UNSUB

by Meg Gardiner

  Caitlin reached the porch and knocked on the door. He watched a second longer. She was so like her mother—impulsive. Intuitive, seeing connections where others found only fog. Tough, but somehow not cynical. She had been disillusioned young, in terrible ways. But she remained passionate.

  Passionate to right the wrong that befell his life. To redeem the Hendrix name. She tried to take everything on, singlehandedly. That was her trip wire—the can of emotional gasoline that could light in a flash and burn her up.

  That, and the secret compassion that she tried to bury in front of strangers. Mack walked toward her.

  She was at the door, talking to the landlady. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  He climbed the steps. “I’m here.”

  She turned. Strands of her hair swirled around her face in the wind. She gave him the look, saw the dirt and the paper and the mud on his boots, took measure of how steady his steps were, and kept her face flat. But he sensed the relief, the Oh, thank God he’s sober. He had a long way to go to earn more than that. Even after twenty years.

  “Just you?” he said. “Sergeant Guthrie decided it works better as a solo act?”

  She pressed her lips together. He led her down the hall into the kitchen. “Glass of water?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She stopped at the kitchen island, hands deep in her jacket pockets. “He sent me a message.”

  Mack stopped, his hand on the faucet. Caitlin rounded the island and approached him.

  “I can’t understand what he’s saying.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “You say you’ve given up. I don’t believe it.”

  He lowered his head. She took his arm and pushed up his sleeve to reveal his tattoo.

  “It’s under your skin,” she said.

  The heat in her eyes seemed to scorch the ink. The pain of the needle returned.

  I said the Prophet’s symbol. Do it. Drunk in the Tenderloin, yelling at a tat artist. He hadn’t wanted argument. He wanted a brand, punishment, a gate to the darkness. A reminder that the Prophet wasn’t finished.

  “Dad.”

  He read the second tattoo. Caitlin. Years later, he got that one sober. Because she was the light.

  She said, “This is the second time he’s made a remark that could refer to me. And I—”

  “Second. What else?”

  “The message he sent to the TV station. ‘Old and young into the pit.’ I think he knew I was assigned to the investigation from the start. And his message today . . .” She inhaled. “He calls me out by name.”

  “You don’t think he’s trying to drive you away from the case.”

  “He didn’t try to drive you away, did he?”

  “The opposite,” Mack said.

  “Like he wants me there. Like he . . .”

  “Lured you in.”

  She looked pensive. “Like he chose me to pursue him.”

  Mack’s pulse hit harder. He didn’t dare say it, but he thought: The killer selected Caitlin. Every bit as much as he selected his victims. Caitlin didn’t get assigned the investigation—she was part of the case. And the killer wanted her working on it. He put her on the playing field of one of the biggest unsolved serial murder cases in America.

  His heart clutched. “Quit. Get out of town.”

  But he saw her desperation. Fear for her swept through him. He wanted to pull her close and whisper, Run from this case. But her voice was full of fury and determination.

  “If he’s taunting you directly, he has something in the pipeline.” He breathed. “Show me.”

  * * *

  It was dusk when the skateboarders turned into Silver Creek Park. Kyle, Tony, and Jaden were silent as Tony drove the old Civic along the puddle-splashed gravel drive. Kyle’s eyes darted between his phone, with the geographic coordinates, the hills, and the trees blowing in the wind. Nobody else was around.

  Tony said, “This place is creepy.”

  Jaden said, “You think he was going to send us to Dairy Queen?”

  Kyle thought: He. A weird quiver pulled at his lips. He bit down to stop it.

  They bounced around a curve, into an empty parking lot. Kyle checked the coordinates. “It’s close. Park here.”

  When Tony turned off the engine, the wind whistled through the door panels. They sat. Finally, Kyle got out.

  He followed the map on his phone across the parking lot to a fire road. The chain was up, but there were tire tracks on both sides. He hopped over and headed up the road, into the trees. Tony and Jaden caught up.

  They closed ranks and walked silently in the wind. After five minutes of climbing, they rounded a corner and found themselves at the crest of a hill, looking down a ravine.

  There were torn branches and bushes ripped out by the roots, in a fat path that fell deep into the ravine. It looked like a herd of dinosaurs had crashed through the brush.

  Tony pointed. “What the hell is that?”

  Kyle raised his phone to snap a photo. The camera flashed. Then he was running, and the sounds coming from his mouth and Jaden’s and Tony’s mouths were long, high screams.

  * * *

  Caitlin opened her laptop on a coffee table in the boardinghouse living room. The bay window was filled with charcoal darkness. She jacked in a flash drive with a copy of the FedEx video. She looked at her father.

  “It’s rough,” she said.

  Mack leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “Play it.”

  She hit a key.

  Mack didn’t move. He didn’t blink. His eyes swept the screen. On the video, Stuart Ackerman’s plaintive cries stretched on and on. Caitlin’s stomach hollowed once more.

  When the video jump-cut to the alley with the graffiti, Mack leaned in.

  The voice on the video whispered, “You’re lost, Hendrix. Gone astray in a dark wood. You’ll never find the path. But someone will, for punishment awaits . . .”

  The video ended. Mack was as still as a gargoyle.

  Quietly, he said, “Play it again.”

  Caitlin replayed it. Mack watched without moving. When it ended, he said, “Again.”

  He watched the third time with something hawklike in his face. When the video went black, he said, “You’re releasing the graffiti footage?”

  “Once Command signs off on it.” Caitlin ran her fingers through her hair. “Somebody has to have seen that graffiti.”

  “Maybe.” Mack’s voice turned pensive. “The Prophet never chooses victims on the spur of the moment. He researches and scouts his targets. That’s one thing he’s telling you.”

  The knot in her stomach tightened. “He has somebody in the pipeline.”

  “‘Punishment awaits.’”

  The air settled heavily around them.

  She said, “He likes that word.”

  From her satchel she pulled out a photocopy of the map the Prophet had drawn of the first crime scene. PUNISHMENT was prominent.

  Mack nodded at the map. “I found that in a storm drain a quarter mile from the crime scene.”

  She leaned back. “I thought—wait. I thought he mailed this to the station. That the water damage happened when the evidence room flooded.”

  Mack shook his head.

  She held the map up. “He dropped the original of this? But everything else has been flawless. He leaves no DNA, no fingerprints, no useful trace . . .”

  “This was twenty-five years ago. He was still a novice.”

  “And making rookie errors?”

  “An offender’s first crime is often the most revealing,” Mack said. “That’s why you focus on it when you evaluate a series of crimes. It’ll show you where the inexperienced offender is comfortable. That crime is close to where he lives or works, and his behavior is most natural because he hasn’t ye
t perfected his techniques.”

  “So you’re saying I should go back to where it started. With the wasps.”

  “I’m not saying anything. I told you, I don’t want this to touch you.”

  “Stop that. I’m doing this.”

  “And you have to hear what I’m saying. Today, he has perfected his techniques. He’s extremely skillful.”

  His eyes were melancholy, roiling with an emotion she couldn’t identify.

  “Is that why the first murder was in the fall, and all the others in the spring?” she said.

  “Maybe. Counting these new killings, six murders have taken place on an equinox. But the first killing is the only one in the autumn.”

  She digested it. He scratched at his arms. His jittering energy suffused the room.

  “You asked what his message is. But there isn’t simply one message,” he said. “Yes, there’s a reason he addresses himself directly to you in that archaic way. ‘Gone astray.’ It has meaning to him, and you need to crack it.” He caught himself. “Somebody should crack it. But his other ‘message’ might not be a code.”

  “It might be a lure.”

  “Don’t let yourself get sucked into his world.”

  “Understood.”

  Mack hooked her gaze. He held it for a long moment. “It seeps into you. The truth about what human beings can do to each other. Eventually, to stop him, you’ll do anything.” He paused to make sure she was paying attention. “We needed a break in the case. We started thinking . . . give us the evidence. Keep working.”

  She inhaled sharply. He stood and walked to the window.

  She sat, hands hanging loose. After a minute she followed him to the window. Though she neared his side he stared vacantly, as though she were invisible.

  She curved around until she was right in front of him. “Dad.”

  He turned his head and finally acknowledged her. His jaw was tight.

  “I . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Mack’s expression turned rueful. “There’s nothing you need to say.”

  She stared at the floor for a minute, then nodded and turned to go. He caught her by the wrist.

  “You have a good life. Don’t let him ruin it.”

  * * *

  Outside, Caitlin walked to her Highlander in the fading purple dusk. The wind brought the sound of traffic on 280.

  Mack had just made an act of contrition. We needed a break in the case. We started thinking . . . give us the evidence. Keep working.

  It was a confession: that he and Saunders became so obsessed with catching the Prophet, they missed the chance to save the newlyweds at the cemetery. She felt queasy.

  The bay window of the boardinghouse blazed with light. She could see her father in the living room. He stood facing the wall, motionless, staring seemingly at nothing.

  Her phone rang. It was Guthrie.

  “Hendrix. Silver Creek Park. It may be our primary crime scene, where Stuart Ackerman was killed. I’ll meet you there.”

  She jumped in the car. “Rolling. It’ll be half an hour. I’m in the city.”

  “Move. There’re high school kids involved.”

  12

  Caitlin pulled into Silver Creek Park and immediately saw a problem. Flashing lights spangled the oak trees, but nobody had defined or secured the crime scene. She stopped beside a sheriff’s office Charger and got out. A uniformed officer approached.

  “Marston?” she said.

  The young officer, who’d been with her on the crank-house raid, raised his chin in greeting. “They’re all up this way.”

  They crossed the gravel parking lot toward a second patrol car. In its headlights stood another uniformed deputy, several civilians in their forties, and three teenage boys. A station wagon, a Lexus, and a Civic with a Sequoia High School parking sticker were parked nearby.

  “Is this part of the crime scene?” Caitlin said.

  Marston pointed at the far end of the parking lot. “Ravine up the fire road about a quarter mile. That’s where the kids found the car.”

  “Is that the only road that provides vehicle access to the ravine?”

  “As far as I know.”

  A dull annoyance, and a sense of missed opportunity, grew in her. “So the car in the ravine had to drive through this parking lot. The killer could have passed right by here.”

  Control the scene. That was a cardinal rule in detective work. Gravel ground under her boots. She wondered if they were walking on already trampled evidence.

  She nodded at the people huddled ahead. “You spoke to the kids?”

  Marston nodded. “Each of them, separately. They seem straight-up scared. Thought they would have some fun, and ended up in something freaky.”

  Headlights rose, coming from the main road. A brown beater stopped behind the patrol cars and a man got out. Drawn, gray, wearing a worn tweed jacket and Western shirt. He had a notebook in his hand.

  He cupped a hand to his mouth and called out, “Detective Hendrix. Bart Fletcher, East Bay Herald.”

  Fletcher. The hack who’d written the story about Caitlin trying to overcome her father’s failures.

  “Has the Prophet committed another murder?” he shouted.

  Caitlin looked to the second uniformed deputy. Lyle. “Get him out of here. Shut the park entrance. Put out cones. Nobody gets in but Sergeant Guthrie or Crime Scene.”

  Lyle nodded and headed toward Fletcher. Caitlin heard grumbling conversation, and Fletcher’s engine starting. She kept walking.

  How did Fletcher know? “What went out over the scanner?”

  “Not sure,” Marston said.

  She approached the group. Parents hovered, hawkeyed and anxious. She made eye contact with them all but addressed herself to the boys. “I’m Detective Hendrix. Are you okay?”

  The three teens nodded. They looked at her with shiny fear. Boys in sagging jeans and one with a watch cap, biting his nails. These weren’t kids used to encountering the cops. The youngest, Kyle Perez, looked about fourteen and sounded like his voice had broken only yesterday. He explained about finding the geographic coordinates in the culvert behind the high school.

  “So we decided to check it out. I thought it could be a joke and didn’t want to call the police over nothing. You know?”

  His dad set a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  But he squeezed Kyle’s shoulder like, We’re going to have a talk about doing something stupid, though.

  Kyle went on. “So we got here and headed for the coordinates up that fire road . . .” He looked again at his friends. They offered no help. “That’s when we saw the car. And we . . .”

  Jaden, the kid with the hat, said, “Freaked.”

  Tony, the driver, said, “We were all, get the hell out of here—”

  “Fast,” Jaden said. “We booked. Ran.”

  Kyle wiped his nose and swallowed. “You don’t want us to go back up there, do you?”

  “No.”

  The boys all relaxed.

  Caitlin said, “Marston, with me. Everybody else, stay put.”

  Kyle said, “And so you know . . . it smells horrible.”

  Caitlin and Marston walked toward the fire road. As they did, Guthrie pulled in. He parked and joined them. The road climbed into the woods. At the crest of the hill, it turned and ran along a ridge above a ravine.

  The fall line ran through torn bushes and tree limbs. The car was about sixty feet down, grille buried against a boulder. An arrow protruded from the left front tire.

  They smelled it. Death. Then they heard it. A buzz, frantic. Flies.

  Marston coughed. Guthrie swept the beam of his flashlight across the scene. Caitlin battled the urge to back away. Though she breathed shallowly through her nose, the smell filled her sinuses and thr
oat. If she breathed through her nose long enough, her olfactory nerves would go numb. An old cop had told her that, at the morgue. He also told her that smells are particulate. She clamped her teeth together and fought the gag reflex.

  They edged over the lip of the ravine and sidestepped down the fall line, flashlights sweeping the brush. The smell worsened. Ten yards down, they got a better vantage point.

  “What the hell?” Guthrie said.

  They aimed their flashlights at the wrecked car. Its tail faced toward them. It was a blue Nissan Sentra, the same model and color as Stuart Ackerman’s missing vehicle. Guthrie called in the tag number, but the license plate wasn’t what they were staring at. And a new smell mixed with death. Gasoline.

  Marston said, “Ruptured gas tank or fuel line?”

  Guthrie continued to train his flashlight on the car. “Call the fire department.”

  Marston leaned into his shoulder-mounted radio and called for fire response to a wilderness car wreck. A voice replied.

  Marston said, “Detective, it’s getting crazy back at the parking lot.”

  “What’s going on?” Caitlin said.

  “Media’s here in force. The park entrance is closed, but they may come straight through the woods on foot.”

  “Tell Deputy Lyle to contain it,” she said.

  Standing halfway down the ravine, Caitlin and the two men tried to get their heads around what they were seeing. They were close enough to discern the source of the stench.

  The car was full of dead crows.

  The windows were cracked just enough to let the smell pour out and flies swarm in, while keeping bigger wildlife from pillaging the scene.

  The installation. The Prophet’s exhibit.

  A pair of vultures squatted on the roof. Alive.

  When Marston swung the beam of his flashlight across them, they cawed and spread their huge wings and leaped into the air, lumbering away into the night.

  Crows. Dozens of them. They were stiff and mangled and obviously decaying. Their glittering black feathers covered flattened and drooping flesh. Caitlin didn’t know how, but they seemed to all be standing upright, like a choir. They covered the dashboard and the shelf behind the backseat. They covered the steering wheel and the gearshift and the seats.