Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) (31 page)

Vail looked over her shoulder and peeked at Finkelstein, who had already moved the body. Chandler was helping him remove her clothing. “Did you show Bari an age-enhanced photo of Danzig?”

Dyer twisted his lips. “Oops. First thing in the morning.”

“It’s a long shot,” Vail said. “Not only was it dark, but she was scared, and we all know that witnesses don’t remember shit when they’re freaked. Especially when they’re fighting for their life.”

“Have anything to add?” Russo asked, pulling up the collar of his jacket. “That behavior stuff you’ve been doing at the Bureau. You said you drew up a profile?”

Vail slapped her gloved hands together to get the circulation going. “It was more of an exercise after I was promoted to the BAU. I was playing around, seeing if I could come up with something cogent.”

“And?”

“And to be honest, I haven’t touched the thing in a few years. But we’re looking at a male Caucasian who’s between thirty-five and fifty, bright and well-educated, though not necessarily book smart. He’s streetwise and knows his way around a police precinct. There’s a chance he spent time in law enforcement, the security industry, or the military.”

“The military?”

“Maybe. He’s very organized in his methodology. I mean, look at the way he approaches the victim. Disabling the lightbulb in the hallway to increase the chances of success of gaining access to the vic’s apartment indicates forethought, planning, and intelligence. One of the places where he could obtain strategic thinking is the military. But law enforcement is another. It’s also possible he has an engineering background because of the structured nature in which he kills. I’m less certain about that, but it’s possible. There’ve been virtually no forensics left at the scene. And he knows how to avoid security cameras, so he’s thought it through, scoped it out, identified where the cameras are.”

She stopped to blow on her hands, shuffled her feet.

“Keep going.”

“He’s a psychopath, which is a pretty safe bet. You didn’t need me to tell you that.”

“Actually,” Dyer said, “
I
did.”

“And there’s likely an element of revenge to his murders. His victims are Greek women, so it’s probable he holds a grudge against a Greek woman for something traumatic that happened to him. Maybe he was molested, but I don’t think so. There’s a sexual component to the way he poses the bodies, but he doesn’t penetrate them, so it’s not a sexually based action. It could be more subtle, like he blames them for something one of them did to make his life miserable. An overbearing mother, or—wait, I just remembered—”

“Got something,” Chandler yelled to them.

Vail turned and started toward him, but Russo grabbed her arm.

“Hang on, what’d you remember?”

“Something a former profiler told me. He said that the way the UNSUB superglues the fingers into place—as if the woman’s saying ‘Come here’—and the way he spreads their legs, with the dress drawn up, might be his way of recreating something he saw a woman do when he was younger. Maybe his father had an affair with a Greek woman and the offender saw her as the instigator, the one who encouraged the flirting and then denied it. He’s posing his vics in provocative positions to show everyone what kind of sluts they ‘really’ are.”

“How can that help us?” asked Slater, who had rejoined them a moment ago.

“When we have a pool of suspects to choose from, or when you’ve got a guy in custody, we’ll have an understanding of who we’re dealing with and why he’s doing it. That’ll help direct the questioning toward a confession. Unless, of course, you’ve got him dead to rights.”

“I’d rather just have him dead,” Russo said. “For all the agita he’s caused me in my career. Sixteen years I’ve been after this joker.”

“Then there’s Crinelli,” Dyer said. “Which doesn’t fit.”

Vail glanced back at Chandler. “Be there in a minute.” She turned back to Dyer. “Maybe it does. If these are revenge murders, and Crinelli is killed the same way the women are, maybe the offender’s getting back at Crinelli for something he did to him. And he disposes of him the best way he knows how. The way that brings him comfort and enjoyment.”

“So Crinelli may be of no help at all in solving this,” Slater said.

“Not necessarily,” Russo said. “There could be some commonality to whatever the Greek woman, or women, did to this perp and Dominic Crinelli. Find that connection—”

“And we may have our offender.” Vail turned and trudged back to Chandler and Finkelstein.

They had the body laid out on a gurney, which stood on the flagstone path, about a dozen feet from where she had been found.

“Your victim is Monica Glavan.”

Russo tilted his head. “Glavan.”

“I did a quick search,” Chandler said, adjusting the wide camera strap on his shoulder. “It’s Greek. And—I know your next question will be about that thingy he draws on the vics’ necks. Yes, Ms. Glavan has one. And the lowercase letter is the only variable here, right? This one’s a j.”

“That’s …” Slater stuck out his gloved hand and began counting off fingers. “The tenth victim. Shit, this guy’s prolific. And we’re so incompetent that we’ve let him get this far.”

“We’re doing our best,” Russo said. “Ain’t nothin’ any of us coulda done differently that woulda made a difference.”

“But the more important point here is that we’ve got seven bodies and ten letters,” Vail said. “Assuming this numbering scheme is right. Even if we accept that there’s a first victim that’s unaccounted for, we’re still coming up short. If we can find that first victim, she may hold clues to who this guy is. Not just what type of person he is, but it could lead us to who he is. His name.”

“How do you figure?”

“First vics are more spontaneous. The killer’s raw, untested—well, maybe he’s experimented on animals, but in terms of planning his kill in a way that he can get in and get out successfully, without getting caught, he’s never done it. He’s a rookie, and rookies make mistakes—in business, in sports, in murder. Just like all of us during our first days on the job, right? If we find that vic, we may see something he left behind that gives us what we need. Or maybe she holds a key piece of evidence that links Crinelli with this Greek woman he seems to be killing over and over again.”

“And how do you suggest we find this first vic?” Slater asked.

Vail had no answer—but neither did anyone else.

Vail snapped her fingers. “Remember I said they looked like revenge murders, because of the way they’re posed? The r on Crinelli’s X. Maybe it stands for ‘revenge.’”

“A mobster killed by someone who wants revenge.” Russo laughed. “Back in ’96, when I asked Lou Castiglia for a list of people who’d want to kill Dominic Crinelli, he cracked up. Once he picked himself up off the floor, he said there were too many to count. We got nowhere.”

“While you ponder that,” Chandler said, “Ms. Glavan is a fashion designer at J.D. Furriers on Seventh Avenue. Twenty-nine years old. Lives in Chelsea.”

“Killed elsewhere?” Vail asked.

“Yes,” Finkelstein said, turning away from the body to face them. “And I did a liver stick. I’d place time of death at between 9:30 and 10:00 pm tonight. She was dead when he pierced the orbits and stabbed the carotid with the hunk of glass. Also—I found two marks that are consistent with Taser probes.”

“Because Nyssa Bari was able to get the drop on him,” Vail said. “The offender adapted. I hate to compare him to us, but if we do something that doesn’t have a good outcome, we’re gonna try something different. Same thing with offenders. Bari clobbered him and got away, so he found a way to make sure that wasn’t gonna happen again. He Tasered her, incapacitated her. Then he choked her before he did his thing with the eyes and carotid.”

“We’ve also got smudges on the glass,” Chandler said. “Looks like he was gloved, like before. No useful latents.”

“Okay,” Russo said. He gestured at Slater. “Anything off that camera?”

“We got him all right. We can kind of see him in the park, over by the Dodge statue, at 10:21. He was blocking our view, and it was dark and a bit grainy, but it looks like he was doing his thing with the eyes and neck, then he stepped back to admire his work. And—just like at Fort Apache, he took a photo and then left.”

“He took a photo?” Vail asked. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I thought I did, when I reviewed the tape—”

“Okay, okay,” Russo said. “Anyway, he took a picture of the vic. He’s a sick motherfucker, so what?”

“It fits,” Vail said. “His way of reliving the kill. He’s probably got photos of all, or most of, his vics. A trophy. And I’ll tell you something else. He’s not killing as often, but when he does, it’s in our face. Outdoors, letting us know that he’s still here. He’s probably ‘embarrassed’ by letting Bari escape.” She turned to Russo. “Let’s check the cameras of the immediate area in case he’s somewhere nearby, watching.”

Russo pulled out his BlackBerry to make the call.

“And see if they can extrapolate his height and weight from the footage. There’s gotta be a way because he’s standing near the statue.”

“I’ll have them get on it.” He hit send and walked away as he talked.

“Not exactly what I had planned for tonight,” Dyer mumbled.

“Oh yeah?” Vail said. “Sorry to keep you up past your bedtime.”

Dyer laughed. “I was going to propose tonight. Had reservations for a midnight cruise on the Hudson. You spend a couple hours cruising around Manhattan while you dance the night away. Thought it’d be romantic, with the city all lit up and shit. I figured I’d ask Amy if she’d marry me as we were passing the Statue of Liberty.”

“Ben, it’s in the thirties. Didn’t you think you two would be cold?”

“It’s mostly indoors. My buddy said they got big windows. Amy woulda loved it. Instead, I got a DOA in Bryant Park, a reminder that this asshole’s still thumbing his nose at us. And there ain’t shit we can do.”

“There’s always tomorrow.”

“Which means I gotta get my nerve up again. It was enough pressure just waiting to do it tonight.”

Vail winked at him. “Patience is a virtue.”

“Guess I’m not very virtuous.”

VAIL MET UP with Russo at the edge of the park, near the steps that spilled onto 42nd Street. “I think we should get the BAU involved in this case. Officially, so I can devote real time to it, and so we’d have complete access and don’t have to do things behind people’s backs. My ASAC doesn’t like it when I do stuff like that.”

Russo chirped his car remote and pulled open the door. “I’m never gonna convince Kearney to make the request. But he’s talking about retiring and I’ve heard rumors of who’s gonna get the nod. That happens, I think you’ll get what you need. So you gotta be patient.”

“Tell that to the next victim.”

47

>MARINE TWO CRASH SITE

Virginia Countryside

November 7, 2012 12:03AM

Vail left FBI Supervisory Special Agent Aaron “Uzi” Uziel and Department of Defense operative Hector DeSantos at the site of Marine Two’s helicopter crash. She walked among the wreckage, surveying the carnage, all the while starting to formulate a profile of the bomber. The Behavioral Analysis Unit had amassed as much information as there was available on these types of offenders, but the sample size was smaller than they would like.

Small sample sizes invited error. If you drew erroneous conclusions because the data was flawed—or inaccurate—it could send law enforcement investigators off in the wrong direction.

That someone would target the president-elect—and nearly pull off the mission—said a lot about the perpetrators. It spoke to an offender who was intelligent and had access to key actors, places, materials, and secure facilities.

Vail made a mental note of all of this. She would regurgitate all of it back to Uzi when they sat down to review her findings.

Her phone buzzed. She stepped over a smoldering hunk of metal, which was covered in A Triple F, a chemical designed to smother fire, and checked the display: Robby, her boyfriend, had just gotten home and wanted to know where she was. She texted back:

wont be home for a few hours. del monaco stuck in traffic on way back from new york so gifford sent me. marine two case. cia nsa marines fbi virg state police ntsb all here. lucky me

She was reholstering her BlackBerry when it rang. The number surprised her.

“Russo. Long time no speak.”

“My interrupting?”

“Not at all. I’m standing in a field of helicopter ruins with fire and smoke and lots of brass from every intelligence agency we’ve got.”

“You’re working the assassination attempt?”

“I thought that’s what I just said. Can it wait?”

“Yeah, no problem. I just wanted to let you know we found Victor Danzig.”

A man bumped her as he passed by in a rush. The phone flew from her hands, but she scrambled and pulled it from the loose dirt.

“Hang on,” she said as she blew the stuff off her handset. “Sorry, I dropped you. Is Danzig talking?”

“Not to us. Found him upstate, near the Canadian border. Looks like he was living outside Toronto. May’ve been coming back to the US for another kill. But the troopers screwed up big-time and he got away. In the wind again. We’ve got resources deployed—air units, ground units, thermal equipment—the works. But …”

“But it’s upstate and there’s a lot of land to cover.”

“I just about hit the roof when they told me. We had him. We had the bastard. We had Hades.”

“You’re assuming he’s Hades.”

“Who the hell knows.”

“Hopefully
we
will in a few hours. You going over his place, looking for trophies, anything connecting him to the vics?”

“Haven’t found his residence yet. We’re looking, but he’s a careful SOB. I’m on my way to the airport right now. This is gonna be a long night.”

Vail sighed. “Me too. Look, you find out anything worthwhile, let me know. Either way.”

“You got it.”

“Hey,” Uzi said, coming up behind her.

She turned as she was slipping the phone into its case on her belt. “Anything?”

“Unofficial opinion. This isn’t looking like an accident. Looks deliberate.”

Already figured that.

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

“You get anything useful?”

“Yeah. Looks deliberate.”

Uzi looked at her. “I said useful.”

“Confirmation of an opinion is useful.”

“Don’t disappoint me, Karen. I need you to get inside the mind of the killer.”

“As soon as I feel some psychic energy, you’ll be the first to know.”

Uzi winked. “Knew I could count on you.”

As he moved off into the darkness, Vail knelt in front of a foam-covered mound of pulverized helicopter skin.
Danzig’s still at large. Is he Hades? If they catch him, is it case closed?

She stood up and looked out over the crash site. It was coordinated, organized bedlam. Emergency responders were still combing the ruins, investigators were taking measurements, making notes.

The United States was attacked tonight. I can’t have my mind stuck on a seventeen-year-old case.

Vail took a deep breath and turned her body—and her attention—back to the crime scene.

Hades will have to wait.