No Way Out (12 page)

15

A
s Vail headed to the Charing Cross Underground station, she couldn’t put Gavin Paxton out of her thoughts, and the more she played back the security recording, the more she was convinced that the curator had a hand in the bombing. But what was his motive? What did he have to gain by seeing the manuscript destroyed?

Theoretically, it should be a positive for the gallery, and thus for him—the more money Turner made, the more secure his job would be. But she didn’t know the finances of Turner’s business. It was something Reid, Carter, and Losner needed to look into, if they had not already done so.

As she swiped her Oyster card in the stainless steel turnstile, she received a call from Losner about the visit he had set up with Merlin Hughes. He was on his way to join Reid and Carter at the crime scene.

“I hate it when things don’t seem to be going anywhere and now we’ve got another mess to deal with. I hope these people don’t keep setting off bombs about town, or we’re gonna have a bloody hard time managing the media.”

“Then I’ve got some good news for you, Ingram. We have a potential lead on the gallery bombing and if it helps you any, the Underground case is probably unrelated.”

“How ‘potential’ is this lead?”

DeSantos’s comment to stay away from Paxton echoed in her mind. “It’s probably nothing.”

“I’ve only known you a little while, Karen, but you blew me away with your presentations at the conference. I trust your judgment.”

A man bumped her from behind—she was blocking passengers trying to reach the boarding areas.

She told him why she thought the cases were unrelated.

“And the gallery case?” he asked.

“What kind of backgrounder have you put together on Gavin Paxton?”
Just an innocent question.
Besides, she’d already told Reid about her suspicions—and DeSantos had no say over whether or not Reid or Losner decided to pursue Paxton.

“You think Paxton’s involved?”

“Let’s just say that I have some concerns.”

“Clive was putting that together. Let me touch base with him. I’ll ring you back.”

“If you’re at Kennington, I’ll meet up with you in however long it takes to get there from Charing Cross.’

“Right then. See you shortly.”

VAIL CLIMBED THE STAIRS and emerged in the Murder Investigation Team unit, where Grouze was arguing with one of his inspectors. He saw Vail and stopped in midsentence. He pushed away from the man and intercepted her before she could reach Losner’s desk.

“What the hell is this bollocks about you having a lead on the gallery bombing?”

“I have a theory. You can ask Reid about it—”

“That’s who I heard it from. See, this is the problem with your profiling analysis.”

“We prefer behavioral analysis—or criminal investigative analysis.”

“Oh, it’s criminal all right. We finally agree on something.”

“Watch the tapes for yourself. Reid was there. He can tell you what I saw.”

“That’s the problem. He thought you were seeing things. Imaginary things. Like they weren’t doing something you thought they should be doing. But the absence of something can’t be used to prove the existence of something.”

Here we go again. I’ve had this argument before. Problem is, there’s no good answer.

“I study human behavior. I know what I saw. Does that mean it’s a slam dunk? I’d be the first to argue that it’s not. But I do think it means we need to check it out.”

“We can agree to disagree. The beauty, of course, is that what I say goes. So I’m putting this in Reid’s hands. Thanks for your opinion.” He turned and walked away.

Vail stood there—counting backward from ten—when Losner came up from behind her. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

“I just got here.”

“I need a change of scenery, stretch my legs.” He led the way to the elevator, and then stopped. “Wait—you prefer apples and pears, right?”

Vail swiveled her head in both directions. “Did I miss something? Were we talking about fruit?”

Losner snickered. “It means stairs. It’s kind of an outdated saying, but I still like it.”

“You Brits,” she said with a shake of her head. “You’re right. I prefer apples and pears. I’m not too keen on elevators, especially small ones.”

They exited the building and started down the street. “Ever been to the Imperial War Museum?”

“This is my first time in the UK. And I’ve been a bit busy since I got here.”

“Let’s head that way, talk through your theory on the way.”

“But your boss said—”

Losner kept his gaze ahead. “Yes. I heard. But I also think he has some bias. You can’t be arsed by those things.”

“You think I’m on to something.”

“I watched the recording. I’m not as convinced as you are, but I think there could be something there, yeah.”

“I think your partner disagrees.”

“No ‘think’ about it. He had some choice words. But this case has him on edge. Not sleeping, not a fun guy to be around, I say.”

“Never would’ve guessed that. Until about an hour ago, he seemed very laid back.”

“Wait till you really get to know him.”

They walked briskly, hashing out Vail’s theory. By the time they were done, Losner was more excited about Paxton as a suspect than she was.

“I’ll poke around, see what there is in the system on him. We did a preliminary backgrounder on everyone involved and nothing came up.”

“I don’t think we’ve got enough for a search warrant.”

“No solicitor would let us poke around his flat.”

“Surveillance?”

“That’d take manpower—and Grouze’s approval. Not to mention Clive would find out. But maybe we’ll get lucky and turn up something that’ll change their minds.”

Losner led the way to the entrance of the Imperial War Museum. Two enormous rocket-shaped projectiles stood on the front lawn, pointed out toward the street.

“What the hell are those?”

“Fifteen inch naval guns, from 1912. They weigh something like a hundred tons.”

“I can’t believe how long they are—they must stretch fifty feet.”

“A bit more, actually. The ultimate phallic symbol, eh? If you like that, there’s lots more inside. Wanna take a look?”

Vail consulted her watch. “I’d better get back to my hotel. I’ve got a threat assessment to write up and reports due with the FBI’s legal attaché. It’s like having a watchdog.”
A rabid watchdog.

“We all have people we have to answer to.”

Vail thought of DeSantos and his usual autonomy on missions.
Some of us more than others
.

16

K
nown by Londoners as the “Wobbly Bridge” because of a design defect that caused it to rock when pedestrians traversed it, the steel suspension Millennium Footbridge crossed the River Thames and sat between two noteworthy landmarks, St. Paul’s Cathedral to its north and a reconstructed facsimile of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to the south.

Workers hurried across the span as tourists gawked and shuffled along, stopping to aim their camera phones at the rising and falling metal cabling, which contributed to its sleek, futuristic angles. Below, the Thames flowed toward the Tower Bridge.

DeSantos rested on the steel handrail and casually checked his watch: his contact was four minutes late. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark-suited man ambling toward him with a slight limp. DeSantos returned his gaze to the water, and a moment later his companion took a spot beside him.

After a moment of silence, the visitor pulled out his phone and brought it to his face. “I’m getting concerned.”

DeSantos knew he was talking to him and that the phone was a ruse. “I can handle her. No problem.”

“She’s already a problem. If you can’t rein her in, something will have to be done. And it might be better if you do it than if we do it. Am I making myself clear?”

DeSantos stood up straight. He was tempted to turn and make direct eye contact. But he knew better. “I said I can handle her. Stay out of it.”

“I’m afraid this isn’t America, Mr. Cruz, so you don’t make the rules.”

“I don’t make the rules there, either.”

“If you don’t fix this, we will take appropriate action. This is a very serious matter. I don’t have to tell you why you’re here, do I?”

DeSantos clenched his jaw. He had a mission to carry out, and sometimes things had to happen that were both beyond his control and outside his comfort zone. It wasn’t the first time in his career—and it wouldn’t be the last.

He turned and walked away, leaving the man holding a dummy phone and staring out at the river. At least DeSantos was able to control one thing: the last word.

It meant nothing, of course—but it made him feel better.

17

T
he morning did not begin well. The hotel room phone rang at 4:30, rousing Vail from a dream of making love with Robby by the ocean. As she sat on the bed listening to the shrill ring, she realized how much she missed him.

She lifted the receiver while rubbing her eyes with two fingers of her right hand. “Yeah.”

“It’s Reid. We’ve got a body. I thought you could help us out.”

“What kind of body?”

“A dead one. A very dead one. They think it could be a serial.”

“I thought you didn’t think much of my opinion.”

“Don’t take all this stuff personally. We have different opinions of how things work. It’s not a crime to disagree with you, is it?”

“Of course not.”

“And I do value your input. You know that. That’s why I’ve defended you with Grouze. And—I wouldn’t be asking for it now if I didn’t think you knew what you were talking about.”

“Fine. Give me a half hour to get ready.”

“Make it fifteen. We’ve got a bit of a ride.”

“Where is it?”

“Stonehenge.”

“Stonehenge?”

“Do we have a bad connection, or are you suddenly mutt’n?”

If I knew what mutt’n meant, I’d be able to answer that question.
“Fine.” She fought back a yawn and said, “Pick me up out front at a quarter to five.”

STONEHENGE SAT A GOOD distance southwest of London and carried a mystique that belied its outward appearance—a circular arrangement of large stones. Reid and Losner told Vail that it was one of mankind’s most ancient structures at five thousand years old, with some of its pillars and cross-pieces weighing fifty tons.

“What’s even more impressive,” Losner said, “is that these weren’t from native or even local rock. Whatever civilizations built Stonehenge, they mined the materials from 150 miles away and carted them here. No one’s sure how they did that—the wheel hadn’t been invented yet. But that’s not even the most impressive feat.”

Reid turned off the A303 and onto a secondary road. “Can’t really see it in the darkness, but there’s lush countryside all around us. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

“The thing that baffles me,” Losner continued, “is how they lifted fifty-ton boulders twenty-five feet off the ground and placed them atop the vertical columns to create cross-pieces.”

“Dinosaurs? You know, like in the
Flintstones
.”

Losner chuckled. “Would have to be something like that. Makes as much sense as some of the explanations I’ve heard.”

Reid gestured off to the left. “There she is.”

The predawn darkness was yielding to a brightening sky, giving Vail a vague sense of the enormous circular structure. “It’s fenced off, so we’ll park in the tourist lot and walk through the underground tunnel.”

They passed by the Hooker’s green ticketing office pitching “English Heritage” passes and then came upon the café—which was closed. Its sign advertising baguettes and drinks elicited a hunger rumble in Vail’s stomach.

They proceeded through a subterranean tunnel sporting forest-themed wallpaper and crossed beneath the roadway. It meandered left and right as it ascended back to ground level.

Upon exiting the underpass, they were greeted by a crime scene manager, who logged them in and gave them booties to wear. “Stick to the path, where it’s marked. Walk there and only there.”

Reid moved on without a word—he knew the drill. “I don’t need a plastic policeman giving me orders.”

“A what?” Vail asked.

“Ah, it’s a bit derogatory,” Losner said. “We try not to use it in public. Refers to community service people who sometimes handle crime scenes. They’re not police but they get to boss us around in times like these.”

As the sun continued its slow rise behind the dense cloud cover, Vail could make out the borders of the Stonehenge complex more clearly. It was an impressive sight—much more so than she had thought it would be, based on a description she had once heard from a friend.

“What’s that nipple-looking thing at the top of the tallest column?” she asked as they walked closer.

“That,” Losner said, “is part of the wonder of this thing. They carved holes in the bottoms of the horizontal blocks and corresponding pin-type projections in the tops of the columns. That way, when they laid the blocks horizontally across the columns, that mortise-and-tenon type joint served as a locking mechanism that prevented the blocks from sliding off. It’s a concept used in wood-working—except these people were doing it thousands of years ago.”

Vail looked at the construction as she followed Reid down the path. “Okay, I’m impressed.”

An aura of diffuse light backlit the edges of the larger stones. Vail figured there were powerful halogen lamps arranged in the inner circle, illuminating an object of interest.

Losner led them another dozen yards and then stopped. They turned and saw the subject of the spotlights.

Losner shoved both hands in his pockets and said, “The thing that gets me is that we’re so capable of building amazing things like this, and yet we can destroy other things like that.” With his chin, he indicated the severed head that sat atop a stone pedestal in the middle of the circular periphery.

And there we are.

Vail moved toward the structure, following the red traffic cones that delineated the area where she was permitted to walk. As she approached, she saw three crime scene technicians documenting the scene, the camera flash stingingly bright against the foggy dawn.

“So we’ve got the head over there,” she said, indicating a small round stone that sat toward the open end of the circle. “Where’s the rest of the vic? Do we have an ID?”

Losner whistled over a technician and repeated Vail’s questions.

“Torso’s over there,” the man said, flicking on a powerful tight-beamed tactical flashlight. “Right side, resting against that rock. Arms and legs are severed, hanging from the top of that column. You can only see them from inside the circle. It’s pretty grotesque. Never seen anything like it, inspector.”

Losner dry-heaved and put a fist to his mouth, stifling an urge to vomit.

“Oh, and there’s something stuck in her bum and her fannt,” the technician said. He turned to Vail and explained, “That’s her rectum and, um, her vagina.”

Vail nodded, taking it all in.

“And there are knife marks on the breasts, too.”

“Do we know who she is?”

“Prints just came back as a prostitute who’d been picked up last year in a petty theft. Connie Waterford.”

After getting permission to proceed, Vail led the way into the center of the structure. It was as the forensic technician had described. Vail looked it over silently for a few moments. What he hadn’t described—and why it was important for her to be here—was the blood that was smeared across the rock face and the “666” markings carved into the victim’s abdomen. And then there was the giant “Satan” spray-painted on the surface of the crosspiece above the body.

“Can I borrow that flashlight?”

The technician stepped forward and handed it to Vail. She raked the beam slowly across the interior of the circle, taking in details that the halogen lamps did not reach, moving in a grid pattern from the tops of the nearly three-story stones to the ground, and then left to right.

Reid did the same with his own flashlight.

Vail stepped forward to get a better view of a worn Bible that sat open on one of the ground-hugging horizontal boulders. “What page is that opened to?”

“Afraid that’s not going to help us much,” the technician said. “Wind was blowing pretty good when we got here, so the pages were turning. Impossible to say what passage the killer intended us to see.”

In front of the body, dug into the grass, was a design of some sort. “Were you able to make that out?” Vail asked.

“We just finished a tracing before you got here. It’s a pentagram.”

A pentagram, of course.

Candles, long since blown out, sat on the flat surfaces of a number of foot-high rocks. A crude wooden cross was stabbed into the earth to the right of the torso, upside down.

Losner cleared his throat. “What do you think?”

Reid spoke first. “Looks satanic to me, some kind of ritual killing.”

“There
are
theories that Stonehenge was a religious site,” Losner said, “either a place for ancestor worship or a ceremonial church for burial. They’ve found a few hundred burial mounds in the area.”

Reid moved his beam of light to the 666 carving. “I read one theory that said Stonehenge represented the ancient ‘land of the dead.’ A decapitated male body was excavated from inside the ring back in 1923, and a number of others were unearthed with traumatic deformities. Could be some bloody arsehole cult resurrecting the rituals they think were done here thousands of years ago.”

“Is that what you think’s going on here?” Vail asked.

Reid again focused his light on the numerals. “I’m not sure about all the stuff he did, like severing the arms, carving the body, sticking things in her orifices, but yeah. I do.”

Vail bought her light back to the body. “So a ritual satanic killing, that’s what you think. Ingram?”

Losner shrugged. “I—I don’t know. Sure, it looks like that. A sexual homicide, like you talked about in class, a predator who dabbles in satanic rituals.”

Great. If that’s what he got from my class, I was wasting my breath.

“Okay.” She turned to leave but hadn’t gone three steps when Reid called after her.

“Where are you going?”

She pouted her lips and shrugged. “Seems like you’ve got it all figured out. No sense in me spoiling the party.”

“Karen, hang on a minute. It was my idea to bring you out here. And don’t think I didn’t catch some choice comments from Grouze. So why on Earth would I want to send you away without you helping us? Come and look at things, draw up a profile.”

Vail turned and walked up to Reid. “Look. I was asked to come to England to write a threat assessment on the bombing. There’s something off about all that, but I can’t figure out what it is just yet. I need to be spending my time on
that
—not this bullshit.”

“Bull—What are you talking about? Some young woman was murdered.”

Vail laughed. “That?” She glanced over at the humongous stone structure. “This is a marvel of engineering, something I’d probably find fascinating if I was here with my boyfriend on vacation. But he’s not here and I’m not on vacation. Bottom line, this is a complete waste of my valuable time. I’ve got real cases back in the States, with real victims, that need my attention. So, honestly, I need to get back to Bond Street and make some headway on that so I can get home.”

Losner shoved his hands in his pockets and coyly approached Vail. “Karen. What is it that you’re not saying about this murder?”

Vail took a long, deep breath. “I’ve been doing this a long time. Maybe too long. But I look at this scene here and it’s—it’s like my bullshit meter goes off.” By the expressions on their faces, she realized they weren’t getting it. “It’s like someone read a book on serial killers and tried to make this look like a real crime scene. But they didn’t have a true understanding of why those sick bastards do what they do.”

“Come again?” Reid said.

“It’s an obvious staging. Someone constructed this crime scene to look the way he or she
thinks
a scene like this should look. The offender’s done things to the body that make no sense from a behavioral perspective.”

Reid again swung his flashlight toward the torso. “But how can you—”

“Look, you can try to poke apart my theories on bombers. And you might have some valid points. But this—” she gestured at the scene before her—“this is in my wheelhouse. And I’ve never seen an offender do stuff like this.”

“There are always new things,” Losner said. “I mean, you can’t have seen it all.”

Vail shook her head. “I’m not explaining this right. It isn’t that I’ve never seen this stuff before. It’s that I’ve seen
all
this stuff before.”

Reid spread his arms at his sides. “So what’s the problem?”

“It makes no sense. It’s like some novelist tried to think up the most bizarre things a sexual offender could do, and thought he was being clever in dreaming up some sick plot. It may be well-written, but it’s got no basis in fact. It’s so far from reality it’s laughable—bullshit to anyone who knows anything about the subject. This crime scene, gentlemen, is exactly that. Understand my point?”

“I get what you’re saying,” Losner said, “but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone kill a woman and cut her up—to fake a crime scene?”

Vail stood there staring at the torso.
Yeah, that’s a good question
. “I don’t know.”

“But the satanic stuff.” Reid swung a look back at the center of the ring.

“There have been a few homicides that’ve been linked to actual satanic intent. But I’ve never seen or heard of a serial offender who has done that stuff as part of his
need-driven
behavior. Don’t you see? These assholes don’t do the stuff with the bodies because they’re thinking about it, they’re doing it because it’s comforting to them. For some reason, they need to do it. It’s hard-wired in their brains, exacerbated by their upbringing, their development. All the satanic stuff like we see here doesn’t compute. It just doesn’t happen that way.”

“But is it possible?”

“Certainly not
all
these things in one scene. A couple of them—a bible, a pentagram, yeah. Okay, fine. But not all of them. I’ll tell you where I’ve seen these types of things—at staged crime scenes. This is way over the top.”

They fell silent while they considered what she’d said.

After a moment, Vail said, “What if this was about me?”

Reid laughed. “No offense, Karen, but very few people know you’re even here, so—”

“Not true,” Losner said. “Her arrival was all over the news. BBC ran a thing on it all night after she got here, and all day the next day. Big news that they sent an FBI profiler here to work the bombing. And then CNN had it.”

Gee whiz. I’m world famous. Just like Ressler, Hazelwood, and Douglas.