Robby looked at her. “Are you saying this whole thing is my fault because I hooked you up with my friend to get us those wine-pairing tickets?”
“Of course not. I’m just saying that maybe this was meant to be. Maybe some higher power put us there at that time, same time as the killer, so we could do our thing and help catch this guy.”
Robby furrowed his brow. “Wow, you’re getting religious on me. I’m surprised.”
“I don’t know what to make of it, Robby. But we’re here for a reason. Maybe that reason is to help put this guy away before he kills someone else.”
The waitress appeared and leaned across the table to clear the used dishes.
Robby swirled his glass of Patz and Hall Pinot Noir, then lifted it and watched the liquid spin. As it came to rest, he said, “Basically, our vacation is over. You’re now working this case. And that’s fine, I guess. Maybe you can get Gifford to jigger your vacation time so you don’t lose it. You can take another trip when you get back.”
Vail finished off her wine. “So that means my vacation time won’t correspond with yours because yours is now, and there’s no reason for you to be working this case.”
“Exactly. So I guess we’ll have to enjoy whatever time we have when you’re not working the case.”
She reached across the table and took his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. But we’ll make the best of what we do have. Deal?”
Robby nodded slowly. “Deal.”
“How about we start with tonight?” she said, leaning forward and planting a soft kiss on his lips.
THIRTEEN
V ail and Robby ate breakfast with their B&B mates—plus another couple who’d arrived last night—and after putting down their forks and draining their coffee, were the first to leave. Vail had to be at the task force at 9 a.m., and she didn’t want to be late.
While en route to the sheriff’s department, Vail thought about asking Robby to call the Vienna police chief to ask permission for him to participate on the task force. But Robby, being a Virginia state law enforcement officer, had no jurisdiction in California. His chief would never go for it: He would say that the locals had plenty of homicide investigators to work the case—and he would be correct. Vail, however, was a different situation. She had a unique skill set the police here didn’t have.
When they arrived at the sheriff’s department, Robby pulled to the curb by the front of the building. “Call me when you’re done.”
Vail’s door was open, the car audibly purring. “What are you going to do?”
“It’s Napa.” He held up a Wine Country News magazine. “No shortage of places to explore. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
VAIL WALKED INTO the conference room used by the Napa County Major Crimes Task Force. Located on the second floor of the sheriff’s department, it was a well-appointed meeting space with a generous oak chair rail lining the walls and numerous gray ergonomic stenographer seats surrounding a sectional faux-marble taupe-and-gray table. A laptop sat in the middle of the table beside a few stacks of printed pages and a plastic container of muffins. County map posters hung beside an expansive pane of one-way glass. A large-format printer sat in the corner beside a wall-sized whiteboard.
Not surprisingly, Vail was the only woman in the room. All heads swiveled in her direction as she strode to a vacant seat. As she sat down, everyone resumed their conversations. Redmond Brix was standing at the whiteboard chatting with a young male in uniform.
“You must be Karen Vail.”
Vail turned to see a man in his late twenties or early thirties, styled hair and thumbs hooked through the loops in his belt . . . wearing polished chestnut boots.
She extended a hand. “Yeah, that’s me. Don’t tell me I forgot to take off my name tag again.” She smiled sheepishly and feigned a look at her shirt.
“Sheriff Owens mentioned you’d be here. I’m Scott Fuller. Detective Scott Fuller, Napa County SD.”
“Sheriff’s a good man. Small world, actually. He took my class on Behavioral Science at the FBI’s National Academy—”
“I know all about it. I’m enrolled to start the program in a couple months.”
“I’ll see you back in Virginia, then.”
“Do you know anyone else on the task force?”
“Just walked in a minute ago.”
“Well, then let me do the intros.” He turned, stuck his fingers in his lips and whistled. Everyone turned. “This is Special Agent Karen Vail, from the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico,” Fuller said. “She’s here to help us with the wine cave murder.”
“Glad to meet all of you,” Vail said. “Actually, I’m with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, and we’re a few minutes down the road from Quantico, in Aquia. We moved out of Quantico a little over ten years ago. But Scott’s right, I’m here to help. If there’s anything I can contribute, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“That’s Sergeant Ray Lugo, with St. Helena PD,” Fuller said, indicating a Hispanic male as wide in the shoulders as he was in the gut—a refrigerator came to mind.
Vail nodded acknowledgment.
“And you already know Detective Lieutenant Brix,” Fuller said. “He’s the Incident Commander for this . . . uh . . .”
“Incident?”
Fuller frowned. “For this murder.”
The door swung open hard and in walked a petite blonde in a tightly cut short-sleeve blouse and professional knee-length skirt. She strode to the front of the room and took a seat near the head of the oval conference table. Every male head followed her movement, and she behaved as if she knew it.
“And that’s Roxxann Dixon,” Fuller said.
Dixon tossed a thick binder on the table and looked up at Vail. “And you are?”
“Karen Vail, FBI.”
Dixon looked around at the attentive male faces. “And why is the Bureau here?” she asked.
Vail waited for someone else to answer. Meanwhile, she was sizing up Dixon. Was she being antagonistic because she enjoyed being the only female on the task force, or was she merely the inquisitive, controlling type? Light blue eyes with unusually muscular arms and legs for a female, so she hit the weights regularly, and her short sleeves in the cooler weather meant she liked to let everyone know it. She was either into health and fitness and working out, compensating for something, or she felt she needed the bulk to compete with the men in her department. I can relate to that, Vail thought.
“Agent Vail is here on my request,” Brix said. “This case has some unusual elements to it and I think she can help. She’s out here on vacation and was . . . in the vicinity when the body was discovered.”
Dixon nodded slowly. Vail could tell she was doing what Vail had done to her: sizing her up, measuring her potential adversary, determining whether she’d truly be an asset, competition for male attention on the task force, or an extreme annoyance with some political heft and an attitude. I’m probably all of the above.
“Which agency are you with?” Vail asked.
“I’m an investigator with the Napa County District Attorney’s office.”
“I’m actually a profiler with Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Vail said.
“Oh,” Dixon said.
‘Oh?’ What does that mean?
“Okay,” Brix said, “let’s get started.” He took a step forward and handed Vail a thick card. “Electronic key. The proximity card will give you admittance to the building and restricted areas. Feel free to use it while you’re here, but we’ll need the prox card back when you leave.”
Vail took it and shoved it into her purse.
“I’ve sent all of you the email with what we had as of last night,” Brix said, passing a stapled sheaf of papers to Vail. The others had official county binders in front of them with requisite materials fastened and punched. “I’ve got a few updates, and some pictures of the victim.” He nodded to Fuller, who took a seat at the conference table in front of the laptop.
Fuller reached around his binder and fingered the touchpad. The screen awoke and displayed photos of the Silver Ridge Estates wine cave interior. Fuller hit a button on a nearby remote. A screen unfurled from the ceiling and the blue light from a projector splashed across it. Fuller pressed a couple of keys and the enlarged image appeared for all to see.
Brix took the group through the crime scene, describing what they were seeing as a supplement to the email he had sent them. Vail studied the photos. They were no doubt taken a short time after she and Robby had left the Silver Ridge wine cave. “Coroner says both wrists were sliced deeply. She bled out fairly slowly because it was done postmortem. Looks like she was strangled.” He nodded to Fuller, who pressed a button on his remote. The slide changed to a close-up of the woman’s neck. Bruising was evident across the skin. “A knife was found beneath the woman’s lower back. Scott.”
Fuller advanced to the next slide. A glistening stainless steel blade filled the screen. “Coroner said it was incredibly sharp, like it had never been used. Problem is, it’s a pretty common kitchen knife made by Henckels.” Nodded to Fuller. Next slide. “And something of interest to Agent Vail . . . the victim’s second toenail on the right foot was torn from the nail bed. Agent Vail?”
Vail leaned forward. “Yes. Well, the fact that the killer did this means that it had some significance to him. What that is, we don’t know yet. But briefly, this is what we call—”
“Signature,” Fuller said.
“Well, we used to call it signature,” Vail corrected. “But we now refer to it as ritual, or ritual behavior. That means it’s something the Unknown Subject, or UNSUB, does with the body that’s superfluous to his primary goal, which is killing his victim. In other words, it doesn’t result in the victim’s death, and it doesn’t help him avoid being caught. So it really has no relevance to anything—except that it’s deeply significant, and symbolic, for the killer. It feeds a deep-seated psychosexual need.”
She glanced over at Fuller, whose mouth was twisted and his gaze elsewhere—in his binder, to be exact. Maybe he didn’t like being corrected in front of the team. Great, more group dynamics to have to deal with.
“What I can tell you,” Vail said, “is that it’s my strong opinion this UNSUB has killed before.”
“How do you get that?” Dixon asked.
“Forget, for a moment, the other body we unearthed. If we just look at the wine cave kill, there were no hesitation marks with the blade. He strangled the vic, then sliced her wrists to allow the blood to drain. He then severed the breasts and removed the toenail. Very organized, efficient approach.” Vail curled some red hair behind her ear. “Something I think we all need to consider is that the key to this case could be access.”
“Access?” Brix asked.
“When you’re dealing with a murdered prostitute or druggie, you’re generally talking about publicly accessible places. But this is a cave, a wine cave that costs money—a lot of money—to get into. So we can narrow our offender pool of suspects by looking at who has access to the cave. This is an isolated location with a limited list of potential suspects.
“What’s more, statistically speaking, we can eliminate women, because with extremely rare exceptions, they’re not serial killers.” She paused a moment to gather herself; painful memories bubbled to the surface, but she forced them down. “And our killer is probably in his twenties or early thirties. Again, that’s going with percentages.” Vail looked around. She had everyone’s attention. “Another way we can narrow the offender’s age range is to assume this offender is physically fit. He’s able to efficiently subdue his victim, without her making much, if any, noise. And then crush her windpipe. So, again, we’re looking at a younger person.”
“Ray,” Brix said to Sergeant Lugo, “get with the Silver Ridge admin people and get their guest list. The people who go on those tours, whether it’s daytime or nighttime, pay a fair amount, so they’ll have used credit cards. Roxxi, make sure Ray has the search warrant he’ll need for that list. And their employee roster, past and present. Then narrow it down using Vail’s parameters.”
They both nodded. Brix made a note of their assignments on the whiteboard. “And, as Incident Commander, I’m naming you lead investigator. That good with you?”
Dixon looked up, appearing both surprised and pleased. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”
Fuller leaned back in his seat, his mouth making contorting movements. Vail didn’t think he was particularly thrilled with Dixon’s assignment.
Brix wrote it on the board.
“Something else to keep in mind,” Vail said. She waited a beat for Brix to turn around. “It’s likely the offender knows the cave and has been there before.”
“How can you make that assumption?” Fuller asked.
“It’s a much higher risk for him to take a victim somewhere without knowing what—or who—he’s going to find there. It’s reasonable to assume, for now, that he had intel on the location, so that suggests some connection to the winery. If he knew anything about that place, he knew they conducted nighttime wine cave tours. He wanted that body found, he wanted maximum impact and shock when that tour came through. That suggests he was familiar with the winery. He’d either been there before or worked there in some capacity. So first order of business would be to look at the workers they have on staff.”
Lugo spoke up. “That’s a minefield if we go down that road.”
“How so?”
“Migrant workers make up a significant percentage of the Napa Valley work force—they tend the vineyards, pick the grapes. A lot of them are illegal, and they move around. And they’re undocumented.”
“That makes our job a bit harder,” Vail said. They mulled Lugo’s comment a moment before she continued. “There is one caveat I should point out.”
“‘Caveat’? As in a ‘save my ass’ exception?” Fuller asked with a chuckle.
“This isn’t about my ass and it’s not about me,” Vail said. “I’m just telling you there’s a potential exception to consider. Nothing is foolproof, especially behavioral analysis.” She stared down Fuller, then continued. “So as I was saying. There are some killers who engage in high-risk kills because it’s all about the thrills. So they partake in high-risk behavior—which goes against what I just said about him having prior knowledge, or intel, about the cave.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Brix said.
Vail nodded in conciliation. “One thing that may help is that serial killers don’t wake up one day and start killing. They learn, through trial and error, what works and what doesn’t. What feeds their inner fantasies best. They experiment, learn how to stalk, how to kill. During this time, the killer is developing his interest in killing.”
“How does this help us?” Dixon asked.
“His early killing career will likely comprise failures, victims that fought back and required either more force or greater resourcefulness on his part to be successful. So his early murders will be unsolved crimes; we can look for unsolved murders in the region. But they’ll be tough to link to our UNSUB because his MO won’t look like it does now, because he wasn’t the same killer he eventually became. He may even move to another community, once he’s learned what he needs to learn to kill efficiently. We’d need to know particulars of the case, especially behaviors he engaged in with the body. Those behaviors, the ritual behaviors I mentioned a few minutes ago, don’t change whether it’s his first kill or, God forbid, his fiftieth.”
“So are you saying we expand our search?” Brix asked.
“We should contact all local police and sheriff departments within a reasonable radius to find out what unsolved female murders they’ve had in, say, the past twenty years, with ritual behaviors like the ones we’ve found here. The severed breasts, the toenail, and the slicing of the wrists.”
“Only female?”
“As I said, almost every serial killer is male,” Vail said. “Most victims are female. But not alway
s. Some serial killers, if they’re gay, will kill other males. And some will kill males because they’re in the house and they’re obstacles to getting to the chosen prize. So they blitz-kill the male, get him out of the way, then have their way with the woman.”
“I think we’re gonna need some help if we’re expanding our potential suspect pool,” Lugo said.
“We can use the resources of the Bureau to help in this search. It’s not a panacea, but it’ll give us a good head start. It’s called VICAP, Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.”
“Robert Ressler,” Fuller said. “He started VICAP.”
“Correct,” Vail said. “Anyone here know what VICAP is?”
Only Fuller and Brix raised their hands.
“It’s a central databank maintained by the FBI. Police departments send in reports on crimes in their jurisdictions, and we can sort and search the data based on unique qualifiers. So we can plug in certain parameters involving a crime and see if the same characteristics have been found in other murders in other states. Like the toenail. That’s an unusual characteristic of this killer. If we also find it in the VICAP database regarding a case down in Los Angeles, we might be able to link that murder with the ones up here.”
“Great,” Brix said. “You’ll take care of that?”
“Today. But understand its limitations. The database is only as good as the info it gets from PDs across the country. If they don’t take the time to fill out the form and submit it to us, VICAP will never know about it.”
“We’ll take what we can get,” Brix said. He turned to the board and wrote “VICAP: Vail.” Over his shoulder, while writing, he said, “If we start to zero in on a suspect or suspects and we need help, we can tap the NSIB—that’s Napa Special Investigations Bureau,” he said to Vail. “They’ll help us out with surveillance. They’re part of the standing task force, and they’ll do their part when needed.”
“Something else, before I forget.” Vail looked at the photo of the victim on the screen. “Can you advance it to the autopsy photos? A close-up of the neck.”
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