cason, can I see you a moment, please?”
Baldwin leaned back in the chair. “Can it wait?”
“No.”
He glanced at Ortiz, who shrugged. The two men rose and joined her.
“What is it?” Baldwin asked once the door to the interview room had closed.
“It’s clearly not him.”
Baldwin glanced back to Morgan. “We don’t know that yet.”
“Cason, it’s not him.”
“Well, let me finish with him, and we’ll determine that.”
“Fine. But I’m not comfortable with you two ganging up on a mentally ill suspect without him having a lawyer.” She took out her phone and dialed the federal public defender’s office’s after-hours line. “This is Jessica Yardley of the US Attorney’s Office. I need an attorney down at the St. George police station for a Dilbert Morgan under investigation for homicide.” She looked to Baldwin. “The FBI has two agents here, Agent Baldwin and Agent Ortiz, and I would like to have Mr. Morgan represented if he decides to speak with them.”
The operator let her know that someone would be down within the hour.
“He didn’t ask for a lawyer,” Baldwin said, scowling.
Yardley put her phone away. “Someone will be here in an hour. Call me afterward and let me know if they decide to let their client speak to you.”
She turned to leave the station without waiting for a response.
“I like her,” she heard Ortiz say to Baldwin. “She keeps your dumb ass in check.”
12
Yardley heard from office chatter that Dilbert Morgan had been cleared as a suspect in the Dean and Olsen murders. Rachel, the girlfriend, had been with him both nights, and they were even on camera at an all-night pharmacy around eleven on the night the Olsens had been killed. The fact that Baldwin hadn’t called her made her wonder if he regretted asking her to help on the case.
It was past one, and she was about to go to lunch when Baldwin appeared at her door.
“Hey,” he said.
She sat back down in her chair. “Hi.”
He leaned against the door, his hands in his pockets. “How’d you sleep?”
“Well. How about you?”
He grinned. “I hate awkward small talk.”
“Who says it’s awkward?”
He sat across from her. “I’m sorry. You were a hundred percent right. Anything I got out of him would’ve been tossed. I don’t know what came over me.”
“When a hunter is closest to his prey is when he makes the most mistakes. Or so I’m told.”
“My dad used to take me up. After my mom died, he thought it was a way for us to bond. And you’re absolutely right. The excitement of the hunt ending clouds your thinking. So you forgive me?”
He had said “died” and not “was killed” or “was murdered.” Yardley wondered if there was something that had made him reconsider her death being a murder or if it was just easier to not use that word.
“Nothing to forgive. What’s the plan now?”
“The plan is to sit around and wait because we can’t do shit, Jess. We got nothing on the second canvass through the Olsens’ neighborhood, and he very well may be planning to kill again in less than two weeks.”
“It’s not your fault, Cason. I can tell by those dark circles under your eyes you’re giving up sleep for this. You’re doing everything you can. Don’t blame yourself.”
He shook his head. “I keep seeing the next house. You didn’t go in when it was fresh. I got called the night the Olsens were killed. Pictures don’t do it justice. I’d forgotten the human body could even hold that much blood. It reminded me, actually, of the hunts with my dad. Sometimes he’d hang the buck from a tree and cut its throat to drain it. Seems like that’s what he’s doing to them.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “Guess I’ll just have another scene to go into fresh.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s not easy.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why
all us federal agents are rich, right? This is what they pay us for.” He swallowed. “Jess, I don’t have anything, and he’s going to kill again very soon.” He inhaled deeply. “I want to ask you to do something for me, and it’s not pretty.”
“What is it?”
“I’d like you to visit Eddie Cal and ask him to help us.”
Yardley was so stunned she couldn’t speak. She stared at Baldwin, who held her gaze and wouldn’t look away. The only thing that indicated he’d said something shocking was a slight blush in his cheeks.
“Cason—”
“You can’t imagine how impossibly difficult it is for me to ask you that. I’m so sorry. I thought we’d find something to at least give us the hope that we could catch this guy before the cycle was up, but there’s nothing. I’ve torn those people’s lives apart, interviewed every friend and family member they have, every neighbor, everything. We even found people that had registered drones in the vicinity and viewed any videos they had from that day, hoping we’d catch someone driving slowly by the homes. Nothing. I don’t ask for favors lightly, but I need this.”
Baldwin had previously had cases like this, even worse—the Beltway Butcher had been his most notorious. What was it about these murders that struck such a deep chord in him?
“I can’t do it, Cason. I hope you understand.”
“I know what I’m asking. I’m asking you to tear open a wound you just barely got to heal.” He rose. “I’m not going to beg, and I’m not going to sit here for an hour and try to convince you. All I know is if I didn’t ask, I’d feel like shit when I got the call from the police that they’ve found another couple. And I think if you say no, you will, too.”
When Yardley was alone again, she sat quietly and stared out her window. A large electronic sign across the street advertised a burlesque show with scantily clad girls dancing, smiles on their faces. The image flipped to a sizzling steak, and then a few seconds later to cold beer, and then to a crowded dance club. The words WE WON’T TELL IF YOU WON’T flashed across the sign. Then the image returned to the dancing girls.
A Killer's Wife (Desert Plains) Page 5