14

by J. T. Ellison

  “Top-of-the-line printer, too. Those things were a thousand bucks a pop when they first came out. At the time, not too many people here in town had one. We traced the ownership, came back to a fellow in Green Hills, man by the name of Mars. Wasn’t him doing the killing, but it was his computer that the note got written on, his printer that spit it out.”

  Burt Mars. Taylor knew that name. He was a friend of her parents. An accountant, if she remembered correctly.

  “But it wasn’t Mars who wrote the note, right?”

  “We never could prove it was him. Never thought so, either. He just didn’t seem capable of pulling off something so elaborate as ten murders. Now, he could bilk Uncle Sam out of a pretty penny, I’ll give him that. No, we always thought it was one of his clients. Someone who had access to his office.”

  “Why a client? Why not an employee?”

  Kimball gave her a look, then smiled at Fitz, who had rejoined Taylor on the couch. “Because whoever this guy was, he had money. Now, Mars was a generous guy, but not that generous. His employees didn’t have the cash flow that Snow White did. No, it was one of Mars’s clients, all right. Someone who paid other people to do his work for him. I’ve always been confident about that.”

  “Why? What was so special about him that you think he came from money?”

  “The signet.”

  Taylor shook her head. “What?”

  “The signet ring. Jesus, that wasn’t in the files, either?”

  “I know nothing about it. Fitz, what about you?”

  “Don’t remember anything in there about a ring.”

  “Found it at one of the last scenes, let’s see, I believe it was Ellie Walpole. When they rolled the body, the ring was caught in her hair. It was a gold ring, scroll work on the sides, big sucker, with a monogrammed F in the crest. That’s all. Just an F. We went through Mars’s files with a fine-toothed comb, interviewed every single person whose name started or ended with an F. Didn’t get anywhere, but that didn’t mean too much. It could have belonged to the killer’s parent, grandparent—hell, cousin or friend, for all I know. It looked old, like it might have been passed down, you know what I mean?”

  “Now, that isn’t in the files, I know that for sure. I went through all of the evidence by hand three weeks ago when we pulled some of the boxes for our investigation. There’s nothing about a signet ring. And nothing in the interviews about a ring, either.”

  “Don’t know what to tell you, LT. It was there. Saw it with my own eyes. I wrote a lot of those reports myself—that’s why I know they were there. I’m getting the feeling you aren’t working with a full deck on this one.”

  Taylor looked at Fitz. This was a problem.

  Kimball took a last puff on his pipe, emptied it out in a clay ashtray that looked homemade, and stood.

  “You can take these files, just be sure you get them back to me in one piece, okay? I want to go be with Sabrina now. We don’t get to see her as much as I’d like, and she’s growing up too fast. Pretty soon she won’t have any desire to make gingerbread houses with Gramps, you know?”

  Fitz carried two boxes, Taylor one. Kimball escorted them out through the kitchen, where Mrs. Kimball and Sabrina stopped them and put cookies wrapped in foil on the tops of the boxes, a treat for later. Kimball saw them to the door, a sad smile on his face as they drove away.

  Taylor was three feet tall and fit perfectly into the space between the banister and top step, slightly shrouded by a Doric column that abutted the crown stair. She could see the ball going on below her. There seemed to be hundreds of people, all dressed in the most elaborate of costumes. It was New Year’s Eve, her parents’ traditional masquerade ball, though the house and environs were new. This was Taylor’s second home, but the only one she ever remembered.

  The music was loud, and the people twirled around like marionettes, flutes of champagne disappearing at an alarming rate—tuxedo-clad waiters circling the foyer and ballroom, keeping the guests well supplied.

  A woman in a large Marie Antoinette wig, powdered face, a black triangle patch meant to be stuck to the corner of her mouth askew and half-unglued, sat down hard on the bottom step—a full forty-seven steps away from Taylor in her little hiding place. Her mother was dressed as Marie Antoinette, but this wasn’t her mother. Taylor felt the concussion of the woman’s sudden not-quite fall, smelled the alcohol waft up the stairs mixed with another scent, a powdery musky smell.

  Three people rushed over to make sure she was okay, but she giggled and shooed them, assuring them she’d purposely taken a seat to rest her weary feet. After three waiters had helped her up, she waddled away, dress swinging precariously.

  Then there was quiet for a few moments before her father and mother came into view, several people at their heels.

  The women were simpering back and forth to one another, but the men talked loudly, expansive with drink.

  “Win Jackson, you’ve obviously made a deal with the devil,” a dark-haired man brayed.

  “Yeah, Win, your own little Manderley, is it? What did you do in a past life to get so goddamned lucky in this one? The judge should have thrown you in jail, not dismissed the charges.” A sandy-haired man with thick black glasses smacked her father on the shoulder. Win laughed.

  “Manderley? Shit, let’s just hope the place doesn’t burn to the ground. Kitty would have my head.”

  And so they went, on and on, poking and gibing at one another, until Taylor’s governess found her and snatched her from under the curved balustrade, shuttled her back to the nursery.

  Taylor squeezed her eyes shut, trying hard to place the moment, the spot where one of the men turned….

  “Jesus, Taylor watch out!” Fitz shouted.

  She opened her eyes, disoriented to see the road in front of her, her hands on the steering wheel of the truck, and a small car swerving through a slide on the ice right into her path. The ballroom was gone. She swung the wheel lightly to the right, steered into the slide and scooted around the Camry, which righted itself and slowed, creeping away in her rearview mirror.

  Something there, she thought to herself. Something there. But the memory was lost in the glare of the snow.

  Seven

  Quantico, Virginia

  Tuesday, December 16

  10:00 a.m.

  Charlotte Douglas knew how to enter a room.

  She preferred to do it late in the evening, wearing Valentino or Cavalli, delicate feet strapped in some fanciful creation by Louboutin or Blahnik, on the arm of whatever delicious flavor of eye candy she’d chosen for the evening. To stop just inside the doorway for a priceless moment, giving every head the chance to turn and take in her glory. Once all eyes were upon her, she’d glide in, smiling, touching an arm here or a buttock there, depending on the level of intimacy she had with the player involved. The sea of men would proverbially part to allow her access, champagne would magically appear and the evening was instantly considered a success.

  She generally reserved those shenanigans for the high rollers: senators, congressmen, people who had funding levels under their watchful command. She had an image to project—glamour, posh and publicly unattainable. It drove the power-hungry men in Washington wild, assured her of a place at most every event of significance.

  But she couldn’t be on the A-plus list all of the time; she needed to finesse the peons, as well. She’d never waste her couture on them, designer fare from Nordstrom was entirely appropriate. So for the dates with the underlings, the chiefs of staff and deputy secretaries, she made sure she was dressed as elegantly as possible, was perfectly coiffed and made up, and reached or exceeded their height. Charlotte had been handmade for stilettos.

  The previous evening, she’d spent half the time talking to a minor Saudi prince, a full half hour with the head of the Ways and Means Committee, and shared a snippet of conversation with an NBC affiliate reporter being groomed for the network before calling it a night. Working D.C. could be awfully tiresome.


  She’d pulled into the gates of Quantico at 7:00 a.m. sharp, clear-eyed and ready for the day.

  She smiled to her coworkers, flirted with the maintenance man fixing the service elevator, and happily went about her morning routine. She grabbed a coffee from the break room, stepped into the bathroom to fluff her hair, then made her way down the hall, unlocked her office and turned on a gentle lamp. The glow from the environmentally friendly bulb cast a shadow on her nameplate; she moved it an inch to the right so it wasn’t obscured. There was no sense of pride when she looked at the engraving—Dr. Charlotte Douglas, Deputy Chief, Behavioral Science Unit. The “deputy” part wasn’t to her liking.

  Logging on to her computer, she leaned back in her chair and picked a piece of imaginary fluff off her shoulder. The machine would only take a second to boot up; it was password-protected so she generally left it in sleep mode when she left the office for any appreciable length of time. The display flashed at her a few moments later, the FBI seal centered on the screen. She typed in her password, a carefully chosen combination of letters and numbers. L96in69gu0S. A personal joke between her and the webmaster. Who was quite talented, she’d come to find out.

  Setting down her coffee mug, she’d gone trolling. Looking for unusual murders, repeat offenses, unsolved cases was time-consuming, but it had to be done. She could have reports compiled and left on her desk like the rest of the D.C. automatons—the junior staff of every department was responsible for the morning reports, pages of media items of interest to their bosses. The other profilers in her unit did just that, allowed the FBI interns to aggregate the news reports, police filings and anything else that might be relevant to keep the unit up to speed on the goings-on of their law enforcement brethren. But Charlotte preferred to look for her own information. Regardless, no one else could really gather the tidbits she was looking for correctly.

  There was nothing unusual to be seen—the usual amalgamation of crazies, unsolved cases she was already familiar with, and Web sites catering to serial killers. She made a note of a new site that advertised for killers. “Contact us, tell us your most gruesome kills, here’s how to do it anonymously. WE’RE NOT COPS!” Just what they needed. The gilded information age, perfect for computer-literate sociopaths.

  She continued through her prescribed protocols.

  The new ViCAP updates were in. The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program’s purpose was straightforward—detect patterns within criminal activities. Charlotte used it to compile missing-person cases, unidentified bodies and sexual assaults, coordinate multijurisdictional reviews, and help to share information between often competitive law enforcement agencies. ViCAP was one of her darlings.

  She opened the icon, logged in to the database and looked around. She didn’t see anything new that needed her immediate attention. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  She went on to check CODIS. The Combined DNA Index System was a beauty of a tool; once they got the DNA uploaded for all the bad guys in the system it would be a lifesaver. She plugged in her pass code.

  The Snow White case was her number-one priority right now, for a variety of reasons. The DNA profiles from the Nashville serial murders had been uploaded the previous evening. She’d configured the DNA submissions from the latest cases personally.

  Once she was logged in, a small icon in the lower-left corner of her desktop started blinking. She opened the link and smiled. The DNA test results from the Nashville murders were back. Wonderful. It wouldn’t do to leave any stone unturned, or turned in the wrong direction.

  She read through the results, combing the reports. She could turn this in to the Nashville field office immediately. Or at her leisure. Whichever fit the mood she was in ten minutes from now.

  She closed the elaborate analyses and moved to a separate part of the CODIS database, where DNA profiles from unsolved cases across the country were inputted to be compared against one another. The theory was excellent, but the practical applications hadn’t caught up with the backlog of DNA analysis. Slowly but surely, the files were being uploaded into the system, but it would take years to get reality matched to the theoretical.

  Two backlit icons were flashing. On the left icon, a code number that matched her uploaded Nashville DNA blinked slowly. On the right icon, the same numbered sequence glowed red. A match. A cold-hit DNA match between the Nashville suspect and… She sucked in her breath. What she was seeing couldn’t be right. There must be a glitch in the system. Having a cold hit on CODIS wasn’t a regular occurrence. More files popped onto the screen. Charlotte tapped her fingers on the desk while the rest of the icons lit up like Christmas trees. Match. Match. Match. Match. CODIS was showing four separate cold hits, from four states, not including Tennessee. All the DNA pointed to a single contributor.

  Charlotte cursed.

  She called the webmaster, told him there was a problem. He called her back five minutes later and assured her there wasn’t. Not on his end.

  A tingle had started then. Just at the base of her spine. The databases were programmed to spit out patterns, and that was what Charlotte was seeing before her. She’d designed this section of the database herself, and now here it was. Her anomaly. Despite all her best efforts, her hand would be forced now.

  Mind buzzing, she forced herself to close CODIS. She opened a buried file within her system, typed in a new pass code. A private personnel file Charlotte had misappropriated a few months back opened on the screen.

  There she was. Taylor Jackson. Charlotte stared at the picture, the JPEG file sharp and clear. Tawny-blond hair past her shoulders, gray eyes, a full mouth, a slightly crooked yet elegant nose—stunning, but Charlotte knew she could compete.

  She gave a mental review of her own attributes. Her hair had often been described as the color of a young pinot noir. Porcelain skin, amber eyes, striking cheekbones, and if she wasn’t mistaken, her bottom lip was just a touch fuller than Jackson’s. She had to admit, the girl was attractive. Good to know Baldwin continued to have excellent taste.

  The flashing green eyes of her former boss flooded her memory. She forced all thoughts of him away reluctantly. She could get bogged down for hours in the memories of their brief time together. And they would only lead back to this little bitch, the woman who’d stolen him right out of Charlotte’s hands.

  She lingered for a moment longer, touching a forefinger to the screen, tracing the outline of Jackson’s heart-shaped face. She touched the finger to her lips, then forced herself to close the window and brought up the previous screen.

  Jackson was forgotten. The new DNA profiles were enough to make her lick her lips in anticipation. She loved a challenge. What to do? What to do? The match in CODIS was highly unexpected, and unfortunately, couldn’t be held back. She’d have to share this information, others would see it soon enough.

  She opened the latest crime-scene photos submitted by the Nashville Police Department overnight. The fresh kill. The photo named the victim as Giselle St. Claire. What a delicate name, she thought. Poor girl. Giselle was naked, blue from the cold. She showed signs of exsanguination; the gaping wound in her neck gave that away easily. A second smile. The blood was pooled below her head, framing the scene in a macabre ruby border.

  Charlotte clicked on another file. Naked bodies tumbled across her computer screen.

  The media had christened the killer well. Every time she saw these photos, the first thing that popped into Charlotte’s mind was Snow White. Delicate beauty, alabaster skin, red lips, jet-black hair. All that was missing was a red cape and a grouping of dwarves.

  If she were rushing, at first glance all the photos could have been of the same dead girl. Only a detailed examination showed the subtle differences: height, weight, hair length. The similarities between the victims were downright eerie. She opened two more windows and speculated for a moment. The physical victimology was so similar from girl to girl—it took time and effort to pick out women who looked so alike. She’d had a case a few years back where the kill
er had bought identical wigs to place on his victims prior to their death. But in these cases, the hair was real, ebony as a raven’s wing, long and thick. Definitely not a wig.

  With a sigh, she went back to the CODIS cold hits, printed out the cover sheet from each murder, started a new file, marked it Snow White DNA/CODIS, then walked the long hallway to her boss’s office. She was the lead profiler on the murders; she needed to present her findings. This case was hers. Her future. Her success.

  Stuart Evanson had taken over the BSU when Baldwin left. He reported to Garrett Woods, the top dog in the Critical Incidence Response Group. Evanson had power and clout, but not as much as he’d like. Woods was the real star, mentor to the great profiler John Baldwin. Woods was reputed to be a smart, seasoned agent who might be running the whole Bureau if he wasn’t careful. Charlotte disliked him immensely; he’d passed her over in favor of Evanson after Baldwin split. Made it about the relationship she and Baldwin had engaged in, though Charlotte knew Baldwin had made it clear to Woods that she shouldn’t be running the show. She didn’t know which burned her worse, their breakup, or the fact that he’d shanghaied her career in the process.

  Evanson had replaced Baldwin only a few months before. She remembered that storied morning vividly. Baldwin had announced he was quitting the BSU, the FBI and all that he knew to play house in Nashville with a homicide detective he’d met on a case. Charlotte had been shocked to hear that. Of course, Baldwin hadn’t been in the game for a while before that had happened; he’d been on extended leave after a shooting incident with a suspect that got three agents killed.

  She’d been with him then. But he hadn’t turned to her for solace. He’d hightailed it out of town, gone home to Nashville and tried to drink himself to death. Then he’d met Taylor Jackson, pulled out of his funk, solved a huge case and returned to the BSU triumphant, the golden boy yet again. Charlotte had been forgotten in the mix.

  Baldwin’s plans to retire had been usurped. The Bureau wasn’t willing to let a talent like him leave for good. He was given a special dispensation—his own shop, free from the prying eyes of Quantico. But still a division of the FBI. Doing the work of the BSU without the constraints shoveled upon them by the government. He worked out of the Tennessee field office now.