by Chris Mooney
‘Otto told me the blood samples were destroyed by the bleach.’
‘He’s still got other samples to go through,’ Coop said confidently, even though the truth was that it wasn’t looking good.
‘And then what? Who’s going to do the DNA?’
‘We are. The rolling lab has PCR kits. We can get a DNA sample in two to three hours.’
‘And then we’ll have to mail the kits back to our lab. More waiting. What about that residue Darby found on the sliding glass door? Was it cutting oil?’
Coop shook his head. ‘Mineral spirits,’ he said. ‘There’s no way to identify the brand. But the duct tape? The samples will arrive tomorrow morning no later than 9.30 a.m. Second the package arrives our guys are going to get to work comparing them to those in our duct tape library. They’ll be able to identify the brand. We might get lucky.’ Coop instantly regretted his last words.
‘The Red Hill Ripper is already focused on Darby,’ Hoder said. ‘That’s not going to change. I didn’t make that happen, by the way. He did that all by himself. If we can get him to watch the interview, we may be able to locate him and save the next family.’
‘Or maybe he’ll decide to stay in the shadows. He knows we’re not going to be here forever, so he can afford to wait us out. After we leave, maybe he’ll decide to visit Darby next month, a year later, break into her home in the middle of the night and do that.’ Coop jerked his thumb at the whiteboards holding the crime scene photographs of the strangled women.
Hoder studied his hands. ‘Your anger is misdirected,’ he said. ‘You should be having this conversation with Darby.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m planning to.’
‘Good. Because if she doesn’t want to do this, she doesn’t have to.’ Hoder seemed disappointed, almost sad, when he said it.
40
Darby insisted on doing the interview. She stood in the hall outside the squad room and listened to Coop rattle off his objections for about half a minute before she broke in and politely but firmly told him she was going through with it.
‘This isn’t just about your safety,’ Coop said. ‘What happens if this plan of yours backfires and you rile this guy and he decides to go after another family?’
‘He’s going to do that anyway.’
‘And what if this interview makes him decide to move up his timetable? Have you stopped to consider that?’
‘I have, which is why I’m doing the interview. I want him to focus his attention on me – and he will. The Red Hill Evening Item has been promoting my name all day, this exclusive interview with me. They’ve sent out Twitter and Facebook messages announcing it. He’s going to watch it, Coop, and we’re going to find him.’
‘You’re taking a baseball bat to a hornet’s nest.’
Darby made fists by her sides, wincing slightly. Her right hand was swollen, covered by a glove; the abrasions along the knuckles rubbed against the stiff leather. She turned slightly, looked down the hall and saw Ray Williams standing in front of the police chief’s desk through the office-door glass. Hoder sat in the chair, his face solemn and downcast as he listened. She couldn’t hear what Williams was saying. She didn’t need to.
Williams had torn a strip out of her when he discovered that she had sucker-punched Deputy Sheriff Lancaster – in an autopsy room, no less. His rage momentarily extinguished, he stopped speaking, and the silence inside the cruiser had felt like a dirge for the remainder of the ride. She didn’t blame him. She’d let her anger get away from her. Not only had she given Lancaster sufficient ammo to take the investigation away from Red Hill, but her actions had most likely killed Williams’s employment chances in the new law enforcement regime.
‘I saw the list of questions and answers the two of you came up with,’ Coop said, struggling to remain calm. ‘You go on the record saying those things, you might as well be jamming a stick of dynamite up this guy’s ass. Once you light the fuse, who the hell knows how he’s going to react? Maybe he’ll decide to take his aggression out on someone else instead of you.’
Darby couldn’t hide her irritation. ‘So what do you suggest we do, then? Cross our fingers and hope for a stroke of luck?’
‘We keep working the evidence. That’s what you and I do best. The lab’s running with the things we took from the Downes –’
‘This guy is too goddamn careful, Coop. It’s not like he’s left us a lot to work with.’
‘You haven’t had time to fully study the other case files. Let’s go over each one together, now, and maybe we’ll find something that was overlooked, a piece of evidence that –’
‘We need to be proactive here. We can’t stay on this investigation forever. At some point we’re going to have to pack up and leave, and if we haven’t found him by then, guess what happens next? Right now we have a tremendous opportunity to trap him, and you’re asking me to ignore it?’
‘You can’t orchestrate the behaviour of a psychopath. You told me that, remember?’
Darby said nothing.
Coop put a hand on the wall and leaned in closer. ‘This is about you wanting this guy to come after you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘That way you’ll have an excuse to blow him out of his socks.’
Darby brushed past him and entered the squad room. She was glad to see someone had hung sheets over the whiteboards to hide the grisly crime scene photos from the reporter and cameraman.
Hoder excused himself from the group and motioned for Darby to join him in the corner. He handed her two sheets of paper: they held the questions and her scripted answers.
‘A sexual sadist like the Red Hill Ripper thinks he’s intellectually superior to you, me, the Bureau, everyone,’ Hoder said. ‘The questions I wrote down are going to highlight your intellectual superiority. The answers are designed to make you come across as some sort of super-cop, make him feel that he has a self-inflated sense of his own importance and prowess. Leave the leather jacket on, by the way. It’ll help sell the image. And unzip it so he can see your shoulder holster.’
And my chest, Darby added privately.
Again, Hoder seemed to sense her thoughts. ‘He despises women. All sadists do,’ he said. ‘His hatred is already locked on you, and you’re going to channel it by driving home the point that you’ve solved all the serial cases you’ve worked on, that the Red Hill Ripper isn’t going to be an exception because he’s nowhere near as smart or as cunning as the others. You’ll go to the ends of the earth to find him, crawl under every rock – that sort of thing. I wrote some things down right there on the first page, the part marked “statement”. We want to trigger the guy’s deep-seated feelings of self-hatred and inferiority and, hopefully, keep him logged on to his computer.
‘Look relaxed and speak confidently, maybe even with contempt. I wrote everything down for you, but the important thing here is for you to say it in your own voice. Do whatever feels natural. Go with your gut.’
Then Hoder put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. ‘I can’t stress this next point enough,’ he said. ‘If at any time you feel uncomfortable or uncertain about this, if you change your mind about wanting to go through with the interview, you end it. You’re the one in charge.’
‘Let’s do this.’
The reporter, Chad Levine, was an affable, pudgy man with a handlebar moustache and a bad comb-over. He wore a corduroy sports coat with a pair of pressed Dockers khakis and suede chukka boots, and he radiated the excitement of a child whose long-held secret wish had suddenly been granted.
‘Do you need to read these?’ he asked, holding up the pages containing Hoder’s scripted questions and answers.
Darby shook her head and took the seat across from the reporter. She couldn’t see the cameraman behind the hot, white lights aimed on her. She took off her gloves and covered her right hand with her left so the camera wouldn’t see the split skin and the swelling.
‘We can do as many takes as you like,’ Levine said, pinning the microphone to her leather jacket.
<
br /> Darby pointed behind her, to the poster advertising the reward and hotline. ‘Make sure that’s in every shot.’
‘It will be. We’ll also have the number posted on the bottom of the interview. Agent Hoder said you have a statement you’d like to make. Do you want to read it now or at the end of the interview?’
‘Now. And make sure it runs at the beginning of the interview.’
Levine nodded encouragingly. ‘Agent Hoder told me,’ he said. ‘Let me know when you’re ready.’
‘I’m ready.’
The cameraman spoke from behind the lights. ‘In five, four, three, two, one.’
Darby looked directly into the camera, knowing this was going to be her final stab at the case, a Hail Mary pass to catch the Ripper. She spoke slowly and deliberately, in order to hold the killer’s attention and, hopefully, add some much needed time for the computer trace. She made false statements and the sort of claims no reasonable investigator would ever say in public, and she deliberately baited him.
‘My name is Dr Darby McCormick. I want the people of Red Hill to know I will turn over every rock and exhaust every single lead and work every piece of evidence until I find the individual responsible for these murders. I am a forensic specialist, and I have dedicated my life to studying and apprehending this type of deviant criminal. A sexual pervert like the Red Hill Ripper will not be an exception. He is a lonely and impotent man who, like every other sadist, is a moral coward. He is hiding in plain sight somewhere in your neighbourhood. You have seen him at church and at social gatherings, in stores and in restaurants. When I find him, justice will be served, either in handcuffs or in a body bag.’
I’m about to call Sarah when I notice my burner only has a couple of minutes left on it. I pull over to the side of the road, my hazards flashing, and after I remove the battery from the phone and wipe everything down with a handkerchief, I step out of my car and toss the pieces deep into the woods.
The roads have been pretty quiet on account of the storm, which, at the moment, seems to have paused to catch its breath. The wind is no longer howling but the snow is still coming down hard and fast, my windshield wipers working double-time to clear it away. Five or so inches cover the lot belonging to the Happy Valley Auto Garage. Its windows and the lights for the gas pumps are dark. I’m alone and, having had my cars serviced here many, many times in the past, I know I don’t have to worry about a security camera recording me.
The payphone is to my far left, next to the coin-fed air hose and vacuum. I leave the car running and the headlights on so I can see. I thread a couple of quarters into the slot and dial Sarah’s number.
‘Thank God,’ Sarah says when she answers. Her sigh reminds me of pressure being released from a hot-water tank on the verge of exploding. ‘Oh, thank God, I’ve been worried sick about you.’
‘I’m fine. I –’
‘It’s been hours. Are you okay?’
‘I just said I’m fine. Everything’s fine.’
‘When I didn’t hear from you I thought –’
‘WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LISTEN.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and her voice sounds so small, so hurt and lonely, it triggers a memory of the first time I held her hand in mine. The moment her skin touched mine I knew I had found my home.
My anger dissolves in my throat, but my heart is still beating furiously.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m tired and it’s been a long day.’
‘Please tell me you’re coming home.’
‘Not yet. Not for a while. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got some things to take care of and didn’t want you waiting up for me.’
‘I heard about the FBI. On the news.’
‘TV?’
‘No, the radio. I have the portable with me.’
‘What are they saying? On the news?’
She doesn’t answer, and for some reason it makes me want to run back to my car. The briefcase with money and passports and everything else is sitting on the passenger’s seat.
Leave now, an inner voice urges me. Save yourself.
‘If everything goes right tonight,’ I say, ‘we’ll be fine.’
‘Did you make a mistake? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’
For some reason I’m thinking about my mother, how she collected quotes from famous historical figures and philosophers. She could recite them from memory, thought it made her sound like an intelligent and educated woman of substance and sophistication instead of the person she was, that corn-pone little girl who’d grown up on a farm and wore her older sister’s hand-me-downs and ran away from home at fifteen and never finished high school.
‘Tell me,’ Sarah says, her voice so soft and gentle and understanding it makes my heart ache. ‘You know you can tell me anything.’
‘I know.’
‘Did you make a mistake? Is that what you want to tell me?’
And then I’m thinking of St Augustine, of how much my mother liked to quote him, especially that line about truth being like a lion you could let loose because a lion could defend itself. But St Augustine left out the part about how the truth, like a lion, is capable of mauling and maiming, leaving its victim for dead. The truth is a hunter. The truth doesn’t care.
And yet I still want to unburden myself. But, once I set my lion free, I’ll no longer have control. I can’t call it back, make it return to its cage.
‘Baby?’
‘I’m still here,’ I say.
‘I’ll love you no matter what. You know that, right?’
And then I tell her. Everything.
41
Darby finished the interview in less than an hour. The cameraman had stopped recording after each question to give her time to confer with Hoder. They did multiple takes and the cameraman shot from multiple angles, pausing each time to fiddle with the lighting. Coop watched from a corner.
The video footage would be compressed into ten minutes. The statement she’d made at the start of the interview; the reporter’s questions about her background and experience hunting serial killers like Traveler, who had successfully evaded law enforcement; and her summary of the Red Hill Ripper case – those items would run at the start of the interview and hopefully catch the killer’s interest.
In order for the trace to work, the Ripper needed to watch the video for at least two minutes. During that time, the program embedded in the video would determine the operating system – Windows, Mac, Android or iOS – install the appropriate software and then broadcast its location back to the RCFL guys in Denver. They assured Hoder the program wouldn’t be detected by antivirus or malware-prevention software.
To entice the Ripper to keep watching, Hoder had provided ‘exclusive’ and ‘never before revealed crime scene photos’ – close-up pictures of the plastic cuffs and ligature marks. Hoder believed the Ripper wouldn’t be able to resist wanting to see his handiwork on display. The photos would be spliced into the video somewhere after the two-minute mark – more than enough time for the tracking program to install itself. Anyone watching the video from Red Hill, Brewster and the surrounding towns would be moved to the top of the search list. All information would then be forwarded to Hoder, who would analyse it, along with Otto and Hayes, inside the MoFo.
While the cameraman edited the video footage under Hoder’s watchful eye, Darby left the squad room to speak to the police chief. Neither Robinson nor Williams had entered the room at any point during the interview.
Robinson’s office was dark, the door locked. She moved around the corner and saw the light on in Williams’s office, but he wasn’t there. She searched the station for him, and when she didn’t find him she used his office phone to call his cell. It went straight to voicemail. Then she remembered he’d left his cell in his trunk.
Darby left the office, a nagging feeling worming its way through her stomach. If the Red Hill Ripper were skilful enough with computers to use malware that automatically installed itself on their cell phones, w
ould he also have installed safeguards while using the internet?
A patrolman she recognized from this morning’s debrief stepped into the lobby with a tall and slender woman dressed in tight-fitting designer jeans, over-the-knee black leather high-heel boots and a dark fur coat that ended at her waist. It had an oversized shawl collar and an open front; she wore a cream-coloured and Henley-inspired blouse with a split-neck and a deep V that proudly displayed an ample amount of surgically enhanced cleavage.
‘Ray in his office?’ the patrolman asked Darby. He had broad shoulders and the thick and callused hands of a bricklayer. His nametag read L. GRIFFIN.
‘No, he’s not there,’ Darby said, and shifted her attention back to the woman. She was Saks Fifth Avenue pretty, and had the air and appearance of a successful young cosmopolitan woman or trophy wife who whiled away her days at luxury spas and shopping at Nordstrom. ‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘Maybe you can help me, then. This lovely young lady is Ms Rita Tuttle. Rita, meet Dr McCormick. Rita lives in Brewster, works in the … what did you call it again, Rita? The gentlemen’s services industry?’ Patrolman Griffin’s eyes crinkled in humour.
Rita Tuttle pulled back her coat sleeve and glanced at her watch, a rose-gold EBEL with a sapphire-crystal face encrusted with diamonds. ‘I’ve got to catch a flight at nine in Denver,’ she said. ‘How about we get to it?’
‘She’s going to Barbados,’ Griffin said. ‘With a friend.’ He smiled coyly. ‘I’ll take you to our luxury interview suite. This way, ladies.’
The small interrogation room had white-painted walls and overhead fluorescent lights. A pair of folding chairs were placed on either side of an office-furniture store-bought desk made of particleboard.
Rita declined Griffin’s offer of coffee. She took a seat and crossed her legs.
‘I’ll let you two get acquainted,’ Griffin said. ‘Be a good girl, Rita, and tell the good doctor here everything you told me.’ Griffin winked at her and shut the door.
Rita stared after him. She didn’t take off her jacket or her thin black leather gloves. Her dirty blonde hair had been cut into a stylish bob, and she wore a trace amount of makeup. Given the smoothness of her skin, and the lack of crow’s feet around the eyes and mouth, Darby had the woman’s age pegged somewhere north of twenty-five but no older than thirty.