The 7th Victim kv-1

by Alan Jacobson

  The reporter was stunned into silence. His arm, holding the recorder, dropped to his side in defeat. Vail turned away and continued walking.

  “How about giving me another chance?” he shouted down the hall. “We could meet for lunch—on me. . . .”

  Vail noted a man in his midtwenties dressed in scrubs hovering down the hall near Jonathan’s room. Her instincts told her it was Bledsoe’s undercover man, and when she made eye contact, he dipped his chin at her. Obviously, he had been well briefed and knew who she was on sight . . . or he’d heard enough of the exchange with the reporter to make the connection.

  She stopped at the nurse’s station and asked her to page Dr. Altman. The woman gave Vail a cautious look, then backed away slightly and reached for the phone. She didn’t take her eyes off Vail as she dialed.

  “Unbelievable,” Vail muttered, then walked away and pushed through the door to Jonathan’s room. She stood by her son’s side, waiting for Dr. Altman. She had the feeling neurologists dreaded cases like these, where there was little for them to do but make their rounds—that is, go through the motions—look over the patient’s vitals and talk with the concerned parents . . . having nothing of value to tell them. Certainly there were those victorious moments when the child regained consciousness. Perhaps those were the ones that kept the doctors sane, that allowed them to deal with the ones who didn’t recover. A few successes and happy endings made the intolerable failures more palatable. Sometimes. At least in theory.

  Vail pressed her lips to Jonathan’s forehead, then took his hand. A tear trailed down her face and dropped onto his cheek. She gently wiped it away, then stood there watching him breathe. She talked to him and let him know she was there. Beyond that, she felt as helpless as she imagined Dr. Altman felt. The doctor poked his head in the door and smiled when he saw Vail. He stepped in, shook her hand, and picked up Jonathan’s chart to scan the nurse’s notes.

  “I suppose you want to know how your son is doing,” he said absentmindedly.

  “I’m not here selling Girl Scout cookies.”

  Altman looked at her, his face conveying the realization he had asked a stupid question. “No, of course not,” he said, setting the metal chart on the table beside the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” Vail said.

  Altman shrugged. “No need to apologize. I’ve seen the papers, I know the stress you must be under. But I do have some good news. Watch.” He leaned close to Jonathan and clapped his hands in front of the boy’s eyes. Jonathan blinked. Altman looked at Vail for confirmation, as if he had just revealed something wondrous. “Did you see?”

  “See what? He blinked.”

  “Exactly. He wasn’t doing that before. He’s recovering mental function. His brain is regaining consciousness, so to speak.”

  Vail’s eyebrows elevated, then she blew some air through pursed lips. “This really is a case of small steps.”

  “That’s the nature of the condition. A small step translates into a huge advancement. I’m very encouraged by his progress.”

  “This is what you live for, isn’t it? I mean, I guess it’s a lot like an investigation, tracking a killer. Small pieces of evidence at each crime scene add up over time to help us get a full picture. The small steps make a difference.”

  Altman smiled. “They sure do. The day-to-day improvement may be painstakingly slow for some, but I look at it like doing a jigsaw puzzle: I’ll search for the next piece, and the one after that, and the one after that. Piece by piece, until I finally complete the puzzle. Because to answer your question, ‘what I live for’ is the completed puzzle.”

  Vail nodded, buoyed by the new perspective.

  The law enforcement analogy was one she could grasp. As long as the evidence kept coming, as long as the clues were adding up, she would break the case. If the same principles applied to Jonathan, she could deal with the slow but steady progress.

  She thanked the doctor, who nodded and then left the room.

  Little by little, she thought. Vail kissed her son’s cheek and whispered in his ear. “Come on, Jonathan. Just like when you were a baby learning how to walk. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. You’ll pull through this. You’re gonna make it. You hear me, sweetheart?” She waited for a blink, a twitch of his mouth . . . but got nothing.

  Wiping away the tears, she walked out of his room and left the hospital, moving past a few members of the press who had camped out near the exit, “no commenting” as she pushed by them.

  What she needed now was slow, steady progress on Dead Eyes. As if in response to her thoughts, her cell phone rang: someone at BSU, the Behavioral Science Unit, had information for her.

  fifty-two

  Wayne Rudnick of BSU was cagey about what he had discovered regarding the Dead Eyes case but told her he couldn’t wait around for her to drive to the Academy. He had an exploding toothache and was heading out to an emergency dental appointment. He suggested they meet tomorrow morning instead.

  Vail went back to Robby’s place and found him with an apron on, mixing a pot of tomato sauce. Boiling water sat on the stove beside it, awaiting the introduction of a handful of stiff spaghetti noodles. As he dropped in the pasta, the water calmed like antacid on a queasy stomach.

  “Smells good,” she said as she approached the kitchen. Robby’s house, inherited from his mother several years ago when she passed away, showed its age. Nails, tape, and other items permanently embedded in the plaster walls’ surfaces had been covered over by repeated coats of paint. The old casement windows were drafty and needed to be replaced. New carpet had been installed, and it looked as if Robby had made an attempt at home decorating. But it still lacked warmth.

  Vail stepped up to the pot and sniffed. “Smells better than it looks. Is that Ragu or Prego?”

  “Hey,” Robby said, wooden spoon in hand. “Are you insulting me?”

  She looked into the pot again. “Just stating my observations. But if I’m wrong—”

  “It’s Prego.”

  “I see. Guess I’ll have to help out a bit. Do some of the cooking.”

  “You’re definitely insulting me.”

  Vail moved into the living room and sat down heavily on the couch. “Jonathan’s showing some more improvement.”

  Robby lowered the flames beneath the pots, then settled onto the sofa beside her. “That’s great,” he said, taking her hand in his own. “What’d the doctor say?”

  “He’s encouraged, feels it’s all going the way he’d expected. Small steps.” She kicked her shoes off and brought her feet up onto the couch, rested her head in Robby’s lap. “Raising a kid is tough. It’s easy to see how things go wrong, you know?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “On the drive over, I was thinking about Deacon, and how bad an influence he’s been on Jonathan the past year or so. It’s the kind of stuff that leads to the development of the twisted personalities the offenders develop.”

  “Oh, come on. A child of yours becoming a killer?”

  “Sounds silly, huh? But I worry about it sometimes. If it wasn’t for Deacon, it’d be the furthest thing from my mind. But he’s such a bad influence. When you’re in a relationship for so many years, and you know he’s going through tough times and you’re trying to help him through it. . . .” She shook her head. “I overlooked a lot of things. It took me months to step back and see there was nothing I could do, that he was beyond help. I realize that now. But what if he did things I never knew about, when Jonathan was younger. . . .” Her body tensed. “It’s not unusual with killers, in their youth, to withdraw into themselves. They’d never talk about things that happened to them when they were young. It hurts me just to think about the possibility.” She let the words hang in the air, then continued: “I keep playing things back in my mind, memories, things I saw in Jonathan’s behavior. Searching my memory for the warning signs.”

  “What kind of warning signs?”

  “Behaviors that show a lack of regard and car
ing for others.” She sat up and pulled her legs beneath her, winced in pain from her knee, then straightened it out. “When the early profilers interviewed convicted serial killers in prison, they found that the killer’s internal world was filled with thoughts of dominance over others. Cruelty to other kids, to animals. They set fires, stole things, destroyed property. I had a problem with Jonathan at one point where he was getting into fights at school. Third grade. He was bullying other kids. I tried talking to him, and he seemed to stop. But it bothered me he didn’t have any close friends. I worked with him on developing his social skills, and I thought I’d gotten through. But he started having problems again when Deacon and I started having problems.”

  “That could be considered normal.”

  “That’s what I kept telling myself. But that type of behavior, unless checked, can lead to other things. Things I’d never find out about. If he killed a cat or a dog, or a squirrel, I’d never know. During the interviews, the killers almost always described times when they’d killed an animal. It allowed them to express their rage and use it as an outlet because there were no consequences. No one knew they’d done it. That only isolated them more from family members or other kids their age. They eventually realized they were different, and that just made them retreat further into themselves. They never learned empathy, or how to control their impulses. They thought they were entitled to act the way they did because no one was there to tell them otherwise.”

  “You know what I think?”

  Vail looked at him, inviting him to continue.

  “I think you’ve been in the minds of serial killers so much, twenty-four/seven, three-sixty-five, that you begin to look for things that aren’t there. You live the life, deep in the trenches, and it consumes you. I think you need some time off.” He paused a moment, then said, “Maybe permanently.”

  She looked at him, in a fleeting second realizing he was right, but not wanting to acknowledge it. She rose from the couch, banded her arms across her chest, and began to pace in her nyloned feet. “Quitting is not my style. But you’re right, I’ll take some time. Once we catch Dead Eyes, I’ll take a month assuming I can work it out with the timing of my trial. I’ll need the time to get my mom’s stuff settled and the house sold.”

  “I think it’ll do you some good. Get away for a while. I’ll come visit you on weekends.”

  She bit the inside of her lip. “And if I don’t win this case? If Deacon succeeds? I’m out of the Bureau. I’ll never carry a badge again.”

  Robby stood and stopped her from pacing. “He won’t. But if by some strange twist of fate he is successful, then I’ll be there with you, by your side. We’ll get through it together.”

  Vail forced a smile. “I could do consulting, right? Write a few books.”

  “Yeah, like that guy, one of your BSU pioneers, Thomas Underwood.”

  “I could fly all over the world, developing profiles, helping out the locals, visiting exotic places.”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

  She stood there for a moment, pondering such a future. “I want my job back, Robby. At the Bureau. Staring at grisly photos and dealing with male chauvinists.”

  Robby looked at her a long moment, then nodded. “Then that’s the goal.”

  She nodded back.

  “Let’s go eat,” he said as he took her hand. “Take it from me, Prego is best served hot.”

  fifty-three

  Vail and Robby parked in the Academy’s main lot and entered through Jefferson Hall. They signed in at the security station and navigated the maze of glass hallways, Vail playing tour guide and pointing out notable areas and rooms. They made their way through the armory and indoor shooting range, caught the elevator, and took it down into the Behavioral Science Unit’s basement offices.

  BSU’s Investigative Support Unit gained attention because of a handful of agents whose profiling work in the seventies and eighties proved invaluable in cracking several high-profile serial offender cases. It was made famous by its appearance in the movie The Silence of the Lambs, followed by mentions in numerous novels.

  When the BSU was divided (though not conquered), the Investigative Support Unit was renamed and carted down the road. The profilers gained windows and a more cheerful working environment. The BSU criminologists who remained in the subbasement gained ... more office space.

  Vail led Robby through the cream-colored cinderblock corridor to Wayne Rudnick’s office, an eight-by-ten room lit with four incandescent fixtures standing on surfaces of varied heights. The attempt to brighten a dull, depressing environment had fallen somewhat short, Vail thought, but it was an improvement nonetheless.

  “Kind of creepy down here,” Robby said.

  “You get used to it. It’s a kick to visit, because of all the history and legends who’ve worked here.”

  Rudnick, a sixteen-year veteran, had spent every moment of his tenure in the now-famous subbasement. On his door was a sign scrawled in black magic marker that read:

  Welcome to BSU—

  sixty feet underground

  ten times deeper than dead people

  Vail knocked on Rudnick’s partially open door and waited but did not get a response. She gave it a slight nudge and it swung open with a squeal.

  Rudnick was sitting behind his desk tossing a gel-filled stress-relief ball in the air. He had been doing it for years, claiming it helped him clear his mind. He had once organized a unit-wide challenge to see who could come closest to the ceiling without hitting it. Rudnick had won, but someone had monkeyed with his office chair, and much to the delight of everyone who was in on the prank, Rudnick complained the arc and force of his toss were impaired by the change in the “feel” of his chair. He remained pissed for days when he discovered the conspiracy had been organized by his special agent-in-charge.

  “Well, if it’s not the Redhead Express.” Rudnick jumped out of his chair, arms up and extended for a hug.

  She obliged him and then introduced Robby.

  Rudnick brushed back his wild Albert Einstein hair, then shook Robby’s hand. “You’re here on a case, aren’t you?” He turned back to his desk, lifting various papers and files, as if looking for something.

  “Dead Eyes,” Robby said. “Karen sent the case over to you for input.” He looked to Vail for confirmation. “How long ago was that?”

  “Dead Eyes, Dead Eyes. That rings a bell.” Rudnick continued searching his desk, the movement of papers becoming a bit more frantic.

  Vail crossed her arms over her chest and, with a slight smirk, shook her head.

  “Is there a problem?” Robby asked.

  “He’s pulling your leg,” Vail said. “He knows where the file is.”

  Rudnick suddenly reached out and poked a folder from atop a pile. “Here it is.”

  “See? He does this all the time. He thinks it’s funny.”

  “I love playing with new agents’ heads.”

  Robby took a step forward, his thick thighs stopped by the edge of the desk. He looked down at the diminutive Rudnick. “I’m not a new agent.”

  Rudnick looked up at Robby, over the tops of his thick-rimmed eyeglasses. “But you’re someone of authority, I can see that.”

  “Investigator with Vienna PD.”

  “Vienna! The poke and plumb town over on the northwest side. Poke your head in and you’re plumb out of town.”

  “We’re small, yes. Kind of like you.”

  “Ooh. Okay. I think that’s enough horsing around. Time to get down to business.” Rudnick sat and opened the file folder.

  “How’s your tooth?” Vail asked.

  “Need a root canal. Tell ya, I think we should start including dentists routinely in our suspect pool. They’re sadists, every one of ’em, I swear.”

  “Dead Eyes,” Robby reminded.

  “Yes, okay. Okay. Dead Eyes . . . the serial offender who’s plugged into the information superhighway.”

  “Information superhighway?” Vail ask
ed. “Who uses that term anymore?”

  Rudnick glanced at her over the tops of his glasses. “I do, apparently.” He opened the file and consulted a page on the left side of the flap. “So as I was saying, this guy is tech savvy, or at least knows how to access the information necessary in constructing the parameters by which he can make it appear that he’s tech savvy.” Rudnick looked from Vail to Robby and apparently sensed their impatience. “Let me explain. According to our cyber geeks, he—”

  “You got something back from the lab?”

  Rudnick’s eyebrows rose. “Didn’t you?”

  Vail frowned. “Go on.”

  “Yes, well, as I was saying, the geek cops said our offender used a technique that allows the email message to dissolve into its core constituents—ones and zeroes, the digital equivalent of blood and guts—to prevent us from tracking the email back to him. There’re a few things interesting about that. First, they said the info on how to do that’s available on the superhigh—excuse me, the Internet—so it’s not clear whether he possessed this knowledge or if he just followed the instructions online. But given what other information you’ve submitted, I’d have to say it’s the latter. Kind of like a fanatic who cooks up a bomb from a recipe posted on some militia webpage.”

  “I agree,” Vail said. “Our offender’s no technogeek. But he’s bright and can certainly find out how to do it.”

  “Second, and perhaps this goes to the point of it all, is that this vanishing act he’s playing with us means he only wants one way communication—a monologue, if you will. Either he’s not interested in what you have to say about it, or he’s more interested in what you’ll do about it.”

  Vail nodded slowly, as if she were absorbing the meaning into her skin, filtering it as she mulled it through her mind.