Profiled

by Renee Andrews

  Loyal indeed.

  “Tell you what,” Etta motioned for her to follow, “since I’m still here anyways, I might as well get you settled. Come on, I’ll show ya where you’re headed. Chances are you’re gonna be there most o’ the weekend.”

  “I’m sure I can find it.” Angel didn’t see the need for an escort, or an introduction. She’d form her own assessment of the killer, without the input from the group meeting down the hall. They may help her with the victims, but she didn’t want help regarding the killer. Their interpretation of him might throw her off the right track, and she wouldn’t allow anything to hinder this investigation. She didn’t have time for it. One woman had been murdered, and the killer wouldn’t stop until six more had joined her.

  Unless Angel stopped him first.

  “Nonsense.” The woman grabbed Angel’s bicep. “Whoa, Nellie. These fellows got nothing on you, have they, child? All that muscle hiding in that jacket. Who’d have thought?” Etta bobbed her head in appreciation, which made the spray of ringlets on her hairpiece jiggle. “Not bad at all.”

  “Thanks.” Although small in comparison with most folks at Quantico, Angel had worked to prove herself in each and every physical challenge throughout her special agent’s training period. And she never missed a daily workout. Who knew when the bad guys might need a dose of real southern hospitality?

  Etta led the way down the hall, while Angel listened and noted each officer’s name as Etta provided curt introductions to those they met along the way. When they passed the break room, Etta jerked a thumb in the direction of the hefty snack junkies and buffed up field officers. “Told you.”

  Angel grinned and continued following her informative guide. After a couple more brief introductions, Etta stopped walking and pointed toward the second door. “Okay. A quick run down.” She grabbed Angel’s arm again, her manner of saying she expected her to listen, and listen good. “Captain Pierce is all business and major ticked we’re having to deal with this killer again. I think he was the only man in town who the other FBI guy almost convinced that Tucker was guilty, but Pierce changed his tune when John’s alibi checked out. I ain’t thought as much of him since, even if he is a captain.” Etta stopped talking as a geeky-looking guy too skinny and too old to be sporting a flattop neared.

  “How’re things going, Miz Green?” The stench of stale tobacco and strong coffee wafted toward them with his progression. He stuck out a bony hand. “You’re new here, aren’t ya?”

  Angel accepted the clammy palm and shook it, then made a mental note to wash her hands as soon as possible. “Angel Jackson.”

  “Elijah Lewis.”

  “She’s here to help with the task force.” Etta’s face tensed as though she were trying not to inhale.

  Angel didn’t blame her.

  “Really? Well then, I guess I’ll be seeing you on the sites, huh?” His excitement pulsed through each word.

  “Or maybe you won’t.” Etta’s eyes narrowed. “I know we need you around here, Elijah. But more work for you, when it regards this task force, isn’t a good thing.”

  He snickered, and the hissing sound made Angel’s skin crawl. “Right. Guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Then he stretched his grin into his cheeks and displayed a speck of black tobacco stuck to one of his front teeth. “Well, maybe I’ll see you around here then.” He stalked away.

  Etta inhaled, then blew it out. “Sorry about that. Elijah’s our crime scene photographer.”

  Angel watched the slight fellow slither down the hall. “He works here fulltime?” Macon wasn’t known for an abundance of crime scenes.

  “No. He’s freelance. He works for a photo studio in town and for the Telegraph, but he also does the crime scenes for yet another on-the-side kind of thing. He does a better job than the field cops, so we keep him around.” She shrugged. “Plus, he works for cheap. Problem is, I think he enjoys it. And something about that just ain’t right.”

  “I agree.” Angel remembered a detail she’d thought about during her drive over, a detail Stanley had missed. Not all of the people who worked on the case were meeting in the room behind her. She needed to learn how long Elijah Lewis had been involved in his moonlighting stint.

  “Okay, let me finish up on the folks you’ve got helping ya. Deputy Chief Lou Marker is a good ol’ boy who’s in the department for all the right reasons. The guy believes he can save the world and still thinks all Boy Scouts walk around looking for little old ladies like me to help across the street.”

  Angel wasn’t sure whether Etta’s insight about the task force would help her after all; however, the woman hadn’t made an effort to stop speaking, and Angel had already determined she wanted to befriend the lady. Etta seemed to know everything about everybody, and before this thing ended, Angel suspected that kind of inside information, not provided in the FBI’s resources, could prove invaluable.

  “Then there’s Lieutenant Sims. Ryan is an odd sort, but he’s still okay in my book. Doesn’t smile a lot and doesn’t talk a lot, so there ain’t much to tell. He does a good job, though, and is neater than any man I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Neater?”

  “You know, his desk, his locker, all that. Neat and orderly. Wish he’d give my girls a few lessons.” When she grinned, her gold tooth caught the light and sparkled.

  Angel considered Etta’s observation. John Gacy had been a neat freak too. So neat, in fact, he’d placed the bodies in his crawl space then created a detailed map identifying each victim’s location beneath his home.

  “And then there’s Sergeant Zed. Zed Naylor has been here through all the Sunrise Killer’s sprees, so he knows more than most. He’s a good ol’ boy too, with emphasis on the ol’.” Etta laughed at her own joke.

  “Got it.”

  “And I’m assuming you know pretty much everything there is to know about Detective Tucker. In my opinion, you don’t get no better. Never once has he forgotten my birthday, or to send me a card on Christmas.” She shook her ringlet-embellished head. “You don’t get that from most guys in here. Not that anything’s wrong with any of them; they just ain’t got time to humor an old fat girl like me. John’s different.”

  Angel controlled her facial response and the impulse to ask how John Tucker differed, besides remembering birthdays and holidays. “Is that it?”

  “Oh, Ms. McCain is in there too. She’s a big time TV news reporter from Atlanta moved to Macon, I guess it’s been almost a year now. She’s the best reporter we’ve ever had, that’s for sure, though no one can figure out why she left her cushy job in Atlanta to move to Macon.” Etta tilted her head as if expecting Angel to guess the woman’s reasons.

  “Maybe she got tired of life in the big city.” But Angel knew exactly why Lexie McCain had returned to Macon.

  “Maybe, but in any case, I sure enough like hearing her report about stuff. She’s the kind of person that can make your heart hurt with her stories, you know. Takes someone who cares to make you feel that kind of thing for people you’ve never met before. She’ll have you hating the bad guy, or loving the good one, or ready to write a check to help some family having a hard time. Whatever she tells, it moves you, you know what I mean?”

  Angel’s eyes burned, throat tightened. She blinked past the impulse to set the tethered emotion free. “I know what you mean.” And she now knew everyone who awaited her on the other side of the conference room door.

  Although she hadn’t needed Etta’s sneak peek at the task force team, the knowledge proved to be valuable. She might not have controlled her surprise when she opened the door and saw Lexie on the other side. Angel knew she'd see her in Macon; however, she hadn't expected the news reporter to snag a spot on the task force. Good for Lexie. She, like Angel, wanted, a chance at the Sunrise Killer.

  With her poker face intact, Angel thanked Etta.

  “I’ll check back in tomorrow, just to make sure everything’s going okay and y’all don’t need me for anything. It’s my
day off, but I know how big a weekend this is for the department. Maybe I’ll do a bit of baking and bring some stuff over if y’all get hungry. I ain’t a bragger, but some folks say they’d kill for my banana nut bread.”

  Angel didn’t so much as flinch at the woman’s expression. She’d worked on cases where people had killed for less. “Thanks.”

  With her bangles bumping down her forearm, Etta saluted, turned around and retreated, a vibrant color combination of green and gold swishing down the hall. Then Angel stepped forward and placed her hand on the knob.

  To knock? Or not?

  Knocking expressed subservience to those inside, or rather, to the one leading the discussions, which would be Detective John Tucker. Although determined to be an influential player in resolving this case, Angel was just as determined to gain the trust of the six individuals within this room. It’d be easy to barge in, spout her surplus of information gained from victimology and pronounce the FBI in charge.

  And it’d be easy, after Stan Carlton’s mess, to “put a rise in all their tail feathers,” as her aunt used to say. But Angel didn’t need any tail feathers ruffled. In fact, she needed the cooperation of everyone in Macon and the task force. Especially if one of them could be the killer.

  She listened to Etta’s footsteps fade, removed her hand from the knob and knocked. Within two seconds, the door opened.

  Angel recognized John Tucker from the photographs in her file. Before seeing the detective in person, she’d have claimed he took a good picture, but the photo had nothing on the real deal.

  He seemed taller than she’d expected. True, his background information put his height at six-two; however, she’d been around tall men at the field office. Several who were well over six feet. So six-two shouldn’t intimidate her. Right now, however, it did.

  Was it because of everything she’d read about the man? All the cases John Tucker had closed unassisted? Or because Stan Carlton assessed John Tucker as the best fit for the Sunrise Killer’s profile?

  She didn’t think so.

  Maybe the contrasting elements composing the man threw her world off-kilter. A guy who’d seemed as sensitive as steel when depicted by Stan Carlton, but who had never forgotten a birthday or Christmas card for his daily dispatcher. And the guy whose sky blue eyes didn’t seem to belong within a forest of black lashes, whose forehead seemed a tad too high, nose a bit too straight to match the full lips and cleft chin.

  Plus, there were those love spots, as Aunt Carol called them. The two smatterings of gray at both temples that hadn’t been present in the previous photos. They added an even stronger appeal to the man wearing the detective’s badge. Aunt Carol claimed men gained those appealing sprinkles of silvery hair when they’d been well loved and given love well. It took time to obtain that notable mark of achievement, she’d said.

  Funny thing though, Angel had never looked at love spots as anything but gray hair. On this man, amid the jet-black waves, they propelled his appeal clear off the chart.

  “Special Agent Angel Jackson. I’ve been assigned as profiler on your task force.” She noticed his jaw relax a fraction when she clarified the task force as his, which was what she’d intended. The man had been roughhoused by Carlton and didn’t have a sweet taste in his mouth for the profiling unit. She needed to gain his trust, even if she hadn’t ruled him out as a suspect.

  “We’ve been expecting you, Agent Jackson.” He opened the door wider. The other task force members, sitting in mismatched office chairs and gathered around a long conference table that’d seen better days, peered toward the stranger invading their space. “I’m Detective Tucker, but I’m sure you knew that, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  He stepped aside and waved her toward a vacant chair at the center of the table. “You haven’t missed much. We were briefing the killer’s history, as well as our general assessment of who we’re dealing with.”

  Angel opened her mouth, but he didn’t give her time to speak. “Don’t worry. We may not be FBI, but we all know the drill. We’re not to give you any of our assessments or opinions about the killer. That’s your job, right?”

  She wasn’t known for staying silent, but Detective John Tucker didn’t leave her much of an option. So she nodded. Again. Soon though, she’d have her say, and she’d be patient if he didn’t take too long.

  “We decided to get our own opinions in before you arrived. Now, though, I’m assuming you’d like to meet the team.”

  She took the last file from the center of the table and sat down, then pulled her own notes and her iPad from her briefcase and placed them beside the others. Aware of all eyes scrutinizing her every move, she shuffled the papers into place, turned on the iPad then raised her head to peer at the team. Scanning the table, she scratched off two of the six as suspects.

  Her killer wasn’t a woman, so the female at the table wasn’t a threat, not that she would have considered Lexie McCain a threat anyway. Angel fought the urge to smile at the news journalist. She found it gratifying to see a woman who’d made such a name for herself, and Lexie had accomplished more in her lifetime, and more in regards to this case, than any of the men surrounding her realized.

  But Angel knew.

  Lexie McCain’s arched brows lifted. None of the men noticed, but Angel did. Lexie knew Angel wouldn’t unearth her secret. She tossed the reporter a nice-to-meet-you smile and nodded, as though they’d never seen each other before, and Lexie’s shoulders relaxed.

  In fact, the notable news journalist looked calm, cool and collected amid the brutish group of men. Yes, Angel had wanted this assignment, wanted to catch the Sunrise Killer more than any other UNSUB in her past. But she’d be the first to admit she hadn’t merely wanted to catch the killer.

  She wanted to help Lexie catch him.

  Therefore, she scratched the TV lady off the list of potential suspects. And the old man at the end of the table, who she suspected was Zed Naylor, based on Etta’s description, wasn’t a possibility either. Though his eyes were alert and eager, his body was fading fast. She had no doubt he’d offer insight to the case, since Etta said he’d been around since the first series of murders, twenty-eight years ago. But he’d been around much longer than that. Aunt Carol would classify the weathered fellow with one of her favorite quips...

  “The wheel’s still turning, but the hamster’s dead.”

  Angel bit against her inner cheeks to keep from chuckling. However, the urge to laugh out loud died a quick death when she caught a glance from Lexie. A look of admiration, and perhaps something more, toward John Tucker. Now if that wouldn’t make things difficult.

  No problem. Angel could deal with complications, and with keeping those she cared about from facing them. Right now, in any case, she had to deal with her potential suspects on the task force and with narrowing that list by Sunday, if possible.

  Two down, four to go. And perhaps the introductions would help her even further in her process of elimination. Of the task force, at least. She had no doubt there were more people than those in this room who were close to the case. And whether her killer stared at her now, or whether she’d yet to meet him, he’d want to be close to the investigation.

  “Yes, I’d like to meet everyone.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll get started with the intros.” John Tucker dropped in his seat at the end of the table in complete control...for now.

  The woman who’d commanded their attention the moment she entered the room impressed Lexie and reminded her of a younger version of herself. Although Lexie listened to the men’s brief bios, she wasn’t as interested in their answers as in the profiler’s questions. Even Lexie realized Angel Jackson considered them potential suspects, yet most of the men seemed oblivious to the fact. John Tucker, however, gave the profiler a look that would melt steel.

  Angel didn’t seem to care.

  Lexie’s chest swelled with admiration.

  In her yellow leather jacket, tight blue jeans and Timberland boots,
the young woman with the long blonde ponytail didn’t fit the “guys in black suits” image Lexie had always associated with the FBI. But regardless of her attire, her sex, or her beauty, Angel Jackson composed one tough female, intent on finding a killer.

  Lexie had every intention of helping her accomplish that goal. Since she had also met some of these men for the first time today, Lexie jotted notes during their introductions.

  After each task force member finished his spiel, Angel asked him the same series of questions. In a normal meeting, no one would’ve thought much of her queries; they’d have seemed commonplace in a getting-better-acquainted discussion. In this room, and in the midst of this investigation, they took on a new meaning.

  “How long have you lived in Macon?”

  “Are you married? Divorced? Single?”

  And if they’d been married, Angel jumped right into, “When did you marry? Any children?”

  Lexie wrote each detail, and the manner each man responded, when he realized he was under Angel’s meticulous scrutiny.

  Captain Ed Pierce scowled about providing the information, but quoted his wedding date, 6-13-86 as though captured by terrorists and providing name, rank and serial number, then he added they had no children and hadn’t wanted any anyway. “You can’t be a cop without seeing the evil out there, and I wasn’t about to bring another kid into it.”

  “And how long have you lived in Macon?”

  “Moved here in ’92. Before that, I was on the force in Valdosta.”

  The corners of Angel Jackson’s mouth dipped for a brief second, but then she nodded and moved on.

  Lou Marker stated he’d been born and raised in Macon, quoted his wedding date, pulled a photo from his wallet to show Angel his new grandbaby and noted his twenty-fifth anniversary would occur next month.

  Acknowledging his turn, Ryan Sims shifted in his seat. “I’ve lived here forever, got married in 1985, divorced in ’92. No kids.”

  Angel opened her mouth as if she were going to ask more, but then nodded at Sims and moved to Zed. Zed coughed and sputtered through a ten minute tribute to his “dear sweet Ruthie” and elaborated on how their thirty-two years together weren’t enough.