by Rick Murcer
Agent Wilkins stood, subconsciously touching the dark bruising just below her jaw, nodding.
“Good reasoning, Manny, but we’re not going down investigation lane until I know who or what truly brought you out here. And forget the phone calls and text.”
He exhaled. “We talked to a barmaid in the Egyptian who gave us the first name of a man, or demon, depending on your perspective, that sounded like he could be our unsub. The name is Fredrick.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
“Have you heard of the serial killer, Doctor Fredrick Argyle?”
Her look went blank, then back to focus. “Who in the Bureau hasn’t? He killed, what, fifty or more people? You ended him in Scotland or Ireland a year or so ago, right?”
“That’s the one. The thing is. . .we’re not sure I did end him, as you say.”
Manny, with the help of Sophie and Dean, went through everything that had happened from Max Tucker’s death in North Carolina to the empty graves in Lansing to the texts Manny had sent announcing Chloe’s pregnancy, her subsequent return text, and the phone call to Gavin. They detailed the cult-growing charm and power Argyle possessed, and Dean filled her in on just enough forensic evidence to cause her eyes to widen.
“That’s why we’re here, Agent Wilkins,” finished Manny. “The man that died on that boat in Ireland could have been someone other than Argyle.”
Waiting for the conversation to sink in as much as possible under the circumstances, Manny watched Agent Wilkins grapple with the truth that was far from believable.
Finally, she looked up from the table. “Okay. We get paid for figuring this crap out, so let’s get to it.”
Looking at his watch, Manny got the sense that time was running short.
“When you and Agent Frost picked us up from the airport, we drove the most common route toward the office, right?” asked Manny.
“We did. It’s the fastest way here,” answered Agent Wilkins.
“So the route would be fairly common knowledge, and those SUVs aren’t exactly the kind of vehicles that go unnoticed, especially if you’re looking for one.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“All right. Think back, and this is for all of us. Did you see anything on the way to the intersection that seemed unusual or got your attention?”
“We did this before. Do you want us to close our eyes and shit?” asked Sophie.
“If it helps,” said Manny. “And that’s a good idea.”
After a few moments, Sophie spoke again. “You know, I have to admit I had stars in my eyes and was sort of preoccupied with Kim and Dean’s history. Of course, that brought out the snippy-bitch syndrome. I don’t remember anything that seemed off color to me. But then again, this isn’t like home, so I don’t know what’s truly out of the ordinary.”
Manny nodded. “I keep thinking the same thing. I was a little starry-eyed as well. I’ve not been here enough to know what normal is.”
“For the time of day and the route down Las Vegas Boulevard, then to the intersection, it was pretty typical. People flock to the streets when the temperature is around eighty or so. It wasn’t unusual to see people of all walks out and about, if that helps.”
More silence.
“I can’t think of anything except when Agent Frost changed lanes to let that green Jaguar pass by us. Not that unusual, I guess, but it was the only thing that stood out for me,” said Dean. “Other than Sophie and Kim’s conversation. That was pretty cool.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Mikus. We were simply getting to know each other,” said Sophie.
Writing on his white tablet, Manny nodded. “That could be something, Dean. Let’s find out.”
“How?” said Agent Wilkins.
“We’re waiting for more forensics and to see the surveillance video, but maybe that car, or another vehicle we didn’t notice, went past us and then came back to that particular intersection, and waited to take the shot,” said Manny.
“Makes sense, but risky,” said Sophie.
“It was . . . just one more thing that makes this profile a little different than I’d expect,” said Manny.
“What does that mean?” asked Sophie.
“I’m not sure. Yet. Let’s keep going with the mummy in the room at the Egyptian. Dean?”
Reaching up to stroke his beard, Dean then adjusted his paisley driver’s hat. “The forensic info was pretty slim. He did a good job of not leaving much, if anything, unintentionally. It kind of reminded me of the casket back home. A few things, but nothing that made me want to dance the tango.”
“Oh, that I’d like to see,” said Sophie.
“Me too,” said Agent Wilkins.
“Not me,” said Manny. “What else?”
“We can do more things on the spot than we used to, thanks to the new databases we’ve set up. I hadn’t had a chance to discuss this with Manny and Sophie because we were called here, but like I said, there wasn’t much. I researched the gauze via its number stamped into the ending of each roll. You can buy it anywhere and in several department stores. I also was able to take great pictures of the five Canopic jars and send them to our database with instructions to forward them to local authorities all over the country. Maybe someone will recognize the work or something.”
“Good thinking,” said Manny.
“It’s a long shot, but you never know if someone might recognize the craftsmanship. Maybe we get a link to the killer from it.”
“I also took pictures of the grooves around the edges of the incision and the drill hole. Like I said, we’re putting new databases together almost daily, so hopefully the guys in the home office will come up with a match to the drill tip and type.”
“Isn’t this all a bit ridiculous?” asked Agent Wilkins.
Manny could tell frustration and impatience were beginning to get the best of her.
“For crying out loud. We know what the man looks like. It’s right here on video, and I got a bird’s eye view. Face to face. Up close and personal. Ass to eye. Whatever damn way you want to say it.”
“Did you?” asked Manny. “How do you know it’s not just the look he wanted you to see?”
Agent Wilkins blinked and then bit her lip. “I . . . well, I don’t. Awww shit. Didn’t I?”
“We’ll find out, just stay with us. What else, Dean?”
“The usual fibers, hairs, and stain routine. I used the UV light to see if there had been any recent sexual activity. There hadn’t been. There wasn’t any reason to use Luminol because the blood loss was contained, and surprisingly, not that much.”
“That could mean she was killed somewhere else,” said Sophie.
Dean shook his head. “Normally, I’d agree with you. But I don’t think so. It would have been difficult to get her into her room unseen for one thing, and the other is the precision of the wounds, particularly on the side of her head. He missed the big arteries.”
“Cause of death?” asked Manny, wondering if there might be another angle here. He suspected there was.
Raising his eyebrows, Dean answered. “Good question. I’m not totally sure. The ME will have to make that call. Each of the injuries could have killed her. But, if you’re inferring that he could have killed her a different way, which might also account for the lack of blood, then that’s possible. I did draw blood for toxicology reports, as usual, so we’ll see when we get the results.”
“What about the contents in the jars,” asked Manny, pretty sure his first evaluation was the right one.
“Like you thought, the first four smaller jars had sections of human organs. Liver, lung, stomach, and large intestine. The large jar on her midsection had a large part of her brain, I’m pretty sure it was her brain and not someone else’s, that is,” said Dean, his voice growing quieter.
Manny made another note on his tablet, his internal scowl growing.
“Dean, did you make a drawing of exactly which jar contained what and how it was located in relationship to th
e larger jar?” he asked.
He answered, looking a little bewildered. “I took pictures and made notes, but I didn’t actually draw it out. I mean, come on, we have high resolution cameras to make sure I don’t miss anything like that. Why?”
“Can you draw it from memory?”
“I suppose so, why?”
“Have at it please. I think there’s a reason he adopted this whole Egyptian motif, and it has to do a great deal with those jars. I have to make sure the jars line up with the four Sons of Horus and figure out why there’s a fifth that has nothing to do with the Egyptian myths.”
As Dean bent over his notes and began to draw, Sophie reached over and touched Manny’s arm. He wasn’t the only one with a nervous habit.
“Why?” asked Sophie. “Isn’t it enough that he copied the mythology to the letter, except for the brain jar—Oh! It’s a representation, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” said Manny.
“Of what?” asked Agent Wilkins.
Manny raised his hand. “It could be three or four things, and none of them good. What do you think, Sophie?”
“Hell, Manny, I don’t know. I guess I’d start with what each organ does. Then see how important that is to how the body functions?” she said.
“I think that’s a good start. Remember when we talked about patterns? Let’s see if we can find one. Dean?”
Dean slid the piece of paper he’d been drawing on over to Manny.
“I’m no artist, but I think you get the picture. Ha. Get it? Picture?”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Not that clever, Beard Boy. Kind of cute though.”
“I was trolling for a compliment. Thanks, I think,” said Dean.
Manny turned the drawing around and studied Dean’s rendition of the five jars.
The jar containing part of Grace’s brain was in the middle of the other four as he’d seen them in the room. Dean had made that one larger than the others. Each smaller jar was at a forty-five degree angle away from the center jar possibly representing each direction, east, west, north, and south. Or maybe just making the whole representation symmetrical.
Bending closer, he read the names of the organs associated with each jar. The jar containing the liver was at the top, north. The jar containing the lung tissue was left, or west. The south-end jar contained a partial section of a stomach, while the east, or right, jar concealed large intestine material.
Studying the sketch, he felt his mind diverge in a hundred different directions. Then he was struck with two obvious questions.
“Dean. You sent samples of each organ to be analyzed. That included DNA, right?”
“Right. Standard procedure. In this case, we should be able to match up the tissue with the victims. The necrosis of tissue is obviously affected by the length of time it’s disconnected from the body and will help tell how much time had passed since death. The DNA will finish up the ID process.”
“We won’t have that for a while, however, right?”
“It’ll be another few hours, at least. And that’s if the lab jumped it ahead of their backlog, which I suspect they did,” answered Dean.
“What are you thinking?” asked Sophie, her eyes narrowing at Manny.
That was another great question. He turned in the direction of Agent Wilkins.
“Okay. Now I need to know exactly what he did and said after he took Lane and Teachout out of the equation. Take your time and tell me everything you remember.”
She released a low whistle. “That shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not like I’ll forget that face, that voice, his warm breath, or the grip he had on my throat any time soon. Maybe never.”
She rocked back in her leather chair and stared at the ceiling for a few moments. Manny wasn’t totally sure if she was gathering courage or trying to recall the situation to its fullest. He bet on the former.
“He had a deep, raspy voice. I’d agree with what Detective Teachout said about disguising his voice. His eyes were blue, almost too blue, so maybe he wore contacts. His Fedora covered some of his forehead, but I think it was kind of high, if I had to guess. His face was a little angular and good looking. He had a black goatee and long, Elvis-like sideburns that didn’t quite match his beard. So I’d say one of them wasn’t real.”
She drank from her glass of water, swallowing hard, and wincing as she did.
“He could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty. I was under duress, no doubt, but I’m not sure I could have guessed his age anyway. That is probably because of the shape he was in. He was stocky, well built, over six feet, and as strong as a mule. His hand was large; he picked me up with one hand. That’s one hundred forty pounds of struggling special agent lifted completely from the floor.”
“Keep going, Agent Wilkins,” said Manny.
She nodded. “He was perspiring, but I didn’t notice an odor. Again, he was good looking, and his face was relatively smooth. He pulled me close at one point and told me to tell you ‘no more riddles, no more games.’ Just him and the wild west, whatever that means.”
Manny frowned. He looked down at the etching Dean had done and then back to Agent Wilkins.
“Nothing else unusual or distinctive?” he asked.
“Other than walking into this building after he’d killed another agent like he owned the place, and nearly killing three trained cops, just to give you some kind of showdown message? No, nothing I can think of,” she answered, a little of that attitude returning.
He revisited her description of the killer. His thoughts then ran to her statement about almost killing three trained cops. Why hadn’t he killed them?
“Manny. I think it’s time to look at the videos,” said Sophie. “What else do we need? Somehow that son of a bitch is alive. We’ve gone through each step, like you wanted. That’s all that’s left. We need to see Argyle to confirm his ID.”
“You’re right about one thing, Sophie. We need to see the videos,” he said softly.
“What does that mean exactly?” she asked.
He exhaled. He wasn’t sure if it was from relief or to steady his nerves for what was coming.
“We won’t see Argyle on the videos. He’s not our killer.”
CHAPTER-48
Sophie stood from her chair and walked over to the wall, smacked it with her hand, and came back to the table. The surprise of Manny’s statement hadn’t quite left her. Her eyes said so.
“How . . . how in the name of God do you know that? I mean, we’ve been following this from Michigan. It’s all about Argyle. You even said you believed he was alive on the flight out here. Damn, Williams, start talking,” she demanded.
“I’m all ears too, Manny,” said Dean. “I thought Argyle had pulled a double switch or something.”
“All throughout our time in Vegas, I’ve had the feeling that there was something off. This killer is much like the Good Doctor, but not him in a few subtle but telling ways. I just kept thinking Argyle was trying to keep us off balance. My mistake, apparently. But we’ll get to that later.”
Lifting his coffee cup, Manny took another swig. “There are a few things here. The whole idea of walking into the FBI office, leaving a message for me, and then walking out again doesn’t fit. I think Argyle would have killed, at a minimum, two of you, and maybe all three. He likes his kills to be close, personal, to actually watch his victims die. I’m not sure he could have resisted the opportunity to do that.”
“You’re right about that, but again, maybe he decided to throw us off track,” said Sophie.
“Maybe, but I simply don’t buy it. He can’t control that part of his ego. And do you think a tiger changes his stripes?”
Sophie sighed. “No, not really.”
“In Agent Wilkins’s description, she said he was over six feet but not ‘tall.’ Argyle was all of six-four. Subtle difference, but significant in this case, because people tend to notice when folks are unusually tall or short. Agent Wilkins also said he was stocky. Argyle was strong as hell—
I can attest to that personally—and well built, but not stocky.”
“Okay, that’s a little distinctive, but you and I both know that two people can look at an identical situation and, like a car accident or someone falling on their ass stone-cold drunk, get almost totally different pictures of what happened,” said Sophie, returning to her chair.
“That’s true, but at least part of the descriptions will overlap usually in those situations. Do you remember when Argyle got into it with one of his patients and the guy used a toothbrush for a shank?”
“Yep. I do—”
Sophie stopped, stared at the marble-topped table, and then looked to Manny.
“He got that scar on the left side of his face, on his cheek. And was proud of it,” she said. “No one’s mentioned seeing that.”
Agent Kim Wilkins shook her head slowly. “There wasn’t any scar. I would have noticed. Even if he’d tried to cover it up. A woman can see a bad makeup job from a mile away and a good one from a few feet. He had nothing. If the scar was that noticeable, then this supports your theory that this isn’t Argyle.”
“It would seem so, at least for now. If we are right, that leads us to the most obvious and maybe more disturbing question: who is this sick prick and why is he doing this?” said Manny.
“Where do you want to start looking for that answer?” asked Sophie.
“I have a couple of ideas. We should be getting some more updated reports from the labs here and in Lansing. Alex’s advice to run the three hairs separately could be a hell of a clue. But first things first. We need to look at those videos.”
“About damn time,” said Agent Wilkins. “Before we do, though, I need a break. I have to make a call and powder my nose.”
Right then, Manny’s phone began to vibrate, and he saw that Josh was calling. “Okay. Five minutes for all of us, then we get back to the videos. I need to take this call, and I have to check in with Chloe before she calls the National Guard.”
“Yeah, well, I like the bathroom idea,” said Sophie.
“Me too,” said Dean.
Fingering his phone as the others left the room, Manny pushed the speaker button.