The 7th Victim kv-1

by Alan Jacobson

  A flicker of lightning followed by a brilliant flash poured in through the open bedroom window. Vail’s eye caught something in the yard, and she again tightened the grip on her sidearm, her head swiveling, eyes searching—

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He’s out there,” she said, moving down the hallway.

  “Who’s out there?”

  She pulled her cell and hit “9,” connecting her with FBI dispatch. “This is Agent Karen Vail with CIRG. Get an air unit over to 609 Herrington. Potential sighting of Dead Eyes suspect.” She dropped the phone into her pocket as she ran into the kitchen. Grabbed the knob, yanked open the door.

  HE SAW HER, some woman cop, through the bedroom window. She was right there, thirty feet away in the darkness, admiring his artwork. Just what he needed, another critic.

  But somehow she knew he was there. He darted through the bushes but stopped when he cut his hand on a sharp branch. He found a safe place to crouch while he licked the blood, to taste it, see what it was like.

  Running his tongue across the open wound stung. He didn’t think it would hurt so much. At least he tasted better than that slut Sandra did. She was satisfying, but predictably bitter with a strong aftertaste. More iron, less copper. Maybe he was a bit anemic.

  He swiveled around, staying behind some bushes. Watching for movement. That bitch cop was going to be coming after him, and he had to be ready.

  ROBBY’S .40-CALIBER GLOCK was out in front of him now, his back against the left door frame. Vail was facing him, pressed against the opposite side of the doorway.

  “How do you know? How do you know he’s here?”

  “I saw something, when the lightning lit up the yard. I feel him.”

  In the next half second, Vail was outside, the rain pouring, another rumble of thunder crawling across the horizon. She made her way through the side yard with reckless abandon, pushing away the thick, overgrown brush with her free forearm. Robby was five feet behind her, slipping on the thick weeds and bushes that hadn’t been pruned back in years.

  “Karen, where the hell are you going?”

  THERE SHE IS! He knew it! Running into the yard—looking for him—but going in the wrong direction. He crouched lower. Thick, woody bushes and a dark suit . . . good cover. He was fairly safe, if only for a short time. But as any good prey who wants to survive knows, you need to get a close look at the hunter. Assess his strengths and weaknesses. After all, even though he knew there’d be no way they’d find him, he still had to be vigilant in making sure he didn’t give them too much. Tempting fate was not a smart thing to do.

  He put his head back and sniffed. Sucked in deeply. Smelled her scent riding the breeze that carried the rain droplets against his face. Light scent, perfume, with a hint of fear and anger. Yes, she was angry. Very angry.

  “KAREN, SLOW DOWN. He could be setting a trap—”

  “Shh!” Vail hissed into the darkness, which was illuminated by an obscure moon hiding behind engorged rain clouds. She cut left round a tree but slipped and went down hard. “Goddamnit!”

  “You okay?” Robby’s voice was behind her, a dozen feet or so.

  Another bolt of lightning cracked the sky and lit up the yard, which seemed to go on for a rolling acre of pines, firs, and wild shrubs. Robby was now at Vail’s side, his gaze bouncing around the flora. He grasped her by the right arm and lifted her up.

  “He’s here,” she whispered.

  “You sure?”

  She nodded, though she knew Robby’s eyes were on the surrounding shrubs and bushes. Gun in his right hand, legs spread wide and bent slightly at the knees. He was ready, but the question was, ready for what?

  “Where?” he asked.

  She smelled something on the breeze. Sniffed, crinkled her nose. A scent she couldn’t readily identify . . . as well as an odor she knew too well: Blood. She looked around, wishing she could hit a switch and turn on the sun, if only for a minute. Get a good look around. So damn close—

  “Karen?”

  “I don’t know, I just feel him. Saw something in the yard when the lightning hit. I looked over, saw movement. He was watching us.”

  “Like an arsonist coming back to watch his handiwork.”

  Vail didn’t answer. She stood there, her left knee throbbing something fierce and bug bite itches prickling her legs. But the most irritating itch of all was the mental one: her need to know why the offender had waited there when he could’ve been long gone. She had tracked these killers for years from a distance. Glossy black-and-white and color photos in a file folder, interview forms, witness statements. It was all so removed. This was more visceral, urgent, and real-time.

  Up close and personal.

  twelve

  He never had a subconscious desire to get caught, as some killers did.

  He only got a glimpse of her, but she was good, this woman cop. He could tell. Just a bitch with a badge, but still . . . she was someone he couldn’t be sloppy around. She somehow knew he was there ... as if they shared some kind of sixth sense. The thought sickened him. He hated sharing anything with bitches, let alone his mind.

  After that last bolt of lightning had lit up the sky, he took off, scampering through several untended yards. He then sat in his car for a few minutes and panted hard to slow his breathing just in case the police were lurking down the street.

  He started the engine and headed home, taking care to stick to the speed limit, signal properly, and make his full stops. He’d once read that a lot of criminals got caught by the police for stupid things, like having a burnt-out brake light. He couldn’t imagine that—going through all the hard work and planning, executing perfectly, and then getting pulled over for some inane traffic violation.

  Thirty minutes later, he was back at his loft tuning in to the eleven o’clock news. Their lead story: the murder of another bitch ... but, of course, that’s not what the reporter called her. His words were something like, “A young woman, another apparent victim of the Dead Eyes killer.” Interesting name they gave him—but not far from the truth, actually.

  He watched as a woman they identified as an FBI profiler ducked through the crowd of press corps. She dropped her head and threw up a hand, avoiding the camera as if it would give her skin cancer. He waited until the segment was over, then replayed the recording he’d made. He was looking for one thing in particular.

  There! There it was . . . a single frame with a dark, blurry view of her beady little eyes. He hadn’t seen them when she was chasing him, hunting him down. But there was something about them. The paused picture was grainy and small, most of her face was blocked, and the image jumped a little as he stared at it. But there was something about the eyes. . . .

  The TV picture suddenly snapped back to life and the recording began playing again. He let it run and again listened to the reporter drone on, making some comment about how important the case was because a profiler had been assigned. But it didn’t bother him. It really wasn’t that big a deal. Because he knew they could examine his artwork and look inside his head all they wanted. They would never find him.

  thirteen

  As soon as the press heard the calls from Fairfax County PD on their police scanners, TV news vans mobilized. They set up shop at Sandra Franks’s house and telescoped their microwave antennae into the sky, as if plugging into the clouds to eavesdrop on God.

  But there was no God at this crime scene, or so it seemed to those with even a rudimentary understanding of religious belief. God would not have allowed Sandra Franks to be murdered. God would not have created monsters capable of committing such heinous acts.

  “Damn reporters,” Vail said.

  “Just doing their job,” Robby said. “Cut ’em some slack.”

  “I don’t like them blocking my way and shoving mikes in my face. I’m here to do a job, too, and they’re in the way.”

  They stood in the back of the room, staring at the walls, at more murals. Hancock had arrived and was waiting outsid
e with Manette and Bledsoe until the forensic unit had finished documenting the scene. Since Vail and Robby had already been in the house, they figured it was best to stay put rather than tramp through the evidence again.

  “So what do you think it all means?”

  “This guy is very bold, Robby. A lot of serial killers prey on prostitutes.” She turned to him. “You know why?”

  “Because they won’t be missed.”

  “Exactly. No one would know they’re missing for days, weeks, sometimes months. By then, the trail is cold.” A technician’s camera flashed. “So the question is, why is this guy picking middle-class women? What is it about them that feeds his fantasy?”

  “He knows one that he hates.”

  “Or knew one. His fantasy goes back a long time, don’t forget.”

  Hancock came up behind them and caught sight of the far wall, where the offender’s “It’s in the” message was scrawled. “I get it,” he said under his breath. “I get it! It’s like a puzzle you can’t figure out, and then when you do, it’s so damn obvious you can’t believe you didn’t see it before.”

  Vail’s eyes found Robby’s in a sideways glance.

  “He’s hidden something,” Hancock continued. “The hand, he’s telling us where the hand is. The left hand. He’s telling us it’s in the house. It’s in the drawer, it’s in the refrigerator, in the bedroom—”

  “It’s in your head,” Vail said. “You can’t assume it means anything.”

  Hancock turned away. “You’re wrong. He’s telling us something.”

  “He could also be a whacko.” Vail shifted her gaze to Robby. “At this point, all we can say is that either the offender is a nut job—in which case his message means nothing—or that he’s quite sane and it carries great meaning to him. The fact that he used the victim’s blood tells us it was likely done postmortem. She was either badly injured or dead. And if she’s dead, which is likely, then he’s taking a huge risk to spend more time there. Longer he’s there, more chance he gets caught. For what? If we go with the odds, he’s not a whacko. So the message means a great deal to him. But it’s not intended for him. It’s meant for the victim, or for whoever discovers the body.”

  Vail paced a few steps back and forth, reasoning it through. “If it’s a message for us, we have to ask: What’s he trying to tell us? Is it something that’s true? Or something that’s false? Is it literal . . . do we have to start looking for something—the hand, like Hancock is suggesting? Or is he taunting, playing with us?”

  Vail stopped, regarded Robby for a moment. “Do you see why you can’t jump to conclusions about any of this?” She looked at Hancock, who was staring at the wall, attempting to appear as if he hadn’t heard what she had said.

  But suddenly, he turned toward her. “And sometimes you can overthink something, Detective Hernandez. That’s what your friend is doing here. She knows so much, she’s trying to impress you, confuse you with issues and questions and all sorts of bullshit that’s got nothing to do with anything.”

  Vail’s arms were clenched across her chest. “The only bullshit in the room, Robby, is what Hancock’s dishing up. But you know what? This message could be bullshit, too. There was a case where the offender wrote ‘Death to the pigs’ in blood. It was so Hollywood, it was weird. It scored pretty high on the bullshit radar for me. Turned out he took the phrase from a Life magazine article, and he wrote it at the scene to throw us off. You know how long people spent mulling over ‘Death to the pigs’? Was it meant for cops, or did he just hate pork?”

  Robby laughed.

  Vail placed a hand on his forearm. “Listen to me, Robby. Right now we can’t make any assumptions about it. You want to help Hancock look for the missing hand, go for it. Maybe you’ll find it—or you’ll find something else. I don’t know. But to me, the most significant thing to consider from that message is that the offender took the time to write it in the first place. It meant a lot to him, and it’s my job to find out why.”

  “He didn’t finish the sentence,” said Sinclair, who had just walked in the door. “You’re talking about the message, right? What I want to know is, why didn’t the fucker finish the sentence?”

  “Good question,” Vail said.

  “Maybe he wants us to finish it for him,” Robby said.

  Hancock threw up his hands. “Which is what I’ve been trying to do. It’s in the kitchen, it’s in the drawer, it’s in the closet. . . .” He walked out of the bedroom, still muttering.

  “He okay?” Sinclair asked.

  “He’s never been okay.”

  Robby asked, “So what do we do next with this message?”

  “We can run it through VICAP. Bureau keeps a database of crime stats just for this reason. It’ll give us a rundown of other cases where offenders have written messages in blood—in any bodily fluid, for that matter. It’ll tell us what we know about those cases and those offenders. Maybe we can make some connections or establish some patterns or parallels. Offenders don’t leave messages very often, so it’s a pretty isolated type of activity. Database is going to be small.”

  “Meantime, we keep plugging away and asking questions.”

  “The day we stop asking questions,” Vail said, “is the day we should turn in our badges.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, the task force members were huddled in their new base of operations, which had been haphazardly thrown together over the past two days.

  It was an old brick house two miles from the latest victim’s home, on a mature street with seventy-five-year-old houses. The rooms were dark, lit only by incandescent lamps standing on the floor. Long shadows loomed across the walls, and everyone’s faces—being lit from below—looked like something out of a Bela Lugosi horror flick.

  A couple of plastic folding tables had been opened in the middle of what had previously been a rectangular living room. There were no shades or blinds on the windows, and the continuous pelting of the glass by the wind and rain created streaks of water blown across the slick surface.

  “We got a telephone here?” Mandisa Manette asked.

  “Not yet,” Bledsoe said. He lifted a medium-size cardboard box from a stack in the corner of the room and dropped it on one of the card tables. He leaned back and swatted at the dust that rose from the box. “I ordered five lines. Four for voice and DSL, one for fax. Be here in a day or two. Till then use your cell.”

  Bledsoe ripped open the box and removed a few rubber-banded markers. He looked around the room and craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the kitchen. “Who are we missing?”

  “Hancock,” Vail said. “I say we start without him.”

  Bledsoe smirked, then leaned close to Vail’s ear. “Lay off, okay? The guy may be an asshole, but I’d rather not poison the pool. Let the others find out for themselves. I don’t need any trouble, none of us do. Just cooperate with him.”

  “Yeah, yeah, fine.”

  “You okay, your knee? Hernandez said you twisted it.”

  “Went down in the vic’s yard.”

  “You need to go? Get it taken care of?”

  “I’m good. Don’t worry about it.”

  Bledsoe nodded, then spun around. “Okay, everyone into the living room. Let’s get started.”

  The front door swung open and in walked Chase Hancock. He closed his umbrella and shook the water onto the linoleum floors that were already slick from the detectives’ muddy shoes.

  Hancock glanced around, then crinkled his nose. “Who chose this rat hole?”

  “We wanted to make you feel at home,” Vail said, “but we can’t get the stench right.”

  “Cute, Vail, very cute.”

  Bledsoe waited for everyone to situate themselves, then took his place at the head of the room. “This is going to be our home until we catch this guy. The accommodations are pretty crappy. I’ve got eyes, I can see. You don’t have to tell me. I’m having some stuff done on the place over the next week or so, to make it functional. One thing it won’t be is nice
or comfortable. They don’t want us getting too cozy here. Feeling is, if we like our surroundings, we won’t be in any rush to solve the case.” Moans erupted. Bledsoe held up a hand. “I know it’s crap, but I’m just telling you how it is. Now, I know it’s late—what the hell time is it?” He pulled back his sleeve to see his watch.

  “Eleven-thirty,” Bubba Sinclair said.

  “Jesus. Okay then,” Bledsoe continued. “Let’s get started so we can all get home sometime before the sun comes up.”

  Vail thought of Jonathan and remembered she had an appointment with an attorney in the morning. She had already called in to get the time off, and she would have to pull Jonathan out of school. But it was the first step in getting him out of Deacon’s reach.

  “Our guy struck again this evening. Vic named Sandra Franks. Dental hygienist with a doc on the west side. Hey, Hernandez, you’re tall. Why don’t you write all this down on the whiteboard?” He tossed Robby the bunch of rubber-banded colored markers.

  “What does being tall have to do with—”

  “It’s late, let’s just get through this so we can go home.”

  Robby stepped up to the whiteboard and wrote, “Sandra Franks, dental hygienist.”

  “Dental hygienists are weird. They work P-T at lots of different offices,” Manette said.

  Bledsoe nodded. “Which means our workload just increased. Sin, find out what other docs she works for and while you’re at it, round up their patient lists. Perp might be on there.”

  “Will they give us their patient lists? Confidentiality—”

  “Come on,” Manette said. “Who’s gonna get bent outta shape over a freaking root canal? They give you problems, lean on ’em. They’re dentists, they don’t want no trouble. Besides, we’re not asking for their records, just a list. You want, I’ll do it.”

  Sinclair’s bald head flushed with anger. “I can handle it.”