by Kay Hooper
Only last night.
They all stared at the board in silence for several moments, each gaze studying the faces one at a time, all looking for something, anything, that would offer even a nudge in the right direction. And it was Hollis who got it first.
“He’s alternating. Female, male, female, male—female.”
Mal frowned. “You think it’s deliberate?”
“Statistically significant,” Cullen said. “Five victims gives us a pretty good pattern.”
“So . . . if somebody else got a call today, a little while ago, it’s likely to be a man?”
“I’d say the odds favored it.”
DeMarco, watching his partner now, said, “What is it?”
“I’m just wondering if we’re being irresponsible in not warning people about that text,” she replied. “From staged accidents through to obvious murders, it’s been the one constant. That he contacts them, on their cell phones, at three o’clock, always from a disposable cell, and always leaves the same text message. A message that isn’t a clear warning or threat, and isn’t likely to be taken as either unless people know about it.”
DeMarco turned his head to look at the sheriff. “What do you think, Mal? How would the people of Clarity react?”
“Panic, probably.” He was frowning. “But I’ve been wrestling with it myself. We put out an emergency alert or warning to everyone with a cell, chances are about a hundred percent that the unsub gets it as well. So then what? I have a town full of panicked people—and a killer who would very likely change the way he warns or tries to scare his victims, stop warning them at all—or send out a lot of texts to a lot of people just to muddy the waters and slow us down.”
“You have been wrestling with it,” Hollis noted. “Those are very good possibilities.”
“Yeah. And I still don’t have an answer.” He looked around the table hopefully. “Anybody else?”
It was Kirby who said, “The fact of the text messages doesn’t really help us, right? I mean, help us identify the unsub. We can’t trace the calls. We don’t know about the texts, don’t know who gets one, until we find a body. If we tell everybody to be alert for a text, chances are we scare a lot of people, maybe alert somebody who got a text today at three—and put the unsub on notice. That’s assuming he uses in his supposedly normal everyday life a personal cell phone able to receive emergency alerts, and he may not. Lots of people go month-to-month or use disposables. He may not get the sheriff’s warning. Or he might. And if he does, he could decide not to kill tonight if he did have a victim chosen. Or he probably thinks of another way to warn them or scare them or whatever it is he’s trying to do.”
“Why?” Hollis asked, looking at her intently. “Why look for another way?”
Kirby was blank for an instant, then said, “He has to warn them. It’s part of his game. Part of his signature. Something not necessary to the murders.”
She might not have taken the profiler courses, Hollis thought, but it was clear the younger agent had more than a passing familiarity with, or simply an instinct for, the process of profiling and what to look for. Inwardly, she gave a tip of the hat to Bishop, who really did seem to have an excellent instinct or sense for which agents would or would not be assets to the Special Crimes Unit. He was definitely not a man to judge a book by its cover.
“Go on. Why?” Hollis repeated, this time with just a trace of a smile.
“Because . . . it isn’t for us. It isn’t even really for the victims, at least so far, because they don’t know it’s serious, just like you said. The victim doesn’t know it’s a deadly warning, so it’s more likely to inspire impatience or puzzlement than fear. And we don’t know about the text, about who gets one, until we find a body. So it has to be for him. It has to mean something to the unsub. Otherwise why go to all the trouble?”
Hollis nodded. “It makes sense to me. The text messages have to mean something to the unsub, and whatever it is, it’s not about fear. Not about the victims being afraid, at least. His text message lacks a specific threat, so why would they feel threatened? They wouldn’t. So what happens if we effectively take that away from him? We tell the public, and because the text and the murder have so far been hours apart, chances are good that anyone receiving that text today would know it is a threat, and would call or come here and report it immediately.”
DeMarco said, “Bound to be some pranksters. Probably a lot among the kids, especially in high school.”
Slowly, Hollis said, “He hasn’t killed a kid. So far, the youngest victim is Perla.”
“The women have all been younger than the men,” Cullen offered. “Twenty-three, twenty-six, and twenty-eight. The two men were thirty and sixty. Am I crazy or is that a really wide range?”
“For the men, definitely,” Hollis said. “The women all being in their twenties could mean something. They could be surrogates for a woman he really wants to kill.”
“Then why kill men too?” Mal asked.
“So we don’t guess who he’s really after, maybe.” Hollis stared at the evidence board, her gaze studying the female victims. “Watching crime shows on TV could have taught him that much. Hell, the news could have; we’ve had at least a few serials and mass killers over the years who killed several people to hide the murder that really mattered to them. So maybe he’s hiding his intended victim in a crowd. Men—and women. Two blondes and a redhead.”
Mal said, “Perla was a bottle redhead.”
“She matched top and bottom,” Hollis said matter-of-factly. “That was clear at the autopsy.”
“Yeah, she would.”
Hollis looked at him, brows rising.
“Everybody knew,” he said hastily. “She has three sisters, one blond and two brunette, and if any of them color their hair they haven’t flaunted it the way Perla did. She was somewhere between blond and brunette in high school. Didn’t go red until she married Joe. The talk of the wedding was her hair and her shoes.”
“Like glass slippers,” Hollis said.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact. Dunno if they were glass, but you could see through them. And she’d had every toenail painted a different color.”
Kirby murmured, “Not exactly a shrinking violet.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Mal said. “The third subject of gossip that day was her dress. Sort of . . . defied gravity, if you know what I mean.”
Hollis and Kirby exchanged glances, and it was Kirby who said dryly, “Yeah, we know. The wedding-dress designs of the last few seasons have really made the rounds of social media. It seems clear designers have forgotten how to make sleeves. Or support for breasts, especially generous ones. And also share an apparently common desire to show off every inch of breast that isn’t nipple.”
Mal looked more sheepish than embarrassed. “Yeah, there was a betting pool among most of the male guests as to when that top part was going to give way.”
“Did you win?” DeMarco asked with a faint smile.
“I did not bet,” Mal said with great dignity. And promptly ruined that by adding, “I did pay very close attention, however.”
Hollis half laughed. Gallows humor of a sort. Every cop she’d ever worked with used some variation of it from time to time during an investigation to distract the mind from horrors seen. “Did anybody win?”
“No, that dress defied gravity even when she danced. And she danced the way all the Fergusons do: energetically. But I think some of the men felt guilty betting; I heard later that the pot went into the next Sunday’s collection basket at our largest Baptist church.” His smile died. “I hadn’t remembered all that until just now. Perla gave Joe hell, and she could be a pain in the ass, but she was also a lot of fun to have around most of the time.”
“Sounds like it,” Hollis murmured. “There are worse epitaphs to have.”
“I guess. But she was too young. They’re alwa
ys too young when somebody just . . . takes away their lives. Their futures.”
“Yes,” Hollis said. “They are.”
—
HE LURKED, SOMETHING he was very good at. They didn’t see or hear him, he made sure of that. He also made sure he was close enough to hear the conversation going on in the rather small morgue in the basement of Clarity’s one hospital.
Sam Norris, Dr. Easton’s assistant, photographer, and possible lover, was sitting at a computer, scrolling through some very graphic autopsy photos. “You sure you want all these printed out?” he asked without taking his attention from the screen. He was a man of average size and average looks—except for a pair of very sharp gray eyes and a pair of very distinct dimples that appeared when he smiled. And he smiled a lot whenever the doctor was in.
Jill Easton emerged from a little alcove off to one side, wiping her freshly washed hands on a couple of paper towels. “Yeah, all of them. I don’t know about the sheriff, but feds always want every single detail I can give them.” She was an attractive blonde, slender enough that people were always surprised at how easily and efficiently she handled the literal dead weight of bodies.
“I printed out the other shots you wanted and put them in the folders,” he told her. “From what few other remains we’ve had to examine.”
“Good. More details for them. Make sure your camera is charged up. I sort of doubt we’ll find anything worth finding in the attic of the Cross house, but the consensus seems to be that her killer could have been hiding up there at some point, with or without Perla, so the entire attic is now considered a part of the crime scene.”
“Jeez, we’ll be up there half the night.”
“It’s not even four o’clock.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, just print out the autopsy photos, will you? We’ll drop them off at the sheriff’s department and pick up the fed who’s going to be . . . assisting us.”
“They think we need our hands held?” Sam demanded, clearly about to work up some righteous indignation.
“No, while we look for any physical evidence, this fed is apparently going to be looking for signs of behavior.”
He looked at her, brows raised. “A profiler?”
“So I gather. We’ve found shit for evidence so far, and given that, I don’t blame the sheriff a bit for calling in investigators who look at killings from a different perspective.”
“Have we ever worked with a profiler before?”
“Not that I know of. Though they don’t always tell us anything other than the fact that they’re FBI agents. I was actually pretty surprised that Hollis and Reese turned up this morning for the post on Perla Cross.”
“Me too. They didn’t seem too grossed out,” he offered.
“No, I’m guessing this is far from their first murder investigation or their first autopsy.”
Sam slid his chair over to the printer and pulled out a stack of photos. “Well, they can all pore over these for a while if they want. Which fed is coming with us to the Cross house?”
“Cullen.”
“Wonder why he got the short straw?” Sam mused, but not as if he expected an answer. He got up and went to gather his part of the CSI equipment they used while Jill gathered up photos and files and grabbed her own bag.
“Ready?”
“Yeah, let’s go. I’d as soon not spend any more time than we have to in that house. Place is creepy.”
“Some places just are.”
“Yeah, but to be really creepy—”
The door closed behind them, cutting off whatever Sam thought was necessary for true creepiness.
The lurker waited for a few moments just to be safe, then emerged into the room and went straight to the wall of very specialized freezers. It was a small town, so there were only eight perfectly square doors.
He got it right with his first guess, and smiled as he reached into the freezer to get what he’d come here after.
—
DEMARCO GAVE THE subject deserving of respect at least half a minute, then said, “Well, whether her killer knew Perla Cross was naturally a blondish brunette or thought she was a redhead, it doesn’t appear that hair color matters to him. The first two women killed were both blondes.”
“Still possibly surrogates,” his partner said. “Especially if he did know Perla’s real hair color and considered it more blond than brunette.”
“True. And they have more in common than the two male victims, in age and general appearance. Attractive women in their twenties. If they are surrogates, it means that either he isn’t ready yet to go after the woman he really wants to kill, or she’s somehow beyond his reach. Maybe both. A woman he believes hurt him or abandoned him or somehow destroyed his life. And he wants payback.” DeMarco paused, then added, “You know, given the way Perla was killed, with absolutely no attempt made to make it look like an accident, it’s possible she was the one he was after all along.”
Mal said hopefully, “Then no more victims?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, not if he’s as smart and careful as he’s seemed up to now. By making Perla Cross’s death very obviously a murder, he’s gone off-script. If he stopped with her, it would be almost as good as a confession, a neon sign pointing at her, and we’d be turning her life upside-down looking for someone who wanted to kill her.”
“She’s the one I really hated,” Hollis murmured. “The one I really wanted to kill.”
“Then he has to kill again?” Mal shook his head. “I’ve gotta say, I’m leaning toward a public announcement about the texts. And I’d just as soon get it out well before dark.”
Cullen asked, “How are you set up for that kind of emergency announcement?”
“Ironically, the first step is a text on every cell phone reachable by the two cell towers and enabled to receive text alerts. Cheap disposables or those on some prepaid plans aren’t always enabled—but unless you’re alone, you’re going to hear a lot of other people’s phones going off around you, and not with normal ringtones but with clear alert signals. There are emergency weather alerts, Amber Alerts, that sort of thing. This one would read something like: Sheriff’s Department Alert: If you or anyone you know receives a text message that reads “Wait for dark,” report it immediately to the sheriff’s department or nearest deputy. Your life could be in danger.”
Hollis winced. “Well, that’s blunt enough.” She held up a hand when Mal would have spoken, adding, “I know, I know. They have to know the text is a serious threat, or most would shrug it off.”
Cullen was clearly thinking along other lines. “How do you reach the places farther out, beyond range of those towers?”
“Landlines came first, and for the outlying homes and farms, they’re still used. We have a list of every number and notify them the old-fashioned way, one at a time, with everybody I’ve got manning the phones.”
Cullen opened his mouth, then frowned.
Mal answered the unasked question. “Pretty much every person in Clarity over the age of eight has a cell phone, even those who live outside the range of the towers. The kids go to school, the parents and workers come into town, and that’s when they use the cells.”
“I’m guessing if you don’t get an answer on a landline—”
“I send a deputy out,” Mal said with a nod. “Or ask a neighbor we can contact to pass the word along. It sounds unwieldy, but it’s worked pretty well for us.”
“Sounds like,” Cullen agreed.
Hollis looked at the big clock above the door and said, “Maybe you’d better get started on that emergency alert.”
“Right.” The sheriff pushed back his chair and left the conference room, headed toward what the agents had already noticed was a fairly elaborate communications center.
“You’re frowning,” DeMarco noted to his partner.
Just as quietly, Cullen said, “Nothing unexpected. Nothing new. Why?”
Instead of answering that, Hollis looked at Kirby and lifted a brow.
Kirby sighed. “The people gawking at that elevator shaft were feeling all kinds of things, but what I’ve been getting mostly today has been the horror of Perla Cross’s murder.”
“So the details are out.”
“Listen, when I woke up not long after dawn this morning, I knew the details had gotten out. The first shock is wearing off, and now people are jumpy as hell. Which means I am. I swear, if somebody had yelled boo at me anytime today, you’d have had to peel me off the ceiling.”
“You’ve hidden that pretty well. But I guess I don’t have to suggest you keep working on those shields,” Hollis said dryly.
“Oh, no. I’m working on the shields almost continuously. Mostly when I’m sitting down, though. Because the problem is, when I’m really concentrating on trying to strengthen my shields, I’m lucky if I can walk in a straight line at the same time.”
“Which is why Emma had to almost lead you back here by the arm?”
“Pretty much, yeah. She thought the elevator accident scene upset me, and it seemed easier to just let her believe that. I thought I had a pretty good shield, but . . . Is it the same way for you guys, not being able to concentrate on blocking the really strong stuff and still function normally otherwise? Because none of you look like you’ve had to make an effort.”
“We’ve been at it longer,” DeMarco said. “And for some of us, our shields had to be in place very early on, out of necessity. Whether we were born with our abilities or had them triggered, not having a shield would have been too dangerous.”
“I can testify to that,” Hollis said wryly, and added to Kirby, “I had no shield. At all. For years. And I broadcast, especially when I was upset. Well, I still do that sometimes, which you already know. And I’m still working on strengthening my shield. So I can sympathize.”
