“Nothing illegal or improper. He was involved in a shooting. Three of his teammates were shot and killed, and he’s been putting the blame on himself, big-time. I’m not sure I’ll ever get him to come back to the FBI. But I want him back, Price. He’s a damn good cop. One of the freakiest profilers I’ve ever had. He’s got this sixth sense that’s busted open a ton of cases when no one else had a clue. Really intuitive, on the ball…”
“So why’s he so torn up? He knows the risks.”
“It’s a long story, but not a new one. He feels he got them killed. One was a junior agent on his first case. He hasn’t been able to shake the guilt. I’m hoping a taste of the real world will bring him back to life, so to speak.”
“Why don’t you just pull him back in on one of your cases?”
“Because he refuses to leave Nashville. He claims he’s planning to quit the FBI for good. He may refuse to talk with you, I don’t know. But I need to try, Mitch. I don’t want to lose him, in any sense of the word.”
“Do you really think he’s going to be any good for us if he’s not any good for you?”
“Point taken. I think if he feels useful but isn’t in charge, it may shake something loose. Maybe we can even convince him it’s his civic duty to help out in his hometown. I’d consider this a personal favor, man. Nobody up here knows I’m doing this, so I may get my own ass in a sling.”
“I suppose you already know about my LT and her shooting?”
“Jackson? Yeah, I heard about it. Sounds like she got jammed up good. I did hear she was back on the job. She doing okay?”
“Far as I can tell. Shrinks cleared her, department cleared her, and she’s back and rolling. Like your guy, she’s a damn good cop. I would have hated to lose her.”
Garrett was quiet while Price thought it over. Finally, he asked, “You think Baldwin will do it?”
“I haven’t talked to him about it. I wanted to clear it with you first. If you give the word, I’ll call him right now and run it by him. He may tell me to go to hell. He’s already done that a few times. But I have some new information pertaining to his case. It might help pull him back in.”
“Loose cannons aren’t always the best people to have around a delicate situation, Garrett. I’d need your personal assurance that you’ll keep up with him, make sure he’s not going yahoo on me.”
“You have my word. I wouldn’t even think about asking for this if I thought it would backfire. He’ll either say yes or no. If he says no, well…”
“All right, man, if he’ll talk to me, I’ll talk to him. Though if I get any indications he’s not working out, I’ll be the first to cut the strings.”
Woods heaved out a sigh of relief. “I owe you one. If I can talk him into it, I’ll have him call you tonight to set things up. I’ll make it clear it’s only a consulting role. If there’s a problem, you let me know.”
“Will do, Garrett. You owe me more than a beer this time.”
After a few pleasantries and promises to keep in close touch, Price hung up the phone. He didn’t want to mention the call to Taylor just yet. He thought he’d see if the man called in first, then deal with the fallout. He shut off his office light and went home.
CHAPTER 19
Dr. John Baldwin sat on the easy chair in his living room. The room was devoid of light except the flickering of the television, tuned to the local CBS affiliate, but muted. On the table next to the chair was a half-empty pint glass of Guinness and a Smith and Wesson .38 Special snub-nosed revolver.
Baldwin stared at the television, eyes unfocused. He was very drunk. Drunk enough to play the game. He was ready. With any luck, he’d have a little accident and there would be no more guilt.
Baldwin had been a handsome man once. He stood six foot four, had jet-black hair graying slightly at the temples, lively green eyes that could look into the very soul. But now he looked ten years older than his thirty-seven years. He had a week-old beard shot through with dense silver the color of moonlight that barely filled in the gaunt lines of his face. His eyes were shrouded with guilt.
He had been forced out of his job at the FBI six months earlier. Not by his bosses. By his own conscience. Six months to relive the shame, the embarrassment, the knowledge that he had caused three deaths. Six months of replaying the case. Reliving his actions. He had been the head of the Investigative Support Unit, thriving in the shadowy world of psychological profiling. Was the darling of the BSU. He had the book smarts, of course: PhDs and a law degree, and the years of field experience. He was a good cop. Used to be a good cop.
Then Harold Arlen had rocked his world.
Arlen, an inconspicuous mechanic in Great Falls, Virginia, had killed his career, definitely, but he’d also taken a chunk of Baldwin’s soul. Baldwin had seen so much in his years at the FBI, but Arlen went to new heights of hideousness. Once a week for six weeks, like clockwork, a young girl had been found in the woods near Great Falls, Virginia.
Every law enforcement officer, every neighbor, every member of the media, everyone thought Arlen was responsible. But they had no proof. Not a single hair, a minuscule fiber, a shred of mitochondria. Nothing.
Baldwin knew in his soul that Arlen was guilty. It was the way he acted in his interviews, playing, laughing. How he only truly came alive when they showed him the crime scene photos. It was all there. But there was no evidence.
Their last-ditch attempt to pin the murders on Arlen proved fatal. The evidence they’d been searching for finally appeared, stuffed into the back of an underwear drawer. Arlen had come home and found them rooting through his house, and had gone wild, whipped out a gun and started shooting. All the agents were caught by surprise. Baldwin’s bullets were the only ones that found their mark. He’d killed Arlen, but Arlen had gotten enough shots off before he was hit to kill the other three agents.
The guilt Baldwin felt was overwhelming. He’d lost three good men for no reason other than his own desperation to solve an unsolvable case. Arlen was dead, the case was done. Then another little girl turned up dead. They’d found hairs on her body, and a DNA comparison didn’t link them to Arlen.
There was an inquiry. Baldwin could see the judgment in the eyes of the agents around him. Getting scum off the street was one thing, and Arlen had been scum: a purveyor and seller of child pornography. Losing, no, sacrificing three good men, though, in the guise of taking down a killer? No one accused him directly, but he felt the eyes on the back of his neck. He sat with the ghosts of his friends every night. It was too much, and he left.
By the time he’d arrived at his boyhood home in Tennessee, Baldwin was already too far gone to save. A life sentence for murder would have been easier than a death sentence of freedom. He’d had no contact with his old life for six months, except the occasional phone call from his old boss, which never went well. He’d wallowed in guilt, drank to excess, popped every pill he could find. Anything that would make him numb.
He soon realized that there was only one way out. He didn’t have the balls to get it over with himself, didn’t quite have the nerve to meet his maker straight out. So for the past few weeks, every night, he sat in his chair, playing the game according to his own set of rules.
Baldwin pulled himself back to consciousness. He’d given himself permission to relive the fateful mea culpa, to flog himself for his stupidity, just as he did every night he was sober enough to think. He’d asked forgiveness of his dead friends once more. He wanted to put an end to his overwhelming guilt, to serve his time in hell. He figured it couldn’t be much worse than what he dealt with every minute of every day. That’s where the game came in.
He forced the thoughts away. Took a last gulp of his beer. Palmed the small gun, his throw-down weapon from the old days when he was a decent cop. It was ready to go, like a roommate begging to leave on the ultimate road trip.
He lifted the revolver to eye level. Read the words Made in the USA engraved on the side. It gave him a sense of pride—wouldn’t do to play wit
h anything foreign, despite the supposed origins of the game. He leaned back in the chair and gave the cylinder a spin. One spin, one try. If it didn’t happen, he’d put the gun away until the next night. The ratcheting noise comforted him, and as it stopped he took a deep breath. Put eight pounds of pressure on the trigger pull and pointed it at his temple.
The staccato tones of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” filled the silent room, startling the gun from his hand. Baldwin grabbed for it and got a grip on it, then groaned and set the weapon in his lap. His fucking cell phone was ringing. Loudly. Insistently. He choked back a laugh. He’d forgotten to turn it off.
Ignore it! He raised the weapon again. Just do it. You won’t be able to sleep if you don’t play the game. But a thought niggled in the back of his mind. Who the hell would be calling? No one had called in weeks. They’d tried, at first. “Take a leave of absence, Baldwin. We’ll be in touch.” And after the first month, they had been. But the calls inviting him back hadn’t been returned. When the case ultimately resolved, they’d sent him a letter giving him a year’s leave, left him alone to battle his demons.
Shaking his head, the curiosity got the better of him. He had all night to kill himself. Hell, he had the rest of his life to do it. He picked up the phone.
“What?” he barked.
“It’s Garrett.”
Baldwin sighed and gently set the gun back on the side table. Maybe it wasn’t his night to die after all.
CHAPTER 20
Baldwin didn’t know exactly how to respond to the man on the other end of the phone. He opted for the truth.
“I’m kinda in the middle of something, Garrett.”
“Baldwin, I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important. I’m sorry it’s been so long. After our last conversation, I thought you’d rather not hear from me.”
Baldwin listened with half an ear to the platitudes from his former boss. His thoughts kept drifting to the gun next to him. Hopefully, this was a last-ditch mercy call and he could get back to the game. His attention gradually drifted back to the phone when he heard the word killing.
“Huh? What was that again?”
“The Nashville police are working two murders. Coeds from Vanderbilt. There are some bizarre aspects to the deaths. I think they may have a serial on their hands. I just talked to the captain down there. He’s an old friend of mine. Your name came up. Do you feel up to doing a little consulting? Or are you still messing around with your gun?”
Baldwin gave a little laugh. How nice to be so predictable.
“’Fraid I’m a little tied up at the moment, Garrett. With my stellar reputation and all, why the hell would they want me? Let me guess—you didn’t tell him the whole story?”
“Like I said, Mitchell Price is a friend. He knows what went down. He’s a big believer in second chances. So am I. I’m not asking you back to the Bureau. I’m asking you to talk to a friend of mine. Maybe give him a little advice. Maybe sign on for a while to see if they can get this guy who’s hunting young women in your backyard. That’s all.”
“Why don’t you send one of your people?”
“Because this is right up your alley. You’re already on-site. You’re familiar with the territory. And despite what you seem to consider your little fuckup, you’re still one of the best in the business. C’mon, Baldwin. Humor me. Get out of the house for a while. Maybe do some interacting with the rest of the world. It might pull you out of the funk. You have been in a funk, right, Baldwin?”
Therapy. Yeah, he was falling for that.
“I don’t think this is such a good idea, boss.”
“Well, I do. They need another brain, Baldwin, and I don’t have any to spare. Since you’re probably not real up-to-date with the program, we’re losing people right and left. Big bucks on the mashed potato circuit, everybody wants to be a consultant on cable TV. We’re low on resources, and all the remaining personnel are in Minnesota, working a skinner case. Guess you haven’t heard about that either. Never mind. Will you do it? It’s only a conversation.”
“I didn’t ask for any favors, Garrett.”
“This isn’t one for you, Baldwin. It’s a favor to me. Just call Price, go in and see him. You can make the decision from there.”
“Hold on,” Baldwin said as he pulled the phone away from his ear and reached for the TV remote. He turned up the opening of the local ten o’clock evening news. A pretty blond anchor in tortoiseshell glasses, with a long nose and the requisite overbite that reminded men of what a mouth like that could do, spoke quietly, with the intonation of doom only a TV person could muster. Two female students from Vanderbilt University had been found brutally raped and murdered, their bodies left at two of Nashville’s very public sites.
“The press has it.”
“Hard to keep it away from them.”
He stared up at the ceiling, willing the report to go away. He heard a woman’s voice fending off detailed questions nicely. Quelling the panic, Baldwin thought to himself. Shaking his head, he turned the TV up to listen.
“…Shelby Kincaid, of Bowling Green, Kentucky. She was a sophomore at Vanderbilt, and was reported missing several days ago by her roommate.” The woman cut off a question: “No, John, we’re not releasing the name of the roommate. Get real.” There was a ripple of laughter throughout the room. “The second victim is Jordan Blake, of Houston, Texas. She was a junior at Vanderbilt. Yes, she is the daughter of Gregory Blake. We don’t have any indication this crime is in any way related to her father’s business.” There was a flurry of sound, voices, papers, phones. The woman ignored it and pressed on.
“We want to pass a message to all students in town. Don’t go out alone. Stay with friends if possible. Keep your doors and windows locked at all times. Go to class in groups. Don’t put yourselves in any compromising situations, especially with alcohol and drugs. We’re doing our best to find the suspect. Thank you.” The shouting started again, but she turned and walked out of the room. A man the TV screen named as Dan Franklin approached the podium. Baldwin wasn’t paying attention anymore.
Man, the chick was pretty. He thought he knew her from somewhere, though she looked a little older and worn a little thin. They’d picked the right woman as their PR spokesman. Spokeswoman. She obviously knew everyone there, had kept them under control.
As he came back from his thoughts, the female anchor threw it to her co-anchor. The story was over. Then it hit him. Taylor Jackson. That’s who she was—they’d gone to Father Ryan together. He’d always thought she was hot as hell, but she was more into the popular crew’s scene than he had ever been. He’d never pursued the matter, and he’d bet a million dollars she’d never remember who he was. Besides, she was a couple of years younger, and he hadn’t been on the A-list on the private school circuit. Nashville really was a small town.
Baldwin switched stations and watched as another distraught female anchor gave the details of the rape and murder of the two girls. He was able to get a little more information before they cut away to the footage of the press conference. The rest of the story was a simple reprise. There was no new information coming out tonight.
He knew the cops had much more detail, but there was only so much the public could handle, much less understand. Without realizing he was doing so, Baldwin mentally began forming a profile of the murderer, murmuring to himself.
“Guy’s white, around thirty, complete sociopath. He’s killing in a private place, probably has some menial night job that gives him free movement during the day. Lives with someone who can support him, had a crappy childhood, domineering mother, distant father, yada, yada, yada. Killing girls with similar characteristics of someone close to him, probably has a record, these aren’t his first crimes. Has kept souvenirs, is keeping clippings from the paper and watching the media coverage. Doesn’t date, very organized, stalking the girls. Wants the police to see what he’s done, so he’s dumping in a public place. Lives in the area, has means of transport…” He trailed
off. The typical profile of a serial killer.
It was getting redundant, and some of the profilers he knew had been sloppy lately, often throwing the same categories at all the killers, lumping them together. Granted, killers weren’t terribly original, but the complacency that came with dealing with these men was beginning to show. There were “former” profilers all over the cable news networks anytime a series of killings started, and even when there was only one violent crime to go on. They needed to be a little more careful. The word was out that they hadn’t been completely accurate in a few cases. He’d heard a former cop bluster his way through a television interview a few weeks before, saying, “Profilers don’t put cuffs on the criminals.” That could start some trouble.
Baldwin came back from his thoughts to hear Garrett yelling at him. “Sorry. What?”
“God, man, where’d you go?”
“Just watching a little TV.”
“I have something else I need you to know. It’s about Arlen.”
Baldwin tensed. “I don’t want to talk about him, Garrett. All bets are off if you bring him up again.”
“But, Baldwin, there’s new—”
“That’s my deal, Garrett. No Arlen, and I’ll think about talking to your friend. Are we clear?”
“You’re not exactly in a position to make demands on me, Baldwin. Just let me tell you what’s happening.”
“No.”
Garrett was silent for a moment. “Fine, have it your way. Will you call Price?”
Baldwin gave a last longing look at the gun. “Yeah.”
He clicked off the phone and gently set it down on the table beside him. Went into the kitchen, fetched another Guinness. Poured it into an ice-cold mug from the freezer. He’d always preferred it cold, rather than the correct British lukewarm.
The gun wasn’t calling as loudly now. He’d felt a small adrenaline rush at the news reports. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to talk to the captain. He could pull out at any time and come back to his miserable little existence. Maybe fate was dealing him a new hand. He guzzled half the beer, called Price at home, and set an appointment for eight in the morning.
Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 1 Page 9