Before Evil

by Alex Kava

  The examination room was small, and both women had no choice but to stand right beside her bed.

  “I don’t even know if she was still alive,” Susan told them.

  “Excuse me?” The FBI agent seemed confused.

  “Isn’t that why you’re here? I told the sheriff I saw the man taking a woman out of the trunk of a car. It was that road that I followed. It wasn’t far from the shed.”

  The women exchanged a glance.

  Then the one named Maggie said, “I think we need you to start from the beginning.”

  Susan told them about going to work early in the morning. She could no longer remember what day that was. She was pastry chef, she told them. Recently promoted to head pastry chef at The Dessert Shop in Gainesville.

  “At the Gateway Mall?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes. The only part of the job I dislike is going in when it’s still dark.”

  She continued to tell them how she saw a man struggling with his groceries. She thought he must live in her apartment complex.

  “Did he give you his name?” Maggie asked.

  “No,” Susan said, now slightly embarrassed at how easily she had been tricked.

  She told them how she opened the trunk of her car for him to set the grocery bags inside and suddenly felt the sting in her arm. How her entire body felt paralyzed. How strong the man was when he looked so fragile.

  Susan stopped. She looked up and met Maggie’s eyes. “He’s done this to more women than just two, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes. Yes, he has. But you’re going to help us stop him from doing it to any other women.”

  Susan nodded and crossed her arms, suddenly cold. The woman named Gwen pulled the blanket up.

  “Is there anything we can do for you, Susan?”

  She knew Gwen meant right at the moment, to make her more comfortable. Get her a glass of water. Something to eat perhaps. But Susan still asked, “When we finish talking can you please take me home? I’d give anything to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

  58

  Front Royal, Virginia

  “Do you think the other woman is still alive?” Maggie asked Cunningham.

  They had settled into a corner booth at a little diner not far from the hospital. The sign on the door said they were open only until 8:00 p.m. on Sundays but their waitress had already told them if she could get their order to the cook in the next fifteen minutes they were welcome to stay past closing.

  “Sheriff Olson has had his men in the forest for several hours.” Cunningham pushed up his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “He’s bringing in a K9 unit tomorrow morning. He says there’re a lot of ravines and steep bluffs to fall and get hurt. Were you able to get a physical description of the man?”

  Maggie waited for the waitress to set a Diet Pepsi in front of her and coffees for Cunningham and Gwen.

  “Susan said the man in the forest, the one taking the body out of the car trunk, looked different than the man who took her. He was tall, lean, and young. The man she helped was older, a bit overweight, hunched over. He was struggling to carry a couple of grocery bags. She felt bad for him.”

  Cunningham raised his eyebrows and glanced from Maggie to Gwen. “Are we back to thinking there might be two killers?”

  Maggie shook her head and noticed that Gwen was doing the same.

  “He injected her with something that paralyzed her,” Maggie told him. “And he ended up being stronger than she imagined. I think the different descriptions support the theory that he changes his appearance. He had to be at the restaurant today or somewhere on the courtyard. I must have missed him by minutes, and yet, I couldn’t see him. And here’s the thing.” She leaned her elbows on the table. “None of the restaurant staff noticed him either. According to the video—and granted, we only saw a slice of him— he was wearing one of their aprons with the restaurant’s logo when he put the container on the table.”

  Cunningham sat up. “You think it’s possible he works there?”

  “The waitress—the one who opened the container—she said there’s a new janitor working for the restaurant. She called him the ‘clean-up guy.’ She admitted it was just a feeling but that he seemed a bit odd.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” Gwen said. “If the Collector blends in so well that you missed him then he wouldn’t choose a disguise that makes him seem odd, would he?”

  “Rita said it was just a feeling she had. He might not appear odd to anyone else. Being a clean-up guy or janitor fits with the idea of blending in. Nobody would notice him. Turner said he’d check him out. The guy goes by J.P. Morgan.”

  “Now that sounds about right,” Cunningham said. “I can see him using strange names, like a code or an inside joke. Something to thumb his nose at authorities.”

  Cunningham’s phone started to ring, and he dug it out of his pocket. “I have to take this. It’s probably the transport team.” He slid out of the booth and walked to the front of the diner before answering.

  “I’m glad you were able to convince him to let her go home,” Maggie told Gwen.

  Back at the hospital Gwen had promised Susan that she’d find a way to get her home and in her own bed tonight. Initially, Cunningham didn’t like the idea until Gwen reminded him how difficult it had been securing Katie Tanner in her hospital room. Now that the girl was in a lockdown facility where her grandmother could comfortably stay with her, she was safe from the Collector.

  Maggie had heard Gwen’s argument for Susan to return to her apartment. Finally Cunningham had relented, but only if Susan agreed to have a security detail with her at all times, at least for the next week. If and when the Collector realized the woman had escaped the forest, all he’d need to do is return to her apartment complex and wait for a chance to finish her off. But at the same time, Cunningham recognized that it might be an opportunity to catch the bastard.

  The waitress delivered their food while Cunningham paced the sidewalk outside with the phone pressed to his face. Maggie glanced back at him through the window trying to gauge his mood. He seemed wound tight, the tension obvious in his clenched jaw and brisk pace up and down the sidewalk.

  “He’s worried about you,” Gwen said over a forkful of salad.

  “Me?” It caught Maggie completely off guard. Maybe she’d heard her wrong.

  “The notes. On our drive here, he told me about the latest one.”

  It occurred to Maggie that she still didn’t know what it said.

  “You know as well as I do from all the other cases you’ve worked,” Gwen continued. “It’s never a good sign when a killer chooses to get personal with an individual law enforcement officer.”

  Maggie didn’t want to remind Gwen that most of the other cases she’d worked on had been long distant cases. Maybe that’s why she didn’t feel threatened by the Collector’s notes. Disgusted? Yes. And a bit anxious. Lots of serial killers liked attention. As long as he wanted her attention, he most likely wouldn’t harm her.

  Besides, Maggie didn’t like feeling psychoanalyzed by Cunningham’s independent psychiatrist. And now Maggie wondered if he had asked Gwen to talk to her about it. She felt a flicker of anger.

  She looked to see Cunningham still pacing, still talking outside.

  “So what’s the deal with you two?” she asked Gwen, knowing she had absolutely no right to ask. “Is there something going on?”

  Gwen didn’t look fazed in the least. She reached across the table for the pepper as she said, “I have no idea. But if you figure it out, please let me know.”

  Maggie stared at her looking to see if she meant the comment to be snide or sarcastic. Gwen met her eyes and added, “He’s married. So nothing’s going on. But do I wish there was?” She glanced over Maggie’s shoulder to the front of the diner where Cunningham was. Then back to Maggie’s eyes, “Yes, sometimes I do.”

&nbs
p; Gwen went back to her salad. Maggie realized what it meant for someone like Gwen to let her guard down and confide such an intimate and personal vulnerability. She didn’t know how to respond.

  Just then her phone rang, saving her. Or so she had thought, until she answered.

  “Ms. O’Dell, this is Dr. Lawrence. I’m ready to discharge your mother. She said you’d probably want to pick her up.”

  Maggie closed her eyes, and when she opened them Gwen was staring at her, worried creases at the corners of her eyes.

  “Actually Dr. Lawrence, I’m on a case about two hours away.”

  Silence. She told herself not to fill it. Wait for him.

  “Well, that’s unfortunate. Is there another family member available?”

  “I’ll need to call you back.” She hung up.

  “Are you okay?” Gwen asked. Her concern was genuine.

  “My mother tried to kill herself Friday night.”

  “Oh God, Maggie, I didn’t know.”

  “This isn’t the first time. She’s been practicing since I was twelve.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Oh yes. She’s ready to go home and pretend like nothing happened. She told her doctor that I’d be picking her up.” Maggie pushed her hair behind her ears and let out a frustrated sigh.

  “Are you okay?” Gwen asked. She reached across the table and put her hand on Maggie’s.

  “She really knows how to push my buttons.”

  Now Gwen smiled. “Of course, she does. She helped install them.”

  59

  The Muse Art Gallery

  Gainesville, Virginia

  Rita still didn’t want to believe that what she had seen in that takeout container could be human. All she had told her daughter was that someone had left something disgusting to shock people.

  “That’s kind of what artists do all the time,” Carly told her.

  Rita realized how grown up her daughter had become. And tonight she certainly looked older and simply fantastic in a body-fitting shift dress with a chic belt and hipster ankle boots. Her long blond hair was smooth and silky. But it still made Rita uncomfortable watching men ogle her sixteen-year-old daughter.

  Carly’s sculptures were gorgeous abstracts that even Rita could appreciate the delicate carvings and soft curves. She’d watched Carly start with a thick slab of what looked like gray mud and transform the lump into something elegant, so Rita knew how much work went into each piece. Carly said it was all about visualizing the creature inside the clay and setting it free. The girl was passionate about her art and carried around her kit with all the sharp, pointy and smoothing tools like she was a medical doctor making house calls.

  Rita helped herself to a second glass of complimentary wine, but she still had no appetite. She smiled when she saw Drew standing by the hors d’oeuvres table as if viewing one of the gallery’s masterpieces. He looked like a masterpiece in his tight-fitting black jeans and T-shirt. She shook her head and sipped her wine, tonight letting herself enjoy the heat he raised inside of her.

  Earlier when she introduced Carly to him, Drew had said they looked like sisters… “beautiful sisters.” He was more talkative tonight, and she wondered if it was just the excitement of the day. A crisis could bring out the best in people and bring them together. Mr. Gibson had closed the restaurant early, and Rita was pleased to see some of the staff had come over to the gallery. Of course, free food and drinks was always a good bet to entice people. But she was surprised to see Mr. Gibson.

  Drew brought her a small plate of appetizers and she thanked him, despite the scent of shrimp and the sight of blood-red salsa churning up her stomach. So he wouldn’t notice, she tried to focus their attention somewhere other than the food.

  “It was nice of Mr. Gibson to close early,” she said.

  Drew shrugged. “He’s probably used to that sort of thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just mean crisis management. Controlling the PR stuff. He owns about a dozen other restaurants and pubs.”

  “Today was still pretty unusual.”

  “Remember that councilwoman that disappeared?”

  “Sure, I remember. They found her body outside of Richmond.” Of course, Rita remembered. She was a news junkie. She had hoped he would have noticed that by now. But she wasn’t sure what the woman had to do with the events of the day.

  “She was taken from a parking lot in Boston,” he said. “I think they found her car still parked by the restaurant.”

  “Okay, sure. I do remember that.”

  “The restaurant in Boston,” Drew said. “It’s one of Gibson’s.”

  60

  Monday

  Quantico

  “Is it possible he left the prints on purpose?” Maggie asked Ganza.

  She had brought all her files to his lab and set up shop at the counter where he kept a second computer. But she ignored his ergonomic barstool with hydraulic lift to adjust the height. This morning she needed to pace as she worked. Last night she had told Gwen Patterson that she didn’t feel threatened by the Collector. But when Ganza showed her the last note addressing her as “Agent Maggie,” she was surprised at the shiver that slid down her back.

  It didn’t help her tension level that she had driven to Richmond in the early morning hours after very little sleep. Dr. Lawrence had agreed to wait until morning to discharge her mother, but only if her daughter was there to sign the papers and pick her up.

  “I guess that means you’re responsible for me, Mag-pie,” her mother had said with a faux cheerfulness that passed right by the discharge nurse.

  Mag-pie was her father’s nickname for Maggie, and hearing her mother use it felt like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  Getting her mother settled and comfortable back in her own apartment and her own bed, had thrown Maggie behind schedule. That’s the reason she packed up her files and headed upstairs to Ganza’s lab. But deep down, she knew the real reason was that she didn’t want to be alone.

  Now she was glad that their usual back and forth was keeping her engaged. She didn’t want to think about how she had found a bottle of Valium in of her mother’s favorite hiding place at the back of the silverware drawer. Maggie had slipped the bottle into her pocket before she left, but she suspected her mother had others hidden.

  “I deal in facts,” Keith Ganza was telling her now, and she had already forgotten what they were talking about. “It’s your job to figure out intent. Have we gotten any hits yet on those prints?”

  The prints. Of course—the fingerprints.

  Other than the waitress’s fingerprints, Ganza had been able to find a thumb and an index finger on the container. It helped that Maggie and Turner had been able to see on the video where the Collector had held the corner. Ganza had entered the two latent fingerprints into the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) last night.

  “Nothing yet,” she told him. “He might not be in the system.”

  “Or he had someone else put the container on the table for him.”

  Maggie’s head jerked up from the computer screen. She hadn’t thought of that.

  “You mean someone who worked at the restaurant? But wouldn’t that person tell us once he or she discovered what was inside the container?”

  “With the cops and FBI crawling all over the place?” Ganza shook his head. “I come from an era where we learned that you never admit anything to cops.”

  She didn’t want to believe that Ganza could be right. That would certainly explain the apron. She’d need to talk to Turner. He’d interviewed the staff members, including J.P. Morgan, the new janitor. Turner would have been looking for stories that didn’t add up or possible lies and cover-ups. They were trained to look for tells in the body language of suspects and even witnesses.

  “I have
a team bringing in Susan Fuller’s car,” Ganza said.

  “Where did they find it?”

  “The parking space she always uses at her apartment complex. I guess she saw it last night when they were taking her home.”

  Maggie shouldn’t have been surprised. Police had found Paige Barnett’s car in the parking space at the trailheads of Conway Robinson State Forest. Right where Maggie suspected she had left it while she went for a run.

  “So he uses the victim’s own vehicle,” Maggie said, and she hated to admit that it was really quite ingenious. “Blood, hair, saliva, pieces of fabric—nothing connected to the victim would ever show up in his vehicle, especially if he took a change of clothing.”

  “He wouldn’t need to wipe his prints away inside the vehicles,” Ganza said. “Why bother? If the investigators found the victim’s car right where she disappeared, they’d have no reason to believe it was used in the apprehension.”

  And they might never have known except for Susan Fuller surviving and finding her own car back at her apartment complex.

  “Susan said he injected her with something that paralyzed her,” Maggie told Ganza. “How easy would it be for him to get his hands on a drug like Succinylcholine or Ketamine?”

  “You can get your hands on just about anything these days if you know how to go about it. It’s interesting that he’d use something more than good old chloroform. Ketamine’s become popular as a recreational drug. Believe it or not, there are some people who like that out-of-body feeling. But too much, and it can be dangerous. Tends to cause blackouts. If he’s going to shove them into the trunk, why does he need to totally incapacitate them?”

  “My gut instinct is because he can. Someone shoves you into your trunk, you’re scared, but you still might try to fight. Someone injects you with something that paralyzes you—that feeling of not being able to move a single muscle is terrifying. I think he likes terrifying them, just like he enjoys shocking people with his takeout containers.”