Fuller advanced to the next slide. A glistening stainless steel blade filled the screen. “Coroner said it was incredibly sharp, like it had never been used. Problem is, it’s a pretty common kitchen knife made by Henckels.” Nodded to Fuller. Next slide. “And something of interest to Agent Vail . . . the victim’s second toenail on the right foot was torn from the nail bed. Agent Vail?”
Vail leaned forward. “Yes. Well, the fact that the killer did this means that it had some significance to him. What that is, we don’t know yet. But briefly, this is what we call—”
“Signature,” Fuller said.
“Well, we used to call it signature,” Vail corrected. “But we now refer to it as ritual, or ritual behavior. That means it’s something the Unknown Subject, or UNSUB, does with the body that’s superfluous to his primary goal, which is killing his victim. In other words, it doesn’t result in the victim’s death, and it doesn’t help him avoid being caught. So it really has no relevance to anything—except that it’s deeply significant, and symbolic, for the killer. It feeds a deep-seated psychosexual need.”
She glanced over at Fuller, whose mouth was twisted and his gaze elsewhere—in his binder, to be exact. Maybe he didn’t like being corrected in front of the team. Great, more group dynamics to have to deal with.
“What I can tell you,” Vail said, “is that it’s my strong opinion this UNSUB has killed before.”
“How do you get that?” Dixon asked.
“Forget, for a moment, the other body we unearthed. If we just look at the wine cave kill, there were no hesitation marks with the blade. He strangled the vic, then sliced her wrists to allow the blood to drain. He then severed the breasts and removed the toenail. Very organized, efficient approach.” Vail curled some red hair behind her ear. “Something I think we all need to consider is that the key to this case could be access.”
“Access?” Brix asked.
“When you’re dealing with a murdered prostitute or druggie, you’re generally talking about publicly accessible places. But this is a cave, a wine cave that costs money—a lot of money—to get into. So we can narrow our offender pool of suspects by looking at who has access to the cave. This is an isolated location with a limited list of potential suspects.
“What’s more, statistically speaking, we can eliminate women, because with extremely rare exceptions, they’re not serial killers.” She paused a moment to gather herself; painful memories bubbled to the surface, but she forced them down. “And our killer is probably in his twenties or early thirties. Again, that’s going with percentages.” Vail looked around. She had everyone’s attention. “Another way we can narrow the offender’s age range is to assume this offender is physically fit. He’s able to efficiently subdue his victim, without her making much, if any, noise. And then crush her windpipe. So, again, we’re looking at a younger person.”
“Ray,” Brix said to Sergeant Lugo, “get with the Silver Ridge admin people and get their guest list. The people who go on those tours, whether it’s daytime or nighttime, pay a fair amount, so they’ll have used credit cards. Roxxi, make sure Ray has the search warrant he’ll need for that list. And their employee roster, past and present. Then narrow it down using Vail’s parameters.”
They both nodded. Brix made a note of their assignments on the whiteboard. “And, as Incident Commander, I’m naming you lead investigator. That good with you?”
Dixon looked up, appearing both surprised and pleased. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”
Fuller leaned back in his seat, his mouth making contorting movements. Vail didn’t think he was particularly thrilled with Dixon’s assignment.
Brix wrote it on the board.
“Something else to keep in mind,” Vail said. She waited a beat for Brix to turn around. “It’s likely the offender knows the cave and has been there before.”
“How can you make that assumption?” Fuller asked.
“It’s a much higher risk for him to take a victim somewhere without knowing what—or who—he’s going to find there. It’s reasonable to assume, for now, that he had intel on the location, so that suggests some connection to the winery. If he knew anything about that place, he knew they conducted nighttime wine cave tours. He wanted that body found, he wanted maximum impact and shock when that tour came through. That suggests he was familiar with the winery. He’d either been there before or worked there in some capacity. So first order of business would be to look at the workers they have on staff.”
Lugo spoke up. “That’s a minefield if we go down that road.”
“How so?”
“Migrant workers make up a significant percentage of the Napa Valley work force—they tend the vineyards, pick the grapes. A lot of them are illegal, and they move around. And they’re undocumented.”
“That makes our job a bit harder,” Vail said. They mulled Lugo’s comment a moment before she continued. “There is one caveat I should point out.”
“‘Caveat’? As in a ‘save my ass’ exception?” Fuller asked with a chuckle.
“This isn’t about my ass and it’s not about me,” Vail said. “I’m just telling you there’s a potential exception to consider. Nothing is foolproof, especially behavioral analysis.” She stared down Fuller, then continued. “So as I was saying. There are some killers who engage in high-risk kills because it’s all about the thrills. So they partake in high-risk behavior—which goes against what I just said about him having prior knowledge, or intel, about the cave.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Brix said.
Vail nodded in conciliation. “One thing that may help is that serial killers don’t wake up one day and start killing. They learn, through trial and error, what works and what doesn’t. What feeds their inner fantasies best. They experiment, learn how to stalk, how to kill. During this time, the killer is developing his interest in killing.”
“How does this help us?” Dixon asked.
“His early killing career will likely comprise failures, victims that fought back and required either more force or greater resourcefulness on his part to be successful. So his early murders will be unsolved crimes; we can look for unsolved murders in the region. But they’ll be tough to link to our UNSUB because his MO won’t look like it does now, because he wasn’t the same killer he eventually became. He may even move to another community, once he’s learned what he needs to learn to kill efficiently. We’d need to know particulars of the case, especially behaviors he engaged in with the body. Those behaviors, the ritual behaviors I mentioned a few minutes ago, don’t change whether it’s his first kill or, God forbid, his fiftieth.”
“So are you saying we expand our search?” Brix asked.
“We should contact all local police and sheriff departments within a reasonable radius to find out what unsolved female murders they’ve had in, say, the past twenty years, with ritual behaviors like the ones we’ve found here. The severed breasts, the toenail, and the slicing of the wrists.”
“Only female?”
“As I said, almost every serial killer is male,” Vail said. “Most victims are female. But not always. Some serial killers, if they’re gay, will kill other males. And some will kill males because they’re in the house and they’re obstacles to getting to the chosen prize. So they blitz-kill the male, get him out of the way, then have their way with the woman.”
“I think we’re gonna need some help if we’re expanding our potential suspect pool,” Lugo said.
“We can use the resources of the Bureau to help in this search. It’s not a panacea, but it’ll give us a good head start. It’s called VICAP, Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.”
“Robert Ressler,” Fuller said. “He started VICAP.”
“Correct,” Vail said. “Anyone here know what VICAP is?”
Only Fuller and Brix raised their hands.
“It’s a central databank maintained by the FBI. Police departments send in reports on crimes in their jurisdictions, and we can sort and se
arch the data based on unique qualifiers. So we can plug in certain parameters involving a crime and see if the same characteristics have been found in other murders in other states. Like the toenail. That’s an unusual characteristic of this killer. If we also find it in the VICAP database regarding a case down in Los Angeles, we might be able to link that murder with the ones up here.”
“Great,” Brix said. “You’ll take care of that?”
“Today. But understand its limitations. The database is only as good as the info it gets from PDs across the country. If they don’t take the time to fill out the form and submit it to us, VICAP will never know about it.”
“We’ll take what we can get,” Brix said. He turned to the board and wrote “VICAP: Vail.” Over his shoulder, while writing, he said, “If we start to zero in on a suspect or suspects and we need help, we can tap the NSIB—that’s Napa Special Investigations Bureau,” he said to Vail. “They’ll help us out with surveillance. They’re part of the standing task force, and they’ll do their part when needed.”
“Something else, before I forget.” Vail looked at the photo of the victim on the screen. “Can you advance it to the autopsy photos? A close-up of the neck.”
Fuller pressed the remote and found the picture Vail wanted.
“There. See the marks on the neck? Your coroner, Abbott, she said the UNSUB used an object, like his forearm, across the neck to choke the victim. Sergeant,” Vail said to Fuller, “can you stand for a minute?”
Fuller smiled sheepishly, slid back his chair, then rose. Vail led him over to the nearby wall and spoke to Fuller, though she was addressing all in the room. “Watch this,” she said. “I’m the UNSUB, Fuller is the victim.”
Lugo laughed. Fuller shaded red.
“This is not funny, guys. Now, watch.” She took her left forearm and shoved it into Fuller’s neck, while pushing him up and back with the side of her hip. Fuller’s torso slammed into the wall and his head not-so-gently snapped back. They stood face-to-face, her eyes two inches from his.
Fuller did not look happy.
“I’m face-to-face with my victim,” Vail said, maintaining eye contact with Fuller. “She’s looking into my eyes. And I’m looking into hers.” Vail kept her gaze on Fuller, then suddenly moved back and spun to face the others. Fuller swallowed hard and whipped his neck from side to side, but didn’t dare rub it in front of his peers.
“Do you see where I’m headed with this?”
Dixon leaned back in her chair. “You’re trying to embarrass Scott?”
Vail looked around. They all looked a tad miffed at her demonstration. “No. No, nothing like that. Think about the killer. Think about the victim. What’s our UNSUB doing?” She waited, but there were no answers. “He’s up close and personal. Confident. Controlling her. He’s killing her, taking her life, while she stares into his eyes. While she watches. For killers like this, it’s the ultimate in superiority. Complete arrogance. He’s drinking it in, watching the life drain out of her eyes.” Vail stopped, looked around. They were all looking intently at her, processing what she was saying. “Here’s something else. He could’ve chosen a lower risk victim and confronted her somewhere else, where he’d have multiple escape routes. But he didn’t. There are killers who get off on the thrill of the kill, because engaging in these kinds of high-risk stakes is part of the thrill. All that tells me we may—and I emphasize may—be dealing with a narcissistic killer.”
They all took a moment to digest that.
“So he’s in love with himself,” Brix said. “How does that help us?”
Vail, then Fuller, returned to their seats.
“Everything we learn about this guy helps. When we catch him, if he is a narcissist, it’ll require a special kind of interview technique to get him to confess. But if we do it right, he will confess. Because he wants to take credit for what he’s done. That’s what I think the toenail is about. If I had to guess—and that’s all I’m doing now—the toenail could be his calling card, his way of telling us, ‘This is my kill. Give me credit.’”
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Dixon said.
“BTK Strangler, remember him? A few years ago the trail went cold, but he contacted police when someone was ready to publish a book. He was basically saying, Hey, I’m still here. All those kills were mine. I’m the guy you want. Again, all this goes to understanding who we’re dealing with. The more we know, the more likely we’ll be able to narrow our suspect pool and get closer to identifying who this asshole is.”
“Any ideas on how to catch him?” Brix asked.
“She can’t help us catch him,” Fuller said. “She can only help us to eliminate suspects once we have some.”
“That’s true—sort of.” Vail leaned forward in her chair. She was sure what she was about to suggest would go over as well as suggesting they pair a fine Cabernet with a fast food burger. “If I’m right, if this guy is a narcissist, then we can draw him out.”
“You got my attention,” Lugo said. “How?”
“Narcissists think they’re superior to everyone else, and they want to be acknowledged for their work. They seek attention, and because of that, they’re more risky in their behaviors and actions. By keeping a lid on this murder, you may even be facilitating his need to kill more. He may keep killing till you publicly acknowledge his work, stroke his ego.”
They all laughed. One chuckled. Brix was shaking his head.
“I understand that going public with this has other implications for your community—”
Brix stepped forward. “Ain’t gonna happen, Agent Vail. I told you what’s at stake, both locally, at the state and federal levels—”
Vail held up a hand. “It’s my job to give you information. What you do with the information is your decision.”
“We could be destroying, or at least crippling, an entire industry,” Dixon said. “We have to weigh our actions extremely carefully. There’s gotta be another way to get to this guy.”
“Then you have to look at victimology. Who your victims are, then try to figure out why these two women fell into this man’s crosshairs.”
“Any idea when we’ll get an ID on the vics?” Lugo asked.
Brix walked over to the wall phone and punched in an extension. “It’s Brix,” he said into the handset. “Brooke, any chance you can get us an ID on the wine cave woman brought in last night in the—you do?” Brix listened a moment, then his eyes widened. “You sure about that?” He glanced at the faces in the room. “Keep that to yourself, Brooke. Very important. I don’t want to see that name on any paperwork.” He listened a second, then said, “As long as possible. Delay it. Lose it. We have to deal with this the right way.” He said thank you, then hung up.
Brix turned, picked up a marker, touched it to the whiteboard, then stopped and recapped the marker. He said, “It’s Victoria Cameron.”
Vail watched the reaction of those in the room. Clearly, Victoria Cameron was someone they were acquainted with. “Obviously, this means something,” Vail said.
“Yeah,” Dixon said. “Bad news for us, is what it means. Victoria Cameron is—was—the daughter of one of the most influential wine-makers in the valley. Frederick Montalvo.”
“She’s married,” Vail said.
“She is,” Fuller said, “to . . . what’s that guy’s name?”
“Kevin Cameron,” Lugo said.
Brix sighed heavily. “Okay.” He sucked on his upper lip, then leaned on the conference table with both hands. “We gotta do our jobs real well, because there’s gonna be some heat no matter what happens. If we fuck up . . . well, I don’t even want to think about it. But we need to control this information as best we can, so effective immediately, I’m putting a gag order on this building. We also need to inform next of kin. I’ve never met the lady or her family. Anyone want to handle that?”
“I got it,” Lugo said. “I went to school with one of the Montalvo brothers. I knew Victoria. I know Kevin. I know the whole family.�
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Brix wrote the assignment on the board beside Lugo’s name. “Roxxi, you’re already getting the Silver Ridge warrant drawn. Why don’t you pick up their guest list, too?”
“Will do.”
Brix moved the task to Dixon’s column. “One other thing. We’ve canvassed the area around the cave, and no one saw anything unusual. Of course, that would’ve been too easy.” He tossed the marker onto the table. “Let’s meet back here at four o’clock.” He grabbed a piece of paper from his binder and passed it to Fuller. “Write down all your contact info. I’ll run copies for all of you before you leave. Anything comes up, call me and I’ll make sure everyone knows.”
Crush (Karen Vail Series) Page 7