The Girl from Silent Lake

by Leslie Wolfe

  “You’re absolutely right,” Elliot said, “and I apologize. Please go on.”

  He took his seat and settled his hands on the scratched surface of the table. “He came around four, in an SUV, and he just stood there, looking at the water, for a while. Then he started digging. I figured that out later, ’cause when he was doin’ it, it was too dark to see anything from where I was.”

  “Why didn’t you call us then?” Elliot asked.

  “There’s no signal over there, and I didn’t dare to make a sound, afraid he’d hop in that car and drive off. He would’ve heard my truck’s engine; it’s a piece of crap.” He swallowed. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Okay, so what exactly did you see?” Kay asked. “Were you able to see his face?”

  “No, ma’am, sorry. But I saw him take this large bundle out of his car and put it in the ground, right at the crack of dawn. By then it was enough light for me to see that much. I was afraid he’d see my truck, but he didn’t. He drove by only ten, fifteen yards from it and didn’t stop.”

  “What kind of car was he driving?”

  “One of those big, fancy SUVs, new too. Blue, or dark green. But I didn’t see it clearly, and it was still kind of dark when he left. I only saw headlights, vertical and straight before they completely lit up, and I saw the way it shined under the moonlight. It was new, and big.”

  “SUV for sure?” Elliot asked. “Not truck?”

  “No, sir,” he scoffed. “I know what a truck looks like.”

  “How about the brake lights, when he came in?” Kay asked. Since the car industry had embraced LED lights, brands competed to create distinguishable designs in their headlights and brake lights. Back in her FBI days, there used to be a comprehensive database of all vehicles and how they looked in the dark, from all directions.

  “I saw those clearly, ma’am, and they were fancy,” he replied. “Straight and narrow.”

  Elliot gave him a notepad and a pencil, and he sketched what he’d seen in a childlike, stick-figure manner, but it was enough for her use. She made a call, asked a favor and in a few minutes, her phone buzzed with the text message response. Cadillac Escalade.

  Elliot rushed to run a search for locals registered with that particular brand, while Kay thanked Mitchell Pettus for his help and let him go about his business. If they had any more questions, Mr. Pettus would be eager to help.

  Then Elliot returned with a puzzled look on his face.

  “We got zilch, not even one here, but I’m not surprised,” he said. “I ran the search in the entire county, and there are a few Caddies in Redding, but none is an Escalade. Could he have been wrong?” he asked, pointing at the sketch drawn by the witness. “I doubt there’s another vehicle that looks like the Escalade when seen from behind.”

  Or maybe her profile was wrong, and the unsub wasn’t local after all.

  “I’ll ask anyway,” she replied, just as both their phones chimed. She checked her message at the same time Elliot checked his, then their eyes met, puzzled.

  The message was from Dr. Whitmore and read, Positive ID—Alison Nolan. Murder weapon found with the body.

  They hadn’t found her in time. Kay had been too slow, not nearly fast enough to catch up with that monster. And now Alison was gone, and nothing she’d done had been good enough to save her life, while the killer had thrown them another curveball from his sickening playbook.

  “What murder weapon could there be in a manual strangulation?” Kay asked. “Has he changed his MO?”

  Thirty-Two

  Hunter

  Almost the entire sheriff’s department was there, standing, commenting in low voices, anxious to hear what Kay had to say and be gone. Most of them had been pulling double shifts, their faces and their irritable moods showing it. She drew breath sharply, steeling herself. She was ready to deliver the profile.

  Or was she?

  It seemed that the moment she started believing a certain part of the profile was rock solid, that part crumbled and vanished like remnants of a nightmare under the blazing rays of the sun.

  The room fell silent when Sheriff Logan walked in hastily, shooting the wall clock a frustrated glance. It was almost eight in the morning.

  “We’re ready for you, Dr. Sharp.”

  She cleared her throat, surprised at how uncomfortable she was, doing what she’d been doing for the past eight years, delivering suspect profiles and answering questions. “This man is in his mid-twenties to late-thirties, and highly organized,” she started. “He’s technically astute, capable of disabling vehicles quickly and unseen, and erasing GPS information. He leaves nothing to chance. Every aspect of the abduction, murder and disposal of the bodies is carefully planned, thought through in obsessive detail. The burial aspect of his killings is part of his signature, and we consider it highly relevant to identifying and catching this suspect.”

  “We?” one of the deputies asked, smiling crookedly and shooting Elliot a sideways glance. A couple of others snickered.

  “I,” she corrected herself, feeling her cheeks catch fire. “However, Detective Young and I have been working closely together on this case, and I believe he contributed in no small measure to the generation of this profile.” Then she realized she hated being cornered like that, and still remembered she knew better than to let the giggles and bad jokes continue. “Any other questions?” she asked in a firm voice, enjoying the ensuing silence for a moment.

  “Carry on, Dr. Sharp,” Sheriff Logan said.

  She nodded. “We believe the unsub is local, or used to be, and has strong ties with the local Native American community. His knowledge of Native customs is far above average, as is the importance he places on Native rituals, essential to his signature.”

  “Are we assuming he’s white?” a deputy asked, holding her notepad in the air as a journalist would at a press conference.

  “We are,” she admitted, “although the prevalence of white serial killers out of the total number of serial killers in general is barely above fifty percent. However, if we add to these factors the racial makeup of the population in this area, we believe it’s safe to assume he’s Caucasian.”

  “Not Native?” another deputy asked. “If he cares so much about Native stuff, why not?”

  “His signature contains elements of multiple Native cultures, not a specific one, as we would see in the case of a Native American unsub.” She paused for a moment, waiting to see if there were any other questions, then continued. “He crosses racial lines in his abductions, and he is a power-motivated killer. Contrary to what some of you might think, due to the sexual assault aspect, it’s not lust that drives this unsub. He’s gratified exerting power over his victims, and the ritualistic aspects of his signature tell us he could potentially be reenacting a situation from his past, where he was mistreated, abused or made to feel inadequate. He then overpowers, tortures and kills a surrogate for the object of his rage, the woman who’d done him wrong, in fact or in his imagination.”

  “Was the woman Native?” Deputy Hobbs asked.

  “Excellent question,” Kay replied, turning toward him. “We believe it’s a strong possibility, yes. She could’ve been a mother, a sister or a lover. Because we profiled him to be Caucasian, we believe a lover is most likely.”

  “Um, I’m sorry, but that’s not a whole lot to go on,” another deputy said, a pot-bellied man with a handlebar mustache.

  “I’m not finished,” Kay replied. “We have a witness placing him at the dump site of another victim last night, and we believe he’s driving a Cadillac Escalade, blue, or dark green.”

  “That’s more like it,” someone mumbled, and a couple of other people agreed.

  “If you do traffic stops for Escalades, this man will most likely have a Native object on display, a dreamcatcher or something like that. Look for someone successful and composed, someone who’s integrated well into society and seems sure of himself, although, beneath the surface, he is deeply insecure and likely to snap if push
ed. Be very careful approaching; this man doesn’t hesitate to kill.”

  “Is there evidence he’s killed men too?” the female deputy asked.

  “Not that we know of, no,” she replied. “But based on the nature of the attacks on his victims, on the duration and extent of the assaults, we can ascertain he’s easily insulted, and will most likely retaliate for any injury, real or perceived. Remember, with this unsub, it’s all about control, about overpowering his victims, about maintaining the illusion of superiority at all costs. He’s a malignant narcissist, patient, nonchalant, charismatic. And merciless.”

  A moment of silence, then the female deputy asked, “If he’s not driven by lust, do you think he’s, um, what do you think he does to the children he’s holding?”

  Deputy Farrell, per her name tag, apparently couldn’t bring herself to say the words that had been on everyone’s mind.

  “I don’t believe the children are being sexually assaulted, no. First of all, cases when perpetrators have assaulted both adult women and prepubescent children are exceedingly rare. I believe only one has been documented in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Because this unsub assaults his adult victims, it’s safe to assume he doesn’t sexually assault the children.” She breathed, at the same time as her audience did. “There wasn’t any evidence of sexual assault in Tracy Hendricks’s case. Unfortunately, Tracy remains in shock and cannot tell us what happened during her captivity.”

  “Is the SFPD sure she was taken with her mother, then released by the unsub?” Deputy Hobbs asked.

  “That is a strong probability, yes,” she answered. Truth was, there wasn’t any evidence to prove the contrary, and Kay believed Joann Hendricks when she swore Shannon would’ve never abandoned her children. “I believe these children play some kind of role in the unsub’s fantasy, but Tracy Hendricks didn’t show any signs of physical trauma, sexual or otherwise.”

  “Do you think he’ll release Hazel Nolan, Alison’s daughter, like he did Tracy?” Deputy Farrell continued to ask interesting questions She was probably one of the smartest in the group.

  “It’s a possibility we have to consider, but can’t count on,” Kay replied. “Don’t forget, Matthew Hendricks, Shannon’s five-year-old son, is still missing since November of last year, and we also have no IDs yet for the two bodies found yesterday at Silent Lake.” She stopped short of voicing her concern. Maybe other children were missing, children they had no idea about. Hopefully, soon they’d know. “As far as the children are concerned, the profile is far from complete. But we have advised SFPD and Atlanta police to be on the lookout for Hazel.”

  “Why Atlanta? Do you think he’ll take Hazel there?” Deputy Hobbs asked. “That seems rather extreme.”

  “He took Tracy to San Francisco, and we can’t be sure he chose that city because that’s where he operates, that’s where he returns their vehicles, or because that’s where Tracy was from. But the search for the missing children must continue as a top priority,” she added, looking at Sheriff Logan.

  The sheriff nodded, looking grim. “We’ll do everything in our power to locate these children,” he said. “Double shifts will continue until further notice, and we have neighboring counties pitching in with people and dogs. The FBI has deployed two CARD teams, one in San Francisco and one in Atlanta, and we are coordinating with them. But it’s our turf, people, our backyard. You know it better than anyone else. Think of what you know. Where could he be hiding those kids? Who has a cabin in those woods and matches this profile?”

  The deputies started to fidget and huddle closer to the exit, waiting for a sign from the sheriff.

  “One more thing,” Kay said, raising her voice a little, to cover the growing chatter. “The answer to finding this man is in the way he hunts. Where does he see his victims? How does he get close to them? How can he take them without anyone being the wiser? Look for anyone who doesn’t belong, who lingers, who seems to wander without a specific task at hand.”

  “Tourists have started to pour in since first snow,” Deputy Farrell said. “They’ll all be wandering around soon. How can we tell the suspect from innocent tourists?”

  “He’ll linger, but seem edgy,” Kay replied. “He’ll have a cold look in his eyes and tension in his jaw. He’ll be alone, not with family. And when you make eye contact with him, you’ll feel an uneasiness, something unfurling in your gut. That’s your instinct, telling you you’re in the presence of a homicidal sociopath, a predator. A hunter.”

  Thirty-Three

  Bloodthirst

  He’d cut the first slice of cake and everyone cheered. He smiled and gracefully accepted the help of a coworker who took the knife from his hand and portioned the rest of the cake quickly, putting each slice on a Styrofoam plate and handing it out to their colleagues in the Forensic Services Division of the San Francisco Police Department.

  He tasted the cake, savoring the feeling of family, of appreciation, of being valued. It was his second-year work anniversary; SFPD celebrated work anniversaries, not always people’s birthdays, especially when said people didn’t want their age or birthdate to become common knowledge.

  He savored the creamy wedge to the last crumble and smear of icing on his plastic spoon, while his smile slowly waned.

  “Want some more?” his helpful colleague asked.

  “No, thank you,” he replied, his eyes cold again, his smile completely gone. “I believe I’ve had enough.”

  And that was true from more than one perspective. He’d been a forensic scientist for two years and he’d had enough.

  It was a dead-end job.

  He’d learned all the systems that the SFPD Forensic Services Division team members used, their procedures, how they handled evidence and what they looked for in a murder investigation. He’d learned how quickly such investigations progressed, and where they got stumped and turned into cold cases, piled up in virtual basements, never to be solved. He’d identified all the limitations of the system, and realized all those movies and TV shows where people obsessed over a beetle, and turned in full tox panels or a bunch of DNA samples only to have the results returned to them the very next day were nothing but fiction. In reality, most investigators had piles of cases to work on, details slipped through the cracks all the time and beetles were rarely paid any attention to, unless one would venture on a wall somewhere, bother someone and quickly be killed with a swat of a handy object. DNA and full tox panels were costly and took a lot of time, and the brass frowned on indiscriminate use of departmental budgets. They preferred suspects rounded up and interrogated, fingerprints analyzed, and little else done. And little else was ever done, especially because a bunch of other cases would immediately pile up on top of the existing ones while the fierce fight for resources and time continued.

  Only sixty-one percent of murder cases got solved. Smart killers never got caught.

  Now he knew.

  It was time to move on.

  He was suffocating there, enduring the attitude of everyone, a mix of entitlement and arrogance that stepped on his nerves so often he could barely make it through the day, although he was appreciated, as attested by the fresh cake with custom messaging he’d just enjoyed. He was the first to volunteer to go to crime scenes, the gorier the better, and his coworkers were grateful to skip the fieldwork. Seeing the spilled blood of countless victims calmed his frayed nerves. If he let his imagination run, and if the victim was just right, he could pretend he’d been the one who stabbed her. Strangled her. Shot her. Drowned her. Vicariously, while examining untouched crime scenes, he could feel what the killer must’ve felt, the rage, the compulsion, the unbearable urge to take the life laid in front of him begging for mercy and getting none, and the earth-shattering release that came at the very end.

  It was time to move on, and the direction to take was not that difficult to figure out. During his two years as a criminalist, he’d met all sorts of people from various walks of life, from hourly workers to businessp
eople, from doctors to engineers, but no one wielded more power than the people of the law.

  All this time, the only people he’d seen driving Cadillacs were lawyers, and he was going to become one. The best, most powerful lawyer in the state, maybe one day in the entire country. As a lawyer, people’s lives would be neatly tucked in the palm of his hand, from where he could set them free or close his fist around them and extinguish their life force slowly, in endless agonies spent behind bars, caged like animals. As a lawyer, he’d discover all the secrets of those who put people like him on death row. And he knew he had it in him to succeed. The gods would smile on him from above, because he was ruthless enough to open a path for himself without hesitation or remorse.

  But first, he had to go back to school for a few years, and it would be tricky. Law school wasn’t the kind of degree one could get while working a full-time job. But the gods didn’t let him down and smiled immediately, a wide grin in the form of a cocaine bust that came with a trunkload of cash in ten-grand bundles, shrink-wrapped together in hundred-thousand stacks. He kept his greed in check and detoured only one hundred grand from the bust, while his colleague was relieving herself at a gas station, after apologizing profusely for her urgent call of nature. Of course, the fact that her coffee had been spiked with a couple of water pills was not something she’d ever become aware of.

  He’d been carrying the diuretic with him for a while, and other pills too, because gods always smiled on people who were prepared and always ready to seize opportunity.

  A few weeks later, he announced he was going back to school, and retained part-time status with the Forensic Services Division. After all, seeing the occasional crime scene was helpful to keep his urges in check, and it was nice to access all the systems while learning how to become an attorney, how to dismantle the evidence found in them. It was like playing for both teams, prosecution and defense. He always won.