Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

  She stopped eating her ice cream. She was staring down at the table.

  “Morgan? You promise?”

  She was silent. After a few seconds he noticed a slight movement, a very faint shrug of the shoulders. He decided not to push.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”

  Twelve

  The personal phone calls were beginning to take their toll. It seemed everyone had been content to leave her alone for a few days to recover from Saturday’s marital disaster. By Tuesday, however, the comfort cushion was over. The whole world suddenly seemed to think it was time to check on Andie. Friends called. Her father called. Her mother called. Several times.

  “Mom, really. I’m okay.” Her voice was strained. She had one eye on all the work piled up on her desk.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Honestly, I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to think about Rick.”

  Her mother paused, as if something other than Andie’s well-being were on her mind.

  “What is it, Mom?”

  “Why did you go through with the ceremony, Andie?”

  “What?”

  “If you knew he had cheated on you, you should have just canceled. It would have saved a lot of embarrassment.”

  “Rick deserved it.”

  “It’s not him I’m talking about. It was embarrassing for the whole family.”

  “Gee, Mom. Sorry I ruined your day.”

  “Don’t be that way. Your sister made a terrible mistake and immediately apologized.”

  “Linda couldn’t wait to jump out of bed with Rick to come tell me she’d fucked him.”

  “Andie!”

  “It’s the truth. That’s the real reason she knocked on my door in the middle of the night to give me her so-called apology. She hates me. She always has. What did you think, forcing me to name her as my maid of honor would suddenly make her love her adopted sister?”

  “You should have shown more consideration for your guests.”

  “I was angry.”

  “It was cruel.”

  “Cruel? Can’t you just let me have my moment and move on? Maybe it’s not the way you would have handled the situation. But for me it brought closure. That’s just my personality. I need to get even.”

  “That’s not a very Christian attitude.”

  The mention of Christian values was an all too familiar and infuriating tactic. All her life, whenever she had misbehaved, her mother had found a subtle way of attributing it to the fact that she was half Native American, an adopted child.

  There was a knock on the door. It opened a foot, and Victoria poked her head in. “There’s a break in the case.”

  Andie cupped her hand at the receiver, trying not to let Victoria know it was her mother. “I gotta go,” she muttered into the phone.

  “We’re not done,” her mother answered.

  “Let me put you on hold.” With a push of the button she cut off her mother’s protest, then waved Victoria in.

  “We got a message from someone who may be the killer.”

  Andie did a double-take. “What kind of message?”

  “E-mail from a copy center in Seattle. One of those temporary office places where you can rent a computer for an hour and send all the e-mail you want over the Internet.”

  “He sent an e-mail?”

  “Photographs, actually. They appear to be our Jane Doe, alive. From the looks of things, however, I wouldn’t guess she was alive for very long after the little photo session. Looks very weak, obviously been beaten. The neck was badly bruised, too, which suggests some ligature strangulation.”

  “You sure she was alive?”

  “No question. One look at those eyes, and you know she’s looking right at her killer.”

  Andie fell silent. “How’d you get the photos?”

  “Minneapolis field office sent them to me.”

  “He e-mailed the FBI in Minneapolis?”

  “No. He sent it to the Torture Victims’ Institute, which is in Minneapolis. They contacted the local FBI.”

  Andie asked, “There’s an institute for torture victims?”

  “Quite an impressive organization, actually. Some very skilled psychotherapists. Victims of political torture all over the world go there for treatment and counseling.”

  “So maybe he’s insinuating there’s some political agenda attached to his killings.”

  “No political agenda,” said Victoria. “His message is more straightforward.”

  “Which would be what?”

  “You said it at the meeting. We’re dealing with a sadist. And his agenda is torture. Period.”

  Andie was suddenly flummoxed. Victoria sensed her discomfort. “Not sure how you should feel, are you?”

  Andie shook her head.

  “That’s the thing about profiling. Once you figure out what kind of monster you’re dealing with, there’s no rejoicing in being right. Not till he’s caught.”

  Andie said nothing.

  “I’m having hard copies of the photos reproduced. You need to get them distributed to the task force as soon as they’re ready. You’ll also need to coordinate with the Minneapolis field office on their follow-up with the institute. I don’t think an airplane trip is necessary, but make sure the personnel records are thoroughly reviewed, with an eye in particular for disgruntled former employees. Certainly if the institute has received any messages like this in the past, you’ll want to check that out. And there’s also an International Center for Victims of Torture. It’s in Denmark. Touch base there, see if this jerk sent them anything.”

  “Right.”

  Victoria stepped out of Andie’s office and closed the door behind her. Andie went back to the phone. The hold line was blinking. Her mother was waiting, primed to hash out a problem that now seemed more trivial than ever.

  Andie punched the button and deliberately disconnected.

  In the solitude of his bedroom, he held a pendant in his hand. His newest acquisition was already his favorite. The long braided chain weaved in and out between his fingers like golden rope. He held it higher, toward the light, allowing it full extension. No bigger than a dime, the heart-shaped pendant dangled at the end of the strand. It was a gold frame of diamonds, hollow in the middle. The fluorescent desk lamp made it sparkle. With his eyes narrowed, it looked curiously like the noose at the end of a rope. That was what he loved about it.

  The so-called experts would have called it a trophy—a keepsake taken from the victim. That was one of those terms he had picked up from the multitude of books written by former criminal profilers. He’d read them all and knew their secrets. It amused him the way those authors denied they were making it possible for future serial killers to avoid apprehension. Sociopaths are psychologically compelled to engage in certain conduct, the experts argued, so publication of those traits couldn’t possibly prompt a serial killer to change his behavior and make himself more difficult to catch. They were overlooking one crucial fact. Their assumptions were based on the assholes who got caught.

  He turned the chain in his hand, let it twist slowly. Spinning round and round, it reminded him of those afternoons in his garage as a curious teenager. His own body suspended by the neck, hanging for as long as it took to lose consciousness, then falling to the ground with the release of the rope. For added effect he had taken to twisting the cord like a kid on a tire swing. He could spin as fast or as slow as he wanted, depending on how tightly he wound it. Just an added rush for the average fifteen-year-old boy hanging by the neck with an erection to be proud of.

  Carefully, almost lovingly, he lowered the gold chain back into the box. It coiled into a felt-lined compartment, next to a pair of earrings. A pearl necklace. A wristwatch. A ring. Each piece brought back its own memory. The ring, however, was a sea of mixed emotions.

  It had belonged to someone special.

  He closed the lid on the jewelry box and stepped toward the bed. On bended knee he pulled a larg
e manila envelope from between the mattress and the box spring. He emptied it on the bedspread, spilling a collection of Polaroid snapshots. Mostly young women, a few men. Some naked, some clothed. Frightened faces mixed in with peaceful expressions. It all depended on whether it was before or after.

  He stared down at them and a heat rose from within him. It was cool in the room, but he was beginning to perspire. Such were his powers of concentration. He was focused on the details of each deadly pose. The position of the hands. The tilt of the head. The display of the victim. This wasn’t simple reminiscing. He regarded these photos not as windows to the past but as blueprints—for the future. It all had to be perfect.

  He left the photos neatly arranged on the bed beside him and crawled beneath the covers. Naked and somewhat aroused, he checked the clock on the nightstand. Not quite four P.M. Just enough time to revel in his fantasy. Then to work.

  He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

  Thirteen

  Andie didn’t normally fret over what people thought about her, but Victoria was different. Competition for a spot with the elite ISU was almost prohibitive. A good word from Victoria could go a long way. A bad word would slam the door.

  In truth, Andie wanted more than just one woman’s approval. Certain colleagues in the office refused to let her wedding disaster die quietly. Just today some jerk had left a doctored photocopy of the FBI shield in her in-box with the FBI motto—Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity—changed to Infidelity, etc. Though it was the groom who had slept with the maid of honor, the joke was on the bride who had announced it at the ceremony. A bang-up job as profile coordinator might silence the morons at the watercooler.

  Victoria had seemed mildly impressed by Andie’s torture analysis at the task force meeting, which was borne out by the photographs from Minneapolis. But without so much as a word to Andie, she had spent the rest of the day studying the files alone in a small, windowless office that was the perfect home-away-from-home for a special agent from the ISU. The Investigative Support Unit was quite literally buried beneath the earth back at the FBI Academy in Quantico, two stories below the gun vault.

  By four o’clock Andie figured it was time to get a read on Victoria’s thinking. That was a dangerous prospect, considering the amount of time Victoria spent thinking like a serial killer. Undaunted, Andie walked down the hall and knocked on the door.

  It opened. Victoria was blurry-eyed behind her reading glasses. “Yes?”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Andie. “But have you got a minute?”

  Victoria seemed distracted but stepped aside and let her in. Crime-scene photographs were spread across the table, like pieces of a gruesome puzzle. Andie wasn’t a total neophyte, but it unsettled her to stare into the bulging eyes of a strangulation victim.

  Victoria returned to her seat, facing the photographs. Andie pulled up a chair. “This will just take a minute.”

  “It’s okay,” said Victoria. “I needed a break anyway.”

  “I’ve had something on my mind since the task force meeting.”

  “Was there something we didn’t cover?”

  Andie felt baited. It was as if Victoria knew why she had come. “Actually, yes.”

  “Your bookend theory?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Victoria smiled thinly. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to come talk to me about it.”

  “I’m not pushing it. I’m just curious, that’s all. It did make front-page news this morning. But in the whole three-hour meeting, you hardly mentioned it.”

  “Everyone in that room had read this morning’s paper. A serious discussion about it would have galvanized their thinking. It’s like I told you in the car. If it’s a bogus theory, we don’t want to give our task force a full head of steam heading in the wrong direction.”

  “Why are you so sure it’s bogus?”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  “Do you think it has any merit? Possibly, I mean?”

  “Would it make you feel better if I said I did?”

  “Maybe.”

  Victoria raised an eyebrow. Andie said, “Okay, yes, it would. And that’s not because I’m some kind of egomaniac. It’s just that your little speech in the car this morning left me twisting in the wind.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You said it was okay that my theory leaked to the press, so long as I was right.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s fair to hoist the blade up the guillotine and then give me no indication as to whether you think I was right or wrong.”

  Victoria nodded and said, “That’s a fair complaint.”

  Andie wasn’t sure if she was agreeing with her or simply acknowledging her right to gripe. “So, what do you think about the bookend theory?”

  “It has definite appeal, if you focus on the first two victims. Both white males, fifty-one years old. Same hair and eye color. Divorced, middle-class. From a victimology standpoint, the only apparent difference is that one drove a 1989 Ford pickup and the other’s was a ’93. And, of course, the similarities don’t end with the choice of victim. Both were strangled and stabbed exactly eleven times after death, mutilated and degraded the same way, left on display in their own living rooms. And here’s something I just picked out of the police reports. In both cases the television was on when the cops arrived. Tuned to the same damn station. KOMO, channel 4.”

  “So you understand where I’m coming from,” said Andie.

  “Of course. But there are dissimilarities, too. Until we construct a more complete profile of the killer, it’s hard to know if these differences are meaningful psychological indicators or just cosmetic changes in m.o.”

  “But like you say, the more you review these three cases, the more viable the bookend theory becomes.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said the two men were remarkably similar.”

  “Jane Doe was also strangled.”

  “Yes. And unlike the men, she was photographed alive, and the pictures were sent to the Torture Victims’ Institute.”

  “But it was the same kind of rope in all three cases. Doesn’t that make you think that victim number four will look a lot like her, maybe even have her picture sent to Minneapolis?”

  “Not enough to put it in the newspaper.”

  Andie withdrew, deflated.

  Victoria shifted gears quickly, as if not to let all the air out. “By the way, what did you make of the busted eardrum?”

  “The what?”

  She glanced at her notepad. “I was just reading the final autopsy report on our Jane Doe, hot off the press. Didn’t you pick up on that?”

  “I guess I didn’t focus on her ears.”

  “Says she had a ruptured right eardrum. Strangulation obviously creates pressure in the head, but I’ve never heard of it causing an eardrum to burst. Interestingly, we don’t have any kind of ear trauma in the two male victims.”

  “You’re saying what? My bookend theory is out the window because victim number three had a busted eardrum?”

  “Right now the flaw in your theory isn’t as subtle as that. The various similarities and simple fact that the same rope was used in three confirmed homicides tells us we probably have a serial killer. But it’s hard to label our serial killer a so-called ‘bookend killer’ when we have only one set of bookends. There’s no way to be certain there will be a match for Jane Doe.”

  “That’s being a little conservative, don’t you think?”

  “You want to send this city into a panic? Thanks to this morning’s newspaper, every thirty-something brunette in Seattle is probably looking over her shoulder.”

  “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

  “Or maybe it’s a terrible thing. Maybe we’ve just lulled every blonde and redhead in King County into a false sense of security.”

  She suddenly understood Victoria’s reluctance to embrace her theory—at least publicly. “Maybe it is pr
emature to give our killer a name. But let’s look down the road. Say the killer next strikes a woman who matches Jane Doe as closely as the two male victims matched each other? Or, let’s say Beth Wheatley is already victim number four, and Jane Doe isn’t just another thirty-something brunette. What if it turns out she’s also the wealthy mother of a six-year-old daughter and was estranged from her high-powered husband—just like Mrs. Wheatley?”

  “Not to be difficult, but I don’t take anything at face value. I would probably check Mrs. Wheatley’s ears.”

  “And if there’s a busted eardrum?”

  Victoria glanced at the photos on the table, then back at Andie. “Then I’d have to say we’re dealing with one scary son of a bitch.”

  Andie’s voice filled with trepidation. “And I would have to say you’re right.”

  Gus didn’t really want his daughter to see it. In fact, he hadn’t even told Morgan he was going to be on the evening news. Carla had. Gus hadn’t explicitly told her not to tell Morgan, but he’d expected his sister to have more sense. The fact that he’d tried to keep it a secret only seemed to make Morgan more determined to watch.

  She was parked on the leather couch a good fifteen minutes before the five o’clock local news. He wasn’t about to let her watch, even if she was more mature than most six-year-olds. He did take a few minutes to explain why the reporters had come by the house, what he had told them. He kept reminding her of the zoo story. It was a safe image, her mommy off by herself watching the polar bears. He wished it were that simple.

  “Please, can’t I watch?” she asked.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “But I want to see Mommy’s picture.”

  “I’ll videotape it for you, okay? And then we can talk about whether you can see it.”

  “Why?”

  “Morgan, there’s no debate.” He spoke in his stern discipline voice that told her he meant business. She pouted but followed him obediently to her room.