Killing Fear

by Allison Brennan

  Will glanced at Vigo. “You have something new?”

  The Fed nodded. “You’ve gone above and beyond. If all jurisdictions were as organized as this one, maybe more than three convicts would be back in custody.”

  “Wasn’t that the work of some vigilante?” Diaz asked.

  Vigo said, “We think one of the other escapees has been tracking the men and restraining them.”

  Causey asked, “A convict is beating up the others? I thought that was media grandstanding. We didn’t hear anything formal about it.”

  “It’s not something we’re advertising. Because when we get the guy back behind bars, we don’t want the prison population knowing that he was once a cop. As it is, we’ll probably have to move him and put him in isolation when he’s found, or send him to a federal penitentiary.”

  The news sunk in, that one of their own had turned. Yet hadn’t turned so far that he condoned the escape of convicted murderers.

  “What do you have on Glenn?” Will asked.

  “We’ve been working with the prison authority on seizing all personal property of the escaped convicts,” Vigo said. “We have their journals, their books, their letters. We have sent in a computer expert to pull down all e-mail communication. Prisoners are not allowed e-mail communication, but we know they find ways to access the Internet. We can get everything except privileged communication with their attorneys, but we have a legal team working on that with a federal judge.”

  Vigo tilted one side of his mouth up. “We may get in a little hot water for that one, but at this point these men have already given up their rights. Theodore Glenn is not the only one who has killed since the escape. A gang of four are on a robbery spree in San Francisco. Two clerks are dead. You’d think in a city that geographically small we could get a handle on them—” Vigo stopped himself. “But right now we have info on Glenn that can benefit you and I’ll help in any way I can.”

  Will appreciated that Vigo didn’t force himself into the case. At this point, he would ask for all the help he could get.

  “Give it to me,” he said.

  “I work in the Investigative Support Unit, which basically means that I think like the bad guy. I try to figure out his next move. To do that, I look at his past. If you understand why a killer did something, you can predict what he will do in the future.

  “I don’t need to tell you all who Theodore Glenn is. You know he’s a borderline genius corporate attorney who, before he turned to murder, received intense thrills through extreme sports—things like skydiving and BASE jumping. I’ve read his transcripts, and concur with what Detective Hooper said on the stand: Glenn is a sociopath with no ability to feel remorse for his actions. He will kill again if it gets him what he wants.

  “Most serial killers kill to live out a fantasy. They gain satisfaction in either the hunt or the kill or both. They relive that fantasy as long as they can. When the memory or souvenirs from the kill no longer gives them the physical and emotional satisfaction as the act itself did, they kill again. They are constantly perfecting their crime, making the fantasy better, more complete, in their minds.

  “This is why Glenn changed his M.O. almost immediately.”

  “The bleach,” Will said. “We guessed he did that because he’d left evidence behind at the first crime scene.”

  “Exactly. He knew it as soon as he left. He has finely developed instincts, which is why he’s been so elusive since his escape.

  “Theodore Glenn is not a textbook serial killer,” Vigo continued. “But if you’ve studied them as long as I have, you understand that they rarely fit into a set mold. Glenn, for example, displayed only one of the early symptoms of serial killers—we know he killed one or more animals. But I read the testimony of Sherry Jeffries several times. Glenn didn’t receive any sexual, physical, or emotional satisfaction in killing his sister’s cat. All the pleasure he received was in his sister’s reaction. If there wasn’t an audience, he’d never have killed the animal.”

  Hans Vigo let that sink in. Will had always sensed Glenn’s core need to emotionally hurt others, but hearing his thoughts validated made Glenn more of a monster, more real.

  Will said, “And the phone call to Robin. It was to hear her reaction.”

  “Bingo. In fact, he called for two reasons. To hear her fear—to live vicariously off her heightened emotions—and to relive his crimes. He wanted to make sure that Robin McKenna knew exactly why he had killed those women, he wanted to make sure she hurt—to attempt to cast blame on her. That she ‘chose’ the victims by her own actions—and inactions.”

  “It’s always been about Robin,” Will said.

  Vigo nodded. “I believe he was obsessed with her from the very beginning, something triggered it. Possibly her perceived inaccessibility—she didn’t date him, unlike the others. Or something about her appearance. It could be one of a thousand things, but something triggered his obsession and that is why he began to kill those around her, to watch her reaction. While in prison, his obsession grew and consumed him.

  “First, Glenn is seeking revenge, as he announced he would in court. People conspired to deny him freedom. To take away his ability to do what he wants. They must be punished. His sister first, because she was easy. She scared easily. He could torment her, but because he’s being cautious, he took care of her quickly. Still, he couldn’t resist picking up the neighbor’s cat and scaring Sherry Jeffries with it prior to killing her. It was spontaneous—he had no way of knowing there’d be a cat nearby when he came to her house.”

  “He saw the opportunity and seized it,” Will said.

  “Glenn is one of the smartest killers I’ve come up against, but he’s a narcissist and that’s the Achilles’ heel of many of them. He knows he’s smart, he doesn’t believe he’ll ever be caught.”

  Vigo tapped the large stack of files. “Look at the way he killed his victims. He had a physical relationship with them. Consensual. He was attractive to women, charismatic. Nonthreatening. A regular. One of the boys. None of them saw anything but what he wanted them to see.”

  Except Robin.

  Vigo seemed to read Will’s mind, looked right at him, but instead of mentioning Robin, he said, “He killed Bethany Coleman by restraining her in her own bed. Cutting into her skin. Not because he received any pleasure from the cutting—he can’t feel that—but because he saw the reaction on her face. He felt her reaction.

  “I know this sounds like splitting hairs, but you have to understand why he does what he does. You touched upon this in your reports, Hooper, and during the trial,” Vigo said. “Theodore Glenn is incapable of feeling any real emotion, at least not the normal human emotions you and I feel. He has to watch other people to see how emotion works, how he’s supposed to feel in the same circumstances. I suspect when we dig further into his background we will learn that he was a voyeur as a young teen. That he didn’t receive the same sexual pleasure from sex as he saw others receive. He learned the right responses by watching others. His parents, maybe. Certainly his sister and her boyfriend.”

  “That’s just gross,” Carina interjected.

  “For most of us, it’s unheard of. We don’t want to witness the sexual relations of other people, especially people we know. But Glenn had to somehow learn how he was supposed to react. I went through his background as carefully as I could on paper. And everything we know about him is that he grew up in a normal, average, upper middle class home. Two parents who have been in a seemingly happy marriage for more than forty years. They did not severely discipline the children. No child abuse, no sexual abuse, no emotional abuse. If anything, the Glenns were too conciliatory toward their children. But spoiled children do not routinely grow up to be serial killers.

  “Glenn was an overachiever. In school, in work, in play. He did everything to the extreme. And something happened that triggered his killing urge. Not because he received any pleasure in the act of killing. Because he didn’t. Look how he positioned the bodies where some
one could find them. See them. He wanted their reaction. The horror. The fear. The pain. That is what he thrived on. And that is what I think was missed seven years ago.

  “Theodore Glenn was either still in the room when the body was discovered, or he was around when friends and family of the victim were told about the murder. He had to be. He didn’t kill for the pleasure of killing. He killed to hurt the survivors.”

  Will clenched his fists. The evidence pointed to Glenn killing Anna Clark—notwithstanding his claims to Trinity that he hadn’t. What if after watching Will and Robin in the bar, he left, got into Robin’s apartment, was surprised by Anna and killed her? Then waited for Robin to come home. Had he been there when she found Anna?

  “Right, Detective?”

  Everyone was staring at Will. He didn’t know what the Fed had said, but he nodded anyway.

  “So all that is in the past—yet time didn’t stop seven years ago when he was incarcerated,” Vigo said.

  Carina said, “But our witness saw him leaving Brandi’s house. Her body wasn’t discovered until the next day by the police. Glenn wasn’t in the house then.”

  “That’s an excellent observation, and it proves my point.”

  “Which was?” Will asked, rubbing his temple.

  “He wanted to see the reaction of someone specific when told of Brandi’s death.”

  Will had already told Chief Causey. Now he needed to clue in the Fed. “I have recently learned that Glenn had been following Robin McKenna. Stalking her, at the time of the murders.”

  “That makes sense. I said earlier that he was obsessed with her, which prompted his call to her yesterday. While in prison he likely fantasized about her. Based on his conversation, she was the focal point of his killing spree seven years ago. Everyone who died had a relationship with her—friends and colleagues. He wanted to hurt Robin McKenna, see how she would react.”

  “She was also the key witness against him during the trial.”

  “So his feelings are even more complex. He’s obsessed with her on one level, and he blames her on another. He likely blames her for his obsession, though he wouldn’t recognize it for what it is. Glenn probably doesn’t understand why she’s on his mind, why he’s fixated on her, and he would blame her for that as well.”

  “What would you say if I told you that he watched Robin McKenna having sex with her boyfriend?”

  “I’d say that the boyfriend is lucky to be alive.”

  Will hadn’t been expecting that answer. “Why? Couldn’t that relationship—with Robin and another man—have prompted Glenn to go after her?”

  “Absolutely,” Vigo said. “And what better way to hurt Robin McKenna than to kill a man she was intimately involved with? That she may have even loved?” He tapped the file folder. “During Ms. McKenna’s testimony, she stated that she didn’t like Theodore Glenn from the beginning. Unlike her colleagues, she never went out with him. Was never alone with him. Some people are more sensitive to sociopaths, or simply better readers of human emotion. Or, in Glenn’s case, lack of emotion.” Vigo paused. “And?”

  Will said, “I was dating Robin at the time of the murders.”

  “I guessed.”

  Will raised an eyebrow.

  “I, too, am a pretty good reader of human emotion,” Vigo said with a half smile. “It’s my job.” He grew serious. “You need to be doubly careful, Detective.”

  “Robin and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You had a part of Robin that Theodore Glenn never had. That makes you vulnerable. Second, even if you aren’t involved, Glenn knows that if he hurt you it would hurt Robin. And finally, you put him in prison. To be perfectly frank, Detective, I think your life may be in greater jeopardy than Robin McKenna’s.”

  Will dismissed Vigo’s comment. He was a cop, he wasn’t overly worried about himself. “The chief said you had information that might help.”

  “The prison authority has copies of all incoming and outgoing correspondence, except privileged communication with his attorney. We’ve put together a list of nineteen women who, for lack of a better word, form a fan club of sorts.”

  “Fan club?” Carina interjected. “Nineteen women admire that monster?”

  “That’s just in San Diego County,” Vigo corrected. “Over two hundred women across the country have written to him, but we determined that if he was using any of them most likely it would be someone local, considering we know that he’s in town, or he was yesterday.”

  “He’s still here,” Will said. “He has a plan, and killing Sherry Jeffries and Frank Sturgeon was only a small part of it.” He looked at Vigo. “What you’ve said is no different than what we put together seven years ago, aside from Glenn wanting to participate somehow in the reactions of the survivors. But that makes sense, especially after his phone call to Robin yesterday.”

  “Like I said, this department has been on the ball. If you don’t need me, I can go back to San Francisco.”

  Will shook his head. “No, I’d like you to stay. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. A fresh set of eyes, a clean perspective, is always good in a case this complex.”

  Vigo nodded. “Of those nineteen women, we ranked them in terms of most likely to harbor a fugitive. Six are considered high risk. We have their names and addresses, though some of these letters are more than a few years old. It’s important to track down all nineteen women, but imperative that someone in law enforcement speaks to the six women on the high-risk list as soon as possible.”

  “How did they make the list?”

  “They are white, single women between the ages of twenty and sixty. They all own property under their own name. They are professionals to some degree. Glenn would not be attracted to an illiterate woman. This is someone he has already tested. Someone he has probably already asked to do something illegal, who has done his bidding to his satisfaction. But since we don’t know what test he would have put them through, we don’t know what to look for in their recent activities. None have federal records, but I’ll give the list to your people to check for a local rap sheet.”

  “Do you really think Theodore Glenn is with one of these women?” Chief Causey asked, handing a copy to Officer Diaz with the order to run the list. Diaz left.

  Vigo nodded. “Without a doubt, he’ll make contact with at least one of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if he rotated between two or three of them, but he’ll be cautious.”

  “How can you be so positive the woman won’t contact the police as soon as she has a chance?” Carina asked.

  “The type of women who contact convicted murderers usually fall into one of four categories: First, they want to express their outrage and usually tell the killer to rot in hell.”

  “I’m with them,” Carina said.

  “The second type is religious or spiritual. They want to pray for the killer, encourage him to find God and ask for forgiveness, be repentant, show remorse. The third type are celebrity hounds, those who collect mementos from famous people. They want a letter back, so they can either add the signature to their collection or sell it. They may enter into a correspondence and attempt to find out additional facts. Some of these people may also exhibit sociopathic tendencies, and live vicariously through the convict, but the women in this group are usually nonviolent.”

  “And the last type?” Will said.

  “Often, they have been abused in the past, most likely by a male authority figure. They have justified the abuse in their minds. They deserved it, according to their reasoning, and if only they had done X, Y, and Z the man wouldn’t have hurt them. It’s similar to many abused wives: They think they can see the good in the abuser. They need to be needed. They are good listeners. It’s interesting that some of these women are professionals—smart, on the surface someone you wouldn’t expect to initiate a friendship with a killer. But they are wired different emotionally. They want to cure all the ills of the world, and they will start by being whatever the killer wa
nts them to be. They understand him, they think. They are sympathetic. They see a side of him that others ignore. But when you talk to them, don’t assume they are dumb or unmanipulative. They will say or do anything to protect the man who they believe they can save. They may even think he is innocent or misunderstood. Or that he had a good reason for doing what he did.”

  Carina shook her head and Will said, “Glenn is already a manipulative personality. He could convince almost anyone he was wrongly convicted.”

  Vigo agreed. “Coupled with the fact that he is attractive and independently wealthy, he would be appealing to these types of women on multiple levels. Many of them are physically homely or have been told so by those they trust. But physical appearance is not a major indicator. Emotional immaturity and prior abuse, either emotional or physical, is the key.”

  “What about greed?” Will asked. “We both agree that Glenn hid money. What if he’s paying them to help him?”

  “Not that simple, but it’s part of the big picture. The woman might see that she can get something for what she thinks is a low price. Glenn has been moving money for the last few years.”

  Will sat straight up. “His money is in a trust.”

  Chief Causey spoke. “Some, not all. Only the funds needed for court-ordered restitution are held in a trust. He had plenty of property and stocks to manipulate.”

  Vigo interjected, “Our finance experts are working on tracking his money trail. He’s paid over a quarter million dollars to his legal firm.”

  “But he represented himself,” Will said.

  “He hired a firm to do research and prepare reports. It’s not unheard of,” Vigo said. “And someone of his ego might be thinking he’d rather give his money to attorneys than to the victims or the state or his parents when he dies. Because right now, when he’s executed, any funds minus restitution will be given to his parents.”