by Blake Pierce
didn’t he even try to hide it?”
“He obviously wasn’t trying to hide the fact that a murder had taken
place,” she replied slowly. “And no matter why he killed her, after she was
dead, the victim meant nothing to him.”
Dr. Arau had been listening intently. Now he chimed in. “He had to figure
that it didn’t matter if the body was found. So he must have been confident
that no one would see any connection between him and the victim.”
“Right,” Jake said. “Now, perhaps you’d let us have a look at the body.”
“I’d be glad to,” Paco said.
He led Jake and Riley to the morgue, where he pulled open a stainless
steel drawer to reveal a woman’s naked, mangled body.
Riley let out a gasp and turned away.
Jake could understand her horror.
Most of the woman’s abdomen was gone, revealing fragments of internal
organs and exposed ribs. Even some of her vertebrae were visible through the
tangle of viscera. And of course, the stench was terrible.
Most noticeable of all, though, was the sheer, bloodless pallor of the
victim’s skin.
Riley was still turned away, leaning against an empty table. Jake could
hear her gasping and swallowing hard to keep from vomiting.
At first, Jake wasn’t especially shaken by what he saw. He’d seen bodies
in far worse condition than this one during his years with the BAU. He
walked slowly around the corpse, examining it from different angles.
He saw that there was little left of the woman’s right arm, which had been
gnawed mostly down to sinew and bones. But when he got a look at her other arm, he stifled a gasp at what he saw.
Relatively intact, the wrist was wildly carved in all directions.
Whoever had cut her had been serious about making her bleed to death.
And more than that …
The cuts looked bold, confident, and assured.
Suddenly, Jake himself felt a surge of pure gut certainty.
Riley was right—and so was Harry, he thought.
Whoever did this has killed before.
CHAPTER TEN
Riley braced herself against the empty morgue table, trying to choke back
her horror. She wondered—why was her whole body reacting so violently?
She remembered what she’d said to Agent Crivaro a little while ago.
“I’ve seen dead bodies before.”
It was true—she’d seen more corpses than most young people her age.
She’d seen dead women bound up with barbed wire, bodies with faces
grotesquely smeared with clown makeup, and her own college friends lying
on dorm room floors with their throats cut open. Worst of all, she’d seen her
mother lying dead with a bullet wound to her chest when she’d been a small
child.
She shouldn’t be shocked, even by something this grisly.
Was this different somehow?
No, Riley thought. It’s too much the same.
This time, the horror was more visible, but all of those deliberate deaths
had been ugly.
She was finding the sheer bulk of atrocity she’d seen in her short life hard
to take.
But she knew she couldn’t let herself react this way—not if she wanted to
be a successful BAU agent.
Riley forced herself to turn around and look again at the body.
To her surprise, she saw that Crivaro also looked stunned.
His face had gone pale and his mouth was hanging open. He stood staring
at the victim’s left forearm, which was slashed in wild, violent knife strokes.
Standing beside him, Dr. Paco Arau looked more complacent.
Finally, Jake gave a sharp nod and Paco closed the drawer, removing the
body from view.
Crivaro’s voice was hoarse when he asked, “Paco, do you have a fax
machine?”
“Sure,” the medical examiner said. “In my office.”
Relieved that the body was out of sight, Riley finally drew a normal
breath. As she followed Crivaro and Paco back to the office, she wondered
what her senior partner had in mind now.
The first thing Crivaro did was to make a couple of phone calls to get the
name and number of the medical examiner who had worked on the earlier murder case in Colorado. Then Crivaro dialed that number and put the call on
a speakerphone for Riley and Paco to listen in. A moment later, a voice
crackled over the speaker.
“Dr. Robert Licht, Upshur County Coroner, speaking.”
Crivaro said, “Dr. Licht, this is Special Agent Jake Crivaro of the
Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. I’m a friend of Harry Carnes. Do you
happen to know him?”
The voice on the phone sounded pleased.
“Sure, Harry and I are pals. We go hunting together from time to time.
What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling about a murder you had in your parts a about a year ago,”
Crivaro said. “The victim’s name was Erin Gibney.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Dr. Licht said in a more somber tone. “That was an
ugly business. She was found dead over in Dyson Park. Bled to death. I guess
you know the police never caught the killer.”
“I know,” Crivaro said.
Then Crivaro took a long breath and said, “I’m calling from the medical
examiner’s office in Stover, Arizona. I’ve got a couple of other people on the
line, my partner and the ME. I’ll let them introduce themselves.”
Riley’s heart quickened at that word.
Partner.
She wondered …
When is it going to seem real to me?
Paco identified himself over the phone and so did Riley.
“This sounds pretty serious,” Dr. Licht said. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve had a similar murder down here in Arizona,” Crivaro said.
Riley heard a gasp over the phone.
“Jesus,” Dr. Licht said. “Do you think it’s a serial killer?”
Crivaro paused for a moment. From the expression on his face, Riley
sensed that he was on the verge of saying “yes.”
He’s becoming convinced, she thought hopefully.
Instead, Crivaro said, “I wonder if you could do me a favor. Could you fax
me some autopsy photos of the victim’s body? I’m especially interested in
seeing close-ups of the knife wounds on her forearms.”
Riley heard a hesitant grunt on the phone.
“I don’t know,” Dr. Licht said. “I normally keep that kind of
documentation pretty close to my vest. Is this an official FBI case?”
Crivaro heaved a sigh and said, “I guess that depends on what’s in the
photos you’d be sending me.”
A short silence fell. Then Dr. Licht said, “Well, for a friend of Harry’s, I
guess I can make an exception. How do I send it?”
Paco Arau told Dr. Licht his office fax number.
“Give me just a couple of minutes,” Dr. Licht said. “I’ll get back on the
line as soon as the photos go through.”
Riley saw that Paco’s eyes had widened with concern.
Paco murmured to Crivaro …
“I’ve never dealt with a serial case before. Do you really think …?”
His voice faded, and Crivaro made no reply.
A silence fell for two or three minutes. Then came a click and the whirring
of the fax machine. Sheets of paper came rolling out. Crivaro grabbed the
>
faxes and looked at them. Then he groaned aloud and spread the images on
the desk for both Riley and Paco to see.
Riley immediately noticed that the body was much less damaged than the
one she’d just seen in the morgue. Apparently Erin Gibney’s body had been
discovered before it could fall prey to so many scavengers.
But most of all, Riley noticed the pattern of knife wounds on the victim’s
wrist.
The similarity to the wounds on Brett Parma’s body were impossible to
ignore. The older cuts might have been somewhat sloppier and reckless than
the more recent victim’s, but they were obviously the work of the same killer.
It was like looking at two examples of one person’s handwriting.
Riley and her two colleagues sat staring at the photos for a moment.
Then they were startled by the sound of Dr. Licht’s voice crackling over
the speaker.
“Did you get them?”
“Yeah, we got them,” Crivaro said.
“So how do things look?” Dr. Licht asked.
Crivaro shook his head. “They look bad. Real bad.”
With a glance at Riley, he added, “We’ve definitely got a serial on our
hands.”
Riley felt a jolt at those words.
I was right all along, she thought.
Only now did she realize … she wished she’d been wrong.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dr. Licht said.
“Yeah, so am I,” Crivaro said. “Listen, I need for you to fax us everything
you’ve got on Erin Gibney’s autopsy, the whole written report, all the photos.
Especially the fingers. This victim’s knuckles are bruised and her fingernails
are broken, like there was some kind of struggle.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Dr. Licht said.
The call came to an end, and Riley, Crivaro, and Paco sat in startled
silence for a moment.
Finally Paco said, “Listen, I’m afraid I’m out of my depth all of a sudden.
Like I said before, I’ve never dealt with a serial case. Mostly ordinary deaths, just a few open-and-shut murders. What do you need me to do next?”
Crivaro tilted his head and said, “Just do your job. Don’t worry too much
about it, Paco. An ME’s job is pretty much the same, no matter how
somebody dies. Dr. Licht will be faxing you a pile of information shortly.
Just sift through it, then call Dr. Licht to compare notes, especially regarding the knuckles and fingernails. Neither one of you will probably find anything
helpful that we haven’t already noticed. But if you do, contact me right
away.”
“I understand,” Paco said. “I guess the hard part is now up to you guys.
What do you do next?”
Crivaro let out a grunt that seemed to say, That’s a good question.
Then he said, “We’ve got to find out everything we can about what Brett
Parma was doing for a day or two before she was murdered, especially
anyone she might have talked to during that time. Also, we need to find out if
anybody saw anything suspicious, like someone who might have been
stalking her.”
Drumming his fingers on his knee, he added, “That means going to the
campground where she was staying. And of course the local police have
already done that. Apparently they came up with nothing.”
Crivaro looked unhappy, and Riley suspected she understood why.
She remembered something Harry had said to them.
“You and your partner can’t just march into a campground looking like
you do right now. Hell, you’ve got ‘FBI’ written all over you.”
She also remembered what Crivaro had said about the idea of the two of
them camping together.
“That’s just too damned ridiculous.”
But now Riley wondered …
What choice do we have?
Riley said to Crivaro in a cautious voice, “Agent Crivaro, it seems to me
that we’ve got to—”
Crivaro interrupted with a growl, “Yeah, I know. We’ve got to go
undercover as campers. We’ll do it just like Harry said except I’ll be your
dad, you’ll be my daughter. We’re going to need a whole new look—
especially our own camper. Paco, do you have any idea where we might rent
one locally?”
Paco nodded and wrote down an address. Crivaro and Riley thanked him
for his help and left his office.
When they stepped outside the building they heard loud music playing.
They were relieved to see that the cop named Wally was sitting in the police
car, listening to the radio as he waited for them.
Crivaro said to Riley, “You go ask Wally there if he’ll give us a ride to the
RV rental place. I’ll be right with you. First I’ve got a phone call to make.”
Riley heard a note of dread in Crivaro’s voice, and his posture slumped as
he walked away. Riley had a pretty good idea of who he was about to call—
and why he wasn’t looking forward to it.
And I don’t envy him, she thought.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jake hesitated before he punched in the phone number.
This isn’t going to be pleasant, he thought.
As he braced himself to make the call, Jake watched Riley walk over to
the police car, where music still blared through the open window. He saw her
speak to Wally, who nodded to her. Then Riley climbed into the car, so
apparently the cop was willing to give them a ride to their next stop. At least that was taken care of.
Jake turned his attention back to the phone and entered the private number
for Special Agent in Charge Erik Lehl at Quantico.
The last time he’d seen Lehl had been to ask for a few days of vacation
time. Jake had given no hint that he’d be checking into a murder case.
He wondered how his boss was going to react to the truth.
For all Jake knew, Lehl might simply get furious and demand that Jake
and Riley come back to Quantico on the next available flight.
Or it might even be worse.
When Lehl came on the line, he said, “I hadn’t expected to hear from you,
Agent Crivaro. Are you enjoying your vacation?”
Jake wondered—did he hear a note of sarcasm in Lehl’s voice?
Had his boss already figured out that Jake wasn’t on vacation at all?
Jake knew it wasn’t impossible. Lehl had an uncanny way of keeping
track of all his agents. If Jake really were on vacation, Lehl might well know exactly where he’d gone to enjoy himself.
Jake gulped hard, then said, “Uh, Chief, something’s come up. I think I’ve
stumbled across a serial killer case.”
Jake heard the chief grunt and say …
“Do tell.”
Jake stifled a sigh at Lehl’s wry reply.
That’s sarcasm, all right.
Jake figured he’d better come clean about everything.
He said, “Agent Lehl, I’m actually out in Arizona. An old friend of mine
asked me to come out and look into a recent murder here …”
Jake went on to tell the whole story—how Harry had seen similarities in
two widely separated murders and called Jake for help, how he’d recruited
Riley Sweeney to fly out here with him, and how he and Riley had visited the local ME and compared the two cases. He filled Lehl in on the details that
had led them to believe that the recent murder in Arizona was the work of a
kill
er who had taken another victim a year ago in Colorado.
When he finished, Lehl said, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You lied
to me this morning—”
Jake wanted to interrupt and say he hadn’t exactly lied.
But what else could I call it?
Lehl continued …
“And you took a rookie agent with you on an unsanctioned investigation
—an agent with her own history of insubordination. Am I right so far?”
A silence fell.
Yeah, that’s pretty much right, Jake thought miserably.
Finally Lehl grumbled …
“Well, from the information you’ve given me it does sound like you’ve
run across something serious. Why hasn’t the local police chief contacted the
FBI about these killings?”
Jake tried to imagine going back to Chief Webster to talk him into calling
in a formal request for FBI help. He’d already given the local chief the
impression that he and Riley were here in an official capacity.
Jake really wanted to skip that conversation if he possibly could.
“I suspect you’re not going to hear from the Tunsboro police chief at all,”
Jake said. “He’s still pretty skeptical about this whole thing. Look, when I
came out here, I was more than skeptical myself. But now there’s not a
question in my mind that this is a legitimate case—and an urgent one. This
killer is still at large and nobody is hunting him very seriously. I just need
you to make FBI participation official.”
A tense silence fell.
“I’ll do it,” Lehl finally said. “Agent Crivaro, I trust your instincts, if
nothing else. Send me all the data you have at this point and I’ll set up a file on the case.”
Jake felt a surge of relief.
“Thanks, Agent Lehl,” he replied. “I’ll fax you everything later today.”
Before Jake could end the call, Lehl added …
“But you’d better remember—I don’t like how you went about this.
You’re on thin ice right now. So is that partner of yours. Keep your nose
clean. Hers too. You’ve got to keep that rookie out of trouble this time.”
“I’ll do that,” Jake said, sounding more confident than he felt.
They ended the call, and Jake headed over to the car to tell the rookie in
question that they had a case.
Jake wondered if he would be able to keep either of them out of trouble.
