Crush

by Jacobson, Alan

  “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.”

  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.”

  Vail signed the sheet, passed it on, then stepped over to Brix. “I’m gonna need to ride with someone. Or I can do my thing with Detective Hernandez, if you don’t mind.”

  Brix chuckled. “As long as you don’t tell him who the vic is, I don’t care what you do.”

  “You still don’t want me here, do you?”

  “What I want doesn’
t really matter, does it? I think you’ve got some valuable insight we could use. Is it gonna catch us a killer? I have no fucking idea.”

  “Profiling isn’t gonna catch us a killer, Brix. It’s just another weapon at our disposal.”

  He closed his binder and slung it under his wrist. “Let’s hope that weapon is locked and loaded. We may very well need to use it.”

  FOURTEEN

  Vail walked outside into the cool air and took a deep breath. The scent of American oak barrels filled with fermenting Cabernet grapes floated on the air like the background perfume of an expensive day spa in Calistoga, miles down the road.

  Then again, maybe she was just imagining it. She gave Robby a call to see where he was, but he didn’t answer his cell. She left a message, then called her ASAC, Thomas Gifford.

  A moment later, she was put through to his desk. “So how’s your vacation? How’s the weather out there? Been raining nonstop here since you left. I think you should come home, give us a break.” He chortled a bit, in surprisingly good spirits.

  She hesitated. “Weather’s been good. Vacation was good, too. But . . .”

  “I don’t think I like the sound of this, Karen. But what?”

  She and Gifford didn’t agree on much, and they’d had their share of arguments, but this was not likely to sit well with him, given what had happened with Yates, and, of course, Dead Eyes. Given the work the profilers did, the mental health of those in his units was a top priority. “Well, we kind of stumbled onto something here.”

  “What kind of ‘something’?”

  “Something like a dead body. Both breasts severed and removed from the scene—”

  “Ah, Jesus Christ, Karen. What are you, a serial killer magnet?”

  “Yeah, that’s a good one, boss. Remind me to put that on my new personalized license plate.”

  “Serious, Karen. I sent you away to get away, get your mind off this shit.”

  “Believe me, I wasn’t looking for it. It was a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ kind of thing.” Maybe I am some sort of psychosexual offender magnet.

  “So let me guess. You told the detective assigned to the case that you should help out, because you’re the great Karen Vail, super agent who thinks she can absorb all sorts of psychological trauma and keep on ticking.”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “So now he wants BAU support.”

  “Right again, sir. Did you eat your Wheaties this morning? You’re on a roll.”

  Silence. Ooops. I must’ve gone a tad too far. Why do I always do that?

  Finally, Gifford said, “So you think this is a serial offender?”

  “I do. Not his first kill. Pretty brazen, possibly narcissistic.”

  “Fine, you’re there, you take the case. But I don’t want you staying longer than your vacation. And when you get back, I want you to take a real vacation. Maybe we’ll put you in a cement overcoat, suspend you by crane over the Potomac, where you can’t get into trouble.”

  “If you think it’ll help.”

  “Honestly, I don’t. Somehow trouble will find you.”

  “I’ll have the Incident Commander send you a formal note on letterhead. And hey, the sheriff here went to the National Academy.”

  “Well, hey, that really makes my day, Karen. That makes me so happy. Glad to hear it. Just . . . just keep me up to date on what’s going on.”

  Before she could reply, she realized the line was dead. But she still needed the VICAP run, so she called back. Asked for a colleague of hers, Frank Del Monaco. He answered on the third ring.

  “Frank, it’s Karen.” She heard an audible sigh. “Something wrong?”

  “I was having such a nice day before you called, is all.”

  “And now?”

  “Not so much. Wait—aren’t you in California on vacation?”

  “Well, you got the first part right. Listen, I need you to run something through VICAP.”

  “What do I look like, your servant?”

  “Frank, I’m three thousand miles away. If I could do it myself, and not have to ask you for anything, I’d do it. Now, I need you to run the following parameters. The UNSUB we’re looking for—”

  “You’re on vacation and you’re working a case?”

  “Yes, Frank. And I don’t need any shit from you. Just run this or I’ll call Rooney or Hutchings.”

  “Rooney’s in California, too. But, fine, whatever.”

  Vail gave him the details of the behaviors she had observed. Del Monaco said he would run the report when he was done with his meetings and get back to her when he had the results.

  She hung up and tried Robby again. Voice mail. She went back into the sheriff’s department and tracked down Brix. “I need a car or I need to ride with someone.”

  “What about Hernandez?”

  “He’s off doing his own thing. He’s not answering his phone.”

  “Smart guy, probably tasting wine and enjoying himself.”

  She ignored his swipe. “So—car or not?”

  “Not. You can ride with Dixon.” He told Vail to wait there, then disappeared back into the task force conference room, down the hall. He emerged a moment later with a reluctant Dixon. Vail couldn’t hear what was being said, but from Dixon’s hand movements, it appeared she was asking, “Why me?”

  After her apparently futile argument, Dixon moved back into the room while Brix held open the door. Dixon appeared seconds later with her binder clutched in her left hand. She made her way down the corridor to Vail. Her body was stiff, her face tight.

  “Guess I’m chauffeuring you around today,” Dixon said.

  “Just for a bit, till my friend gets my voice mail, then you can be rid of me.”

  They walked outside to Dixon’s county-issued vehicle, a Ford Crown Victoria. She got in and unlocked the doors.

  As Vail sorted herself out, Dixon snapped her seat belt and said, “Now what?”

  “This is your investigation,” Vail said. “I’m here to help, that’s it. If there’s some insight I can offer that’ll help narrow our pool of suspects, that’s my specialty.”

  Dixon put the car in drive and headed out of the lot. “Problem is, we have no pool of suspects.”

  “At this point, we don’t even have a pond.”

  Dixon stifled a laugh. “Yeah, no pond.”

  “I put in a call to Quantico and we should have a report on the VICAP results later. Meanwhile, let’s make use of our time.”

  “How about we start where all crimes start? Motive.”

  Vail knew that motive for a serial killer was a much different animal from that which a traditional criminal exhibits. But she decided to go with Dixon, see where it would lead. “Keep in mind that most murders are between individuals who know each other. Serial offenders are traditionally stranger on stranger crimes, which makes it harder. Motive isn’t always visible to us.”

  “Noted,” Dixon said. “But we have one thing going for us.

  Victimology—in this case Victoria Cameron and the Jane Doe. Start with basic investigative policework: Who would want her dead? Had she had any arguments with anyone? What was her relationship with her husband like? Do any of these things have to do with the Jane Doe lying in the morgue?”

  “All good stuff,” Vail said. “We may want to extend that to looking into where Victoria shopped, places she frequented on a regular basis, people she did business with, and so on. Once we get an ID on the corpse Brix unearthed, we’ll do the same for her. That’ll generate a suspect pool and then I can be a little more helpful.”

  “I thought your info was pretty helpful.”

  Vail tried not to let the surprise show on her face. “Thanks, Roxxann. I appreciate that.”

  WHILE DRIVING, Dixon activated her visor-mounted Bluetooth and called her office. She spoke with the deputy district attorney and explained why they needed a search warrant drawn for Silver Ridge Estates, and told her that Brix would be drafting the probable cause statement. She was
promised an executed warrant within the hour.

  “So what’s the scoop on the guys on the task force?”

  Dixon chuckled. “What am I, the school gossip queen?”

  “It’s best to know who I’m dealing with so I don’t put my foot in my mouth.” Vail threw up a hand. “Scratch that. I’m gonna put my foot in my mouth anyway. But I’d still like to know who these people are.”

  “Haven’t you profiled everyone in that room already?”

  Vail couldn’t help but let a smile tilt her lips. “I try not to do that. Makes it hard to get along with people.” She shook her head. “Scratch that, too. Guess it doesn’t help. But to answer your question, yeah, I can’t help but do it. Like Scott Fuller. He seems like a know-it-all.”

  “Oh, yeah. Boy Wonder, everything handed to him on a gold platter. He’s read all the books, can probably even recite what chapters that shit comes from. But he’s light on experience.”

  “Book smarts, not street smarts. He’s certainly got the profiling stuff down—but it’s textbook stuff, dated info, like he read all the Underwood, Douglas, and Ressler books and committed them to memory.”

  Dixon nodded. “But here’s the wrinkle. He’s the stepson of Stan Owens.”

  Vail tilted her head. “Really. See, now that’s good to know.”

  “Which is how he’s ascended the ranks so quickly.”

  “And one to be careful around,” Vail said.

  “But Ray Lugo’s a good guy. Been here all his life, started out as an underage migrant field worker picking grapes. Parents were illegal, but he was born here, so he’s a U.S. citizen. He worked hard, did well in school, and went to the Academy, became a cop.”

  “And here he is, a sergeant. Very impressive.”

  “Whereas Fuller had it handed to him, Ray’s earned it.”

  “And you?” Vail asked.

  “Me? I don’t like to talk about myself.”

  “Neither do I. But—”

  “But if you had to draw conclusions about me—”

  “I’d say you’re intuitive. You’re diligent, detail oriented. You’ve been doing this job awhile but you’re not bored with it. And . . .”