by Kay Hooper
“You know what I mean.”
She did. “I just started paying closer attention to what I saw and heard, that’s all. What I felt. And there was . . . it was nothing I could put my finger on, but something felt wrong. Then Scott was murdered. And a lot felt really, really wrong.”
—
DEMARCO FINISHED WITH the third evidence board, then took a couple of steps back and half sat on the conference table. They were a bit crowded, with the three boards added to the relatively small room; Trinity had sent in a couple of subdued deputies to remove anything not essential and to help set up the boards nearly an hour earlier.
Then she had told her people nobody entered this room without being invited. Period.
Almost as if she could read his mind, Hollis murmured, “I know Trinity wants to limit the number of people, even the number of her deputies, who see these pictures and know all the details of the murders. I can’t second-guess her, I suppose. She knows her people, and she knows this town.”
“But?”
“But . . . if this killer is evolving, I can’t even guess what he might do next. From a bloodless, bruiseless broken neck to a disembowelment? Even if this guy is the mountain serial’s teammate, Miranda was absolutely sure he didn’t kill those girls. She was sure the dominant did—and since two more girls were abducted eighty miles from here at about the same time Barry Torrance was being killed, it seems pretty clear she’s right about that.”
“So our guy is the submissive. Not exactly acting like one, is he?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On whether he’s acting on his own initiative.”
DeMarco gestured to a small evidence bag pinned to the board, the silver cross inside it gleaming dully. “Even though the victims are wildly different, the crosses do seem to link both sets of murders. Either that, or we’ve got a very knowledgeable, very talented copycat who just wants to kill who he wants to kill—and pin it on somebody else.”
“That’s probably as likely as anything else. The mountain serial moves, shifting his hunting grounds and his dump sites up and down the Blue Ridge. Maybe only one relatively small part of it—but that’s a long way from setting up shop in a small town.”
“Yeah.” He brooded for a few moments, his gaze roaming over the evidence boards. “Killing fit, athletic men—so far, at least—rather than slight young women. The mountain serial is all about physical and sexual dominance, about control—but he grabs victims of opportunity and doesn’t give a damn about displaying his handiwork; when he’s done with them, his victims are dumped like garbage.”
“While here,” Hollis finished, “one was left in a rather conspicuously locked room, while the second was hung from a homemade torture device.”
“Look at what I can do,” DeMarco murmured.
“He does seem to be preening, doesn’t he? I wonder if it’s for us . . . or for his master.”
DeMarco shook his head. “I don’t think his master would care. The victims are just too different. If he were . . . I don’t know, grabbing women who weren’t just thrown in his path, then doing something to them that would attract the attention of the dominant, maybe that would make more sense.”
“To us. Whatever he’s doing, it makes sense to him.”
“Don’t remind me.” Studying the board in front of him, DeMarco said, “At least Trinity’s people were able to start background checks on the victims. Both men worked out at the same gym. Popular place with their age group, looks like.”
Hollis was seated in a chair on the other side of the table, but closer to the door. She still had her jacket on, and her hands remained in her pockets. A fresh cup of hot coffee sat before her, almost untouched.
She hadn’t said very much at all about the revelation of Bishop in the pasts of Trinity and Melanie, except to note that since Bishop had his psychic radar out at all times, it only made sense that he would have known about Cathy—and possibly Melanie as well.
DeMarco was a bit surprised that she had not taken the opportunity to talk about spiderwebs or rats in a maze, something of that sort. As she usually did when the fine hand of Bishop showed up at any point in one of their cases.
He was also a little surprised that he couldn’t get a clear reading on her. Not that he was trying to read her—but he generally didn’t have to try, especially when a twist in a case had caught her off guard.
Unless . . .
“You knew Bishop would show up somewhere in this case, didn’t you?”
Hollis smiled very faintly. “Well, he really went out of his way to make us believe we were just getting a break from the mountain serial case to investigate this puzzling little homicide. I was suspicious. And even more so when we got here.”
“Why?”
“Trinity. She was just a bit too accepting of psychic abilities for a small-town sheriff. Even one who did street time in a big city before coming back home. She asked some really interesting questions about psychics and how our abilities work.”
Hollis shook her head. “I do wonder, though, if Bishop knows about Braden. Think Trinity told him about her dog? Because I think that would make him curious. It’s almost worth calling him to ask about it.”
“Almost?”
“I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. Isn’t that childish of me?”
“It’s an interesting response,” DeMarco said cautiously.
She laughed suddenly. “You should see your face. Not nearly as impassive as usual. I’ve figured something out. If I’m broadcasting, no shield. Just nothing there to stop my being upset from spilling out all over the place. But if I keep my mind very quiet and calm . . . I don’t think you can read me. Not, at least, with one or both of your shields up.”
“Not ready to test your theory with my shields down?”
Hollis reached for her coffee cup. “No. Besides, I still feel a little weird from that energy up there.”
“What, still? Down here?”
“Headache that won’t quit. I’m probably just tired. It feels like we’ve been here forever. And a day.”
“Maybe we should call it a day,” he suggested.
She moved slightly, almost a physical protest. “Levity aside, this guy . . . he’s just moving too fast. Whether he learned his trade at the master’s knee, or is taking orders from the master, or is totally off the reservation on his own, he’s a monster. He’s a monster, and this is a nice little town that shouldn’t have to be afraid of a monster.”
“It’s not all on your shoulders,” he told her.
“I know that. But I’ve been hunting monsters a while now. I should be good enough to catch this one.”
“We just got here,” he reminded her. “Barely long enough to have even a handful of facts with which to speculate.”
“Well . . . let’s use them. We have two murders in a week—here. Virtually no cooling-off period. Two very different murders of two fit adults in their early thirties. Two men. Both white, which is the majority demographic of Sociable, so maybe that means nothing. They probably all went to the same high school, because there’s only one for the town. And Trinity said her preliminary investigation of Scott turned up no enemies pissed enough to kill, let alone kill with this sort of violence. I’m betting Barry didn’t have any enemies, either.”
“The key word being ‘preliminary,’” he reminded her once more, this time more for emphasis than anything else. “This investigation has barely gotten off the ground.”
“Yeah. But in a town this small, I would have expected someone to have come forward by now, even before we got here. Maybe especially before we got here. Someone who saw something at one of these places, something unusual, even if they didn’t think that at the time. Something useful.”
“You said evil hides. This evil clearly did just that.”
“Yeah. And it’s still hiding. Probably in plain sight.”
Prompting her before she could fall silent again, DeMarco said, “Sure t
he killer is male?”
“Reasonably. That contraption displaying Barry’s body took muscle to build, even if he was only bolting together the pieces.”
“Granted. What about the rest?”
“The mutilation of Barry’s genitals gave me pause, it’s something a woman might do—but likely out of rage. Hate. In that case, it would have been . . . the main show. And I doubt she would have removed the severed genitals afterward. Women don’t take trophies. More likely to drop them on the ground—where he could see them. And let him bleed to death from that wound.”
DeMarco said, “And a woman isn’t likely to disembowel a victim.”
“Not likely, no. Women have cut up their victims into pieces, but seldom if ever motivated by hate or sadism, only to help them dispose of the body more efficiently. Disemboweling a living victim . . . that’s pure sadism.”
“The first real sign of sadism,” DeMarco pointed out.
“Yeah. Well, arguable, I suppose. I don’t know why there was no violence in Scott’s murder, but if this guy is a student or disciple or, hell, even a victim of the mountain serial, he’s studied sadism up close and personal. Bound to rub off on him.”
“Not a woman’s type of crime.”
“No, not really. Which is not to say women aren’t capable of sadism. It’s just that when women are sadistic—not being paid to be, I mean—it tends to be emotionally, psychologically. They get off on control, on power, but it’s rarely a physical thing. Women generally don’t kill because they’re sadistic; for women, murder is usually a means to an end. Murders this violent, this . . . messy . . . are virtually always committed by men.”
“So we’ve already narrowed the field of suspects.”
Hollis turned her head and stared at him. “Great. Men roughly between the ages of twenty-five to forty-five. I’m figuring at least a couple hundred.”
“Well, since both victims fit a narrower age range, we’d probably be safe in narrowing it down for the profile. Maybe between thirty and forty-five.”
Hollis considered for a moment. “You’re shifting the low end a bit higher because you believe he’s not a kid. Because . . . there’s been too much control.”
DeMarco nodded. “He got into and out of Scott Abernathy’s apartment without leaving any forensic evidence behind, including any sign of just how he managed to break the guy’s neck.”
It was Hollis’s turn to nod. “And after watching Trinity’s team work today, I doubt very much they missed any evidence at that crime scene. Still, we need to see where Abernathy died. And like you said, we need to get a timeline of their movements up on the board. That means we have to start talking to people.”
Entering the room just in time to hear that, and closing the door firmly behind herself and her dog, Trinity said, “Which means I haven’t got a hope in hell of keeping a lid on this.”
Serious, Hollis said, “It isn’t just two murders, Trinity. This is definitely a serial killer, if only because we can connect him through those crosses to the mountain serial.”
“Okay. And so?”
“Leaving his victims the way he did, even though each scene looks different, each method of killing is different, means something to him. He’s getting more brutal, no question, which means an escalation. But . . .”
“But?”
“This doesn’t feel like a killer . . . learning his craft. And it doesn’t feel like a submissive—unless he’s had a psychotic break of some kind. This feels like something very carefully thought out, planned, maybe for a long time. He’s on some kind of mission. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m betting his victims have something in common, some connection to him, and that’s why he killed them. Maybe even why he killed each the way he did. But we can’t begin to understand him until we understand each of them.”
“He won’t stop?”
“Not until we stop him—or until he’s finished.”
Slowly, Trinity said, “I thought serials killed out of some kind of twisted psychological or sexual need?”
“Most kind of serials do, yeah. The mountain serial is that type. And most of them go on and on until they’re caught or killed. But I don’t think this guy is a typical serial killer. These aren’t stranger killings. A stranger hanging around long enough to gather the sort of intelligence I believe he had to have would have been noticed. He isn’t killing them because they fit some private fantasy or because it’s the only way he can get off; he hasn’t shown any sexual interest in them at all. He has a different reason. He’s on a mission. I’m even betting he has a list.”
“A list,” Trinity said slowly.
“Yeah. His hit list. Don’t know why he’s killing, but we can make an educated guess about who his next targets are just based on who he’s killed so far. Men in their thirties, though we can’t rule out possible female victims, not when he’s just getting started. But both were locals. People he knows. Went to school with, played sports with—maybe even still works out with at the same gym.”
“Why? Why people like that?”
“Because,” Hollis said, “they’re people like him. Or were like him. Somewhere along the way, something happened. To him, to his life, his sense of self. To someone he cared about. Right now, I have no idea what that might have been, but I know something changed in his life.”
“A trigger,” DeMarco said. “A stressor.”
Hollis nodded. “Something that turned a man you probably know or knew from a seemingly nice guy into a vicious killer.”
—
TRINITY SAID, “I can have my people start running more detailed backgrounds on all the victims. I know you guys probably prefer to do your own background checks and interviews, but we can at least have more detailed preliminary data for you to work from.”
“That would help a lot, Trinity,” Hollis said with clear gratitude. “We do prefer to talk to people ourselves as a rule, but the more information we can gather beforehand, the more productive those interviews are likely to be—and the less stressful for all concerned.”
“The second shift’s just coming on; I’ll put a few of my brighter boys and girls on it.”
Hollis was surprised. “The second shift?”
“Yeah, it’s around four o’clock. And in case you haven’t looked outside, it’s already getting dark. The sun sets behind this mountain, so night comes early, especially this time of year. My advice would be for you two to get settled into the hotel and have an early night, try to get some rest. And eat something. I know we’ve all avoided food after what we found at the church, but all this coffee on empty stomachs isn’t going to help any of us.”
“What about you?” Hollis asked.
“After I brief the second shift, I’ll probably head home for the night. There really isn’t much we can do tonight anyway. My people will begin gathering more information, and Doc said we’d have the post on Barry Torrance by morning. I don’t know if he’ll find anything other than what we all saw, but at least we’ll know if there’s something new to factor in.”
Curious, DeMarco asked, “Will he pull an all-nighter?”
“Probably.” She sighed. “He delivered both victims, and though he’s a tough guy, a former corpsman in the navy, this hasn’t been easy on him. He’s thorough, and very professional, but I know he wants to do his job and get it over with. Then go home and get drunk. It’s the way he was after he did Scott’s post.”
“Can’t say that I blame him for that,” Hollis said. She added to Trinity, “We’ll need to establish a timeline for each of the victims. Going back at least a week or two before the first murder. Where they were, what they did, what was habit and what wasn’t.”
“Where and when they crossed paths with their killer?”
“Hell, they might have seen him every day. Until we get a feel for their lives, their routines, we can’t know much more than we do now. With the timelines, we may be able to figure out whether Scott actually let his killer in. Or where Barry Torrance was grabbe
d. Or maybe . . . see that they weren’t where they should have been at a particular time. Sometimes what isn’t there is just as helpful as what is.”
DeMarco wanted to make some comment about just how expertly Hollis was beginning her work as a profiler on this case, but he knew her well enough to keep his mouth shut.
“Makes sense,” Trinity said. “In the morning, I’ll take you to Scott’s apartment. I know profilers are trained to see things average investigators aren’t trained to look for, indications of behavior and personality. And I know your unit is trained to make use of those extra senses. One way or another, I’m hoping you’ll see something I’ve missed.”
“We’ll have to wait and find out,” Hollis murmured.
“In the meantime, the hotel is nice, and room service is from the restaurant on the first floor. Nothing fancy, but good food. Deacon left to check in and then go visit his sister. I gather they have some catching up to do, especially since he knows now what really happened to her before she came to Sociable, so I don’t expect him back here before morning. There are a couple more restaurants in the downtown area, but everything’s pretty sedate—and most of the townsfolk will probably stay in for supper tonight. My advice, we all get some rest and come back fresh tomorrow.”
DeMarco nodded, then looked at Hollis with raised brows.
“Might as well pack it in for now,” she said. “We’ve done all the speculation we probably should with the information we have so far. Even as quickly as this bastard is killing, he’s been taking at least a couple of days between murders. Who knows, maybe he’s tired enough to give us all a break.”
Half under her breath, Trinity said, “After what he did to Barry, I’d expect him to need more than two days. A lot more.”
“That,” Hollis said as she rose from her chair, “all depends on the why of this. Once we know why he’s doing what he’s doing, a lot of puzzle pieces should start to fall into place.”
—
MIRANDA LISTENED TO the rather terse report, then said, “It sounds like you’ve got everything under control, Hollis.”