“Did he give us a description?”
“White guy, big and strong. Had no trouble maneuvering the body.”
“Certainly sounds like Marcks,” Vail said, looking around. “Only been here once. Aren’t there waterfalls around here somewhere?”
“You mean because the park’s called Great Falls?” Curtis said.
“I see I’m not the only one who can do sarcasm.”
“There are three,” Hurdle said. “They’ve got overlooks not far from here. Five to ten minute walk. Aren’t any roads that lead there, so only way in is by foot. Why?”
Vail thought a moment. “It fits in that he seems to gravitate toward parks.”
Curtis stamped a foot. “We found one of his earlier vics in a national park.”
“Yeah,” Vail said, glancing around. “That could be it. He’s comfortable in less densely populated, wooded spaces. And after hours they offer definite advantages.”
“There are a gazillion square miles of parkland in Virginia,” Hurdle said, “but I can put out an alert to Park Police.”
“Can’t hurt.” Vail shook her head absentmindedly. “But he came here, to this one, for a specific reason. Maybe he was going to dispose of the body. Dump it into the falls. Be a long time before we’d find it, if ever.”
“Why dump only this one?” Johnson asked.
“Remember he hacked William Reynolds to bits and then buried him?” Vail shrugged. “I don’t think he wants to leave any traces of where he’s been. He wants us to think he could be halfway to Mexico by now. Or Canada. Or even Arizona or Montana. Harder, if not impossible, for us to focus our resources to find him if it’s a nationwide manhunt.”
“But because we’ve found these bodies,” Hurdle said, “we know he’s staying local. So we don’t have that problem.”
Johnson held out both gloved hands, palms up. “Wouldn’t we know that anyway, if the object is to kill his daughter?”
“We don’t know for sure his objective is to kill her,” Curtis said. “We think he wants to do that. I wanted to be president at one point. Thinking changes, goals shift.”
“You wanted to be president?” Vail asked. “Can’t see that.”
“Thanks,” Curtis said, then gave her the finger. “Can you see this?”
She suppressed a laugh. “Point is, he could dispatch someone to take her out. Depends on whether or not there’s anger behind his desire to kill her. If there is, he needs to do it because it’s personal. If shutting her up is a means to an end, and his real goal is to escape imprisonment, he’s probably looking to leave the country. I mentioned this to Rambo on our drive to Potter. Homeland Security and Border Patrol, that’s his playpen. He alerted his people. But right now, until Marcks can secure a way across the border, he’s hanging around Virginia. Which could mean he’s out to do Jasmine. Or not.”
“So are we thinking this is Marcks?” Hurdle asked.
“What about the vic’s genitals,” Johnson said. “Intact?”
“Yeah. And no knife marks on the abdomen.”
“But he was interrupted by that dog.” Vail rubbed her arms to get the blood moving. “I’m gonna go take a look at the body. Leslie, want to take a hike?”
They walked about fifty yards to the area that was lit up by Klieg lights powered by a portable generator that was making a considerable amount of noise. At the center of all the commotion was the medical examiner.
Vail and Johnson exchanged pleasantries with him, then Vail knelt over the body, taking a long look at the face and torso. She snapped a few photos.
What are we looking at here? Why this victim? He doesn’t fit the males who were killed during Marcks’s active killing period.
“What are you thinking?”
Johnson’s question pulled her out of her reverie. “Let’s head back, give me a few minutes to mull this over, then I can share it with everyone all at once.”
The task force members had retreated to the warmth of their vehicles. Upon Vail’s and Johnson’s return, they emerged and complained about the cold. Tarkoff and Morrison had arrived in the interim.
“What do you think?” Hurdle said. “This our guy?”
“If this is Marcks, the victimology doesn’t fit the men he targeted in the past. They were younger, blonds. Not educated, not successful. Easily controlled. I doubt a guy like this, with his expensive attire, is easily controlled. He’s probably someone accustomed to giving orders, not taking them.”
“Marcks has been in prison for what, seven years?” Tarkoff said. “Things change. Preferences change.”
Vail cocked her head. “There are always exceptions, but generally speaking, that’s not how it goes. These preferences are hardwired. They’re innate, it’s part of who we are—just like homosexuality, or heterosexuality, is not a choice we make. But how you decide to commit your crimes, and what you do with the victims, what you do to—and with—their bodies, how you treat them, that’s personal; that type of development occurs in adolescence, in that abnormal fusion of sex, violence, and arousal. It’s different for everybody.”
“I always thought what these assholes do to their victims is a conscious decision,” Curtis said.
“Offenders don’t understand why they’re doing it; they just know that it’s what they like. So yes, they’re aware of what they’re doing. They’re doing it because they like it; they fantasize about these things and start by acting out their fantasies with inanimate objects, pets, compliant partners like prostitutes. The ones that go on to become killers, they take it to the next level because playacting is not enough. It doesn’t satisfy the need. They cross that line because they need a victim that resists, one that forces them to exert control.
“So while what they do with the bodies varies, victim preference is fairly consistent. Some offenders prefer elderly women; some want children; some want young men, like Gacy. Some want young men in their late teens or early twenties, like Dahmer.
“Now, what these offenders do with that victim is up to them in terms of what excites them; Dahmer wasn’t interested in a living victim but a dead one. All of his interaction with the victim, everything that he did to the body—which was very important to him—he did after the victim was dead. For other offenders, it’s all about what he can do while the victim is alive. The torture is the key. Gacy was aroused by the torture aspect. But once the victim was dead, he had zero interest. At that point, he got rid of the body. So while Dahmer and Gacy both had a preference for young males, they were completely different in how they went about their business. Their psychopathology was different.”
“So why does Marcks cut off the genitalia?” Tarkoff asked. “Part of his fantasy?”
Vail rubbed her gloved hands together. “I can give you a number of potential reasons why he does that. Same with the lines he carves in their abdomens. An important thing to remember is that killers who mutilate make up a very small subset of offenders. First off, they’re just about always men. Second, most of the men who mutilate do it for utilitarian purposes: they dismember so they can get rid of the body parts and prevent identification.
“Then you’ve also got offenders who are offensive mutilators. He’s pissed and gets his revenge by attacking the genitalia, the sexual areas of the body. The smallest group of this already small subset are the guys who do it because they get some sexual satisfaction out of it. Some wear the vulvas they cut away. Others play with them.”
“Thanks for that,” Hurdle said. “I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
“Honestly,” Vail said, “for the purposes of catching Marcks, why he’s doing these things to his victims is not as important as our observations. And that brings us back to his sexual orientation being a key to finding him.”
“Because that’s where he’ll be finding his new victims?” Morrison asked.
“Or it could just be a place of safety a
nd comfort for him, where he doesn’t think we’d look for him. Before he was arrested, he did not get his victims from gay hangouts. And not all of them were gay.”
Hurdle took a moment to bring Tarkoff and Morrison up to date on their new undercover op involving gay bars.
“We were never able to determine how he found his vics,” Curtis said. “And he wasn’t exactly forthcoming about it—or anything else—when we had him in the box.”
“Let’s get back to victim preference,” Hurdle said. “Because that holds a lot of promise for catching him. If we know the victim population, and we can narrow the geography where these people congregate, we can use that to our advantage. Morrison, get with Walters. That’ll be your focus.” He turned to Vail. “When do you think you’ll have an answer on whether or not this victim is one of ours?”
“Let’s see if we can get an ID. That might help.”
“If the vic’s gay, would you think it’s more likely a Marcks kill?”
“Not necessarily. It could’ve been opportunistic. Guy stumbles on Marcks—who might’ve been planning to stay in the park overnight—and he has to kill him to keep him quiet.”
“Or,” Morrison said, “maybe the vic and Marcks knew each other years ago and this was a retribution kill. Way he’s dressed, could be a lawyer. Let’s see if the vic matches one of Marcks’s defense attorneys.”
“Whoa,” Vail said, holding up two gloved hands. “Before we go running in a million directions with a ton of assumptions, let’s pull back a second. I think there’s a real good chance this was Marcks. We’ve got a general witness description that matches well and we’ve got a fugitive killer on the loose in the area. For now, I’d call it ours. But by morning we should know more definitively.” Her phone vibrated. She struggled to get it out with her gloves on, so she pulled one off and answered. “Art. Kind of late to—”
“Got another crime scene. Arson case. Fresh. If you’re not busy, thought you’d want to take a look.”
Busy? Nah, just sittin’ around watching mindless reality TV.
“Where?”
“In the sticks. I’ll text you the address.”
“On my way.” She hung up and asked Hurdle if there was anything further he needed her for tonight. “Crime scene one of my colleagues wants me to take a look at. We good here?”
“Got it covered. Have fun.”
Oh, yeah. A blast.
30
Vail arrived at the address the GPS directed her to—but aside from a mass of emergency responder and law enforcement vehicles, she would have sworn she was in the middle of nowhere. Thick stands of Hickory, Cottonwood, and Hemlock trees obscured the residence from the road, and there were no neighbors for quite a distance in any direction.
She pulled up behind the fire marshal’s truck and found Art Rooney moments later, walking alongside a man and a woman dressed in fire department uniforms.
Rooney excused himself and met her about twenty yards from the burned-out structure, small flare-ups of fire still visible here and there, firefighters quashing them as soon as they sprouted.
“Is it definitely arson?” Vail asked.
“Affirmative. I’ll show you what we’ve got so far—but let’s not forget that it’s below freezing and damp out because of the snow, which makes an accidental fire less likely to do such dramatic damage—without some very substantial help.”
“Same guy?”
“Hard to say just yet, but my gut says yes. If nothing else, look at a basic fact: the arsonist we’re looking for chooses his targets in rural areas where there’s distance between the houses—which means it delays discovery, allowing it to burn longer before the fire department can get to it. More importantly, rural areas are served by volunteer fire departments.”
“Not as experienced?”
“Potentially—but they have to go to the station first to get the trucks. And then they go to the fire. That obviously allows it to burn longer. That extra time means less evidence left behind for investigators to find. Our arsonist has done this in every single instance. That alone is an identifiable MO.”
“But there’s more.”
“Yes,” Rooney said, “there is. Follow me.”
They walked around the scene and approached the area where the front door had been located. Rooney pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. “See this?”
Vail crouched, got close to the spot where Rooney was pointing. “Tool marks on the strike plate.”
“In other words, evidence of forced entry. The fire also extended beyond the perimeter of the house in an unnatural manner. Plus, there’s extensive damage, there are no V-shaped patterns, and the fire looks to be low burning.”
“V-shaped patterns. That’s when a naturally occurring fire burns up and out,” she said, bringing her hands together and separating them as she gestured toward the sky.
“Correct. Usually the v is burned into furniture and/or walls. We checked the lightbulbs, too, because they’re often a natural point of origin in fires. They’d be melted and flat on one side, like an arrow pointing you to where the heat source was greatest. Again, nothing. So without all that stuff, we’ve got enough to call it arson. But that’s not all.”
“Unusual burn patterns?”
“And high heat stress. Come inside.”
Rooney led the way into what Vail guessed had been the living room.
He knelt again. “Know what this is?”
“Sterno can.”
“And that’s part of our UNSUB’s signature, right? Sterno’s a bizarre, and inefficient, way of starting a fire. But it’s not the only thing that’s strange.” He rose and swung his body, and his light, 180 degrees.
“What am I looking at?”
“That, Karen, is ritual behavior for this arsonist.”
Vail stared at the detritus in front of her, some of which was surprisingly intact: more Sterno cans and lids, burned remnants of a wood match, wax, and a small fragment of what looked like a rag. “Can you be more specific?”
“Not yet. But generally speaking, this is his way of setting the fire. This is the point of origin. There’s some kind of elaborate setup he constructs that gets the fire going using these items you see at your feet.”
“Why go through all that?”
“Think, Karen. Why do any of our offenders do the shit they do? This isn’t any different.”
Vail nodded slowly. “None of this is necessary to start a really hot fire that’ll kill the inhabitants, destroy evidence, and take down the structure. It can be done a lot more efficiently. But for some reason, doing it this way has meaning to this guy. He likes it, fantasizes about it.”
“Right. I’m not sure how all these pieces fit together, but I’m gonna work on it, go through the prior crime scene videos and photos to see if I can reconstruct what he does. And why.”
A chilled wind blew across the landscape and a shiver racked Vail’s body. She stood up and began flexing her fingers. “Will you keep me posted on what you find? I’d love to keep expanding my knowledge base, know what to look for in a scene like this. I’ve got the basics of arson but—well, there’s a lot to know.”
Rooney rose from his crouch. “Soon as I get some more forensics back, you’ll be the first to know.”
31
The morning came with one redeeming characteristic: the temperature had risen to thirty-five degrees. Well, two: it was not snowing.
Marcks had a third reason to celebrate: he had spent the night in a secluded area in Greenbelt Park inside a very comfortable Mercedes S-series sedan outfitted with plush napa leather seats and the heater running most of the evening. Before retiring, he had sought out the hot showers described in the brochure and map he had taken from the self-serve receptacle upon entering the grounds.
He spent only about ten minutes under the water but
it was like being home, before his incarceration. He could close his eyes and not worry about being shanked in the side. Out in nature, no dim-witted idiots in his space … for the first time in years, he was at total peace.
Afterwards, he retired to the car and enjoyed the most restful sleep he had experienced for as long as he could remember. He awoke at first light feeling refreshed and ready to take on whatever obstacles he would face today.
And given what he had planned, there would certainly be some significant challenges.
However, he derided himself for not learning his lesson at the barn. He should not have slept so soundly—he should have been on alert for threats that approached the car—but the hot water, fatigue, and constant stress won out over self-preservation … at least for seven hours. He needed to regain his edge—or he was going to get caught.
Marcks checked around outside. Trees stretched in all directions, some fallen and others canted at forty-five–degree angles to their brethren. Snow blanketed the landscape as far as he could see. As he sat there, he ran his hands over the supple leather and thought he could get used to this. He could not recall a time when he felt so relaxed.
And it was going to end now. He had work to do. He leaned forward and craned his neck, looking left, right, ahead, and behind him.
No one was in sight. He took Nathan’s Dopp kit and used the reflection off the tinted exterior side windows of the sedan to trim up his new beard, which was still mostly black with a touch of gray around the chin. He combed his hair, snipped a few stray strands with the scissors and made it as presentable as he could. He had gone to sleep while it was still wet and that never turned out well. However, hidden beneath a wool knit hat, that would not matter.
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