by Jo Robertson
She pushed back from her chair and stood. “You see, we all begin as females. Then the first wave of testosterone for males occurs in utero and signals the body to develop male characteristics.”
Lecturing like a professor, she paced, as if unable to think in the close confines of the miniature office. “Most XXY’s present as normal females until the second wave of hormones, triggered by the Y chromosome, kicks in at the onset of puberty,” she continued. “They can develop male secondary sex traits like facial hair and a deepening voice. Or they can show no characteristics at all. Sometimes, they never know about their chromosomal anomaly.”
Slater felt the same combination of fascination and incredulity Kate showed. “But are they men or women?” he asked.
“It’s not that simple. Sexual identity isn’t always a clear cut given. Technically, if a Y chromosome is present, they’re men, but they may look, feel, and act more like women. If an anatomical anomaly is also present, like a shortened penis or internal female organs but external male genitalia, an XXY person could have periods, but a fused labia. They could look ultra feminine because of the additional X chromosome, but also be anatomically male.”
“They could have periods and facial hair?”
She nodded. “There could be any number of inter-sexed combinations, internal and external, that fit this guy.”
“This is freaky, Kate,” he muttered, swiping his jaw.
“If it’s true, it means we can understand the inner workings of the perpetrator’s mind. Knowing his medical history would help us immensely.”
“Maybe our focus should be on that.”
She nodded agreement. “At one time it was common medical practice to determine a newborn’s sex by outward examination. If a boy baby had an unusually short penis, it was considered inadequate and removed, and he was reared as a girl.”
“Shit, that’s awful.”
“Penile enhancement was in its very early stages and not a real option. Many doctors believed that sex is elastic and determined by rearing, not genetics. We now know that sex chromosomes, reproductive systems, and external genitalia don’t always match up.”
“Are you saying that whatever we are is hardwired into our genes, but not necessarily the same as what we see on the outside?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “And if our UNSUB was born with a shortened penis, he could’ve been reared as a girl.”
“Puberty would’ve been a nightmare for him,” he mused.
“The killer could be driven by some rage that arises from sexual dimorphism. If he’s middle-aged now, current research wasn’t available to his parents when he was a child. They might have considered him abnormal.”
“Like a hermaphrodite?”
“It’s more complicated than that, but if other physical anomalies occurred in him, in addition to the XXY factor, which we’re sure of, he could be acting out highly exaggerated adolescent anger. So-called normal puberty is troubling enough for most adolescents without added factors. He’d have been in a constant state of rage.”
“He selects teenage girls as the focus of his anger, not grown women,” he admitted, “and the killings are brutal.”
“And clearly sexual in nature,” she added.
“I remember adolescence as pretty rough.”
“It’s a time when teenagers are confused about sex and gender identity. Whatever drives this monster may have originated in his adolescence.”
She paused thoughtfully before continuing, turning to face him, her eyes bright with anticipation. “What if – what if the UNSUB originally came from around this area?”
“Bigler County?”
“Yeah. If we could uncover his background, get his medical records, we’d understand how to catch him.”
“I don’t know, Kate.” Slater shook his head. “That’s a lot of heavy theorizing. We could take a look at hospital records, but even if we could get warrants, which I doubt, that’s a huge task.”
He was quiet for a moment, thinking about the logistics. “We’re going to have to pull Bauer in on this.” He anticipated her protest and held up a hand to stop it. “I know, I know, but we’ve got to trust someone else. We can’t do this alone.”
She nodded reluctantly while he ran his hands lightly down her arms. “I think we should look at the Preston evidence again. If Mary Stuckey’s death is tied to our UNSUB as you suspected, then your sister’s murder wasn’t his first. He might’ve been careless about leaving DNA before that. Considering the limitations of small town police forces, the evidence might still be there.”
Kate nodded again. “DNA testing wasn’t as widely used at the time of my sister’s death as now. When I began my investigation, I asked about their evidence. They said it’d been degraded.”
“Regardless of what they told you,” Slater warned, “it might not even have been collected, let alone tested.” He took her hands and held them in both of his. “I swear, Kate, we’ll find this bastard.”
“What are we going to do next?” Her voice sounded more resolute.
“First, we bring Bauer in on this evidence. He’s my partner, I trust him, and we need a third person working on this. One who knows everything we do.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “And I think it’s time to call in the FBI.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Ditching the brown Nissan had been the easiest thing John Smith had done in a long time. He’d abandoned it in West Sacramento after stripping it of the stolen license plates and leaving the keys in the ignition. Right now some street gang was systematically dismantling it for parts that’d end up somewhere between Stockton and Bakersfield. The Nissan wasn’t a problem anymore.
From his recently acquired gray van, Smith spied the teenager hunched against the chain link fence of the recreation center’s perimeter. The boy aroused both disgust and sympathy in the watcher. The heavy backpack weighted the kid’s shoulders, and his hair crept over his ears and collar.
Across the courtyard a trio of girls sat on a wooden bench, whispering to each other and slanting guarded looks at the boy beside the fence. They were Smith’s real focus. He could tell they were snickering about the boy. They wanted to get the kid’s attention so that when he finally noticed them, they could cut him down.
Smith knew they’d be ruthless in their tormenting. If the boy weren’t such a weakling, if he were more of a man, he’d rip the heartless bitches apart. Smith trembled with the urge to do just that, to tear their smugly perfect bodies in half. He broke out in a cold sweat and felt dizzy as he rested his head on the seat back.
A few minutes later, the girls left, but the boy remained, looking after them with longing on his face. Suddenly, from the double doors of the recreation center, came three husky teens who circled the boy like hyenas. Their baseball caps sat backwards on their heads and their jeans rode low in the crotch, exposing a broad expanse of underwear. Chains draped from their belt loops and jangled against each other.
Smith’s eyes fluttered as he drifted away.
He was cornered in the basement corridor by two eleventh-grade boys who wouldn’t let him pass until he paid the toll. He’d gotten lost on his way to third-period class right before lunch.
“Gimme a kiss,” the large-boned, red-faced thug demanded.
A kiss?
He fled in terror through the musty halls, scrambling up the stairs to the ground floor and the school’s parking lot, his heart clattering in his throat, a scream clawing to get out.
He threw up just as he stepped onto the asphalt.
Bile rose in Smith’s throat and he lowered his forehead against the steering wheel. When he looked up again, the boys had vanished. He put the vehicle in gear and drove off.
Abandoning his search, he headed northeast. Something was wrong. He felt sick, like he was coming down with the flu. He’d go home and crawl into bed. Nothing that a little rest wouldn’t cure. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow. Crap, he was sweating like a pig.
It was dark
by the time he reached the highway turnoff and crossed the dam before heading up the hill. The monotony of the broken white line lulled him. His eyelids drooped. Judas Priest, he was wiped out.
Grandfather’s voice growled like the warning of a dog getting ready to bite. The words confused the boy, but the spiteful tone was clear.
“Judas Priest. There’s somethin’ wrong with that kid, Maggie. What we got in there is somethin’ that orta be in a circus sideshow.” The old man sounded like he was spitting something nasty out of his mouth. “How’d somethin’ so god-awful weird come from us? That whore of a girl dumped this little whore-freak on us, knowing that kid’ll never be right.”
Never be right, never be right.
Smith pulled into the graveled circular drive and drove the car into the wood outbuilding that sat to the right of the house. Never be right, never be right. He turned off the headlights and sat in the pitch blackness of the shed, staring straight ahead.
After a few minutes, he reached into the glove compartment and got out a flashlight. Unfastening his seat belt, he swung his legs out onto the dirt floor of the shed. He brandished the light around the interior, finally lighting on the boxes stacked on crude shelves to the left.
Pulling down a container from the highest shelf, Smith settled onto a wooden crate and slowly lifted the lid.
The postcards and albums were sealed inside plastic wrap. Beneath one album was a smaller container marked twelve-gauge shells, but the boy knew it was too light for bullets.
The pictures were stuffed inside, wrapped in aluminum foil. There were over a dozen of them. Of a girl whose once-golden hair looked like straw. Whose purple eyes were hard and mean, the mouth pouty.
Smith fingered the pictures, the postcards, and stroked himself through his trousers, but tonight this activity didn’t make him feel better. He replaced the contents of the box and snapped off the flashlight.
When he reached the steps of the house, bile rose hard in his throat, and he vomited over the porch railing.
#
Every time Slater called the Fresno branch of the FBI, he got a recorded message. Finally he dialed the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, Virginia. Even accounting for the three-hour time difference, and knowing it’d be hard to get someone on a Sunday, Slater was disappointed. In spite of his law enforcement credentials, getting the numbers to any FBI services was like gaining access to the Pentagon.
When he finally got through to someone besides an automaton, an officious-sounding woman announced that the Bureau didn’t respond to local law enforcement calls. All requests for FBI assistance came through various state offices. California’s division of the FBI was housed in Fresno, California. She knew he’d understand the proper procedure and she’d be happy to give him the number.
Slater explained that he knew the drill, but he really needed to contact someone before Monday. He tried to explain the situation, and when the woman merely repeated her memorized monologue, he erupted in frustration.
“Look, lady, I don’t give a shit about your protocol. We’ve got a serial killer running rampant in our town, and if the friggin’ Eff-Bee-Eye isn’t interested, then we ‘local law enforcement’ will proceed on our own.”
Bauer had returned by then, and although he hadn’t been completely briefed, lent his support by chiming in. “That’s telling them.”
Slater paused to calm himself and glanced at Kate’s and Bauer’s amused expressions. He made a “duh” sign by slapping his forehead with the heel of his hand and was rewarded with grins. In a measured voice, he continued speaking to the woman on the other end of the line.
“Now why don’t you pass my message on to your supervisor, and if he decides he’d like a piece of the action, fine. If he thinks it’s important enough, maybe he can get through to the Fresno Branch. If not, we’ll solve the damn case without your people.”
Slater slammed the phone down on its cradle. “Shit, what do they pay those people to do?”
“Never mind,” Kate said. “I’ve already made inroads by pinpointing several unsolved murder cases that look like promising connections.”
She checked her watch. “Why don’t we take this stuff back to my apartment and work on it? Maybe three heads will be better than one.”
“Or better than the entire Bureau,” Slater grumbled.
Bauer agreed, but was clearly confused.
“We’ll work up a profile from this new information,” Kate said confidently. “We’ll get this guy ourselves.”
“That’s the attitude, Nancy Drew,” Slater said. He watched her figure as she walked toward her office to get her coat and purse. He liked the hopeful cadence in her voice and the buoyancy in her walk. Her optimism made him believe they could do this.
First thing Monday, he’d get teams going on the medical records search.
#
Since the day the watcher had seen the purple-eyed woman, he hadn’t gone to work.
At first, he’d thought his imagination was playing tricks on him. Around four o’clock, he pulled off the freeway at the first Placer Hills exit on his way home from work. He needed cold medication, and he was low on gas, afraid he wouldn’t make it up the windy road to the house. It wouldn’t do to call attention to himself by breaking down on the side of the freeway and having a highway patrolman check him out.
He needed to keep a low profile.
The woman had walked out of the Easy Stop Market while he pumped gas. Normally he didn’t pay attention to grown women. They met his glances with challenging looks, their eyes small and hard in their artificial faces. They smiled with bright red lips, with confidence that made him aware of his inadequacy. Their uncensored stares sent a rush of blood coursing to his head and dark thoughts to his mind. Smith felt controlled by their terrible craftiness.
It was different with the girls. With them, he was in charge. He controlled the encounters.
As the woman opened the door to a sporty yellow car, she’d glanced over her shoulder, and he looked directly into her face. He nearly dropped the gas nozzle. As it was, he topped off, and gasoline flooded over the gas tank opening, drizzling down the car’s fender and splashing on his trousers.
She was older now, at least fifteen years older, and faint lines feathered from her eyes. But it was the girl. He’d swear it was the girl. The teenage girl now grown up. He trembled violently.
But how could that be?
She had the same yellow hair, long to the middle of her back, although it seemed thicker and darker than he remembered. Her cheekbones were high and in the brief meeting of their eyes, he saw the same deep violet shade he remembered. It was a color he’d looked for in other girls, but never found.
A tiny frown burrowed between the woman’s brows, and suddenly he was certain. He remembered that frown when she’d bumped into him all those years ago in front of the Cavalier Store. And the color of the eyes didn’t lie.
But how, for God’s sake? That girl was dead!
When he replaced the nozzle on the gas pump, his hand shook uncontrollably. No, it wasn’t possible. Was it?
The woman showed no recognition as she drove past him. He memorized the license plate, 2HYM748, repeating it over and over until he’d paid for his gas and gotten back in his car, 2HYM748. He carefully wrote the number on a small scrap of paper in his pocket. 2HYM748.
Distracted, he nearly ran off the road traveling the narrow lanes up to the foothills. He turned off at the dirt road that led to his grandparents’ house. Even though the rooms were dark and gloomy as he entered, he only turned on the single bulb of the entry light. He sank into the one piece of furniture he’d dragged from the shed, an overstuffed armchair. He stared at the dark, closed drapes while he tried to figure out what seeing this ghost from the past meant. Finally he dozed fitfully.
He’d had the dream for years. He was chased by a dark protoplasmic blob of matter that rolled over and over like a giant amoeba, while he raced, his short legs losing ground with ever
y second. He glanced over his shoulder, hearing the squishing, slurping sound of the blob. Sweat broke out on his body and rolled down his legs, making the soles of his feet slippery. He tripped and the jelly-like mass rolled over him, slowly crushing the breath out of him.
Gasping for breath, he awakened with a start.
The recurring dream was born, he knew, from the stories of the “Commies” his grandfather hated so much. Spun from the late night tales of the “Reds” and what they’d do to the freedom of red-blooded Americans if they invaded the U. S. of A. His grandfather’s rabid belief in those conspiracies had prompted the building of the secret basement room.
The Slaughtering Room.
By the next day, Smith had worked himself into a fevered pitch. Lying in bed in his underwear, sweating clammily in spite of the winter cold, he convinced himself he was too distraught to work and called in sick. He pushed his mattress-bed against the wall of the attic and sprawled on the dingy sheet, smelling the stink of his body rise up to confirm his illness. Alternately staring up at the rafters and dozing fitfully, he forced himself to formulate an answer and a plan, something that would bring order to his life again.
Only one theory made sense. The purple-eyed girl wasn’t dead. Somehow she’d survived that night in the cabin. He’d been callow and inexperienced in the beginning, had gotten more efficient since the Idaho girl. She’d been a sloppy experience, and one he’d often wished he could do over again.
Do again, do right. Now he could.
Fate had delivered her into his hands.
Now he understood why his last two hunts had been failures. The first girl died after he’d had her only three days, leaving him unsatisfied. By the time he chose the second girl, he’d been in such a pitch of frenzy that he’d botched the whole thing. He’d spent less than twenty-four hours with her and hadn’t followed the rules.
Smith’s heart rate accelerated, thumping like a bat’s wings in the cave of his chest as blind panic ripped through him. He gulped air into his lungs and fought to quell the terror that threatened to overcome him.
