Deeper Than the Dead ok-1

by Tami Hoag

  “I’ve seen eyes gouged out, acid poured in them. I’ve seen lips cut off, objects wedged in the mouth, mouths taped shut. No superglue.”

  “Okay,” Vince said and took his seat again. “I was just wondering.”

  His friend at the end of the table wore the my-ass expression. Everyone else got up to go to lunch, exchanging handshakes, concerns, and pleasantries with him as they made their way to the door. With him and the boss still sitting at the table, no one bothered to ask if he was coming to lunch.

  When the door had closed and they were alone, his friend let his own concern show on his face. He got up and came to Vince’s end of the table.

  “You grew a mustache.”

  Vince swiped a hand over the coarse steel gray, not-exactly-regulation hair decorating his upper lip. “You’re very observant. You should be a detective.”

  “Makes me think you’re not really back. How are you? Really.”

  “The meds make me puke up everything I eat,” he confessed. “But I hear that’s all the rage these days among the beautiful people, so . . .”

  “Should you be here?”

  “Where should I be? Sitting in a recliner watching the hours of my life tick away? You might as well shoot me in the head. Oh, wait, somebody already did that.”

  “What’s with this case?”

  “A kid I taught in the National Academy classes a year or so ago, Tony Mendez, called me at the crack of dawn with this. The crack of dawn our time. Had to be in the middle of the friggin’ night where he is. He’s pretty het up about the case. His first serial killer.”

  “If that’s what it is.”

  “If that’s what it is,” Vince agreed.

  “Where does the kid rank on it?”

  “He’s the lead detective. He works for the county sheriff.”

  “The sheriff gave him the okay to bring this to us?”

  Vince made a face. “Not exactly. But the kid’s going to convince him.”

  “And I’m going to learn to speak Italian.”

  “Bella!” Vince said, laughing.

  His friend shook his head. “How you still have a sense of humor is beyond me.”

  “Hey, I’m a living punch line. I got shot in the head and lived to tell about it. That’s a big joke on somebody—the perp, God, me.”

  “What do you want to do with this, Vince? This case won’t even come close to the standard. And we’ve got legit cases coming in for review every day of the week. If I had twenty profilers, they’d all be up to their asses in work.”

  “This UNSUB has used the superglue at least twice, and probably on a third vic in another jurisdiction,” Vince said. “This time he literally plants his handiwork for public display. That’s (a) highly ritual ized behavior, and (b) escalating in terms of the attention he wants. He isn’t going to stop.

  “And I like this kid Mendez,” he admitted. “He’s sharp. He’d make a good agent. I’d like to see him come to the Bureau.”

  “And let me guess. He’s an ex-marine.”

  Vince grinned. “Semper fi, baby. There’s no such thing as an ex-marine.”

  “You want to mentor him.”

  “He promised he’d take me deep-sea fishing.”

  “There’s no way I get this approved through the unit chief. He’ll tell you if you want to teach he’ll get you all the class time you want.”

  “So I go on my own time. I’m still on leave anyway. And then there’s the mustache . . .”

  “On your own time, on your own dime. No per diem, no hotel room, no nothing.”

  “Nancy’ll let me skip an alimony payment. She’s feeling guilty.”

  “If she hadn’t divorced you, you wouldn’t have gotten shot in the head?”

  “She is all-powerful.”

  They were silent for a moment. His friend sighed. Vince sighed.

  “Look, John, you know how I feel about going to the scene with these cases. For me, being detached from the setting, working out of this friggin’ tomb, doesn’t give me perspective, it doesn’t make me objective. I’d like to teach a hands-on approach to what we do, because for some of us that works better. If I can go out to California, be of some service nicking this dirtbag before he becomes the next Bundy, and cultivate a new agent, why not?”

  Why not? Because the Bureau had a book of rules and regs, and “why not” was not an approved reason for any action to be taken by an agent. “Why not” would have to go through the channels of ASACs and SACs, unit chiefs, and half a dozen committees on its way to the head of the Bureau. It sure as hell wouldn’t happen in his lifetime.

  A knock sounded on the door, and a clerk stuck her head in.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s an urgent call on line two for Special Agent Leone.”

  Vince went to the phone on the credenza and listened, then put his hand over the receiver and turned to his friend. “They just ID’d the vic from yesterday, and they’ve got another woman missing, both connected to the same women’s center.”

  His old friend shrugged and smiled. “Go with God, my friend.”

  15

  “Miss Thomas, does the name Julie Paulson mean anything to you?” Mendez asked.

  They had gone into a private family room in the funeral home. The drapes were heavy and the room reeked of stargazer lilies and gladi olas. Jane Thomas had sunk down into a corner of a velvet couch the color of a good cabernet. She was as pale as death, still shaken by the discovery of Lisa Warwick’s body.

  Mendez had gone into overdrive at the realization that they had both a dead woman and a woman missing, and that both women had ties to the Thomas Center for Women. He had a million questions and wanted to fire them off like rounds from a machine gun, but Jane Thomas was fragile, and he had to be patient. Not one of his stronger virtues.

  Jane looked at him, confused. “No. Who is she? Is there some reason I should know her?”

  “She was never a client at your facility? She never worked at your facility?”

  “Not that I remember. What does she have to do with . . . ?” She turned her head in the direction of the embalming room, unable to say the victim’s name.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, shaking. “Karly. You think she’s with the—the animal that did that to Lisa, don’t you?”

  Cal Dixon put a reassuring hand on her knee. Mendez mentally raised an eyebrow.

  “Jane,” Dixon spoke quietly, as if he were talking to a nervous horse. “Chances are Karly is with someone she knows. She probably just went—”

  Jane Thomas steeled herself, sitting up a little taller. “Don’t you dare patronize me. We’ve been over this. Karly did not just anything.”

  “Miss Thomas?” Mendez tried to bring her attention back to him, a little irritated at his boss for bringing an obviously personal note into the proceedings. “Julie Paulson was a woman found murdered outside of town in April last year. I’m wondering if she might have had a connection to the center.”

  “April ’84? I was in Europe for several months. My parents own horses. Their top horse was competing in Germany and Holland. I went with them . . .”

  Mendez knew why people in this situation rambled and digressed. If Jane Thomas was thinking of her parents’ show horses, she couldn’t be thinking about the horror she had seen in the room down the hall.

  “Have there been any threats against the center recently?” Dixon asked.

  “The usual kooks and religious fanatics.”

  “What does ‘usual’ mean?” Mendez asked.

  “The a-woman’s-place-is-barefoot-and-pregnant crowd. The whores-should-turn-to-Jesus-or-burn-in-hell crowd. The right-to-lifers, though I’ll never figure that one out. We provide our women with access to medical care. We don’t advocate abortion.”

  “Do you keep hate mail?”

  “Yes. In a file at the office.”

  “We’ll need to see it.”

  “Of course.”

  “You said the victim—Lisa Warwick—used to w
ork for you. When was that?”

  “A few years ago. She was an administrative secretary and she volunteered as a victim’s advocate in her spare time, hand-holding clients who had to deal with the court system. She still does—did—that from time to time.”

  “Any cases lately?”

  “A few months ago. A client with a drug history was trying to get visitation rights to her children.”

  “Was there an angry father involved?”

  “No. Actually, in the end the father was so impressed with the progress his ex-wife had made, he withdrew his objection.”

  “Why did Ms. Warwick leave the center?” Mendez asked.

  “She went back to college to finish her degree in nursing.”

  “She left on good terms with everyone?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. You can’t think someone at the center could have done this.”

  “We have to explore all possibilities,” Mendez said.

  “It’s standard investigative procedure, Jane,” Dixon said. “We never know where leads might come from.”

  “We’ll need to interview the staff,” Mendez said. “And the women—your clients.”

  He could see that was the last thing Jane Thomas wanted.

  “These women are fragile,” she said. “They’ll be scared to death.”

  “They may have a right to be,” Mendez said bluntly.

  “That’s a little premature, Detective,” Dixon said, giving him a steely look. “But we have to err on the side of caution.

  “What do you know about Lisa Warwick’s background?”

  “She’s from Kansas originally. I probably have a contact number for her in the old personnel files.”

  “Ex-husbands? Bad boyfriends?” Mendez asked.

  “None that I remember. Lisa was a very private person.”

  “Did she engage in any risky behavior? Frequent bars? Drinking? Drugs?”

  “I can’t imagine that she did. She liked to knit.”

  “When was the last time you had any contact with her?”

  “We spoke on the phone from time to time. She dropped in at the center a few weeks ago to say hi.”

  “Do you know where she was working?”

  “The ER at Mercy General, here in town.”

  She put a hand over her eyes as she started to cry. Dixon got up from the couch and tipped his head toward the door. Mendez followed him out into the hall.

  “I’ll go to the hospital and see what I can find out about Warwick,” Mendez said, still scribbling in his notebook. “I figure I’ll send Hamilton and Hicks to the Thomas Center.”

  “What did your connection at Quantico say?”

  “He’s coming out.”

  “He’s coming here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s not the usual protocol.”

  Mendez shrugged.

  Dixon didn’t look happy. “I don’t want a circus here, Tony. I don’t want this guy talking to the media. I don’t want anybody talking to the media.”

  “That doesn’t need to be an issue.”

  “That includes you,” Dixon said, thrusting a finger at him. “Dial it down. I know this is a big case for you, and you’re excited about it. That’ll make you sharp. But I don’t want you running off the rails. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mendez said, falling back on tried-and-true marine respect for rank.

  “I don’t want anything said about there being a possible connection between these victims.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ve seen a couple of those BSU guys grandstand and shoot their mouths off. I won’t have it.”

  “No, sir. Absolutely not, sir.”

  Dixon stepped back, sighed, looked around. “Go radio for a uniform to pick you up. I’m going to take Jane home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dixon looked a little sheepish. “We’re friends.”

  “Not my business, sir,” Mendez said.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  16

  The Roache home was a modest bungalow in a slightly shabby part of town. The house could have used a coat of paint, but the place was otherwise neat. Someone had put a pot of rust-colored mums on the front step, adding a splash of fall color to the picture.

  Anne rang the doorbell and waited. Cody’s mother had called the school that morning to say that Cody was ill and wouldn’t be in class. Anne had found her thoughts drifting to him off and on all day. He was the only one of the four children who had discovered the body she hadn’t seen for herself. At the end of the school day, she got in her car and drove directly to the Roache home.

  A small dog yapped its way through the house, followed by Renee Roache. Cody’s mother was small and weedy with limp brown hair and a pale complexion. She worked days as a waitress at a diner near the college where the pace was hectic and the tips pathetic. Her husband was a maintenance man who worked nights at Mercy General.

  “Mrs. Roache, I hope I’m not imposing,” Anne said. “I just wanted to check on Cody to see how he’s doing.”

  Renee Roache looked perplexed, as did the dog at her feet, a fat brown-and-white terrier, tipping its head quizzically from one side to the other. “That’s beyond the call of duty, isn’t it? It’s just a stomach bug.”

  It was Anne’s turn to look puzzled. “Um, well, I had a feeling, after what happened yesterday . . .”

  “What happened yesterday? Did something happen at school?”

  “Didn’t Principal Garnett’s office call you?”

  “Not that I know of. I ran out to get something for Cody’s stomach this morning. Maybe they called then. We don’t have an answering machine.”

  “Oh,” Anne said, at a loss. Cody had obviously not told his mother about finding the body in the woods. It was a hard idea to grasp that a child would keep that kind of information to himself.

  “What happened?” Renee asked, getting anxious.

  Anne took a deep breath. “You might want to sit down for this.”

  They went into the Roaches’ tiny living room where the television was playing a Star Trek rerun. Anne expected to see Cody on the couch, watching intently. Spaceships were his obsession. But the couch was empty and Renee offered her a seat there.

  Dinner was cooking, the smell of roast chicken drifting in from the kitchen. The little dog hopped up on the couch to give Anne a closer look.

  Anne told the story for what seemed like the tenth time in twenty-four hours. Cody’s mother sat, stunned.

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked, her voice as thin as she was. “He came running home yesterday with a bad stomach. He’d had an accident in his pants. I thought maybe it was something he ate at school, or there’s always a bug going around . . . He didn’t say a word.”

  “Did he seem upset?”

  “Well, yeah, but . . . He’s a ten-year-old boy. I thought he was upset about having the accident. He gets picked on a lot, you know.”

  That was true. In the jungle that was childhood, Cody Roache was well down in the pecking order. Children could be cruel, their meaner instincts yet to be padded over by the layers of subterfuge, dishonesty, and social niceties adults accumulated over the years. And the kids who were a little different, a little slower, not as hip, took the brunt of it.

  Cody was small and homely and a little odd. He didn’t really have friends, Anne had observed. He had Dennis Farman, but that relationship was symbiotic, born out of necessity. None of the kids liked Dennis because he was a bully. He had teamed up with Cody to have a sidekick who looked up to him because of his toughness, and Cody had made friends with Dennis because it was safer for him to be for Dennis Farman than against him.

  “He was sick all night,” his mother said. “And still this morning. He stayed in bed all day. I can’t get him to eat anything.”

  “Would it be all right with you if I spoke with Cody?” she asked. “I’ve had some training . . .”

  She felt like a fraud saying it. She was no more a child psycho
logist than the man in the moon. But for the time being, she was the closest thing these kids had.

  Renee Roache led the way down the short hall to a bedroom with Star Wars stickers all over the door, knocked once, and cracked the door open.

  “Cody? You have a visitor. Miss Navarre is here.”

  Not a sound came from inside the room.

  Renee opened the door and went in. Anne followed. The room held the musky gym shoes smell of ten-year-old boys—a combination of sweat and dirt and less-than-meticulous hygiene. The room was dark, the shade pulled down on the single window. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Slowly she began to make out a small lump in the twin bed that was pushed up against the wall in one corner of the tiny room.

  Cody’s mother sat down on the edge of the bed, turned on the lamp, and peeled the blankets back, exposing the boy’s head. He played dead, squeezing his eyes shut a little too hard.

  “Cody, why didn’t you tell me what happened yesterday?” his mother asked.

  “Nothing happened,” he said.

  One eye cracked open. His mother handed him his glasses, newly taped together with adhesive tape. He sat up and put them on, blinking at the light.

  “Hi, Cody,” Anne said softly. “I was worried about you today. How are you feeling?”

  He rubbed his nose and scrunched his shoulders up around his ears, then pulled his knees up to his chest and bound them there tightly with his arms.

  “Your mom tells me you’ve been really sick.”

  She could see the little wheels spinning in his head, wondering just what she knew, what he should reveal, what he should admit to.

  “I know what happened in the park yesterday,” Anne said. “I talked to Wendy and Tommy.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Cody?” his mother asked again, her tone edged with hurt.

  Cody looked at her, looked at Anne, looked down and scratched his shin through his red pajamas.

  “Mrs. Roache,” Anne said. “Would it be all right if Cody and I spoke alone for a few minutes?”

  Renee Roache looked uncertain, but she got up and left the room just the same. Anne sat down on the edge of the bed, near the foot, not wanting to crowd the boy.