by Chris Mooney
Darby remembered the cloudless autumn day she drove out of the city. She could go anywhere and do anything. She was bound to nothing and to no one. She had the power to choose.
‘You know,’ Coop said, ‘I find it very, very sad that the only way I can get to see you in person is for me to dangle a sexual sadist in front of you.’
‘A very organized sexual sadist. I come out only for the best. Coop, when we spoke yesterday, you didn’t mention anything about ViCAP.’ The FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program was the largest database of violent crimes in existence; it held and analysed information about homicides – especially unsolved sexual assaults.
‘That’s because we didn’t find anything about a killer who ties up families, murders them and makes the bed before leaving,’ Coop said. ‘Sure, we found some unsolved cases in the state where a family was tied up and/or killed, either shot or stabbed to death. Those, though, were all burglaries – or staged to look like burglaries. No sexual elements.’
‘I read the articles posted on Colorado news websites and didn’t see anything mentioned about the killer making the beds.’
‘The locals kept that detail to themselves to weed out the copycats.’
Good, Darby thought. ‘What else did they keep out of the papers?’
‘Guy doesn’t leave the rope behind. Lab’s taking a look at the ligature marks and trying to see if they can ID the type of knot he uses. The locals are calling him the Red Hill Ripper.’
‘Your guy strangles his victims,’ Darby said. ‘He doesn’t mutilate them with a knife or a similar weapon.’
‘Reporter who broke the first story thought “Red Hill Ripper” would play and sound better than the “Red Hill Strangler”.’
‘Ah … How’d Red Hill PD react to you guys being brought in?’ The police chief, Coop had told her, had called Investigative Support. But that didn’t mean the chief’s people would roll out the welcome wagon for the detectives assigned to the case.
‘They practically threw us a parade,’ Coop said. ‘These guys want us here, which isn’t surprising, given the incorporation.’
‘The what?’
‘Red Hill’s an un-incorporated town. Means it doesn’t have a self-ruling government.’
‘No mayor or city council.’
Coop nodded. ‘It also means that the town doesn’t have any money for schools and other services. Real-estate market didn’t recover from the crash, which is great news for the developers, who are itching to come in and buy a whole bunch of properties and level them to the ground to make way for strip malls. I’m not for gentrification, but this town needs something, because it’s practically in rigor mortis. No one’s moving in because there aren’t any jobs – they all went to China or India or whatever – and manufacturing’s dead. With no one moving in and without Red Hill having the money to attract doctors and teachers –’
‘The town’s in a terminal spiral,’ Darby finished.
‘Which is the reason why the state wants to incorporate Red Hill with the neighbouring town of Brewster. Sheriff’s office is located there.’ Coop turned to her and added, ‘And it’s not going anywhere.’
‘So once the incorporation goes through, Red Hill PD will be no more.’
‘Exactly. It’s a skeleton crew as it is. The police chief called us because he’s hoping we can help his people catch the Ripper. You know how it goes with a serial case – whoever catches the bogey man wins the prize. Brewster sheriff’s office is staffed with better talent, but if Williams – that’s the detective spearheading the task force, Ray Williams – if he and his people net this douchebag first, chances are good they’ll have a place in the new regime.’
Darby had worked her fair share of high-pressure cases where the usual assortment of assholes – administrators, bureaucrats and politicians seeking re-election – demanded a case be closed in days instead of weeks, if not months. Oh, and bad news, kids: we haven’t budgeted any funds for overtime, so go on out there and catch the bad guy on your own time – and pronto. But she had never worked a case with the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head.
A cell phone rang. Not hers; it was coming from a BlackBerry tucked away in a dashboard cubbyhole.
Coop picked it up and glanced at the screen. ‘It’s Hoder,’ he said, and then answered the call. ‘I’m on my way back with the good doctor.’
Darby couldn’t hear what Hoder was saying on the other end of the line, but Coop’s face had gone slack. You didn’t have to read page one of Detective Work for Dummies to know some piece of bad news had just been delivered.
‘You’re breaking up again,’ Coop said, and gave the Jeep a little more gas. ‘What? Yeah, I got the address, we’ll meet you there in forty.’
Darby watched the speedometer’s needle ease its way past eighty-five.
‘Can you hear me, Terry? Terry? Goddamnit.’ Coop hung up, sighing heavily.
‘What’s up?’ Darby asked.
‘They’ve just found another dead family.’
3
Multiple homicides in Boston were almost always three-ring-circus affairs. Caravans of patrol cars with their flashing blue-and-whites would block off the main and surrounding streets while patrolmen worked crowd control near the crime scene; a couple of blues would shout orders over bullhorns; and everyone would scramble to keep the herds of reporters, TV cameramen and curious neighbours corralled behind sawhorses.
When Coop turned right on to Salem End Road, the address of the crime scene, Darby saw yet another street that resembled all the others she’d passed on the way here: quiet and ordinary, a long stretch of pavement that looked like it had been carved through the middle of the forest, the modest single-family homes sprinkled along a string of big plots, all of which were set far back from the street and were slightly obscured by trees, as if trying to hide.
Darby didn’t hear any bullhorns and she didn’t see any flashing police or emergency lights. As they drew closer, the GPS, with its mechanical female voice speaking in a slight British accent for some reason, announced that their destination was coming up on the right, a mere 400 feet away. There wasn’t a single person, cop or otherwise, out on the sidewalk.
‘I don’t know, Coop. All this chaos, I’m not going to be able to think clearly.’
‘Welcome to Hicksville,’ Coop said, as he pulled up against the kerb and parked behind a white Chevy pickup with an extended cab and mudguards. He killed the engine and pocketed the keys.
Darby, stepping out of the Jeep and on to the sidewalk, saw a black Honda Accord with tinted windows parked in front of the truck. The driver’s door swung open.
Terry Hoder was as tall and slim as Darby remembered, but his hair, once jet-black, had gone entirely grey, and he wore the full weight of his fifty-six years in his face. In his ill-fitting suit and bland tie, he looked like a tired professor who had been coerced out of retirement to give one last, important lecture.
But his appearance was disarming. Behind his rumpled façade – his drowsy eyes and soft voice that still carried traces of his Texas accent – lurked one of the brightest and fiercest minds the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit had ever produced.
Hoder leaned on a cane, and he saw her staring at it as she drew closer to him. ‘Had my knee replaced the week before Thanksgiving,’ he said. ‘Still on the mend, and the cold makes it throb like a mad bastard, to use one of my father’s old sayings. Pleasure to meet you, Dr McCormick.’
‘Darby.’ She shook his hand. ‘We’ve met before, actually. Long time ago, I don’t expect you to remember.’
‘Where?’
‘Quantico. I took your course “The Motivational Models of Sexual Homicide”.’
‘Well, I hope it comes in handy here, since our man likes rope.’ Hoder smiled wryly. ‘Thank you for joining us. It’ll be good to have another pair of eyes on this.’
Then his brow furrowed, his gaze narrowing slightly. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the people in Investigative Suppo
rt. They’re all fine men and women.’
Darby was surprised to hear her thought spoken out loud.
‘The problem is that, at the core, they’re all academics,’ Hoder said. ‘I don’t mean that disparagingly; I include myself in that group. Over the past two decades, ISU has, unfortunately, been denigrated to an advisory role. Law enforcement either visit us or they send us their case files, and then I sit around a big conference table with my people, studying files and crime scene photos, tossing theories back and forth about what kind of offender we’re looking for.
‘Have our profiles helped? Yes, absolutely. But it’s mostly after the fact. Nothing can replace working an actual case. Or field experience.’
Is this a lecture or a sales pitch? Darby wondered. Maybe it was a little bit of both.
‘This is my rather long-winded way of explaining that I’m hoping to get ISU to change its ways before I retire – to get more seasoned investigators like yourself into the fold, and to have them actively involved in working serial and mass murder investigations on the ground.’
‘So the Red Hill Ripper is, what, some sort of test case?’ Darby asked.
‘More like a trial run for what I hope will be a new approach to multiple homicide investigations. By giving law enforcement agencies direct lab access and the country’s best and brightest people, I believe we can shorten the duration of a serial investigation and, hopefully, save lives.’ Then, with a frown, he glanced at his watch and added, ‘Speaking of which, the MoFo should’ve arrived by now.’
‘MoFo? Who’s that?’
‘What they called the MFU, the Mobile Forensics Unit,’ Hoder said. ‘Denver office is loaning us theirs, along with two forensics agents. It’s a complete working lab, everything we can possibly need. We’ll have satellite access to all our databases as well as anything we need at our main lab. I should go back to the hotel and call, see what the holdup is. Coop tell you about the problem with cell signals out here?’
Darby nodded. ‘FBI’s really pulling out all the stops with this one.’
Hoder picked up on the slight edge in her voice. ‘I understand your past experiences with the Bureau have been, shall we say, less than ideal.’
Don’t say it, Darby thought. Then she did.
‘I was thinking more along the lines of gross negligence.’
Hoder chuckled, his smile wide and bright. It erased a good decade from his face. ‘Please don’t hold back on my account,’ he said.
‘Have you been inside?’
‘No. Detective Williams wanted the scene secured. He’s the only one who’s been in there.’
‘Good.’
‘I know you’re anxious to get to it, but before you go …’ Hoder shifted his weight on his cane and looked over his car roof at the murder house. The front porch lights were on, and the Christmas decorations were still up – a big wreath on the door and tiny white lights wrapped around the stair railing and porch columns.
The afternoon sun warm against her face, Darby took in the windows facing the street. All the shades were drawn. She wondered if the killer had done that.
Hoder said, ‘You caught two serials on your own, with no help from ISU – one of which, I’m embarrassed to say, was right under my nose.’
His gaze settled on the faint hairline scar on her left cheek. It was two inches long and it never tanned.
An axe had done that. It had smashed through a door while she’d been protecting a young woman inside a dungeon of horrors. The surgeons had replaced her shattered cheekbone with an implant. She was damn lucky she hadn’t lost an eye.
Hoder cleared his throat. When he spoke, he sounded contrite. ‘I’m the one who was responsible for coming up with the profile on that particular … person.’ His tone and voice remained soft, but his eyes had hardened. ‘Clearly, I was wrong. In fact, everything I pontificated about in that profile turned out to be, well, complete bullshit.’
Darby found herself being seduced by the man’s easy Southern charm. He had used it when interviewing serial killers, getting them to open up and discuss the dark impulses that drove them. In some cases he got the killers to disclose where they had buried certain bodies.
‘What I’m saying is, don’t be afraid to challenge me.’
Darby smiled. ‘Believe me, you got nothing to worry about on that front.’
4
Darby joined Coop at the back of the Jeep as Hoder drove off. He had been unloading their forensics gear while she’d been talking.
‘Why didn’t you join us?’
Coop pulled out the bulky Alternative Light Source unit. ‘I wanted him to experience the full measure of your glowing personality.’
‘Mission accomplished.’
‘Judging by what I heard, I’d say so.’ Coop shut the hatchback, the sound echoing for a beat. ‘Never give an inch, do you?’
‘Why live a life of half-measures? Come on, let’s boogie.’
Having grown up and worked in a city where sirens and traffic and people yelling at one another were nothing more than background noises, as common as birds tweeting, Darby was struck by just how unbelievably quiet this place was. The wind picked up, shaking the towering pines, but after it died she could hear the ticking of the SUV’s engine; the melting snow from the home’s roof pinging its way down the gutters, which were packed with ice; and the click and scrape of her boots and the suitcase’s rolling wheels as she walked with Coop, who was dragging their equipment.
The air here … she had never smelled anything so wonderfully clean. Invigorating. She felt like someone who had experienced the world’s best night of sleep and woken up clear-headed and energized.
Or maybe it all had to do with her adrenalin – not from nerves. The adrenalin was psychologically induced from something only another cop would understand: the odd, palpable excitement of being on the hunt.
‘What’re you smiling at?’ Coop asked.
‘Just thinking about how much I miss this.’
‘Working together?’
‘Yeah.’ She did miss working with him. But that hadn’t been her first thought.
‘I know it’s going to be difficult, but please try not to jump my bones in there. It would be weird, not to mention unprofessional.’
‘I’ll try to control myself.’
Coop eased open the door. A white tarp covered the blond-wood foyer floor. Bright sunlight flooded through the windows in the surrounding rooms, and the cool air was fragrant with coffee and a tinge of wood smoke.
Hanging on the white-paned wall on her left were five artfully arranged framed pictures of a young brunette woman with a strong jaw and full lips. High school and college graduation photos, one of her as a baby and another as a toddler, the camera capturing her mid-jump on a bed and in a state of pure bliss.
The daughter, Darby thought, removing her sunglasses. Please don’t let her be in here.
Darby looked to the archway on her left. The walnut dining-table seated six. The pair of head-of-the-table carver chairs were gone as well as one of the side chairs.
A man in a navy-blue suit appeared at the end of the short hall leading into the kitchen. He wore white booties over his shoes and his hands were covered in latex. He also held a clipboard.
‘Darby,’ Coop said, placing his gear on the floor, ‘meet Ray Williams. Ray is lead detective on the Ripper investigations. Ray, this is Darby McCormick, the forensics consultant I was telling you about.’
Williams was an inch or two shy of six feet and had dark brown eyes and thick black hair that was parted razor sharp on the side. He was also ruggedly handsome – the kind of man, Darby suspected, who chopped his own firewood, was comfortable with tools and drank good Scotch. She felt her pulse quicken.
Even better, he wasn’t a sloppy hick cop who didn’t know his way around a crime scene. Wary of disturbing any potential footwear evidence the killer may have left in the hallway, Williams hugged a wall as he moved towards them, avoiding the main area of foot traffic
along the floor.
He looked her up and down – not in an overtly sexual way, but more with a look of a surprise, as if he’d been expecting someone entirely different. Then she realized that she looked like she’d just climbed off a Harley – snug black leather motorcycle jacket, jeans and chestnut-brown harness boots. All I’m missing is a helmet and some tats.
Coop had picked up on it. ‘This is how PhDs from Harvard dress these days.’
‘Ray Williams,’ he said, his voice a deep, smooth purr. He had a firm handshake and rough, callused palms. He also had about a day’s worth of stubble; Ray Williams was in that category of men who always had a permanent case of five o’clock shadow no matter how many times a day they shaved. ‘Thanks for coming, glad to have you here.’
Williams sounded genuine. That wasn’t always the case with detectives. They were, by nature, as territorial as a junkyard dog, and about as friendly.
Darby nodded to the stairs. ‘How many we got?’
‘Hoder didn’t fill you in?’ Williams asked.
Coop answered the question. ‘He tried, but the signal dropped out. Again.’
Williams nodded. Looking at Darby, he said, ‘Cell phones don’t work too well here. Not enough towers.’ He flipped open his pad. ‘Vics are David and Laura Downes, and their daughter, Samantha. That’s her right there.’ Williams pointed to the photos hanging on the wall and Darby felt something inside her tear. ‘Samantha’s twenty-two. Moved back in with her parents last year after graduating from college, works at the one and only bar that’s still open downtown – Wagon Wheel Saloon, across from the place where you guys are staying. David’s forty-seven. Lawyer, specializes in real-estate law. Laura’s forty-eight. Former schoolteacher.’
‘Same as the previous four families?’ Darby asked.
‘Same plastic bindings, duct tape, all of it.’
‘Beds?’
‘Both of ’em look as though they were made by Martha Stewart herself. Daughter’s bedroom is on the first floor, off the kitchen.’
