The Profilers (2 page)

It didn’t take a rocket scientist for Rene to get the message that this guy didn’t want her as a partner but she knew the worst thing she could do was acknowledge it. It was a hard enough job being a profiler, much less a female one. Anything construed as whining would get her kicked out of the boys’ club… and quick.

She’d made it through the hazing during training and she could damn sure hold her own as the new kid on the block. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a boss who didn’t want her on board to make her walk away from her dream of being a top profiler. She didn’t just want to work for the FBI. She wanted to be one of the top profilers in the nation and dreams like that only came true with guts and determination. She had both—an abundance of both.

She listened as her partner reluctantly filled her in on the case they would be working.

“We’ve got a string of cases where abused women are being killed. Now, I’ve already looked into the individual husbands and this isn’t a bunch of abusive spouses going too far. This is one guy. I’m tossing around the idea of an abused kid who grew up and never quit carrying the scars. You know, like he blames the women for not leaving and he’s making them pay.”

“Well, it could also be someone who has access to a hotline or something, someone who is angry that the women aren’t taking his advice to get the help they’re being offered.”

“It could be. It could also be a first response worker.”

“Maybe it’s someone who’s in a chat room or perhaps a support group. Whoever is doing this has access to the victims’ personal information. There are very few places a victim feels free to open up about being abused because there is so much shame associated it,” she answered. She was already feeling the adrenalin pump she always got when she tossed ideas back and forth about a case.

“Well, I’m hoping this body we’re going to view will give us an idea.”

They pulled up into an alley behind the library. “This is an odd place to dump a body, Agent Turner. Behind a library?”

“Yeah, I have to agree with you. It is.”

They flashed their badges, moving their jackets back simultaneously, and revealed their credentials to the officer guarding the mouth of the alley.

“Aww heck, Agent, you ain’t got to show me your badge. I was on call at the last case you worked.” The young man standing before them clearly gave away his hillbilly roots with his thick accent.

“You know me, officer, I’m always business. It’s too damn easy for a case to go sideways on a technicality nowadays.”

“Who’s your partner,” the officer asked, ignoring Agent Turner’s comment.

“That’s Agent Murphy and, like I said, keep it all business.”

The officer tipped his hat to Rene who was too busy trying to keep up with her partner’s long strides as he walked away. Agent Turner was tall and thin and for every one of his steps, she had to take two. She was determined not to miss anything and that meant keeping up with a man who had no intention of waiting on her.

“Good… the coroner is here. He doesn’t always make it out to the crime scene but this case has piqued his interest,” she heard her partner say.

She listened as he bent down, eyeing the coroner on duty. She bent down with him to take inventory of the body.

“Well, we’ve got the same MO. There’s duct tape in an X pattern over her mouth just like the last victim. That black eye is at least a couple of days old. You can tell by the yellowing that it was beginning to heal,” the coroner told them after acknowledging their arrival.

“So we’re already showing evidence that this is our guy who’s killing victims of spousal abuse?” Agent Turner asked.             

“Yep, the same MO of a plastic bag tied over her head for suffocation and duct tape crisscrossed over her lips like an X was found. This is a sure give away that we’re dealing with the same killer,” he told them. The coroner might have confirmed the facts for her partner but, from the look on his face, she could tell it was a conclusion he had already come to on his own.

“You know, I just can’t wrap my brain around why someone would want to kill a woman who is a victim of abuse. It seems to me that the natural reaction would be for a man to want to protect a woman going through that kind of hell.”

“I keep telling you, Herb. Serial killers have no rhyme or reason. They just have obsession with whatever fucked up thing is driving them to kill.”

“Yeah, I have to agree with you, Agent Turner. Most of these guys tend to be a mixture of a messed up nature and a lack of nurture. One feeds the other until it produces a monster.”

“Okay, we’ll be in the library if you need us,” Agent Turner informed the coroner.

Once again, Rene ran behind her partner. At least he had said
we.
She was getting somewhere with him. It was a start, or so she hoped.

This wasn’t the norm as far as finding dead bodies but Agent Turner had learned to expect the unexpected in his line of work. Ten years of being a top FBI profiler had taught him that much.

“Ma’am,” he spoke to the woman he found standing on a ladder stocking shelves of books. He flashed his credentials as she climbed down to speak to him.

“Do you know anything about the woman they found back behind your library?”

“It isn’t my library. It’s the public’s library but, yes, as a matter of fact, I do know her. Her name’s Debra Joiner. She came in here quite a bit to use the computers. It always seemed odd to me that she would need to borrow the public library’s computers with all the money she had.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me about her.”

“There’s not much to tell. She’s married to some bigwig businessman who works downtown. He’s some racing silks designer—makes uniforms for jockeys. Most of the jockeys use him because they can design their silks specific online. I say they
use
him ‘cause he has the right connections. He’s been seen eating at that private club with the Governor and he and his wife are regularly featured in the Sunday CJ social section.”

“You say they were in the local newspaper quite a bit?”

“Yep, you know it amazes me how a man who beats his wife can be held in such high esteem. Everyone just turns a blind eye to what he’s doing.”

“What makes you say that?”

“His wife wore big sunglasses more than anyone I’ve ever seen. She dropped ‘em one day and I was horrified when I bent down and picked ‘em up to hand them back to her. The whole side of that woman’s face was black and blue. She tried to hide it with make-up and did a good job until I saw her eye that day. She couldn’t hide all that red in her eyeball. I asked her about it and she gave the standard ‘I fell down the stairs’ excuse. I knew then that she probably had to come here to use a computer because her man had too much control over her. What kind of man with that much money won’t buy his wife her own computer?”

“Do you know what sites she visited while she was here?”

“Well, now I’m not one to be nosey, but I did happen to see that she was in a chat room one time. I saw it when she forgot to logout one day.”

“Do you know the name of the site?”

“Not a victim dot com, or something like that.”
 

Agent Turner handed her a card as he spoke, “If you remember anything else, please give us a call. You’ve helped more than you realize.”

He waited until he was outside before he growled out in anger, “I’m going to put her asshole abusive husband through hell even if he isn’t the killer.”

“Yes, there’s a big difference between abuse and consensual play.”

Something registered in him when she said that but he never let it show. He was a master at hiding his emotions and his personal sexual preferences were definitely kept under wraps when it came to his colleagues. He couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t dealing with a fellow kinkster but he pushed the thought aside, purposely giving it no more attention.

Her voice interrupted his wayward thoughts.

“Well, one thing is for sure. We’re dealing with someone who’s blaming the wrong person for the abuse suffered. I’d get it if they were killing the abuser, but the abused?”

“It has to be someone who harbors some deep-seated guilt, shame, and hatred towards abusers. Our unsub is either a woman or a male adult who grew up being abused. Something caused our guy to take it personally when this woman didn’t leave her abuser.”

“Have you been able to glean anything else from the killer’s choice in victims?”

“No, but I really need to talk to the coroner after the autopsy before I can start piecing the puzzle together. Come on and we’ll grab a cup of coffee.”

Agent Turner turned and eyed the woman who was walking at his side. For the first time since he had picked her up as a partner this morning, he considered the fact that she might not be so bad to work with after all. She was smart, didn’t complain, and as much as he hated to admit it, she was easy on the eyes—very, very easy on the eyes.