Sight Unseen

by Iris Johansen

  “Actually, I kind of inserted myself into this one.”

  Olivia went still. “And how, exactly, did you do that?”

  Kendra told her about the Cabrillo Bridge crime scene, her observations, and her conversation with Lynch.

  After she finished, Olivia didn’t speak for a moment. “The envelope he gave you … is that what I heard you put on the coffee table?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a paper shredder near the desk. Go ahead and put it in.”

  “I’ll take care of it later.”

  “Take care of it now.”

  “I—I don’t know what’s in it. They might need it back.”

  “Do you really think they took a precious, one-of-a-kind piece of evidence, dropped it into an envelope, and gave it to you without even telling you what it is? And didn’t you just tell me his exact words were, ‘open it, don’t open it, whatever’? That doesn’t sound like something they need back.”

  “You’re right.”

  “So go over there and shred it.”

  Kendra picked up the envelope but didn’t move from the couch.

  Shit. She couldn’t make herself do it.

  Olivia’s lips tightened. “You and I both know you’re going to open that envelope. And I know you’re going to help out on that investigation, even if you don’t.”

  “So you’re clairvoyant now?”

  “I don’t need to be. We’ve known each other most of our lives.”

  “But I turn down cases all the time.”

  “Most of them, yes. But as much as you say you’re not interested in this one, you can’t help yourself. It’s intriguing you. Even though you know it will probably put you through the ringer. I think it’s possible some of those cases—maybe even most—would have gone unsolved without you, and maybe you know that. So it could be that it would tear you up more not to do it. But if that’s true, that’s really screwed up. Is that the reason?”

  “No.”

  “Then do you even know the reason?”

  Kendra leaned back on the sofa, still clutching the manila envelope. “I love my job, dammit. There’s nothing I love as much as my music-therapy work. I really do think I’m helping those people.”

  “Of course you are.”

  She waited.

  “Okay. But sometimes I go weeks, months, without seeing signs of improvement in any of them. It goes with the territory, but it still makes me feel … powerless.”

  Olivia half smiled. “And taking on these FBI cases makes you feel powerful?”

  “Not really. Sometimes just the opposite.” She thought about it, trying to find an answer for herself as well as Olivia. It was time she stopped hiding and faced those reasons. “But those cases are finite problems with clear-cut solutions. I don’t often get that in my day job.”

  “But your day job won’t get you killed.”

  “I love life. I’m very careful, Olivia.”

  “Sometimes, that’s not enough.”

  “I know. Believe me, I usually leave the dangerous stuff to the people with guns.”

  “Usually. That’s not very reassuring.” Olivia stood up. “Well, your psychosis will have to wait because I’m throwing you out. An Australian newspaper is calling me for an interview in a few minutes.”

  “Whew.” Kendra grinned. “Saved by the bell.”

  “This conversation isn’t over,” Olivia said sternly.

  “Warning duly noted.” Kendra stood up and hugged her. So many years fighting the darkness together, so much love, so much friendship. “And I know it’s only because you care.”

  “Damned right,” she said gruffly. “You’re my best friend, and I refuse to do without you.” She released her and turned away. “Now get out of here.”

  * * *

  KENDRA WALKED UP TO HER third-floor condo, let herself in, and tossed her keys onto the small foyer table. She was about to toss Lynch’s envelope next to them when she stopped.

  Olivia was right. No way in hell she wasn’t opening it.

  She tore open the envelope and unfolded the small sheaf of papers inside. After less than a minute, she froze. “Shit,” she whispered.

  She let the papers and photo printouts fall to the floor.

  She stood there for a long moment, trying to process what she had just seen.

  What in the holy hell?

  After another few seconds, she picked up her mobile phone and punched a number.

  Lynch answered immediately. “Hello, Kendra.”

  “You son of a bitch. You knew I’d look, and you knew I’d call.”

  “Yes. All of the above.”

  Kendra realized that her hands were shaking. “I need to meet Griffin and everyone else at the Bureau working on this.”

  “I just set up a meeting between you and the entire team. They don’t want to wait until Monday. I told them I’d have you at the FBI field office at nine tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eight thirty.”

  Eight thirty in the morning. It could be five o’clock for all she cared. She knew she wasn’t getting much sleep tonight.

  “See you then.” She cut the connection.

  * * *

  AT EIGHT THIRTY THE NEXT MORNING, she was out in front of her condo and waiting when Lynch roared up in his Ferrari. “Good God, are you still driving that ostentatious piece of junk?” she said as she got into the passenger seat. “Did it ever occur to you that most men don’t require that kind of ego building?”

  “I don’t either, but I love great pieces of machinery, and I’m willing to pay for them.” He glanced at her. “Bad night?”

  “Rotten. But I’d still think this luxury cruiser was unnecessary if I’d slept like a baby.”

  “But you wouldn’t be so rude as to tell me so.” He suddenly grinned. “Correction. You probably would. What was I thinking?”

  “You’re right.” She sighed wearily. “It was rude. It’s not my business if you need bolstering.”

  “Now that really hurt.” His gaze was searching her face. “Angry?”

  “I was angry. You were playing with me yesterday. You can’t resist manipulating everyone around you. I don’t appreciate it.”

  “I thought you might need time to adjust to the idea. Wrong?”

  “You were manipulating,” she repeated.

  “Okay, I admit it. It comes so naturally that I don’t know I’m doing it sometimes.”

  “Not true. You always know what you’re doing. You’re sharp and calculating and you—” She broke off. “God, I’m dreading this meeting, Lynch.”

  “I know you are.” He added quietly, “But if it will help, I want you to know I’ll be there to watch your back.”

  “I don’t think it will help. Not with what I’ll be facing when I walk into that office…”

  FBI Field Headquarters

  San Diego

  “DR. MICHAELS, GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN.” Special Agent in Charge Michael Griffin was seated at the head of the long table in the field office’s cramped conference room. He didn’t stand to greet Kendra and Lynch, although the three other agents in the room did.

  Bill Santini, a sandy-haired man with a large middle-aged paunch, smiled. “Hello, Kendra. Welcome back.”

  It was actually a genuine smile, Kendra thought. She had never been his favorite person. But Santini had become much nicer to her since she’d let him grab an outsized portion of the credit for their last case together.

  A slender man in his late twenties stepped forward and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, which were slightly too small for his face. “Special Agent Roland Metcalf. It’s a true pleasure.”

  Kendra shook his hand. “Thank you, Agent Metcalf.”

  The remaining agent, a thirtyish woman with short blond hair, approached. “Thanks for helping us, Dr. Michaels. I’m Special Agent Saffron Reade.”

  “Agent Reade is why you’re here,” Lynch said as he pulled back a conference table chair for Kendra. “She put together that packet I gave you.”
<
br />   “So it’s your fault,” Kendra said to Saffron, not entirely joking.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Sit down, everybody. Let’s get started.” Griffin leaned back and placed his hands behind his head. His silver hair had grown whiter in the year since Kendra had last seen him though his angular face was still unlined for a man of his fifty-or-so years. “I’m sure we all appreciate Dr. Michaels’s coming down here this morning.”

  Why the hell didn’t he get down to it and stop all these pleasantries? Kendra thought as she sat down at the other end of the long table. He was being entirely too formal and polite. He always addressed her as Dr. Michaels when he was annoyed at any situation. Griffin had never liked or understood her. And none of these agents really liked her being here. She had never been shy about criticizing their methods and lack of vision, and they didn’t appreciate that she was usually proved right. Patience. It had been a sleepless night as predicted, but she wasn’t tired. The contents of that damned envelope had been an unpleasant jolt of pure adrenaline. She still felt sick to her stomach.

  Griffin motioned to Agent Reade. “Please begin.”

  “Certainly.” Reade pressed a button on the remote, and a projection screen lowered on the wall behind Griffin. Motorized shades closed over the window. A ceiling-mounted projector whirred to life, and a PowerPoint presentation appeared on the screen. The first image was the accident scene that Kendra had visited only two nights before.

  Reade turned toward the group. “As you know, Dr. Michaels, the Cabrillo State Bridge staged-accident scene bore some hallmarks of another case of yours in Texas, the Stanley Veers killings. His victims varied in age and gender, but each was killed in a way that was made to look like an accident.” Using her small remote, Reade quickly displayed shots of Veers’s murder scenes. “But as you’ve seen in the packet we gave you, we believe this new perpetrator has killed at least two other times in the past month. On October 17, a woman in Mission Valley was garroted with piano wire, which was then coiled up and placed in her mouth.” Read displayed the graphic crime-scene photos, some of which Kendra had already seen in the packet. “Then, on October 25, a man in Old Town was stabbed and the Latin phrase Mens Rea—guilty mind—was carved on his chest.” Again, Reade showed crime-scene photos that Kendra had already seen. “San Diego PD initially worked those cases and had no reason to think they were the work of the same person. But when this office was consulted on the Cabrillo Bridge scene, things started to fall into place. We realized there is something that links these cases.”

  “Yes.” Although Kendra had the entire night to tussle with it, hearing Reade review the cases still seemed so unreal. “The link between all these cases … is me.”

  Everyone in the room was silent, waiting for her to continue.

  Kendra stood up and gazed at the last gory crime-scene photo for a long moment before speaking. “The piano wire victim was killed using the M.O. of Martin Stout, who murdered four women exactly the same way in Reno, Nevada. It was one of my first cases.” Kendra looked at Reade. “Your packet didn’t say what kind of piano wire. Do you have any idea—?”

  Reade interrupted her. “Size 19 Roslau piano treble wire.”

  Kendra nodded. “Imported from Germany. Exactly what Stout always used. And the second victim was killed in the manner of the so-called Latin Killer, Lukas Hendricks, who carved Latin phrases on his victim’s bodies. Another one of my cases. I assume those were holdback facts pending the investigation?”

  Reade nodded.

  Griffin placed his palms flat on the table. “It appears someone is re-creating your greatest hits, Dr. Michaels.”

  “Delicately put as always, Griffin.”

  “We both know there’s nothing delicate about me. Someone is taunting you, Dr. Michaels. It’s no accident that they’re doing it in your own backyard.”

  “And they’re doing a damned good job of it.”

  “I’m sure this comes as quite a shock. But now you can understand why we needed to reach out to you.”

  “Of course. And you can understand why this case truly sickens me.”

  “It sickens all of us. Our profilers believe the killer is someone who might best be described as a fan of your investigative work.”

  Kendra shook her head. “That’s bullshit. I don’t have any fans.”

  “Well, that’s a surprise,” Griffin said, deadpan. “Dr. Michaels, we’re talking about someone who may at some point have reached out to you, either directly or perhaps on a public forum. Does anyone come to mind?”

  “No, I do get e-mails through my business Web site. Some are interested in my cases, but most want to know about the medical procedure that gave me my sight. They’re either blind themselves or have a blind friend or relative.”

  “Hmm. We should zero in on those who have expressed some interest or knowledge of your investigative work. Do you still have those e-mails?”

  “I do. I’ll sort through and pass them along to you. As for what’s being said about me on online forums, I have no idea.”

  “We do,” Metcalf said. “I’ve built a file going back several years. Activity surges whenever there’s mention of you in media accounts of your cases. We’re using IP addresses to build a database of the people who post on discussion boards, news-story-comments pages, and the like. We’ve already seen that a lot of the same people pop up again and again.”

  “See, you do have adoring fans,” Lynch said.

  Griffin nodded. “One of whom might have killed six people in the last few weeks. Metcalf, do you have a copy of that database for Dr. Michaels?”

  Metcalf slid a USB memory stick across the table to Kendra. “Here’s what we’ve come up with so far. Please review it and see if anything sets off any alarm bells.”

  “Will do.” Kendra took the stick. “Although I generally try to avoid reading things being said about me online.”

  “It’s almost all quite complimentary,” Metcalf said. “Though I was surprised there were no direct quotes from you concerning any of your investigations. None at all.”

  “I never talk to the media about the investigative work I do. Whenever someone asks, I shut them down immediately.”

  “But you obviously have no problem discussing your music-therapy work. You’ve been quoted in dozens of articles about that.”

  “Yes, and I’ve written dozens more myself. Plus two books so far. It’s an emerging field that needs all the attention it can get.” She shook her head. “Trust me, I wish it’s all I had to think about right now.”

  Reade raised the PowerPoint remote. “Shall I continue?”

  Griffin leaned forward. “Actually, how far did you and Metcalf get downstairs?”

  “It’s pretty much done. We were there most of the night.”

  “Good. We can continue down there.” Griffin turned to Kendra and Lynch. “We moved some of our sections off-site, and this building’s entire second floor is vacant right now. Everything’s been ripped out, and it’s a mess while we wait for the crews to come in and remodel. But it does give us plenty of room, which is in short supply up here.”

  “Room for what?” Lynch asked.

  Griffin stood and grabbed his jacket from the back of the triangular-backed chair. “I’ll show you.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  “I DON’T BELIEVE IT.” KENDRA’S voice echoed in the large space, bouncing off the bare walls and concrete floors.

  “Amazing,” Lynch whispered.

  They were with the FBI team on the vacant second floor, surrounded by nineteen freestanding bulletin boards. Each of the boards was packed with crime-scene photos, press clippings, and detail sheets of Kendra’s cases.

  “This is all of them, isn’t it?” Griffin waved his arms over the boards. “Every one of your murder investigations.”

  Kendra couldn’t answer at first. All those faces. All that death. All those places she had tried to forget. They were coming at her from every direction.

&n
bsp; “You okay?” Lynch asked.

  She nodded. Lynch was the only one who really knew her, who realized how this display might affect her. To the others, these were just her “triumphs,” her “greatest hits.” She finally turned toward Reade and Metcalf. “I’d forgotten I’d been involved with so many cases. I can see why you spent almost all night down here.”

  “It’s our case data center,” Griffin said. “We’re calling it ‘the war room.’ These boards have the details of every murder you’ve ever investigated. You’ve only done five for us, but we’ve also included the ones you’ve done for other police departments and investigative units. We’re working with San Diego PD to make sure that there haven’t been others that match some of these.”

  Kendra stopped to look at the face of the twelve-year-old Steve Wallach, who had been killed the night after she joined the hunt for the Marina killer.

  Steve would have been in high school now, dating, driving, maybe thinking about college. He might even—

  “Kendra?” Lynch said softly.

  She nodded in acknowledgment and forced herself to look away from that boy’s face.

  “Dr. Michaels,” Reade said. “If there’s any relevant information we left off any of these boards, please let us know.”

  “Sure.”

  “Exceptional job, isn’t it?” Griffin was strolling among the bulletin boards, like a patron at an art gallery from hell. “Since you’re going to be helping us, I thought it might be helpful for you to refresh your memory of these cases. Not to disparage Agent Saffron’s PowerPoint skills, this is probably easier to take in.”

  Like a dagger to the heart, Kendra thought. Don’t look at them right now. Don’t let them see how it brought back all the nightmares.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kendra said. “I could never forget any of these cases. I talked to the loved ones of every victim on these boards. That’s not something I could ever forget … as much as I would like to.”

  God, she wanted to get out of here.

  Lynch quickly stepped between her and Griffin. “Has the medical examiner given you a preliminary report on the victims from the bridge?”