Dead End

by Mariah Stewart

  At Annie’s suggestion, Malone made his request for FBI assistance directly to John Mancini, who headed up a special unit within the Bureau to handle sensitive cases. John personally reviewed the files, which had been messengered to him overnight, before assigning three of his top agents to the job.

  “Shouldn’t take you more than a day or so,” he said to Annie while authorizing her to provide an analysis of the killer’s psychological profile to the chief of detectives in Avon County. “What’s on your calendar right now?”

  “The Ohio case. A case out in Michigan. Something that came in last night from Oregon; I’m taking that with me to read on the plane. I have a meeting in Seattle next Tuesday. Otherwise, I’m okay.”

  “Great. See if you can shed some light on this case.” John pushed his chair back from his desk, his habitual nonverbal notice that the meeting had concluded.

  Annie stood and gathered her bag and her briefcase, noting that John’s job was clearly taking its toll.

  “You okay, John?”

  “As okay as I’ve ever been, I guess.”

  “Genna okay?” She asked, referring to John’s wife of two years.

  “She’s fine.” His eyes narrowed. “What’s with the interrogation?”

  “You just look a little tired, that’s all.”

  He laughed. “When have I not been tired?”

  “You just look a little more worn-out than you normally do.”

  “It’s just the job, Annie. But I appreciate your concern.”

  “Maybe you should be the one going to Pennsylvania and out of here for a few days.”

  “Well, actually, I’ll be doing just that. Genna’s got that cabin out on that lake up in the northeastern corner of the state, you know. We’re supposed to go for a week, starting on Tuesday.”

  “Do it. Make it your priority. Don’t let anything come between you and that time off, John. Seriously. I can’t remember the last time I called this office and you were on vacation.” Her voice softened. “You need the time, John.”

  “You been talking to my wife?”

  “Just looking out for you, pal.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment,” John told her. “You keep in touch, and have a safe trip.”

  “You, too.”

  She left John’s office and headed straight for her own on the seventh floor. She was gathering up files she’d left on her desk when Brendan Shields appeared in her doorway.

  “Hey. Where’s the fire?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m on my way to Pennsylvania to look into that serial killer they have on the loose, and I need to take some of these notes with me.” Where was the file she’d started with her own notes on Dylan’s case? She checked her briefcase and found she’d already tucked it away.

  “I heard Mancini’s sending a couple of agents up there,” he said. “I heard Miranda Cahill, Mike Hoffman, and Kevin Muller were going.”

  “Oh, great. I love working with all of them. I should check with Miranda and see when she’s leaving. Maybe we can fly up together.”

  “She’s in Maine right now. I think she’s heading down there tomorrow.”

  “Word travels fast around here.”

  Brendan shrugged. “I had lunch with Will a while ago. Miranda called him while we were eating.”

  “I can’t believe how incestuous this place is. And how quickly news travels.” She laughed and added one more file to her briefcase. “Gotta run.”

  Brendan backed into the hall to allow her to pass.

  “See you when I get back.” She stepped around him and started down the hall, then stopped and turned around. “By the way, do you know an agent named Melissa Lowery?”

  “Name sounds familiar, but I can’t place her. Why?”

  “She was on the scene the night Dylan died, but her report is missing from the file.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “It probably dropped out at some point, or got stuck to something else and misfiled. Happens all the time.”

  “Anyway, I was just wondering what was in the report, if she might remember what she’d written, but no one seems to know where she is.”

  “I can ask around, see if anyone knows.”

  “Thanks, Brendan.” She smiled and resumed her quick trot to the elevator, calling to the woman who was just about to enter the car, “Hey, could you hold that for me, please…?”

  10

  Anne Marie sat on the black leather sofa in the office of the Avon County district attorney and read through the letter she’d been handed almost immediately upon entering the room.

  “This is what we’re dealing with, Dr. McCall,” the District Attorney, Art Sheridan, told her. “We think this is, in fact, from the killer, but we want your opinion. On the author of the letter as well as on the contents.”

  Annie took her time reading, then read it through a second time.

  “I agree this is from your killer. There’s so much going on here…” she told the men who had gathered in the office and appeared to be waiting for some revelation from her. “But this isn’t like a psychic reading. I need a little time to think this through. But I can tell you up front, I do believe it to be genuine. He fancies himself as very intelligent, very much in control of this situation; he’s very cocky about having you all on the ropes, and is quite proud of that. Yet, at the same time, he’s telling you a great deal about himself.”

  “Such as…?” Sheridan asked hopefully.

  “This is not a very young man. I’m thinking he’s in his late twenties, perhaps his early thirties. He’s not well educated, but he believes he’s quite smart and is annoyed that everyone doesn’t recognize his brilliance. He’s in a low-level job-I think he has been for years, which is why I think he’s in his thirties-a job that makes him subservient, and he hates that feeling. He knows he’s better than everyone else, so he’s smug, even as he’s humiliated by the menial tasks his job requires of him.” She looked up at Sheridan. “I wrote a preliminary profile for Detective Crosby. This was all in that memo.”

  “Anyone have that memo?” Sheridan looked around the room.

  “I have it.” Malone passed it to Sheridan, who glanced at it, then asked, “How come I didn’t get this?”

  “I, ah, sent you a copy,” Malone told him. “It might still be in your interoffice mail.”

  “In any case”-Sheridan gestured to Annie-“continue, Dr. McCall.”

  “You’re looking for someone who does menial work for a lot of people who are much better off financially than he is, or who comes into contact with such people on a regular basis. He resents what they have, doesn’t understand why he hasn’t been able to make as much or to have the kind of life that they have. His resentment is deep-seated and has been building inside him for a long time. He thinks he’s as worthy as they-more so, actually-but they don’t recognize this. They probably don’t see him at all. So he’s forcing them to look at him, to stand in awe of him, by taking something precious from them, something they value greatly, to prove to them how much control he has over their lives. He’s stealing their daughters, defiling them, taking their lives. And flaunting what he’s done.” She looked from one man to the other. “He will not stop. He will keep on going for as long as he can.”

  “Are you saying this is socially motivated, that this is a class thing…?”

  “If you want to use those terms, Chief Malone, but this goes so much deeper than that. Look here, in his letter. He’s incensed that you would think that he would be bothered with these other victims, these nameless girls. He’s infuriated that someone is trying to copy what he’s done, but even angrier that this copycat killer has targeted girls that he feels are so beneath him. It’s bad enough that someone is copying his style, but to have the deaths of these girls who he feels are inferior and therefore so unworthy of his attention-well, he’s just not going to take that. Uh-uh. He wants you to make sure the public knows his standards are much higher than this copycat. And he wan
ts this copycat caught.”

  She held up the letter.

  “See here, what he’s telling you. ‘Why would I want to kill a bunch of nameless nobodies? How could you be so stupid to think those other girls would interest me?’ ”

  “He’s going after girls whose families are well-known,” Malone murmured.

  “We already knew that,” Sheridan reminded him brusquely.

  “But now we know why. That’s his game. If I understand Dr. McCall correctly, this is his way of shoving it to people he feels look down on him.”

  “Not only in the sense of retaliation, but in showing them that ultimately, he can control them, not the other way around, that he can impact their lives in ways they’d never have imagined,” Annie told them. “Look for someone who’s worked a menial job for a long time, ten years or better, in a place where he’d come into daily contact with the victims’ families. A country club, golf course, restaurant, a pool company, landscaping company… some business that would attract the well-to-do or the influential from the community.”

  “Green Briar Country Club. It’s the only country club in the county. Only golf course, as well,” Malone offered.

  “See if the victims’ families were members,” Sheridan told him.

  Malone reached for the telephone, made a call, then hung up. “I’ve got someone on that. We should have a list of members within the hour. I also requested that contact be made this morning with the parents to find out who they used for landscaping, if they have a pool or handyman-all the possibilities Dr. McCall just talked about. We’ll see if we get any matches.”

  He turned to Annie.

  “Any chance we can pick your brain on this second killer while we have you here? You have any thoughts on him?”

  “I think it’s all staging,” Annie said. “He’s tried to make his victims look as much like the others as he could. He’s copying the other killer’s style because he wants to go unnoticed. He wants these girls dead, but isn’t making a statement, the way the first killer is. I’d be willing to bet the shoes he took from his victims were tossed into the trash. Unlike our first killer, who is keeping them in a special place and treating them like treasures. These other killings were more like executions than murders that involved any passion or fulfilled any need or fantasy of the killer.”

  “Why would someone want to execute a fourteen-year-old girl?” Malone murmured.

  “Because she knows something that the killer doesn’t want anyone else to know, or has seen something he didn’t want anyone to see,” Annie suggested. “Or because she’s in his way. Possibly she’s served a purpose and isn’t needed anymore. She’s disposable, for whatever reason, and so he disposed of her. Having a serial killer in the area preying on young girls was simply a matter of convenience for him. He figured he’d just piggyback onto that, make his kills look the same. And at first glance, they do.”

  Malone swore under his breath.

  “Yes.” Annie nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Dr. McCall, there are details about the killings that were not released to the public. That still haven’t been released to the public.”

  “Like the fact that the girls’ throats were slashed and their shoes were taken?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, as I said to Detective Crosby, either someone connected with the investigation is leaking information…” She paused.

  “Or someone connected with the investigation is the killer.” Sheridan finished the thought.

  He and Malone stared at each other. Finally, Malone broke the silence.

  “I can’t even begin to imagine a suspect from that pool. We’ve got the entire Lyndon police force, we’ve got county detectives. We’ve got Broeder police, we’ve got Chapman PD, the D.A.’s office. How the hell do you narrow that down?”

  “Someone is going to have to.” Annie looked from one man to the other. “Identifying the girls-knowing who they are, what brought them together with their killer-will help lead you to him. I have someone at the Bureau trying to identify the identical tattoos these girls had. Right now, that’s all we have to go on. Within twenty-four hours, we should have reports back from our lab on the trace from both groups of victims. Hopefully, we’ll have something that will lead us in the right direction. Until then, do what you can with what you have.”

  “First order of business is getting our hands on the membership list from Green Briar,” Malone noted.

  “Which is more direction than we had an hour ago,” Sheridan reminded him. “Let’s see where that takes us…”

  ____________________

  “What a treat this is.” Annie glanced around the handsome dining room at the restaurant, which overlooked the small man-made lake nestled in the heart of the beautifully manicured golf course.

  Evan nodded. “Lots of dark wood, lots of flowers. It’s a pretty classy place.”

  “Well, the room is lovely, and the view spectacular, but I was referring to the fact that you and I are actually having dinner together in the middle of the week.”

  “And even more surprising, it isn’t cold pizza out of the fridge at two in the morning.” He took a sip of wine. “It is pretty nice, isn’t it.”

  She laughed. “You are a master of understatement.”

  He refilled her glass and set the bottle off to one side of the table.

  “What a coincidence that you chose the Green Briar Country Club for dinner tonight.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t think you’re fooling me. I know you’re dying to go into the kitchen and start interrogating the busboys.”

  “All in good time.” He smiled at the waitress who served their salads.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “If I had a better idea who I was looking for, sure. We just haven’t narrowed things down enough yet. But sure. If I knew for certain our guy worked here, I’d be in there in a heartbeat.” He grinned. “Of course I’d wait until after dessert.”

  “But you have confirmed that all of the victims’ families were members here.”

  “Yes, but we also confirmed that they all bought their pools from Kava’s and three out of five bought their groceries at Marshall’s and had them delivered.” He pushed the croutons aside on his Caesar salad. “And we’re still trying to figure out how many of these families had their yard work done by the same landscaper and used the same handyman.”

  “He’s there, though, Evan. I can feel him.” Her voice dropped even lower. “You’re going to find him in one of those places, and you’re going to find him soon.”

  “You sound awfully sure of yourself.”

  “I am sure of myself. Sometimes I’m not so sure. Sometimes I give it my best guess, and sometimes I’m right, but I’ve been wrong, too. This time, I know I’m right.”

  “Well, then, I think we should drink to a speedy resolution.” Evan refilled his glass.

  Annie touched the rim of her glass to his, then took a sip.

  “Here’s what bothers me, though,” she told him. “You will get this guy, and you will get him soon. The other one-the one who killed the girls with the tattoos-he’s a different duck altogether. He’s going to be hard to find. Tracking him down is going to take your best skills. Your best use of the available science.”

  “You really think he’s a cop?”

  “I think he’s most likely a cop or someone close to one of the investigating departments.” She tapped her fingers on the stem of her glass. “You might want to ask Sheridan to bring this investigation strictly into the county, have only your people handle it from here on out.”

  “Less chance of a cover-up if it’s a cop.” He nodded. “Of course, that means I’ll be stepping on a lot of toes.”

  “But there’ll be a greater chance for justice for those three girls. For them and their families.”

  “That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Finding out who these girls are and helping to bring closure to their families.” He took another sip of wine and added, “Someone needs to pay for
what he did to them.”

  “If we can identify the significance of the tattoos, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to determine where these girls came from. Then maybe we can figure out who they are and how they got from there to here.”

  “It should only be so easy.”

  “Easy? Not on your life.” She tilted her glass in his direction. “But I promise you, the payback will be huge. When you look into the eyes of the parents of these girls and tell them the man who did this to their daughters has been captured and will be punished, that their daughters can rest in peace, you will know it was worth every hour you spent, every bad lead that you followed, every toe you stepped on along the way.”

  “I can’t argue with you. I’ll speak with Malone in the morning, see if he agrees, see if he wants to talk to Sheridan himself or if he’s okay with me taking the lead here.”

  “What are the chances he’ll toss this to the Bureau as part and parcel of the other investigation?”

  “I’d be real surprised. I think he’s going to keep this totally separate, and frankly, I think he should. For one thing, we all believe the killings are not related. For another, he’ll want to assure the more prominent citizens that the deaths of their daughters merit the attention of the FBI. These other girls, maybe not. Which is okay with me. I want to handle this case myself.”

  “What will you do if Sheridan doesn’t want to bring that investigation into the county?” she asked. “What are the chances he’ll want to permit the local departments, the locals where the bodies were found, to work the individual cases?”

  “If I know Sheridan, he’s going to weigh this very carefully from a political angle. If he thinks there’s a chance his office can track this guy down and make a collar, he’ll jump at it. If he thinks it’s a long shot, he’ll put me off until he thinks we have something.”

  “Then we’ll have to get him something.” She leaned back in her seat to permit the waitress to serve their entrées. “And we’ll start with the tattoos. As soon as we get an ID on them, you’ll have something to take to him. In the meantime, you have all the resources of the FBI at your disposal. Use them.”