The 7th Victim kv-1

by Alan Jacobson

  “And the content?” Robby asked.

  “Yes, yes, the content. Flesch-Kincaid Index scores it at a sixth grade level, though I’m not sure that’s worth much to us because he’s writing in a voice consistent with a child. More significantly, I’d say his writing appears to emanate from a different part of his brain than his ‘blood murals,’ which I’ll get to in a minute. Unlike the murals, which likely come from some subconscious expression of his feelings, these writings are very consciously constructed. He’s gone to considerable effort to send them to you in an untraceable form. He doesn’t want to get caught, but he’s compelled to share these experiences with you people. His use of the first person is significant—he chose it for a reason, the reason being that they’re personal accounts of actual events in this offender’s life.”

  “How can we rule out the possibility he’s merely writing fiction?”

  “With his flare for creativity, that’s certainly an option. But I believe there’s more going on here than just a frustrated writer at work. I think this stuff is deeply personal to him. That’s why he’s showing it to you. It’s his outlet for whatever happened to him as a youth. And I believe these writings are very closely related to what we’re seeing play out when he’s with the bodies. He abuses them, much like he was abused as a child. He’s telling you what his childhood was like, the events that made him who he is today. Maybe it’s his way of explaining his actions so you won’t think badly of him.”

  Robby squinted. “You think the killer cares what we think of him?”

  “I think he definitely cares how he’s perceived. Not in the same way we care about the way other people see us, you understand.” Rudnick shook his head, started to say something, then stopped.

  “What is it?” Vail asked.

  “There’s something more going on here.” He switched to reading glasses and looked down at the file. “I just haven’t been able to put my finger on it.”

  After a long moment of watching Rudnick stare at the page and shake his head in frustration, Vail asked, “What about the blood murals?”

  Rudnick’s face brightened. “Ah, okay, that’s a bit easier to explain. Let’s talk for a moment in generalities. There was a question about Impressionism.” He got a nod from Vail and continued. “Well, Impressionism is an artistic movement that was born in France and lasted from the 1860s to about 1886. It consisted of a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques—”

  “I was an art history major, Wayne. I know all about its origins.”

  “For your very intimidating colleague, then, since odds are good that both of you weren’t art history majors.”

  “That’s correct,” Robby said.

  Rudnick winked at Vail, glanced down at his notes, then continued. “Impressionism was considered an extreme departure from the previous major art movement of the Renaissance. These painters rejected the concept of perspective, idealized figures, and chiaroscuro—the use of dark and light in a stylistic manner—”

  Vail held up a hand. “I wonder if Dead Eyes is using Impressionism as a symbol, consciously or unconsciously. His rejection of something in society, his way of making a statement.”

  Rudnick nodded. “That’s certainly a possibility. I’d thought of that, but haven’t had time to run it through the old gears,” he said, pointing to his brain. He turned back to Robby. “The Impressionist painter’s focus was on capturing the effect of light on the colors of a landscape. Up close, their paintings look like splashes of color. They don’t look like much of a picture until you view them from a bit of a distance.” He looked at Vail. “I’m only getting this stuff secondhand, so if you have anything to offer, cut in.”

  “Nothing to offer. But I think you—and your expert—are missing the point. I said the offender’s blood murals reminded me of an Impressionism era painting. Mostly because of the strokes, the way the blood was laid out. It wasn’t merely blood spattered on a wall, like a disorganized offender would leave it. It was . . . applied in a very specific pattern. Like a painting, as if the offender looked at these murals as an art form in and of itself.”

  Rudnick was nodding animatedly. “Yes, yes, that’s my point. But again, you’re jumping the gun. You on speed today, Karen, or what? Too much coffee?”

  “You take forever to get to the point sometimes, Wayne.”

  “Fine. Here’s the point: I checked with an expert on offender and inmate artwork. She analyzes their doodlings as well as the more elaborate sketches, including pictures drawn pre-arrest and during incarceration. It took her a while to come up with something. She took it to an art historian, who saw what you were talking about, the possible influence of Impressionist painters, but since it was ‘painted’ with fingertips and not a brush, she couldn’t analyze brush strokes, which seems to be a key indicator when trying to evaluate artistic trends. There was a suggestion of Impressionist influence, but she wasn’t willing to commit to anything more than that. It didn’t really follow the conventions of Impressionism, particularly the technique of light and color. There’s no light source and no color because there are no pigments. It’s just blood. She said it’s like trying to paint an entire rainbow with only blue or red on your palette.

  “So it fell back on the desk of the offender artwork expert, whose best guess was that there was a method to the brush strokes. Very organized and planned, with an inherent order. There was a repetition in the strokes, but she was unsure it meant anything other than to make it distinguishable and unique. She couldn’t discern any hidden meaning to the murals but was sure it was the work of the same ‘artist.’” He flipped a page of the report and concluded: “She did say the suggestion of Impressionistic influence was likely not coincidental or accidental.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that it’s likely our offender does have a background in art history, or is an artist of some sort.”

  Robby looked at Vail. “You’d already figured that out.”

  “Oh, don’t tell her that,” Rudnick said. “It’ll just go to her head.”

  Vail rose from her seat. “Confirmation is always nice to have,” she said. “The way things have been going, it’s good to have someone like Wayne at my back.”

  “I’d much rather be at your front.” He winked. “Oh, excuse me. I’m not supposed to make those kinds of remarks. Workplace etiquette. Sexual harassment laws and such.”

  “Did your expert say anything about what the murals said about the offender?”

  “The fact that he paints in blood is sick.”

  “Yes, Wayne. Something useful.”

  Rudnick’s face hardened, as if he suddenly realized the gravity of her question. “We both feel the blood is deeply arousing to him. It follows closely with the intense relationship he has with the body. He spends an incredibly long time with the victim. First he eviscerates them, then he grooms them to match some skewed image he has of women, making them ugly, almost repulsive. Then he takes their blood and paints on the wall. In a very deliberate fashion. There is definitely artistic talent there, but it’s abstract. No one I showed the photos to could ascertain anything useful from the patterns and shapes. And despite this repetitive ‘internal order,’ overall they’re different from crime scene to crime scene. So whatever he’s painting isn’t a consistent image, which makes me think it’s not borne of a fantasy. The act of painting on the wall may be, but what he’s painting . . . no one seems to know.” Rudnick grabbed his gel ball and began squeezing it. “In sum, your guy is consistent with what we’d expect to see in this type of offender: the themes of dominance, revenge, violence, power, control, mutilation . . . they’re all there.”

  Vail took a second to absorb this, then nodded. “Thanks for the help, Wayne. Stay sane.”

  His face brightened again into a mischievous smirk. “Hard to do around here. I sometimes think they’ve buried us down here for a reason, like it’s some secret insane asylum. Like we’re the inmates, but in telling us we work
for the FBI, they’ve calmed our murderous instincts.”

  “Uh huh. Take care, Wayne. And thanks again.” Vail led the way out, Robby fast on her heels. As soon as the door clicked shut, he asked, “Stay sane? That implies he’s sane to begin with.”

  Vail tilted her head and nodded. “Guess you’re right. Down here, such assumptions might be a bit of a stretch.”

  WHEN THE ELEVATOR DOORS spread open on the main floor, Vail handed Robby her keys and told him to wait for her in the car; she forgot to ask Rudnick something on a prior case of hers and had to run back down. She appeared in the doorway to Rudnick’s office a couple minutes later, and there was the bushy haired analyst, reclining in his chair tossing the ball at the ceiling.

  Vail cleared her throat and the ball skittered off his fingertips onto the floor.

  He looked over. “Am I having one of those déjà vu events or are you back for something?”

  “I’m back,” Vail said.

  “You like it when I speak French? The people are a bit uppity, but the language does kind of roll off the tongue.”

  Vail stepped into the room and shut the door behind her.

  Rudnick sat up in his chair. “Uh oh. This is serious. Either you’re going to work me over or you want some privacy.”

  “I want some advice,” Vail said.

  “Okay. I haven’t practiced psychiatry in a gazillion years, but—”

  “I’m serious, Wayne.”

  “Right. Serious. Okay, what do you need?”

  Vail looked down, then up at the walls—everywhere but at Rudnick’s face.

  Finally, he said, “You know, your body language suggests you’re uncomfortable with what you’re about to ask me.”

  Vail nodded, then finally met his eyes. “I’m having dreams. Strange dreams.” She recapped the gist of the nightmares but saved the best for last. “So the killer’s straddling the woman’s body, he drives the knife into her eyes, then looks up into the mirror.”

  Rudnick nodded thoughtfully, clearly engaged and sitting on every word. “And you saw yourself.”

  Vail felt herself step backward. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Because, my dear, you stare at mutilated bodies day in and day out. You live and breathe serial murder. It has to affect you deeply, even when you turn your brain off and go to sleep.”

  “But I’ve never had these kinds of dreams before.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t bog me down with details.”

  She sighed. “I thought you’d be able to help me.”

  “Look, Karen, are you worried that you may be the killer?”

  Vail forced a laugh. “Of course not.” She chuckled again. “Yes. I mean, I don’t know. I can’t be, right?”

  “No, you can’t be. You spend all day around people who analyze behavior. Don’t you think one of them would be looking at you if it were even possible?”

  “A former agent on the task force thinks I’m Dead Eyes.”

  “Former agent, you say? Must be a reason why he’s a former agent, Karen. Point is, you’re entrenched in a very challenging case, probably the most challenging one you’ve ever had because you’re intimately involved in it. Most of the time, you don’t even get to visit fresh crime scenes, let alone investigate them personally. That guy in your unit—Mark Safarik—what’s that saying he had?”

  “Mark called it being ‘Knee deep in the blood and guts.’”

  “Yeah, that’s it. You’re in this one up to your hips. It’s on your mind and you can’t shut it down. You feel enormous pressure to solve it. And when you can’t, you’re taunting yourself in your dreams. ‘Can’t you see it? Study the art! Figure it out!’ You’re telling yourself to find the answers. Think about it a minute, objectively. I know that’s hard because you’re so close. But think about it.”

  Vail stood there, her mind flooding with thoughts when suddenly one fought to the surface; it tumbled out of her mouth as if it were a pilot ejected from a cockpit. “I can’t see the killer because I’m blind, just like the victims.”

  “There you go,” Rudnick said. “Very good.” He squinted and shook his head slowly, the picture of pity. “You’ve been taught to empathize with the victims and think like the killers, Karen. What an impossible thing to do! No wonder you’re conflicted. Your subconscious is on overload.”

  Vail bit her lip.

  Rudnick stepped around his desk and placed a hand on her shoulder. “This is all perfectly normal, Karen. I bet if you ask some of your colleagues in your unit, you’ll find that many of them have had similar dreams about this stuff.”

  Vail looked up, feeling a bit brighter. “Thanks, Wayne. Makes sense.”

  Rudnick smiled. “Of course.” He bent over and retrieved his ball. He sat down behind his desk, leaned back, and took aim at the ceiling. “Now beat it so I can get back to work.”

  fifty-four

  After joining Robby in the Academy parking lot, she drove him back to his car. She had planned to go to the hospital to visit Jonathan, then meet Robby for dinner. Despite what Jackson Parker had said about him being her only friend, she knew she had Robby. She felt that no matter how things turned out, he would be there for her. And her for him.

  As Robby was getting into the car, his phone sounded—followed seconds later by a similar trill from Vail’s BlackBerry. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll drive.”

  They arrived at the task force op center ten minutes later, ahead of Manette, Del Monaco, and Sinclair. Bledsoe was pacing, holding what appeared to be several eight-by-ten glossy photos in his hand. As soon as Bledsoe saw Vail come through the door, his face lit up.

  “I feel like a kid who’s just found out a really cool secret, but he’s got no one to tell.”

  “What’s the secret?” Robby asked.

  “Look.” He shoved the photos in Robby’s face.

  “Where’d you find this?”

  “You’re gonna love this,” Bledsoe said, looking at Vail. “If we figure out what it means, it could break the case.”

  “Where was it?”

  “In Linwood, shoved up her rear.”

  “In her rectum?” Robby asked.

  “ME found it during the autopsy. Showed up on x-ray.”

  Robby handed each of the photos to Vail as he went through the stack. “What does it mean?”

  Vail did not answer. She was studying the close-up photos, which depicted a heart-shaped gold locket.

  “Karen? What’s wrong?”

  “Looks familiar. . . .” She finally looked up. “Can’t place it.” Where have I seen something like this before?

  “But what does it mean?”

  The front door flung open and in walked Manette, Del Monaco, and Sinclair.

  “. . . and I’m telling you, Sears Tower has the most stories,” Sinclair said.

  “But in terms of actual building height,” Del Monaco said, “that one in Taiwan is tallest.”

  “Hey, look at this,” Bledsoe said.

  Manette, Del Monaco, and Sinclair joined the huddle.

  Vail handed them the stack of photos. “ME found this locket during Linwood’s autopsy.” She turned back to Bledsoe. “We already know Linwood meant something special to this guy. Somehow this is related. When an offender shoves an object up a victim’s rectum, it’s a very personal act. First thought is that there’s a sexual component. It’s symbolic. Meant to send a message.”

  “Another message,” Sinclair groaned. “We haven’t figured out the first one yet.”

  “I think I’m beginning to understand,” Manette said. “Our UNSUB designs puzzles for The New York Times. He wears red underwear and likes pistachio ice cream because the nuts symbolize his mental state. What do you think, Kari, honey, maybe? Possibly?”

  Vail ignored her. “Even though it’s ritual behavior he hasn’t engaged in before, it doesn’t change my profile. But it does support everything we’ve assumed about him up to this point. If anything, it solidifies our belief that Linwood’s a key. Oh—
and a couple other things. The experts at BSU said the email this guy sent is likely a personal account of his childhood.”

  “Pretty fucked up childhood,” Manette said. “Then again, isn’t that the thing with these killers, Kari? They were abused by a parent, or they were pissed on by some bully, someone didn’t like the color of their hair—”

  “BSU also felt,” Vail said, gaze firmly rooted to Manette’s mischievous eyes, “that the offender definitely has artistic talent and that he’s probably had some art training along the way. Could be significant. The murals show repetitive patterns, even though they’re all different from one another.”

  “So how does all this help us?” Bledsoe asked.

  “Well, for one, the more emails we get from him, the better understanding we’ll have of what’s making him kill. The more info we can gather on his thought process, the greater the chances we’ll have of anticipating his next move, or even possibly catching him.”

  “Anything on the emails themselves? Are they traceable?”

  “The geeks are working on it, but so far all we’ve got is that he’s used some sort of special software that not only prevents it from being printed, but it causes the email to self-destruct after a certain period of time. In this case, approximately two minutes after you begin reading it.”

  “So he’s a technology whiz,” Bledsoe said.

  “Not necessarily. It’s all readily available info that anyone who’s good with a computer can figure out without too much difficulty.”

  “Then what do we know about this software?” Sinclair asked. “Who makes it?”

  “It’s not software that you buy in the store. This is Internet stuff, created by people who claim that anonymous email is an extension of Free Speech, used to protect human rights, workers reporting abuses, political dissidents complaining about their government, people writing on controversial topics, that sort of thing. Most of it is web-based. There’re a shitload of providers.”

  Manette shook her head. “So we’re not gonna catch this dick-head by tracking down the source of his messages.”