Touching Evil (2 page)

Cam waved away his concern.  The call might not have followed the usual channels, but he was glad the sheriff had contacted him.  Special Agent in Charge Maria Gonzalez had given him the green light for the response.  “Under the circumstances, protocol is the last of my worries.”   

Mason Vance was a sadistic sexual deviant he’d arrested just days earlier on eight counts of kidnapping, seven counts of rape and six counts of murder.  Dr. Sophia Channing, the forensic psychologist consulting on the case had been Vance’s latest kidnap victim.   And as Cam watched Benally’s assistants zipping up the body bag he couldn’t shake the thought that Sophie had escaped a similar fate only through sheer guts and cunning.  The thought had his gut twisting.

Feinstein slipped his hands in his uniform pants pockets.  “This one wasn’t found in a rural cemetery buried on top of a burial vault, but do you think…is it possible she was one of Vance’s victims?”

“I’ll let you know after I talk to the ME.”  He looked around.  “Where are the kids who reported this?”

“Back at the road, out of the way.  The parents are anxious to get them home.  I told them to hang around until one of your agents interviewed them.  They’re pretty shaken up, but hey, it was a gruesome scene.  And they’re kids.  The big one, Jonah Davis seems to be the steadiest.”  The sheriff grimaced.  “Turned away about fifty cars after we’d secured the outer perimeter.  Must have had a helluva party planned.”

“I’ll get to them in a few minutes,” Cam promised.  First though, he needed to speak to Benally.

“Prescott,” she greeted him without preamble as he approached her.  “Somehow it’s not surprising to find you where it’s damp and dark.”

“Ah, the famed Benally wit,” he shot back mildly.  “Immature, and yet…not funny.”

“I’m hilarious.”  She stood then, nodded to her assistants who lifted the body bag onto a stretcher and began the careful transfer through the woods to the ME vehicle on the road above.  “I do stand up comedy in my free time.”  She watched the progress of the stretcher until it entered the woods and then switched her focus to Cam.  “You want to know if there’s a chance this one is related to the first six victims.”

But the fact that she’d taken charge of the body already gave him that answer.  “Dammit to hell.”  He tracked the stretcher’s progress with his gaze until the woods engulfed it.  “There were no other missing person’s reports matching Vance’s MO.”  The offender had targeted wealthy single women primarily for their looks and bank accounts, and he’d cast a wide net, hunting both in and out of state.  Each victim had last been seen withdrawing a large amount of cash from her bank.

The next time the women had been seen was when Benally had extracted them from shallow graves.

“Then this body can’t possibly be related to the others.”  Lucy tossed her long dark braid over her shoulder and peeled off her gloves.

Cam gave a mental sigh.  “Quit toying with me, Benally.  What’d you find?”

She looked up at him.  Way up.  What the woman lacked in stature she made up for in attitude.  Way overcompensated in that area, to Cam’s way of thinking, but she was usually worth the aggravation she caused him.

“I’m going to have to get her in the lab and take a better look,” she began.  

Cam was used to the hedging.  To the ME, perfectionism wasn’t a character trait, it was an art.  

“This body differs from the other six in one significant way.”  The woman waited a beat for impact.  “It was embalmed.”

The news rocked him.  “Embalmed?  Are you sure?”

It was the wrong question to ask.  Benally’s gaze narrowed.  “I’d have to be a moron to miss it. Is that what you’re suggesting, Prescott?”

Suddenly his tie felt too tight. It was a common reaction in the woman’s presence.  “It’s just a surprise.  None of the other bodies were.  So maybe this one isn’t related at all.”

The ME’s face was grim.  “That’s what I thought until I turned her over. There are injuries visible on her shoulder that may turn out to be consistent with cigar burns.”

He reached up to rub the back of his neck.  “Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.”  Lucy’s face was grim.  “No way could I make out a wound pattern, but maybe when I get her back to the autopsy suite.  The only thing I can say with any certainty is that she’s been dead for months.”

Vance had numbered his victims, branding them with lit cigars.  Cam had recently discovered the man’s first victim, a woman named Rhonda Klaussen, still alive.  She claimed to have been kept chained in the offender’s basement.  They were still checking out her story, but Sophie thought Vance might have practiced his atrocities on Klaussen as he evolved.  The six bodies in the cemeteries had borne numbers ranging from ten to fifteen.  Klaussen bore similar wounds in the shape of a one.

Which left a lot of numbers unaccounted for.  And explained the nasty tangle of nerves in his gut.

“Sophia was the one who figured out Vance’s system.  I’ll invite her to the lab when I’m ready with this one.”

“No.”  He ignored the warning signs in Lucy’s darkening expression.  The woman didn’t take kindly to the word.  Cam didn’t particularly care at the moment.  “Dr. Channing is no longer a consultant on this case.”

Benally braced her fists on her hips.  “Well, shit, Cam, she wrote the damn victimology report.  I think if this victim turns out to be related to the others, Sophia’s the best-equipped to figure out how she links to this case.”

“We’ll see.”  His answer was noncommittal.  But his objection wasn’t.  Sophie was still healing from the trauma she’d been through.  He wasn’t going to compound that trauma by yanking her back into the center of this case again.  “Keep me posted.”

With the aid of his Maglite he walked across the clearing and made his way up the steep embankment and into the woods.  When he exited them, he played the light over the people and cars still gathered there.  Right away he picked out the kid Jackson had mentioned.

Jonah Davis was sitting facing the road in the open back passenger door of a car. After a few words to the kid’s father, Cam approached the kid and led him through the story he’d already told a half dozen times tonight.

Listening without interruption, Cam waited until Jonah had run down.  “See that red-haired agent over there?”  Cam pointed to where Jenna Turner was questioning another teenage boy who looked considerably more shaken up.  

“Yeah, I’ve noticed her.”  Jonah gave Cam a wink, man-to-man.  “Walking hard on material, am I right?”  

Cam fixed him with a steely look.  Waited for the kid to visibly quail before continuing. “She’s a DCI agent.  She’s also a forensic artist.  If you got a good look at the guy, she’ll be able to use your descriptions to draw a sketch.”  He took a folded up piece of paper from the inside breast pocket of his suit coat.

Shaking it open, he passed it to Jonah.  “Agent Turner did this one a couple weeks ago with a witness we interviewed up in Edina.”

The kid stared at the composite drawing, mouth hanging open.  “But…but…that’s him!  The zombie lover guy!”  Mr. Davis swiveled in the front seat, a concerned look on his face.  

“Settle down, Jonah.  It’s okay.”

“No, Dad, this is the guy we saw.”  Jonah stabbed his index finger at the sketch. “I got a really good look at him.  Not so much the woman, at least not until the end.  But this is the guy, I swear it.”

With a sense of bleak resolve Cam took the sketch from him and tucked it away.  Gave the kid’s father the okay to take Jonah home, after eliciting a promise to bring him in for a formal interview the next day.  Jenna could individually interview the other two kids tomorrow to do sketches, which could then be compared to the one he’d shown Jonah.

But given the boy’s response, there was little doubt what the outcome would be.

He walked a few feet away and called Micki Loring, the DCI agent he had stationed with Sophie in his absence.  “We’ve got reason to believe that the man identified by the Edina Chief of Police as Vance’s accessory was seen revisiting another victim tonight,” he told her tersely.  “How is Dr. Channing?”  A little of the tension seeped from his body at Loring’s response.  “Good.  She doesn’t have to know about this.”  Maybe Loring would stand up better to Sophie’s gentle probing than he did.  He could hope.

Not for the first time he wondered if he should have arranged Sophie’s protective custody to be overseen by another agent.  But Cam knew he’d never entrust her safety to anyone else.  Not when they’d discovered Vance hadn’t been working alone.

Not while Vance’s partner was still free.  When the man had every reason to go after the only surviving victim who could provide the testimony that would put Vance away for good.

*  *  *  *

Sonny clung tightly to the branch he was perched on, peering through the leaves at the scene below through night vision binoculars.  Once he’d chased off those kids he’d wasted no time.  He’d left his Janice—sweet, quiet Janice—and run for the car he’d hidden half a mile down the road.  After circling around, he’d stashed it a couple miles away and hiked back into the woods. But he hadn’t dared get too close because he knew those damn kids would never keep their mouths shut.  And he’d been right.

A sheriff’s car had been on the scene when he’d returned, but within an hour the woods were lit up with LED bars, flashlights and spotlights, with at least two-dozen people milling around.  And all of them interested in Janice.  Lovely, lovely Janice.

Goodbye, my love.  

The thought of losing her wrenched something inside his chest, made it go tight and hot, like an iron vise that wouldn’t let him breathe, or feel or think.  It was better this way.  The thought punched through the tension.  Better cops than if those fucking kids had gotten more kids to come and look…  At least the cops would treat Janice with respect.  

They’d take her away forever.

His breathing went ragged and fast, the way it did before he got light-headed and dizzy.  Once he’d even fallen and hit his head when he’d breathed like that, and he didn’t want that now.  Not when he was sitting in a damn tree.  He’d break his neck.  And wouldn’t Vance be pissed, then?

He giggled, muffling the sound against his shoulder.  Vance could go fuck himself.  Or maybe someone was doing that for him, since the man was currently sitting in jail while Sonny was free as a bird.  Who was the brains now?

Sobering, he studied the sight below with renewed interest.  He hadn’t intended to see Janice after tonight in any case.  It’d been too long, and it was past the time he should have allowed himself with her.  He ignored the pang that accompanied the thought.  He’d been weak where she was concerned, but she’d been his favorite.  So gentle and
quiet.  
And she’d pleaded so sweetly at the end.  No screams or struggles that would have only delayed the inevitable.  

If he had a wife, Sonny imagined she’d be a lot like Janice, unassuming and giving.  Always soft-spoken.  

At that moment he was tempted to forget all about Vance, forget the plan and slip out of the state.  He could start over by himself.  Choose a real wife and take her away somewhere secluded to live where it would be just the two of them.  No muscle-bound Vance calling the shots.  No Mommy whispering in his ear, telling him what to do.  He could hear her voice now, as clear as if she were sitting on the branch beside him.  

Get the woman.  Do it now.  

“Shut up, Mommy,” he murmured, staring hard through the night vision binoculars.  But her voice never shut up, at least not for long.  Except for the time Sonny had wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, until her eyes had bugged and her lips had turned blue.  She’d gone very still.  She’d been quiet for a long, long time then.  Years.

But she hadn’t stayed gone.  She hadn’t stayed quiet.

A bat launched out of the tree next to his, did a slow lazy loop before zooming off to hunt for dinner.  Mommy’s voice sounded, more insistent this time.  
Get Channing. Do it now.  
 

Channing was Vance’s problem.  The kids were Sonny’s.  It had been dark on the banks of the river, but they’d had a flashlight.  How close a look had they gotten at him?  Good enough to describe him to one of the cops below?  He had to be cautious.  First thing tomorrow he’d get his hair cut and then buy one of those do-it-yourself dye kits.  Grow facial hair, wear some clear lens glasses and a ball cap…he was practiced at the art of deception.   The kids wouldn’t be a problem.  But the cops…

He’d stuffed the condom in his pocket while chasing those fucking kids.  He checked, discovered it was still there.  He hadn’t worn gloves with Janice, but what could they get prints from?  

He craned his neck to focus on the female in the center of the activity around Janice.  She’d fascinated him since first arriving on the scene.  Too often cops and other workers in the area had concealed her crouched form.  She seemed to be directing things, gesturing to nearby helpers to bring her items or to bend down beside her for a moment.

But mostly she worked alone, her activities sometimes hidden by the constant movement of cops in the perimeter around Janice.  Something about the small female drew his attention.  Demanded it.

She wore a long dark braid that she nudged impatiently over her shoulder whenever it fell forward.  But it wasn’t her appearance he noted.  It was her manner as she tended Janice.

Respectful.  As tender as she would have been with a newborn.  Watching her, it was easy to forget the cops, forget the kids who were surely somewhere in the area spilling their story.  All of his attention was zeroed on the dark haired woman below.  And the longer he watched her, the more Sonny became certain that she
got
it.  

To most people—Vance for instance—dead was dead.  Get rid of a woman and move on to a new one.  But Sonny knew.  Dead was only dead after they were buried.  Deep in the ground, where daylight wouldn’t penetrate or weighted down in cold dark waters.  He chose all the women’s graves himself, and his favorites—like Janice—got special treatment.  Sonny knew that the reason Mommy had come back was because he hadn’t buried her.  He’d left her body on the floor and run away and that was the reason she was in his head now.  Sometimes even standing at his shoulder, or talking from across the room, the mean still in her eyes even when she kept it from her voice.