by Leslie Wolfe
“What do you think?” he asked, and put the sketch in her lap with little warning.
She gasped. The portrait was astonishing. He’d drawn tension lines in his jaws and around his mouth, a signature of those who deal with trauma-induced anger. The result of his work was not a bland, could-be-anybody likeness; it was a haunting, memorable depiction of a killer.
“I’m speechless,” Tess said. “This is amazing.”
“Told you, I’m the best there is,” Tyler stated matter-of-factly.
She laughed. “Let’s draw us a rapist now. He’s a lust murderer waiting to kill for the first time. Until he gets his guts together to take that final step, he lusts and he rapes. He’s a violent man, and you can read the lewdness in his eyes, together with his deep contempt for women. They are objects to him, nothing more.”
Tyler’s pencil moved quickly, jumping from notepad to sketch book and back.
“His hair is blond and he has a strong baldness tendency. He might be bald already; we don’t know that. As he’s only in his early thirties, he might still have hair left. He’s the more rudimentary of the two, the least sophisticated. He’s also sick, and has been his entire life, with a painful genetic condition called polycystic kidney disease.”
“Ewww,” Tyler reacted.
“He might not know it yet, but his kidneys might bother him now and then.”
“Keep going,” Tyler encouraged her.
After a short while, Tyler put the second portrait in her hands, and she was equally impressed. The rapist unsub had strong, distinctive features, combined with an expression of lechery and contempt that was captured smartly in the tension drawn in the corners of his mouth, and the expression in his eyes.
“Now I’ll scan and send these to the team, and you can go home,” Tess said, smiling widely, feeling confident about the results of their work. “You have a lot of talent. When we’ve caught them, I’ll send you a note with their photos, to compare with how you did.”
He laughed quietly, packing his things. “Okay, sure, but I know I’m close, as long as you gave me the right information.”
“You’re also quite modest, aren’t you?” Tess asked.
He waved at her and left the room with an unbelievable smirk on his face.
Her smile disappeared the second Tyler did. She spread the two portraits in front of her, studying them closely. She hoped she was right in her insane quest. People remember mostly about other people what they felt when they looked at them, even more than what they saw. They’re most likely to recall that someone made them feel a certain way, and completely miss their hair color or face shape. That’s why witness accounts are so unreliable. Under the pressure of intense emotions and adrenaline, little attention is given to the measurable details of one’s physiognomy.
Her gut had told her she had a shot to build a true likeness of the unsubs with this method, although never tried before, and she’d bet her career and her reputation on it. Pearson’s too. Regardless of that, Katherine and Stacy’s lives were at stake, and it was the only thing that mattered to her.
She had her portraits. If she couldn’t get to Katherine and Stacy in time, nothing else really mattered.
37
Sick
Melissa found Tess’s door open when she came back from lunch, and the hallway flooded with the telltale smells of illicit foods. She locked eyes with her patient, and saw the guilty look on her face. She was recovering quickly, and that was the only thing that mattered. If burgers helped her do that, then burgers were just fine. Even Dr. DePaolo looked the other way in her case.
She entered the room carrying an armful of supplies, and rushed to the cabinet counter to drop her load. She’d brought everything needed to restock the room, and to change Tess’s dressing. Opening one drawer after another, she inspected and replenished everything, while jotting notes on her notepad.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Tess said, lifting her eyes from the file she was reading.
She’d littered her bed with case files and crime-scene photos, and Melissa averted her eyes whenever she could.
Each line of work steels the people who make a career out of it; she knew that well, but she still couldn’t look at crime-scene photos the way her patient did. Probably, Tess would faint if she had to run a bowel with her hands during surgery; that was something Melissa could easily stomach, but not the crime-scene photos.
Melissa pursed her lips and put a furrow between her eyebrows, while checking Tess’s chart.
“I have you staying with us for at least three more days,” Melissa replied, showing Tess the chart.
Tess didn’t take her eyes off Melissa; didn’t even pretend to give the chart a look.
“I’m not asking; I’m telling you. I’m leaving tomorrow, and if it’s against medical advice, then so be it. I’ve got work to do. Do what you have to do to release me tomorrow morning and please don’t delay.”
Melissa dropped the chart on the counter and approached the bed.
“Listen, why don’t you give yourself a little more time?” she asked patiently, concern seeping through her voice. Her patient was about to do something really stupid, regardless of how smart she seemed to be. “You’ve got everything you want here, monitors, and computers, and phones, people come and go as they wish, and you eat burgers and fries, and who knows what else. You’ve got it all; why rush out of here and risk your life?”
“Mel, you and I are friends, right?”
“Yes,” she replied, unsure where that was going.
“Then, as your friend, I’m asking for your help. I’m not walking out of here now, with zero warning, as I’m inclined to do. I want to give you and Dr. DePaolo time to sort this out. Believe it or not, I don’t want to be in more pain than I absolutely have to, or have long-term consequences from this injury. If you want, I’ll swing by every now and then to get checked out, but I need to be out there. Help me, Mel.”
Melissa looked in Tess’s eyes and saw determination, the kind of resolve that no one could overturn. She sighed, defeated, and took to changing her patient’s IV bag.
“People are dying, Mel,” Tess insisted in a softer voice. “I need to do this.”
“To do what? Be one of them? You’re still dehydrated, and off your pain meds AMA. How far are you willing to push this?”
She threw the words over her shoulder, not even turning to face her. Some people believed with all their hearts the world would stop turning if they didn’t show up for work one day. Until she’d met Tess, she thought only doctors had this issue; but apparently, it wasn’t true. Cops could develop a God complex too.
“Look,” Tess said, but Mel didn’t react. “No, I mean turn around and look. All these women are missing. Some of them are already dead. You know her,” Tess added, putting aside Dr. Nelson’s photo. “Maybe we can still save her.”
Melissa looked at Katherine Nelson’s photo with hesitation, almost afraid of what she’d see. It was a good photo of her, not a crime-scene photo; she was still missing, not dead. She looked happy and beautiful in that photo. But then Tess took that picture away, and revealed the image underneath Katherine’s.
She gasped as her heart started pumping hard, thumping against her chest. She covered her mouth with both her hands, while her eyes, rounded in shock, stared at the photo. She took staggering steps back, as if she’d seen a ghost. By accident, she stepped on one of the IV stand wheels, and tripped that over, sending it crashing over the bedside table onto the floor, taking the phone with it. The ruckus got the attention of the uniformed officer stationed outside the door, who gawked inside with a disapproving look.
“Oh, my God…” she whispered, and rushed to pick everything from the floor. “Did I hurt you? Did the IV line—”
“No, I’m fine,” Tess replied, and scrutinized her from head to toe. “Are you all right?”
She wasn’t all right, and probably wouldn’t be anytime soon, not after seeing the photo of that woman. How could she begin to
tell her patient, none other than an FBI agent, that the woman the police were looking for was the same woman her husband had stalked, just three days ago? There was no way… no, not until she was sure.
Sure of what, exactly? With her own eyes, she’d seen her husband follow that woman, and had pictures of her, on the memory card from Sophie’s camera and in her locker where she’d hid the photos she’d printed. Was it the same woman? Maybe she was wrong… maybe she’d become so obsessed with that woman that she saw her face everywhere she looked.
Yes, that must be it, she reassured herself, and breathed a little easier. The breath did little to relieve the rampant anxiety that wreaked havoc on her mind and body. It had to be a mistake, because the alternative was incomprehensible. How could Derek be involved with missing women? With dead women? No, he couldn’t be, and her memory was playing tricks on her. Derek was just cheating on her, that’s all there was. It had to be.
“Mel?” Tess pressed on. “Are you all right?”
“Um, yeah… I get dizzy sometimes,” she said, but shifted her eyes without realizing.
“Uh-huh… Really, Mel? Remember what I do for a living?”
She closed her eyes for a second, worried sick she’d triggered the fed’s endless suspicions. Law enforcement had earned a bad reputation lately, of abuse, violence, and wrongful convictions, and she didn’t want her family on the receiving end of that.
“No, really, I have vertigo. I’ve had some problems lately.”
“I know that, we talked about it. But I believe something scared you, something you saw here,” she patted on the photo-littered bed cover, right next to that haunting woman’s picture.
“N–no,” Melissa replied, feeling her dry throat constrict. She swallowed hard and took a few steps toward the supply cabinet, putting more distance between the perceptive fed and her own worst fears. “I swear to you, it’s nothing. Just vertigo.”
Tess nodded sideways and pursed her lips; she seemed disappointed, and maybe she had reasons to be. Melissa’s instincts told her she could trust Tess, but she was too afraid to open up her concerns to official scrutiny. She knew exactly what was going to happen if she said anything. Sworn statements. Derek interviewed, maybe even arrested, when in fact he was innocent… he was just having an affair, and everything was nothing more than a coincidence. He was her husband, and the father of her child. He deserved the benefit of the doubt, and more.
She pretended to count syringes and needles in one of the drawers, avoiding Tess’s perceptive gaze, and thinking bitterly how three days ago the tragedy of her life was discovering Derek was having an affair. Now it seemed to be the best of all remaining alternatives.
Life changes from underneath you really fast, she reflected. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to help Tess leave the hospital as soon as possible.
“Okay,” Tess replied, still gazing at her intently. “I’m not buying it for a minute, and I’m only going to say this once. If you know anything about any of these women and you don’t tell me, not only would you be guilty of obstructing justice, but you’d be responsible for someone’s death. You could go to jail for a very long time. Keep that in mind when you tell me it’s nothing, Mel. Don’t do this to yourself; no one’s worth it.”
Tears flooded Melissa’s eyes and started running down her checks, and she slammed the drawer shut, angry with herself for her lack of self-control. She pounded on the counter with both hands, rattling all the scattered objects on its surface. She felt sick to her stomach and wanted to get the hell out of there before she collapsed. Somehow, she found the strength and turned to face Tess.
“I’m sick, all right? That’s what’s wrong… I’m sick. Don’t do this to me, please!”
She rushed out of Tess’s room and didn’t stop until she made it to the locker room. She grabbed one of the folded towels on the counter and buried her face in it to suppress the sound of her wails.
Her courage returned and her convictions demanded truthful answers. Derek couldn’t be involved in this nightmare, and the woman she’d seen in a photo on Special Agent Winnett’s hospital bed wasn’t the woman her husband followed three nights ago. It couldn’t be, and she had proof. All she needed to do was look at the pictures she’d taken, and immediately alleviate her senseless, nightmarish fears. She’d see it was a mistake, and regain her composure immediately. Then she’d be able to deal with Special Agent Tess Winnett again, and put her mind at ease.
She opened her locker and took out the prints from Sophie’s camera. She clutched them with frozen, trembling fingers, and stared at the face of the woman captured in a poorly lit, yellow-hued photo.
She heard a loud ringing in her ears, and felt the blood rush to her head. She managed to put the photos in the locker before rushing to the sink, where she dry-heaved between sobs until she couldn’t stand anymore and had to sit, weak at the knees, feeling her head was about to explode.
The woman her husband had followed three nights before was the same woman the FBI was looking for.
38
The Yoga Instructor
Tess watched the suspect on the laptop screen and had the audio feed tapped into her headphones. Michowsky and Fradella wore earpieces, and she could communicate with them in real time, courtesy of the modern technology Donovan had laid at their feet. Nothing was better than her live presence in the interview room though, and she yearned to be there in person, to see the microexpressions on the suspect’s face, to smell his fear, to see the beads of sweat breaking out at the roots of his hair.
The wide monitors at the foot of her bed were dark for the first time since they had been installed, and they were going to stay dark for the remainder of her hospital stay. All case photos were neatly stashed inside file folders, and no trace of case information was visible anywhere. She’d broken many rules by letting any piece of information be in plain sight, and she knew it.
She shook her head, angry with herself for breaking the one rule that should at no time be broken: never share any information about an ongoing investigation, the operative word being “any.” She hadn’t been sloppy about the information that could be visible to others, and had the door and blinds closed whenever she reviewed anything, whether reading from a file, speaking on the phone, or seeing something on the computer screens. Still, the one person who had, at times, overheard conversations or seen anything was Melissa, her nurse. She’d thought she was safe with her around, how she seemed to mind her own business and not pay any attention, but she’d been dead wrong.
Melissa was hiding something terribly upsetting, and was doing a remarkably poor job at it. Maybe Mel would grow a brain and talk to her openly about what that was; if she was protecting someone, Tess was her only chance of getting the kid-glove treatment about it. In any case, Tess held her cards closer to the vest now, even if Melissa wasn’t in the room.
She refocused on the suspect, parked in one of the Palm Beach County interview rooms and left to fester, as Michowsky had put it. It was a common interrogation technique; suspects were locked in the interview rooms alone, to wait while building anxiety and anger, thus becoming more likely to react impulsively and start talking.
She was viewing a video feed taken from the ceiling camera, and for the longest time she couldn’t see the suspect’s face. Eventually, exasperated by the long wait, the suspect, a yoga instructor both Lisa Trask and Sarah Thomas had classes with, looked up at the ceiling in a silent stance of annoyance. Quickly, she captured a screenshot of the video feed and compared it to the likeness Tyler had drawn.
He was a strong match for the rapist unsub; he had blond hair and he kept it gelled generously over his head to keep it in place, despite it wanting to stand upright, like bristles on a brush. He wasn’t showing signs of baldness yet, but he was younger, only twenty-nine. His eye color matched, his earlobes were attached, and there was no cleft chin that could have eliminated him. Overall, he looked compatible with the likeness, although not that close. However, without a DNA sam
ple they couldn’t be sure, and the detectives knew that very well.
Michowsky and Fradella entered the room, and the suspect leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “Finally,” he said, “I have a business to run. How much time are you gonna waste me, huh?”
Michowsky took a seat across from the suspect, while Fradella remained standing, leaning casually against the wall with his hands buried in his pockets.
Michowsky opened the file he’d brought in and started reading, as if for the first time. “Eugene Bolton, right?”
“Gene, yeah.”
“You a yoga instructor?”
“Pfft… like you didn’t know.”
“Yoga’s about anything else but touching other people,” Michowsky replied unperturbed, “so I wonder if you know that much about yoga to call yourself an instructor.”
The suspect froze. “What do you mean?”
“Two complaints, right here,” he said, tapping the folder he’d placed on the table. “Two complaints that never made it to court, but that doesn’t mean the deeds didn’t happen. What did you do to those women?”
“Nothing,” he replied a little too quickly. He smiled, but he was tense, worried. “Innocent until proven guilty. Remember that part of your job, Detective?”
“You like touching women, don’t you?” Michowsky continued. “You like to stare at them as they stretch their bodies in front of you, offering them for you to see and desire, then whisk away without letting you closer. You get close, but never close enough.”
The suspect shook his head and pressed his lips together. “That’s not—”
“It’s not? Are you sure? Why, then, would you badger these women until you make them call us? Just man up and admit it: you like women a little too much.”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing, unless you’re gay,” he replied with a crinkle of his nose.
