by James Carol
‘The bomber doesn’t have a military background.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because the design of this bomb requires a degree of lateral thinking, and that’s not something you see much of in the military. You want soldiers to follow orders. When they start thinking for themselves, that’s when the problems start. Also, he’s not a professional bomb maker. If he was, I would have recognised the design. Something this distinctive would have been flagged up. What we’re dealing with here is a talented amateur.’
‘Okay, let’s talk about the bomb. How does a talented amateur go about making something like this?’
‘Like everything else these days, your start point is the internet. That’s where you’ll find everything you need. The internet has a lot going for it, but it also has a dark side. Anyone can get access to this information. The Taliban, Islamic State, some poor brainwashed kid in Iraq or Paris or wherever who decides they want to make their mark on history.’
‘Is there anything about the design of this bomb that jumps out at you?’
‘The fact that he uses fireworks. It’s easy enough to build a detonator, but getting hold of explosives is much harder. You can’t just walk into a shop and buy some Semtex. Using ammonium nitrate is one possibility, but there are a limited number of places you can buy fertiliser from. If you start buying in bulk then you might be remembered. Then there’s the problem of getting the recipe right. It’s not as easy to make a fertiliser bomb as you might think.’
‘But fireworks are easy enough to get hold of.’
‘They are. And you know that they’re going to explode. To stretch the analogy, the recipe has already been cooked. That’s what makes it the ideal solution. Experimenting with how much explosives you’d need is easy too. All you’ve got to do is wait for Canada Day to come around and you can make as much noise as you need and nobody will bat an eye. Okay, time to turn the question back on you. What sort of person do you think would build a bomb like this?’
Winter reached for his coffee and took another sip. ‘It’s like you said, this person is patient, which means that they’re not going to be young. Let’s face it, how many teenagers have you met who are happy to wait for tomorrow to come around? Generally speaking, serial killers tend to get started in their late twenties and thirties, and most of them are male.’
‘What? You don’t get female serial killers?’
‘You do, but it’s rare. Aileen Wuornos springs to mind. She killed seven men in Florida. Beverly Allitt is another one. She’s from your part of the world.’
‘Okay, what else can you tell me?’ Barnfield asked.
‘Aside from Lian Hammond, all his victims have been white, which means that he’s most likely white. Serial killers tend to stick to their own racial group. He’s also going to be below average height. Anderton found a footprint at the latest crime scene to support that, but even if she hadn’t, the MO and choice of victims is indicative of that. And you’re looking at someone who’s socially adept. If you met this guy he’d probably come across as charming. This is someone who’s brazen enough to walk right up to a front door in a middle-income neighbourhood and ask to be let in.’
‘Or a higher-income area, as was the case with Nicholas Sobek.’
‘Exactly,’ Winter said. ‘Also, this person is unlikely to be a blue-collar worker. I can’t imagine him as a mechanic or a factory worker. This guy doesn’t like getting his hands dirty. Figuratively or literally. As for what he does, I wouldn’t rule out one of the creative fields.’
‘Like an artist?’
‘No. I’m thinking technically creative, like an architect or a software designer. He’s going to be drawn to a profession that requires both logic and a creative flair.’
‘So you’re looking for a white male in his late twenties to early thirties, who’s below average height and works as an architect or a software designer.’
‘That’s the bones of the profile,’ Winter said.
‘And you get all this from looking at the crime scenes.’
‘The crime scene is important, but it’s only a part of the story. The other part is examining the pre- and post-offence behaviour. Ultimately, I want to work out the why. What actually drives the behaviour?’
‘Fascinating.’
‘Well, it keeps me out of trouble.’
The door clattered open and Anderton came back in. Zeus was up and padding over to her in a heartbeat, demanding attention. She gave him the half-hearted pat of someone who’d never owned a dog. Zeus humphed his disapproval then flopped back down onto his bed and got comfortable again.
‘Freeman says well done,’ she said.
‘I can feel the warm glow starting at my toes and spreading through my entire body.’
‘He’s also offered us a seat at the table.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that he would like to meet with us.’
‘Well, that’s progress, I guess,’ Winter said. ‘We must have impressed him.’
‘Or he wants to keep us where he can see what we’re up to. Remember the old saying: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’
‘So cynical.’
‘No, just realistic.’
Anderton turned and smiled at Barnfield. ‘Heather, thanks again for your help. Next time you’re in the city, give me a call and we can go grab a coffee.’
‘Or something stronger, perhaps?’
Anderton laughed. ‘Yeah, that would work for me.’
They headed outside. Zeus brought up the rear, his tail circling around and around like a helicopter’s rotor blades. Winter could see Dale’s boat out in the middle of the lake. It was hard not to feel envious. The reality was that he’d probably be bored of fishing within five minutes, but the fantasy worked just fine. A world of peace and serenity rather than one defined by mayhem, destruction and murder was not without its appeal. There was another round of handshakes, then they climbed into Anderton’s Mercedes and headed back west, granite and stone eventually being replaced by the tall steel and glass mountains that defined Vancouver. The sky was the same, though. Wide and clear and impossibly blue.
25
Anderton kept her foot down the whole way, shaving almost fifteen minutes off the return journey. By the time they hit the city limits it was noon. She hadn’t said much since leaving Harrison Lake. Neither had Winter. Sometimes you needed quiet. Space to think. Winter was wondering about Freeman’s agenda. Because there had to be one. When you were dealing with a political creature like Freeman there was always going to be an agenda.
The Vancouver PD’s headquarters was based in an ugly utilitarian building on Cambie Street, right out on the edge of Mount Pleasant. It was constructed from brick and glass and ferocious right angles, and would never be beautiful no matter what was done to it. A five-minute walk east would take you to Eric Kirchner’s depressing little one-bed apartment. Five minutes north and you’d be at the Shangri La.
Anderton pulled into a parking slot and killed the engine. She got out and they went inside. They passed through security quickly and headed for the elevator bank. The investigation was being run from an office up on the sixth floor. Anderton led the way like she’d been here a million times before.
‘Is it weird being back?’ Winter asked her.
‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘You know, I’ve probably spent more of my waking hours in this building than anywhere else on the planet.’ She shook her head and snorted to herself. ‘I’ve never really thought about it like that up until now. That is so depressing.’
She hesitated at the incident room door, then pushed it open. The desks all faced a row of evidence boards that had been erected at the front of the room. There were only four detectives manning them. Three were on the telephone, one was on his computer. All four were animated and hard at work, which was understandable. A case that had been cold for the last three hundred and sixty-three days had just turned red hot. The clock was ticking. Forty-ei
ght was the number in everyone’s heads. If they didn’t get this guy in the next forty-eight hours then it would be another three hundred and sixty-three days until he struck again.
Freeman was at the side of the room, giving one of his detectives a hard time. The detective seemed to be taking it all in his stride, like this sort of thing happened every day. And maybe it did. Freeman’s management style was one of the reasons that Winter worked for himself. The only thing worse than being told what to do was being told what to do by a person you had zero respect for. They walked over. Freeman held up a finger to indicate that he’d be with them in a second, then went back to busting balls.
Inactivity had always made Winter edgy. Whenever he got bored his brain started looking for mischief. It had been the same when he was a kid. He’d always be reading or playing computer games or practising piano, anything to keep the boredom at bay. ‘I’m going to take a look at the evidence boards,’ he whispered to Anderton. ‘Call me when Freeman’s done.’
‘Sure.’
He walked toward the row of boards at the front, aware that he was being watched. One of the first things he’d learned in the FBI was what it meant to be a necessary evil. The Behavioral Analysis Unit were called in to consult because when it came to profiling they were the best. The flipside was that there was always going to be someone on the investigation who viewed their presence as an affront to their competence. This time it was the person leading the investigation who viewed him as a necessary evil. Judging by the looks he was getting, he had a pretty good idea of what was being said behind his back. Not that it mattered. Having a serial killer for a father meant that he’d had to develop a thick skin. Being a Fed had toughened it up.
Winter started with the board at the far left and worked his way right. There were multiple pictures of the victims, both alive and dead. These were the attention grabbers, particularly the ones shot post-mortem. This time he was more concerned with the pictures of Cody and the husbands. There were plenty of them, too. They were the real targets. So, what had the killer seen in them? What had made him sit up and take notice? They’d been given a glimpse into how this guy thought. Now they had to work out what to do with that information.
The map on the middle board covered the same part of Vancouver as the map on the wall of his hotel suite. The difference was that Freeman had used red pins instead of inked crosses, and there were four rather than three. The newest pin marked Spencer Avenue, where Myra and Cody Hooper had lived. Once again it was within the circle that Anderton had drawn on his map. A hundred thousand people lived in that area. Was the killer one of them? It seemed likely. Four times out of four he’d chosen to hunt here. This was an area he clearly felt comfortable in. These were streets he would have been intimately familiar with. If he didn’t live there now, he’d lived there at some point in the past.
The board at the far right had three photographs, all pinned up that day. Myra Hooper was alive in the top one. This was a vacation photo taken in New York. She was standing outside the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. In the background was a partial glimpse of a Phantom of the Opera poster. She was happy and relaxed, totally oblivious of what the future held. The next photograph was from the crime scene. Myra was lying on her bed, her body destroyed by the blast. The third and final photograph was of Cody, the one from the refrigerator. He was staring at the camera and grinning his goofy grin. The background was too blurry to work out where it had been taken.
A low whistle carried through the room. Winter turned and saw Anderton gesturing to him. He walked quickly back past the boards, removing some photographs of each of the husbands as he went. Freeman and Anderton were talking footprints when he got there. The CSIs had concluded that the one found across the street from Myra’s house had come from a man’s shoe. The size was well below average, so the person who’d made it was probably well below average height. The depth of the impression pointed toward someone who was below average weight.
Anderton was nodding and making noises like this was the first time she’d heard this information. It was too early to say whether the footprint had been made by the killer, but it was looking hopeful. The clincher would be finding traces of superglue on the tree trunk. Samples were being fast-tracked through the lab, but these things took time.
Winter cleared a space on a nearby desk, shuffled the photographs, then laid them down in three rows of three. The distribution of faces was completely random, which was what he had been aiming for. The first row started with Eric Kirchner in the top left corner and was completed with two pictures of Nicholas Sobek, one with a beard, one without. The second row began and ended with David Hammond. The third ended with Kirchner. Winter nodded toward the photographs.
‘There’s your killer.’
26
Freeman gave Winter a puzzled look, silence stretching between them. The incident room was filled with the noise of constant speculation, but it seemed to be happening a long way away.
‘From the very start there’s been a huge question mark hanging over the victimology,’ Winter said. ‘Well, that question mark has just been erased. The thing that connects the victims is the husbands. So, with that in mind, take another look at the photographs and tell me what you see. And I’m talking broad strokes rather than fine details.’
Freeman took a look, then said, ‘They’ve all got black hair and brown eyes. And they’re all in their thirties.’
‘Exactly. And that description is going to apply to the killer. You’re looking for someone with black hair and brown eyes who’s in their thirties. Also, he was married at some point. I guarantee it.’
Freeman was shaking his head. ‘That’s sounds like one hell of a leap.’
‘No it’s not. Organised serial killers spend an inordinate amount of time selecting their victims. The victim is the foundation of the fantasy. It’s the centre of everything. The process of choosing is not informed by whim, and that’s why I’ve had a problem with this case right from the very beginning. The randomness of the victims makes no sense. Choosing Isabella, Alicia and Lian just doesn’t work. There are no physical similarities. They come from different age groups, two are Caucasian, one is Asian. If this was a disorganised killer then I could see how this might work. But this isn’t a disorganised killer.’
‘Winter’s right,’ Anderton put in. ‘We’ve finally found a link.’
‘Okay, but what about Myra Hooper’s son? He’s not in his mid-thirties. Nor is he married to the victim.’
‘The latest murder is an anomaly,’ Winter said. ‘And that’s something we should be thanking the gods who look down on murder detectives for. We’re already a mile further down the road than we were yesterday. If we can answer the questions that this new murder poses then that road is going to take us all the way to his front door.’
‘Is that something else you guarantee?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Okay, let’s say you’re right. How does this help?’
‘It helps because it gives us an insight into how the killer is thinking. What are the husbands doing here? They’re killing their wives. So the question becomes: why does the killer want his wife dead?’
‘Maybe she cheated on him,’ Anderton suggested. ‘Or maybe she just got fed up and left him. Being married to a serial killer is not a recipe for long-lasting happiness.’
‘You’d be surprised. My parents were married for thirteen years. They only got divorced after my father’s arrest. Believe it or not, there were plenty of happy days before then. My mom wasn’t stupid, she was just invested in making the marriage work. In that sense she wasn’t any different from a lot of wives. That said, I agree that something must have gone wrong with the killer’s marriage.’
‘Could that have triggered the first murder?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking.’ Winter turned to Freeman. ‘Do you believe there are situations where lying is appropriate?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘It’s a simple enou
gh question. Is it ever okay to lie?’
‘Do you really think I’m going to admit to something like that.’
‘If it helps, I’ll rephrase the question. Do you think that it’s okay to lie if it serves the greater good?’
Freeman said nothing. He glanced over his right shoulder, then the left, like he was looking for hidden cameras.
Winter patted his Zappa T-shirt. ‘It’s okay, I’m not wearing a wire.’
‘If you have something to say, then say it, but can we please dispense with the bullshit and the dramatics.’
Winter turned the picture of Sobek with a beard face down, taking it out of the equation. There were now eight faces staring up from the desk. All with black hair and brown eyes. All in their mid-thirties. All clean shaven.
‘Do you have a sketch artist?’
‘I said no dramatics.’
‘I’m not being dramatic. It’s a legitimate question.’
‘No, we don’t employ a sketch artist. These days we use software to create photo composites.’
‘Who’s the best person you’ve got?’
‘That’ll be Geneva Tarantini,’ Anderton said.
Freeman gave her a pointed look. ‘Tarantini would be my first choice.’
‘Well, since you’re both in agreement, Tarantini it is.’ Winter picked up the eight front-facing photographs from the desk, tapped them into a neat pile, then handed them to Freeman. ‘She needs to create a single facial composite from the pictures of the three husbands. Once she’s done that, you’re going to give the picture to the media and tell them that there was an eyewitness who saw someone acting suspiciously near Myra Hooper’s house.’
‘Which would be a lie.’
‘A white lie,’ Winter said. ‘A lie to serve the greater good. The killer’s confidence is built on two ideals. Firstly, he believes that he’s calling the shots. Secondly, there’s precedence. Not only has he got away with this three times in the past, but you guys haven’t even got close to him. So what happens if he thinks that you’re closing in? What happens if he thinks you’re sniffing at his heels?’
