[Special Agent Tess Winnett 01.0] Dawn Girl

by Leslie Wolfe

  To handle the weight of a collapsed girl or a body in full rigor, Tess thought. But that thought meant she’d jumped to conclusions, and she refocused. Lots of men have strong arms and don’t handle bodies in their spare time.

  “What was he wearing?”

  Ashely looked lost for a second, but Carmen chimed in.

  “He wore a light, white, sport coat, over a cream-colored shirt, top two buttons undone. And jeans, I think. Very sexy. Expensive stuff too. He smelled really good.”

  “So they danced together? This man and Sonya?”

  “Yes, they did,” Ashely replied. “Song after song, getting their moves in sync, you know, the works. Then he made his move; it was kinda cool. Too bad Sonya said he was a creep, you know.”

  “What move?”

  The girls quickly glanced at each other.

  “Um, these days the clubs don’t play slow music anymore, you know,” Carmen said, with a hint of sadness.

  “They want to make you sweat and drink and spend more,” Ashely stated the obvious, her perfectly waxed eyebrows sketching a frown.

  “So, after a few songs, this guy got tired of waiting for a slow song. He took Sonya in his arms and started dancing like it was a slow song, but it wasn’t. In the middle of the dance floor, they just swayed to their own rhythm. It was awesome… people made a circle around them.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The obvious, hello,” Carmen said, and scoffed. “They left together, that’s what happened. Sonya said good night, while he held her hand. She had bedroom eyes.”

  “Yeah, she did,” Ashely confirmed. “He was hot.”

  “Was that the norm with Sonya? To take home guys she just met?”

  “No!” Ashely replied. “She’d never—”

  “She isn’t like that,” Carmen interrupted. “This guy was different. He was steaming hot. I don’t know how else to explain it. His pheromones must have been skyrocketing or something. It was like he was covered in liquid sexiness. You just wanted to take him to bed, right there, right then. He was, like, wow, totally fuckable.”

  “Carmen!” Ashely reacted.

  “Sorry…” she whispered.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then we stayed on for a while longer, danced some more, not a worry in our heads,” Ashely said. She spoke with sadness in her voice, the first time Tess had noticed it since they’d arrived.

  “The next morning we called Sonya to ask her how it was, you know, their hot night,” Carmen added.

  “Both of you called?”

  “Oh, yeah. For juicy stuff like that, you conference,” Carmen replied, all serious. “But she was home alone, sounding upset. She told us she’d dumped him in the parking lot because he was a creep. End of story.”

  “You let her get away without giving you more details?” Tess insisted.

  “We asked and asked, but she wouldn’t say. She kept saying she wasn’t feeling that well.”

  “Then she avoided us for a few days,” Ashely added.

  “No, she didn’t,” Carmen reacted. “She wasn’t well, that’s all.”

  “We could have helped. You know, get her a massage therapist, a chef to fix her favorite, anything she would have wanted.”

  What the hell ever happened to just making your friend a cup of tea and rubbing her shoulders or ordering in some pizza? The rich live in a different world, but they kill and they die just like the rest of us.

  Tess remained quiet for a while, thinking. What could have happened that night, in the club’s parking lot? Was that man a real suspect? Or someone who just didn’t sound so appealing to Sonya, once they were out of the glamorous lights and sounds of the Miami Beach music scene? Did he do anything to her to creep her out? Or did she just change her mind, being that she never took home men she just met and didn’t want to confess her cowardice to her girlfriends?

  “On that next morning call, what did she sound like?”

  The girls looked at each other again.

  “She sounded a little tired—” Ashely started, but Carmen interrupted.

  “She slurred a little. We assumed she drank a few more after she got home. We thought she was hung over,” Ashely said. “What happened to her? Did you find her?”

  “Since that day, has she gone out clubbing with you again?” Tess asked, ignoring Ashely’s question.

  “N—no,” Carmen replied, frowning and fidgeting. “Not until three weeks later, the night she disappeared.” The girls exchanged worried glances.

  “We went out for ice cream one day and shopping too,” Ashely remembered.

  “But not clubbing. Not until then.”

  “Did you two go? Did you invite her and she said no?” Tess probed further, hoping she’d catch a glimpse of what had happened that night, at least by way of its effects.

  “No,” Carmen replied. “The stars just didn’t line up. Ashely had a final, then I had bad cramps the weekend before last. Then we went, and Sonya… vanished.”

  “Would you agree to work with a sketch artist, to draw a likeness of the man Sonya left with that night in February?”

  “I don’t remember much,” Carmen said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

  “Me neither. Just his hair,” Ashely whispered, shuddering.

  “It could be a starting point. The artist knows what he’s doing, he’ll walk you through it. I’ll get that set up and be in touch as soon as possible.”

  “Okay, we’ll do it. But we need to know what happened to her,” Carmen insisted. “Please tell us.”

  Tess took in a deep breath.

  “I’m afraid I have bad news. We found Sonya’s body on the beach yesterday.”

  19

  Lunch

  Tess went back to the observation room adjacent to Interview Two, as soon as the two young women left. Michowsky was there, flipping through his notes, visibly looking for something. He raised his eyes from the notebook and met her frustrated gaze.

  “So that’s that,” Tess said, dropping the file folder she carried onto the table, or better said, slamming it. “We’ve made a ton of progress all day today. We got almost nothing more than we had this morning.”

  “Got your note on the money,” he said, showing her the sticky. “You’re right, the richer they are, the smaller their world. Made me wonder about something. Two of the victims’ families we ruled as well off, not wealthy. The dentist and the—”

  “The restaurant owner, yes, Sonya’s dad,” Tess cut over him, and regretted it when she saw him sigh with frustration. “Go on.”

  “I made a couple of calls and guess what? The dentist is also the heir of a large furniture business he runs by proxy, InStyle Furniture. I’m sure you heard of them. Half a billion dollars’ market cap.”

  “Yeah, I know them. How about the Weavers?”

  “Mrs. Weaver, who we assumed a homemaker, has made herself a fortune day trading, then stopped just short of the 1990s recession, when she got pregnant. Her net worth is over a hundred mil.”

  “What do you know? The small world we’re looking at just got a whole lot smaller. That’s some great instincts you got, Detective.”

  “Yeah… I’ve been told,” he paraphrased her from their earlier conversation, and they both laughed.

  “Where’s Fradella?”

  “Chasing the Weaver financials. Why?”

  “Then it’s just you and me then. Let’s grab a burger and talk through some scenarios.”

  “You’re on,” Michowsky said, getting off his stool a little slower than he wanted. “Let me grab my keys.”

  “I’ll drive. I know just the place.”

  She matched her steps with his, slowing down, remembering his back hurt. She saw his face light up just a touch when he saw her car, parked very close to the entrance. He must have been in a world of pain.

  “We can release Sonya’s identity now,” she said, as soon as they hit the road. “Agree?”

  “Yeah… there’s someone who
needs to hear it first, that’s all.”

  “Who?”

  “A reporter, more or less an asshole, but he made good on his promise to me. Brandt Rusch, you might have heard of him. I owe him one.” Michowsky pulled out a business card, then typed fast on his phone, probably sending the reporter an email.

  She pulled into the side parking lot of Media Luna, and cut the engine off.

  “A bar, mid-afternoon? You’re full of surprises, Special Agent Winnett,” Michowsky said.

  “Their burgers and fries are awesome here. Wouldn’t go anywhere else.”

  They entered and sat at the counter. It was still early; only two or three endurance drinkers soaked their miseries, scattered around the quiet barroom. No music played at that time; probably the bartender enjoyed some silence before the rush hour began, in about two hours’ time.

  Cat lifted his eyes from his mixers and threw a quick smile their way. She nodded briefly, and winked, a wink only Cat saw. She saw him open the container where he stored his fresh herbs and start mixing her favorite. She smiled to herself, a smile fueled by the heartwarming feeling of home she had every time she came to Media Luna.

  Then her smile opened up widely, almost turning to laughter, when she heard Michowsky approach Cat.

  “Um, hey, I heard you make great burgers here, can we have a couple? And some fries please.”

  “Right away,” Cat replied, shooting Tess a quick glance and a crooked grin. “Something to drink?”

  “Yeah… I’ll have a beer, Bud Light.” Michowsky turned to Tess, inviting her to order her drink, but she gestured the offer away, and resumed taking in the feeling of safety, of comfort she felt. Cat’s bar was the one place on earth where her memories were subdued and her demons tame.

  Cat brought her drink, with two thin straws, just how she liked it. Thin straws were better for mojitos; she didn’t choke with the herbs. Michowsky’s eyes opened wide, seeing her accept her drink with a smile of gratitude.

  “They know you here, I see,” he said.

  “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “Cocktails while on the fed clock? I confess I didn’t see it coming.”

  “It’s nothing, just—”

  “How do you like your burger?” Cat asked Michowsky.

  Cat wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked like he was about to pull the shotgun he stowed under his tacky counter and shove it up Michowsky’s nose, if he asked one more inappropriate question. Tess stifled a chuckle, turning her head sideways and burying her smile in her hands, leaving just her entertained glance to tell Cat everything was okay.

  “Medium, no onions, no pickles. Thanks.”

  “It’ll be a couple of minutes.”

  “That’s fine,” Michowsky replied, then turned toward Tess. “They also know how you like your burgers, don’t they?”

  “Yeah… they do.”

  She pulled her tablet out of her bag, and started looking at Sonya’s Facebook profile again. She flipped through her most recent public postings, going backwards until mid-February. She looked at the photos carefully, trying to absorb a little more about who Sonya Weaver had been. There was a picture of her with Tony Gibbons, looking like they were the king and queen of America. She was dressed in a cocktail gown, a silver sequined creation that clung to her shape, and he wore an impeccable tux. The caption read, “At the Gibbons Fundraising Gala.”

  She showed the image to Michowsky. He whistled quietly.

  That was the last image Sonya had posted of her ex-boyfriend, dated February 16. Afterwards, she’d posted something at least two to three times a day, and share a few of her friends’ postings. She liked puppies… a lot. The fluffy, fuzz-ball ones. She also liked inspirational quotes and life hacks. A perfectly normal, young woman.

  “Do we have her login yet? Maybe there’s more in her private messages.”

  “Not yet,” Michowsky replied. “Warrant’s still pending.”

  “Here you go,” Cat said, putting two large plates in front of them. Then he did a couple of more runs, to get them mayo, ketchup, and mustard, then cutlery and napkins.

  She resumed browsing Sonya’s Facebook timeline, counting the postings each day.

  “These burgers are really good,” Michowsky said, chewing with enthusiasm.

  “Hey, did you notice Sonya didn’t post anything after February 28 for almost three days?”

  “Um, no. Eat your burger, it’s getting cold.”

  “Yeah…” Tess replied, then took a few fries and chewed them slowly, savoring them. “It drives me crazy I don’t know what the hell happened in that parking lot on the 28th. She was upset, enough to stop posting for three whole days, and that’s serious for these kids. Then she started posting again, but no enthusiasm, no pictures either, for the most part. No more selfies since that day.”

  “Uh-huh,” Michowsky acknowledged with his mouth full.

  “Then there’s this entry, right here,” Tess pointed at the screen, “where she wrote, ‘I can’t stop enjoying life because of a single rainy day.’ That was dated March 18.”

  “Do you think she’s talking about the creep?”

  “I think this is the moment she decided to not let a single bad experience change who she was and went back to her old ways. Four days later, the three of them were back in the same club.”

  She took a big bite of her burger and chewed it methodically, thinking.

  “Too bad the damn bite mark doesn’t line up with that February 28 date. It would have made such perfect sense, if that guy creeped her out because he bit her lip in the parking lot. Otherwise, who bit her? And where?”

  “Un-huh,” Michowsky replied, “but Doc Rizza—”

  “Yeah, I know what he said. Let’s ask Fradella to look at the surveillance videos for that night.”

  “They were inconclusive.”

  “Not the abduction night, the creep night. The 28th. Have him pore over those videos in detail, see what we can find. I still think this man is our strongest lead, and I can’t trust what Detective Garcia did, if anything, as part of the missing person’s investigation.”

  She took a few fries and chewed on them with her eyes half closed. They were perfect; flavored, crispy, not too salty.

  Then her phone chimed. She groaned, wiped her fingers on the napkin and checked her messages. The newest one read, “This is Bob from the front desk. There’s a Supervisory Special Agent Bill McKenzie here to see you.” She texted back, “On my way, ETA 10 minutes,” then took a few more fries from her plate.

  “We have to run. The profiler’s waiting.”

  20

  Profiler

  They found Bill McKenzie already installed in the conference room, crouched in front of the whiteboard. Facilities still hadn’t nailed that board to the wall, and Tess muttered a few adjectives in frustration. How long did it actually take to drive two nails into a wall? Did they really have to work crouched, bent over, stepping over one another? It was ridiculous, embarrassing.

  McKenzie stood tall to his full six feet and five inches and nodded a greeting. They had crossed paths before, Tess and him, and it hadn’t always been the best experience, but he did help her get her man. She would have preferred a different profiler if she had a choice. McKenzie could be stubborn, uptight, and dismissive. Stiff, arrogant sometimes. But he was also bright, perceptive, dedicated, and willing to go the extra mile to test a theory, so all in all, not that bad.

  “SSA Bill McKenzie, meet Gary Michowsky,” Tess introduced them.

  “Agent Michowsky,” McKenzie greeted him, while shaking his hand warmly.

  “It’s Detective. I’m Palm Beach County,” Michowsky explained with a crooked smile.

  “Agent Winnett, do you prefer we wait for your partner to join us before we begin?”

  “Huh,” she scoffed, “that will probably be a long wait. I don’t have one. Not on this case,” she added quickly, seeing McKenzie’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Damn procedure manual.

  She took
a seat at the conference table, and Michowsky sat across from her. McKenzie paced slowly in front of them, close to the whiteboard.

  “All right then,” McKenzie said. “I see why you called us in, Agent Winnett. You do have strong pattern indicators between these murders. Let’s start with first impressions. He’s organized and highly methodical. His intelligence is well above average, and he’s extremely calm under pressure. This man is fearless and, by the nature of his crimes, a pure psychopath.”

  “We figured out most of that on our own,” Tess said, her words driving frown lines on McKenzie’s forehead. “I struggle with his motivation and classification. Is he an anger-retaliatory or an anger-excitation killer? Can there exist a hybrid between these two classes of murderers?”

  “A hybrid? Why would you think this unsub’s a hybrid?” McKenzie asked. “In my years as a behavioral analyst, I’ve almost never encountered the need to classify an unsub as a hybrid. The demarcation lines aren’t carved in stone, though.”

  “Look at the victimology, how he crosses physiognomy, even racial lines. At the same time, what he does to these girls keeps evolving. My theory is that he’s experimenting, searching for the perfect retaliatory recipe, and, until then, his victims are just lab rats, nothing else. A means to his horrific end.”

  “Could be. And?”

  “That would point toward an anger-retaliatory classification. But when you examine what the unsub does to his victims, the repeated, elaborate rapes, the beatings, the skin cuts, all that points to a typical sexual sadist, which falls under the anger-excitation classification.”

  McKenzie rubbed his chin thoughtfully, walking slowly in front of the whiteboard, studying the victim profiles.

  “I see what you mean,” he said. “Let’s talk through victimology, one victim at a time. You’re saying May Lin is his first?”

  Tess lowered her eyes. McKenzie intimidated her, and she hated that. Especially when he asked the right questions, and she didn’t know if she had the right answers.