by Todd Travis
“If you’ll remove any and all sexual connotations from that observation, then yes, that’s exactly what I’m getting at.”
Thorne sniffed and shrugged. “All right, why not?”
“You first.”
“Why do I have to go first?”
“Age before beauty.”
Thorne snorted. “First, you tell me what you know about the Mercy Killings so far,” he said.
“Mercy killings,” Kane sat up a little straighter. “Biggest case in the Bureau, biggest case in the country and maybe the biggest case in the history of murder. There are more people working on it than anything else. Single killer, been operating five years or so. He has over a hundred kills that we know of, from all over the United States.
“The size of his Kill Zone is one thing that makes him unusual. He has confirmed kills in over twenty different states. Once in awhile the victims are forced to write MERCY on whatever’s near, hence the name the Mercy Killer, but he doesn't do that every time. He takes the tongues of his victims. He last struck in Georgia, about two weeks ago, a clerk at a copy store. That’s what I know. Not much gossip gets out from the brain trust running the case. They’re keeping it tight even among law enforcement. Case is a media carnival. There’s already been two cable movies made about him, a mini-series, a bunch of books and who knows what else. The Mercy Killer is bigger than Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper and the DC snipers all rolled into one. That’s what I know.”
“He is the biggest, bar none,” Thorne cracked his knuckles with relish. “The Shaquille O’Neal of serial killers.
“Around the campfire they call him Kevorkian, or at least we did in the beginning,” Thorne continued. “We eventually got official memos not to refer to the killer as Kevorkian ever, not even informally in communication with each other, and some guys got letters of censure for doing so, yours truly being one of them. Fuck it, Kevorkian is a much better tag for him than the Mercy Killer, that’s what I always thought.
“When it comes to the killing, he varies his MO. Sometimes he stabs, sometimes he strangles, he’s done just about everything you can imagine and then some when it comes to murder. Taking the tongue is his signature. That never changes. We’ve never recovered any of the tongues, ever. The other thing that makes him unusual is his range of victims.
“His taste in vics is wide and varied, many different professions, though he does seem to favor salesmen and postal workers more than most, in addition to a few local cops. But his choice of victims transcends race, sex, age, just about everything, which I don’t have to tell you is rare, very rare.
“His timeline for killing has no real rhythm to it; he’ll take out five in one week and then go a month without doing anything. We don’t know how he selects his victims and more importantly, we can’t figure out why or what he’s trying to accomplish by killing them and taking their tongues. Nobody can quite figure out the WHAT or the WHY of this case, hell, we haven’t even had a lot of success with WHERE. He crisscrosses the country. We know he likes to kill face to face and we know he follows his press coverage, even though there is almost too much of it to keep track of.
“Here’s an interesting story about Kevorkian that not many folks know about. Second year in, one of the murders we were investigating in New Jersey turned out to be the work of a copycat. I caught it right away, the guy was even more inept than Robertson was. We linked the copycat to the vic but before we could even get warrants, Kevorkian got him.”
“Kevorkian killed the copycat?” Kane asked.
”Within a day, before we could even move on him, before we could even bring him in for questioning, his tongue was gone and he was dead. I guess Kevorkian was displeased that somebody else was pissing in his yard. Too bad this Iceman character wasn’t as motivated when it came to FunnyPants, it would have saved us a lot of running around in the snow.”
“Do you think that it matters to the Iceman, his copycat?”
“Oh yeah, it matters. If the Iceman could have figured out who FunnyPants was, then he would have done something about it. Granted, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who Kevorkian’s copycat killer was, any local homicide investigator would have eventually busted him. But Kevorkian was on him quick, like stink on shit, he was that fast.
“It was the first real glimpse we’ve had into Kevorkian’s character. His ego. His ego is large. This guy is off the charts, we don’t have anyone like him on the books and that’s why it’s been so fucking hard to catch him. Rarely leaves any consistent forensic evidence, very rarely. Makes the Iceman look positively sloppy. What’s the first rule of forensic science?”
“Every contact leaves a trace,” Kane answered.
“Every contact leaves a trace, that’s it. Well, Kevorkian seems to be onto that one. Trace is varied and oftentimes deliberately misleading. I was lead profiler on the case, three years, when I got retired.”
“What happened, why were you retired?” Kane asked.
“The ASAC on the case, the guy I was reporting to, he got himself perished.”
“Killed?”
“Dead and tongueless.”
“Kevorkian killed the ASAC running your case?”
“Not just him, either. He also tagged the ASAC’s boss, the Special Agent in Charge of the whole shebang, one day later. Kevorkian killed two federal agents, not just investigators, but the ones running the show, just like that, one-two-bing-bing.”
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Kane said. “Wait a minute, I remember this when it happened, but the news said they were killed in a car accident.”
“The news also said that the real reason we invaded Iraq was to free the Iraqi people.”
“How can you … do you know for certain that it was him?”
“Absolutely certain, I vetted both crime scenes. I was there. He killed them and they covered it up.”
“I don’t fucking … how could they do that?”
“Come on, Kane, you work for the government now, wake up. They can do whatever ever they want to do and spin it however they want to spin it. We can put whatever story we want in the news, regardless of how true it is, we can arrest and detain anyone we want for as long as we wish without giving them access to counsel, hell, we can step outside right now, shoot the first person we see and call them a threat to Homeland Security and make it stick. This is the federal government, wake up and smell the coffee.
“The director decided that he did not want word to get out that some serial killer killed the federal officers chasing him; he felt that it might reflect badly upon the Bureau. So he squashed it, sent out a press release saying the two men were killed in an unfortunate car accident and that was that. The families went along with it and the men were buried with honors.
“Kevorkian has killed a number of local cops in different states at differing levels of authority and some with none at all. But this was the first time he went federal and it scared everybody. Shit hit the fan, heads rolled and mine was one of them.”
“They retired you because your boss got murdered? But you’d think that now they’d need everyone they could get,” Kane said.
“Let’s just say that I am less than popular with the ambitious blue flaming circles within the Bureau. When I was brought onboard the investigation, there was a lot of political bullshit flying around, which I never had time for or gave a fuck about. I guess you could say that I stepped on a few toes.”
“You? I can’t imagine that,” Kane said.
“Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. I ruffled a few feathers. Particularly with the next man they put in charge of the case, Richard MacVey. We had some history. I made him look like an ass some years ago, more than once, and he paid me off for it.
“In the past, the director always put up with my shit because I produced. I was the best. I got results. I caught the shitbird. Since I hadn’t produced or caught anybody while on the Kevorkian case, then they had no reason to put up with my shit. They cut me loose, almost a year ago, an
d it pleased MacVey to no end.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Well, he thought he was. Now we’ll never know; he also got himself killed in a ‘car accident’ and de-tongued just a few days ago.”
“What?”
“Yeah, Kevorkian is making life difficult for those trying to catch him, the prick. Let me tell you something, I was just starting to get the scent, too. I didn’t have anything solid but I was just getting that whiff when I got put out to pasture.”
“You thought you were close?”
“I thought I was close to being close.”
“Were you ever afraid that he might come after you?” Kane asked.
“Let him. I hope he does. Fucker got me fired.”
“So if you catch the Iceman, you get another shot at Kevorkian, the guy that cost you your job.”
“Correct-a-mundo,” Thorne said. “Now then. Quid pro quo, Clarice. I showed you mine.”
Kane took a deep breath, collecting herself.
“You read the file, so you know the basics. Eighteen months ago, somebody was raping, torturing and killing prostitutes. I was working decoy. We had a suspect, we knew his van from some sketchy witnesses’ statements and we knew his favorite hunting spots. We had blue carpet fiber from one of the victims, but it wasn’t even enough for a warrant. My job was to get a look in the van. I wasn’t to go inside the van under any circumstances, just get a look. If I saw blue carpeting, then we’d go for the warrant.
“I was in one of his favorite spots and we figured it would be hard for him to pass me up. We spot the van coming and sure enough, he pulls over next to me. Only there were two men in the van instead of one. I got a good look at them. The driver was scraggly-haired and dirty, missing a tooth. The other guy was short, really short, with a lot of tattoos. He was sitting in the passenger seat. The little guy asked me if I wanted to party.
“I wasn’t even armed. I was wired but because of the skimpy hooker get-up there was literally no place for me to stash a piece. That’s why I wasn’t supposed to get into the van. My backup was only a block away. We figured I would be all right. Of course, no one figured that there would be two guys instead of one.
“And nobody figured that it would be more than two guys. The side door of the van opened and this huge fat guy with a shaved head jumped out. Three guys doing this shit. Baldy told me to get in, they would pay top dollar so get my ass in the van.
“The floor of the van was covered in blue carpeting. Once Baldy opened the door and I saw the carpeting, I knew I had what I needed and I just had to get out of there. I told them I’d take a rain check and started to walk away. The little guy in the passenger seat pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. Baldy called me a whore.
“They grabbed me, tossed me in the van and took off right then and there, and there was nothing my backup could do about it except try and catch up. The freeway was less than a quarter mile away and they got on it. Once we were on the freeway, I knew I was fucked.
“They handcuffed me to separate bars that were conveniently welded on the wall of the van. They were thorough; they used two sets of handcuffs to secure me. They fucking had me good. I wasn’t the only one they had in the van, either.
“They had another girl, real young, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, tops. Probably a runaway that started to turn tricks to survive, looked innocent enough that she hadn’t been doing it very long. She was handcuffed to the other side of the van. They’d ripped her clothes off and from the looks of things, they’d already raped her more than once. She was bleeding. She was crying. They brought out their party kit and showed it to us.
“They told us, in great detail, just exactly what they were going to do. The little guy with the gun had a video camera, recording the whole thing. The big guy got out the pliers and started working on the girl. She screamed. Terrible screams. I told them I was a cop. Didn’t matter to them. The little guy pistol-whipped me.
“They ripped the wire off. Slapped me around some more. They wanted me to watch, so that I would know what was in store for me next. They went back to work on the girl, this time with knives. They killed her very slowly, giggling the whole time while she screamed. After she was dead, they turned their attention to me.
“They ripped my clothes off. I got hysterical,” Kane took another deep, deep breath.
“I got more than hysterical. I lost my shit. I begged them. They laughed. I remember how they laughed. I’ll always remember how they laughed.”
“How’d you get out of it?” Thorne asked, his eyes bright. Kane was far away as she relived her story.
“Somehow I pulled my right hand out through the cuff. Dislocated my thumb. My left hand was still handcuffed to the side of the van. I got my right free and then I started fighting for my life. I punched Baldy in the throat.
“The little guy pointed the gun at me and I grabbed hold of it. I trapped his gun hand and flipped him down on the floor, wrapping my legs around his neck, choking the shit out of him.
“I got the gun away from the little guy and I just started shooting. Baldy was just getting his breath back. He came at me. I shot Baldy, I shot him in the crotch.
“Then I shot the driver, even though we were going down the highway at seventy miles an hour, I shot him right in the back of the head. Blood went all over the windshield and the van started swerving back and forth.
“Then I shot the little guy. I had him in a judo choke and immobilized, but I shot him anyway. I remember him saying ‘please don’t’ before I fired. That’s one of the many things probably not in the report. I shot him in the face. I shot him more than once. I got drenched in the spray.
“As luck would have it, we were going over a bridge on the freeway when I shot the driver. The van went off the bridge and into the river. The van hit the river and water starts to pour into the interior of the van. I’m still handcuffed by my left hand to the wall of the van. I dig through the pockets of the little guy, he’s the only one I can reach, and I’m praying that he’s got the keys to the cuffs. Water was coming in fast, it was up past my chest, and I thought for sure I was going die in that van. I found the keys, unlocked the cuffs and made for the door. I kicked the backdoors open. Then I saw him. The big guy, Baldy, he was still alive. He grabbed me as I tried to swim out. This part is definitely not in the report.
“For some reason, I was still holding the set of the handcuffs. I locked one side of the cuffs around his wrist. I locked the other side of the cuffs to the van. I cuffed him to the van and then I swam out the back door. I left him there, alive and bellowing at me.
“I could have brought him out, but I didn’t. I let him go down. I didn’t shoot him. I left him there. I let him drown. I let him drown slow. I swam to the bank of the river, naked, stood there and watched him go down. My backup arrived two minutes later.
“The mayor’s office spun it so that I was a hero, but I wasn’t. I could have forced them to stop the van once I got the gun. I didn’t.”
“You killed them instead,” Thorne said.
“I did. I didn’t have to.”
“But you did.”
“I did. I executed them. No arrest, no trial. Just started shooting. I executed them. I didn’t have to but I did.”
“And it bothers you?” Thorne asked.
“Hell yes, it bothers me.”
“Why does it bother you?”
“Because.”
“Because why? Afraid you lost your edge?”
“It bothered me because of how it made me feel. When I shot them. I didn’t want to ever feel that way again,” Kane said. “I’ve had the shakes ever since then, even on the firing range.”
Thorne leaned back, looking at Kane for a long moment.
“That’s why you became a profiler, that’s why you joined ISU. Profilers almost never fire their weapons.”
“And then they stick me with a cowboy like you,” Kane said, her face impassive.
“Yeah, how about that?”
&n
bsp; “How about that?”
“Not that I disagree with your assessment of my character, but today was the first time I’ve ever fired my weapon in the line of duty,” Thorne said.
“This was the first time you shot a suspect?”
“Yep.”
“Does it bother you?”
“The only thing that bothers me is that he lived through it, the lucky bastard.”
“You’ve never killed anyone?”
“I’ve killed. I’ve caught a lot of dirty fuckers, sat their ass on death row and made sure I was there when they got the needle. I sat there, watched them die in their own piss and shit without a single problem.”
“Felt just fine about it, did you?”
“I felt more than fine. But you, we’re talking about you and how you felt when you shot Baldy and his buddies.”
“Is that what we were talking about?”
“This feeling you felt when you killed them, the one you never wanted to feel again. Describe it for me.”
“Did I tell you that I was a chess champion in high school?”
“Describe this feeling you felt.”
“I’ve said enough, Thorne,” Kane said. “I’ve held up my end of the deal. Let’s get back to HQ and get moving on Iceman. He’s still out there and he has Wendy Frederickson. She might still be alive while you and I sit here and shoot the shit with each other.”
Thorne stared at her for a moment. He stood and stretched, popping joints in his neck and shoulders.
“Wendy Frederickson is dead.”
“She’s dead?”
“She was dead within twenty-four hours of her abduction.”
“How do you know that?” Kane asked.
“How do I know anything??
“You’re sure Wendy Frederickson is dead?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“I know, but how …”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t sure.”
“What are we going to do next?”
“I’m going to take a piss and after I do that, we’re heading back to the office and you’re going to type up the after-action report on Robertson,” Thorne replied.