The 7th Victim

by Alan Jacobson

  They made love over the next hour, the candles flickering above them, hearts fluttering within them. Warm bodies and hot breaths forging a union she had been yearning for all her life, but never had found. Until now.

  They lay on the floor in each other’s arms, the fire dying out and the cool air chilling their naked bodies. She drew a throw blanket around her while Robby crawled to the coffee table, where he then peeled away the smooth, red wax sealing the bottle of madeira. He poured a glass for her, then for himself, and they both drank simultaneously. “Ooh, this is good,” Vail said. “Really good.” She instantly felt the rush as the brandy-infused wine slid down her throat.

  “I’ll have to thank my friend—”

  He was interrupted by the warble of his cell. Vail’s went off a second later. They shared a confused glance, then Robby rose to retrieve his phone. He helped Vail to her feet, but she let out a loud cry and crumpled in his arms. “My knee. Shit. I shouldn’t have been sitting on the floor like that. It’s locked. Shit.”

  “I’ll get you some ice.” He carried her into the kitchen and set her down on a stool.

  “There’s a gel pack in the freezer.”

  He wrapped the pack in a paper towel, then handed it to her.

  “Thanks.” She nodded toward the coffee table, where his cell sat. “Who’s it from?”

  Robby made his way back to the family room. She watched his butt move as he walked, a pleasing sight that seemed to ease the pain a bit. But maybe it was just the freeze from the ice.

  He lifted the phone and checked the display. He looked at Vail, his face turning pale, his eyes conveying confusion.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Text from Bledsoe. Dead Eyes code.”

  She sat there on the stool, fighting through her alcohol haze to process the meaning of this. Finally, she managed, “Can’t be.” Vail reached for the phone and dialed Bledsoe. He answered on the second ring. “Bledsoe, what’s—”

  “All I know is first cop on the scene said it looks like a Dead Eyes job. I asked him, is the left hand severed, he said no. I asked if there was any writing in blood on the walls, he said no.”

  “You’re thinking copycat?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I’m in my car. Meet me there ASAP.”

  She hung up and relayed the info to Robby, who had already gotten dressed. He was strapping on his shoulder holster, when she threw the ice aside and announced she was going to go with him.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got surgery in the morning. Besides, you can’t even put weight on the leg. Stay here, ice the knee. I’ll call you as soon as I get there, walk you through the scene. I’ll take some photos and video and you can review it all as soon as I get back.”

  “You okay to drive?”

  “Hey, you’re the lightweight. I’m fine.”

  “I hate being like this. I need to go and do, not sit around. I can’t just stay here.”

  He shrugged on his wool overcoat and gave her a long kiss, then pulled away. “I’ll call you as soon as I look over the scene.” She grabbed his hand as he turned to leave. He looked at her over his shoulder. “I love you, Hernandez. Be careful.”

  seventy-nine

  Bledsoe was the first of the task force members to arrive. He relieved the patrol officer, who had responded to the call and roped off the surrounding area with yellow crime scene tape.

  “Lights were off inside,” the cop said. “I used my flashlight, didn’t touch anything. I even put the bedroom door back the way it was when I walked in.”

  “Good,” Bledsoe said.

  “My partner’s canvassing. He radioed in a few minutes ago. Nothing to report.”

  “Who discovered the body?”

  “Neighbor. But 911 didn’t get a name. They’re analyzing the tape now. It was a short call, sounded garbled like it came from a cell phone. They gave the address, said they were a neighbor, and then the signal dropped and we lost the call.”

  “Male? Female?”

  “Operator thought it was male, but wouldn’t swear to it.”

  “What do we know about the vic?”

  “Place is registered to a Laura Mackey. DOB 5-9-69. Dark brown hair, best I could tell with my flashlight. Looked like someone did a chop job on her hair, though.”

  A chill bolted up Bledsoe’s spine. He nodded, then turned toward the front door.

  “It’s bad, sir. Real bad. Be perfectly honest, I had to come outside and get a breath of air before I called you. Felt like throwing up.”

  “I know the feeling.” Bledsoe patted his pocket, felt the air sickness bag, and said, “Okay, take your position. No one through except the task force. Forensics should be here soon.” As Bledsoe turned away from the cop, Robby and Manette pulled up to the curb. He waited for them at the front door.

  “Sinclair and Del Monaco are on their way,” Bledsoe told them. He produced a bunch of latex gloves from his pocket and handed them out.

  “Karen’s not coming,” Robby said, wiggling his left hand into the glove and snapping the rubber to position the fingers properly. “Knee’s real bad. She can’t even stand.”

  Bledsoe looked up from his gloves. “Shit. I was really hoping she could give us some insight as to what the hell is going on here.”

  “Her insight will just be a lot of might this and maybe that,” Manette said. “Won’t do us no good. See where it got us?”

  “We don’t know anything till we look everything over,” Robby said. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. We can’t have any biases.”

  Manette leaned back. “You been spending too much time with Kari, I think. You beginning to sound just like her.”

  Bledsoe frowned, then opened the front door. They filed in slowly, eyes roaming every square inch of the entry area and hallway. Looking for signs of a struggle—scrapes on the walls, broken glass on the ground, and blood . . . just about anywhere.

  But there was nothing.

  They continued through the house, clearing room by room until they reached the one at the end of the hall. The door was partially closed and obscured the view of the bed. Bledsoe glanced at Robby, then turned back to the door, squared his shoulders, and nudged it with his shoe.

  It swung open with a creak.

  And before them lay a young woman, brutalized in a way that had become all too familiar to them. They took a few steps into the room and stood there staring at the body. Bledsoe bent over and barfed into his bag. Blood was everywhere . . . pooling on the bed, dripping to the floor. Smeared on the walls. But not painted.

  “There’s no message,” Robby said.

  “Maybe he’s already made his point. We know what it means, so there’s nothing left to say.”

  Just then, a noise down the hallway pricked their ears. Bledsoe instinctively drew his SIG Sauer nine millimeter. Then he heard the deep voice of Sinclair and the heavy footfalls of Del Monaco, and his heart slowed toward a more normal rate.

  Sinclair’s eyes found the body. “Holy Jesus.”

  “Fuck,” Del Monaco said.

  Bledsoe found himself agreeing with Del Monaco. A simple four-letter word, but the emotions it conveyed in this particular instance just about summed it up.

  “Okay, Frank. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you think. Karen’s not coming, so you’re it.”

  Del Monaco swallowed hard, took a few seconds to compose himself. “It appears to be the same offender, but there are some key elements missing. Hand isn’t severed, there’s no message, and the blood isn’t painted on the wall. It’s kind of smeared.”

  “Yeah, we can see all that. When I told you to tell me what you see, I didn’t mean literally. I meant, you know, what do you see that we don’t?”

  “I know, I know what you meant.” He dragged a hand across the sweat on his brow, then took a step closer to Laura Mackey. “Key is focusing on the ritualistic behaviors we didn’t make public. We didn’t release anything about the hand, right?”

  “Right.”r />
  “And the hand isn’t severed. So maybe that indicates copycat.”

  “Here we go with the maybes again.”

  “Give me a break, Manette. You think this is easy? I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. You got anything better to offer than smart alec remarks?”

  “Let’s take it down a notch.” Bledsoe said. “Go on, Frank.”

  Del Monaco swallowed and turned back to the body. After a few seconds of observation, he said, “Knives driven through the eyes. That would also go in the copycat column. Same with the smeared blood. But the knives . . . I’d want to know if there are similar knives in the kitchen. Dead Eyes always used the vic’s own knives. That wasn’t released to the press.”

  Bledsoe nodded to Sinclair, who left the room in search of the answer.

  Del Monaco continued. “Body left in the vic’s bed. No significant signs of struggle. Copycat or not, this guy knew what he was doing. There’s confidence in this scene. He’s organized, methodical. He’s killed before. This isn’t the work of a beginner.”

  The forensics team arrived and immediately began setting up their halogen lights in the bedroom to take their photos and collect their evidence.

  Sinclair returned holding a steak knife. He held it beside the victim’s body and compared the handles. “Looks the same.”

  The task force members were lost in thought as the technicians set up their equipment. Finally, Robby stepped beside Del Monaco and said, “I thought smeared blood, blood all over the crime scene, could indicate disorganization.”

  “Yes, it can,” Del Monaco said. “But this guy got this woman into her bedroom without much of a struggle. I don’t even see head trauma. Won’t know for sure till they shave her head, but if I’m right, he probably used verbal means to con his way in. That indicates intelligence and planning. There may be some disorganization in the postmortem behavior, but this guy is high IQ.”

  “None of this makes any sense. Dead Eyes is dead,” Bledsoe said.

  “There is another explanation,” Del Monaco said. “Someone on the inside.”

  “On the inside?” Manette asked. “What drug you on?”

  “It’s happened before. Could be a forensic tech, too. Someone who’s been at the crime scenes, who knows what we’d expect to find. Or a lab tech who’s worked on processing one of the vics.”

  Sinclair shook his head. “Let’s not go off half-cocked here—”

  “Half-cocked. Hancock.”

  Everyone turned to Bledsoe. He had said it softly, but the word caught their attention.

  “Hancock,” Del Monaco said. “Yeah, it’s possible. Let’s bring him in for another chat.”

  “Wish we could, but we pulled the tail off him a couple days ago once we had Farwell. I tried reaching him about Linwood, just to ride him a bit, but couldn’t find him.”

  “And now this.”

  Robby squinted at something that caught his attention. “What the hell is that?” Something white, illuminated by one of the halogen lights. He moved toward the body and peered between the legs of Laura Mackey. “Tweezers?”

  “Chuck, pair of tweezers,” Bledsoe called to the head technician.

  Chuck walked into the bedroom and handed them to Robby, who deftly held them near the victim’s vagina and extracted a tightly rolled piece of paper.

  “How the hell did you see that?” Manette asked.

  “Caught the light.” Robby unrolled it, then unfolded it into a full size sheet of paper. “Holy shit.” He turned to Bledsoe. “What the hell does this mean?”

  Bledsoe came up alongside him and looked at the document. He turned to Robby, his jaw clenched. “Oh, man. This is bad.”

  Robby pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number. “Come on, Karen, answer the damn phone.”

  “What’s the deal?” Sinclair asked. He crossed the room with Manette and Del Monaco to look at the paper.

  “She’s not answering,” Robby said, his voice rough and tentative.

  “Let’s go,” Bledsoe said, then started to run out. “Call all available units,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Have them report immediately to Karen’s house. Hurry!”

  eighty

  Vail watched the minutes tick by. Angry at her body for betraying her when she needed it, frustrated that she had to remain behind. Concerned they may have made a grave mistake.

  As her cold pasta sat in the pot in front of her, she stared at the clock in a daze, running all the Dead Eyes facts through her mind. It all fit. It all made sense. So why was she filled with this sense of unease?

  It was a copycat killing, it had to be. All they had was a beat cop’s first-on-the-scene impressions. He wasn’t a homicide detective and he wasn’t a profiler. The finer points of behavior strewn out across the victim’s bedroom would be lost on him, just as they would be on the new agents she taught each month.

  But the unease ate away at her. And Robby had not called. She was tempted to phone him, but her better sense told her not to. She needed to let them evaluate the scene without interference. He said he would call . . . he’ll call, she just had to be patient.

  But being patient was not part of Karen Vail’s makeup. Acknowledging she needed to divert her attention, she limped over to the stove and began placing the food into containers. She sniffed the sauce and caught a whiff of the fresh pasta and garlic. It would have made a special meal. But with Robby gone, she had lost her appetite.

  She slipped the food into the fridge, then pulled the stool in front of the sink. She turned on the hot water and began washing the dirty dishes and pots. It was more difficult to do from a sitting position, but at least it kept her mind off the crime scene, Robby, and her knee pain.

  As she placed a dish into the drainboard, she heard a noise somewhere behind her. She stopped the water and listened. Her eyes bounced around the room, noticed the fireplace had completely burned out and was now a smoldering layer of embers. Perhaps a piece of wood had fallen from the rack.

  She turned around and returned to the dishes, moving on to the pots. As she maneuvered one into the sink, she heard a clunk! and quickly brought a hand up to the faucet, shutting the water again. She swiveled on the stool and squinted into the family room.

  Nothing.

  She thought of where she had left her Glock. In its holster, in her bedroom. She slid off the stool and lowered herself to the floor, then hobbled down the hallway, moving slowly, eyes wide and her body ready to react. Question was, react to what? To whom?

  “THIS IS PAUL BLEDSOE,” he shouted into the handset in his car. Robby’s hands were locked on the dashboard as Bledsoe maneuvered through the traffic. “Get out an APB on Chase Hancock. Info’s in the computer. There’s an active case open under my name.” He handed Robby the mike and put his other hand on the wheel just in time to swerve away from a pedestrian. “Shit. What the hell’s going on here?”

  Robby chewed on his lower lip, holding his thoughts.

  Bledsoe accelerated. “Who could’ve gotten hold of the profile?”

  “We know who got hold of it,” Robby said. “Dead Eyes.”

  “We got Dead Eyes. He’s deader than a doornail.” He glanced at Robby. “No. Someone broke into Karen’s house and stole it. Someone left a message on her wall. We just assumed it was Dead Eyes.”

  “Who the hell else would it have been?”

  “I don’t know, Hernandez, I don’t know. Her ex? Screwing with her head? Hancock? Same reason?”

  Robby sighed. “Whoever broke in is whoever stole the profile. Same person rolled it up and shoved it into Laura Mackey.”

  “So who are our suspects?”

  “Hancock. Deacon Tucker. And an UNSUB.”

  Bledsoe swerved onto the shoulder of the roadway and passed several cars waiting to make a left turn. He was on surface streets, headed to the Interstate, trying to make the best time possible.

  “Try Karen again.”

  Robby pressed redial. “No answer.” He shook his head. �
��The line must be cut.”

  “Maybe she’s just not home.”

  “She’s home. Her knee’s real bad. She’s got surgery tomorrow morning, she wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, she’s got a machine.”

  Bledsoe gripped the wheel tighter.

  Robby tried the line again, cursed under his breath, then slammed the phone shut. “Can’t this car go any faster?”

  VAIL MOVED INTO HER BEDROOM and saw the holstered Glock sitting atop her dresser. She strapped the shoulder harness across her body then flipped on the overhead light. Everything was as it should have been. She left the light on and moved into Jonathan’s bedroom and glanced around. Nothing unusual.