"That's okay."
He put up his hands. "No, it's not. I want you to focus on this case. My personal situation has nothing to do with it."
"You'd be surprised how many times this kind of thing happens to me." She didn't have a degree in psychology, but because her job dealt with behavioral science, people often felt the need to confess their anxieties to her.
"Valerian root." He held up a brown bottle. "It's supposed to calm your nerves. I've been taking it for a month, and I don't think it does shit."
"Have you tried yoga?" she asked.
He let out a derisive snort. "You've gotta be kidding."
"I know agents who swear by it."
"FBI agents?" he asked in disbelief.
She nodded.
"You try it?"
"Me? No, but I've cut down on caffeine and quit smoking."
"If I cut down on caffeine, I wouldn't be able to function. Okay, I gotta go. Have another meeting to get to with Chief of Homicide. I'll get a copy of all pertinent information to Agent Senatra by this afternoon, and I'll be calling a meeting with all the departments when we get everything organized."
Mary gathered up the photos and papers and added them to the ones already in her briefcase. "I'll put together an unofficial profile in order to prioritize the suspects. That should give you enough to work with until I hear back from Headquarters." She stood and extended her hand.
He took it. "The governor personally asked for you," he said. "Not because you're a hometown girl, but because he knew you were one of the best. Here in Minnesota, we're proud of the work you've done."
"Thank you."
He was looking at her as if he had no doubt about her ability to solve the case given enough time. She had a decent track record—he was right about that. But then the FBI didn't advertise unsolved cases.
Chapter 5
Before concentrating on the profile, Mary had to talk to Gavin Hitchcock. She'd never been one to allow herself to jump to conclusions, always waiting for the evidence to point the way. Now she needed to know if there was any basis for suspecting him of these new murders—or were her emotions skewing her judgment?
The automobile repair shop where Hitchcock worked was on University Avenue in an area of St. Paul known as Midway.
She soon spotted a hand-painted sign that said ABE'S REPAIR. Parking spaces on University Avenue were at a premium, so Mary pulled her rental car into the alley behind the shop. To the left of an open door was a lot with weeds poking between broken-down cars that had been towed and abandoned years ago. Those carcasses were sprinkled with washing machines and mowers, stacks of tires, gas cans, broken beer bottles, and bed frames.
Mary inched the car to the side of the alley, trying to avoid the broken glass while leaving room for another vehicle to squeeze past if necessary. She got out, locking up with the remote. Up four bowed, rotten steps, she hesitated and checked to feel the reassurance of her gun beneath her jacket, irritated and slightly alarmed by the way her hand shook and her heart hammered.
This would be the first time she'd come face-to-face with Hitchcock since the murder trial during which she'd recounted finding her friend's dead body. All the while she was on the witness stand, Hitchcock, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, leg shackles, and handcuffs, had stared emotionlessly at her from his seat next to the state-appointed defense attorney.
Despite that, she was able to speak clearly and effectively, describing her years of close friendship with Fiona, describing exactly how the young girl had looked when she'd tripped over her body that day in the woods. The way the flies had gathered at the corners of her sightless eyes, the way bees buzzed around her mouth and crawled out her nose.
Mary hadn't called the repair shop first. She wanted her visit to take Hitchcock by surprise so he wouldn't have a mental script prepared.
Inside the door stood an L-shaped counter. Along one wall was a row of chairs where two people waited, flipping mindlessly through greasy magazines while a fluorescent light hummed and flickered above them.
"Can I help you?" the man behind the counter asked in a heavily accented voice. His crisply ironed blue shirt said JESUS MONTOYA, MANAGER under a motor oil logo. When she told him she needed to speak to Gavin Hitchcock, he opened the office door and stepped out on a wooden landing that overlooked the work bay, yelling to a man under a raised Cadillac. Then he hurried back into the office, where the phone was ringing.
Mary waited on the landing, one hand gripping the wooden rail. She watched as Hitchcock put down his tools and walked toward her, stopping at the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah?"
He was seventeen when she'd last seen him, which now made him twenty-six or -seven. He'd been thin and wiry, a lanky teenager with stringy brown hair hanging in his empty eyes. Now he was an adult, a man. His hair was still stringy, but much shorter, and his eyes were no longer empty—they were cold and bitter.
As he stood staring up at her, ineffectually trying to wipe the grease from his hands with a red rag, she thought of how those same hands had bludgeoned a young girl to death.
Even though her position at the top of the landing put him at a physical disadvantage and should have lent a subconscious intimidation to the scene, he didn't seem to notice.
"I'm Mary Cantrell," she announced, feeling herself mentally retreating. Her name didn't elicit any response of recognition from him. "Gillian Cantrell's sister."
"So?" He glanced up and behind her, toward the office. Through the glass, the shop manager was still on the phone.
"I want to talk to you."
"I'm busy." His voice was deep and emotionless.
It had been up to the jury to decide whether or not he would be charged with premeditated murder. . . .
"Was it your intention to inflict bodily harm upon Fiona Portman?"
"No."
"Did you meet with Fiona Portman with the specific purpose of killing her?"
"No."
"Can you describe for the jury what happened that afternoon of October twenty-ninth?"
"I'd been drinking."
"That wasn't uncommon for you, was it? To spend the day drinking?"
"Not really."
"Isn't it true that you'd been kicked out of school for fighting?"
"Yeah."
"Isn't it true you'd been in the woods that day?"
"I want to ask you a few questions," Mary now said.
"I can't talk."
"It won't take long."
"Gillian got me this job," he said. "I don't want to lose it."
He turned away, heading toward the car on the lift. His job wasn't the issue here—he was only using it to avoid her. And mentioning her sister was a handy dig, a way of getting to Mary at the same time.
She followed.
"Are you a cop?" he asked, picking up a heavy wrench. "I think I remember Gillian saying you were a cop."
"FBI."
Behind them someone banged on the office window. She turned to see the manager gesturing wildly, his face contorted.
"Get out of here," Hitchcock said. "No customers allowed in the bay area." He stared at her another moment. "The hydraulic could slip. The car could come down and crush you."
"And you don't want that to happen?"
"I don't care if you get killed, I just don't want to lose my job."
Right. She checked her watch. "When do you take a break?"
"I don't."
"What time do you get off work?"
"When I'm done."
Two hours later Mary was sitting in her car, which she'd maneuvered into a better position. From her new vantage point, she could see both the front and back areas of the auto repair shop.
It was getting dark by the time she spotted Hitchcock leaving the building. She pulled up beside him as he made his way along the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans, walking in the direction of the bus stop.
She reached across the seat and opened the passenger door. "Get in."
He stopped and looked at her.
"Get in the car," she repeated. "I'll give you a ride to wherever you're going."
He opened the door wider and dropped into the passenger seat. She sped away from the curb before he could change his mind.
"Aren't you afraid to have me sitting beside you? When I could just reach over like this—?"
He put his hand to her throat, pressing his fingers against her trachea—just hard enough to make her gasp and pull back, a survival instinct.
She knocked his hand away. Intense, blinding pain knifed through her injured shoulder. She swerved to the right and slammed on the brakes, stopping in a parking space.
He laughed at the loss of control he'd caused. "A lot of women don't want anything to do with a guy who's been in prison. Except for your sister."
The pain in her shoulder didn't subside, and she visualized ripped muscles and nerves. She tried to push her physical discomfort aside to focus on the man next to her. The son of a bitch was baiting her, toying with her. He smelled like grease, and oil, and hot metal. She imagined him behind heavy iron bars painted with layer upon layer of institutional green.
"You've probably heard about the three murders that have recently taken place in the area." A good agent never jumped in with the prime question. A good agent went for the slow build, getting the suspect to relax, gaining confidence—then hit him. She didn't have the luxury of that kind of strategy. Hitchcock could bolt at any second.
He laughed and shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable. "I've wanted to tell you something for a long time. Your friend, Fiona. She liked to portray herself as a goody-goody, somebody as pure as a nun, but let me tell you, she was no nun. But then maybe you knew that. Maybe you were whoring it up, too."
He was trying to throw her off, distract her from the real reason she'd come.
"Are you like your sister?" He reached over and put a hand on her bare knee. His fingers were rough and hot. "Do you get off on guys that've been in prison?"
A drop of sweat trickled down her forehead, catching on an eyebrow. It took an amazing amount of willpower to keep from pulling out her gun.
"Get your hand off me."
He removed it, but not before giving her knee a little caress. "Behavioral Science, right?"
How much had Gillian told him about her?
"That means you hunt down serial killers, right?" When she didn't answer, he repeated his question. "Right?"
"Yes."
"Child molesters? How about child molesters?"
"Those too."
"I have a theory about why people like you go into such disturbing fields," he said. "Want to hear it?"
She shrugged. "Sure."
"Because you're obsessed with death."
She wasn't going to let some killer psychoanalyze her. "If I'm obsessed, it's with finding the people who are causing death."
"No, you're obsessed with death itself. You have to see it, have to be around it."
"Is that the way you feel? Is that how you've come to this theory? Because you've killed?"
"I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about you. How old were you when you found your friend's dead body?"
He was talking about it so calmly, as if it were something he'd read about, not participated in.
She wanted to look away, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on him. "Seventeen."
"An impressionable age, wouldn't you say? A time when everything can turn upside down, when good can suddenly be bad, and bad good."
Not wanting to miss the opportunity to keep him going, she allowed herself to be pulled into the conversation. "Seventeen is the age you were when you killed Fiona Portman," she said.
"I think that once somebody sees death, feels death, sees death's emptiness, they want more. Suddenly life's biggest mystery is an even bigger mystery. And that mystery is something you were a part of and want to be a part of again."
Was this his twisted way of telling her he'd killed the three girls? Was it a sick plea for help? "Are you seeing a psychiatrist?" she asked, hoping she wouldn't lose him by introducing a new topic.
"Not since I got out of prison. I don't need one. Haven't you heard? I'm a new man."
"You should be under psychiatric care."
"I've had enough of shrinks."
"Do you have urges to see dead bodies?" she asked carefully.
"Right now I'm imagining what you'd look like dead."
"Is that a threat?"
"How many dead people have you seen in your life? Other than Fiona Portman? I'll bet you've seen a lot."
"Too many."
"How many?"
"Over a hundred."
"I'll bet you like that, don't you?"