The 7th Victim

by Alan Jacobson

  Vail said, “A lot of the stuff they learned from those interviews formed the basis for our current understanding and approach. The work was so fresh and new—and accurate—that it became legendary. So much so that some people at the BAU are afraid to embrace change and new ideas because Underwood and his colleagues’ research findings are as good as written in stone.”

  Del Monaco frowned at her comment, and she stared him down. The others picked up on the silent interplay and kept quiet. Finally, Robby spoke. “They have the letter in custody?”

  “They do now. Singletary wouldn’t give it up. Said it was his ticket. His ticket to what, I’m not sure.”

  “Bargaining chip,” Manette said. “He don’t have much. Letter’s a way of getting privileges.”

  “Privileges for what?” Bledsoe asked. “He’s scheduled to be put down in five days.”

  “Put down, like lethal injection?”

  “Like, that’s all she wrote. The big sleep. End of the line.”

  Del Monaco shrugged. “Then something to add spice to his last few days.”

  Robby asked, “So what’s the plan, boss? How do you want to handle it?”

  Bledsoe rubbed a thick hand across his chin. “Vail and Del Monaco will go with me to meet the guy. Letter’s en route by courier to the FBI lab right now. As soon as they’d found out what he had, they sealed it in an evidence bag. I don’t know if we’ll get anything useful out of it, because a bunch of people already handled it. But we’ll talk with Singletary, see what he has to say.”

  Vail’s eyebrows rose. “One question I have is, why him? Why did Dead Eyes send the letter to Singletary?”

  “I know we’re all stretched beyond our limits,” Bledsoe said, “but we need someone to compile a roster of all violent offenders who’ve served with Singletary since his incarceration.”

  Manette raised a hand. “I got it.”

  “Good. Manny, it’s yours. Get it to me as soon as possible. Okay, then. That’s our plan.”

  “Do we have clearance to meet with Singletary?” Sinclair asked.

  “Give me a few minutes,” Bledsoe said. “I’ll make some calls.”

  THE FLIGHT INTO Henderson-Oxford Airport was bumpy and turned Vail’s stomach. It wasn’t that she disliked the act of flying, it was the concept that bothered her. How a plane the size of a large dinosaur could slice through the air and rise, then descend slowly and land safely, was a wonderment she could never fully understand. She felt more comfortable wading through the minds of deranged killers than with the physics of aerodynamics.

  As they entered the lounge area after deplaning, a CNN special report flashed across the television screen. “Convicted murderer Richard Ray Singletary claims he has received a letter from the Dead Eyes serial killer, who is reportedly responsible for Virginia State Senator Eleanor Linwood’s death as well as the deaths of six other young women. . . .”

  “So Singletary’s leaked the story,” Del Monaco said. “For what, another fifteen minutes of fame? He’ll be getting that when he’s executed.”

  “Yeah, but this is good press. Executions tend to be . . . somewhat negative,” Vail said with a hint of sarcasm.

  Del Monaco, Bledsoe, and Vail met an off-duty correctional officer, who transported them to the prison. They arrived at three o’clock, the way to the meeting being paved by the prisoner himself, who declined legal representation. They checked their guns and were transported to the maximum security building by bus.

  Half an hour later, they were in the eight-by-ten interview room, where a small metal table sat bolted to the floor. There were two seats—one for the prisoner and one for his visitors. Vail took the chair; she wanted the center stage to ask the questions, while Del Monaco stood in the background, arms folded across his chest, content to melt into the wall and analyze Singletary’s facial and body language. Bledsoe was behind a large one-way mirror in an adjacent room.

  Singletary was led in by two uniformed guards. The prisoner, a slight man with close-cropped pepper hair and pleasing facial features, was shackled at the ankles and wrists. His face was a pale white, the mark of someone who had spent time in solitary confinement—or who had been restricted to his cell for bad behavior. Yet despite the dehumanizing restraints, Singletary’s shoulders and hips moved with a noticeable swagger. The agents watched as the guards unshackled Singletary’s hands and refastened the handcuffs to a steel bar mounted at the center of the fixed metal table.

  “All yours, ma’am,” the guard said to Vail. “We’ll be watching. You get into trouble, just holler.”

  Vail thanked the men but wondered why, if she encountered trouble with the prisoner, she would need to holler if they were observing. She pushed the thought from her mind and focused on the man in front of her. “Mr. Singletary, I’m Special Agent Karen Vail, this is Agent Frank Del Monaco.” Singletary had already been told who he would be meeting with, but it was a good way to break the ice.

  Del Monaco nodded with disinterest, playing his presence low key, as if he did not want to be there. He and Vail had discussed their strategy in detail on the plane.

  “We were told you received a letter yesterday. From someone who claims to be the Dead Eyes killer.”

  “That’s right.” Singletary’s voice was smooth, his smile bright and white.

  “The letter’s at our lab right now, being analyzed.”

  “Waste of taxpayer dollars. I can tell you it’s authentic.”

  “How’s that?” Vail pulled a copy of the letter from her pocket and unfolded it. “What makes you so sure it’s from Dead Eyes?”

  “See the sentence ‘Evil rides the ocean and the sky turns all the rivers gold’? He made that up a long time ago. It became kind of a saying for us.”

  “You know the Dead Eyes killer?”

  “I just said that, didn’t I? Man, I thought you people were smart.”

  Vail felt like reaching across the table and slapping the guy but kept her face neutral. “Who is he?”

  Singletary burst out laughing. A smoker’s cough quickly overwhelmed him, and Vail had to turn away to avoid the explosion of germs from the man’s uncovered mouth. “You expect me to just give you the guy’s name?”

  “I thought you might, yes.”

  “Then you’re stupider than I thought you were. But you are a fine lookin’ thing,” he said, then stuck his tongue out and waved it like a lizard’s. “I got two demands. One is, I only talk to Thomas Underwood. Second, I want my death sentence commuted, to life in prison.”

  Now it was Vail’s turn to laugh. She did so boisterously, purposely to annoy the man who thought he held all the cards. It was his nature to try to gain the upper hand, to seek control and power. She was not going to give it to him. “Thomas Underwood isn’t with the Bureau anymore. I doubt he’d want to waste any more of his time talking to you.”

  “Then you’d be wrong, Agent Vail. Because Thomas has already said he’d meet with me. He said it on MSNBC, just about a half hour ago.”

  Vail resisted the urge to glance at the one-way mirror, behind which Bledsoe was seated. “Why Underwood?”

  “The guy understands me. It’s a familiar face. This is important information. I deal with him.”

  “You want something, you deal with me,” Vail said.

  “Ooh. Tough woman. That turns me on, Special Agent Vail. Did you know that? Because if you didn’t, I can tell you Thomas Underwood does.”

  Vail ground her teeth. She wanted to grab the guy’s jumpsuit lapels and shake him. Hard. But she counted backwards from five to calm her anger. “I’ll make a call, see if I can get Underwood here. As to getting your sentence commuted, I wouldn’t count on it. I can get you some T.V., a steak dinner every night—”

  “Yeah, that’s good. MTV. I want my MTV. Add that to the list.”

  “Mr. Singletary, I’ll make the calls, convey your demands. I just wouldn’t hold out much hope.”

  “I don’t have much hope, sweetheart. I’m on death row. Yo
u hold out hope, you get disappointed.”

  She nodded, then pushed away from the table.

  “Just remember,” Singletary said. “You give me what I want, I’ll give you the name of the Dead Eyes killer.”

  Vail stood there for a long moment, reading the man’s eyes. Tempted to agree to the deal even though she didn’t have the authority. Given all the death, the young lives taken and yet to be taken, the offer seemed too good to refuse.

  But in her experience, making deals with the devil usually backfired.

  fifty-seven

  Vail let the door click closed behind her. Bledsoe met her and Del Monaco in the hallway, the detective’s normally olive-complected face red and strained.

  “I spoke with Gifford,” Vail said. “He’s calling Underwood’s office. We’ll know soon whether or not he’ll come. Bureau will pay his airfare and hotel, any expenses.”

  Del Monaco grunted. “We all know this deal turns on his sentence.”

  “And that ain’t gonna happen,” Bledsoe said. “Imagine the heat the DA will take if he caves and recommends leniency to the governor.”

  Vail shook her head. “Think about the heat he’ll take if Dead Eyes murders another woman and it gets out he could’ve prevented it.” She leaned her back against the wall, let her head touch the cold, painted cinderblock. “I think we need to make the deal. Contingent on arrest and conviction of Dead Eyes.”

  Del Monaco stepped forward. “The guy’s set to die in five days, Karen. Delaying his execution even an hour sends a message. Once you’ve delayed it, it’s like you’ve made the decision to wait till the jury comes back with a verdict. You can’t suddenly decide you’re going to change your mind two or three months into it. You’re either in or out.”

  “You don’t think we should do it,” Bledsoe said.

  “Hey, I don’t get paid the big bucks to make those decisions. What I think doesn’t mean diddly.”

  “I think Underwood’s our best shot,” Bledsoe said.

  Del Monaco shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “There’s a bigger issue. How do we know this letter is even legit? And how do we know that Singletary really knows who Dead Eyes is? He could be jerking us around. Playing us, trying to buy himself some extra time.”

  Vail pulled out her cell phone and began to dial. “Maybe the lab has some answers for us.”

  She walked down the hall, pacing, waiting for the technician to take her call. But she knew the time spent hoping they had discovered something of value was wasted when the tech told her they hadn’t finished running the tests. They could tell her the type of paper it had been written on, the type of ink used to print it, and that there were no usable fingerprints other than a partial from Singletary.

  “This guy dies in five days,” Vail said. “Any way we’ll have something soon—anything—that’ll tell us if this letter is from our killer?”

  “Problem is that we’ve got no other writing samples to compare it to, nothing where we can match syntax, or even something as basic as handwriting.” The technician sighed. “But we’ll do our best. If there’s something to find, we’ll have it for you tomorrow.”

  Vail walked back toward Del Monaco and Bledsoe and said, “Nothing yet.”

  Del Monaco was folding his phone. “Underwood is on his way. He’ll be here inside of two hours. I say we get out of here, paint the town or something.”

  “Our knight in shining armor is on the way to save the day,” Vail said with a hint of sarcasm. “Smacks of Hollywood. I can’t wait.”

  THEY TOOK THEIR SEATS at a beat-up picnic table twenty yards from Bob’s Country Store, where they’d purchased hamburgers, chilidogs, and beer. The debate over drinking while on duty died with their appetite after finding that the only greasy spoon within fifteen minutes of the prison was, in fact, a very greasy spoon.

  And, as they soon learned, being in the Bible Belt meant their alcohol had to be consumed off-premises, in the chill air.

  “Well,” Bledsoe said, inspecting the flat head on his beer, “it seems that somewhere along the way, Underwood made an impression on Singletary.”

  Del Monaco tipped his plastic cup toward the light and frowned at the color of his drink. “Singletary’s got a relationship with Underwood. He trusts him. Happened with John Wayne Gacy, and Dahmer, too.”

  Bledsoe took a pull on the beer and made a face. “I hope Underwood works his magic. I get the feeling he’s more into writing books than writing profiles these days.”

  “Bureau pension only goes so far,” Del Monaco said. “Nothing wrong with free enterprise.”

  “Yeah, well, looks to me like he’s trying to ride the coattails of John Douglas’s success.”

  Vail cleared her throat and leaned forward. “Frank,” she said tentatively, “you ever have nightmares? Of work?”

  Del Monaco swallowed a mouthful of beer as he thought about the question. “You mean like working with you is a nightmare sometimes?”

  “I’m serious.”

  Del Monaco set down his cup and regarded his colleague. “You having Dead Eyes nightmares?”

  Vail’s gaze found the million-year-old pocked-wood table. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He shrugged. “Had a nightmare after my first murder scene way back when. But nothing since then. My brain kind of acclimated to it. Go to work, deal with this shit, come home, leave it all at the office.”

  She pulled her coat tight against a sudden gust of wind. “That’s good you can do that,” she said without further explanation.

  “I’ve had some nightmares,” Bledsoe said. “Been awhile, but I remember the last one real well. I was in a shootout and my gun jammed. Radio didn’t work. And I couldn’t talk. It was like my throat closed up. Woke up drenched in sweat.” He shook his head. “Seemed so damn real. It’s been years but I remember it like yesterday.”

  Vail wished she had never brought it up, because the next question was likely to be from Del Monaco, again asking if she’s had dreams regarding Dead Eyes.

  But he surprised her when he elbowed her and said, “Let’s look at that letter again. If anyone’s qualified to analyze it, it’s us.”

  Vail pulled it from her pocket and unfolded it. She read aloud. “I’ve done more than I ever thought I’d be able to do. But when you put your mind to something, you can do anything.” She looked at Del Monaco, who shrugged.

  “Beats the shit out of me,” he said. “Nothing specific to that.”

  Vail continued: “I find myself overwhelmed by the power of it all. Of being able to do anything I want to. No one to tell me I can’t.”

  Del Monaco spread his hands in acknowledgment. “Signs of power. Of control. So far, there’s nothing to say it’s a hoax. But, there’re no details only the killer would know, either.”

  “It does match up with the emails he sent,” Vail said. “The hunger-based need for power and control.”

  “But it’s nonspecific,” Del Monaco said. “Those are common serial offender themes.”

  Vail looked back at the paper: “I can’t stop myself. I’m sure you know the feeling, the urges, the need for more. They may think they can stop me, but they can’t. I know what they know. They’ll never find me.”

  Vail exchanged a knowing glance with Bledsoe. All the proof she needed was right there—a reference to the stolen profile. It wasn’t hard evidence, but it was enough to convince her emotionally, if not legally or logically. She cleared her throat, then said, “Well, I think those last few sentences are the most significant, because it tells us a lot about him. It confirms a lot of our profile. And it tells us he’s gaining confidence, which is common with offenders as time passes. They begin to feel impervious to capture. They get sloppy and they begin to self-destruct internally. They may even get more violent.”

  “I thought Linwood’s murder was more violent because of the personal connection,” Bledsoe said.

  “It was.” At least, I think it was. “But this is something else. Many, if not
most, serial killers begin to get more aggressive, more violent as the victims mount. It’s almost too much, it becomes overwhelming to them. Even those who thrive on control begin to lose structure in their lives, even if they don’t realize it’s happening. When it gets out of hand, they surpass their ability to handle the overload. They make mistakes, lose their composure. That’ll work to our advantage. Only problem is, we don’t know if he’ll reach critical mass at victim eight or victim twenty-eight.”

  Del Monaco set down his cup and wiggled a bit on the bench seat. “An offender’s early murders typically demonstrate his need to engage in the thrill of the hunt. He lives for exerting control over his victim. But as he loses himself in his perception that he’s invincible, the emphasis of his attacks shifts to a kind of hunger, a simple need to kill.” He looked at the letter and shook his head. “There’s something that bothers me, though.” He picked up the paper and stared at it.