Author: Allison Brennan
Category: Suspense
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“I’ll meet you back here at three-thirty for the briefing?” Matt said. His phone kept vibrating, reminding him that he had to return Ryder’s call.
Andy nodded. “I’m going to the hospital to follow up on the security tapes and talk to Manners’ supervisor, then go to her employment agency and her apartment. I’ll send you a report when I’m done.”
“Appreciate it,” Matt said.
Matt slipped into the driver’s seat of his rental sedan before calling Ryder back. “Sorry, I’m still in Spokane, just leaving the police station now.”
Ryder got to the point. “Assistant Director Greer is trying to reach you. Says he got an irate call from the Spokane Police Chief, Jeffrey Packard. Says that you’re using his resources without requesting assistance.”
“I’ll call Tony.”
“I talked to Jessica Torino, the Spokane SSA, like you asked. She’s not being helpful. It might help for you to stop in.”
“Not being helpful how?”
“I did exactly what you said—explained the MRT unit to her, what our commission is, gave her the background on the case, and asked about search and rescue. She asked why her office is being excluded from the investigation. I told her they weren’t, but she seems to think they’re on supersecret probation or something.”
“A joke? You made a joke, Ryder.” Though Torino’s attitude irritated Matt, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Maybe Ryder had a sense of humor after all.
“It didn’t make sense to me, but I may have not understood what she was saying.” There was a touch of humor in his tone.
“I’ll head over there and read her into the program. And what about search and rescue?”
“I learned from another source that the Spokane County Sheriff’s department is the one with the search and rescue team for underwater recovery. I didn’t know if you wanted me to reach out to them directly or not.”
Why was Matt not surprised that after less than twenty-four hours Ryder had already developed local sources? The kid was amazing. “Yes, do it. Tell them we’re looking for evidence and where. I can meet them out at the lake in—” He looked at his watch. He’d be cutting it close to get back to Spokane for the briefing. “Ninety minutes?”
“Sir, I don’t know that they’ll be able to get their dive team together that fast. Can I suggest that I ask for access to their equipment and Agent Harris can handle the heavy lifting here? It would minimize bringing into the investigation yet another jurisdiction.”
Matt sighed. “You’re right—find out what you can and set it up at their earliest convenience, but as soon as possible. We can use Liberty Lake PD for assistance, or the Sheriff’s—whatever works here. The Spokane crime lab as well. If there’s evidence in the lake, we need it.”
“You think he dumped the weapon in the lake?”
“I don’t know—but we have reason to believe he uses a new weapon each time. A common, double-sided, four-inch blade. We’ve recovered two identical knives available to purchase in a multitude of sporting goods stores. Maybe this one is different. Maybe not. But if the weapon is there, I want it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You sent the information to Dr. Jones?” he asked Ryder.
“Yes. She hasn’t responded yet.”
“Did she read the email?”
He heard clicking in the background. “Yes.”
“She’ll respond when she has something,” Matt said confidently. “When’s Harris getting in?”
“He lands at sixteen hundred this afternoon.”
“Bring him up to speed, including the dive in the morning. I’ll be briefing the Spokane PD this afternoon and will head back to the hotel when I’m done in Spokane. What, if anything, did you learn about the witness, Kara Quinn?”
Ryder didn’t get much more than confirmation that Quinn was a detective with LAPD Special Operations, but he’d put in a call to her direct supervisor and would let Matt know when he heard back.
“Run her name by our people down there, too. If there are no flags, I might want to tag her. We’re shorthanded.”
He hung up. At this rate, he’d use anyone and everyone the next two days if it would stop the Triple Killer before he took his next victim on Saturday.
Matt looked at his GPS and realized that the Spokane FBI office was only a few minutes south of police headquarters, which gave him just enough time to call Tony while he drove.
“Greer,” he answered.
“It’s Costa.”
“And here I thought you were the one who knew how to make friends and influence people.”
Matt wasn’t going to take shit from his boss about the waves he was making. “Twenty-four hours ago I was going through files of agents to staff this team, and now I have to pussyfoot around and play politics with my own fucking office?”
“Explain.”
“The SSA of Spokane’s Resident Agency gave Ryder an earful—thinks we’re swooping in because her office is under investigation or on probation or some such nonsense.”
“I smoothed things over with the main Seattle field office, learned that even if Spokane wanted the case, they don’t have the resources. Torino’s staff is spread thin with other investigations. Plus, I implied that you have experience with this case.”
“You lied,” Matt said flatly.
“You have more information and experience than anyone else.”
Matt almost laughed. Twenty-four hours more experience counts? But he was still too irritated to find much humor. “Tony—we’re going to have to figure this out before the next time, I don’t want to be battling the locals and our own damn people.”
“You’re right. I should have reached out to Seattle initially. But if you can appease Torino, it would go a long way.”
“I’m on my way.”
“I know you’ll fix it—you always do, Matt.”
Didn’t mean he enjoyed it, especially when he would rather have been at the Sheriff’s office pushing them to drag the lake.
“Shifting gears,” Matt continued, “if I can’t get the Sheriff’s department help with dragging the lake tomorrow, what’s my budget to bring in a civilian crew or rent equipment?”
“Loaded question.”
“I need an answer.”
“We have some discretionary money in the MRT budget. You and Ryder can authorize spending up to a certain amount—I believe five thousand, but Ryder will know. Over that, call me.”
Matt said to Tony, “Tell me about the chief of police. He called you?”
“What an ass.”
“And you’re supposed to be the diplomat.”
“Ultimately, it comes down to money. I told him to send me a bill. That seemed to appease him.”
Of course. Money made the world go ’round.
“If Chief Packard gives you any shit, take it—to a point. He’s all bark, no bite. But if he interferes with you getting the job done, shut him down. We’re fucking paying for the privilege of catching this killer, and he’s going to get at least half the credit simply for staying out of our way, so he can sit on his ass for all I care if he doesn’t want to do the work.”
“Understood. Thanks, Tony.”
“And Matt?”
“There’s more?”
“You’ve been on the ground there for less than eighteen hours and we already have more than we had at the beginning of any of the other investigations. Keep it up—and catch this bastard.”
Matt ended the call as he pulled into the Spokane FBI parking lot and shut off his engine. There were fifty-six regional FBI offices, and each regional office had one or more resident agency, depending on both population and geographic size of the district. The Seattle field office had nine, including this one in Spokane. But RAs were sparsely staffed, anywhere from two to a dozen agents.
Matt
went into the Spokane FBI office and smoothed things over, using a little bit of honey and a little bit of authority. By the end of their conversation, SSA Torino agreed to assist in whatever capacity he needed.
Maybe he was born to be a diplomat after all.
8
Washington DC
5:45 p.m. ET
Catherine Jones closed the doors of her office, effectively shutting out the seven crime scenes she’d laid out.
She’d told Matt no, she had quit the FBI, but he hadn’t believed her, and he was right. As soon as he walked out of her condo, she pulled out the case files she kept at the condo, simply to prepare them for another profiler in her office—except she was immediately drawn back into the case.
The Triple Killer was hers.
She’d spent the day reacquainting herself with each case—every forensic detail, every commonality and difference, each victim—but she needed a break. Eight hours of violence, even on paper, got under her skin. It was supposed to—because that’s how she got into the heads of psychopaths—but she was also professional and had learned to take a breather.
She opened a bottle of sauvignon blanc, poured a glass, and added an ice cube. She didn’t care that it wasn’t the proper way to drink wine. Her mother would look at her with mild disdain, her disapproving glance reminding Catherine that she was both ill-mannered and ill-suited for society.
She took her drink to her balcony overlooking Rock Creek Park and tried to push aside the darkness she’d exposed when she opened the Triple Killer files. She’d told herself that she wouldn’t let the killer get into her head, but of course that was impossible. They all ended up inside, and this particular killer had been in her head for three years, ever since the case files were dropped on her desk. She’d been the one to connect the Portland murders to the Missoula murders. By then, the killer was long gone, but the case still needed to be solved; the victims still needed justice.
One more case, Matt had said. It would always be one more case calling to her, one more case to be solved. But the killers wouldn’t stop. Psychopaths were born and bred, created from both nature and nurture. They would keep coming, and nothing she did could deter them from their destructive path.
She might make another mistake. She might miss an important detail. And then where would she be? Washing more innocent blood off her hands?
Except.
The Triple Killer was hers.
She’d hated then that she’d only been able to write a partial profile. Partial because there was far too much she didn’t know. Partial because local law enforcement hadn’t thought a serial killer was at work and she’d had to restructure each crime scene under a different lens, looking for patterns as proof—and differences as key pieces of evidence. Back then, she’d barely read and absorbed all the information before he took his sixth victim, then disappeared for another three years.
Until now.
She brought her wineglass to her lips and realized it was empty. It was too cold to stay out here anyway, no matter how lovely the view.
You barely noticed the park lights. You weren’t looking at the skyline. You were thinking about murder, violence, and why. What triggered the Triple Killer and who will he target now?
Catherine closed her French doors and poured a second glass of wine over the half-melted ice cube. Who was she fooling?
“Don’t lie to yourself, Catherine,” she said out loud. “Above all, don’t lie to yourself.”
She’d wanted the case from the minute Matt told her the Triple Killer was back. She’d opened Matt’s emails as soon as she received them. She reopened the files and read the case reports and worked her way back into the mind of this methodical butcher. And though her condo was half-filled with boxes, all she’d really done was pack up clothes she hadn’t worn in years, extra linens, and some of her books. She’d given a couple boxes of popular fiction to the local senior center, not because she regularly donated to them but because the center was located between her condo and her favorite coffee shop. They’d had a sign in the window asking for donations of books, games, magazines. It was, she thought, a sign for her to purge.
But she hadn’t touched her office. She hadn’t packed one file. Maybe, in the back of her mind, she knew that something or someone would draw her back in. That another killer would claim her time, her attention.
It was after six. She should think about dinner. Getting a good night’s sleep and looking at the cases fresh in the morning. But they beckoned her.
Help us.
She could practically hear the victims begging for justice.
Help me, Cat. Help me.
A faint moan escaped her chest as if she could hear her sister desperately calling out for her. She hadn’t been able to save Beth; she could save the next victim of the Triple Killer.
She opened the doors of her office and strode over to the wall where she’d had a custom whiteboard installed. Floor to ceiling. She’d stuck up the crime scene photos. Written dates, names, personal information of the victims. On her large desk she’d spread out the actual police and autopsy reports.
Catherine was old school. While nearly everything she had was available in the FBI database, she liked having a physical copy. Things looked different in print; she could move pages around, analyze them singularly or as a group, turn and twist photos.
From the very beginning, when Catherine got this case three years ago, the random nature of the victims seemed incongruous with the pattern of his kills. Killers rarely deviated from a victim profile, yet the Triple Killer had—and that was a stumbling block. It made this case more complicated, but more intriguing. Catherine was certain that there was a pattern to his victims—she just needed to figure it out.
From her previous analysis, she was certain of only two facts:
First, the serial killer was a male between the ages of twenty-five and forty. Second, he was highly intelligent, though likely held a job beneath his capabilities; his job probably used his intelligence but didn’t require teamwork. He could interact with people without leaving any real impression, which suggested he was articulate and pleasant enough looking but didn’t stand out. Neither too fat nor too thin, too short nor too tall.
Catherine disliked the word normal because there was no true normal. To her, normal simply meant a person who flew under the radar, who didn’t register as good or bad, kind or cruel, attractive or unattractive.
What stood out to her was that the Triple Killer was meticulous in his execution, yet unnecessarily brutal. He didn’t so much torture his victims as most were unconscious when he killed them. He didn’t sexually assault them. Yet the way he sliced them open, then sliced them across—it was methodical, ritualistic. All the autopsies concluded that in each case, the first vertical cut would have been fatal. Why did he use a knife? Was there a level of comfort to him, of control? Did he want to feel their blood on his skin, smell their death, watch the life drain from their eyes? Or was the knife out of habit? A means to an end? Nothing more than a tool?
She didn’t think so. If only a tool, he would have changed his approach, choosing more effective knives or using any weapon at his disposal. The same type of knife was used in each murder, suggesting it was an important symbol to the killer and he would be hard-pressed to deviate. Yet he never used the same knife twice—at least that was her opinion, based on the fact that two of the knives had been recovered near the crime scenes. She suspected he’d disposed of every murder weapon. It wasn’t the actual knife that he was attached to. It was the size, shape or brand. A reminder of something—or someone.
“That helps,” she muttered to herself. “Why? Why that knife? Why slash the victims? What are you doing? Who are you seeing as they die in front of you, by your hand?”
The organization, the planning, the pattern—all suggested a specific motive, beyond convenience, for choosing his victims. This was her
biggest obstacle now: how did the Triple Killer decide whom to kill? How did each, in his sick mind, satisfy his pattern? It wasn’t wholly unusual for a serial killer to mix victim races or ages, sometimes out of opportunity and impulsivity, but it was highly uncommon to mix races and ages and genders. That suggested a more random approach... Yet some of the victims did have things in common, even if none of them knew each other, as far as each investigation had been able to uncover. But two nurses? One Asian, one Caucasian. Two off-duty cops? The first Japanese, the second Caucasian. And, she supposed, the vice principal in Portland (Caucasian) and the college professor in Missoula (Black) could be considered working in the same field—they were both, in a sense, educators. But he deviated on race and gender and age. Rare. Very rare.
Maybe drawing any conclusions from the few similar elements was a stretch. Nursing and education and law enforcement are common professions. Could the killer have an issue with authority? She almost laughed out loud at the thought. Of course the majority of serial murderers had serious problems with authority—it was usually an authority figure who first identified the future killer’s psychopathic tendencies—a parent, a teacher, a cop. Or an authority figure who abused the killer in his youth.
Perhaps his parents were in one or more of those professions. Perhaps his mother was a nurse, his father a cop. His mother a teacher, his father a doctor. Maybe. Maybe...
There was something here, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.
She needed more background on all the victims. That had been a problem from the start—these victims all appeared to be average people leading average lives with no apparent connection to one another. But each had to hold a particular significance for the killer. The more Catherine thought about it, the more convinced she became that he specifically chose these victims.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Cliché, but it was cliché for a reason. The circumstances appeared random. Indoors, outdoors. Two in their own homes, but most in places they didn’t frequent. It was too early to know if Victoria Manners was connected to Liberty Lake—or if the killer purposely chose that location for another reason. She lived and worked in Spokane. Why kill her and leave the body in Liberty Lake?