The 7th Victim

by Alan Jacobson

  “And what?” Bledsoe asked.

  Vail swallowed hard. “The crime scene photos.”

  There was silence. Finally, Robby spoke. “Karen, we really need to report this.”

  She sat up suddenly. “Are you out of your mind? You’ll destroy two careers, and mine is already on the edge of the cliff.”

  Robby sat down on the floor next to her. In a soft voice, he said, “Karen, this is bad. Very bad. It’ll affect this entire investigation.”

  “The only one conducting this investigation is the task force,” Bledsoe bellowed. “The three of us here makes half the group. Besides, I run the damn thing and I already know what happened. Tell anyone, Bureau or PD, and it’ll be a lynching. With Thurston’s nose in everything, he’ll suspend me, for Christ’s sake. My guess, Robby, is that you won’t stand a rat’s chance in a pool of cyanide of escaping the purge. And then the whole investigation will hit the brakes. No. I say we keep this little . . . situation between the three of us.”

  Vail looked at her ethical colleague, he looked at her, and then they both looked at Bledsoe.

  Everyone nodded and the contract was sealed.

  forty-six

  The agreement having been reached, the question begging for an answer was Vail’s connection to the offender. They stood there, hands on hips, the issue riding on the air between them.

  “Whatever the answer is, I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here. He knows where you live, where to find you.”

  Vail clenched her jaw. “I’m not leaving. I’m not letting him run me out of my house.” She turned and walked away. “I won’t do it.”

  Bledsoe shared a look with Robby.

  “She can stay at my place,” Robby said. “I’ve got an extra room.”

  The corners of Vail’s mouth curled upwards, but she turned slightly so Bledsoe wouldn’t see. That was funny, Robby. She knew Bledsoe was too good a cop not to suspect there was something between them.

  “Yeah, good, whatever,” Bledsoe said.

  “Okay,” Robby said. “Go pack some things and I’ll—”

  “No.” Vail said it firmly, as if it was the final word on the topic.

  But Bledsoe was not to be denied his say. “We made a pact on this break-in. But the deal’s off if you’re going to put your life in danger without good reason. And this isn’t a good reason.”

  Robby nodded. “I agree. Draw your line in the sand with this guy some other way.”

  Vail let her arms fall to her sides. “Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll stay at your place. For a few days.”

  “And I’ll get someone in civvies posted near Jonathan’s room. Not sure how I’ll explain it, but I’ll find a way.”

  “Then we’re back to the main question,” Robby said. “Your connection to the offender.”

  Vail shrugged and headed down the hall to the study. Most of the papers had been sprayed with ninhydrin and carefully stacked. “Can you get these processed?”

  Bledsoe shook open a plastic bag. “I’ll have a guy at the lab do it for me. He owes me some favors for a private job I did for him. Helped him out big time in his divorce settlement. He’ll run them, no questions, no strings.” He placed the stack of papers in the bag, along with the memory card from her camera.

  “Cool,” Robby said.

  Vail was leaning against her desk, staring at the wall above the futon, where the offender’s message was scrawled. “It’s in the,” she mumbled.

  Robby rolled his head from side to side. “He didn’t write it in blood this time.” He leaned closer. With his height, he was almost looking directly at it. “Looks like lipstick—”

  “That’s it,” Vail said, moving to Robby’s side.

  Bledsoe set the bag on the desk and joined them. “That’s what?”

  Vail shared a look with Robby. “I can’t believe we didn’t see it before,” he said.

  She shook her head, disbelief knitting her brows together. “It was right there.”

  “What was?”

  Vail half smiled. “It’s in the blood, every message he’s left was written in blood.” Vail crossed her arms and leaned her right shoulder against the wall. “Offender could be a disgruntled lover, someone who got HIV or hepatitis or some other viral infection from a woman. It would fit the pattern of offenders who displace their anger against a particular woman to all women in general—or against specific women who remind him of the one who infected him. The familiarity could be a scent, a touch, a look. For all we know, that woman had brown eyes, like our vics. But again, this is all just a possibility and if we look at possibilities, the field is very wide. I’m not sure that would really be helping us.”

  Bledsoe paced for a moment, then pulled his cell phone. “Let’s meet at the op center in thirty minutes. I’ll get everyone over there.”

  “You want me there?”

  “For this, yes. I’ll take the heat.”

  FRANK DEL MONACO greeted Vail as she entered the front door to the operations center. “Not a good idea for you to be here, Karen.”

  “I’m a big girl, Frank. You don’t need to be my parent. I’ll deal with Gifford.”

  Del Monaco unfurled the front page of the Washington Herald and held it in front of Vail’s face. The bold headline was like a kick to her gut:

  IS FBI AGENT DEAD EYES KILLER?

  POSSIBLE TIES TO SENATOR’S DEATH

  A large photo of Vail, taken several years ago during an FBI-DEA drug bust in New York City, accompanied the article. She had always liked the picture—she was cuffing the suspect, straddling his legs, her hair tousled and a serious look on her face. The photo documented one of the biggest cases she had ever broken. It had been framed by the New York Post and now hung on a wall in her office.

  “What the hell is this?” She snatched the paper from his hands and began reading. Bledsoe and Robby read over her shoulder:

  Sources close to the FBI charged today that the identity of the Dead Eyes killer is known to the Bureau, but that the Bureau has been reluctant to move against the killer because she is one of their own, Special Agent Karen Vail. Vail, the profiler assigned to the Dead Eyes case for the Behavioral Analysis Unit, is currently serving a suspension for brutally assaulting her ex-husband—an attack that sent him to the hospital with fractured bones. . . .

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Informed sources also state that Senator Eleanor Linwood—whose death has been kept under tight seal by the Vienna Police Department—was murdered by the Dead Eyes killer. In a bizarre, though related twist, it appears that the senator was Agent Vail’s biological mother, though the senator abandoned her as an infant. . . .

  Vail leaned back against the entryway wall and slid her butt to the floor. Her legs were weak and she was light-headed. Bledsoe and Robby knelt at her side.

  “Karen, you okay?”

  “Del Monaco,” Bledsoe said, making no attempt to temper his anger, “make yourself useful and get her some water.”

  The voices were off in the distance. She was aware of Robby kneeling in front of her, holding her arm. His touch was warm, his hands moist. A glass was pressed against her lips, and she drank reflexively.

  She could sense Manette off to her left. Robby was peering into her eyes. She set the glass down and asked him to help her over to a chair. He guided her to the nearest desk and remained by her side. She could feel her senses returning, her mind clearing. Everyone was staring at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Bledsoe said. “Hancock threatened to go to the media unless we moved on you. It’s all bullshit. Don’t worry about it.”

  “We’re behind you, Kari,” Manette said. “You’ll get through this.”

  Vail wet her parched lips. “Gifford. I’ve gotta talk to Gifford.”

  “He’s on his way,” Del Monaco said, setting the phone handset on the desk. He was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “You told him she’s here?” Robby asked
, his face contorting into a snarl. He started toward Del Monaco, but Bledsoe grabbed his thick arm. Robby shrugged it off and in two strides was in front of Del Monaco, his large hands gathered around the profiler’s suit lapels. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking about my job, Hernandez. My boss called me and said he’d tried reaching her. If I don’t tell him she’s here, it’s my ass that’s going to get whooped.” He shrugged against Robby’s grip. “Now, let go of me or I’ll have a chat with your sergeant.”

  Bledsoe was behind Robby, his five-eight frame barely putting him up to Robby’s shoulders. “C’mon, Hernandez. We’re all upset by this. Let’s just get a grip on things.” He reached forward and pried Robby’s hands off Del Monaco’s jacket. Del Monaco looked up at Robby and then smoothed out his wrinkled lapels.

  Robby turned toward Vail, who gave him a tight nod. Bledsoe was right, and she knew Robby knew it. She took another gulp of water, wishing it was something stronger, like scotch or gin—neither of which she drank. But at least it would deaden her anxiety.

  The front door to the op center swung open and in walked Sinclair. He seemed to notice the quiet, the tension on everyone’s faces. “Another vic?” His face went down to his cell, as if he’d somehow missed the code.

  “No,” Bledsoe said, then motioned him aside to fill him in.

  Vail rested her head in her hands, trying to absorb the impact of what was about to happen. The implications were plentiful and threatened to overwhelm her.

  She felt Robby’s hand on her shoulder, just resting there, no doubt his way of telling her she had his support. She knew there was nothing he could say or do to ease the pain of being the focus of a national media lynching. How convenient to have a suspect, a name and face on which anger and outrage could be pinned. All delivered in a front page article that was soon going to be picked up by the international press.

  She took a deep, uneven breath and looked up. Everyone was looking away, avoiding the situation. “We’ve got work to do,” she said, her voice hoarse and raspy. She tipped her chin at Bledsoe, who was still leaning against a wall chatting with Sinclair.

  He pushed back from the wall. “Yeah. Let’s get to it.” He moved to the front of the living room. “Karen’s got a new theory on what the messages mean. They were all written in blood, so ‘It’s in the’ could mean ‘It’s in the blood.’” He paused, noticed a few raised eyebrows.

  “HIV,” Manette said.

  Robby remained beside Vail. The warmth of his body, of his presence, made her feel more confident. She couldn’t recall the last time she had relied on anyone else for self-assurance.

  “That’s the first thing to look at,” Robby said. “HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C.”

  “Let’s dole out some assignments and get on it,” Bledsoe said. “Manny, get us a list of all area blood banks, and a roster of the organizations and medical facilities they supply. We’ll have to go through each of their databases and cross-reference them with the FBI’s national database to see if we get any hits. We’re looking for males who’ve received donated blood that was tainted.”

  “That’s like fishing with a little pole in a big lake,” Manette said. “And I can tell you as a woman, that ain’t no fun, if you get my drift.” A seductive smile spread her lips and she winked at a blushing Bledsoe. “How about we start with the vics? Were any of them infected with HIV or hepatitis?”

  “Sexual innuendoes aside, Manette’s right,” Vail said. “I say we look for a connection to the blood through the vics.”

  Bledsoe considered this a moment, then nodded. “That would help narrow our suspect pool, wouldn’t it?” He shook his head, as if embarrassed he hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll look into it.”

  “He could be finding the women through the blood bank,” Manette said. “Maybe our guy works there and the vics donated regularly. I’d get a list of their female donors. See if any of our vics donated within the past couple of years.”

  Vail mulled this over, then realized those parameters would be too limiting. “What about other blood sources? He could’ve been in a hospital and gotten a bad pint. If that’s the case, and for some reason he thinks a woman was responsible, bingo—that’s all it would take to get him going.”

  “Then we should also check out the labs. Hospital and private,” Robby said. “Employees, suppliers, subcontractors. Anyone with a record or history of mental illness.”

  “Do we want to go regional?” Del Monaco asked. “Or even national?”

  “First start locally,” Vail said. “If we look at all the possible labs in the country, we’ll be doing paperwork for the next year while our killer continues to do his thing. I say if the local angle comes up empty, then we expand to regional. Then national.”

  Del Monaco’s right foot was dancing, tapping the floor with anger. “I disagree. Regional first. Split it up, we should get it done in a few days.”

  “Serial killers start close to home because it’s familiar territory to them,” Vail said.

  Del Monaco’s ample face shaded red. “I don’t need you to tell me that, Karen—”

  “Start locally,” Bledsoe said firmly. “Focus our efforts within a fifty mile radius. We need to, we can always look further.”

  “The geographic profile would help narrow it down,” Vail said. Let Bledsoe pressure Del Monaco.

  Bledsoe cocked his head to one side, his eyes coming to rest on Del Monaco, who was pretending to read some papers. He must have felt Bledsoe’s glare, because he spoke without lifting his head. “Kim Rossmo’s associate was preparing it. I’ll look into it.”

  “Good,” Bledsoe said. “Much better when we all cooperate with each other, isn’t it? We’re on the same side, working toward a common goal: to catch this fucker. Let’s not forget that.” He waited a beat, then told them to get started on their new assignments.

  GIFFORD ARRIVED AT THE OP CENTER thirty-five minutes later, moments after everyone had left. Vail had just finished running another copy of the case file when the door swung open and Gifford walked in. His black raincoat was open, his hands shoved deep into the pockets. He had a direct line of sight of Vail, who stood with her hands on the lid of the copier. The case file was splayed open. She turned and headed toward him, hoping he would not see what she had been duplicating. It would require an explanation, and what she needed were answers, not more questions.

  “Sir,” she said, meeting him ten feet from the copier. “Frank said you wanted to see me.”

  “I texted you. Never got a response.”

  She pulled the BlackBerry from her belt and inspected the display. “Never came through.”

  He stood there, looking down at her. “Uh huh.” He turned and looked around the converted living room/dining room and nodded approvingly. “Nice setup.”

  “Bledsoe’s a pro. He runs a tight ship.”

  “Evidently not tight enough.” Boom. Direct hit.

  Vail stood there awkwardly, wondering if she should sit or keep standing. She had never felt intimidated by Gifford before, but now was different. He came here to talk with her, the revelation about Linwood fresh in his mind. The Herald’s allegations, for which he had to answer, no doubt at the forefront of his thoughts. For the moment, she would let him call the shots.

  He took a seat at the closest desk, which was Sinclair’s. He lifted the basketball, which stood on a small stand, and rolled it around with his fingertips. “Signed by Jordan?”

  Vail nodded. “Bubba Sinclair’s. He keeps it here for good luck.”

  “Hmph.”

  Just that, an indirect swipe at the task force, as if to say “a lot of good it’s done you.” But he kept his comment to himself, which was fine with her. She didn’t need any overt sarcasm to piss her off. In her current state, she didn’t know how she would react, and the last thing she needed was to fly off the handle at her boss.

  Still holding the ball, rolling it with his fingertips, his eyes watching it spin, he leaned back in the chair
and said simply, “So, was it true, that Linwood was your mother?”

  “Yes.” Short answer, to the point. Less trouble that way.

  “Hmph.” He stopped rolling the ball and peered over the top at Vail. “Was it true, that you had an argument with her the night she was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  Gifford nodded. “And you didn’t see fit to mention this when we were standing in front of her house?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why the hell not?” His voice was loud, his brow bunched.