by Lisa Regan
“That was a joke, Agent Bennett,” Isaac said.
I flashed a palm at them and spit again. “I have the flu,” I lied, for McCaffrey’s benefit.
I stayed bent over, tore my eyes from his boots and waited for him to walk away. He didn’t. The boots shifted but didn’t leave. TK placed himself between us, but a moment later, Isaac moved around him and a crumpled napkin appeared under my nose. “It’s clean,” Isaac said.
I snatched it out of his hand, straightened up and turned away from both men. I wiped my mouth, checked my dark reflection in the drivers’ side mirror. My reflection was smooth and unruffled, angry but poised. The exact opposite of how I felt. I balled the napkin up and stuffed it in my pocket. When I turned back to McCaffrey, he said, “You don’t look so hot.”
His face was unreadable. I pulled myself up and concentrated on looking imposing. I was a federal agent. “I’m fine,” I said.
TK studied my face. He seemed to want to reach out and touch me but didn’t. I shot him a hard stare. “Really,” I said. “I’m fine. Why don’t you have a look in the shed and I’ll start in the house.”
“Sure,” TK agreed. “I’ll meet you in the house in a minute.”
Once TK had made his way to the back of the house again, I walked off, leaving Isaac beside my vomit. A few seconds later, I heard his steps crunching along the asphalt at a leisurely pace. I chanced a look back at him. His hands were jammed into his pockets, his head tipped downward, a tight-lipped grin on his face.
I snapped my head forward. A crimson flush blanketed my face. My fingers trembled as I opened the gate and slipped back into the crime scene.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
KASSIDY
October 19th
I entered the house through the front door. Lights blazed in the living and dining room, but they were empty so I moved past them to the kitchen where a technician was snapping photographs. The first thing I noticed were the cheery yellow curtains over the kitchen sink. They seemed out of place hanging so benignly above the scene at my feet.
Deborah Bittler’s body was face down, arms at her sides. One of her legs was bent slightly. The back of her head had been smashed in—a tangle of hair and blood. The blood streaked the floor, mingling with broken glass and scattered remnants of a toaster. The kitchen chairs had been overturned. They lay on their backs in the mire of what violence had left behind. Deborah’s hands were bruised. I knelt beside her, fighting a wave of dizziness, hoping no one saw me sway.
Only the left side of her face was visible. Her eye had swollen, taking on the appearance of a bruised plum. “She was beaten to death,” I muttered to myself.
“Looks that way.” McCaffrey’s voice startled me. I fell back a little. I placed my hand on the floor to catch myself from going ass over head. McCaffrey was beside me instantly. He pulled me up with one hand under my elbow and the other on my shoulder. I steadied myself and brushed his hands away.
He cleared his throat and stepped away from me, glancing back at Deborah’s body. “Is that significant?” he asked. “That she was beaten to death?”
I circled the body, putting some distance between myself and McCaffrey. “It doesn’t look like these blows were inflicted postmortem.”
“No, ma’am.”
TK came in from the yard and stepped gingerly around the edges of the scene. “Look at this,” I said to him. “Nothing about this scene looks like the work of the For You killer. It’s messy, disorganized, angry.”
TK nodded and hooked a thumb toward the backyard. “Yeah, and the shed is definitely not his work either.”
“He doesn’t normally beat people to death?” Isaac asked.
“Our guy asphyxiates them and then beats them or poisons them. This is new,” I told him. “Where’s the signature?”
“It’s upstairs. Follow me.”
As we made our way up the steps to the second floor, Isaac briefed us on what he knew. “Husband and wife. Both born-again Christians—real hard core. They belong to the New Life Church over on Chestnut. Wife left her prayer group early last night. Said she didn’t feel well. We think your guy was in the middle of his business when she came home. Husband was supposed to lead some pro-life rally in the morning—apparently he does a lot of that. There are a number of criminal complaints against him—harassment, terroristic threats, assault, that sort of thing. Anyway, one of his church buddies stopped by to drop off pamphlets for the rally tomorrow. The guy knocked, rang the doorbell—nothing. It was late, almost ten, but the guy thought they were still awake since most of the lights were on. He went around the back, peeked in and saw the wife lying on the floor. That’s when we got the call.”
Isaac paused outside the Bittlers’ bathroom.
Over my head, TK met Isaac’s eyes. “What made you look in the shed?”
Isaac grimaced. “The doors were wide open when our officers responded. They had a look inside—the floor had been pulled up and the bodies partially unearthed. Those bodies have obviously been there for a long time. We think that was Bittler’s dirty work. So either your guy showed up and caught him out there, or he left it that way so we’d find it.”
I arched an eyebrow. “It doesn’t look like Bittler went to great pains to conceal his activities.”
I pictured the embryos again, nausea roiling in my stomach.
Isaac sighed. “No. No, he did not.”
We entered the bathroom. I followed Isaac, and TK walked in behind me. It was small and stifling. As we entered, the sink was to our right. The room was shaped like a rectangle, and just past the sink was the bathtub, which was across from the toilet. Between the two was no more than three feet of green marble tile. The throw rug had been tossed aside and in its place were small rocks, each one roughly the size of a hockey puck. They’d been arranged to spell out the words FOR YOU.
I stepped in front of Isaac to get a better look. I felt his breath on my ear. “He always use rocks?”
I shook my head and glanced at the tub where Michael Bittler’s naked body rested, submerged from the neck down in fluid that looked sickeningly like that in the gallon jugs we’d seen in the shed. His face was pale but bruised. His skin looked waxy. He had curled into a fetal position on his side. His tongue lolled, moist and thick.
“We think he mixed eggs in with the water to make it slimy like that,” McCaffrey said. “I already had someone take a sample for analysis. I also had someone photograph the rocks.”
“The rocks are new,” I said. “They must have some significance that is specific to Bittler.” I shook my head. “This guy, he’s just so—”
I didn’t finish my sentence. Michael Bittler’s body unfurled and rose up, arching its back, thrashing and twitching. The unexpected seizure sent the pale yellow liquid splashing over the side of the tub and onto my shoes. My startled yelp was eclipsed by Isaac’s cry. I staggered backward into him, away from the dead body dancing wildly in the bathtub. One of Bittler’s arms flopped over the side of the tub.
I heard Isaac say, “Holy shit” before I toppled him over. Our bodies tangled in our frantic effort to get out of the bathroom. I felt Isaac’s large hands on my shoulders. My throat felt tight. Sweat broke out along my brow. He held onto me as I pushed against him, trying to get away from the flailing corpse. We fell like dominos, knocking TK back into the hallway.
“What the—” TK said but didn’t finish. He fell to the floor as Isaac and I tumbled past him, bodies fused together. We tripped over TK’s legs and landed on the floor.
Isaac’s large frame cushioned my fall. I fell atop him as if he were a mattress. With my shoulder blades pressed against his sternum, I felt his heart pounding.
“What the hell?” TK said. He looked from the bathroom door to us, his eyes unnaturally wide.
Unceremoniously, Isaac lifted me off him, one hand sco
oping my bottom and the other between my shoulder blades. He placed me gently on the floor next to him and climbed to his feet.
“He’s alive,” Isaac said. “He’s still goddamn alive.”
Isaac grabbed TK’s outstretched hand and pulled him to his feet. “Help me in here,” Isaac instructed. “Let’s get him out.”
They disappeared into the bathroom. I sat on the floor, frozen. Everything had become loud and sharp like the night Nico Sala tied me to a chair and shot me up with meth. The splashing sounds of Michael Bittler being delivered from his would-be grave were painfully loud. Isaac’s shout from the bathroom hurt my ears.
“Bishop, is that ambulance still out front?”
I staggered to my feet and raced down the steps. The front door banged into the uniformed officer on the porch as I dashed past him. I would have vomited, but there was nothing left in my stomach. The EMTs still stood outside the ambulance. One of them leaned against the passengers’ side door, arms folded, one foot tucked up behind him on the runner. Their conversation stopped abruptly when they saw me. One of the men opened his arms as if to catch me. The other said, “You alright, lady?”
I stopped a few feet from them, bending at the waist as a dry heave took me. I slipped a hand over my belly and with the other I pointed back at the house. “Up the steps, a left and another left. The bathroom. He’s still alive in there. He’s still alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
KASSIDY
October 19th
Back at Quantico the excitement was palpable. A victim left alive. A mistake. An uncharacteristic blemish in our killer’s nearly perfect body of work. This was a rare treat for us since our jobs were largely academic. I sat in a chair in the corner of the large conference room the task force had commandeered. Agents and visiting detectives moved in and out, some huddling together, talking in rushed, breathless tones. Isaac stood at the far end of the room talking to Talia Crossen. He moved his hands in various motions as he spoke. At one point, Crossen tipped her head back and laughed heartily, her blonde hair swishing across her back.
I felt a small stab of something which I chose not to examine. I wished I could remember him. TK’s voice was a balm, soothing my frayed nerves. “Well, well, well. That sure was exciting.”
He handed me an ice pack and plopped into the chair next to mine. He surveyed the room. I put the ice pack over the large bruise on my right knee. I hadn’t even noticed the bruise or the intense throbbing until we got back to the BAU—which wasn’t until almost 8 a.m.
“You went home and changed?” I asked.
TK wrinkled his nose and smoothed the lapels of his new, clean suit. “Had to. That stuff in the tub got all over me. I had to throw my suit away.”
I laughed. “Good call. Even if you could clean it, why would you want to keep it?”
“Exactly.”
“How can that guy still be alive?” I said. “Our killer drowned him and then beat him. I don’t get it.”
TK sighed and folded his hands in his lap. He watched Talia and Isaac. “He’s not really alive. I mean he’s breathing on his own, but the docs said he sustained massive brain damage. They’re saying TBI.”
I studied TK’s profile. “Traumatic brain injury?”
He nodded. “The guy was deprived of oxygen too long. He’s a vegetable. Even if he makes it and wakes up, he won’t be able to tell us anything.”
“Son of a bitch,” I mumbled, shaking my head. I closed my eyes momentarily. Of course, it could not be as easy as having a living witness to identify the killer. I opened my eyes and turned back to TK. “The UNSUB killed the wife,” I said. “She came home early, and he beat her to death. This guy is losing control. He didn’t even beat his first few victims to death. I mean he definitely hit Megan Wilkins a few times, but it was nothing like this. He seemed to have real problems with killing, but what he did to Deborah Bittler is the result of some serious visceral rage. Her hands were bruised. But she wasn’t the intended victim since we didn’t find the signature with her body.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“Two things. One is that something happened to throw this guy off his game in the first place. Two is either something about Deborah or something Deborah did or said triggered this guy’s truly violent side. This is why he is normally so rigid and meticulous. We know he doesn’t like to lose control—he lost it this time, and now he’s made a mistake. This guy has been nearly flawless until now.”
“Except for the partial print at the Wilkins scene in Portland,” TK reminded me.
“The partial print that we can’t match to anyone? It doesn’t do us much good if it doesn’t lead us to a suspect,” I pointed out.
TK nodded. “Well, we’ve known all along that he doesn’t like to kill. I mean most serials do it because they enjoy it. It gets them off. Some of them do it because they literally cannot stop themselves. It becomes a compulsion. But this guy—he’s trying to make a statement. Even for revenge murders, these killings are clinical, detached, passionless. Well, except for Deborah Bittler.”
“Right. I think once his statement is made, he’ll stop.”
“Which means we have to find him before he reaches the end of his list,” TK added.
“Unless he loses control. He may have killed before and not gotten caught. And if he did, I bet he did it in a fit of rage. I bet it was messy. That’s why he is so methodical and obsessive with these killings. It’s not OCD, he just doesn’t want to lose control. He could kill someone twenty years from now in a fit of rage, but you wouldn’t be able to link it to these murders because the For You killings are about his statement—whatever it is. “
“Which is why I still maintain there are two killers,” TK said. “One organized and the other disorganized.”
I frowned. “I see why you’re saying that, but I still disagree. First of all, double serial killers are rare. The ones we know about—Buono and Bianchi, Bittaker and Norris—they targeted women. They raped and tortured women, and then one of the partners would kill them. But those were savage murders with a sexual component. Even Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka in Canada—he brought home young girls, and she helped rape and torture them before they were murdered. Again, a sexual component. This case doesn’t fit that mold. I think we’re looking at one guy with huge control issues and some seriously repressed rage.”
We fell into an easy silence, each of us mulling over our private thoughts about the killer and the new developments in the case.
Then TK nodded toward Isaac. “Do you remember him?”
My memories of the Sala investigation consisted of a blur of faces and photos, broken apartments and damaged victims. “No,” I said. “But if he worked with me on the original investigation, that was almost six years ago.”
TK nudged me with his elbow. “Six years? He certainly remembers you. You must have made an impression.”
“Looks that way,” I said.
Across the room, Talia patted Isaac’s arm and left. He jammed his hands into his pants pockets and looked around until his gaze landed on me. He smiled and waved, his brilliant blue eyes lighting up the room. I kept my expression carefully blank. In my head, I pictured Jory’s face and the jealous comment he’d have if he was there. A lump formed in my throat. I tried to think of something else.
“McCaffrey likes you,” TK said.
I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes with both hands. “I know,” I mumbled.
“He’ll be joining the task force,” TK added.
I raised my head from my cupped hands and glared at him. “Do you have a point?” I snapped.
TK chuckled. “No,” he said. “No, I do not.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KASSIDY
October 19th
The conference room table was shiny enough to see your refle
ction and it was bigger than my living room. There were a couple of agents from VICAP and five detectives—the lead investigators from each police department involved. They would work with us in Quantico for a few days before returning to their departments. Remy Caldwell had taken Jory’s place on the task force, albeit reluctantly. I’d spoken to him earlier in the day. He still didn’t have the list of car owners nor had he located Jory’s wallet.
As I waited for the For You task force meeting to begin, I wanted to talk it over with Remy, but he wouldn’t look at me. He chatted up Isaac and kept his back toward me. It was almost two in the afternoon, and I still hadn’t slept. Judging from the circles beneath Isaac’s eyes, he hadn’t either.
TK came in and sat beside me. He placed a steaming cup of black coffee in front of me. “Thanks,” I said. I pretended to take a sip. I had stopped drinking coffee when I found out I was pregnant.
“It’s decaf, Bishop,” TK whispered. “But don’t tell your body. Placebo effect and all that. Worked for Diane when she was pregnant with the girls.” He gave me a wink and opened the small notebook he always carried with him. He tapped the cap of his pen against the blank page in front of him.
Talia sailed into the room, immediately drawing the attention of everyone present. The air of seriousness ratcheted up a notch. She had a grim, fixed expression, her brow a hard line. She took a seat on the other side of TK. She swiveled her chair in his direction and gave him the nod. He cleared his throat. He stood and moved to the large dry-erase board that covered nearly one whole wall of the conference room. We had posted the main points of our profile on one half of the board in list fashion, and TK had written the victims’ names in columns across the top of the board: Paul, Henderson, Sorenson, Wilkins, Bittler. The names were evenly spaced apart, leaving room to draw connections between the victims, should any arise.
