Criminal Minds

by Max Allan Collins

  As Dryden crept around the car, Rossi slipped behind the back bumper. Dryden rose to see where Rossi had gone, and the FBI agent popped up, too, his pistol centered on the perp’s forehead.

  No kids to worry about behind the target now. . . .

  ‘‘Drop them or die,’’ Rossi said matter-of-fact. ‘‘Your choice.’’

  Dryden thought for a long moment, but his weapons remained at the ready.

  Rossi had the bastard cold. And the agent already knew the serial killer to be a coward—although Dryden had killed or wounded nearly a dozen people, all his victims had been innocents, caught unaware, and unprepared to defend themselves.

  ‘‘You don’t get a count of three, Dryden. Drop them now, or die right here, right now.’’

  Dryden swallowed thickly.

  And the weapons clattered to the street.

  ‘‘Assume the position,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Against the car, feet back and spread ’em.’’

  The black SUV roared up and the two detectives piled out of the vehicle just in time to see Rossi hand-cuff the suspect.

  Lorenzon read Dryden his rights.

  Tovar asked, ‘‘How did you know he’d come back to the house?’’

  Rossi turned his gaze on Dryden, who stared back with small, cold, dead eyes.

  ‘‘He had no choice,’’ the FBI agent said. ‘‘Not with his ego. You just had to prove you were smarter than us, Danny, didn’t you? Only, turns out you aren’t.’’

  ‘‘I am smarter than you,’’ Dryden said. He was trembling but his manner remained smug.

  Rossi got a half smile going. ‘‘Really? Then why were we here when you got here?’’

  Dryden glared at him.

  ‘‘Both times,’’ Rossi said, twisting the knife.

  ‘‘Go to hell,’’ Dryden said.

  Lorenzon gave a quick jerk on the handcuffs. ‘‘You first, asshole.’’

  Rossi said, ‘‘Take Danny in. He and I need to have a little talk.’’

  Two hours later, Daniel Dryden sat cuffed to a table in a brightly illuminated interrogation room at the Cook County jail. In an adjacent, dimly lit viewing room, Rossi stood with Hotchner, Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid.

  Hotchner said, ‘‘Nothing of note found in his car.’’

  The gray Crown Vic had been parked on the street a block from the Speck house.

  ‘‘His revolver was a .22,’’ Morgan said, ‘‘consistent with Richard Speck’s weapon of choice.’’

  Rossi nodded. ‘‘You have the pictures from the darkroom?’’

  The team leader nodded.

  Reid said, ‘‘And I Photoshopped that other one— they’re all in here.’’

  Reid handed Rossi a manila folder.

  ‘‘Should you be the one to interview him?’’ Hotchner asked. ‘‘You captured him—and antagonized him. You really think he’ll talk to you?’’

  Rossi shrugged. ‘‘You can overrule me, obviously, Aaron. But when I got him pissed off, he didn’t clam up—he went back and forth with me. I think I can get him to do it again. And at length.’’

  Hotchner’s eyes locked with Rossi’s.

  Then the team leader said, ‘‘We’re only going to get one run at this—the clock is ticking and it’s not a happy sound. Somewhere out there a man in a grave may still be alive.’’

  ‘‘I know,’’ Rossi said calmly. ‘‘Trust me, Aaron. I got this.’’

  Hotchner considered that, for just a moment; then nodded.

  Rossi entered the interrogation room, glanced at the reflective glass behind which observers lurked, then sat down opposite the dressed-in-black suspect, Rossi’s back to the watchers. He set the folder on the table between them.

  Dryden’s blandly handsome face wore a faint smug smile. ‘‘Who the hell thought that I’d ever talk to you?’’

  Rossi smiled. ‘‘I did.’’

  One eyebrow rose. ‘‘Are you the Special Agent In Charge?’’

  ‘‘No.’’

  Dryden shook his head. ‘‘I only talk to the SAIC.’’

  ‘‘I’m the special agent in charge of you.’’

  The suspect grunted a laugh. ‘‘What’s your name, anyway?’’

  ‘‘David Rossi.’’

  Dryden’s eyes, beady and a little small for his face, stared at Rossi for perhaps fifteen seconds. Then he said, ‘‘David Rossi the author?’’

  Shrugging, Rossi said, ‘‘I’ve been published.’’

  ‘‘False modesty,’’ Dryden said with a weird sideways grin. ‘‘Doesn’t suit you.’’

  Rossi gestured with open hands. ‘‘You’re right. I’ve written best sellers. I’ve been on talk shows. I’ve done the lecture circuit. I won’t fall back on false modesty.’’

  Dryden’s smile straightened out. ‘‘I won’t, either.’’

  ‘‘You won’t?’’

  ‘‘No?’’

  ‘‘Why, have you accomplished something? I’ve accomplished some things, yes . . . but you? You’re just another copycat. Files are full of them.’’

  ‘‘I’m no copycat,’’ Dryden said, and pounded the table as best he could, his cuffs wound through a metal ring on the table. ‘‘You wait. Before this is over, you’ll be a footnote in my story.’’

  Rossi laughed. ‘‘Oh? What story is that?’’

  ‘‘How I killed twelve people. You’re just a glorified secretary, writing books about ‘monsters’ like me.’’

  Rossi gave him a look. ‘‘You’re kidding, right? I write about originals—Gacy, Speck, Bundy, Kotchman—true innovators in their chosen field. No writer, no reader, is interested in just another copycat.’’

  Dryden lurched forward. ‘‘I am not a copycat! I am a true original!’’

  Leaning back in his chair, Rossi said, ‘‘Hey, I don’t want to make you feel bad. Take some pride if you want to. But don’t kid a kidder—Danny boy, you didn’t even make double figures.’’

  ‘‘Twelve! A goddamn dozen!’’ The little eyes had grown big. ‘‘Count ’em! Two in Chicago Heights, two in Wauconda, one each in Chinatown, one in Des Plaines, one in Aurora, three at the university, and the Kotchman kill who should be dead’’—he checked the clock on the wall—‘‘any time now.’’

  That only added up to eleven, but Rossi didn’t have the luxury of going down that road—he had a missing man to find.

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Rossi said, ‘‘he probably would have been dead pretty soon . . . if we hadn’t found him already. And two of the nursing students you just wounded. Gonna be fine.’’

  Dryden eyes grew tiny again. ‘‘You didn’t find him.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘You couldn’t have found him. I was too careful. Always a step ahead of you chumps.’’

  ‘‘Right, right,’’ Rossi said, picking up the folder. ‘‘Like you were so far ahead of us at the Speck house. That’s why you’re here now, because you were always one up on a chump like me.’’

  Dryden’s mouth opened but no words came out.

  Rossi got up, stepped back from the table, allowing the folder to slip from his grasp, as if accidentally, the pictures sliding out of the folder and onto the table. The fake one Reid had devised, at Rossi’s direction, was a blurry shot that showed a middle-aged man who looked vaguely like Herman Kotchman’s abusive stepfather. This man was strapped to a gurney, covered in blankets, his head just barely visible as he was loaded into an ambulance.

  ‘‘Excuse,’’ Rossi said, gathering up the photos and stuffing them back into the folder.

  He had given Dryden only a second or two to glimpse the picture, but Rossi knew that was enough. The killer’s fallen face said they’d made a sale: Dryden seemed convinced they’d rescued his premature burial victim.

  ‘‘How the hell . . .’’ Dryden began. The little eyes burned in their sockets. ‘‘It took me fucking weeks to find just the right farm!’’

  ‘‘Either we’re not as dumb as you think we are,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Or you�
��re not as smart . . .’’

  Forehead clenched, Dryden sat forward. ‘‘Let me see the photo again.’’

  Rossi hesitated.

  ‘‘Ha! I knew it—you dummied the thing, didn’t you? Photoshop bullshit!’’

  Rossi took the photo from the folder and handed it to Dryden, who studied it. The photographer only needed a moment.

  ‘‘I was right,’’ Dryden said, and laughed. ‘‘You didn’t even get the goddamn state right on the ambulance’s license plate, let alone the town.’’

  ‘‘Good to know,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘In fact, you’ve just told me everything I need to find the guy.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, right.’’

  Rossi leaned in. ‘‘If you’ll pardon me, Danny, I’m going to go help my team prove whether the chump here is me . . . or you.’’

  ‘‘If you do find him?’’ Dryden said with a sneer. ‘‘He’ll be dead.’’

  ‘‘I don’t think so,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘And after we save him, you’ll get to see him again, alive and well and on the witness stand.’’

  Dryden had nothing to say to that.

  Rossi went out and met the rest of the team in the corridor.

  Hotchner asked, ‘‘What just happened?’’

  Rossi half smiled. ‘‘We got the answer.’’

  Hands on hips, frowning, Morgan asked, ‘‘How do you figure that?’’

  ‘‘Victim’s in Indiana.’’

  Hotchner squinted at Rossi, as if trying to bring him into focus. ‘‘And how do you arrive at that?’’

  But it was Reid who answered: ‘‘Because the ambulance had Illinois plates.’’

  Morgan’s eyes widened. ‘‘You figure because the ambulance had Illinois plates, and this whack job said that was the wrong state, the vic is in Indiana?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Rossi said with a shrug. ‘‘Don’t you?’’

  Shrugging back, Morgan said, ‘‘How the hell should I know?’’

  ‘‘You really should know,’’ Rossi said, ‘‘because you interviewed his wife. Has her husband been gone overnight?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Prentiss said. ‘‘She said he worked all night once back in April—and that was the night he killed Andrews and Mendoza.’’

  Rossi asked, ‘‘What was the latest he got home?’’

  Hotchner thought for just a moment. ‘‘In the last few weeks,’’ he said, ‘‘the latest Dryden got in was about two thirty a.m., according to his wife.’’

  ‘‘All right,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Now, has Garcia looked into missing middle-aged men in the area?’’

  Hotchner nodded. ‘‘Three disappearances reported in the last two weeks. One’s turned up already, and another is a husband who apparently left his wife for his secretary.’’

  Prentiss said, ‘‘The third one was a businessman, Grant Shuler, in from Atlanta. Associates he was calling on reported him missing on July twenty-ninth. They say they dropped him off at his motel the night before, just after ten p.m., and haven’t seen him since.’’

  ‘‘All right,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Our time span is between ten p.m. and two thirty a.m. Our search grid will be an area that Dryden could drive to and back from in the allotted time.’’

  ‘‘He’s on to something,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘Let’s get back to the office.’’

  Forty minutes later, in the field office’s conference room, they huddled over a map of the area.

  Rossi said, ‘‘Even if Dryden had everything ready at the site—plywood coffin waiting in its hole— and with no traffic at all, it’s over an hour to get to Indiana from Shuler’s motel, and the better part of another to get home from the border. If we figure a minimum of a half hour at the grave site, that only leaves him an hour each way into the state. How far is that?’’

  Reid drew a circle that included an area bordered by extreme southern Michigan on the north, South Bend on the east, south to Fair Oaks, and Illinois on the west.

  Morgan’s eyebrows were up. ‘‘That’s still a lot of ground.’’

  ‘‘Don’t forget,’’ Hotchner said, ‘‘he’s imitating Kotchman.’’

  ‘‘Get Garcia,’’ Rossi said, nodding. ‘‘We need a little magic.’’

  Prentiss made a video connection via her laptop.

  ‘‘Garcia,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Match anything you can between Indiana and Modesto, California. Highways, town names, county names, anything that might resonate.’’

  Garcia asked, ‘‘How soon do you need it?’’

  ‘‘Yesterday.’’

  ‘‘No problem.’’

  On the little flat screen, she turned away and fingers danced gracefully over the keys of her keyboard. She was back in less than five minutes, but looking glum.

  ‘‘Nothing,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Anything even close?’’ Rossi asked, determined to keep any desperation out of his voice. Had he gottentoo cocky and cost Grant Shuler his life?

  ‘‘There’s a Highway 120 near Modesto,’’ Garcia said, ‘‘and a Highway 20 in the area of Indiana you’re looking at. Best I can come up with.’’

  ‘‘Good job,’’ Rossi told her, happy to have a straw to grasp at.

  The genie on the screen asked, ‘‘What now?’’

  ‘‘We’re looking for vacant farms for sale along Highway 20.’’

  Prentiss asked, ‘‘Why farms along Highway 20?’’

  ‘‘Kotchman lived on a farm,’’ Reid said. ‘‘Dryden has been trying to re-create the crimes in as much detail as possible.’’

  Rossi said, ‘‘He’ll have found a vacant farm. Shuler will be in the backyard.’’

  ‘‘I wish we had more,’’ Hotchner said.

  ‘‘It’s what we’ve got.’’

  Reid seemed more confident: ‘‘No, it all makes sense—let’s go with it.’’

  That was when Garcia piped in to say, ‘‘There’s three vacant farms on Highway 20 within your search grid.’’

  Hotchner leaned in. ‘‘Give us addresses and directions.’’

  Prentiss went with Hotchner in a Tahoe, Reid with the two detectives in an unmarked, while Morgan and Rossi in another SUV went to the third farm. Using their cell phones, they stayed in constant communication. Morgan and Rossi had the farm farthest away.

  Hotchner had summoned a medivac chopper to be in the area. If they found Shuler alive, the man would need immediate medical attention.

  Lights flashing, sirens wailing, they sped through the muggy night into Indiana. They crossed the border, still flying, getting off the expressway and hurtling down Highway 20. Hotchner and Prentiss were the first to peel off, then twenty miles later, Reid and the detectives went their way.

  As they rode, Morgan behind the wheel, the cloudless night bright with stars and a nearly full moon, Rossi could only hope they weren’t too late.

  Morgan said, ‘‘You know, you alter that timeline by as little as an hour, and we could still be in the wrong state. The victim could just as easily be buried in Wisconsin— that’s only a little over an hour away from that motel, too.’’

  ‘‘If the timeline is wrong,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘But it isn’t.’’

  ‘‘Sound pretty sure of yourself.’’

  ‘‘When I joined this team, the knock on me was that I was too much of a loner, too used to doing things my own way. Now, that we’ve solved something as a team, you’re second-guessing my role? I been doing this a long time, Morgan, and here’s a tip you didn’t ask for but are going to get: you have to learn to trust your talent."

  "I do trust it."

  ‘‘You think you do, but you really need to believe that you’re right.’’

  ‘‘And you,’’ Morgan said, ‘‘need to learn to trust the team.’’

  ‘‘I’m working on that,’’ Rossi said, nothing negative in his voice.

  Morgan slowed as they approached a driveway on the left roadside. ‘‘I think this is it. . . .’’

  As if to confirm his belief, a FOR SALE sign
came into view beyond a small hill. Morgan turned in and followed the gravel road toward a dilapidated white house and faded red barn that stood at the top of a hill.

  Rossi’s cell phone chirped. He pulled it off his belt and answered.

  ‘‘Hotchner. We got nothing at our site, and Reid just called to say they struck out too. How are you two doing?’’

  ‘‘Just pulling in,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Let you know.’’ He clicked off, then said to Morgan, ‘‘Down to us now.’’

  Obviously vacant, the house was a tall, two-story box that looked hadn’t seen a coat of paint since the sixties. The barn looked little better. Off to the left of the house, across a side yard, a path worn through it between the buildings, one door hung slightly open.

  ‘‘Let’s check there first,’’ Morgan said.

  Rossi nodded.

  They got out of the SUV, crossed the yard and stood on either side of the open door, their guns drawn. The suspect was in custody, but an unknown accomplice was always a possibility. They nodded to each other, then went in low and fast, each fanning their guns around looking for a threat.

  When each was sure his side was clean, he said, ‘‘Clear.’’

  The only thing left in the barn was a navy blue Ford Bronco, locked up tight. They checked in the windows and saw nothing.

  Rossi asked, ‘‘Where the hell did this vehicle come from?’’

  Morgan checked the plate. ‘‘Illinois. I can get Garcia to run it.’’

  ‘‘Do it.’’

  Morgan made the call, short and sweet.

  They moved behind the house and, using their Maglites in the darkness, quickly found the PVC pipe sticking up out of the dirt.

  ‘‘Bingo!’’ Morgan said.

  Rossi’s eyes flared. ‘‘We might have thought to bring a goddamn shovel. . . .’’

  But Morgan spotted the handle sticking out from behind a bush and then they did have a shovel, Dryden’s shovel most likely.

  Without a word, Morgan grabbed it and started digging near the pipe. The night was hot and it didn’t take long until his face and bare arms glistened with sweat. He threw dirt over his shoulder, Rossi watching. When Morgan was down a couple of feet, they changed places and Rossi took over, his pace slower but more steady.