Dark Wings Descending (4 page)

Rafe rubbed at the permanent frown line etched deep in her forehead. “I wish we could have pinned this on Marcus Armitage. He was damned handy with that knife, and he was certainly big enough to render a woman helpless.” She shook her head ruefully. “Even one armed with a gun.” Chewing at her lip, she searched the photos for anything to point her in the right direction. “It’s just a shame the bastard was dead when this killer struck again. My being used as his punching bag would have been worth it if these killings would have stopped when Dean took him out.”

“So we take out one scumbag and keep searching for another.” Dean patted the computer behind him. “Maybe the killer resides somewhere in here and we just enter the magic word and he will appear.”

Alona snorted. “You haven’t had much to do with computers, have you, Detective?”

Dean smiled disarmingly at her. “I’m a beat cop at heart. All my data gathering is garnered on the street.”

Rafe spared him a quick glance. “Well,
old
man, the rules have changed since you walked the streets. High-tech is the new law.” She couldn’t take her eyes from the one photo. The body of Andrea Mason, the previous night’s victim, had been turned over and her back was flayed wide open. The skin had been pushed aside as if it were silk from a blouse. The woman’s insides were all on view; the muscles were crudely chopped at and the revealed spinal column had been laid bare to the elements. The whiteness of the bone contrasted with the surrounding bloody mess of violated flesh.

Rafe deliberately looked away. She tried to find something else to focus on other than the last hellish moments of the three women posted on the screen. “I’m not seeing a sexual motive here. Usually they’d go for the breasts, or cut open the chest to get at the heart, but exposing the backbone doesn’t ring any spurned lover kinds of bells for me.” She looked at Alona. “Has there been any word from the profiler I contacted?”

“The agent you were in touch with was away on a case last week, but she contacted me this morning and said she was ready to present her profile to you as soon as you want it.” Alona chuckled. “She mentioned something about you owing her big-time seeing as you’d issued an
unofficial
request.”

“Have you got video linkups on one of these screens?” At Alona’s nod, Rafe got out her cell phone and pressed a button. She waited to hear a familiar voice. “Detective Rafe Douglas here, I believe you have a profile waiting for me?” She couldn’t help but smile at the excited tone that assailed her ear. “Have you got time for a conference call? We’re all set on our end for a video link if you’re up for it.” She checked her watch and made a mental note of the time she was given. “We’ll speak to you then.” She closed her phone and gave Alona a thumbs-up. “Three thirty we have a conference call with Special Agent Kent. Can you have everything ready for that for me, please?”

“Absolutely. Wait until you see what this tech can do in that respect.”

Rafe nodded distractedly, her mind already racing ahead. “Okay, now we need to gather this latest victim’s last known whereabouts. Let’s see if we can match anything from hers to our other victims. Let’s check her friends, coworkers, Facebook buddies, places of employment from the start of their employment history. The answer has to be in there somewhere.”

Hours later, after sorting through what seemed to be endless reams of paperwork, Rafe was relieved when Alona announced she had the video link ready. Nothing matched in any of the victims’ private lives. They didn’t work in the same jobs, didn’t frequent the same clubs, and had never had cause to meet in one another’s social circles. All were respectable women who had apparently been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rafe shoved the files to one side, glad to rest her eyes from all the print. Alona directed their attention to a large monitor placed to her right. The screen’s department logo disappeared and a small woman, arms covered in tattoos, appeared on the screen.

“Not what I was expecting from a profiler,” Dean said, taken aback.

“Detective Douglas, Special Agent Kent will be with you shortly,” the woman said then looked over her shoulder at the sound of someone entering the room behind her. The camera switched positions as another woman sat at the desk.

“Thanks, Trace.” The profiler’s husky voice held a hint of laughter in it as she settled down and faced the screen.

“Special Agent Blythe Kent, you look fantastic.” Rafe grinned as she let her eyes drink in the features of her oldest and dearest friend. “You’ve had your hair cut.” Blythe fussed with the now shoulder-length dark hair that brushed at her jacket collar with its unruly curls.

“And you look like hell itself,” Blythe returned, her sharp brown eyes never leaving Rafe’s face. “What did I warn you about city police work?”

“That it would be the death of me.” Rafe shrugged. “Not this time, though, contrary to how I look and feel.”

“You should have stayed with us.”

“Maybe, but I have to say the pizza is to die for here.”

Blythe tried not to smile. “You and your stomach. It’s hard to forget you follow that more than you do safety.”

“Blythe, I could have just as easily been beaten up by a perp in New York.”

“True, but I could have been there to make sure you weren’t a dumbass about leaving the hospital too early, or going back to work before your side had healed. And don’t get me started on your poor hair, Rafe.” The look Blythe gave her was too familiar. Rafe fought not to roll her eyes.

“She knows you well enough,” Dean said quietly.

“Special Agent Kent and I go way back, but she took the high road to be an agent while I decided I wanted to trade my cop’s badge for a detective’s shield. And yet look at us now, both members of the fledgling Deviant Data Units.”

“We can only hope the DDU does what it’s set up to do, bring the forces together to catch the criminals.”

“Which brings me to why I contacted you. You being the best profiler I know in a sister DD Unit.”

Laughing, Blythe replied, “I’m the only profiler you knew that you could call up from your hospital bed while dosed high on whatever they had you on and still ask for me to profile your case and know I’d do it, no questions asked.”

“You’re a credit to the agency,” Rafe said solemnly, trying not to grin and spoil the effect.

“You should have let me come down to Chicago to look after you. If only to try and keep you in check.”

“There was no need. I’m fine. I’m back at work with minimal discomfort.” She shot a dirty look at Dean’s choking noise beside her. Changing the subject entirely before Blythe really started ripping into her, Rafe gestured to her team. “By the way, let me introduce my colleagues.” She did so by drawing them before the camera and skillfully placing herself back a few steps from Blythe’s pointed stare. Rafe knew she’d be receiving a phone call soon full of solicitous words and threats that she’d better take it easy.

“Good to put faces to names,” Blythe said, then looked to her side and nodded. “Trace is sending you a copy of my profile as we speak.”

Alona checked her computer at the sound of an incoming message. “Got it.”

“Now that I have seen you and am reasonably assured you’re alive and kicking, though sporting more colors than are found in an M&M bag, let me get to the profile. Oh, and next time”—Blythe leaned forward, staring directly at Rafe—“consider calling me in before you go risking your life chasing down a thug who could have been better apprehended by officers more suited to tackling football players.”

Rafe opened her mouth to argue but then thought better of it. She hoped she looked suitably contrite.

Seemingly appeased, Blythe sat back and straightened her shoulders, switching to her profiler manner. “The man you’re after has a purpose; a mission. The kind of killer who takes his time to cut right through to the bone and lay out the body in pose is meticulous and driven. This man has a higher calling.”

“I hate the ones who use God’s will as an excuse to do their own dirty work,” Dean said.

“But who’s to say its God he hears?” Blythe replied. “Just promise me that the press won’t be calling this killer something asinine like the
Spine Tingler. You just know how they love to stick a headline grabbing name out there to label a killer.”

“Detective Powell is seeing to all the press. She’s trying to keep a tight lid on how much is reported. This is the third one in six weeks. We have a serial killer running wild and loose in Chicago. Tagging him by any name isn’t going to stop the fear and terror from spreading,” Rafe said.

Blythe shifted in her seat. “Then let’s hope what I’ve come up with helps. The person you’re looking for is a male, between the ages of twenty and thirty. He’s in excellent physical shape because he can overpower these women with ease and he’s able to cut open the bodies. He probably works in the meat trade or has knowledge of hunting because his opening up of the flesh isn’t surgically precise but more the kind of cuts a butcher would make. Which would also explain why no one questions this man, who has to be covered in blood if seen afterward. If he’s recognizable as a butcher, then no one is going to pay him a second glance. He’s not someone who is going to stand out in a crowd. He doesn’t go out of his way to make himself noticeable.”

Blythe took a breath before continuing. “All his killings have so far been outside, in the open, swift and sure. But it’s the time he spends after the kill that is important. He poses the body in a certain way, the same pose for each girl killed. That takes time, because he covers them back up, he moves their hair, he covers the slash marks in their necks. He tries to make them normal again and pleasing to the eye.” Blythe unconsciously brushed at her own hair, momentarily causing Rafe to marvel at how attractive she was and how she was way-off-the-charts smart as well.

“He obviously has some kind of restriction that stops him from taking these women home. Something there stops him from spending more time with them. A girlfriend maybe, a wife, even a parent. He’s cutting open their backs to reach the spine. This is his purpose, but the pose is obviously something he has to finish with. It’s his signature. It has a meaning to him and we need to find it. His kills are not sexually motivated; you’re not looking for a sexual sadist here. He redresses them after. That shows a degree of remorse. He poses them, but it’s not a pose to degrade the bodies. I believe it’s something of significance to him.”

“Why cut open the body to expose the spine?” Rafe asked.

Blythe shrugged. “It’s a curious area to go for, and he’s not removing any organs or anything from the body itself. He cuts their throats quickly, so he obviously doesn’t want them to suffer.” Blythe made a wry face. “For all the horror he inflicts on them after. Do you want my opinion, Rafe?”

Rafe nodded, trusting Blythe’s instincts and insights more than anyone else she knew.

“I think he’s looking for something we can’t see.”

“What could he possibly be after?” Dean asked incredulously.

“Whatever the spinal area means specifically to him.” Blythe moved forward to the camera. “You’ve got a seeker who won’t give up killing until he’s found what he’s looking for. He’s on roughly a two-week cycle, most probably because of his shifts at work. He’s already killed this week. You need to check out the local meat factories, restaurants, anywhere that proficiency with a knife is required.” She rested her chin on her hand. “Will you keep me informed, Rafe? Just in case I can build on the profile for you?”

Rafe nodded. “I’ll keep you informed every step of the way, through the data stream and out of it.”

“Then I’ll look forward to speaking to you soon and wish you a speedy conclusion to this case.” Blythe sat back in her chair. “And I’ll call you sometime, just to check up on you health-wise.”

“I’ll appreciate that,” Rafe said and had to smile at Blythe’s laughter.

“Of course you will.” She grinned wickedly back. Blythe made her farewells and their connection was cut.

Rafe brought up the photos from the crime scene again. She concentrated on the pose of the bodies and wondered what the killer was trying to say to her and the city in general. She had the feeling his conversation with Chicago wasn’t over yet.

The next morning, Ashley strode into the police precinct, well aware no one would give her a second glance. Having taken on the form of a young officer, Ashley easily blended in among the other uniforms. Unobtrusively, she searched out a floor map and found where the offices of the DDU were situated. She checked around the lines of desks for the name Officer Duncan Cook, which matched the one she wore on her breast. She’d been watching him all morning and finally, as he went off shift, she felt confident to take his identity.

Come on, Duncan, where do you sit?
She caught sight of a framed photo of a doting husband and his wife holding up a young child. “Bingo,” Ashley whispered, sliding into the seat and turning on the computer. She plugged in a small device to buzz past any firewalls and protocol and was only just able to flick the screen to a screen saver as someone’s face peeked over the partition divider.

“Cook? I thought I just waved you off from your shift?”

Ashley smiled at the young woman. “You did, but I forgot to double-check something I entered, and you know what it’s like. I’ll be trying to pay attention to the wife when all I’ll be worrying about is whether I spelled ‘circumstantial evidence’ right.”