Authors: Steven James
“Whew. This guy is good. He’s threading everything together for us.”
“Yeah. Touching the player he’s going to take next. We need to go over everything from the beginning, all the physical evidence. I want to know how long this has been going on.”
“Gotcha.”
My mind was spinning, flying over all the facts I’d read so far about the cases, wondering what other clues the Illusionist might have left for us.
Does the order matter? What’s the significance of
an engagement ring or contact lenses? What else has he left?
But as excited as I was, I also knew there were good people here who could analyze the forensic evidence better than I could. Besides, I had a lot to do today. I needed to get going.
Just then, Sheriff Wallace walked into the room. “Whatcha’ll up to?” His mouth was half full of a sausage biscuit; in his hand he held an overstuffed bag from Hardees. Somehow, even though it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, he was already sweating. Damp, yellowish stains emanated from the armpits of his once-white shirt.
“Sheriff Wallace,” I said, “I need some of your men to pull all the physical evidence from the previous cases.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Focus on anything found on or near the bodies. Anything at all—rings, glasses, jewelry, brands of lipstick, clothes. Tucker can explain everything. We’re looking for links. Tucker, you on this?”
“Absolutely.”
Sheriff Wallace pulled a cinnamon roll out of the bag and popped it in his mouth. He looked lost.
“He’s reaching across the board,” I explained, “and he’s touching our pieces, then taking them on his next turn.” I realized I wasn’t making any sense, not to someone who hadn’t heard what we were talking about.
Just then his phone rang. He answered it, looked a little confused, and passed it to me. “It’s for you.”
“Yeah?” I said into the phone as Tucker started bringing him up to speed, trying to summarize our theory in as few words as possible. “Bowers here.”
“It’s Lien-hua. I’ve been trying to find you. I tried your phone, then Ralph’s phone—”
“Long story.”
“I thought you were heading to the dump sites.”
“I am. I’m on my way.”
“Where are you now?”
“The federal building. I was just leaving.” I grabbed my computer and whispered for Tucker to call me if they came up with anything else. I headed for the door. “Where are you?” I asked her.
“On the steps outside waiting for you.”
“What? I thought you were in Charlotte.”
“Ralph sent me back early this morning. He tried telling you, but I guess your cell phone died.”
“Actually, it was his. Never mind.”
She yawned across the phone. “I feel like I’ve been up forever.”
“I’m glad I took the chopper last night. When’ll Ralph be down?”
“This afternoon after he’s done interviewing the security guard. He thought it might be helpful if I joined you since I’ve been to each of the crime scenes so far and . . .”—she paused for a moment—“I’m the one who’s been working on the offender’s profile.”
Don’t say anything stupid, Pat. Don’t be an idiot.
“Yeah. Good. The profile. I love profiles.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
I stepped outside and closed up my phone. Wait, not mine. Dante Wallace’s. Oh well, I could give it back to him later. Nearby, Lien-hua was slipping her phone into her jeans pocket. She had on hiking boots and wore a blue North Face fleece pullover and matching windbreaker to fend off the crisp morning air. With the mountains rising behind her, she looked like she belonged on the cover of an outdoor magazine.
I’d subscribe.
“He’s touching our pieces,” I said, unlocking the car.
“What?”
“Climb in. I’ll explain on the way.”
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid finished reading through Governor Taylor’s confidential travel itinerary for the week, and then began perusing the guest list for the upcoming Cable News Forum luncheon. It had cost him nearly $80,000 to obtain this information from a woman named Anita Banner, but it had been worth every penny. And when he found out that she would be there too, he was even more pleased. It would eliminate the need of taking care of her in some slightly less subtle way.
He looked through the glass at Rebekah and Caleb.
The effects of the bacterium were beginning to show. Sweating, nausea, sharp mood swings. The rash would start soon, then bleeding from the intestines, the eyes, and then finally, pulmonary failure. It would not be a gentle death.
He glanced down at his hands and noticed that his shirtsleeve had pulled back, revealing the scar on the inside of his left wrist. He stopped and stared at it, gently rubbing his finger across the discolored skin.
The mark of true love.
Even after all this time, the scar was still visible, a reddish gash just over two inches long. The cut had been deeper than he’d originally thought, and without stitches it hadn’t healed evenly. Over the years it had even broken open a few times. And sometimes, on days like these, it still seemed to bother him. Still seemed to itch.
Maybe it itched because he was thinking about love once again. Maybe that was it. Or because he was thinking about Monday morning and how destiny would finally play out and about his family and about the babies and about the pawns he’d had Theodore leave beside the bodies of the young women and about how it would feel to watch the newscasts in the days following the luncheon as the disease trickled, traveled, spread family to family, husband to wife, lover to lover, friend to friend. One kiss, one sneeze, one handshake at a time. Around the world, evening the scales.
The Cable News Forum guest list read like a Who’s Who of the world’s media leaders and also included speeches by senators, congressmen, and dignitaries about First Amendment issues, the upcoming presidential election, FCC guidelines, and a number of other mediarelated issues. But really, Kincaid wasn’t interested in all that. He was most interested in the attendees: Juan Carlos Mendez, president of the Pacific Media Group; Roberta Stratham, CEO of Satellite Broadcast News, along with all the nation’s premier cable news correspondents and newscasters. And, of course, Governor Sebastian Taylor.
It was perfect. Especially considering the rest of the governor’s schedule for the week—appearances at the Pentagon, National Press Club, and a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In fact, the governor’s speaking schedule was one of the reasons he’d moved the plans to Monday instead of the original date in November.
He grazed the scar with his finger one last time. That afternoon with Jessie had been the first time he’d seen just how far someone would go to prove the depth of her beliefs. Of her love.
But it would not be the last.
Alexis and Bethanie hadn’t understood that. He’d had to spend another $120,000 to take care of them and to keep the plans alive. But in the end it was worth it.
Every time he touched his scar, it was as if he were reliving those moments with Jessie, those dreams of youth, all over again. Caressing them.
Some moments are meant to be caressed forever.
He smiled, pulled the shirtsleeve back over his wrist, and headed off to the Alexander Bros. Trucking Company to ship the vats of blood to Theodore.
As we drove higher and higher into the mountains, Lien-hua told me what they’d found out about Jolene overnight—which wasn’t much. I tried to keep the facts of Mindy’s case separate from Jolene. It wasn’t easy, but that’s the nature of this business. Often you need to juggle two, three, five or more cases at a time. I almost never have the luxury of having only one corpse or missing person on my mind.
I told Lien-hua about how the Illusionist was connecting the crimes for us, and I tried to summarize Tucker’s latitude and longitude theory. She listened quietly, then asked, “How does Agent Tucker know about all that stuff? I mean, the chess notation systems and the touching-the-piece thing?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he plays chess.”
Once again she was quiet, thoughtful.
Ralph had told her about the phone call I’d received last night from the Illusionist. She asked a few follow-up questions about it and scribbled observations in her notebook as I answered.
“How does all this fit in with what you know about the offender?” I asked.
“Most serial killers are sexual predators, but this guy doesn’t seem to be. He cares for the bodies, washes them—and I don’t think he does that just to get rid of physical evidence. He doesn’t rape his victims—either while they’re alive or postmortem. It’s more about power and control than sex. Calling to taunt you on the phone is consistent with that.”
And now for the big question. “So, could you run through the profile for me?”
“You actually want to hear the profile?”
Careful, Pat.
“Yeah. I do.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Hmm. OK. Well, I’ve been revising it all morning in light of Jolene’s abduction. It helped me pass the time while I rode back from Charlotte with two very large, very hairy state troopers. I think they were both named Bubba.”
I smiled.
“I should mention I don’t like doing verbal profiles. Too many details get lost, forgotten, misunderstood . . .”
“I promise that whatever you say will not be held against you.”
“Can I trust you?”
“Intimately.”
Hmm. I’m not sure that came out right.
Or maybe it did.
“Give me a few minutes to collect my thoughts.”
We drove in silence up the winding road toward Arrowhead Mountain. I was anxious to hear what she had to say but forced myself not to bother her. After about twenty minutes Lien-hua looked up from her notes.
“OK,” she said. “Here we go. Looking at the style of killings and the demographics of crime in this region of the country, I’d say he’s Caucasian. Definitely male. Based on the sophistication of the crimes, the organization displayed, and the intricate way he’s linking the crimes for us, I’d say our offender is older, probably late thirties, early forties. He’s experienced. These aren’t the first crimes he’s committed, but he hasn’t been caught, hasn’t served time. He works alone, no partner.”
“How do you know?”
“Our guy is proud of his work, confident, arrogant. As you noted from his phone call, narcissistic. He wouldn’t want to share the limelight with anyone. He works solo. High birth order, possibly an only child.”
“What about military service?”
“No, he would look at it as beneath him. Too menial.”
Hmm. She was pretty good.
“He’s not trying to hide the identities of the victims in any way. He wants us to know who he killed and even when she died—though I don’t know why yet. His behavior at the scenes is very ritualistic. The posing, the yellow ribbon, the clues from his next victim, and the chess piece are all part of his signature. It’s all very elaborate, very specific. But yet each crime is unique. And everything he’s done, including the phone call, speaks of his need to control others.”
“Hang on. Back up a minute.”
“What?”
“Signature. I’ve read some conflicting research on it. Apparently, it’s not as stable as they used to think.”
She wavered her head back and forth to show me she wasn’t convinced. “Still inconclusive. Basically, whatever an offender does at a crime scene that he doesn’t need to do in order to commit the crime tells us something about him, about his past or his priorities—his goals. That’s his signature. Does he commit overkill by stabbing the victim more than necessary? That shows rage. Does he mutilate the bodies in a specific way, take a unique souvenir from the victims, or leave clues for the police? That’s all signature. Modus operandi is more the way he commits the crime.”
“But neither MO nor signature is completely static or consistent,” I said.
“Right.” She cleared her throat slightly. “So let me give you a little test, Dr. Bowers. Why do MO and signature change?”
Easy. No problem.
“Well, in every series of crimes you have escalation and adaptation,” I said. “In addition, sometimes offenders change how they commit a crime and what they do at the crime because of the victim’s reaction. For example, if a woman struggles with a rapist, he might bring a knife to the next crime to threaten his victim, or some kind of restraints to subdue her. Changes in his life situation, personal injuries, traumas, things like that affect killers just like they affect the rest of us. Or he might begin to take steps to destroy or reduce physical evidence after he comes under suspicion or is interviewed or tested for DNA by the police.” I paused, thinking. “OK, how did I do?”
“I’d give that a B+.”
“What? Why not an A?”
I liked the way we’d slipped into bantering with each other. It felt natural, comfortable to be talking with her.
I aimed the car toward the curve of the road up ahead. A splash of early morning sunlight landed on the windshield.
“You left out experience,” she said. “Just like in any profession, he gets better with experience.”
Man, and I knew that one too. “OK,” I said. “You win.”
She consulted her notes again, smiling slightly. “No blitz attacks, which tells me he’s able to gain the trust of his victims. Probably a smooth talker, very manipulative. He keeps records of the crimes, writes about them. Maybe in a journal or a diary, or even a blog. His need to control women leads me to believe he’s been married and might still be, but if he is, his wife doesn’t know about his double life. He’s addicted to power, domination, and control, but the irony is that even though he prides himself on being in control, he can’t control himself. He can’t stop. He can’t resist showing off.”
So far, despite my natural tendency to discount profiles, I couldn’t argue with anything she’d said. It all seemed to fit.
“He’s forensically aware, maybe even served in law enforcement. An observation: apart from the first murder, none of the abduction sites were the same as the murder sites or the dump sites. He might be doing that to confuse us, or to show off, I’m not sure yet. His elaborate cat-and-mouse tactics and ability to steal from his future victims and the whole incident at the mall show a high degree of premeditation and versatility—breaking and entering, robbery, stalking, abduction, murder. This man has a high IQ—above average for sure, maybe even genius level. He’s familiar with the area and probably lives nearby, or went to high school or college here at some point.”