A woman’s body, apparently hanging. But he could only see the dangling ankles and feet, as she was suspended below the staircase, and his view was blocked. Karen?
Bledsoe’s convulsing had slowed to intermittent twitching. What the hell had happened to him? A stun gun. It was the only thing that could incapacitate someone so rapidly and leave telltale signs of transient nervous system disruption.
Robby again ran his light around the small space. Was it safe to go in? Clearly not. To take out Bledsoe with a stun gun, the offender needed to touch him: he had to be nearby.
But he couldn’t retreat and wait for backup, either. If that was Karen a few feet away from him, and if she was still alive, he had to get to her. Now.
He reached forward and grabbed Bledsoe by his belt and yanked him back into the closet. He was heavy and he banged up Bledsoe’s face on the rough edge of the cutout, but Robby’s concern was getting to Vail.
Glock firmly in hand, he squeezed through the opening feet first. If he was going to get zapped, this would be the time. But he made it in and quickly swung his light and pistol around the space. Nothing. Swiveled it toward the woman’s body.
My God.
He stood face to face with Vail. Shined his light: eyes at half-mast. He moved behind her to keep as much of the area in his view as possible, stuck the small flashlight in his mouth, then fumbled for his key. He unlocked the handcuffs and gently lowered her to the packed dirt ground in a sitting position against the side wall of the stairwell. A spasmodic tic rattled her body.
A voice in the darkness: “So good of you to drop in.”
Robby spun, swinging his Glock in the direction of the voice—but an electric shock jolted him, like a lightning bolt attacking his muscles. He convulsed.
Pain shot through him. His arms spasmed, his body went numb, and his mind exploded into a mess of disorientation as he dropped to his knees.
“Thanks for coming,” Dead Eyes said. “How nice it is to kill you.”
eighty-six
What happened? Where am I? Who’s talking?
A voice, in the distance . . . and a feeling that something was terribly wrong.
“I’m saving you from the evil this bitch would’ve brought upon you, Detective. It’s an evil that’s generational, an evil that must be purged. An evil that spreads, invades, and infects. You’re infected . . . you must be killed like a germ.”
Robby’s muscular twitching and fatigue were still pervasive. The intense vertigo and numbness, however, were clearing and his senses were coming back to him: he smelled a rank odor . . . felt raw nerve pain flaring in his shoulder . . . saw a dark figure looming, leaning down toward him—
And heard a woman’s scream: “No!”
Robby instinctively threw up his arms to protect himself. But his movements were still slow and ineffective. The assailant brought his arm down—
—and then crumpled to the ground, beside Robby, atop Vail’s lap.
Standing there was Bledsoe, a thick two-by-four in his hands. “You okay?”
Robby’s eyes shifted to Vail, who just sat there, apparently lacking the strength to move. His twitching ceased, the pain subsided, and normal vision returned. “Karen. . . .” He rolled onto his side and clumsily pulled the handcuffs from his belt. He got them around the wrists of Dead Eyes and ratcheted them down. Bledsoe grabbed the offender’s torso and dragged the unconscious body toward the opening.
Robby removed his windbreaker, draped it around Vail’s shoulders, then drew her close. “I was afraid I was going to lose you.”
She squeezed him softly, with all her remaining strength. “That’s never gonna happen.”
eighty-seven
Karen Vail stood behind a large one-way mirror in the Special Needs cell block of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. Chase Hancock had been found in New Jersey, laying low and looking for work. As for Vail, her wrists were wrapped in cock-up splints, and she was wearing a figure-eight support on her shoulders and a hinged metal brace on her left knee. High-dose Motrin floated in her bloodstream. The ER physician prescribed Vicodin, but she wanted to be lucid, in complete control of her surroundings.
It’s always about control, isn’t it?
Beside Vail stood Paul Bledsoe, along with Thomas Gifford and the rest of the task force squad. Vail was transfixed on the scene unfolding behind the glass, where Behavioral Science Unit criminologist Wayne Rudnick had begun questioning a shackled Dead Eyes killer. Normally, one or two task force members would be in the interview room with their quarry. That was just the way it was done: those who tracked and caught the killer were given the opportunity to interrogate. It was like the reward, the dessert for eating your vegetables. But due to the complexity of the offender’s psychological condition, Bledsoe had reluctantly deferred to the BSU specialist.
The Dead Eyes killer abruptly stood and shouted. “Get her in here! Fucking bitch. Where is she? I’ll kill her!”
“Sam,” Rudnick said, maintaining his calm, “Please relax. I need you to sit, Sam, so we can continue to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk. All I want to do is kill her! Where is that bitch?” The chair went flying and the metal table overturned, knocking Rudnick to the floor. Four guards rushed the room, moving to restrain the killer—who was still fairly well contained by the shackles. But it was a raucous and adrenaline-spilling situation nonetheless.
“You okay?” a guard asked.
“I’m fine,” Rudnick said, his voice tinny through the speaker. Even through the one-way mirror, Vail could see Rudnick’s face was red from embarrassment. She watched him brush back his wild, tightly coiled hair and shrug his shoulders to reseat his worn, corduroy sport coat.
Upon Vail’s arrival, Bledsoe had told her they had just completed a nightlong search of the ceramics studio and loft, and found a bogus FBI shield fashioned from brass. An old copy of U.S. News, with a close-up photo of a genuine Bureau badge, served as the model.
Vail’s gaze returned to the Dead Eyes killer, Samantha Farwell. Her twin sister.
The short red hair was parted to the side, the voice was deep and rough, and the actions were aggressive and consistent with male offenders she had faced in the past. In fact, everything in the killer’s behavior was consistent with that of a male. Above all, a true female serial killer was nearly unheard of. But it was now clear there was a great deal more going on.
Rudnick was back at the table facing Sam, who had calmed. The guards had left the room on Rudnick’s insistence. “Sam, I would like to talk with Samantha.”
“And what’s she going to tell you that I can’t?”
Rudnick shrugged matter-of-factly. “How she felt, what it was like growing up.”
“I can tell you everything you need to know.”
“I’m not here to hurt her, Sam, you know that. I realize you can answer my questions, but I’d really like her perspective. Please.”
Sam’s chin dipped a bit and his head tilted to the side. The brow softened, the face lost its hard edge—became more feminine—and the shoulders slumped inward.
“Samantha?” Rudnick asked. “Is that you?”
Her head remained still, but her eyes darted around the room before coming to rest on Rudnick’s face. “Who are you?” The voice was smooth and melodic, as different from Sam’s as the scent of a rose is from a clove of garlic.
“Whoa,” Sinclair said, watching through the mirror. “No offense, but your sister’s loony tunes.”
Manette whistled. “Man, she is definitely off her rocker.”
Loony. Off her rocker. Convenient colloquial terms, but inaccurate. “Samantha has classic DID,” Vail said. “Dissociative Identity Disorder. To understand what it is, you have to understand who she is, where she came from. Her father, Patrick Farwell, was a sadistic man; Samantha had to find a way of dealing with him. My guess is she was young and weak and ill equipped to handle his abuse. Eventually, her mind created a stronger personality, what psychiatrists call a p
rotector persona. Sam, a male, was better equipped to withstand the abuse and probably found a way to fight back. He became dominant and Samantha remained tucked away, safe and sound.”
“Sounds like more psycho bullshit to me,” Manette said.
Vail spun to face her. “It’s a well-documented condition. It usually begins during childhood as a defense mechanism to severe abuse. And it mostly hits women. Don’t take my word for it, look it up in the journals. Hell, check the DSM-IV manual, it’s in there, too.” She turned back to the glass. “And I’ve seen it before.”
“So have I,” Del Monaco said. He had been standing in the background, engrossed in the interview. “Once. Absolutely blew my mind.”
“So Samantha was asleep for twenty-five years?” Bledsoe asked.
“Not asleep,” Vail corrected. “Dormant, probably for a little while. Patrick Farwell was arrested when Samantha was about thirteen. My guess is that when Sam felt it was safe, Samantha reemerged. When Farwell got out of prison eighteen months ago, he must’ve found Samantha. Sam reemerged, older and wiser, able to carry out the fantasies he’d created as an adolescent.” Vail continued to watch her sister through the glass. “Unleashed and unchecked, Sam acted on those fantasies. He set out to kill the woman he considered responsible for Samantha’s fate—her mother. He started killing. The first victim came easy. It was intensely satisfying, and he killed again. And again.”
Del Monaco nodded. “Each victim was similar in appearance to the way Eleanor Linwood looked as a young woman. To Sam, each victim was Samantha’s evil mother.”
“What keeps every killer from claiming they’ve got this ‘identity disorder’?” Manette asked.
“Nothing,” Del Monaco said. “Gacy tried to claim DID as a defense, but not once, in all the interviews I conducted with him, did I ever see evidence of an alternate personality. Gacy was bullshit. From what I’m seeing here, Samantha Farwell is the real deal.”
Vail couldn’t help but think how fortunate she was. If Linwood had not been able to wrest her from Farwell’s grasp, she, too, could have ended up like Samantha. And what of her sister? What would happen to her? Shipped off to a state mental institution’s maximum security ward, possibly for the rest of her life. Slim chance of rehabilitation or recovery.
Recovery. Vail knew the treatment for dissociative disorders involved merging the different personas into one. Even if technically possible, how could Samantha integrate a serial killer into her personality? How could she recover from the knowledge that she’d brutally murdered eight innocent women? Vail rested her head against the one-way mirror and sighed deeply.
“You okay?” Bledsoe asked.
“Let’s see, I find out I have a twin sister who’s a serial killer, my mother’s really my aunt, my biological mother is brutally murdered, and my worst fears about my biological father are confirmed. I’d say it’s been a kick-ass week.”
Manette nodded. “Sometimes, Kari, life just sucks the big one.”
eighty-eight
Vail was lying in recovery, her left knee bandaged and slightly elevated. She had regained consciousness a few minutes ago, her senses coming back to her in stages. She was hungry and felt dehydrated.
“Knock, knock.” Vail smiled. Robby’s voice.
“Come in.”
Robby stuck his head in from behind the curtain and grinned. “How you doing?”
“Better, now that you’re here.”
His head ducked back for a second before reappearing. “I have a present for you.”
Her eyebrows rose and her head tilted. “What is it?”
Robby pulled back the curtain and Jonathan stepped forward. He was thin, but he looked well. His face was bright. He hesitated at the foot of her bed, his eyes taking in the bandaged knee and the braces on her wrists before finding her face.
She lifted her arms, taking care not to snag the IV line, and motioned to her son. Jonathan moved to the side of the gurney, then melted into her embrace.
“It’s over,” she whispered. “We get to start again, a new life for us.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“A little banged up, but nothing I won’t get over.” She looked down and noticed something in Jonathan’s hand. “What’s that?”
He pushed away and showed her the small package. “Robby got me Too Human.” He must have noticed Vail’s quizzical look, because he elaborated. “It’s an Xbox game, mom.”
“Oh. Hecka tight, right?” she asked.
“Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Robby cleared his throat. “You’re embarrassing him.”
“Give me a break. I can speak the groovy lingo with the best of them.”
A nurse appeared at the foot of the gurney with a large bouquet of flowers. “A messenger dropped this off for you at the front desk,” the woman said, then handed them to Robby, who thanked her.
Vail pulled the small card from the porcelain vase. As she read it, a smile teased her lips.
“Who’s it from?” Robby asked.
Vail eyed him curiously. “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”
“More like a couple of notes.”
“Hmm. Haven’t heard that tune in a while.” She winked at him. “It’s from Jackson Parker, my attorney. He told me to get well soon so he could face me in court again. And, he wanted to let me know that everything’s going to be fine.”
“What’s going to be fine?” Jonathan asked.
Vail gently touched her son’s face, then reached out to take Robby’s hand. “Everything, sweetheart,” she said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
acknowledgments
I’m indebted to the following individuals for their time and assistance. Any errors (or literary license I may have taken with some minor facts/locations) are solely my responsibility.
FBI Profiler Mark Safarik, recently retired Supervisory Special Agent with the Bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. My work with Mark goes back twelve years, and during this time he’s helped me gain a deep insight, not just into the life and work of a profiler, but into the serial offender’s mind as well—perceptions and observations that can’t be gleaned from textbooks. In ensuring the accuracy of the material, characters, and concepts used in The 7th Victim, Mark’s unending assistance and attention to detail were invaluable.
FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole, Supervisory Special Agent with the Bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, for being candid with me about her experiences as a profiler both on and off the job; for her insight into the mind of a killer; and for offering me a woman’s perspective on the unique issues she faces not only in her unit but as woman packing a large weapon . . . with the attitude and skill to use it.
Lieutenant William Kitzerow, City of Fairfax, Virginia Police Department, for his extensive tour of his police department and hospitality in making sure I had everything I needed—including being “my eyes” in extensive follow-ups; there’s nothing better than having a veteran police lieutenant interview people on your behalf for information.
Major R. Stephen Kovacs, Commander, Court Services Division, and Lt. Stacey Kleiner, Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, for giving me a private tour of the cell blocks and booking and processing areas of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. They were courteous, open, honest, and invaluable resources.
Fairfax County Police Officer First Class Micheal Weinhaus, Mason District Station, who not only answered my unending questions but who took me on a behind-the-scenes tour of his facility and then welcomed me into his cruiser for a hoppin’ midnight shift ride-along. I’m confident one day he’ll be able to get my finger impressions out of his dashboard.
Fairfax County Police Officer Jeff Andrea, Mount Vernon District Station, for his assistance and explanation of prisoner booking procedure and transport; Sergeant Jamie Smith of the Vienna, Virginia, Police Department for his tour, candor, and contacts; Major H. D. Smith and Detective Twyla DeMoranville, for taking me behind the scenes at the Spotsylvania Sher
iff’s Office and Criminal Investigations Division.
Kim Rossmo, PhD, Research Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Texas State University, and the Director for the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation. That’s a mouthful—but bottom line is that Dr. Rossmo is the father of geographic profiling. I thank him for his time in discussing with me the concepts of geoprofiling, for lending his name to the manuscript and for reviewing the relevant portions of The 7th Victim for accuracy.
Rodger Freeman, Community Outreach Assistant for Women Escaping A Violent Environment, who provided me with insight and perspective on domestic violence issues. Marion Weis, for relating her real-world experience in dealing with people who have been stricken with Alzheimer’s Disease. Matthew Jacobson, my Xbox and Internet guru, for ensuring I got my references and terminology correct. Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, for his information on anonymous email. Michael Berkley, ceramicist, for providing me the framework for Dead Eyes’s occupation.
The 7th Victim Page 44
