A Killer's Wife (Desert Plains)

by Victor Methos

  He chuckled. “That isn’t why.”

  “Then why?”

  He smiled. “If I tell you that, you’ll be able to find him, and what kind of bargain would I get then?”

  The van rattled as it hit a speed bump in a quiet neighborhood. Baldwin felt the weight of his gun against his hip, and it took a small effort not to picture shooting Cal in the head.

  “If you really know who it is, you could save us all a lot of time.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  Now Baldwin grinned. “Well, for four months, anyway.”

  The two men didn’t speak again until the van stopped in front of the Olsens’ home. Cal had asked to see both homes, but Baldwin knew there was nothing at the Deans’ anymore. The relatives had repainted it and put in new carpet and furniture, and it was under contract for a sale. On the off chance the new family that had bought it came by, Baldwin refused to let Cal go there. The family didn’t need to see him in their new home, which was supposed to be the beginning of a new life.

  “She’s quite something, isn’t she?” Cal said as the guard got out on the driver’s side.

  Baldwin didn’t respond. He thought back to the invitation, the last one he had received from Yardley while they were dating, to come to Yellowstone with her and Tara. Something Yardley had been looking forward to for months. Baldwin had agreed, but then he’d had a case fall to him a week before they were supposed to leave: a young mother sexually assaulted and strangled in a park while pushing her baby son in a stroller. He’d told Yardley he didn’t want to have the case reassigned and wouldn’t be going on the trip, and he couldn’t understand why it made her upset. It had seemed like such an obvious choice to him. The case had to come first. Only later did he realize what he had lost with his choice. But if he had it to do again, he wasn’t certain he would choose any differently.

  The guard opened the van doors and motioned to Cal, who rose and went over. The guard gripped his arm and helped him down. Baldwin hopped out as the guard checked Cal’s shackles. Ortiz and Yardley pulled up a few minutes later.

  Cal gazed up at the moon. “I only get an hour outside, and it’s in the afternoon. It’s something else to see the moon after so many years. I watched blood gush from the opening in a woman’s throat in the moonlight. They had a skylight in the ceiling of their bedroom. It didn’t appear like blood . . . more like a deep, thick paint. Do you know I never thought to mix their blood with my paints until I was already incarcerated? How wonderful that would’ve been to have those paintings in the world. Of course, Jessica would have burned those, too, I suppose.”

  Yardley and Ortiz approached them. Cal stared at her.

  “You seem cold,” Cal said. “Agent Baldwin, would you please give my wife your jacket?”

  “I’m not your wife. Let’s just get this over with.”

  21

  They made their way up the driveway and to the front door, which Baldwin unlocked. Yardley hated the fact that Cal would be inside the Olsens’ home. It seemed disrespectful somehow, like they hadn’t asked permission and wouldn’t have gotten it if they had.

  Baldwin went in first, followed by Ortiz, Cal, and the guard. Yardley waited a moment and then joined them.

  Cal stood in the living room and looked around. Above the fireplace was a photograph that had been blown up and put on canvas: the Olsens and a six-month-old Isaac. He sat between his smiling parents, his eyes sparkling with wonder. Cal stared at it, then said, “I’d like to see the backyard, please.”

  They went down the hallway and out the back door. Yardley hadn’t been to the backyard. It was large, artificial grass with a small play set in the corner. Palm trees pressed against the fence, their deep-green fronds overhanging the neighbor’s property.

  “You’re wrong, Agent Baldwin,” Cal said.

  “About what?”

  “He didn’t wait in the garage or the laundry room. He would want to watch them. Watch them as they really are. It would be thrilling, wouldn’t it? To know they were about to die and they have no idea? It probably amused him to see them laughing and eating, not knowing it was the last meal they would share together.” He lifted his shackled hands and pointed to the play set. “If he hid under there—it’s perfectly blocked from view on three sides. Unless someone came out here, bent down, and looked, they wouldn’t see him. And even then, he could sprint away over the fence. If he happened to get arrested, all he’d committed was trespassing, and he could make up some excuse about missing his medication that day and getting confused and then pick another family.”

  Baldwin stared at the play set. “Why would you think that’s more plausible than him waiting inside?”

  Yardley said, “Because that’s what he would do.”

  Cal glanced back at her, a grin on his face that told her she was right.

  “How’d he get inside the home from the garage?” Baldwin said.

  “That I don’t know. Alarms weren’t as prevalent in my day. He must have some technical knowledge that allows him to bypass them.”

  “But he set off the alarm to the front door. Why do that when it’s unnecessary?”

  “Maybe he liked watching her scared. An alarm going off and the chaos that ensued afterward would be fun to watch, wouldn’t it? See the fear in Aubrey Olsen’s eyes. It probably sexually aroused him.”

  Yardley didn’t like Aubrey’s name coming from his mouth.

  “I’d like to see the bedroom, please.”

  They went back into the home. The guard held Cal’s arm as they opened the bedroom door, and Baldwin flipped on the lights. Cal stood a moment, perfectly still. He stared at the bloodstains as though he were looking at a piece of sculpture that had caught his eye at a museum. Taking a few steps forward to the foot of the bed, he reached down and touched the mattress.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Baldwin said.

  Cal removed his hand, then closed his eyes and breathed for a few moments. Yardley wondered if he could smell the blood; the scent had still hung in the air like a thin fog when she had been here before.

  “You didn’t include the autopsy reports in the documents you gave me,” Cal said. “Did the husband try to fight? Have cuts over his arms and hands?”

  “Yes.”

  Cal nodded. “He slit his throat first and then woke her up to watch him die.”

  The pathologist had speculated as much. “We already knew that,” Yardley said. “You’re not giving us anything useful.”

  “How about this: he had something around her mouth so she wouldn’t wake up the child.”

  “We didn’t find any ligature marks,” Ortiz said.

  “No, you wouldn’t if something soft was used. Women’s silk underwear, say.”

  Baldwin and Ortiz glanced at each other, and Yardley knew they hadn’t tested all of Aubrey’s underwear for trace evidence.

  Cal looked at Baldwin. “You’re not going to catch him. He has too much experience. Probably a detective or even former FBI. Someone that might’ve been fired for psychological problems.”

  Yardley had thought the same thing but hadn’t told anyone, and it made her uncomfortable that she and Cal might think in a similar way. When they were married, sometimes they would finish each other’s sentences, and the memory almost made her shiver.

  Baldwin said, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Have us turning on each other while you laugh your ass off.”

  “Check her underwear and any silk scarves, stockings, things of that sort. And go out into that play set and search the nook. Let me know what you find.”

  Baldwin motioned to the guard with his head. The guard and Ortiz took Cal out, and Yardley and Baldwin stayed in the bedroom.

  Baldwin stared at the now deeply brown stains on the bed.

  “You didn’t test the underwear, did you?” Yardley said.

  “We had forensics search the drawers, but we didn’t test for DNA. There was no reason to think she’d been gagged, and if
she was, killers usually bring their own. But he’s wrong about this. If the unsub did use something to gag her, he would be smart enough to take it with him.”

  Baldwin opened the drawer to the dresser and looked inside at Aubrey Olsen’s underwear and bras. “I think he knows who did this, Jess. Nothing suspicious in his prison visitor logs, nothing in his correspondence . . . but I think he knows. I can feel it. A copycat wouldn’t just copy his crimes; he’d want to reach out and get Eddie’s approval. And this must be a blast for Eddie. Getting to leave the prison, seeing this . . . spending time with you. I don’t know how long he’s going to play with us before he gives up the name.”

  “If he really does know, he won’t give it up. Not without something in return.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wants to not be executed.”

  Baldwin scoffed as he closed the drawer and looked back at her. “We have no power over that.”

  “He knows that. But he’s hoping for more killings. Right now, no judge or politician would allow his death sentence to be stayed, but a couple more killings, and it’ll put pressure on just the right people to do something about it or catch the blame from the public. Eddie’s hoping people in power will see that letting him live in exchange for helping in this investigation is the lesser of two evils.”

  22

  Yardley was in her office, drafting a warrant on an unrelated case, when she got the text from Baldwin. Expedited testing on all of Aubrey Olsen’s underwear. One pair of black panties tested positive for her saliva and some of Ryan Olsen’s blood. Preliminary field test, so twenty percent chance of false positive, but I think Eddie was right.

  Yardley leaned back in her chair and thought about how to respond. The main question was, Why hadn’t the unsub just taken the panties with him? Most sexual predators, whether a sexual act actually took place or not, needed some memento to relive the experience later, and that seemed like a perfect item to take. It made Yardley question whether this was a sexual predator at all.

  I’ll call you later, she texted.

  She left her office and went across the street to a small diner, where she ordered an egg white omelet with wheat toast to make up for the breakfast she hadn’t eaten.

  She took out her phone and dialed a number she hadn’t dialed in a long time.

  “This is Dr. Sarte,” a male voice said.

  “Daniel, it’s Jessica Yardley with the US Attorney’s Office.”

  “Jessica, how are you? So good to hear from you.”

  “You as well. I hope it’s not a bad time.”

  “Not at all. I’m in between lectures at the moment. How is everything with you?”

  Though Sarte had a special interest in sexual deviance, particularly having to do with violence, he had never once asked her about Cal or her time with him, and she admired him for it.

  “I’m doing fine. Raising a teenage daughter, so you can imagine how that is.”

  “Raised three myself. I promise once they move out and realize how difficult life is on their own, they tend to appreciate you more.”

  “Well, we’ll see. She’s much more intelligent than me. She might be able to succeed without much effort and look down on why I had to work so hard all the time. Anyway, the reason I’m calling—I assume you know I’m involved in this case with Agent Baldwin?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Cason is convinced Eddie Cal knows who the copycat is. I went through his visitor logs for the past fourteen years. He’s had nothing but academics and journalists visit him, and his mail is primarily from the disturbed reaching out to him as a kindred soul.”

  “Perfectly common with serial murderers of his type, particularly the more physically attractive ones such as Cal or Ted Bundy.”

  “I don’t doubt that. But what I need is some insight on why he’s said the only way he’ll help is if I’m involved. I need to figure out what he wants with me and whether he actually knows who the copycat is.”

  “What’s your intuition telling you?”

  Yardley lowered the phone as her food came, and she thanked the waitress. “My intuition is saying he wants to hurt me and doesn’t know anything.”

  “Are you certain you wish to discuss this, Jessica?”

  “I know you’ve been curious and you’ve purposely not asked me anything about it, and I really appreciate that. But I think I’m to the point I need help. I’m feeling . . . I don’t know. Lost around him, I suppose. If that’s the right word. I don’t know what he wants, and I’m afraid it’s just to harm me or my daughter.”

  “It’s certainly possible that would be his motivation. According to his history, he’s been a sexual sadist since his late teens. As far as it pertains to you, however, I’m not sure that fits.”

  “How so?”

  “Was he psychologically manipulative during the marriage? Physically or sexually abusive?”

  “No.”

  “Not once?”

  “Not once. I don’t even remember him raising his voice at me. That was part of what made his arrest so surreal.”

  “Well, if you’re asking my opinion, my opinion is that he’s being manipulative for gain since his execution is on the horizon. He likely knows nothing about these new crimes and is hoping he can strike a bargain before you realize that.”

  “He seems to have some insight into it. He said that the females were gagged so that they wouldn’t wake up the children. Cason had some expedited field tests performed and found a pair of Aubrey Olsen’s underwear with her saliva and her husband’s blood on it. Why do you think the copycat didn’t take that with him? Seems like a perfect memento.”

  “Perhaps he took something else. Some offenders, particularly when they’re in the home at night and there is no fear of anyone discovering them, like to video record their assaults.”

  A chill went down Yardley’s back. The thought of having to watch those videos as part of this case made her nauseated.

  She said, “Let’s just assume, for the sake of argument, that Eddie does have some information that can help us apprehend this man. How would you go about getting this information from him?”

  “There’s only one choice in the matter. Eddie Cal is about to be executed. He would rather die than give the information freely, so you can ignore him and assume he’s being untruthful, or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “Or you can give him what he wants.”

  “Which is?”

  “You.”

  23

  Yardley signaled to the prison guard that she was ready for Cal to be brought in. She sat on the metal chair with her back straight. Sunlight from the single window in the room illuminated the handprints on the glass from visitors. Several of them were from children.

  She had thought all day about what Dr. Sarte had said. Give herself to Eddie Cal to get what they needed from him. It was a long shot that he even knew anything. For him to know who the copycat was, they would have had to correspond, and there was nothing in Cal’s logs to indicate he’d spoken to anyone but academics and journalists. Still, it was an angle that needed to be explored. If next week came around and another family was killed, she would constantly wonder what would’ve happened if she had played Eddie Cal’s game.

  One irritating thought kept pounding away at her, though: What had Sarte meant when he’d suggested she “give herself” to him?

  Cal was led in and sat down. He grinned at her but didn’t say anything until the guard had left.

  “It was nice spending that time with you the other night,” he said.

  “Do you know who it is, Eddie?” she said, ignoring his comment.

  “Maybe.”

  “No, no more games. I’m tired of them. You’re going to tell me what you really want, and I’m going to see if I can get it for you. If you want to play games, I will leave and cut you out of this case completely.”

  “Will you now? And I wonder how you’ll feel when that next couple is shown on the new
s, drained of blood? I can’t imagine that would sit well with you. You always had a soft heart.”

  She sat quietly a moment. There was no use lying to him; out of everyone in her life, only two people had ever been able to see completely through her, to know her inside and out: Tara and Eddie Cal.

  “If another couple dies and I didn’t do everything I could to stop it, it’ll hurt, but it’ll hurt less than continuing to play games with you. I’ll leave and never come back, Eddie. Tell me what you want.”

  He leaned back, his arms resting on his thighs. “Two things, both simple, really. I want to not die, obviously. I want my execution stayed and my sentence commuted to life.”

  “You know I can’t promise that, but I’ll see what can be done. What’s the second thing?”

  “That one’s much easier. I want to see Tara.”

  “No.”

  “It’s nonnegotiable.”

  “Then we’re done here.”

  She rose, and Cal quickly said, “I know who it is.”

  Yardley held her breath, though she hadn’t meant to, and she had to force herself to exhale as she sat back down.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.”

  “We’ve already gone through your mail and visitor logs. He couldn’t have communicated with you.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe he’s in here with me? Maybe he’s a guard?”

  Yardley felt an icy excitement, tempered with disappointment in herself. How had she not thought of that?

  “Or maybe he’s one of the janitors, or one of the contract employees that comes in to repair the air conditioner or replace light fixtures? Or maybe he handles our laundry? The thing is, Jess, you’ll have to check every single employee in this place and then the hundreds of contractors they get bids from for the maintenance and construction and everything else. It’ll take weeks, if not months. And the clock is ticking on that next adorable family.” He leaned forward. “I don’t want to die, and I want to see my daughter. Those aren’t unreasonable requests.”

  Yardley swallowed. “I’ll see what I can do.”