In better circumstances, the high-cheekboned girl would have been attractive; but right now her eyes were red-rimmed and her jaws clenched as she shook hands with each of them. She, too, had a zombie air.
Tovar and Reid rose and gave the sofa over so Karen Edels and her mother could sit down.
In a dark robe and slippers, Mrs. Edels—Phyllis, her husband told them—was the shortest of the three, but even so was probably five-seven. She had dark hair like her daughter, cut even shorter, and an athletic frame; the mother/daughter resemblance was strong. She twisted a handkerchief between her fingers.
‘‘We’re terribly sorry for your loss,’’ Rossi said to them, panning across their shell-shocked faces.
Mrs. Edels, in a voice knife-blade thin but with a quiver, asked, ‘‘Are you going to catch the animal that did this to Bobby?’’
‘‘We’re going to try,’’ Rossi said.
‘‘Try?’’ She stared at him, her green eyes burning.
‘‘We have a very good track record, Mrs. Edels,’’ he said. ‘‘If anyone’s going to stop this killer, it’s us.’’
That seemed to calm her slightly.
‘‘There’s no easy way to do this,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘So, with your permission, I’m just going to get into it.’’
Mr. Edels nodded and then so did his wife, and finally their daughter.
‘‘Did Bobby have trouble with anybody in his life? Someone you might call an enemy?’’ Rossi tilted his head. ‘‘Or if that’s too strong, someone he’d had a conflict with, a bad argument, for example.’’
The family exchanged glances, then Mr. Edels said, ‘‘Everybody liked Bobby. I know every parent probably says that kind of thing, but really—he was a good kid and a hard worker.’’
‘‘And he worked at the Mundelein Fix-It Mate, isn’t that right?’’
Edels nodded. ‘‘Since he was sixteen. He loved carpentry. He probably caught the bug puttering with me in the garage since he was a boy.’’
‘‘Did he go to college, or was he planning to?’’
‘‘No. He was hoping to work his way up at Fix-It Mate. And there was talk of being a contractor some day.’’
Rossi nodded. ‘‘Any trouble at work?’’
‘‘No, sir. Everybody there liked Bobby, too.’’
‘‘If I may, what do you do for a living, sir?’’
‘‘I teach school,’’ Edels said. ‘‘Wood shop.’’
‘‘And you, Mrs. Edels?’’
‘‘I teach at Lake Zurich Junior High, too,’’ she said. ‘‘English.’’
‘‘How about you two, as teachers? Any problems with staff or students for either of you?’’
They both said, ‘‘No,’’ at once.
‘‘All right,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Did Bobby have a girlfriend?’’
‘‘Never had the time,’’ Mrs. Edels said, a little too quickly. ‘‘He worked hard. Someday the right girl might have come along, but—’’
‘‘Mother,’’ Karen said, a little too sharply considering the situation. The thin girl stared right at Rossi and said, ‘‘Bobby was gay.’’
She might have slapped her parents, judging by their stricken expressions.
Rossi said, ‘‘If that’s true, Mr. Edels . . . Mrs. Edels? We need to know. It could be significant in finding the person responsible.’’
Mrs. Edels became very interested in her hanky and Mr. Edels studied the floor for maybe fifteen seconds before slowly raising his head. Tears clung onto his eyelids like passengers on a sinking ship.
Then he said, ‘‘My daughter . . . speaks the truth.’’
The odd formality of that struck Rossi as particularly sad.
‘‘Robert,’’ Mrs. Edels gasped, and it was a gasp.
‘‘Phyllis,’’ her husband said, ‘‘we can’t keep something that important away from these men, something that might help them bring Bobby’s killer to justice.’’
Mrs. Edels looked at her husband for a long time, almost as if she were trying to see through him; then, slowly, she nodded.
Rossi said, ‘‘I assure you, Mrs. Edels, we’ll make every effort to keep this information confidential.’’
‘‘I appreciate that,’’ she said.
Karen Edels turned to her mother and said, ‘‘If us being open about Bobby’s sexual orientation helps their investigation . . . if people knowing helps some other ‘Bobby’ out there keep from being victimized . . . then, Mother, we have to do it.’’
‘‘I know!’’ her mother snapped.
Rossi took a few moments for everything—and everyone—to settle.
Then he said, as casually as he could, ‘‘Was there someone special in Bobby’s life?’’
Both parents turned to Karen, and Rossi realized at once that the sister was the only one who’d been privy to this part of Bobby’s life. These were parents who hadn’t wanted to know such things and, accordingly, had never asked.
‘‘No one in particular,’’ Karen said. ‘‘To the general public, Bobby was in the closet. He was working in what was kind of a hardware store, and that’s a pretty conservative environment. Of course, I knew, and our folks knew, but it was ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ around here.’’
‘‘Karen,’’ her mother said sharply.
‘‘Well, it is. It was. Mother, Dad—can you imagine Bobby bringing somebody home for you to meet?’’
They said nothing.
Rossi asked, ‘‘Did he have a lot of friends? Straight? Or gay?’’
‘‘Hardly any,’’ Karen said.
‘‘Where did he hang out?’’
‘‘Either here or at work, mostly,’’ Karen said. ‘‘If he was going anywhere else, if there was somebody or somebodies he was seeing, he kept it to himself. He knew I was supportive, and he appreciated that— but he was very private.’’
‘‘Did he have a fake ID?’’
‘‘Not that I know of. I never even saw him drink.’’ Rossi turned to the parents and asked about the fake ID and they both shook their heads. Looking past them, he glanced at Reid, standing on the periphery with Tovar. The younger man’s eyes held a silent question and Rossi gave him the barest hint of a nod.
Reid took a half step into the room. To Rossi, the young man always looked as if he was about to raise his hand and ask permission to go to the bathroom. And yet this eternal nerd also happened to be one of the smartest men Rossi had ever met. If not the smartest . . .
Tentatively, Reid asked, ‘‘Would it be all right if we looked at Bobby’s room?’’
Mr. Edels nodded, but Mrs. Edels asked, ‘‘Why?’’
Reid said, ‘‘The more we know about your son? The more information we have to try to understand how he came to be singled out by this UnSub."
‘‘Unknown subject,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘The killer.’’
Frowning, working the hanky in her hands furiously, Mrs. Edels asked, ‘‘Shouldn’t you be learning about this monster instead of Bobby?’’
‘‘Everything we learn about Bobby,’’ Rossi said, ‘‘tells us something about that monster.’’
Any reservations the woman had melted away and she rose, to lead them up the stairs to the second floor. The hallway was long, the bedrooms of the kids on the left, the bathroom and the master bedroom on the right. The corridor contained a few more family photos on either side wall: Bobby in Little League, Karen in a cheerleading uniform (probably junior high), a family portrait of the four when the kids were still in elementary school. They passed Karen’s bedroom and she opened the door for them to enter Bobby’s.
The room was small and dark. Mrs. Edels opened the curtains wide and let the sun in, then—without a word—left Reid, Rossi, and Tovar alone in the room, closing the door behind her.
The window took up most of the wall opposite the door, the bed against the wall on the right; the floor was hardwood. A desk and chair squatted beneath the window, the chair neatly pushed underneath a desk that was home to a small
pile of books (novels, Tales of the City on top) and a laptop computer.
‘‘Reid,’’ Rossi asked, ‘‘can you get into his computer?’’
‘‘Possibly,’’ Reid said. ‘‘But I’d still feel better calling in a computer tech.’’
‘‘All right,’’ Rossi said.
Shelves on the left held a TV, a few books, a video game console and assorted games and CDs. A poster over the bed was of a pasty guy with long, unruly hair with only the words ‘‘The Cure’’ at the bottom to give Rossi the slightest clue what the poster was supposed to represent. Another poster above the shelves and TV was of another musician, this one with black hair and pale skin as well—‘‘Nine Inch Nails,’’ it was labeled. He wondered how one man could be a whole band (all nine of them?), but rock music had left Rossi behind some time ago. Around ‘‘Pleasant Valley Sunday.’’
Tovar said, ‘‘Seems normal enough.’’
‘‘We can only hope the computer gives up something,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Or maybe his car—’’
The word was barely out of his mouth when Rossi realized they had all skipped a major potential clue. Opening the door, he went into the hallway. The Edels were standing there expectantly, father, mother, daughter, like a party waiting to be seated in a restaurant.
Rossi asked, ‘‘How did Bobby get around?’’
‘‘Well, his car,’’ Mrs. Edels said.
‘‘Which is where?’’
‘‘We wish we knew,’’ Mr. Edels said.
Rossi frowned. ‘‘How’s that?’’
‘‘It hasn’t turned up. God, it seemed like every day after he disappeared one of us thought we saw that car, and phoned the police. I think they finally got tired of us bothering them, but they never found it. Must be a lot like it out there.’’
‘‘What kind of car is it?’’
‘‘Ninety-five Honda Civic.’’
‘‘Navy blue,’’ Bobby’s sister added.
Rossi said, ‘‘Thanks,’’ and got out his cell phone and hit a number in the speed dial.
‘‘Hotchner.’’
‘‘It’s Rossi. We need to find Bobby Edels’s car. It went missing when he did.’’
Hotchner was ahead of him. ‘‘The local cops up there ran it when he disappeared. They came up empty.’’
‘‘Well, hell, let’s put Garcia on it. We need to know what happened to that vehicle.’’
‘‘I’d like to know myself, but we don’t gather the evidence, Dave.’’
‘‘With all due respect, Aaron, remove the stick from where you’re sitting and get real: Bobby Edels disappeared. Wherever he disappeared from, he got there in his car. That car is a clue that we need to find so we can interpret it.’’
‘‘Agreed,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘I’ll get Garcia on it right away. Anything else?’’
‘‘Not yet,’’ Rossi said, ‘‘but you’ll be the first to know when there is.’’ He clicked off.
With a curious frown, Mrs. Edels asked, ‘‘If the police haven’t been able to find Bobby’s car, what makes you think you can?’’
Rossi gave her a half smile. ‘‘Because we have a secret weapon.’’
Named Penelope Garcia.
Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan and Detective Tate Lorenzon had spent the last three hours interviewing Fix-It Mate employees.
They started with the assistant manager and worked their way slowly through coworkers of Bobby Edels. The assistant manager, highest-ranking person on duty, had shown them security videos of the parking lot. They had watched Bobby Edels get behind the wheel of his Honda Civic and pull out of the parking lot.
Then Bobby disappeared down the road, out of sight and, seemingly, off the planet.
Even after twenty-two employee interviews, the agent and the detective knew no more than what they’d seen on that video.
They were in the employees’ break room now, where they had conducted the interviews, and Lorenzon got up to pour them what seemed like their twentieth cup of coffee. Or maybe thirtieth.
‘‘Do we know anything new?’’ Lorenzon asked as he returned to the table and set their cups on the table.
‘‘Sure,’’ Morgan said, sipping the coffee.
‘‘Such as?’’
‘‘We know that Fix-It Mate coffee sucks ass.’’
They both laughed. As they drank the wretched brew, young, dark-haired Stan Schultz, assistant manager, wandered into the break room. He wore a blue Fix-It Mate shirt and navy blue slacks. The slightly taller, middle-aged man who followed him in wore khaki shorts and a white Cubs T-shirt. He had brown hair, pale skin, horn-rimmed glasses and a small beer belly under the shirt.
Schultz said, ‘‘Officers, this is Alan Bellamy, our store manager—he’s come in on his day off.’’
Introductions were made and hands were shaken all around.
Then Bellamy said, ‘‘Bobby was a good employee— hell, everybody liked him. How can we help?’’
Lorenzon listed what they had already done at Fix-It Mate.
Bellamy’s eyebrows rose. ‘‘I don’t know what else I can add. Kinda hoped, comin’ in like this, I could do Bobby’s cause some good.’’
‘‘Maybe you still can. We’ve talked to people about how he got along with his fellow employees—how did he get along with customers?’’
Bellamy didn’t hesitate. ‘‘In the store, he was great. First-rate people skills, that kid—surprising, since he was on the quiet side, kept to himself. Far as customers go in the store, I never heard a complaint about him.’’
‘‘You said, ‘in the store’ twice,’’ Morgan said. ‘‘Does that mean there were complaints outside the store?’’
Bellamy shrugged. ‘‘Bobby was part of our installation staff—part of the team that does everything from layin’ carpet to building garages. He’d been doing that for us, oh, hell, ever since he graduated from high school, for maybe two . . . two and a half years? I mean, every team had complaints. Some customers are . . . hard to please.’’
‘‘Were any of these complaints in writing?’’
‘‘Sure.’’
‘‘May we see them?’’
Bellamy’s smile was a frozen thing that just hung there for a while.
Finally he said, ‘‘Normally, we keep those to ourselves. We dispose of the letters, and any phone message and such, but we do keep a list of customers who’ve said they were dissatisfied with a team’s work, with a little write-up of their specific complaint or complaints.’’
‘‘It might help, as you said, Bobby’s cause.’’
‘‘Well, if it can help you find the son of a bitch who did this thing, hell—we’re glad to help any way we can, here at Fix-It Mate.’’
That little commercial made Morgan smile, but he merely said, ‘‘Much appreciated, Mr. Bellamy.’’
Bellamy led them up to his office, printed off the list and, ten minutes later, the agent and the detective were back in the car. Lorenzon pulled out of the parking lot as Morgan snapped on his seat belt and glanced over the list of only eight names. Nothing familiar stood out.
‘‘Anything good?’’ Lorenzon asked as he wove through traffic, headed back toward the expressway.
‘‘Eight names,’’ Morgan said. ‘‘Abbott, Benavides, Denson . . ."
‘‘Wait a minute,’’ Lorenzon interrupted. ‘‘Denson?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘Jake Denson?’’
‘‘There’s a Jacob Denson. You know him?’’
‘‘He’s the Wauconda detective who didn’t want you guys helping him. I was with Hotchner when we visited the PD up there. The guy’s a complete and utter asshole.’’
Morgan felt a chill. ‘‘He’s more than that, Tate.’’
‘‘Yeah?’’
‘‘He’s a complete and utter asshole with a connection to at least three of the victims.’’
Morgan’s first call was to Hotchner to tell the SAIC what they had learned. Hotchner ordered them
to Wauconda to talk to Denson. His second call was to Garcia.
‘‘Office of Omnipotence,’’ she said.
‘‘Love of my life,’’ Morgan said, ‘‘I need some help.’’
‘‘Do I have to say you’ve come to the right place?’’
He grinned at the phone. ‘‘No. Hey, I need you to find out all you can about a Wauconda, Illinois, detective named Jake Denson.’’
‘‘Checking up on one of the good guys?’’
‘‘Checking to see if he is a good guy.’’
‘‘Gotcha,’’ she said.
‘‘Catch you later, sweetheart.’’
He clicked off.
Lorenzon, behind the wheel, glanced over at Morgan. ‘‘Was that intelligence you called, or your latest girl friend?’’
‘‘Best computer tech on the planet. We’re just friends. We kid around.’’
‘‘That kind of kidding around gets you written up where I come from.’’
Morgan gave him a look. ‘‘Tate, this serial killer is an aberration in your life, right? Not saying you don’t face tough stuff, day in and day out, but this is off the rails, wouldn’t you say?’’
‘‘Way off.’’
‘‘Well, that brilliant and gentle soul I was just talking to? She needs a little TLC sometimes, to take the edge off the horrific garbage we face day in and day out."
Silence.
‘‘So, then, she’s just a friend?’’ Lorenzon asked lightly.
Morgan and Lorenzon had been needling each other since they were kids.
‘‘She’s a good friend.’’
Lorenzon grinned. ‘‘Damn, if I had a nickel for every time I heard you say that over the years . . .’’
‘‘Hey, hey, I picked that up from you, baby.’’
The detective’s eyebrows shot up. ‘‘When did I ever tell you some woman of mine was just a friend?’’
‘‘How about . . . every woman I ever saw you with?’’
Lorenzon laughed. ‘‘You know, come to think of it? That’s right. That’s right. . . .’’
Traffic being what traffic always was in Chicago, the better part of an hour dragged by before they got to the Wauconda PD HQ.
Morgan had spent the time reading the Fix-It Mate report of the complaint Denson had made against Bobby Edels’s construction team. The complaint had no allegations against Edels per se, but Denson had claimed that the team, at his house to construct a two-car garage, had practiced shoddy workmanship and left behind a mess in his yard. Not the sort of thing that would normally draw a red flag, but in a city of over three million, one detective having ties to three of five murder victims in different jurisdictions certainly was. Flags did not come much redder. . . .
Criminal Minds Page 10