The 7th Victim

by Alan Jacobson

  After waiting for Del Monaco to continue, Vail asked, “Frank?”

  “‘I know what they know,’” he said. “What does he mean by that? Who is ‘they’?”

  “He’s talking about us,” Bledsoe said.

  Vail shut her eyes, bracing for the hammer to come down hard on her skull.

  “He thinks he knows what we have on him,” Bledsoe continued.

  She opened her eyes, realizing Bledsoe was not going to reveal their secret. They brought their beer to their lips and continued ruminating over the meaning of the letter. A few moments later, Bledsoe warded off a chill, then checked his watch. “We’ve gotta go. Underwood should be en route and it’ll take awhile to stow our handguns and get through security again.”

  “Show time,” Vail said.

  THOMAS UNDERWOOD was a fit fifty-nine years old, with a full head of ink-black hair and the boyish looks that had made him a knockout in his early Bureau days. He had the expert crime solver look Hollywood sought, and Vail was amazed he had never been offered his own television show. But his presence was electric, she had to admit, and she felt a few butterflies fluttering, though she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just the cheap beer gurgling around her stomach.

  Underwood smiled when he saw Del Monaco. “Frank, how you doing? Enjoying life, it looks like,” he said, patting Del Monaco’s round abdomen. Del Monaco huffed a false laugh.

  Underwood made introductions to Bledsoe, then turned to face Vail. “Thomas Underwood,” he said, extending a hand and flashing a white smile.

  “Karen Vail.”

  Underwood’s grin widened. “Oh, you don’t need an introduction.”

  Vail felt a flush settle across her face. She was impressed he knew who she was. Had he been following her career?

  He must have read the increase in her body temperature, because he immediately clarified: “Your face was plastered across the front page of just about every major newspaper in the country.”

  Vail turned away to hide her disappointment and faced the one-way mirror that overlooked their subject. “You don’t need an intro to Mr. Singletary either, I take it.”

  “No, I know Ray quite well.” He clapped his hands together. “I’ve been thoroughly briefed on the ride over, so why don’t I just get started?” He looked to Bledsoe, who nodded. “Great. Why don’t you all wait here and I’ll go get us some answers.”

  fifty-eight

  Thomas Underwood greeted Richard Ray Singletary with a firm handshake. It was awkward for both of them because of the shackles, but Underwood was clearly determined to initiate physical contact.

  “Ray, how’ve you been?”

  “As good as can be expected in a place like this, with the death penalty hanging over your head.”

  Vail turned to Bledsoe, who, like Del Monaco, was standing behind the one-way mirror. The gain on the microphone inside the interview room was turned up loud and picked up every utterance, every scrape of chair leg or shoe against the cement floor. The voices sounded tinny, as if they’d been run through a coffee filter.

  “They’re like best buddies,” Bledsoe said. “How can Underwood shake the guy’s hand and act like his friend?”

  “Part of what made him so successful at interviewing these monsters,” Vail said. “He’s got the gift of gab, and he understands the criminal mind. We teach interview techniques in my unit, if you ever want me to talk to your squad.”

  “Thanks.” Bledsoe’s bruised tone told her he wasn’t interested.

  “You understand if I don’t have a lot of sympathy for your predicament, Ray,” Underwood said. “You know, it’s a bed you made for yourself.”

  “Well, well, well. Has retirement made you a little cynical?”

  “I’ve only retired from the Bureau, not from my life’s work.” Underwood flashed a smile. “So I’ve been told you have something to talk to me about.”

  Singletary leaned across the table, his eyes darting back and forth, as if he had a reasonable expectation of privacy. He lowered his voice and said, “I know who wrote the letter. I know who the Dead Eyes killer is.” He raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair.

  To Underwood’s credit, he knew how to play these guys. “So who is he?”

  “For a price.”

  “Look, Ray. You demanded they fly me out here, and I dropped everything I was in the middle of and caught the next plane. I’m here. Let’s not play games.”

  “This isn’t about games, Thomas. It’s about life. I don’t want to die. I’ve got less than five days before they kill me. That’s about a hundred and sixty hours before my life is over. They want to catch this guy, I wanna live. It’s all locked up in here,” he said, pointing to his head. “I give them a name, they give me my life back. That’s not too much to ask, Thomas. It’s really pretty simple.”

  “It’s a lot more complicated and you know it, Ray. You’re a smart guy. There’s politics involved. They give in to you, it sets a bad precedent.”

  “They let me die with the name buttoned up inside me, and setting a bad precedent will be the least of their problems. What politician wants the blood of more dead women on his hands?” He looked away, then back to Underwood. “Hell, once the legislature finds out I know who this guy is, they’re gonna want that name so the FBI can arrest him and publicly fry his ass. It’s important to show you can’t kill a state senator and get away with it, right? So don’t tell me about politics.”

  Underwood leaned back in his chair. “Let’s say for a moment that they won’t deal. What else can I negotiate for you?”

  “There’s nothing else to talk about. You want the killer’s identity, that’s what it’ll cost you.”

  “The problem they have, Ray, is that there’s no way of verifying this letter is really from the Dead Eyes killer. You say it is, because you recognize a phrase he used. But it could just be chance. It’s not like he signed it and included a fingerprint and photo for your benefit.”

  “I’ll give you the name and you go out and grab the guy up. Things check out, the deal goes through. It’s the wrong guy, I get the needle. You can’t lose.”

  “He’s got it all figured out,” Bledsoe said in the adjacent room.

  “He was an organized offender,” Vail explained. “High IQ. Preyed on college girls living off-campus. He followed them to a supermarket, then lured them away by wearing a fake cast, claiming he’d broken his arm. He told them he needed help loading groceries into his van. As soon as he got them out of sight, he cracked them over the head with the cast and threw them into the van.” Vail turned back to the mirror. “You bet he’s got this all figured out. Which is why I find it hard to trust him.”

  “We’ll see what take Underwood has, maybe he’s got a feel for the guy,” Bledsoe said. “He knows him better than anyone.”

  Vail folded her arms. “For what we’re paying him, he’d better come up with something.”

  “I thought the Bureau just paid his expenses,” Bledsoe said.

  “He’s an international consultant,” Vail said. “World renowned. Expenses and a hefty fee, I’m sure.”

  Del Monaco nodded. “Gifford was against it, but they worked something out. I think Underwood saw it as an opportunity for another book, or at least a chapter in his next one.”

  “. . . So give me something,” Underwood was saying to Singletary. “Something I can take to them to prove your info is good. They won’t want to cause a big media stir, then find it’s the wrong guy. And even with a name, it could take a while to find him. Once they agree to the deal, your execution is off. And if your info turns out bad, and they have to ramp up again and set a date for you to leave this planet, it’s damn messy. You see the problem we have here, Ray?”

  Singletary squirmed a bit in his seat. He had no response.

  “We’ve got some other problems, too, Ray. Like they think maybe this is a hoax and it’s just your way of playing with us, watching us go off on a wild goose chase. Your way of getting even.”

>   “Could be, but not likely. Even your psychobabble analysis of me could tell them that’s not what I’m about.”

  “They’re also thinking it’s your way of getting your fifteen minutes.”

  “I got my fifteen minutes. I got my fifteen years of attention, Thomas, some of it because of you. My name is forever engraved in the crime journals. And in your books.”

  Underwood shook his head. “You’re missing a huge opportunity here, Ray. Every bit of publicity you’ve gotten since your arrest has been negative. But ‘Convicted killer gives police identity of Dead Eyes killer’ makes you look good. Big headlines.”

  “What good is that gonna do me after they inject poison into my body?”

  “I could debate that with you philosophically. Give you the Zen explanation. The concept of redemption. But I know you pretty well, so I know that’s pointless.” Underwood tapped his fingers on the table in front of him. “Why do you think Dead Eyes sent you this letter? My friends at the Bureau who asked me to come, they kept asking me, ‘Why Singletary?’” He turned his hands palm up. “What should I tell them?”

  “I tell you that, and you’ll figure out who he is without me.”

  “You have to know they’re doing that right now. Running lists of inmates who did time with you. Guys you were friends with, roomed with, played ball with, protected. Pretty soon, they’re going to come across some names and start investigating. Once they do that, your negotiating power goes away.”

  “Then fuck them. Could be somebody I know from the outside. They think they’re so smart, let them run their lists. They’ve got 159 hours, maybe they can figure it out themselves.” The anger melted from his face, and he forced a smile. “Then again, maybe not.”

  “Let me at least get you something. Governor won’t give you the commuted sentence. But he may give you something else.”

  “What else is there? What else could a guy want who’s going to die in a matter of hours?”

  Underwood rose from his chair. “I don’t know, Ray. That’s something you have to think about. But I wouldn’t wait too long.”

  Vail pried her eyes away from Singletary and looked at Del Monaco. “Why did Dead Eyes feel the need to send that letter?”

  Del Monaco stifled a yawn, then ran a couple of pudgy fingers through his eyes. “I don’t know, Karen. Assuming it’s someone he did time with, maybe he was coding a message in the prose. Maybe it’s as simple as he knew he was about to die and wanted to say good-bye. Or maybe he knew it’d drive us nuts.”

  She looked down at the letter again. “Let this be a time where we conclude our daily activities, where we look inward and consider what’s come before us,” she read aloud. “That could be a send-off, I guess.”

  “Or is it code? Or the ramblings of a deranged mind?”

  Bledsoe snapped his cell phone shut. “Hernandez has eight thousand names on his inmate list. He’s comparing it to the other lists he’s been compiling to see if there are any matches. Then we’ll whittle from there.”

  Vail said, “Problem is, Singletary’s right. There isn’t enough time to parse these lists. I wonder if he’d go for a ‘maybe.’ You know, if we can locate Dead Eyes and prove he’s our UNSUB before he gets the needle, his sentence is commuted. If not . . .” She shrugged. “He gets the juice.”

  Del Monaco watched through the mirror as Underwood patted Singletary on the back. “No way they’re going to commute his sentence,” Del Monaco said. “I hope this whole exercise wasn’t for nothing.”

  “Won’t be for nothing,” Bledsoe said. “Underwood gets a chapter for his next book.”

  Del Monaco walked out into the corridor to greet Underwood. Vail was left alone with Bledsoe, finally able to talk freely with him. “We know it’s him, Bledsoe. The letter is from Dead Eyes. We know that.”

  He held up a hand. “Hold it, we don’t know anything.”

  “‘I know what they know.’ He’s telling us he knows what we know because he has the profile, he’s seen the file.”

  Bledsoe shrugged. “It could mean a lot of things. Whoever wrote this letter ain’t exactly firing on all thrusters. I don’t think you can take anything at face value.”

  Vail sighed. “I know that. Just seems to fit, like he’s trying to throw it in our faces. He knows. We know.”

  “Which brings me back to the same question: why did he send the letter in the first place? I don’t get it. Why not send you another email if he wanted us to see it? Why communicate with Singletary?” He turned from her, kicked his shoe against the wall. “Damn it. I hate this case. Usually you get a skel who commits a crime, leaves some evidence, and all you gotta do is track the leads. Half the time it’s a relative or acquaintance. But this guy seems to leave nothing behind that can be traced to him. And he’s hit unrelated victims. He’s playing with us. Leaving us fucking riddles.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and started pacing. “I don’t know how you do it, dealing with these fucking serials. I did it full time, I’d have a bleeding ulcer.”

  The door swung open and in walked Underwood and Del Monaco. Underwood’s tie was askew and his usual cheerful face looked taut and hard. “I couldn’t turn him,” he said. “Ray’s desperate. He’s got one bargaining chip, and he’s not willing to give it up. It’s literally life or death to him.”

  “Is he telling the truth?” Vail asked.

  Underwood sighed, leaned both palms against the surface of the mirror, and bowed his head. “I think so. I think he really believes he knows who wrote that letter. And if Dead Eyes wrote that letter, and if his beliefs are on the money, you’d have made a big step toward solving this case.”

  “Too many damn ‘ifs,’” Bledsoe said.

  Underwood pushed away from the mirror. “That’s the nature of our business, Detective. Educated guesses about what these people are thinking, about who and what they are, based on what we’ve seen before. There may be a lot of ifs, but a lot of the ifs have been proven right over the years. Sometimes it’s all we’ve had to go on.” Underwood grabbed the doorknob. “Agent Vail,” he said without facing her. “Just wanted you to know that’s a damn good profile you drew up. And I like your work on finding signature within MO. It’s got a lot of promise.” He turned his head and winked at her. “Keep up the good work.”

  With that, he pulled the door open, then walked out of the room.

  fifty-nine

  The intervening five days passed with a flurry of strategy sessions that included Bledsoe, Del Monaco, the district attorney, Thomas Gifford, the governors of the states of Virginia and New York, Lee Thurston, and the speaker of the Virginia state legislature. The posturing was intense, the political threats at times implied, at other times plainly stated.

  The issues were debated, but in the end, the district attorney felt that setting aside a jury’s decision to invoke the death penalty under any circumstances devalued the very heart of the American judicial system. When the governor commuted a sentence, it was within his power to do so according to the Constitution. Though an uncommon occurrence, it was almost always a defensible decision. Making deals with killers due to die could be defended as well—if nothing else, to potentially prevent other women from being killed—but it was no guarantee they would find the offender even if they were given his identity. And if the whole exercise turned out to be a wild goose chase, both the district attorney and the governor would come out damaged, perhaps permanently, and lose reelection. No one would want to vote for law enforcement leaders who had been bilked by a convicted killer.

  And so the argument went.

  The search for an inmate who had served with Singletary was a more daunting task than they had anticipated. He had not only been a resident of North Carolina’s Rockridge institution, but he also spent time at Virginia’s Greensville Correctional Facility. With the number of potential suspects with a violent background numbering in the thousands, Robby and Sinclair headed a subgroup of law enforcement staff whose sole task was to pare the list to a reaso
nable number of men who could be questioned individually. But progress was akin to watching honey dissolve in iced tea. Erroneously eliminate one inmate on the list and the entire process would be for nothing. So they had to be methodical and cross-check one another’s work.

  With the hours dwindling, and with the Singletary decision having been made, Vail, Bledsoe, Del Monaco, the district attorney, and Thomas Underwood were invited to witness the execution. They were flown by private charter and then ushered by limousine to the prison. They were quiet, having little to say to each other. It had all been said during their earlier deliberations.