“He’s disappeared. Gone.”
“Hernandez is a big boy, Karen. I’m sure he’s somewhere.”
“No. I’ve been trying to reach him all day. I found his phone in our room, turned off. The logs were wiped clean. No apparent sign of a struggle, but we’re not sure. His car’s gone. I take it you haven’t heard from him.”
“Not since the thing with Jonathan. How’s it going with that killer?”
“We got him. Tonight.”
“Congrats, Karen. Give yourself a pat on the ass.”
“I’ll let Robby do that. As soon as I find him.”
“You check air, car rentals—”
“Air. No, I totally spaced—”
“Look, I’ll take care of it. Flights, car rentals, I’ll check it all. I’ve got all his info in the file, down at the office, from Dead Eyes. I’ll go down there right now. I’ll call you if I find something.”
She wished Bledsoe was there, by her side. Right now, she needed something close to home. For some reason, talking to him felt better. “Call me even if you don’t find anything.”
She hung up, let her head rest back on the seat. They had arrived at the Department of Corrections’ Hall of Justice complex on Third Street.
“You wanna come in, or wait here?”
Vail sat up and rubbed her face. “I should be nearby when Mayfield’s questioned.” Her voice was tired. Truth was, she was exhausted, mentally and physically. And whatever remaining energy she did have was focused on Robby, not on John Mayfield. “I should probably be the one in the room with him. Narcissists need to be handled differently than most suspects.”
“Assuming Owens goes for it.” Dixon was staring at her. “Are you in any condition to go face-to-face with Mayfield?”
Vail popped open her door and got out. That was her answer.
They stowed their guns in the lockers, then met Brix, Lugo, Gordon, and Mann at the long, window-enclosed booking office. Timothy Nance was there as well. He did not look pleased. Vail had the fleeting thought of wondering why he was still around, but decided her waning energies were better spent on more important matters than scum like Nance.
Lugo looked particularly worn. His face was taut and his gaze was focused on the ground.
Normally, the arresting officers discharged their duties and returned to patrol once their prisoner was brought into the jail and turned over to prison personnel for processing. But in this case, the task force members were not about to let anyone handle John Mayfield. He was their collar, and they intended to see this through to the end.
Austin Mann stepped over to Dixon and Vail, then nodded at Mayfield, who stood off to the side in prison blues, getting his fingerprints digitally scanned. “Property and medical intake’s been done. And the nurse already came down to clear him.”
Vail folded her arms across her chest. “He just came from the hospital. The docs released him. What’d they need the nurse for?”
“Liability,” Brix said, joining the huddle. “CYA, that’s all. But because of his injuries, they’re gonna house him separately, outside the general pop. In case someone were to attack him, he couldn’t defend himself.”
“That’d be a damn shame,” Vail said.
“Wouldn’t it,” Mann said with a chuckle. He glanced over at Mayfield, who obviously heard his comment, then turned his body slightly, away from the arrestee. In a lower voice, Mann said, “Watch Commander’s cleared us to interview him in the Blue Room.”
“Yeah,” Brix said. “About that.” He touched Vail on the elbow. “Can I have a word with you?”
As he moved her aside, out of earshot of the others, Mayfield was escorted down the hall and through Door 154, which separated the booking area from the prison.
“When I saw him, I felt like I’d seen the guy before, but I couldn’t place where. Then it all made sense. Asshole is a pest control and mosquito abatement technician. He used to spray around the department when we’d get ants in the winter, after the rains. I think I even spoke to him once or twice.”
“Here’s one better. Yesterday, Roxxann and I worked out with the guy.” Vail didn’t say anything about Dixon’s considering a date with the man. “I saw the guy, Brix. I looked the monster in his eyes and I didn’t know. I’m supposed to be able to recognize evil. If I’d only—”
He held up a hand. “Don’t. We’re not perfect, Karen. We’re just cops. We do the best we can with what we’ve got. Yeah?”
She sighed deeply. “Yeah.”
Brix leaned in close. “Listen . . . the sheriff wants you to take the lead on Mayfield’s interview.”
“The sheriff?” After what had happened with Fuller, Vail figured she’d be the last one on his list to reward with the prized interview. The detective who nailed the killer was the one who usually did the interview. In this case, Vail figured that’d be Dixon.
“The sheriff. He says you’re the best man for the job. No offense.”
Vail tried to smile. “No offense taken.”
“Last thing. Are you okay with being alone in the room with him?”
Vail sucked on her bottom lip, glanced over at her fellow task force members. They were all looking at her, including Dixon. “No big deal. Let’s do it.”
SIXTY-THREE
The task force members settled into the video monitoring room down the hall from the Blue Room. It contained a faux wood media cabinet outfitted with a Sony television, videotape recording facilities, and several chairs.
“You’ll need this,” Brix said, handing her a file. “Oh—the prick insists his real name’s John Wayne Mayfield. We did a quick records search. Looks like he added the middle name himself.”
Vail snorted. “Yeah, that definitely fits.”
“Karen,” Brix said. “Good luck.”
The rest of the task force members nodded their agreement. Dixon dipped her chin.
Vail closed the door and walked across the hall into the Blue Room, where John Mayfield sat behind a round table. She carried the manila folder against her chest; she entered and set the file down on the table and looked at the arrestee.
Mayfield’s left arm was casted from the thumb to a point above the elbow. An equally large plaster cocoon immobilized his left leg. As a result, only his right arm was handcuffed to the belly chain that was wrapped around his waist. The other cuff, which normally would’ve been on his left wrist, was instead secured to the metal armrest of his chair. His left arm and both legs were free.
Knowing firsthand what this man was capable of, Vail couldn’t help but wonder: Is he effectively restrained?
But she couldn’t worry about it. She had a job to do and she sure as hell wasn’t going to back down now, in front of the men on the task force. Besides, in the mood she was in, she thought she could kill him if he got loose and came at her.
She flipped open the file. “Says here you claim your name is John Wayne Mayfield. That a joke?”
Mayfield squinted. “The only joke in this room is you.”
Vail pouted her lips and nodded slowly. “Okay, John, I hear you.” She made an exaggerated motion with her neck of examining the room. It was immediately clear why this was called the Blue Room. The cement walls and floor were covered with a tight, thin blue carpet, which had a peculiar sound absorbing effect.
Vail sat in the brown chair to the left of the table. Mayfield was across from her. Behind and above Vail’s head was a small camera lens, embedded in a wall-mounted, cream-colored apparatus that resembled a smoke alarm. It was beaming real-time video to the task force members in the video monitoring room.
“I hope you like your new home. I guess if you’ve gotta do time, might as well be in Napa. Then again, who knows where you’ll end up after you’re convicted. Probably someplace nowhere near as nice.”
“What I’ve done is take advantage of an opportunity. And I’m just getting even for what was done to me, sweetie. I’m balancing the scales of justice, is all.”
“Is that right? So
in killing these people, you’ve done a good thing.”
Mayfield shifted in his seat, threw out his chest. “Damn straight.”
“How did killing make you feel?” Vail didn’t really need an admission—the charges against him, assault of a federal agent, attempted murder, let alone the murder of a law enforcement officer—Eddie Agbayani—would put Mayfield away for a long, long time. But any opportunity to get inside the mind of a killer was too important to ignore.
“How’d it make me feel?” Mayfield glanced around the walls, then shrugged. “Depends on who it was.”
“Victoria Cameron.”
Mayfield pursed his lips, thinking. “I didn’t feel a whole lot with that one.”
That one. The objectification, the treating of people as objects, was classic among narcissists. It wasn’t much different from the attitude of powerful leaders—political, corporate, military, it didn’t matter—though most of them weren’t killers.
“What about Ursula Robbins, Isaac Jenkins, Mary—”
“Special cases. And special cases deserve special attention because of who they are. Or were.”
“I’m not following you.”
Mayfield’s mouth rose into a grin. “Of course you aren’t.”
“Was Scott Fuller a ‘special case,’ too?”
“You know, you people should be thanking me. I helped these people.” He tugged on his chain. “And this is the thanks I get?”
Vail knew that narcissists felt they helped their victims by improving them, removing imperfections, and cleansing them of the evil they committed during their lives. Truth was, they were really cleansing their own souls.
“You’ll forgive me if we’re not more demonstrative in our gratitude.” Before Mayfield could respond, Vail forged ahead. “I don’t think you killed to help them, John. I think you killed for a different reason. I think you have some issues with women in your life. You’re angry at them. More than anger. Rage. And killing them allows you to exert control over something in your life you didn’t have control over. You gain control by dominating them, then degrading them by cutting off their breasts.”
Mayfield smiled and looked at her a long minute before answering. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you, Special Agent Vail? Well, I checked you out, too. And I know all about your son, whose name is very similar to mine. Isn’t that something? Maybe your son and me, we’re more alike than you know. We both had mothers who weren’t around. Because I’m sure you’re busy with your career, and looky here. You’re on the other side of the fucking country, trying to catch people like me when you should be at home taking care of your boy.”
Vail clenched her jaw. She couldn’t let Mayfield see what she was feeling. Truth was, she wanted to jump out of her chair and put her hands around his neck. She forced a smile instead.
“I had you there for a while, Vail, I know I did. You thought I was in Virginia, at Jonathan’s middle school. Bet you called your buddies, had them go apeshit protecting your precious little son. Looking for a phantom killer who wasn’t even there.”
Vail nodded. “That’s right, that’s exactly what I did. Because I’m not like your mother, John.” She noted his facial twitch. She leaned back and opened the file. “So you’re a mosquito abatement technician for the county of Napa. Pretty clever. You had access to all sorts of places without suspicion.”
He placed his left arm on the table. Vail watched but fought the urge to flinch. He smiled back at her. “I’ve been killing more than just mosquitoes.”
Vail nodded thoughtfully. “Indeed, you have. How many people have you killed?”
“Look it up. I sent you that list.”
“Yes, you did. Thanks for that. It was more important than you’ll ever know. But I know there are other names that aren’t on the list. Because narcissists like yourself lie. They lie all the time.”
“Oh, poor Agent Vail,” Mayfield sang. The smile evaporated from his face. He leaned forward, a sneer crumpling his mouth. “You think you got it all figured out. Well, fuck you. You ain’t got shit. There’s more to this than you know.”
Vail was usually able to let the slime of a serial killer slide off her as if she were made of Teflon. But John Wayne Mayfield, or George Panda, or whatever he wanted to be called, sent the creeps crawling up her spine. She couldn’t let him know, or even sense it.
She countered her repulsion by leaning forward, closer to him than was advisable. He could easily head butt her into oblivion. And given her fatigue, she wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to lessen its impact. A guy like Mayfield had nothing to lose. Doing more damage, adding another count of assault on a federal officer, was meaningless.
Mayfield shook his head, a tsk-tsk-tsk, shame-on-you movement. “You’ve missed the point, Karen. But you’ll probably get it eventually. And when you do, I think it’s probably safe to say this will have been unlike anything you or your profiler friends have ever seen before.”
Vail checked that off to a narcissist’s need to show he was better than everyone else. Superior. Special. Fine, I’ll give that to you if it makes you answer me. “Obviously,” Vail said, “you’re a superior killer to any we’ve dealt with in the past. So why don’t you tell me what I’m missing?” She shrugged. “I’m just a fuckup. Humor me. What don’t I know?”
Mayfield leaned back—the restraints offered no resistance. “Ask nicely. I want to hear you beg.”
“I’m sure you do.” She looked at him, trying to read his expression.
But the image of his large face, leaning into hers in the cave as he attempted to squeeze the life from her, kept invading her thoughts. She was speaking before she knew what she was saying. “But that just ain’t gonna happen. I’m not going to beg. Because I think you’re bullshitting me.”
Mayfield shrugged. “Maybe I am. And maybe I’m not.” He leaned forward again. “But aren’t you curious? It’s going to eat away at you, every night when you get into bed and turn off the lights. You’ll think of me, of this conversation. You’ll think about the lost opportunity to get to the bottom of this. And it’ll eat you up inside.”
Vail couldn’t argue with that. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Goddamn it. This scumbag seems to have some kind of periscope into my thoughts.
Vail had to change the rules. She realized now she had approached this interview incorrectly. She was too close, had too much invested—the fucker tried to kill me—to be objective. She should have tried to strike a chord within him, talk to him and touch him like he’d never been touched before. I need to get him to connect to me in a way John Mayfield has never connected with anyone before. Is that possible, given our history?
She closed the file folder and pushed it aside, but kept her left hand on the table. “You know what? I want to back up for a minute. I’ve been rude to you, and that was wrong.” She placed her hand on the exposed, noncasted area of Mayfield’s, careful to avoid quick or awkward movements. She was trying to establish a connection with him and didn’t want anything disrupting it. “Can we start over?”
Mayfield looked down at their hands. He looked up at her, a distant look in his eyes. Confusion.
Vail pressed on. “Tell me something.” Her voice was soft, non-threatening. “Tell me about your mother, John.” His eyes narrowed. He was listening. Like taming a lion, his tremendous power was suddenly neutralized. “Your mother is sitting right there,” Vail said, nodding toward a seat to her right, in the corner of the room. “It’s empty, but she’s sitting there. Say something to her.”
Mayfield turned his head slowly, his eyes remaining on Vail. For the first time, he looked unsure of himself.
“Go on, look at her. I’m not going to judge or hurt you. No one else is here. Just you, me, and your mother.”
Mayfield’s eyes remained on Vail a long moment, then they swung to his left, toward the empty chair. He quickly looked away, then back at Vail. “I can’t.”
“You can,” she said soothingly. �
�Tell her what you feel, what’s on your mind. Tell her what you’ve always wanted to tell her.”
Mayfield turned his entire head this time. Facing the empty chair, staring at it, his eyes moistened. A minute passed. Then two. Finally, he said, in a low voice, “You let it happen. Why did you let him do that to me, Ma? Why?”
Vail leaned in, ever so slightly. “John, what was it that she let happen to you?”
“My father. It was my father.” He licked his lips. Hesitated, sat there quietly another moment before continuing. “I was thirteen. He wasn’t happy with me. I was a scrawny kid, unsure of myself. I walked slumped over. I disappointed him. He wanted me to play varsity football but I was too small. Guys in the neighborhood would spit on me, they beat me up, stole things from me. Made fun of me.” He stopped. The tears flowed down his cheek. “He called me a little runt.”
Crush (Karen Vail Series) Page 42
