Sense of Evil

by Kay Hooper

  “I know what I'm asking,” she said, more quietly than she might otherwise have spoken.

  Bishop glanced at Miranda, who immediately looked at Isabel and said, “From all indications, this is the sort of killer that local law enforcement can handle with very little outside help. Maybe a bit more manpower to ask questions, but it'll be inside knowledge that catches this animal, not an outsider's expertise. The profile marks him as nothing out of the ordinary. He's local, he's killing local women he knows, and he's bound to make a mistake sooner rather than later.”

  “But it wasn't an SCU profile,” Isabel pointed out. “None of us developed it.”

  “Special Crimes Unit can't develop all the requested profiles,” Bishop reminded her patiently. “We barely have the manpower to handle the cases we do get.”

  “We didn't get the call on this one because this killer is so seemingly ordinary, I know that. Around a hundred serial killers active in this country on average at any time, and he's one of them. Nothing raised a red flag to indicate that our special abilities are needed in the investigation. But I'm telling you—there's more to the case than the official profile picked up on. A lot more.” She paused, then added, “All I'm asking is that you take a look at the material for yourselves, both of you. Then tell me I'm wrong.”

  Bishop exchanged another glance with Miranda, then said, “And if you're right? Isabel, even if the SCU took on this investigation, given the circumstances in Hastings you're the last agent I'd want to send down there.”

  Isabel smiled. “Which is why I have to be the agent you send. I'll go get the file.”

  She left without waiting for a reply, and as Bishop returned to his desk and sat down, he muttered, “Goddammit.”

  “She's right,” Miranda said. “At least about being the one who has to go.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  We can't protect her.

  No. But if this is what I think it is . . . she'll need help.

  “Then,” Miranda said calmly, “we'll make sure she has help. Whether she likes it or not.”

  Thursday, June 12, 2:00 PM

  “Chief, are you saying we don't have a serial killer?” Alan Moore, reporter for the Hastings Chronicle, had plenty of practice in making his voice carry without shouting, and his question cut through the noise in the crowded room, silencing everyone else. More than thirty pairs of expectant eyes fixed on Rafe.

  Who could cheerfully have strangled his boyhood chum. With no particular inflection in his voice, Rafe answered simply, “We don't know what we have as yet, except for three murdered women. Which is why I'm asking you ladies and gentlemen of the press not to add unnecessarily to the natural anxiety of our citizens.”

  “In this situation, don't you think they should be anxious?” Alan glanced around to make certain all attention was on him, then added, “Hey, I'm blond, and even I'm nervous. If I were a twenty-something blond woman, I'd be totally freaked out.”

  “If you were a twenty-something blond woman we'd all be freaked out,” Rafe said dryly. He waited for the laughter to subside, fully aware of the fact that it was as much nervous as amused. He was good at taking the pulse of his town, but it didn't take any particular skill to feel the tension in this room. In the town.

  Everybody was scared.

  “Look,” he said, “I know very well that the women here in Hastings are worried—whether they're blond, brunette, redhead, or any shade in between—and I don't blame them a bit. I know the men in their lives are worried. But I also know that uncontrolled speculation in the newspaper and on the radio and other media will only feed the panic.”

  “Uncontrolled?”

  “Don't start yelling censorship, Alan. I'm not telling you what to print. Or what not to print. I'm asking you to be responsible, because there is a very fine line between warning people to be concerned and take precautions, and yelling fire in a crowded theater.”

  “Do we have a serial killer?” Alan demanded.

  Rafe didn't hesitate. “We have three murders we believe were committed by the same person, fitting the established criteria for a serial killer.”

  “In other words, we have a lunatic in Hastings,” somebody he didn't recognize muttered just loud enough to be heard.

  Rafe responded to that as well, still calm. “By definition a serial killer is judged conventionally if not clinically to be insane, yes. That doesn't mean he'll be visibly any different from you or me. And they seldom wear horns or a tail.”

  The reporter who'd made the lunatic comment grimaced. “Okay, point taken. Nobody is above suspicion and let's all freak out.” She was blond.

  “Let's all take care, not freak out,” Rafe corrected. “Obviously, we would advise blond women in their mid to late twenties to take special care, but we have no way of knowing for certain if age and hair color are factors or merely a coincidence.”

  “I say err on the side of factor,” she offered wryly.

  “And I can't say I'd blame you for that. Just keep in mind that at this point there is very little we can be sure of—except that we have a serious problem in Hastings. Now, since a small-town police department is hardly trained or equipped to deal with this type of crime, we have requested the involvement of the FBI.”

  “Have they provided a profile?” This question came from Paige Gilbert, a reporter with one of the local radio stations. She was more brisk and matter-of-fact than some of the other women in the room had been, less visibly uneasy, possibly because she was brunette.

  “Preliminary. And before you ask, Alan, we won't be sharing the details of that profile unless and until the knowledge can help our citizens. At this stage of the investigation, all we can realistically do is advise them to take sensible precautions.”

  “That's not much, Rafe,” Alan complained.

  “It's all we've got. For now.”

  “So what's the FBI bringing to the table?”

  “Expertise: the Special Crimes Unit is sending agents trained and experienced in tracking and capturing serial killers. Information: we will have access to FBI databases. Technical support: medical and forensics experts will study and evaluate evidence we gather.”

  “Who'll be in charge of the investigation?” Alan asked. “Doesn't the FBI usually take over?”

  “I'll continue to head the investigation. The FBI's role is assistance and support, no more. So I don't want to read or hear any BS about federal officials superceding states' rights, Alan. Clear?”

  Alan grimaced slightly. He was a good reporter and tended to be both fair and even-handed, but he was close to phobic about governmental “interference,” especially from the federal level, and was always loud in protest whenever he suspected it.

  Rafe took a few more questions from the assembled reporters, resigned rather than surprised to find that several of the people were from TV stations in nearby Columbia. If the investigation was getting major state coverage now, it was only a matter of time before it went national.

  Great. That was just great. The last thing he wanted was to have the national press looking over his shoulder and second-guessing every decision he made.

  Bad enough he had Alan.

  “Chief, do you believe this killer is local?”

  “Chief, has anything else turned up linking the victims?”

  “Chief . . .”

  He answered the questions almost automatically, using variations of “no comment” or “we have no reliable information on that” whenever possible. Even though he had called the press conference himself, it was only because he'd gotten wind of some pretty wild speculation going on and hoped to head off the worst of it before it was in print or other media, not because he had any real progress to report.

  He was concentrating on the crowd in front of him as he answered their questions, but even as he did, he felt an odd change in the room, as if the very air had somehow sharpened, freshened. Cleared. It was a weird feeling, like waking suddenly from a dream thinking, Oh, that wasn't real. This is re
al.

  Something had changed, and he had no idea if it was for better or worse.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of movement and was able to turn his head just a bit, casually, so that none of the reporters picked up on his suddenly diverted attention.

  Still, he was surprised that no one else seemed to have observed her entrance, even though she came into the room from the hallway, behind the flock of reporters. Rafe doubted she went unnoticed very often. He saw her pause to speak briefly to one of his officers, producing what appeared to be an I.D. folder, saw Travis's visible surprise and undoubtedly stuttering response, then saw her move past him and take up a position near the door. She scanned the crowd of reporters and their tangle of cameras, a small half smile that was not so much amused as it was rueful playing around her mouth. She was dressed casually and for the weather in jeans and a sleeveless top, her hair pulled up into a neat ponytail. She could easily have been one of the reporters.

  She wasn't.

  When her gaze met his fleetingly across the crowded room, Rafe was conscious of an instant certainty that made him go cold to his bones.

  No. The universe couldn't hate him that much.

  “Chief, could you—”

  He cut off the question abruptly. “Thank you all very much for coming today. When there are further developments, you'll be notified. Good afternoon.”

  He stepped away from the podium and went straight through the crowd to the other side of the room, ignoring the questions flung after him. When he reached her, his statement was brief and to the point.

  “My office is across the street.”

  “Lead the way, Chief.” Her voice was as extraordinary as the rest of her, one of those smoky, husky bedroom voices a man would expect to hear if he called a 900 sex-talk line.

  Rafe wasted no time in leading the way past his still-goggling officer, saying merely, “Travis, make sure nobody bothers the mayor on their way out.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Right, Chief.”

  Rafe started to ask him if he'd never seen a woman before, but since that would have resulted in either stuttering incoherence or else a lengthy explanation that would have boiled down to “Not a woman like this one,” he didn't bother.

  He also didn't say a word as they left the town-hall building and walked across Main Street to the police department, although he did notice that she was a tall woman; wearing flat sandals she was only a few inches shorter than he was, which would put her at about five-ten.

  And her toenails were polished red.

  With most of his people out on patrol, the station wasn't very busy; Mallory was the only detective at her desk in the bullpen, and though she looked up with interest as they passed, she was on the phone, and Rafe didn't pause or greet her except with a nod.

  His office looked out onto Main Street, and as he went around behind his desk he couldn't help a quick glance to see whether the reporters had left the town hall. Most were still clustered out in front, some obviously recording spots for today's evening news and others speaking to each other—speculating, he knew. It didn't bode well for his hopes of keeping things calm in Hastings.

  An I.D. folder dropped onto his blotter as he sat down, his visitor taking one of the chairs in front of his desk.

  “Isabel Adams,” she said. “Call me Isabel, please. We're pretty informal. Nice to meet you, Chief Sullivan.”

  He picked up the folder, studied the I.D. and federal badge inside, then closed it and pushed it across the desk toward her. “Rafe. Your boss saw the profile, right?” was his terse response.

  “My boss,” she answered, “wrote the profile. The updated one, that is, the one I brought with me. Why?”

  “You know goddamned well why. Is he out of his mind, sending you down here?”

  “Bishop has been called crazy on occasion,” she said in the same pleasant, almost careless tone, not visibly disturbed by his anger. “But only by those who don't know him. He's the sanest man I've ever met.”

  Rafe leaned back in his chair and stared across the desk at the special agent sent by the FBI to help him track and capture a serial killer. She was beautiful. Breath-catching, jaw-dropping gorgeous. Flawless skin, delicate features, stunning green eyes, and the kind of voluptuous body most men could expect to encounter only in their dreams.

  Or in their nightmares.

  In Rafe's nightmares.

  Because Isabel Adams was also something else.

  She was blond.

  The voices were giving him a pounding headache. It was something else he was getting used to. He managed to unobtrusively swallow a handful of aspirin but knew from experience it would only take the worst edge off the pain.

  It would have to be enough.

  Have to.

  Still exhausted from the morning's activities, he managed to do his work as usual, speak to people as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Nobody guessed, he was certain of that. He'd gotten very good at making sure nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary.

  You think they don't all see? Don't all know?

  That was the sneering voice, the dominant one, the one he hated most and heard most often. He ignored it. It was easier to do that now, when he was drained and oddly distant from himself, when the only thing for him to do, really, was wait for his next opportunity.

  They know who you are. They know what you did.

  That was more difficult to ignore, but he managed. He went about his business, listening whenever possible to the nervous gossip. Everybody was talking about the same thing, of course. The murders.

  Nobody talked of anything else these days.

  He didn't hear much he hadn't already known, although the speculation was amusing. Theories, most of them absurd, abounded as to why the killer was targeting blondes.

  A hatred of his mother, for Christ's sake.

  Rejection by a blond girlfriend.

  Idiots.

  The pharmacist downtown told him there'd been a run on hair color, that those women trying blond as an option were going back to their natural colors.

  He wondered if the natural blondes were considering changing, but thought probably not. They liked the effect, liked knowing men were watching them. It gave them a sense of power, of . . . superiority.

  None of them could imagine dying because of it.

  He thought that was funny.

  He thought that was funny as hell.

  2

  RAFE SAID, “Please don't tell me the general idea is for you to be bait.”

  “Oh, I'm probably too old to tempt him.”

  “If you're past thirty, I'll eat my hat.”

  “Salt and pepper?”

  Rafe stared at her, and she chuckled.

  “I'm thirty-one. And, no, that isn't the idea. I'll do a lot for king and country, but I don't have a death wish.”

  “Done anything to piss off this Bishop of yours?”

  “Not lately.”

  “Has the profile changed?”

  “Not as far as this animal's fixations go. He's still after white females with blond hair, and he's likely to stay within the age range of twenty-five to thirty-five. He apparently likes them smart and savvy as well as strong, which is an interesting twist on the stereotypical image of helpless dumb blondes as victims.”

  Rafe said something profane under his breath.

  Ignoring that, Isabel went on briskly, completely professional now. “He's someone they know or at least obviously believe they can trust. Possibly an authority figure, maybe even a cop—or impersonating one. He's physically strong, though he won't necessarily look it; he might even appear effeminate.”

  “Why effeminate?” Rafe was listening intently, his eyes narrowed.

  “These women were killed brutally, with a viciousness that suggests both a hatred of women and doubts or fears about his own sexuality. All three were sexual crimes—deep, penetrating wounds and targeting the breasts and genitals are classic signs of a sexual obsession—an
d yet none of the women was raped. That, by the way, will probably be his next escalation, raping as well as killing.”

  “And if he's impotent? This sort of killer often is, right?”

  Isabel didn't hesitate. “Right. In that case, an object rape, possibly even with the murder weapon. And it will be postmortem; he doesn't want his victim to see his possible sexual failure. In fact, he'll probably cover her face, even after he kills her.”

  “So he's a necrophiliac as well.”

  “The whole nasty bag of tricks, yeah. And he will be escalating, count on it. He's got the taste for it now. He's enjoying himself. And he's feeling invulnerable, maybe even invincible. He's likely to begin mocking us—the police—in some way.”

  Rafe thought about all that for a moment, then asked, “Why blondes?”

  “We don't know. Not yet. But it's very possible that his first victim—Jamie Brower, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Twenty-eight-year-old real-estate broker. It's very likely, we believe, that something about her was the trigger. Maybe something she did to him, that's possible. An emotional or psychological rejection of some kind. Or something he saw, something she made him feel, whether or not she was aware of doing so. We believe she was a deliberate choice, not merely a random blonde.”

  “Because she was the first victim?”

  “That, plus the uncontrolled violence of the attack. According to the crime-scene photos and ME's report you sent us, she was riddled with stab wounds.”

  “Yes.” Rafe's lips tightened as he remembered.

  “The wounds were ragged, multiple angles, but virtually all of them so deep the hilt or handle of the knife left bruises and imprints in her skin. He was in a frenzy when he killed her. With the second and third victims, except for some minor defensive injuries, most of the wounds were concentrated in the breast and genital areas; Jamie Brower had injuries to her face and wounds from her neck to her lower thighs.”

  “It was a bloodbath.”

  “Yes. That sort of fury usually means hatred, very specific, very personal hatred. He wanted to kill her. Not just a blonde, not just a representation of his killing fantasy. Her. We believe that by focusing the investigation on the life and death of Jamie Brower, we're likely to uncover facts or evidence that will help us to identify her killer.”