by Rivers, Mal
“No angle.” I lied. “Just me doing the legwork.”
“Hmm, why don’t I believe that?”
“You’re FBI, you don’t believe anything.”
Kacie grinned.
“Why did you invite me here anyway?” I said.
She cleared her throat and said, “Figured you might want to meet some people helping to put a profile together for the Cross Cutter. We’ve got our own criminal profilers, as well as a psychiatrist we use from time to time.”
“Not sure that would be any good to us. Ryder has little time for that kind of stuff.”
“Why am I not surprised. What about you?” She leaned back with interest.
“Beats me. I’ll take any opinion, but I’m inclined to agree with her. I’d give a decade’s pay for any shrink or profiler to tell me exactly what kind of person she is.”
“You don’t need a psychiatrist to know she’s a narcissist. Dare I say, a high Mach.”
“I have no idea what that is, but I resent it on principal.”
Kacie smiled and waved her hand. “Look it up,” she said. “Anyway, if she isn’t applying such thinking, how does she intend to catch a serial killer?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s why I’m out on errands. After the trip with you I was supposed to be tracking down Nora Klyne’s family.”
“Ah,” she said with a smile. “Hate to break it to you, but we already tried that angle. That the Cross Cutter knew Nora Klyne somehow. Got us nowhere.”
I put down my coffee mug and didn’t reply. I knew she’d practically marry me for the information on Lee Lynch and the impostor Lynch, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble. I’d sooner wait to see Ryder solve the case without either of those facts escaping. I figured the probability of success was low, and I’d never put money on it. That’s what clients are for.
Kacie had pulled me away from the seemingly empty sixteenth floor to the fourteenth. Of the few dozen or so cubicles within the centre, about half of them had someone working at the desks. Most of them with telephones cradled in their hands.
We bypassed the main hub and arrived at a small conference room with a table with eight chairs. Only one of the four window blinds was open to the far right. The light shone on a middle aged man wearing an inexpensive suit. He looked at me as if I wasn’t welcome, a feeling I’m all too familiar with. I usually reply with a cocky grin; as if to say, I’m here, deal with it.
“Ader, meet Special Agent Liam Bingham, Criminal Profiler.”
I nodded and held up my palm. “Hey.”
“Hello,” he said plainly. He turned his attention to Kacie. “The meeting isn’t for a half hour.”
Kacie brushed back her hair and smiled. “Meeting—what meeting?”
“The meeting we arranged for 3PM. Agents from the BI were suppose to be here to discuss the profile.”
“Oh,” Kacie said in a high voice. “That meeting.” She patted my shoulder. “I just wanted to share your insights with the detective, that’s all”
He looked at me again and frowned. “He can wait till 3PM.”
I could tell in his voice that he didn’t want me in the room. He probably wouldn’t want me at the 3PM meeting either. As much as I can tell people to deal with my presence, I can’t force them to give me what I want. Well, not with the P230 in the glove box.
“Hey, I know when I’m not welcome. Keep your hocus pocus to yourself,” I said, turning my back.
“Hocus pocus? Just how ignorant are you?” he said.
Bingo. I smiled, knowing I’d hooked him. “I don’t go for all that psychology stuff. Would take something great to convince me.”
He pushed his seat forward and shuffled his jacket over his neck. “I can assure you my profession has helped track down several criminals in as little as two years.”
“Well, hooray for that,” I said. I sat down three chairs from him and Kacie played along by sitting beside me. “Go on then.”
Bingham cleared his throat and shuffled his jacket again. He put his arms out across the table and perused a sheet of paper he’d laid out on the table. He pushed four separate sheets across to me and he nodded.
“Those are the profiles we came up with previously. It has changed somewhat over time. Until the fourth murder, we assumed the murderer to be male, white, aged thirty to forty. Lives centrally in California. But then the female victims came.”
I held out my hand. “Skip what you thought a year ago, what now?”
“Well,” he said. “We still think the killer is a white male. In his forties. Socially capable, with mild intelligence. Physically strong. His motive seems to be purely thrill based as there has never been any sexual aspect to the crimes.”
“That it?” I said. “That hardly narrows it down.”
Bingham sighed. “The point of a profile is to help prioritize suspects, not find them. Besides, I haven’t got to his motive. The process of his murders are the same, but the execution wavers. Which implies it is not the act of killing he enjoys. It is the end product. He likes to see life taken away. He likes to watch them hang there. To see something become nothing. Our killer is a watcher. To him, the gain lies with simple destruction. That is all.”
I rubbed my chin a while and almost slapped myself, when for a second, I almost found myself going for my notebook.
I said, “Forgive me—but that doesn’t sound right. Some of the victims died before being hanged. And the killer still cut them. What explains that, seen as you say ritual and execution has little to do with it? If all he wanted was destruction, why didn’t he just watch Lynch on the floor when he cracked his skull? Also—”
A slow clap from behind interrupted me. I looked over my shoulder and found a smart, strikingly attractive woman in the doorway. Mousy brown hair, pulled back, wearing a white blazer and designer glasses. A stray bang of hair came up and over her glasses and she didn’t remove it even when she spoke.
“Well done. I can tell I am going to like you,” the woman said.
Kacie swung round on her chair and Bingham gave what could only be described as an anxious grimace. Kacie held out her hand and introduced her.
“Sorry, Ader, this is Doctor Bishop.”
“Cassandra, please.” The doctor smiled. She presented herself amicably, with her hands behind her back. The smile was straight and she never let it sag. “You are the detective, I assume?”
“When I can’t help it, yes,” I said.
“What a strange way to put it. And when you can help it?”
“Oh, then I’m just an investigator.”
She smiled. “I suppose there is a distinction, of sorts.”
Kacie interrupted us and invited the doctor to sit. She declined politely and continued to look at me.
“I fear if I sit, I would remain until the meeting, and I still haven’t had lunch. Am I right in assuming you were discussing our killer?”
Kacie nodded in confirmation and Bingham grunted and said, “Until you entered.”
Doctor Bishop smiled and took a single step back. “I think I will return later, when there is a little objectivity in the room. Perhaps you would like to join me?”
I couldn’t really decide whether that was aimed at me, Kacie, or both of us. As it turned out, the decision was made for me, when Kacie excused herself awkwardly, saying she had to make a phone call. I doubt she was skittish or insulted about it. She has a boyfriend—or girlfriend, I can’t remember.
On her way out, she said, “Oh, Ader, you might want to get a copy of the stuff on Guy Lynch for Miss Genius. Come by my office in—”
“Oh, a half hour is long enough for lunch, wouldn’t you say?” Doctor Bishop said.
I nodded casually and did likewise to Kacie, who returned it, then stumbled on her half turn before walking into the labyrinth of cubicles.
15
Cassandra Bishop, whom I shall no longer address as Doctor, because she told me not to, sat at a shaky table in the cafeteria a floor below. I opted fo
r a single sandwich to be polite. Roast ham and egg. The sandwiches in my car had probably turned by now, thanks to the mayonnaise.
She ate her chicken Caesar salad delicately, with a single fork. Not that I minded, but Ryder would hate such an act. Eat with a single fork? Grotesque.
“I take it you and that profiler don’t see eye to eye,” I said.
“Oh, he’s just bitter because I disagree with him.” She dabbed her cheek with a paper napkin and smiled. “Much like yourself.”
“I thought you were a psychiatrist?”
“Indeed I am. But that doesn’t mean I conform to the menial profession that is criminal profiling.”
“Oh. So what do you conform to?”
“I would hardly say I conform to anything. I prefer adapt. It sounds more willing. Over the years, one gains knowledge, of course, which may adjust one’s thinking on certain subjects. But, in answer to your question, I learned a long time ago that people aren’t as one dimensional as testing would suggest. The notion we are all beings of order, and that we as a race act within logic and reason.”
“Because if we act without reason, we act in chaos. But perhaps there is also reason within chaos.”
She lifted her head up and nodded. “Very apt way to put it. I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “Something my boss said this morning. At least, I think she said it like that.”
She gave a small chuckle. “I’d very much like to meet this Kendra Ryder. I think we would get along.”
I readjusted myself and ignored that statement. I had no doubt Ryder would never have time for her. I decided to get back to the point at hand.
“So, you think the FBI has it wrong? That this killer is beyond profiling?”
She dabbed her cheek again and laughed. “Oh, no. Nothing like that. I think on the whole they are heading in the right direction.”
“Well, make your mind up. I thought you said you don’t agree with criminal profiling?”
She shook her head. “I said I didn’t agree with the idea of criminal profiling, in the sense that all the energy and psychological focus is geared toward a criminal mind. But, like I said, the profile they have ticks the majority of the boxes. Their problem is they can’t decide the contributing facts toward the profile they allegedly have. They keep flip flopping with ideas. For instance, they’re entertaining the idea that the latest victim was the act of a copycat.”
“What do you think?” I leaned forward.
“It’s a solid enough consideration of the facts. But the change in the incisions needn’t be linked as such. There are many reasons why the cuts changed in ferocity, or why the horizontal cut was significantly lower.” The left side of her mouth curled up a little and she blinked. “But, therein lies a problem. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Anything can be reasoned to sound plausible.”
I returned the blink and my eyes probably tightened in a frown. I kind of understood Ryder’s distaste for psychiatrists, and their need to be so damned ambiguous.
“So, forgetting what’s plausible—what is your take on the Cross Cutter?” I asked.
I could say she smiled again, but the truth was, the smile seemed constant, permanently engraved on her face. “Like your employer, I normally charge for services.” She rose from her chair and handed me a business card. “Come to my office later and we can talk.”
Well, I knew what reply that would invoke. We wouldn’t be prepared to pay her and I’d never make the visit. Nevertheless, I pocketed the card and rose politely. I’d no more faith in psychiatrists than Ryder, but there was something in her. Something that could perhaps help us.
“Even if you do not acquire my services, I would very much like to see you again,” she said. “I think it’s your face. You have a good, trusting face, slightly mischievous, though.” She smiled some more and held out her hand. I returned my own and we shook.
“Okay—” I said. “Aren’t you staying for the meeting?”
“I’ve changed my mind. Did you know the BI will be here too? The room will be full of ideas. A dozen chefs stirring the soup, so to speak.”
“Fair enough. I’ll head to Agent Cordell’s office before I go. See you soon.”
“Hopefully.” She gave her last smile, replaced her glasses and then walked off toward the exit of the cafeteria.
I stood for a while and pondered her. It seemed odd to me that she invited me for lunch just to discuss psychiatry, to only give me a business card and an offer of service.
But, then again, perhaps she was fishing for business and the FBI weren’t paying her, just like they weren’t paying Ryder.
Ryder can’t be the only one needing a check to deposit.
16
I reached Kacie Cordell’s office a few minutes before 3PM, and she was frazzled. Rushing about in the ten by five foot room, shouting at her desk drawers.
I entered, calm and flippant as ever.
“The hell,” I said, “you said you had an office—this is a closest with a desk.”
“Oh, shut up,” she barked, and then looked up at me. “Sorry. I’m late. I can’t find my reports.”
“I won’t bother asking for mine, then.”
“Oh, I found them. Just my luck.” She took one step backward and took a box from the single filing cabinet in the corner and dropped it on her desk. “Go nuts.”
“Will do.” I opened the lid and decided it wouldn’t do any harm to look at its contents. “Mind if I check it over in your office?” I said, making the quotation sign with my fingers.
She walked toward the door and nodded. “Stay out of my drawers.”
Kacie left in a hurry without her reports. I decided to make myself at home and took her cheap swivel chair round the front of the desk and parked myself right there, the door still open. I didn’t particularly care if anyone saw me.
There were completed autopsy reports, well detailed, so I decided that could wait for Ryder, to go along with my own personal report of the restroom.
Some of the photographs showed things I didn’t see at the restroom. The overflowing wash basin and the faucet, which was found in the middle of the room. The faucet was also in the inventory list of evidence. The thought that it could be the blunt instrument that struck Lynch on the back of the head would have had more weight if there was any evidence other than blood, but there wasn’t. I had to question the idea of dismantling it for that purpose, too.
Further examination revealed a small amount of blood in and around the wash basin, something I attributed to the killer cleaning up after cutting Lynch.
I checked it over and noticed something. What I saw took a while for my brain to process. I just sat there and waited for my heart to sink. When it hit the chair, or there about, I jumped up and rubbed my forehead. I looked at the photograph from all angles and it still didn’t change; the still picture of a silver bracelet with the image of an omega symbol. I recognized it immediately and the very idea swelled inside my head. What did it mean, and what could I do?
Suddenly, ideas came into my head. Partly conjecture, some of the events since Monday making half-sense.
There was nothing for it. I had to get to Kacie before that meeting and ask her about it. I rushed to the meeting room to find it empty. Not a soul in there. Even the profiler, Bingham, had vacated his seat at the far end.
I retreated into the main room and saw numerous agents milling around a desk, looking at a white board. Dust spiraling in the air as the sun crept through the window. They then walked away in different directions. Some of them on cell phones. I saw Kacie among them and tried to intercept her, but she just stared at me, blankly. The other agents scowled and left her.
“Hey,” she said. “I—gotta go, something’s come up. You should go too. See a movie or something.”
“Movie—the hell you talking about?”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “We got a lead. I can’t tell you about it, though. I gotta go.”
“Wait—about the rep
ort—”
She turned and stared blankly, as if she wanted to divulge something. She turned quickly again, with a visible amount of distress. “Just go. I’m sorry—”
She practically ran to the exit. With her reaction, I knew what was up. It seemed like curious timing, but what I had found in the evidence file had obviously reached them somehow, although I couldn’t figure why.
I ran to the nearest hallway where my cell phone could get signal. I dialed the number for the beach house and had to wait six rings.
“Hello?” Melissa answered.
“Hey, it’s me. She there?”
A pause. “What’s up with you? You know she’s at the pier for three o’clock,” she said.
I sighed. “Dammit. Never mind. Look, listen to me, okay. You need to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Pack a bag. Essentials. I’m high tailing it back to the office and I’m taking you somewhere.”
“Where? I told you before I’m not—”
“I don’t know where I’m taking you. But anytime soon, the FBI and God knows what else will be at our door. And they’re coming for you.”
“For me? Why?”
“Because you dropped that goddamned bracelet when you killed Guy Lynch.”
17
Driving hastily down the highway, I can be forgiven for being somewhat dumbfounded. My brain wasn’t really functioning beyond the task of moving a steering wheel.
Did Melissa kill Guy Lynch? Nerks. That’s all I could think. At such a time it’s probably best not to think, but I did anyway.
She had no motive—at least, none that I knew of. I suppose an even more absurd question would be: is she the Cross Cutter? Again, nerks. But I could clarify that, as I’m pretty sure she would alibi out on a few of the previous murders.
But the whole scenario of Guy Lynch’s murder, even though it was farfetched in most respects, didn’t fare too well for Melissa. The bracelet withstanding, there was the fact she’d been out during the time of his death. Melissa was at the beach house when I got back, but that wasn’t until 2.30PM, and the time of death was judged to be around two o’clock; a close call time wise, something the lawyers would argue both ways about. Also, there was the business card. Naturally, the feds and company assumed Lynch had it on his person from the meeting with Ryder. We, however, knew the real Guy Lynch was never at our office, and Melissa does carry cards with her. Maybe Lynch had snatched one from her.