Vail cleared her throat. “Because if I told you about it, you would never have let me view the crime scene. And, because it’s irrelevant. I didn’t kill her.”
He leaned forward in the chair, the springs squeaking with the shift in his weight. “Agent Vail, that has to rank with one of the stupidest things you’ve ever done in your career.”
“Yes, sir. I told Bledsoe and Hernandez—”
“Oh, do they outrank me now? I’m your boss, Vail, and you seem to have a knack for forgetting that lately.”
“Sir, I only meant to help.”
He rolled the ball some more. “Help. Well, I sure need that now, don’t I? Director Knox is on my case. The goddamn director called me this morning and set a meeting for this afternoon. You know what that means? It means my ass is in the sling. My job is on the line.”
“I didn’t mean to involve you. It’s Hancock—”
“Hancock! Yes, it is Hancock who’s the problem, isn’t it? The same guy I told you to back off of, to leave alone and let hang himself.”
“Sir, he went to the media to deflect attention off himself. The task force leaned on him, he’d had an affair—”
“I know all about the affair. When Thurston mentioned it in the car after we left you, I was the one who pushed him to call Bledsoe and tell him.” Gifford put the basketball back down on the stand, stood up, and faced the wall. “We issued an official denial to the story, of course.” He buried his hands in his pockets again. “I don’t know where this is going to lead, but I can tell you one thing: it’s not going to be fun. For any of us.” He turned to face her. “I got seventeen calls from the media this morning. After the Herald broke the story, everyone in the country picked it up. A buddy of mine at New Scotland Yard even heard about it. What’s bigger than the FBI covering up the fact that one of its profilers is a serial killer?”
“With all due respect, sir, you’re not the only injured party here.” She suddenly felt empowered, fed up by the fact that the entire focus was on him. “I’m the one they’re saying brutally murdered seven innocent women. How do you think that makes me feel?”
Gifford did not say anything. He looked away, kicked at an exposed power cord that ran along the carpet to the computer on Bledsoe’s desk. “There’s only one way to solve this problem.” He looked up at her.
“Find the killer,” she said.
Gifford walked past her and grabbed the doorknob. “Find the killer.”
Vail watched him walk out and stood there wondering if that was his unofficial way of telling her to pull out all the stops . . . or merely a self-affirmation that they needed to find the person responsible for making his life a living hell.
As she stood there, she realized it did not matter. Dead Eyes had targeted her, broken into her house, and violated her space. Now he was helping dismantle her career. She needed to find this guy soon, before he killed her—from within.
Now it was personal.
forty-seven
The weather turned for the worse in the space of an hour, with dark storm clouds and high winds moving in as temperatures plummeted. After having spent the past three hours with Jonathan, Vail sat in her study, fingerprint powder still splashed across the door frame. Though she did not plan on staying at her house long, her presence there was enough to satisfy her need to show the killer she would not be driven from her home. Nevertheless, her Glock sat on her lap, ready for action.
The phone had not stopped ringing. News stations and reporters from all over the country, all wanting her take on the accusations made by the unnamed source. She wanted to tell them everything, tell them they were chasing lies, pursuing bad news, being led astray by a manipulator whose only intent was to deflect attention off himself.
But she would not dare say any of that. Her life was in a precarious place right now, and the best course to follow was to keep her mouth shut. In situations like hers, no one got into trouble by saying nothing.
The phone rang again and the machine snapped on. She had turned the volume up so she could listen from the study, screening the calls in case it was one she needed to take. But it was another reporter, this one from southern California. She sighed and turned back to the Dead Eyes file. This copy she would carry with her wherever she went. But she knew it was a ridiculous precaution: too little, too late. The damage had already been done.
As she sat there, she began thinking the connection between her and the UNSUB had to go back to her relationship with Eleanor Linwood, Dead Eyes’ seventh victim. Her biological mother was the focal point of the killer’s rage, it seemed. That much had been evident by the violence imparted to Linwood’s face and body. Assuming Hancock was not involved. And as much as she wanted to believe he was the one responsible, something told her deep down that he was incapable of such fury. She had pushed him quite hard, challenged him and his abilities many times over. And not once had it caused him to come after her. Overtly or covertly. There was the threat, recently, at the op center, but she wrote that off as merely a tangle of testosterone and ego. Not nearly the same motivator as a love affair gone sour with all the emotions—anger, betrayal, rejection—that accompanied it.
But he had blamed Vail for destroying his career. Again, not as strong as breaking off an affair . . . yet it did seem to have caused him significant embarrassment. And it did have over six years to fester. . . .
She rubbed at her eyes, then consulted her watch. Time to get back to Robby’s. As she gathered the papers together, her phone rang again. This time it was a fax signal. On cue, her OfficeJet woke up and began receiving the transmission. She looked at the display and recognized the station identifier as one belonging to the profiling unit.
Finally, the cover page emerged: there was a handwritten note from Del Monaco indicating the geographic profile was to follow. Her heart seemed to thump faster as the pages rolled out. She struggled to read the text as the paper exited the printer.
Realizing it would be a long document, she walked out of the room to grab a Scharffen Berger mocha bar. Dark chocolate settled her nerves or at least seemed to mollify her agitated state whenever something was bothering her. These days, I should keep a box of these things in my car.
She heard the fax beep, signaling the end of transmission, and ran into the study. She pulled the stack of pages from the OfficeJet and called Bledsoe. “I’ve got the geographic profile,” she said. “Can we get everyone together in a couple of hours to discuss it?”
He said he would, and like a kid who’s just returned from trick or treating with a full bag of candy, she dove into the report.
forty-eight
The task force op center was blanketed in snow. It had been falling for the past two hours, the white powder sticking to the asphalt and making driving a challenge. Rather, the challenge was driving without skidding into a tree or another car.
Vail grabbed her leather satchel, then got out of the car, shooing the falling snowflakes from her face. She stepped onto the snow-packed cement, but slipped on a slick of ice and caught herself before going down. A sharp, electric shock shot through her left knee. Just what I need. She took the next several steps to the front door slowly, then gingerly wiped her shoes on the bristle mat—each slight movement intensifying the pain—and entered the house.
Del Monaco was already there, standing beside Bledsoe, pointing to a page of the report. His copy was in full color, which made the 3D diagrams and maps easier to evaluate. Vail’s fax was a third-generation copy, the colors translated into dark and darker gray tones. She limped in and walked over to Bledsoe.
“What happened?”
“Slipped on the ice.” She pointed to the report. “Helpful, huh?”
Bledsoe shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Just got it.” He looked past her at everyone in the living room and seemed to take roll. His eyes settled back on Vail. “How about you take us through it?”
“Wait a minute,” Del Monaco said. “I thought I’d do that—”
“I know, bu
t I’d rather Karen do it. No offense.”
Del Monaco frowned and walked away, his shoulder giving Vail a slight nudge as he passed. Bledsoe winked at her, then took his seat.
Vail asked to borrow the color copy from Del Monaco, who picked up the report and held it above his head. You want it, come get it, he was saying.
Vail took the power struggle in stride and moved across the room as gracefully as possible with a bum knee. She took the papers from Del Monaco and decided to remain there to discuss the report. She stood in front of him, her back to his face. He emitted a noise that sounded like a growl, then scooted his rolling chair a few feet to the side, away from his desk.
“I asked Kim Rossmo at Texas State to put together a profile for us,” Vail started. “I’ve worked with Rossmo on a number of cases and have been super impressed with the work he’s done. This one was prepared by William Broussard, his associate.” She flipped to the front page of the report.
“I’m not familiar with geographic profiling,” Sinclair said.
Manette reclined in her seat. “Probably more might haves and might have nots,” she said.
“I think you’ll find this a bit more palatable, Mandisa,” Vail said. “It’s a computer algorithm that focuses on an offender’s projected spatial behavior using the locations of, and the spatial relationships between, that serial offender’s crime sites. A geographic profile works real well with a behavioral assessment, because how an offender chooses the areas he preys in is influenced by who he is and what motivates him.”
“So this is an objective measurement?” Bledsoe asked.
“Yes and no. It’s got both quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative part uses objective measurements to analyze what Rossmo calls ‘point patterns’ created from the locations of the victim target sites. The qualitative part comes from an interpretation of the offender’s ‘mental map.’”
“I wanna hear more about the computer stuff,” Manette said. “I got enough theories. Gimme something concrete.”
“Rossmo developed something called criminal geographic targeting that takes the locations of the offender’s crime scenes and produces a three-dimensional probability distribution of where the offender’s home or workplace would be. The greater the height of the point indicates a greater probability that this is where the offender would live or work. This 3D distribution, which he calls a ‘Jeopardy Surface,’ is then superimposed over a map of the region, giving us a ‘geoprofile’ of the offender. Rossmo says the geoprofile is a fingerprint of the offender’s cognitive map.”
“This shit actually work?” Sinclair asked.
“Indeed, this shit does work,” Vail said.
Del Monaco, still fuming over having been rebuffed by Bledsoe, craned his neck to be seen around Vail’s body. “I’ve worked with this guy. I can personally vouch for him.”
Vail turned slightly and gave Del Monaco a sharp look, wanting to tell him that neither she nor Rossmo needed his endorsement. “What this does,” Vail said, “is help us focus the investigation. And when we finally come up with some suspects, we can prioritize who to pursue first, based on where they live and work.”
“We can also then put patrols on alert in the more statistically probable areas of offender activity,” Robby said.
“I like it,” Bledsoe said.
“That concrete enough for you?” Vail asked Manette.
She bobbed her head, chewing on her lip. “I like it, too. But I’ll wait to give you my opinion till after we catch this bastard.”
“So what’s it show?” Bledsoe asked.
Vail looked to Del Monaco. “You have copies?”
He opened a brown manila routing envelope and pulled out a stack of stapled packets. They were passed around the room.
“Turn to page eight,” Vail said, finding the spot herself. The splash of colors hit her like a sunset on a cloudy day. A huge difference from the black-and-blacker fax.
“Looks like we’ve got some areas to focus on,” Robby said.
Sinclair’s face was buried in the document. “That’s an understatement. Looks like, what, three or four hundred square miles? That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“Yeah, but the areas are prioritized. Look at the key, it’s called out by color and by height of the three-dimensional drawing.” There was quiet again as everyone studied the map.
Manette leaned back in her chair. “Still a lot of ground to cover. There’s no guarantee he’ll stick to one particular area just because we think he will. And if we take patrols away from one area because we’re banking on him hitting another—”
“Helluva gamble,” Sinclair said. He winked at Vail. “And I know about gambling.”
Bledsoe straightened up. “Yeah, well, everything we do involves a certain amount of risk. Sometimes it’s just guesswork. This at least gives us some statistical analysis and a focus. And last I heard, we’re out of sure bets. I’ll get the info over to the involved PDs, let them decide how to use it.”
A cell phone started ringing and Robby and Sinclair checked their pockets. It was Sinclair’s.
“Give the PDs my number,” Del Monaco said to Bledsoe. “They may not know what they’re looking at or what significance to give it.”
Bledsoe nodded. “We’ll make the calls together.”
Sinclair flipped his phone shut and tossed it on his desk. “Bit of news. On Hancock. I say we plug the asshole’s info into that geoprofile, see if his house falls in the highly probable areas. We already know his workplace did. That was a buddy of mine. Hancock’s not alibied for any of the Dead Eyes kills. He was in town and off duty for each of them.”
Robby’s eyebrows rose. “I say we lean on him again. At least for Linwood, maybe all of them.”
“I’ve got someone on him,” Bledsoe said. “Discreet tail, recording his movements. So far he’s been pretty mobile, putting in applications at all sorts of security firms, even a few law offices. Nothing suspicious.”
“Not with us watching him,” Vail said. “He may be an asshole, but given his law enforcement experience, he’d be extremely sensitive to a surveillance team.”
Bledsoe grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen wall. “I think we got enough for a warrant. Hernandez, it’s your jurisdiction.” He tossed the handset across the room to Robby. “I’ll get with the lab at my station, get a forensics team out to his house. We’ll want to go over that place with a vacuum cleaner. Literally.”
Sinclair laughed. “Guess that’s one way of seeing if he’s clean.”
forty-nine
He looked at the newspaper article they’d written on the bitch Linwood. State senator, big deal. Didn’t they know she was as corrupt as most politicians? All they care about is themselves. How can I raise more money? How can I get reelected?
All politicians have their dark secrets. Affairs, trysts, backroom deals. Buried tax dodges. And other secrets, the kind this bitch Linwood kept. The kind of secrets worth killing for.
He wondered how long it would be till they found it. If they were good, it shouldn’t be much longer. If they were as incompetent as it seemed they were—look how long it was taking them to catch him—they might never find it. It then hit him. Maybe he should’ve made it more obvious.
But what’s life without challenges? If he made it so easy, served it up on a plate for them, what would that say about him? He’s better than them, he’d proved it. There was nothing they could do to find him, as he had suspected all along. But he only had a couple more things to accomplish, and then he’d be done. What if he finished and they never figured out who was responsible? How much fun would that be?
Who would know? No one. How disappointing.
He didn’t have to stop. He didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to, so maybe he wouldn’t. The thrill of the kill was so exhilarating, so ... filling. When the feeling struck, it had to be satisfied. Which got him to thinking: maybe he wasn’t as in control of things as he’d like to have thought. Maybe
it’s not that he’d want to continue killing, but that he would need to continue.
The thought suddenly excited him. He opened the freezer door and pulled out his growing collection of hands. Each one a memory, each one special in its own right.
He set them out on the table, in a circle around some papers he’d recently obtained. Pretty funny reading through this stuff . . . a profile prepared by Supervisory Special Agent Karen Vail. Very impressive. They had a supervisory agent on his case, not just a special agent. They were all special, weren’t they? They seemed to think so.
Oh, here’s a good one: “‘He’s bright, above average intelligence. He may have a background in art, either in practice or in school. He might even be a frustrated artist. . . . ’” A frustrated artist? “Bitch! I’m not frustrated, I AM an artist! Come look at my studio, see my work. Talk to my students. How dare you doubt my talents!”
The 7th Victim Page 29