50
Marcks sat in the backseat of his new car, where the rear windows were darkly tinted. During his adventures last night he had slit open the right pant leg of his jeans so he decided to risk going into a twenty-four-hour Walmart in Fredericksburg. He picked up two pairs of jeans, a pack of underwear and socks, a few shirts, more toothpaste, and hair dye.
Even though it was pushing 1:30 AM and there were few people in the store, he felt self-conscious walking around, even with the hat on and the beginnings of a full beard. At the same time, while there was danger in being out in public, the challenge, the rush, of pulling it off was worth it—far better than the boredom of being stuck in a prison cell day after day.
He walked by a clothing display showing a blonde model and he flashed on his reunion with Jasmine. It did not go as he had figured it would. A part of him felt something for her. It was more than familiarity. A connection, perhaps. He had difficulty putting his finger on it because he rarely experienced such emotions. Anger, fury were more his speed. Love? Family? He wasn’t sure he truly understood those constructs.
All he knew is that when he was face-to-face with Jasmine, touching her, he wanted to break her neck. End her life.
That was the rage he was accustomed to.
All in all, his encounter with her was not a complete loss. He showed her he could still find her, which was undoubtedly unnerving. If it made for anxious, sleepless nights, so much the better.
But he no longer had a bead on Jasmine, and unless he could follow Vail again it would be difficult tracking his daughter down. Since Vail had to have her guard up now, tailing her carried a lot more danger. He had done it successfully once, but attempting a repeat performance might be going back to the well too many times. While he was skilled at not getting caught, he knew when to back off. His ability to outsmart, to outthink, the cops was what had gotten him this far.
One thing being locked away in a prison cell taught him was how mind-numbingly tedious life could be. Staying free presented its challenges, for sure, but they were good challenges.
He might have difficulty feeling certain types of emotions, but excitement was not one of them.
51
Vail stood at the entrance to the apartment and pulled on a pair of booties while watching members of the crime scene unit ply their trade. Curtis was parking the car as Vail stepped inside and found Johnson in the bedroom, right hand on her chin, studying the victim’s body from several feet away, as if trying to make sense of it.
“I’m here,” Vail said.
“Yeah. I can see that.”
“Are we sure this is a Blood Lines kill?”
Johnson did not move. While still staring ahead, she said, “Oh yeah, I’m sure. Go on, take a look for yourself.”
Vail snapped on a pair of gloves. “Who is this?”
“Aida Cerulli. Thirty-nine-year-old pharmacist. Roommate, a factory worker who has the overnight shift, discovered her this morning. Best I can tell, Aida finished up at the drug store, an independent in Manassas, around 6:30 last night. I can’t account for her whereabouts after that. A neighbor thought she heard her come home around nine, but wasn’t sure.”
Vail advanced on the bed and saw the familiar dried blood pooled, soaked into the sheets and mattress pad. “Do we have a time of death?”
“ME said last night, probably between 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM. There are tool marks on the front door lock.”
“Really. Forced entry.” That’s new. Why? Is this merely the evolution of MO? Or is it because this kill was done by Gaines or MacFarlane and we had his bottle of ether, so he couldn’t use it to subdue her?
“What are you thinking?”
“Hmm?” She turned around and saw that Curtis had entered. She told him what her thoughts were. “Take a stealth entry, get into the apartment while the vic’s asleep. Surprise her, no screams.”
“This is so different,” Johnson said. “The guy we found in the barn, hacked up and buried. William Reynolds. Greeling, the cop. Tammy Hartwell, Nathan Anderson. All different.”
“Not all are different,” Vail said. “And in some cases the change in MO was logical and purposeful—and situational. In many ways the kills are reflective of the offender’s instability. He’s on the run, homeless. He’s adapted his MO to ensure success and meet his needs. William Reynolds is an example. Nathan Anderson was opportunistic. I don’t think he planned to kill Nathan. But once he used him to get away, he became an asset—for sex—and then a liability because he’d be taking a risk in letting him live.”
“So you think this fits with the other kills?” Hurdle asked. “Is Aida one of Marcks’s victims? And Gaines’s?”
“I think it’s consistent with Marcks’s ritual. The difference in MO can be explained. Now, whether Gaines is involved, we may need to rely on forensics. And I need to go back and look at this entire case, rewinding to his first kills, to see how I’d assess him—and see how I’d look at the case if he had a partner. I basically worked off Thomas Underwood’s assessment because I was new. I’d never do that now. So I think it’d be good for me to step back and take a fresh look at it, from the beginning.”
“How long is that gonna take?” Hurdle said.
A lot longer than you’d like. “There were fourteen murders, not to mention all the recent ones. And the fires. Normally it’d take weeks, but we don’t have weeks. I’ll do it as fast as I can. Meantime, let me take a better look at Aida.” Vail started a few feet away from the bed, taking it all in. She moved closer and resisted the desire to study the “blood lines” first, looking over her face. No unusual markings.
What’s that?
She pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight, shined it into the mouth, which was minimally open, teeth parted. “Hey, we got tweezers?” She moved into the hallway and called to a crime scene technician. “Tweezers?”
The woman reached into her kit and handed a pair to Vail, who rushed back into the bedroom. Curtis saw her and said, “What’s going on?”
“Found something, I think.”
Vail maneuvered the prongs between the lips and slowly extracted a piece of paper. She flashed on a prior case where she had found notes hidden in a victim’s orifice, a case that caused her a great deal of pain in more ways than she cared to think about.
“What is it?”
Curtis’s voice drew her attention back to the present. She set the tweezers down and unfolded the note.
“What the hell?” Johnson asked. “A blank piece of paper?”
“Maybe,” Curtis said. “I think I told you Jasmine got one of these from Marcks. Turned out it had indented writing.”
Vail brought it over to the window and held it at an angle to the gloomy, glary daylight. “It does say something.” She kept moving it, trying to catch the shadows just right. “Next in line.”
“What?” Curtis said.
“That’s what it says. ‘Next in line.’”
“Is that a reference to his blood lines?” Johnson asked. “A tongue-in-cheek reference to himself?”
Vail thought about it a moment. “Maybe.” He’s never done something like this before. Why start now? Because we know who the killer is and he knows me? Is this note meant for me? Is he telling me I’m next in line?
Her phone trilled. She slipped the note into an evidence bag and pulled out her Samsung. It was Rooney.
“Just found something,” he said. “Where are you?”
“At a new murder scene. Since our cases appear to be related, want to stop by?”
“Text me the address. Might as well tell you what I’ve found in person.”
“Tell me now.”
“It can wait till I get there. You’ve probably got your hands full.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Vail hung up, tapped out the info to Rooney, then faced Curtis and Jo
hnson. “Art Rooney’s on his way. Meantime, I’m gonna take a look around. Maybe I can see this from a new point of view.”
HALF AN HOUR LATER, Rooney walked in and exchanged brief pleasantries with Curtis, Johnson, and Hurdle. “Good to meet you all in person. So where’s our body?”
“Follow me.” Vail led him into the bedroom.
Rooney stepped up to the victim and surveyed her from head to toe. Vail had never seen him at a fresh crime scene. Then again, given his military training, it made sense that he would conduct his business in an organized, systematic fashion.
He finally stepped back and looked over the room. “Okay. Brief me.”
They gave him a summary of what they had had learned and explained their theory of why there was a difference in MO.
Rooney nodded. “Very good. I agree.”
“We’re looking into Aida’s whereabouts after she left work,” Johnson said. “It’s possible she crossed paths with the killer at some point during the day.”
“Could’ve come across her yesterday. Or the day before that. Not saying you shouldn’t do your due diligence. But I’m not sure it’ll bear fruit.”
Johnson acknowledged Rooney’s comment. “Might be right. Might be wrong.”
“And then there’s the issue of this note,” Vail said, “which is new. Has nothing to do with MO.”
“May just be a tweak,” Rooney said, “at us. Not like we haven’t seen that before.”
“Where are we with the homosexual bars?” Curtis asked.
Hurdle frowned. “Let’s go into the living room. I just feel weird discussing this in front of the … victim. I mean, I know she’s dead, but it doesn’t feel right.”
They moved into the elaborately decorated space, where Hummel collectibles were meticulously laid out in a display cabinet whose shelves had been recently dusted.
“We’ve got the two bars under surveillance,” Hurdle said, “and several others in DC and Virginia. Undercovers come and go, mingle, and report back. We’ve given them an old mug shot of Gaines. Waiting on the DMV to send us what they’ve got—which is hopefully more recent. So far no sign of Marcks.” He turned to Vail. “Where are you on your ‘reassessment’?”
“You serious? You think I can snap my fingers and come up with something on the fly?” Not like I’ve never done that before. But he doesn’t know that.
“What reassessment?” Rooney asked.
As Vail explained, Rooney sucked his teeth. “I think that’s smart. You want some help?”
“From you? Hell yes.”
“Let’s talk it through for a minute. Start at the beginning. What do we know about Marcks?”
“Less than ideal childhood. Our knowledge is limited and based on interviews with relatives and neighbors because he refused to talk with us after his arrest. What we were told is that he was sexually abused as a child. My guess is that it stopped as he grew older because he was probably a big teenager and could defend himself and challenge the person who was abusing him. Likely a close relative. Father, maybe his mother. Hard to know unless he tells us. Not something he’s probably shared with anyone. And not something he’d have shared with me even if I’d been successful in sitting down with him.”
“He’s a sexual mutilator,” Rooney said, “if I remember correctly from Tom’s Wednesday briefings.”
“Good memory. He cuts the vics, parallel lines in the abdomen, and then severs the genitalia.”
“The genitalia seems pretty straightforward. What about the lines?”
“Hard to know. Comforting for some reason.” Vail thought a moment. “But why he did it may be less important now than the fact that he needed to do it. Especially since we know who the UNSUB is.”
“True.”
“Except,” Curtis said, “that now we’re looking at the possibility that Marcks may’ve had an accomplice.”
“Yeah.” Vail rested her arms on her hips.
“Let’s explore that,” Rooney said. “There’s strong evidence that Marcks is gay. And we know there are a number of gay serial killers who worked in pairs. Was there anything in the behaviors that might indicate there were two different offenders at work?”
Vail mulled the files in her mind, thinking through each of the killings. “Nothing that Underwood specifically called out. He did think, at one point, that there were two offenders. I saw notes in the margin of one of his reports. But he obviously abandoned that concept in his final assessment.”
“And what about you? Forget Tom’s work on the case. What do you think?”
“It might answer a few questions I had in terms of things I couldn’t account for. It was early in my career. I wasn’t about to second-guess a legend.”
“But now you’ve got the chops to do just that.” Rooney folded his arms across his chest. “So tell me. What questions did you have?”
“On the ninth victim there were cut marks on the body that were different from the slices we’d seen on the previous victims. They were shallower, and on the back, between the shoulder blades. I couldn’t explain that. It might indicate a second killer.”
“Anything else?”
Vail’s gaze drifted off, up to the ceiling. “Victim ten. There was something in the way he was penetrated that was different. Linkage to Marcks by the specific way the vics were killed is correct—except that the subsequent sexual interaction is different. More anal tearing. Underwood interpreted it as more anger on the part of Marcks, but it could indicate a second offender.”
Curtis shook his head. “Without forensics, how do we know for sure?”
Vail and Rooney shared a cynical look.
“It’s very difficult,” Rooney said, “because with a pair of killers there’s usually one alpha and one beta—the follower. And most, if not all, of the behavior that’s expressed at the scene is from the alpha.”
“The subordinate watches or has a minimal role,” Vail said. “It could be because he’s learning, or he doesn’t have the confidence he needs. Or he’s just naturally a beta and doesn’t have it in him to lead. Or he doesn’t have what it takes to kill but he enjoys interacting with the body afterward.”
“It’s much easier to evaluate if there are two victims,” Rooney said. “The behaviors exhibited with each victim would likely be very different—and more recognizable to us. For example, let’s say both victims are sexually assaulted. Offender A kills his victim first and then has sex with the body, but Offender B first has sex with the victim and then kills her.”
“I’m not sure which is more sick,” Hurdle said.
Vail tucked some hair behind her right ear. “The different cutting pattern on victim nine could indicate that Marcks, the alpha, was letting the beta, Gaines—if we’re buying into his involvement—have his turn after doing the kill.” But then there are the fires. “That said, if we consider the arsons, most of them occurred while Marcks was in custody. But the others were set after he escaped.” She nodded. “If the arsons were done by the same guy, that’d mean we’re definitely dealing with two offenders.”
Hurdle walked over to a window and parted the slats of the miniblind. “What kind of thing would we look for in Gaines’s background to know if he’s a ‘candidate’ for this kind of violence? Assuming Marcks has a partner, how do we know if Gaines is the guy? How do we know it’s not someone else?”
“Without standard forensics,” Vail said, “it’s tough. We have to make reasonable inferences based on the behavioral and physical and forensic evidence, as well as some assumptions. But if the second set of cuts are indeed what I think they are, then they’re both mutilators.”
“You mentioned mutilators earlier,” Curtis said. “What exactly does that mean, other than the obvious—that he mutilates?”
“Robert Ressler was the lead author on an article about murderers and mutilation. They defined mutilation as the delib
erate cutting of the sexual areas of the body—breasts, genitals, and abdomen. Almost 70 percent of murderers who were sexually abused as children mutilate their victims after death—and the number rises to almost 80 percent for those who were sexually victimized as adolescents.”
“So if we’re playing the percentages,” Rooney said, “we’d expect to see sexual abuse in Gaines’s childhood and/or adolescence. Obviously, just because someone was sexually abused as a child or youth doesn’t mean they grow up to become sexual sadists who murder on a vast scale and mutilate their victims.”
“We know Marcks was sexually abused as an adolescent,” Hurdle said.
“Don’t know much about Gaines yet,” Vail said, “other than what’s on his sheet.”
“I’ll ask Johnson to look into it.” Curtis took a few steps toward the bedroom. “Yo, Johnson!”
She entered with a contorted face. “You rang, sir?”
Vail stifled a smile as Curtis explained what they needed.
“Can you handle that?”
“I can handle that. Now can I get back to what I was doing?”
As she walked out, Vail said, “Sexually abused offenders are also highly likely to have sexual conflicts, sexual dysfunction of some kind, and sexual incompetence. Those would be harder to determine without actually interviewing Gaines himself, unless he confided in someone at some point.”
“We can try finding that person,” Curtis said, “if he or she exists. But I don’t think we can count on that.”
“Hang on a minute. Just a hunch, but Gaines was picked up on a solicitation charge, right?” Vail pulled out her phone and started dialing. “I’m gonna see if Tarkoff can dig a little deeper, find out who the prostitute was. If we can locate her, she may be able to give us something on their interaction.”
“Find a prostitute?” Hurdle asked. “Bit of a long shot, no?”
“Maybe not. If I’m right, the prostitute will be male—in which case we can put our undercovers on this, the ones who’re working the gay bars. But if it’s a woman, we might be able to get something from her. If Gaines’s conflicted about his sexuality, he might’ve gone to a female prostitute to prove to himself he was heterosexual. Maybe he had a hard time performing.”
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