Shadow Moon

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  In the courtyard, the statue of Rodin’s The Thinker loomed, silent and alone on its pedestal. He paused, looking up. “What do you say, pal? Is it me?” he asked the statue wryly.

  The problem was, and it wasn’t anything he could ever tell anyone, but—he had yet to find anyone who was remotely as interesting to him as his work. He didn’t have time, real time, for anything else.

  The Thinker had nothing to say on the issue.

  Matt turned away, and was doubling back past the huge circle of fountain when something slowed his steps.

  A sound? A feeling?

  He looked toward the marble Arc de Triomphe entrance and the columned courtyard beyond. The only sound was the splashing of water in the huge circular fountain behind him. He could feel the mist on his face…

  And then he heard it. An echo of uneasy laughter. Low voices, a scuffling… then a woman’s voice, frantic and rising. “No. I’m not… Stop. Don’t—”

  Her voice cut off abruptly.

  Matt bolted forward in the direction of the sounds, through the parallel-set columns. The wide courtyard inside seemed deserted. He turned in a circle…

  And then he saw them.

  In the shadows between columns, a woman in a cocktail dress wrestled with a man in a suit. His arm was around her waist, his hand clamped over her mouth—

  Matt’s pulse shot up. He barreled forward, raising his voice. “Step away from the lady. Now.”

  The suit jerked around in rage… and then his eyes focused on Matt’s uniform. In the dim light, his face went through a convulsion of readjustment, the predator receding from his features to leave a disgruntled, arrogantly good-looking corporate type of perhaps fifty.

  Matt repeated, “Step away.” He rested his right hand near his holster, making sure the suit saw him do it.

  “It’s fine,” the woman said quickly. “We’re fine, officer.”

  “You heard the lady,” the suit said. “This is a private party.”

  Matt kept his eyes on the man’s face. “Party’s over, pal. Find yourself somewhere else to be.”

  The suit mumbled something Matt couldn’t hear, which was undoubtedly for the best, and strode off into the dark, moving with stiff-legged rage.

  The woman turned to him, flustered. She had dark hair and eyes and brows, an elegant profile, a slender, tensile body sheathed in a glittering cocktail dress. A guest from the corporate party Matt was here patrolling. And ringless, he noted. The asshole wasn’t her husband, at least.

  “I appreciate your help,” she said coolly. She sounded not a bit appreciative, just a little breathless and a lot annoyed. Probably too young to be a senior partner, but she already had the command of one. “But I’m fine. He was drunk,” she said. Matt could hear the tremor under the flippant tone.

  “Look, miss. What I just saw was assault. If you want to file a report—”

  She interrupted, horrified. “No! God, no. I have to work with him.”

  “So do other people.”

  She bristled. “So?”

  Matt felt a spike of irritation, and also confusion. “So if you don’t do anything, he’s free to do it with the next woman, and the next—”

  Now she flared up, startling him. “Fuck you. You don’t have to put up with this shit, you have no clue. Don’t tell me how to handle it. I’ve dealt with it all my life and I’m doing just fine.”

  It was anger he felt first, and then a twisting helplessness. She was wrong, but she was right.

  After a moment he said quietly, “I’m sorry.” He turned to leave.

  She called after him, “Wait.” He turned back. She frowned at him in the dark. “A man who actually apologizes?” She stood looking at him, then reached into the small silver bag at her side and took out a business card. She extended it. “Let me buy you a drink sometime.”

  He looked at the card, then back up at her. “That’s probably not a good idea.”

  Their eyes caught, and heat sizzled through him.

  “You’re probably right,” she said.

  Chapter 40

  Portland - present

  Singh and Snyder

  Agent Snyder pauses and looks toward the windows at the darkening sky.

  Singh sits, unsure of what to make of the story. It tells her something about Roarke, certainly. She is not at all sure what it has to do with the case. She prompts Agent Snyder gently. “And this woman was Monica. Who became ASAC Roarke’s wife. Now ex-wife.”

  Snyder nods. “Yes. I’ve heard the story from both Roarke and Monica. And you’re wondering why I would tell it, in this context.” He turns back toward her. “Because that night, not long after this encounter, the banker who was harassing Monica was found murdered in the park.”

  He meets Singh’s startled gaze. “Stabbed in the throat.”

  Singh feels a wave of unreality.

  “I doubt Matthew would talk to you about this, but it was clear to me from a conversation we had once that he felt the killing pushed the two of them, him and Monica, together. Monica contacted him, understandably distressed to learn of the murder of her colleague. On one level she was—”

  “Wondering if ASAC Roarke had killed her harasser,” Singh finishes, in a murmur.

  “Exactly. Of course he didn’t. But it’s not hard to see how the experience created a strong bond between them. Add to that that Matthew has always been a knight/rescuer…” He stops, amends quickly. “I don’t mean to diminish Monica in any way. I got to know her during Matthew’s posting here in Portland. She’s a dynamic, intelligent, passionate woman. Every bit Matthew’s equal. But she was not…” he pauses, searching for the word. “His partner.”

  Singh nods, and cannot help thinking of Cara. Who is not in a million lifetimes the partner she can morally wish for Roarke.

  And yet…

  She has no time to take the idea further, because Agent Snyder’s next words are electrifying. “As for the murder, no killer was ever found.”

  The agents’ eyes meet with the same thought. Snyder says slowly. “I don’t know if there is any way of verifying Cara’s whereabouts that night. I brought the murder up, the confluence, mainly to affirm that I strongly believe you’re on to something with this map of yours.”

  Singh is lightheaded.

  Was it Cara? Was she there?

  And Roarke. Knowing that Cara kills so often by attacking her victims’ throats, how could he not have told the team of the murder that brought him together with his own wife?

  But she knows why. It is her own theory, and even she can hardly believe it could be true.

  Agent Snyder steps forward to the map. He touches a finger to Phoenix, speaks aloud. “Phoenix to Los Angeles on I-10. Los Angeles to San Francisco on I-5…”

  Singh has been thinking exactly the same thing. “Twelve hours drive. A day, two at most.”

  “If Cara continued on Interstate 10 from Phoenix, she could easily have been in San Francisco by that date.”

  “Daniel Modine. Wayne Gilman. Kendall Parsons. Monica’s colleague, Roy Mazzaro.”

  Snyder reaches to the well of the white board for a marker and uses it to write that name and date on Cara’s timeline.

  Then he turns to Singh. “We have more than enough correlation to convince me of your theory. It’s time for me to tell you about Portland.”

  Singh feels a shiver of anticipation. “The Street Hunter.”

  “The Street Hunter,” he agrees. “And the Wolf.”

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 41

  Portland - 2009

  Matt

  Matt’s heart was beating so loudly he was afraid it would be heard through the forest sounds around him. He took a slow breath in and tried to move more silently through the underbrush.

  It was a dismally overcast day, with mist drifting through the trees. Several yards ahead of him, Snyder led the way, moving as expertly as an ancient Indian guide. The rushing of a nearby river grew as the two agents crossed by stealth through s
treams and blackberry vines toward the kill site of the eighth known victim of the serial killer the media was calling the Street Hunter.

  The killing ground was miles out of town, on the bank of the Columbia River. It felt a million miles from anywhere. But instead of tranquility there was a creepiness here. The trees dripped with the rain that had just fallen, the skies were black and swollen with rain yet to come.

  The heaviness was more than humidity. A teenage boy’s last sights, last sounds, last breaths were breathed here.

  And the agents’ intense caution, their frequent pauses, were because they knew that in Seattle, the Street Hunter had returned to his wilderness dump sites to have sex with the corpses of his victims. Necrophilia was a common pattern with serial killers. People were objects to them. Dead or alive, it made no difference to the killers’ sexual satisfaction.

  The two known Portland victims were the most recently found—and they had been found within less than a mile of each other, which increased the chances the killer would return to this very spot.

  The agents were coming up on a field. Roarke could see the river beyond the grasses. But Snyder stopped at the last uneven row of trees and held up a hand, halting Matt behind him. The older agent lifted the binoculars hanging from his neck. Matt did the same. Both men scanned the field leading to the riverbank, looking for any human movement.

  Portland PD had of course removed the victim’s remains. But the crime site on its own would carry a sexual charge for the killer. There was always the possibility that they would find him there.

  After several minutes visual search, Snyder lowered the glasses. “We may as well move.”

  The men stepped out of the trees and began the slog through the marshy grasses toward the river.

  It was wet. It was cold. A killer could be watching.

  But Matt was lucky. And he knew he was lucky. Other new graduates from his class at the FBI Academy were scattered to the four winds, many at grim outposts in the likes of Minot, North Dakota and Brownsville, Texas. Matt had been assigned right away to a dream placement: Portland, on the West Coast BAU team, by special request of Special Agent Chuck Snyder.

  As Snyder had warned him, the BAU had greatly diminished in size from its heyday but maintained small advisory teams for every region of the U.S. The Pacific Northwest was currently up to its ears in bodies due to the Street Hunter murders. Even before his assignment to the Portland field office, Matt had read everything he could read about it, obsessively following the Street Hunter killings in Seattle.

  The first victim found was a homeless seventeen-year old girl, engaged in survival prostitution, her body dumped on the bank of the Duwamish River. As the Seattle police looked into missing persons reports and started searching the riverbank, more victims were found. Three female, one male, all homeless teenagers engaged in street prostitution. And there were other missing persons of the target age who hadn’t yet been found or accounted for.

  The last Seattle disappearance had been five months ago. But now in the last week, just days before Matt had arrived on his new assignment, the bodies of a teenage girl and a teenage boy had been found in this wilderness area outside Portland.

  Snyder hadn’t even briefed Matt in the office. They’d driven straight out to the dump site.

  And the question was paramount in Matt’s mind: Had the Street Hunter moved on? Found a new hunting ground?

  He paused and looked back to scan the woods, but saw nothing human.

  If you can call the Street Hunter human.

  He turned and joined Snyder at the riverbank.

  The water beside the bank was murky and there was scattered, drenched trash on the bank, as if people had fished or camped without cleaning up after themselves.

  Snyder had shown him crime scene photos of the two teenagers found in the vicinity. Everything in Matt was in revolt against the violation of these young lives.

  “The girl, Denise Vickery, was found last week, half a mile up river. The boy was found here two days ago. His fingerprints don’t match any in the IAFIS system. Portland PD has been contacted by dozens of parents and relatives trying to find out if this boy is theirs, but no hits so far. We have no idea who he was.”

  “There have been two male victims out of eight, one in Seattle and this young John Doe, and both were attacked differently than the female victims, by which I mean more viciously. We’re waiting on autopsy results on John Doe, but he was severely battered, with multiple broken bones, and sodomized, with severe anal tearing.” Snyder turned to him. “Do you have any preliminary questions?”

  Matt felt a jolt of anxiety at the sudden pressure. He’d forgotten how bluntly inclusive Snyder could be. He began carefully.

  “As the media here has picked up on, the case is notable for the mix of male and female victims.”

  “Very true. What are your thoughts on that?”

  And suddenly the situation hit home. This wasn’t class. It wasn’t theoretical. It wasn’t about grades or graduation. It was real life. Real people’s lives depended on the answers.

  Matt pulled his thoughts together. “You’re more likely to see a mix of male and female victims with pedophiles. The younger the victim, the more likely it is that the perpetrator has abused children of both sexes. And if you see male and female victims, then it’s highly likely the perpetrator has abused children younger than six. It would also be likely that the perpetrator was abused himself. Also, the presence of a mental illness in a perpetrator triples the odds of gender crossover.”

  “Good. Go on.”

  “He’s likely to be between the ages of twenty and thirty-five: three-quarters of sexual predators are younger than thirty-five. Eighty percent are of normal intelligence. He is almost undoubtedly male. We see females involved in molestation of young victims, either with or without a male partner, but ninety-seven percent of violent sexual offenses against children are committed by men. Also, seventy percent of perpetrators are white. And the behavior is highly repetitive, to the point of compulsion.”

  Snyder nodded approval. “Very good. You’ve just sketched out a solid base for what we’re looking for. However…” He paused.

  Matt became instantly alert.

  Snyder continued, “I believe someone is deliberately confusing the issue.”

  “How?”

  “First of all, the media is reporting that the Street Hunter has moved his hunting down to Portland. It’s less than three hours’ drive—no great distance for a serial killer. But Denise Vickery, Portland victim number one, was killed at least three years ago.”

  Matt stared at him. “Before any of the Seattle victims.”

  “That’s right. The article from the Portland newspaper reporting that the Street Hunter had moved his action from Seattle to Portland came out before we’d released the information that Vickery had been killed years earlier. And that article got picked up by national news, so it was out all over the country that the Street Hunter was now hunting in Portland as well as Seattle.” Snyder paused, and Matt sensed something important coming. “And then suddenly the body of this unidentified boy is found here, in the same vicinity as Vickery’s body. With an important difference. Young John Doe was not killed years ago, but days.”

  Three years between killings. Matt tried to quiet his racing mind to consider the implications. “So it was just this article that presented the narrative that the Street Hunter indiscriminately killed both male and female victims and that he was hunting in both Portland and Seattle?”

  “Correct.”

  Matt thought on it. “Did the initial article mention the location where Denise Vickery’s body was found?”

  “It was specific, yes.”

  Matt looked around them at the desolate site. “Was Young John Doe actually killed here? Or was there any evidence that his body had been moved?”

  “Ah,” Snyder said. “You’ve caught it.”

  Matt felt a rush. “You’re thinking that someone read this article and
dumped Young John Doe’s body here to make him look like a victim of the Street Hunter. You think there’s another killer attempting to cover his own kill by staging the boy as a victim of the Street Hunter.”

  “Bravo,” Snyder said softly.

  Matt felt exhilarated and sick, all at the same time.

  Snyder looked out over the river. “The truth is, I’ve thought through many of those same conclusions. I’m encouraged that you would come to the same theory. But it’s still just a theory.”

  Matt was intent. “But… if someone dumped him to make it look like he was the Street Hunter’s… that’s a big risk.”

  “Yes, it would be. Why?”

  “We stake out dump sites.”

  “When and if we have the resources, yes. Which is a big if.”

  “It would mean that— if there is a second killer—either he doesn’t know that, or he’s desperate enough to take that risk, to throw an investigation in his own location off track.”

  “Exactly. So what is that location and what is going on there that someone would risk everything to protect?”

  Matt was silent. It was a rhetorical question.

  “That’s what I’m currently trying to determine,” Snyder continued. “We’re waiting on the autopsy and a forensic evaluation of trace evidence from Young John Doe’s body from our national lab. I’m hoping they’ll find something that will give us a lead on where the boy was moved from.”

  There was something else, though, nagging at Matt. He spoke aloud. “If Denise Vickery was killed over three years ago, that means she was the Street Hunter’s first. At least, his first known. So the Street Hunter did move his hunting ground, but it was from Portland to Seattle…” and then it hit him, and he finished, electrified. “Out of his own back yard.” Without turning or moving, he let himself take in the field, the woods, the river. “That’s why we’re here. You think he lives here.”

  “I’ve been considering the possibility.”