So much for McGregor’s thorough and complete autopsies.
However, while all of this insect activity was disconcerting, Kent wasn’t sure that it advanced their understanding of the killer. If anything, it just reinforced Kent’s initial impressions.
Wallflower was highly intelligent, and more than likely worked in the law enforcement industry or one of its peripheral support companies. He also liked his women a bit subdued. Not at all bold or flashy. Wallflowers did seem to suit them. Even the prostitute had been remarkably toned down. No gold lamé or fishnet stockings.
What did that say about the killer? A lack of confidence? He’d gone for a hooker first. Perhaps he didn’t feel confident enough to date a woman who expected dinner and flowers. Yet the killer had some ambition. After his first accidental kill, he’d leapt to premeditation and non-working girls.
And his kills had become more and more confident. Their little boy was growing up, becoming a full-fledged serial killer. Learning on the job, as it were. Yet the victims had stayed the same. Clearly, this dowdy person meant something to the killer. A mother? Sister? Some very strong female bond that had gone awry was driving the killer.
And now the maggots and flies?
Death and sex had somehow gotten mashed together in their serial killer’s youth. An unnatural fascination with creepy crawlies.
One thing was certain. This guy had a screwed up childhood, if this was how he worked out his issues.
* * *
“I think we need to head to the first crime scene,” Kent said.
Good—anywhere but here sounded good. Ruben was drained trying to comfort Ashley’s family. Because, really how could you comfort someone after seeing their loved one explode into maggots? You just had to pray that you could move past it.
Ashley’s grandmother was still with the paramedics. He felt torn. Yes, the first crime scene was important. Actually, Ruben was pretty sure that Kent was talking about his victim zero. The prostitute.
However, these people had suffered a grievous crime, having their loved one so molested. His instinct was to stay and comfort.
Then a fly buzzed around his head. Decision made.
Yvent nodded as he got into Ruben’s car. “If the killer had made any error, it would be there. Especially if he was in shock at what happened to the prostitute.”
The kid wasn’t wrong. Which meant Kent wasn’t wrong. Big surprise there.
The drive across town was a blur as Ruben tried to make sense of the killer. Kent had seemed to shrug off the bizarre fly egg ritual. Just like he shrugged off all other normal, human emotions. The guy wasn’t a robot. Robots had better boundaries and social skills.
Ruben could almost get how such a traumatic event as watching your prostitute plummet ten stories might mess a guy up. A guy who already had no problem paying for sex. And not just any kind of sex, but exhibitionist, dangerous sex.
He didn’t understand it, not a single point along the logic line, but he got it. He’d seen enough heinous crimes to be able to follow a criminal’s evolution. The fly eggs, though, went way beyond anything that Ruben could “get.”
Kent would call it the serial killer’s calling card. His signature. And the signature always indicated what the underlying psychosis was.
Good luck with that one, Ruben thought.
“We’re so lucky,” Yvent sighed beside Ruben.
“Really?” Ruben questioned. “You just got maggots on your shoes, flies in your mouth, and now we are heading to skank town.”
“I mean to be working a case like this with Special Agent Harbinger.”
“Oh, that,” Ruben replied. You’d think, with how Kent treated the kid, he’d hate his mentor. But that was the magic of Kent. He lived in opposite world. “So you want to grow up to be just like him?”
“Yes,” Yvent said, nodding vigorously. Okay, maybe Kent wasn’t all that fond of the kid after all. “He is able to inhabit a killer’s mind, yet still carry on a normal life.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ruben said. “Kent’s life is anything but normal.”
“What?” Yvent asked. “He’s got a hottie for a long-term girlfriend—” then the younger man frowned. “Sorry. I know that you and Detective Usher used to date.”
Ruben ignored Yvent’s mention of their previous relationship. “You should maybe ask Nicole how normal it all feels to her. I doubt he could find anyone else to put up with him.”
“Even to live life alone, knowing that you are taking down some of the most vicious killers in world. That would be worth it.”
Wow, the kid had really drunk the Kool-Aid.
“You do know that profilers retire the earliest and have the highest suicide rate, right?”
Yvent shrugged. “Only because they burn out, because they can’t catch their unsubs. Kent, and therefore I, won’t have that problem.”
Maybe Ruben had been wrong. Maybe Yvent was as arrogant as Kent must have been at this age.
CHAPTER 5
Nicole had to hold her hand to her mouth to keep herself from gagging at the conditions on the rooftop. She’d thought the gravesite had been bad. This place reeked of not just stale urine, but just about every other bodily secretion. Used condoms were strewn all around her feet.
This is how poverty begat poverty. Depression caused people to not care about their surroundings, which descended them into filth, which was depressing, and so the cycle went until you ended up with a rooftop like this.
How could anyone come up here to have some “fun”?
Joshua, however, seemed like he was a kid in a candy store. “There’s got to be at least two hundred condoms up here.”
“And each one,” Kent explained, “will need to be tested for both the female contribution and male contribution.”
“You know it,” Joshua said, carefully labeling each one in its own evidence bag.
Okay, Joshua could get a bit annoying with his exuberance—however, that unbridled excitement was working in their favor today. Most other lab techs would have scoffed at Kent’s time-consuming request. Instead, Joshua took it as the equivalent to searching for the Holy Grail. Finding the condom the killer had used.
Yvent peered over the side of the building and whistled. “That’s a long way down.”
They were ten stories up an old tenement building in the worst part of town. No one had even heard or admitted to hearing the prostitute scream as she fell to her death in the early morning hours. It took a trash man the next morning to find her. They were lucky that he even reported it.
Kent shook his head, making a circuit around the rooftop.
“There’s something wrong,” he said.
“Besides a guy killing woman for no apparent reason?” Nicole asked.
Kent turned to her. “Oh he’s got a reason, we just haven’t found it yet.”
“Aren’t we all ignoring a pretty obvious conclusion?” Yvent asked.
“That our unsub is law enforcement?” Kent answered.
“Or military,” Yvent said with a nod. “Someone who knows their way around a wide variety of weapons and forensic countermeasures.”
“But look at his immaturity,” Kent said. “He can’t even have sex right. And it takes him a year to get up the nerve again? Does that sound like a sophisticated law enforcement killer? Like I said, something is off.”
Nicole breathed out through her nose, trying to ignore the stench all around her. “He’s also starting pretty late in life. Don’t most serial killers begin their evolution as a teenager? Acting out? Animal cruelty?”
“None of that will hold up here,” Kent said, frowning. “This guy is an anomaly. Serial killer by accident. The only thing we know for sure is that he’s an outlier.”
“Someone with forensic knowledge but emotionally stunted?” Nicole proposed, just as Joshua whooped.
“That’s right! Found one in the drain pipe!” he announced.
All eyes turned to the morgue assistant. The strange young man with an unhealthy fascina
tion with serial killers had briefly been a suspect in their last major serial killer case, Plain Jane. It turned out then that he was just a sucker, a pawn of the murderer. Could Joshua have graduated to an actual serial killer?
Kent shook his head. “This guy on the outside is put together. I would guess above average looks. He lured these women to a secret location, killed them, and then was able to transport the bodies to the dumping grounds. Joshua has a hard time matching his socks.”
Nicole looked down to find Joshua with one white sock and one green sock. She felt a sense of relief. The morgue attendant was weird, but in his own weird way, a kind guy. He needed about a decade of therapy, but someday he might actually be a contributing member of society.
* * *
Kent allowed the scene to wash over him. He stepped to the edge where Trudy, the prostitute, had fallen. How had their man felt? Was he horrified or gratified? Did he flee or stay and soak up the sensation?
This guy was so all over the map, Kent was having a fair amount of trouble nailing him down. Those 17-24-year-old antisocial serial killers were so much easier to profile. Their rage was right at the surface, bubbling over. People noticed them. The ugly and the stupid.
Wallflower was neither.
Kent also preferred psychopaths to sociopaths. Psychopaths, due to the complete lack of empathy, usually followed a specific set of rules. Their kills were logical, in their own way. Their trophies were equally logical.
Sociopaths? They were far more variable, and this guy was hopping all over the map. Kent was starting to get a feel for the killer, but still not quite.
To know there was a serialist out there but not having his scent gnawed at Kent’s gut. He hated this phase of the investigation. The part where you knew there was a killer out there, and you couldn’t do anything to stop him. He needed more data. Unfortunately, the most revealing data was another dead woman. The ultimate irony was that death was what saved lives.
Kent needed more of a pattern to emerge before he could hone in on Wallflower.
He didn’t even try to understand the fly egg curveball the killer had thrown them. Eventually, that too would make sense. Or at least they would have an explanation from the killer’s perspective.
Nicole stepped up next to him. “Trying to channel him?”
“Want to try?”
She gulped, but nodded. Nicole closed her eyes, breathing in. She grimaced and her nostrils tightened down.
“Don’t resist it. You need to experience the scene just as he did.”
* * *
Nicole had to override her revulsion and take a deep breath. Could despair have a smell all to itself?
But the killer had come up here willingly. No, he’d actually paid for the privilege of coming up here. Had he been nervous? Was he a virgin? Had he scouted Trudy for a while?
“Well?” Kent prompted.
“I think he would have been really nervous,” Nicole said.
Kent wagged a finger. “To know our man now, we need to know where he came from. What type of childhood would have forged a sociopath with these tendencies?”
Nicole nodded. She always wanted to rush into the profile. She wanted it to be like magic, where the answers just came to you. But, as Kent repeated ad nauseam, profiling was a tedious gig. You had to pick through the evidence, piece by piece, then layer them over each other to create the picture of the killer.
“He is killing women, so that implies the abuser was a woman. I would guess absent or deceased father. No one to protect him from the mother or to pattern normal male behavior.”
Kent nodded. Nicole shouldn’t have felt that flush of pride, but she did, and she liked it.
“The women are a proxy for this dominant female figure.”
“Yes. If these guys just had the balls to kill their abusers, we would be out of a job.”
“Except for this crime, the killings have been so asexual that they almost feel hypersexual. Like because he doesn’t have the self-esteem to date these women, he has to kill them.”
“Good pick up. Many times, the absolute lack of sexual markers indicates a deeply sexually repressed killer who is acting out his sexual frustration by killing.”
“That’s why this crime scene is so important?” Nicole asked. “To show us definitively that his motivation and therefore his primary abuse as a child was sexual?”
“Right again. Heck, I may be able to retire soon.”
Oh my, Kent was in a good mood. That much praise in a row? Nicole was certain he was going to fall over of an aneurism.
Nicole brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Okay, so he was emotionally and probably sexually abused, ashamed of his sexuality, and probably punished for masturbating.”
She looked to Kent, who nodded. “So this wasn’t an easy step. There must have been a trigger that brought him up on this roof.”
“And what would those triggers usually look like?”
“Loss,” Nicole stated confidently. “Death or the loss of a job or house, but my money would be on the death of his dominant female abuser.”
“And you would probably win that bet,” Kent said, encouraging her. “Now is this his usual environment?”
Nicole shook her head. Their profile so far had the man well educated enough to employ forensic countermeasures and avoid detection by the bulk of the police department. Everything about this killer, from his choice of victims to his methodology, screamed upper middle class.
“No,” Nicole said. “This was his walk on the wild side. I think normally…”
She was having a hard time putting words to how she felt. After all of that abuse, it felt like the killer would want to be in control. That was how he survived his horrific childhood and went on to be college educated. By controlling as much of his life as he could.
“He’s controlling,” Nicole said. “Detail-oriented. Wound pretty tightly. Maybe OCD?”
Kent rubbed her back. “Very good. I don’t think he has to wash his hands a thousand times, but I do think his paperclips are in a neat row on his desk.”
“Hey, can I play?” Yvent asked.
Nicole hated to admit it, but she wanted to say no. To have Kent all to herself in this mood? That was a treat. But Kent waved his protégé over.
“As a matter of fact, we need you for the next stage of this profile.”
Kent indicated to them. “Nicole, you’re Trudy. Yvent, you’re Wallflower.”
“And what are we supposed to do?” Nicole asked, knowing that she wasn’t going to like Kent’s answer. Not one bit.
“Why, we are going to re-enact the crime.”
Nicole could only guess that her face had the same look of horror as Yvent’s.
“What?” Kent asked. “It’s how the French solve crimes.”
* * *
Yvent stepped back, wishing that he had never opened his mouth.
“But I’ve never used a prostitute,” Yvent said, trying to think of anything to get him out of this situation.
“Oh please,” Kent said with a smirk. “You haven’t had sex, period.” He didn’t wait for Yvent to confirm or deny. “We need that awkwardness to get a feel for how this went.”
“But, but…” Yvent stammered. “Shouldn’t you do this with Nicole?”
“No,” Kent said. “I’m good, but even I can’t fake that level of insecurity.”
Nicole nodded her head. Yvent guessed if it was okay with her and okay with her boyfriend, he should take this as a learning experience.
“Now, go,” Kent demanded.
Yvent held out his hand to Nicole, who looked down at it with suspicion. “I don’t think prostitutes hold your hand,”
“Oh yeah, right,” Yvent said, shoving his hand into his pocket.
“See? You can’t buy that kind of awkwardness,” Kent said.
Yvent was so glad that he was fulfilling his role.
“It feels like Trudy would have led him to the wall,” Nicole said, walking up to the edge. �
��According to the other girls on the street, the johns only got 10 minutes up here, so my guess would be Trudy would pull down her panties, because I don’t see Wallflower doing it.”
“We… we are doing this with our clothes on, right?” Yvent asked with a gulp.
“Yes, of course,” Kent said snidely.
“With you, though?” Nicole chided, “That was a completely legitimate question.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, point taken,” Kent replied. “This is a dry run, but we do need to get you two into position.”
Yvent, though, was paralyzed. For one thing, he didn’t like heights, and for another thing, Nicole intimidated the hell out of him.
Luckily, the detective leaned against the wall and grabbed the edge. “Trudy had soot and mud and concrete under her fingernails. I think this is how she hung on.”
“Good, good,” Kent encouraged. “Now Yvent, you’ve got a panties-less woman waiting on you, what do you do?”
“I would, I mean,” Yvent said with a cough.
“Yes, you probably would sputter and panic. Good,” Kent said, then turned to Nicole. “But Trudy wants her money, so she’s going to encourage him over.”
It was Nicole’s turn to squirm. “Come on, baby. Let’s get it on.”
“Okay, it’s a really good thing that you don’t have to earn your living like this Nicole,” Kent said, then adopted a feminine voice. “It’s okay. Everybody’s nervous on the first time,” Kent cooed, actually making Yvent feel a little better. “Nobody’s here to judge. We’re just here so that you get what you want. You want it, right?”
* * *
Nicole wasn’t quite sure if she was more upset she didn’t play a good prostitute, or that Kent made such a good one.
Kent urged Yvent forward. “Come on now, you did come here to do something, right? I think even Wallflower would have been more decisive.”
The younger man stepped forward. His cheeks were flush and all of that arrogance back at the warehouse was replaced by fear, and was that a flash of shame?
“Number 100!” Joshua shouted from the other side of the roof, waving over his head a pink condom. “I think we’re going to set a record.”
Yvent turned to Kent. “Are you sure we shouldn’t consider him a suspect?”
The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection) Page 39