The 7th Victim

by Alan Jacobson

  Greenwich turned to Vail, who was still staring at the glass window in disbelief. “I left my purse in the car. I don’t have any money with me.”

  “Then that phone call I promised you earlier will come in pretty handy.” He forced a smile, then led her out of the intake booth.

  twenty-five

  “The jail cell was six-by-eight, Robby. A cinderblock room with a tiny window.”

  Robby took his eyes off the road to glance at Vail. “I know, I’ve seen them.”

  It was a few minutes past two in the morning and they were on I-395, headed toward the task force op center to pick up her car—and her purse. The winding, tree-canopied road was nature at its best during the day, but eerie on a winter night, when the headlights caught the barren, low-lying branches as the car sped beneath them.

  “If I didn’t have claustrophobia before, I probably have it now.” Vail shivered, then pulled her seat belt away from her chest, as if it had renewed the confining sensation of the jail cell. “What a horrible experience. It took them three hours to get a phone over to me.”

  “Three hours?”

  “There were a shitload of prisoners all waiting their turn on two phones. They cut me some slack here and there, gave me the red carpet treatment—if there is such a thing in the slammer—but even with that it took forever to get a line.”

  “Sorry it took me so long to get here.”

  She waved a tired hand. “Hey, I appreciate you laying out the cash.” She leaned back against the headrest. “Hopefully the trial will go my way and I’ll be able to put it all behind me.”

  “It will, Karen, everything’ll turn out.”

  “It better, or I’ll need to find a new line of work.” She shut her eyes, tried to force the thoughts of disaster from her mind. “Tomorrow I have to find a good lawyer. Magistrate said I should hire the best I can afford. I feel like vomiting over the thought of having to hire a defense attorney. They’re vermin.”

  “Just keep things in perspective. Focus your energy. There are more important things to deal with right now.”

  Robby was right, there were more important things. “I hope Jonathan’s okay,” she mumbled. “I never did get to his school.” She was about to reflect on the frailty of life when her BlackBerry went off, followed a second later by Robby’s cell phone. Vail looked down at the display, then at Robby, who was struggling to read his in the dark while keeping the car steady.

  They glanced at each other, the dread of having to view another mutilated body written on Robby’s face. He tightened his grip on the wheel and shook his head. “Here we go again.”

  “Two in the morning,” she said. “Doesn’t Dead Eyes know I just got out of the slammer?”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, they were pulling up to the curb in front of a small, square brick house in Alexandria. Rattan furniture adorned its porch and an American flag hung from a column that supported the second-story overhang.

  Bledsoe’s Crown Victoria was parked in front, behind Hancock’s Acura and Manette’s Volkswagen Jetta. Crime scene tape had already been strung across the trees at the sidewalk, extending all the way over to the neighbor’s side yard—a wide swath of land to protect the crime scene and guard against disturbance of potential ingress and egress footprints made by the Dead Eyes killer. Halogen lamps on tripods lit the front of the house as a criminalist scoured the exterior. To those who were awakened by the activity, it had the surreal circus atmosphere that accompanied a Hollywood movie production. But there were no cameras, no fake extras. This was, unfortunately, the real thing.

  As they got out of Robby’s car, Sinclair pulled behind them in his 1969 Chevy pickup. They nodded at Sinclair and the three of them walked in together. By the time they hit the bedroom, there was no doubt this was one of their cases. Murals across the walls, message written above the bed.

  “No defensive wounds,” Bledsoe said. “Same drill. Ate his usual meal at the scene. No dental impressions. Looking for saliva, but I doubt we’ll find any.” The woman had been treated to the same filet job, and the left hand had once again been amputated. “Vic is Denise Cranston. No business card, but we found a pay stub. Works for Lamplighter Design Gallery in Old Town. Sales manager.”

  “What is she, vic six? Or five?” Sinclair asked. “I’ve lost count.”

  Vail couldn’t help but stare at the eviscerated body. “Unofficially, she’s number six.”

  “Whatever number we give her, it’s too many, far as I’m concerned,” Bledsoe said.

  Manette craned her neck as she took in the room’s interior. “Did you say she worked at a design gallery?”

  “High-end furniture,” Bledsoe said.

  “Judging by her digs,” Manette quipped, “she shoulda brought some of that stuff home with her.”

  Robby sighed deeply. “She doesn’t seem to fit the pattern, career wise. Sales manager, accountant, dental hygienist—”

  “Unless there is no pattern and it was all our imagination,” Bledsoe said.

  Hancock was studying the walls. “There’s something to these paintings, I’m sure of it,” he said.

  Vail yawned. “Keep looking, maybe you’ll find it. Like the hand.”

  Hancock shot her a look. “I’m still working on that.”

  Sinclair slipped on a pair of latex gloves. The others followed suit. “Guess we just dig in.”

  Vail walked over to Robby and told him she was going outside to check her messages, in case Jonathan had called her.

  She stood out front, beyond the crime scene tape, as the phone connected. Her answering machine started, and she entered her security code. Her lone message began playing: it was left earlier in the evening by a nurse at Fairfax Hospital, informing her that Jonathan had had an accident. Her heart fell a few feet into her stomach as she fumbled with the keypad to dial the number left by the nurse. It was the main line, and after searching the registry, the operator put her on hold.

  Vail walked inside the house, pulled Robby aside, and got his car keys. After waiting on hold far too long while trying to negotiate the dark streets with a nervous hand, on unfamiliar streets in the middle of the night, the call was dropped. “Damnit!” she yelled, then tossed the BlackBerry onto the seat beside her.

  Twenty minutes later, she was running toward the nurse’s station at the intensive care unit. “They told me downstairs my son is here. Jonathan Tucker, he was brought here last night. I’m Karen Vail, I just got the message.”

  The nurse was in her early sixties, gray hair pulled up into a bun. She looked condescendingly at Vail, then consulted her paperwork. “A message was left at nine-forty-nine—”

  “Yes, I know. I was—I wasn’t home last night. Where’s my son?”

  “Follow me,” she said and maneuvered her wide body out from behind the counter. She led Vail to a room in which Jonathan was lying, IV lines running into his arms.

  “Oh, my God. Jonathan. . . .” She stood by his side, placed a hand on her son’s shoulder. “What happened?”

  “I wasn’t on, but according to the records the boy was brought in with the history of having fallen down the basement stairs.” She glanced at the file, flipped a page. “Ambulance was called by his father at nine-fifteen and your son arrived at the hospital at nine-thirty-one—”

  “What’s wrong with him? Can I talk with the doctor?”

  “I’ll go get him.” And the nurse waddled out of the room.

  Vail pulled up a chair and sat beside her son, stroked his hair. “Oh, Jonathan, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. . . .”

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, a tall, thin black man in his late thirties walked into the room. “I’m David Altman,” he said in a deep, hoarse voice. “You’re the boy’s mother?”

  “Karen Vail.”

  The doctor nodded. “Ms. Vail, your son apparently fell down a flight of stairs and struck his head. The trauma rendered him unconscious and we’ve put IV lines in, as you can see, to feed him. He’s breathing on his own. An MRI scan revealed
brain swelling—”

  Vail held up a hand. The other was pressed against her lips to stifle an outburst of emotion. “In short, Doctor. Please.”

  “He’s got a closed head injury/concussion with traumatic cerebral hemorrhage. He’s in a coma, Ms. Vail. My initial prognosis is guarded, but if pressed I’d say poor to fair. There are a few signs of responsiveness, but there are complicating factors. Good news is there’s no need for advanced life support. My prognosis will improve if I see more signs of responsiveness and purposeful movement.”

  Vail took a deep, uneven breath, fearing she was losing the battle to keep from crying. But she had to be strong at the moment, she had to keep her mind clear to ask the right questions. She knew Deacon had done this, she knew it. “When he wakes up, will he remember what happened to him?”

  “He’ll probably have retrograde memory loss for the events immediately preceding the precipitating event. In this case, the fall. But it will come back to him. How long, it’s hard to say. Could be hours, could be weeks.”

  She bit her lip, felt it quivering. Took a deep breath through her nose, exhaled slowly and unevenly. She felt weak and stuck out a hand behind her to feel for the chair.

  “I know this is a lot to absorb all at once. I wish I could give you more information, or at least a better prognosis. At the moment, I’ve told you all I know. We have to give the body a chance to heal itself. Meantime, if you want to talk to him, read to him, I can’t tell you for sure he can hear you, but there are some studies that suggest the comatose brain can receive such stimuli.”

  She forced herself to look at the doctor. “Will there be any permanent damage? Give it to me straight, Doc.”

  He hesitated a moment, seemed to size her up. “Right now, I can’t even tell you if he’s going to regain consciousness. Why don’t we take it one step at a time?”

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  “There’s a chance he’ll be fine when he awakens, but there’s also a chance there’ll be some residual deficits. It’s too soon to tell, and that’s the truth.”

  Vail nodded and thanked the doctor, who excused himself. She sat there, placed a clammy hand atop Jonathan’s, and rested her face on his arm. As the door clicked shut, she felt a tremendous release, then burst into tears.

  twenty-six

  Vail was thinking about happier times . . . Jonathan on a swing in the park in Queens, Deacon away on a business trip, working for a new package delivery company in a management-level position. His career prospects bright, hers likewise poised to bloom. She had just put in her application to the FBI Academy, a chance to not only move up in the law enforcement ranks, but an opportunity for a safer work environment. Jonathan swung back and forth, gently, the three year old laughing as he flew through the air. “Higher!” he said between giggles. “Higher, Mommy!”

  She pushed the swing higher, the temperature a sweltering ninety-five, the humidity approaching pretty much the same figure. She swatted some air at her neck, wishing she’d brought a sun hat with her. Good old New York weather.

  She thought of her promotion from the Academy, which was followed three years later by Deacon’s layoff from his job because of accounting irregularities. He maintained it was an honest mistake, a claim Vail believed and defended. But true or not, it began his downward spiral, a freefall that would last the next four years. He stopped taking his bipolar medication, started drinking, and lost motivation to find a new job. He drifted from one low-paying position to another, each one of lesser prestige than the last. He seemed defeated, and though Vail did everything she could to help pull him out of his doldrums, he struck bottom when she was promoted to the profiling unit. His teetering male ego couldn’t take another hit, and he only appeared to garner an intensified resentment toward her.

  Vail took to raising Jonathan on her own, arranging for her son to go to after-school programs and day care until she could pick him up on her way home from work. Busy with her new career, she saw less and less of Deacon, who’d taken what was supposed to be a temporary job as a long-haul trucker. Like an ice cube in a refrigerator, their love slowly melted away, until there was nothing remaining of what had drawn them together so many years ago. The thought of divorce crossed her mind many times, but she could never pull the trigger. Karen Vail, expert marksman, daring NYPD detective, and crack FBI agent, couldn’t hit the most significant target of her life.

  When Deacon was relieved of his job because of repeated incidents of road rage, it was the final brick in the wall. He sat at home and drank beer, his anger slowly turning toward his wife in the form of verbal abuse, which built over six months to the one and only time he struck her. She walked out the door with a swollen lip and a deep sense of sadness she never imagined possible.

  She served Deacon with her application for divorce five days later.

  Vail shook her head. The fuse had been lit, and now this. Her son lay in a hospital bed in a coma. How could this have happened?

  The rhythmic vibration of her BlackBerry invaded her thoughts and woke her from her semisleep. She lifted her head and realized she had drooled on Jonathan’s forearm. She wiped it away, then looked at her watch. It was seven thirty in the morning.

  The text was from a private line at the Behavioral Analysis Unit. She dialed in and was routed to Thomas Gifford’s office. Her boss had no doubt just learned of the arrest. With all that had gone on, she had forgotten to call him. Shit. Got any more kerosene for the fire?

  “Mr. Gifford wants to see you in his office ASAP,” the secretary said.

  “Tell him I’m on my way, be there in about forty-five minutes.”

  She gave Jonathan a kiss on the forehead, knowing there was nothing she could do sitting by his side. “I love you,” she said, then left.

  VAIL ARRIVED at the commerce center and parked. She looked in the rearview mirror and tried to fix herself up, but she had to admit, she looked like hell. She still had Robby’s car, no purse, no makeup, and she still had not been home to shower and change.

  She took the elevator up to the second floor, punched in her ID code, and wandered down the hallway toward Gifford’s office. It was three times the size of her own cubicle, with a huge picture window view of the surrounding Aquian foliage.

  Vail knocked on the open door. Gifford looked up and motioned her in. A phone was stuck to his ear and he was nodding. “I know, but that’s just the way I want it. I don’t care if he thinks he’s the fall guy. . . . You know what? Fine, then he is. Tell him whatever you want to tell him.” He grunted, then hung up.

  “If this isn’t a good time—” Vail started.

  “No, no. Sit down. Any time’s a good time to meet with one of my agents who’s been—how should I put it . . . arrested? Any time’s a good time to sit and chat about how one of my agents beat the living crap out of her husband, landed in jail, and didn’t even bother to call her superior to give him a heads-up. I’ve gotta get a fucking call from the Fairfax County PD. Some grunt lieutenant tells me he’s got some bad news for me.”

  “Sir, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the embarrassment to you, to the Bureau—”

  “You’re supposed to be working on a task force. Dead Eyes, remember him?”

  “Sir, I was going to call you when I got out of jail. Things dragged on, and I didn’t get out till almost two this morning. I was on my way to the task force op center to get my car and my purse, and to leave a message on your voice mail. We got texted en route by Paul Bledsoe. There’s another vic.”

  Gifford sat back in his leather chair. “Another Dead Eyes vic?”

  Vail nodded.

  “Shit.” His eyes roamed his desk for a moment before coming to rest again on Vail’s face. “You look like crap.”

  “I know, sir. Haven’t been home yet. While at the vic’s house, I got word my son was in the hospital—” She felt the urge to cry again, but fought it back into her throat. Took a deep breath. “His father pushed him down the stairs. He’s in a coma.”
She turned away, wiped at the tears beneath her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  She nodded. “I will beat these charges against me, sir.”

  He picked up a pen from his desk and stared at it. Vail knew what was coming. The fact he didn’t make eye contact with her made it all the more inevitable.

  “I hope you realize that I’m truly sorry about what I have to do. But I’ve got to place you on paid administrative leave, effective immediately. You can keep your creds and gun. But you need to stay away from work. I spoke with OPR a little while ago. They’ll be here at eleven to interview you. Cooperate with them. Remember, they’re on your side in this. Internal review is a formality. At the moment, this is obviously a personal matter. Once they’ve opened their file, they monitor the situation. They’ll only act if the charges stick.”