The Devil's Menagerie (20 page)

“She wasn’t gagged or tied up?”

“Not unless the
ME
FINDS something I missed. I figure she was knocked cold. Nobody heard any screams.”

Ted Nakashimi climbed out of the dumpster, dropping lightly to his feet on the pavement. He signaled for two ambulance attendants waiting with a body bag to transport the body to the county morgue. He nodded at Braden and the FBI agent.

“How long has she been dead?” Karen asked.

“About two hours, give or take. Rigor’s just starting, and the body temp has cooled only a few degrees from normal. I’d guess she died between ten and eleven, somewhere in there.”

“Any defense wounds?”

“Nothing obvious. I’ll have to examine her on the table,” the
ME
said cautiously.

No one asked him the cause of death, although the question was technically open.

When Nakashimi moved off, Braden and Karen stood alone for a long minute in silence, watching the activity around the Dumpster. Finally Karen said, “He took more risks this time.”

“It was quick and dirty,” Braden agreed. “So maybe he missed something, made a mistake. We’ll search the campus as soon as it’s light—maybe we can find out exactly where he grabbed her.”

“Why did he pick her? Just because she was alone and vulnerable?”

“Maybe.” He paused as the attendants walked by carrying the body bag by its wide straps. Beyond the paved area, at the fringe of the light, there was a whisper of sound, like a collective gasp, from the audience of students. “She made herself a target.”

“Are you saying—”

“I’m only saying she gave him the opportunity. I doubt we’ll have any more women walking this campus at night alone anytime soon.”

Karen shivered, suddenly aware of the cold. She hadn’t expected Southern California nights to be this chilly in early October, and she had rushed out wearing only a light jacket.

After a moment’s brooding Braden said, “My captain has been on the horn making noises about a special joint task force with the sheriff and the FBI. You know anything about that?”

“It’s news to me.” Buddy Cochrane wouldn’t necessarily brief her ahead of time, she thought.

“We’ll have people tripping over each other. And the media won’t be long putting one and one together to make two, so from here on out it’s gonna be like living inside Hard Copy. We have to catch this bastard.”

Karen frowned, wishing as usual that there was some way to reconcile the rights of a free press that had abandoned all the rules with the needs of a murder investigation.

“What I’m saying is, we don’t have time to waste. You awake enough to talk about that profile of yours?”

Karen nodded, surprised, thinking that it was an extraordinary concession for Braden to make, and confirming to herself that there was a new edge to the detective. A second murder on his doorstep would do it, she thought.

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep now if I tried,” she said.

T
O HER SURPRISE
, Braden picked a bar rather than an all-night coffee shop or his corner of the squad room at the police station. The place was dark and smelled of beer and stale smoke. He nodded at a couple of men sitting at the mahogany bar as he led Karen to a booth in the back of the room. The men at the bar watched them with cops’ eyes.

“It’s a hangout away from the Job,” Braden said. “We won’t be bothered back here.”

Karen wondered aloud if smoking was still allowed in bars in California.

“Yeah, you can smoke,” Braden answered the question. “It’s only restaurants and offices where you can’t.”

“I don’t smoke, I just wondered.”

“You mind if I do?”

They both ordered coffee and Braden lit a cigarette. Karen wished he hadn’t but decided to say nothing. He hadn’t smoked before in her presence. She wondered if the need reflected the new intensity she sensed in him.

“What he did to this girl tonight … there’s a lot of rage there, Agent Younger.”

“Call me Karen, for God’s sake. And yes, there’s a great deal of anger being expressed.”

“Toward who? His mother? Isn’t that the usual excuse?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. Not an excuse but a common factor.”

“So what else does this profile of yours suggest … if you’ve got far enough along to say?”

She took a moment to organize her thoughts, feeling suddenly pressured. She heard Buddy Cochrane’s voice.
Don’t be afraid of guessing wrong. Trust your instincts
.

“We know he’s a white male,” she said, “who has a reason, real or fancied, to hate women.”

“How do we know he’s white?”

“His victims—all three of them—were young white women, and he was not threatening to them. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get so close without alarming them to the point where they would normally have tried to run or to defend themselves. So he’s a white male, in his thirties, presentable-looking—”

“Whoa, wait a minute, slow down.”

“A few of these people start in their teens,” Karen said, riding over his protest, “but not many, and they’re never this organized that young. Our killer is mature. He’s very much in control. He’s stronger than average, and he moves well. He’s in good shape. He can function just like Mr. Average Citizen. He can do all the things that ordinary people do every day. He may even be married, have a family. He isn’t crazy, and what’s more important, he doesn’t
look
crazy. He’s been around this past week, Braden, watching us, but no one has noticed him. Some women might think he’s handsome, to others he looks ordinary. He could be their accountant or insurance salesman. That’s why he’s invisible. If he looked like a monster, one of these women would have been screaming and fighting back. The only way he’s different from the people you see on the street or in the office, or even in church, is that he is killing women, brutally expressing a deep-seated rage against them, and he doesn’t feel any guilt or remorse or fear of going to hell for what he’s doing. He feels only the pleasure he gets from doing it, and that, God help us, is getting better and better.”

Karen paused, taking a deep breath to slow the rush of words. Without thinking, she waved at the smoke clouding the booth. Noticing the gesture, Braden stubbed out his cigarette. Her jacket would smell of smoke, Karen thought. She recognized that, in focusing on such everyday concerns as the smell of secondhand smoke on her clothes, she was clinging to a cozy familiarity. The exercise helped her to continue talking about an act of savagery that mocked humanity’s triumphant crawl out of primeval slime.

“He’s not Superman,” Braden growled,

“No, he’s not Superman, but he’s probably beginning to think he is. He’s getting better at this, Detective. He likes it. He’s getting off on the power trip, the sexual dominance to start with, but also the fact that he’s got the police jumping through hoops. He’s becoming an expert at killing in the most brutal, basic way. He’s beginning to think he’s invincible … that no one can stop him.”

“And he’s not crazy.”

“He’s a sociopath, but he’s not crazy. He hasn’t lost his sense of reality. He knows what he’s doing.”

Braden sipped his coffee, stared toward the men talking in low voices at the bar, started to reach in his pocket for another cigarette and changed his mind. His gaze returned to Karen. His eyes felt hot on her skin.

“You said he’s organized. I know that dichotomy—”

“Don’t try to trick me with big words, Braden,” she said with a wry smile. “I know you think most of this is voodoo.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. Anyway, give me some time on the organized-versus-disorganized part of the profile. I’d like more time to think about it after seeing Natalie Rothleder. I’d rather talk about some other things that puzzle me.”

“Such as?”

“This guy is different. He’s not acting like most serial killers, and I can’t even put my finger on why I say that. Also … how does he choose his victims? Does he know them? Or does he just know this is the one he’s been waiting for when he spots them?”

“They were both coeds. Both young, one blonde and one brunette—”

“Two blondes,” Karen said firmly.

“You’re still sticking to the German connection?”

“There’s no question about it.”

“Mm. One thing about that really bothers me … that he could wait eight years or more.”

“Jeffrey Dahmer waited nine years between his first and second killings,” she said, clearly surprising him. The story of the serial killer who had murdered and mutilated at least seventeen victims in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, practicing cannibalism and necrophilia upon their bodies, had shocked even the most hardened law enforcement officer, but little attention had been paid to the time lag. “He killed his first victim in 1978, and he didn’t kill again until 1987. After that the killings escalated—one a year, then two, on up to at least eight known victims in 1991. It’s unusual, Detective, but it happens.”

Braden was frowning. “You’re good at this, Younger.”

“Karen,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, Karen. So humor me. Give me your scenarios for how he worked it. I mean the two killings here in San Carlos. Start with Edie Foster.”

She tried to put herself inside the killer’s head, feeling uncomfortable but determined. She thought of Foster, picturing the beautiful girl not as she lay facedown in the creek bed in the photos Karen had viewed, but as she was when still alive, dressed in her saucy T-shirt and miniskirt, strolling along the downtown promenade and joining the noisy Friday night celebration at The Pelican.

“We think she was with someone at the coffeehouse that night—they probably drove there together—but he’s not the killer. The killer spotted her when she came out of The Pelican around eleven, eleven-thirty. Her friend joined her outside and they went to the car they were using. They drove back to the Alpha Beta, where they’d left the other car. They talked but the friend didn’t stay—maybe they had an argument. He drove off and she went into the market. The killer saw she was alone now, so he pulled his car over close to hers. When she came out she had a good look at him but he didn’t frighten her. While she was unlocking her door he grabbed her.”

“No groceries on the ground or in her car.”

“He was careful. He overpowered her, threw her into his own car, taped her up and drove her to his pad. I don’t think he kept her in his car for four or five hours. He had someplace to take her, an apartment or a motel room. When he was finished with her it was almost morning. He drove out along the coastal road, made a couple of passes until there were no other cars in sight, then he stopped and dumped her.”

“Before which he bathed her to remove any trace evidence, wrapped her in a painter’s plastic dropcloth and left us nothing to go on. We’re canvassing the motels,” he added.

Karen felt uneasily close to the man she was describing. She thought of him sitting in another booth nearby, listening, smiling to himself.

“What about Natalie? What’s your second scenario?”

She took another deep breath. She stared at the stub of Braden’s cigarette in the ashtray. She could still smell it. She had never smoked, but she wondered if a cigarette would have helped her now.

“He was looking for number two. It had been a week, he had to have that feeling again. He was patient following Edie Foster, working it all out so he wouldn’t make any mistakes, and he took his time with her after he had her. But tonight he was more aggressive. I think he was in the library when she was there, or he was outside watching. He didn’t go there to read a book. He saw Natalie leaving alone, followed her and saw where she was heading. He took a shortcut across campus to get ahead of her. He jumped her somewhere along the way. He had a car close by, or else he hid her in the bushes while he went to get his car. He probably wanted to have her all night, like the other one, but he couldn’t wait.” She paused, briefly reviewing her scenarios and accepting them for what they were—educated guesses. She might be way off the mark. “He took risks both times, Braden, but they were acceptable risks. It was dark, no one else was around, the women didn’t have a chance.”

“Yeah,” Braden said sourly.

“Both times the victims were strangers. He chose them because something about them triggered his anger. He saw something in them, even though they didn’t really look alike, weren’t friends or otherwise connected.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“But they were random choices. They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Maybe. I have a couple other scenarios.”

Karen Younger waited.

“He knew both of them,” said Braden, “and they knew him. That’s why they weren’t scared when he approached one of them late at night in a parking lot, or the other one after she left the library. He also knew his way around the campus. That’s how he got ahead of Natalie Rothleder. He’s not a stranger here.”

“It’s possible,” Karen admitted grudgingly. “I don’t know, Braden, it doesn’t fit …”

“It doesn’t fit because you don’t want it to. It leaves your German girl out of the picture.”

“All right, tell me something else. Why the initials? Is he telling us something?” She leaned closer to Braden, her face flushed. “
Is he picking them by name?
“

“That’s too goofy,” Braden said, taken aback. “You say he’s not crazy. That’s crazy.”

“Unless he’s telling us something.”

“If he is, I don’t know what the hell it is.” He scowled. “He worked it so he could have Edie for hours, but you say he had to have Natalie right here and now. If he’s still in control, how come he changed his approach?”

“I think he lost it a little bit this time, but he’s capable of improvising. He’s learning by doing.”

“On-the-job training.”

“Sort of. He’s smart, and he’s been thinking about this for a long time, fantasizing about it. Maybe in the beginning it was only a
what-if
kind of thing, but he’s been thinking about it ever since that night he killed Lisl Moeller, remembering what it was like, fantasizing about doing it again. He’s had a lot of time to plan how to do it without getting caught. He knows about blood and semen, trace evidence and fingerprints. He knew enough to wash Edie thoroughly. He wasn’t able to do that with Natalie, but I’ll bet the
ME
WON’t find much.”