by Casey Hill
No, Reilly was firmly of the belief that good coffee shouldn’t be rushed and having poured in enough water for a single cup, she loaded the percolator and waited patiently for the grounds to pass through.
The reason she took it black wasn’t (as Kennedy thought) because she was a health freak but simply because this was a sure-fire way of ruining good coffee. People who added sugar or anything else were just trying to mask stuff that was badly made.
She took a sip and almost immediately felt re-energized and ready for the day ahead. Last night had been another late one at the lab, but this morning she wanted to get there early to review the inventory and postmortem report the ME’s office would be sending over from the camper murder. Not that she could expect to find much – thanks to those dumbass hikers who’d trooped all over the place.
She had only been at the lab for a couple of minutes and was casting an eye over some recent paperwork when she got a call from Karen Thompson.
‘Hey, good hearing from you,’ Reilly said in greeting. ‘Unless you’re calling about a delay, that is.’ Her voice was light and she knew the woman wouldn’t take offence.
‘Actually, I hate to bother you with this,’ the pathologist replied, tentatively, ‘and normally I wouldn’t ask but …’
‘What’s up, Karen?’ From her tone, Reilly immediately knew that something wasn’t right. Damn, she really hoped it wasn’t a delay.
‘Well, it’s from the postmortem I did on that camper …’
‘Sure. Good timing, actually – it seems we’ve just got a positive ID on him: Gerry Watson, twenty-six years old, from the Dundrum area,’ Reilly told her, reading from the file. ‘No criminal links that we know of but Delaney and Kennedy are still checking that out. I’ll fax through the details for your records as soon as I can. What have you got?’
‘Well, there’s a particular sample here I want you to take a closer look at. I have a sneaking suspicion as to what it is, but I’d like to make sure before I finalize my report.’ Reilly raised an eyebrow. Karen’s usually assured tone sounded very off and she wondered what was up. ‘Now, I know you’re very busy, but if you could fast-track this one for me, I’d appreciate it.’
‘Of course. So did you find something interesting?’
‘You could say that,’ the doctor’s voice was grave. ‘Official cause of death was from the gunshot wound of course,’ Karen reiterated, then paused again before continuing. ‘It’s what I found in the vomit and stomach contents that I’d like your opinion on. It’s undigested and … well, I think it might be better if I just let you take a look for yourself.’
‘OK, I was expecting something from the lab today on this anyway, but do you want to send your sample over this morning and we can compare? We inventoried a frying pan from there that had been recently used – our guys are looking into what had been cooked. I’ll get them to take a look at yours too, and between us we should be able to find out what they were eating.’
Karen gulped. ‘To be honest, Reilly, I think I already have a pretty good idea.’
‘No way. No fucking way. That’s sick!’ Kennedy paced around the incident room, his face purple with disgust. In his hand was the report the GFU had just faxed over to them. ‘It’s fucking sick, that’s what it is.’
Chris sat at his desk just as stunned, telephone receiver still in hand.
‘Reilly, are you absolutely sure?’ he asked, knowing that the question was pointless, never mind redundant. He’d known her just long enough to realize that when it came to forensic analysis Reilly Steel was not the type to make mistakes. Still, he’d phoned her office in the vain hope that this was a mistake, or that there had been some explicable mix-up.
‘I’m absolutely sure,’ she told him. ‘And Karen is too. She had her suspicions, that’s why she had us double-check the sample this morning. It is what it is, Chris. The evidence doesn’t lie.’
Chris pictured Gerry Watson’s body at the campsite, pictured the used frying pan on the stove. ‘But how?’ he asked, hoping that she at least might be able to make sense of it. ‘And why?’
‘I guess we’d have to ask the killer that question,’ she replied, grimly. ‘Karen’s still putting the finishing touches to the postmortem report – she just needed clarification from us on this first – so you should know more soon. We’re running further tests on the sample so we can find out exactly what was on the menu.’
Considering the discovery, Chris was astonished at the dearth of emotion in her voice. Reilly was discussing this like it was just another piece of evidence, something ordinary but curious, like that unidentified paint and hair sample she’d found before. A stark contrast to him and Kennedy, who upon reading the report had been so shocked and repulsed it was a few minutes before either of them could speak.
‘Reilly,’ he had to ask. ‘Have you ever found … I mean would you have come across something …’ his throat dry, he swallowed hard, ‘… something like this before?’
He could almost sense her shrug on the other end of the line. ‘A couple of times at Quantico and once back home. The FBI did a lot of work with the German Government a couple of years back on that guy Armin Meiwes. Ever heard of him?’
The name didn’t immediately ring a bill with Chris.
‘He put an ad out on the Internet for a willing victim, some guy responded – wholeheartedly, apparently. Either he genuinely liked the idea, or maybe he didn’t think Meiwes was being serious. It took the courts ages to get a conviction on Meiwes, and from what I heard, the investigation was so disturbing some of the German cops needed lifelong counseling after it.’
Delaney swallowed. Now he remembered. ‘Jesus. Let’s hope we don’t have something like that on our hands,’ he finally responded. He didn’t want to even contemplate the media hysteria, or the general public’s reaction to this one.
‘Cannibalism is not as uncommon as you think, Detective,’ Reilly continued. ‘And in this line of work, you eventually come across all sorts.’
13
The lecture hall was full but not a soul moved. Their eyes were all fixed on the man at the front of the room. Daniel Forrest cut a slight figure; his thick, dark hair was turning gray at the sides, but behind his glasses his eyes burned with a fierce intensity. He moved restlessly around the stage as he talked.
‘Serial killers are among the most reckless of murderers. Their need to keep killing far outweighs their need to be cunning or discreet. In fact, what allows most serial killers to keep killing is that their carelessness is dwarfed by police and investigative incompetence.’ Forrest looked up as a low ripple of laughter filled the lecture hall. ‘Don’t believe me?’ he said, cocking an eyebrow at his audience. ‘Let me tell you the story of Henry Louis Wallace, and see if it’s something you recruits can learn from.’
As he spoke, he flicked through a series of pictures on the projector.
‘When he was arrested on 4 February 1994, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Henry Louis Wallace had already raped and strangled to death five young black women. Each of his victims worked in the fast-food industry and, more significantly, each knew Wallace and was a friend of his girlfriend. In fact, his name appeared in the address books of several of the deceased.’ He paused and gazed out at the sea of rapt faces.
‘In addition, at the time of his arrest, Wallace had a burglary record and a prior charge of raping a woman at gunpoint. Add to that a connection to all five murder victims. Pretty compelling, you’d think?’ He looked around the room and waited for the nods from the eager students.
‘Unfortunately for Wallace’s next four murder victims, all this meant nothing to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police and the prosecutor’s office – they released Wallace from custody that same day. Wallace had not, after all, been arrested for murder. He had been arrested for allegedly shoplifting at a mall.’
Another low murmur ran through the room.
‘How could this happen, you may ask? Because at the time of Wallace’s arrest on the shopliftin
g charge, the police didn’t consider the string of murders of the young black women related,’ Forrest continued. ‘They had no significant leads on any of them. Emboldened by his release, Wallace killed again just sixteen days later, and would continue to kill until he was finally arrested a full two years later, at which point he confessed to eleven murders in all.’
Forrest returned to the podium and rested his hands lightly on it. He had no need to refer to his notes. ‘On 29 January 1997, Henry Lewis Wallace was given nine death sentences and is currently on death row in Raleigh, North Carolina. One of the reasons the police department gave for its inability to catch him was its inexperience with investigating serial murders.’
He paused and looked up. ‘Now here’s the interesting bit. Early in 1994, when the rate of murders in the area was at an all-time high, the department sought the help of the FBI, who erroneously declared that the rash of murders in the area was not the work of a serial killer. Why? Because Wallace didn’t fit the profile: He was black, whereas most serial murderers are white. Also, serial killers are expected to kill strangers, whereas Wallace killed friends and co-workers.’ Daniel smiled at his audience. ‘Needless to say, I was not working on behalf of the Bureau at the time,’ he added, and again, the students laughed.
‘So, what’s the point I’m trying to make?’ He paused and waited for a response.
Finally a hand shot up. ‘Don’t make assumptions?’
Forrest’s face lit up. ‘Exactly. When it comes to serial murders, there are no hard and fast rules or answers. In fact, don’t presume to know anything when it comes to these people. Of course, to a certain degree we need to work from an existing framework – that’s why they call us profilers – and sometimes the profile fits just fine.’
He moved out from behind the podium to the front of the stage to get his final point across. ‘Most of the time, serial killers are reckless, haphazard individuals who just enjoy killing. On the other hand, some of them are extremely cunning, have a set plan, a point to make. Who can tell which you might be dealing with? But what you have to remember, what links them all, is that ultimately they make mistakes. What we need to do, people, is spot those mistakes when we see them.’ He pointed up at the screen behind him, upon which was displayed a blown-up mug shot of Wallace. ‘Don’t make the same error the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police did when dealing with Henry Lewis Wallace. Recognize those mistakes, those tiny seemingly insignificant mistakes, the things that, in the end, will help us find our killer.’
Daniel switched off the projector and shuffled his notes. ‘That’s it for today, guys. See you next week.’
As the students headed toward the exits, chatting excitedly to each other, Forrest made his escape through a side door.
One of the secretaries waylaid him in the hallway as he returned to his office. ‘Eight messages for you, Agent Forrest, all of them urgent,’ she said, thrusting the slips of paper at him.
‘Is there any other kind?’ he replied with a sigh, taking another sip of coffee from the paper cup in his hand.
She gave a polite smile and hurried off down the hall.
Forrest pushed open the door to his office, pitched his empty coffee cup into a nearby bin, and sat down behind his large oak desk. The office was immaculate, shelves lined with books and case files, a couple of specimen jars, one small shelf of family photos.
He ran a hand through his hair and flicked through the messages. Most got just a cursory glance, but when he got to the fourth piece of paper, Daniel paused, and a look of surprised pleasure crossed his face. Checking his watch, he picked up the phone and, peering at the paper for reference, dialed a number.
‘GFU, Reilly Steel speaking.’
‘Good afternoon, Reilly,’ Daniel said warmly. ‘How are you? I just got your message. Is Dublin treating you well?’
‘Daniel, hey, thanks for getting back to me so soon.’
‘You’re welcome. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, I wanted to talk to you about a case if you have a moment …’
Daniel’s door opened and his assistant stuck her head around it. ‘Agent Forrest? Dr Williams is here to see you—’ He held up five fingers – a plea for five minutes. The woman nodded and withdrew.
‘Of course, Reilly. What’s up?’
‘What would you say if I told you there was an apparently coincidental Freudian connection between two different crime scenes and that we’d found a cigar at a third?’
Daniel sat forward, intrigued. ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,’ he said, quietly.
‘That’s what I thought. Not so coincidental anymore, is it?’
He said nothing for a moment, and wondered if the Irish authorities had any real idea how lucky they were to have Reilly Steel working alongside them. She’d always been unbelievably smart, and had made sense of what was in reality a completely obscure connection. And so typical of Reilly to use a psychological challenge to get him interested.
‘It’s clever, that’s what it is – clever and very subtle,’ he said eventually. Although perhaps not so subtle to someone like him.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. One of Sigmund Freud’s most famous quotations, and one that served to poke fun at his own self-confessed obsession with all things phallic. While Daniel was extremely familiar with the works of the famous psychologist (in his line of work he couldn’t but be familiar) he was decidedly impressed at how Reilly had so easily grasped the cigar’s significance. But of course, the girl had always had excellent instincts, hadn’t she?
‘How did you know?’ he asked her.
‘We found identical trace evidence at two otherwise unconnected scenes – that provided our first connection. In addition, one of them had a copy of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams on the bedside, while the other – a supposed suicide – left a quote from Freud as a farewell note.’
‘Coincidental?’ Daniel threw it out to her as a challenge, despite knowing that Reilly was too clever to fall for something that simple.
‘You sound like the detectives here,’ she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. ‘A couple of days ago we again picked up similar trace matter at the third scene, and I knew without question that all three had to be linked. But I still needed to know for sure, so I took another a look at the inventory for the most recent site, this time actively looking for something Freud-related. The cigar stood out.’
‘I didn’t know you were that familiar with Freud—’
‘I’m not,’ she responded quickly, ‘but the cigar is a classic phallic symbol now, isn’t it? You know, thanks to Bill and Monica …’
Daniel had to smile, he’d been forgetting how influential popular culture could sometimes be.
Reilly continued, ‘When I researched it further, I came across Freud’s cigar quote, and figured that we’d found the killer’s calling card – the Freudian connection. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Not this time.’
‘Good work,’ he said, admiringly.
‘Maybe, but that’s about as far as we’ve got,’ Reilly said, her tone growing anxious. ‘We’ve got a solid investigative team here, and I know we can find this guy, but without specialist help, I’m not sure we can do it before he kills again.’
‘What’s your pattern, your timeline?’
‘Three – possibly four – killings, one a double homicide, all within the last ten days. One body took a while to discover so it’s difficult to pin down a definitive timeline, but that’s a lot for this town and it’s got the authorities spooked. The media are circling, and while they haven’t got hold of any connection just yet …’ Forrest rocked back in his chair, nodding as he listened. ‘You know how these things go, Daniel. If he’s using a calling card, then it’s likely he’s toying with us, testing us. It’s also likely he’ll start to escalate soon, and when he does …’
The remainder of her sentence trailed off. ‘Look, the reason I’m calling is because we need outside help – fast. As I said, people are get
ting nervous around here; the force have limited experience with this kind of thing, and while they usually work with behaviourists from the UK, I’ve convinced them that you’re the best man for the job – probably the only man for the job.’ She paused. ‘Would you consult with us on this? There’s no one here remotely experienced or qualified enough – actually, I don’t think there’s anyone other than you who could provide insight into something this complex.’
‘Well, you’re right, of course,’ Daniel joked, but then his tone grew serious. ‘But I don’t know, Reilly. I’ve got a lot going on at the moment. Anyway, I’m not even sure if there’s a precedent for my coming in on something like this—’
‘It would only be on a consultancy basis, we don’t expect you to travel here or anything.’ She spoke quickly. ‘I know it sounds presumptuous, but I’ve already spoken with the relevant people here and they’re going through the motions as we speak. The top brass want this guy found and stopped as soon as possible, particularly before the public get wind of it.’ At this, there was a note of resignation in her tone. ‘But still, there’s no point in us trying to arrange it unless you’re interested in helping. Frankly, Daniel, we don’t have any time to waste.’
Still in two minds, Daniel sat forward in his chair, his face thoughtful. ‘How about you send me what you’ve got so far then maybe we can decide whether having me on board would be of any help?’
‘Believe me, it would.’
His curiosity had already got the better of him. OK, so he was busy with a multitude of government agency stuff at the moment, and he had his weekly lectures here at the Academy, but this case excited him more than he cared to admit. Not to mention that he owed it to Reilly, didn’t he? After all she’d been through, he owed the poor kid something at least.
He sat up straight, his voice suddenly decisive. ‘All right then, I’ll see what I can manage,’ he told her. ‘Do whatever you have to do to get the paperwork sorted at your end and I’ll do what I can from here.’
