Devoted in Death (12 page)

Few – including herself – would have predicted they’d match and mesh as they had. That they’d become all to each other.

She doubted the killers she sought seemed so ill-matched on the surface. People noticed such things, too. They looked right together, she believed. Looked as people expected a couple to look.

And they sure as hell worked well together.

She thought of Roarke again, and how easily she’d agreed to accept his offer of help on an official investigation.

Trust, she realized. Not just attraction, not just passion, not just a mutual goal. There had to be trust to work as a team.

With that in mind she went back to her desk to review her notes.

7

Eve read Baxter’s roundup of the interviews, did a spot-check on the recordings. Nothing stood out, nothing popped – and she hadn’t expected it. But it gave her a chance to evaluate Trueheart’s interview techniques, his rhythm.

A good balance with Baxter’s slicker style, she decided.

She made another note to team Trueheart up in interviews with other detectives, take him out of his comfort zone.

She finalized another report to Whitney and Mira with her conclusions that data and evidence indicated Kuper had been a random victim, the last known in a long-term spree by two unsubs, and not target specific.

She let Morris know they’d ID’d Earnestina. Morris reported that the victim’s mother had come in, had asked when she could have her son. Eve recommended the body be turned over to the next of kin or her representative as soon as possible.

No point, she thought, just no point in prolonging the misery. Kuper’s body had told them all it could.

She reached out to two more primaries, which entailed long, winding conversations, no fresh insights or information, and promises on all sides to share all data.

When Roarke came back in, she was running fresh probabilities on the New Jersey victim.

“I’ve generated several routes, with three being top contenders,” he told her. “These three run too close in probability to pull one out at this point. Even those would have any number of variance.”

“Can I see them, on screen?”

He set it up. “This brings them from southeast Texas, through Louisiana, into Arkansas, touching into Mississippi before meeting up with your first known in Tennessee. It also speculates, as you see from the highlighted points, other most probable stops in Tennessee, and across the Missouri border through Kentucky, which eliminates the gap before West Virginia, and the second point in West Virginia. Another in the western part of Maryland eliminates the gap prior to Ohio. You’ve two in Pennsylvania, but it seemed unusual, and the computer agreed, that they wouldn’t hunt in one of that area’s more rural, less populated areas, so there’s yet another point there before the jog over to New Jersey, then into New York.”

“Some detours, but a fairly direct route northeast.”

“The second comes from the west. I started as far west as California, across Nevada, into Arizona, through New Mexico. Touching on Texas, then into Oklahoma, once again into Arkansas, and the route remains as the first from there.”

“California. A long way, a lot of time.” A lot of potential bodies, Eve thought.

“Both, yes. It would be a southeastern route to start, curving into a northeastern direction. The last route supposes they had a purpose in Tennessee or changed directions there, initially coming from Florida, going through sections of Alabama and Georgia, potentially Mississippi again before your first known in Tennessee, and the following route would remain as the other two.”

“What’s the probability range?”

“From 70.2 to 73.4. It’s far too speculative for higher without more hard data.”

“Let’s take the third one.” She studied it, tried to imagine it. “Coming from the south – where it’s warm and sunny, right? They’d have started out in the fall – most likely – for this timeline – but winter’s coming. People do leave the warm and sunny for the cold and bitter, but if you’re on a killing spree, and you’ve pulled it off in the warm, why not wait for spring to drive so far north?”

“New York as destination,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, I get that, they want to come take a big, bloody bite out of the apple. But, then, why not work to get here before the holidays? See it all dressed up? People do that, they come in armies to see the holiday fuss. Why leave reasonably warm for seriously cold? Given human nature, I’m going to rate this three out of the three. The second, coming from California.”

She wandered around the board, looked back on screen. “That southern chunk, same deal, but maybe something happens. You’ve got to blow. Or you just start off. A longer trip than coming from the southeast, so maybe back in the summer. Probably that far back. Not thinking about winter, and off you go. But that’s a lot of unfounds and/or unsolveds.”

“Pick any point along that route as a starting point,” Roarke told her. “Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma. Any of those are more likely than the points north of them.”

“Yeah, that’s why I like it, and I don’t.” Studying, speculating, she hooked her thumbs in her pockets, drummed her fingers. “They could’ve started anywhere from the far western point, and it makes logical sense on the map. Timeline… it strikes more possible if they had their first here? What is this?”

“New Mexico.”

“Why did those map people, or state-naming people go with so many New Wherevers?”

“So speaks the New Yorker.”

“Question still holds. If they were so attached to the Mexico or the Hampshire or the York, why didn’t they just stay there? Anyway, about there, or that part of Texas or Oklahoma. That gets a higher bump from me, and so does the first possibility. Up from southeast Texas, hit Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas. Why is
S-A-S
pronounced
S-A-W
? It should be Ar-
Kansas
. Did Kansas object?”

Oddly enough, he found the question perfectly just. “I can’t tell you.”

“It doesn’t apply to this, but it’s a question. Second one’s highest for me.”

Again, oddly enough, he thought, it had struck the same for him. “Why? And that’s also a question.”

“It’s that south-to-north deal again. Warm to cold. That’s just a gut thing, but it strikes me.”

“It did the same for me,” he told her. “But that may be as I’m used to how your mind travels.”

“Or it may be because it just seems right. We’ll work on missing persons, unsolved on the other routes, but I’m going to focus my own efforts on the second.”

She reached for her coffee on her desk, realized it wasn’t there. Even as she frowned Roarke handed her what was left of it.

“This is good,” she told him. “Gives us angles to work until we get the next body.”

He ruffled her hair. “That’s positive thinking.”

“It is. I’m positive there’s going to be a next body. What’s despicable is knowing another DB may give us more to work with.”

She studied the map again, shook her head. “So working back, that’s the best we can do. I’m going to put this together, send it out. Peabody can start doing some searches on the first route.”

“Why don’t I do the same on your least likely? If nothing else you may be able to cross it off.”

She looked at him. Even in casual clothes, he radiated command. He’d have plenty of his own to see to. “That’s a lot of boring cop work for one night.”

“Boring enough I can get some of my own somewhat less boring work done at the same time.”

“I owe you.”

“We’ll work out a payment schedule.”

“Yeah, like I don’t know that currency.”

He laughed, pulled her in for a kiss. “Which makes me the richest man in the world.”

“You already are – pretty much.”

“Not without you.” This time he kissed her forehead, tenderly. “Not any longer.”

He meant it, she thought as she returned to her desk. And she understood the sentiment. Once, the badge had been enough for her. All for her.

Not any longer.

With the first route in Peabody’s lap, another in Roarke’s, Eve buckled down on the second probability. She tapped into IRCCA, refined it region by region, splitting into three searches. Missing persons, unsolved homicides and, the last, incidents that combined the two.

It took time – it always did – so while she waited for the initial results, she went back to her board, chose a victim at random.

She sat, reviewed the case file, asking herself what she might have done differently, if anything, if there were any gaps she could fill, what pattern she could begin to create.

Escalation was a clear pattern – the increase in the violence and duration of the torture, the narrowing of the time between known kills.

Standard, she thought, for spree killer profile and pathology.

From first known to last known, she noted, the time frame went from eighteen hours from last seen to TOD to forty-nine hours. The gap between first known vic TOD and second’s last seen ran ten days. The gap between the victim in New Jersey and Kuper ran four days.

No more traveling, if she read them right. Settled in now. No more small towns, no more back roads. Big city time.

She shifted, looked out the window at the dark.

They’d have another one now, or soon. Before morning if the pattern continued. And that gave her two days to find them, and save a life.

Her eyes rounded with shock when the results began to come in. Too many missing persons who remained missing, she decided, and too many unsolved.

She focused in on the third search, and its lesser number.

“I may have a couple possibilities,” Roarke said as he came in. Then lifted his eyebrows as he saw the fierce look on her face as she worked. “And I’d say you have their scent.”

“Southeastern Missouri. That little wedge that squeezes between Arkansas and Tennessee.”

“A backwater place called Cutter’s Bend.”

That fierce look flicked up. “You hit that one.”

“It just barely edged into my search. A nineteen-year-old boy, gone missing last September on his way home from the ballfield one balmy evening. He never made it home.”

“His body was found nearly a week later, dumped in a wooded area over the Tennessee border. Decomp and animals had gotten to him by then. Broken wrist, broken fingers, gashes, punctures, no sexual abuse in evidence, but evidence of binding on what was left of his wrists and ankles. Blunt force trauma, back of the head, some burn marks in evidence.

“Ten days before our first confirmed on the day he went missing. No carved heart, but decomp, animals, that’s not likely anyway. And if you follow from this vic—”

“Noah Paston.”

“Yeah, follow from Paston to the first confirmed and you get Ava Enderson.”

Roarke stepped over, edged a hip down on her desk. “I didn’t turn her up.”

“Nobody has. She went missing right about the time two kids stumbled over Paston’s remains. Traveling alone, from Memphis to Nashville, last seen – confirmed – having dinner at a diner about seven in the evening, about ten miles off the highway. Friendly sort, according to the waitress who served her. She said she was heading to Nashville to have a little reunion with some girlfriends, but since they weren’t due till the next day, she was toying with stopping for the night, getting off fresh in the morning. How her car was acting up anyway.”

As she spoke, Eve brought the woman’s ID shot up on screen. “The waitress recommended a couple places. Enderson said she wanted quiet and rustic, something out of the way. So the waitress told her about this place, some sort of inn. Enderson looked it up on her PPC, liked the look, booked a room.”

“And, I assume, didn’t make it there.”

“You assume correctly. Her car was found about two miles shy of this… Here it is.” She highlighted it on screen. “Sundown Inn. Broken down. Hood up, her luggage still in the trunk. The in-dash comp had been removed – expertly. They haven’t found her.”

“Show me the route,” Roarke requested, then nodded as he studied it on screen. “I see, yes. Very logical navigation from the boy, to this woman, to the first confirmed.”

Yes, she had the scent, and had to push up, pace as she followed it.

“I’ve got another in Kentucky that rings for me, and one in West Virginia I know in my gut is their work. That one was doing the hiking/camping thing, which baffles me. Why would anybody do that on purpose? Huddle down by a fire outdoors, sleep in a tent? But they do. His wife sent out an alarm when he didn’t check in – as he checked in every morning – and didn’t answer his ’link. She raved at the cops until they went out to his campsite. He registered it. Not there, and they figure he’s just gone hiking as there’s no sign of foul play.”

She prowled back, stared at the screen.

“Six days before they found his body, down a ravine. Animals and decomp again, and they ruled it as accidental death. But the wife raised serious hell, went to the media, got lawyers, hired a private investigator. So they flagged his file.”

Eve gestured as she sat again, split-screening the ID shot with the route. “Jacob Fastbinder. And I believe the wife here as he was a hiking fanatic, took hiking trips at least twice a year, every year since he was about twelve. He knew the region, he was smart and prepared and he was careful. And he didn’t have his pack when they found him. Locals said it could’ve been lost or dragged off, but that’s bullshit. Didn’t have his fancy hiker-guy wrist unit, either. ME can’t confirm if some of the wounds were inflicted or suffered during the fall.”

“You’ll talk to the wife.”

“Oh yeah. She went for burial, that’s what I got from his obit. I think she might be willing to have his remains exhumed and examined by a forensic anthropologist.”

“You’ll pull in DeWinter.” Roarke nodded. “A good call.”

“I’ve got a couple more I want to look at harder.” She rubbed her tired eyes. “But I know these up the count. Can’t say if the kid in Missouri was the first – still doesn’t feel like it, but he’s theirs.”

“Now he’s yours.”

She shrugged, glanced toward the AutoChef.

“You need sleep. You can’t contact the wife of the hiker at this hour, or roust any of the police on these cases, not at this hour.”