Vail 02 - Crush (3 page)

Vail caught a glimpse of a husky Hispanic worker who was bringing up the rear. She elbowed Robby and nodded toward the guy. “Something’s wrong, look at his face.” She moved against the stream of exiting guests and grabbed the man’s arm.

“What’s going on?” Vail asked.

“Nothing, sigñora, all’s good. Just a . . . the power is out, it’s very dark. Please, go back to the tasting room—”

“It’s okay,” Robby said. “We’re cops.”

“Policia?”

“Something like that.” Vail held up her FBI credentials and badge. “What’s wrong?”

“Who say there is something wrong?”

“It’s my job to read people. Your face tells a story, señor. Now—” she motioned with her fingers. “What’s the deal?”

He looked toward the mouth of cave, where most of the guests had already exited. “I did not tell you, right?”

“Of course not. Now . . . tell us, what?”

“A body. A
dead
body. Back there,” he said, motioning behind him with a thumb.

“How do you know the person’s dead?”

“Because she cut up bad, señora. Her . . . uh,
los pechos
. . . her . . . tits—are cut off.”

Robby looked over the guy’s shoulder, off into the darkness. “Are you sure?”

“I found the body, yes, I am sure.”

“What’s your name?”

“Miguel Ortiz.”

“You have a flashlight, Miguel?” Vail asked.

The large man rooted out a set of keys from his pocket, pulled off a small LED light and handed it to her.

“Wait here. Don’t let anyone else past you. You have security at the winery?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then call them on your cell,” Vail said, as she and Robby backed away, deeper into the tunnel. “Tell them to shut this place down tight. No one in or out. No one.”

AS A FEDERAL AGENT, Karen Vail was required to carry her sidearm wherever she traveled. But Robby, being a state officer, transported his weapon in a locked box, and it had to remain there; he was not permitted to carry it on his person. This fact was not lost on Vail as she removed her sidearm from her Velcro fanny pack. She reached down to her ankle holster and pulled a smaller Glock 27 and handed it to Robby.

They moved slowly through the dim cave. The walls were roughened gunite, dirt brown and cold to the touch. The sprayed cement blend gave the sense of being in a real cave, save for its surface uniformity.

“You okay in here?” Robby asked.

“Don’t ask. I’m trying not to think about it.” But she had no choice. Vail had developed claustrophobia after the recent incident in the Dead Eyes Killer’s lair. Though she never had experienced such intense anxiety, it was suddenly a prominent part of her life. Going into certain parking garages, through commuter tunnels, and even into
crammed elevators became a fretful experience. But it wasn’t consistent. Sometimes it was worse than others.

Overall, it was inconvenient—and no fun admitting you had such an irrational weakness. But she was now afflicted with the malady and she did her best to control it.
Control?
Not exactly.
It
controlled
her
.
Manage
it was more accurate. Take her mind off it, talk herself through it until she could move into roomier quarters.

Sometimes, though, she thought she might actually claw through walls to get out. Getting squeezed into an elevator was the worst. For some reason, people didn’t mind cramming against you if the alternative meant waiting another minute or two for the next car.

Vail slung her purse over her shoulder so it rested on her back, then moved the weak light around, taking care not to tread on anything that might constitute evidence.

“Maybe we should call it in,” Robby said. “Let the locals handle it.”

“The locals? This isn’t exactly Los Angeles, Robby. I seriously doubt they have a whole lot of murders out here. If the vic’s been cut like Miguel says, the local cops’ll be out of their league. They’re going to look at the crime scene but won’t know what they’re seeing.”

“Beyond the obvious, you mean.”

“The obvious to me and the obvious to a homicide detective are not the same things, Robby. You know that. When you encounter something unusual—no matter what profession you’re talking about—would you rather hire someone who’s seen that unusual thing a thousand times, or someone who’s only seen it once or twice?”

“If we do find something, we won’t have a choice. We’ve got no jurisdiction here.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

They turned left down another tunnel, which opened into a large storage room of approximately a thousand square feet. Hundreds of French oak barrels sat on their sides, stacked one atop the other, three rows high and what must’ve been fifty rows long. A few candelabras with low-output lightbulbs hung from above, providing dim illumination. The walls and ceiling were constructed of roughened multicolored brick, with multiple arched ceilings that rose and plunged and
joined one another to form columns every fifteen feet, giving the feel of a room filled with majestic gazebos.

A forklift sat dormant on the left, pointing at an opening along the right wall, where, amidst a break in the barrels, was another room. They moved toward it, Vail shining the flashlight in a systematic manner from left to right as they walked. They stepped carefully, foot by foot, to avoid errant hoses and other objects like . . . a mutilated woman’s body.

They entered the anteroom and saw a lump in the darkness on the ground.

Robby said, “That bridge you just mentioned? I think we just came to it.”

“Shit,” Vail said.

“You didn’t think Miguel was pulling our leg, did you? He looked pretty freaked out.”

“No, I figured he saw something. I was just hoping it was a sack of potatoes, and in some kind of wine-induced stupor, he thought it was a dead woman.”

“With her breasts cut off?”

“Hey, I’m an optimist, okay?”

Robby looked at her. “You’re an optimist?”

As they stood there, Vail couldn’t take her eyes off the body. She’d come to Napa to relax, to get away from work. Yet lying on the cold ground a little over twenty feet away was an all-too-obvious reminder of what she’d come here to escape.

Then she mentally slapped herself. She was pissed at having her vacation ruined. The woman in front of her had her life ruined.

Vail took a deep breath. “You have cell service? We need to call this in.”

Robby flipped open his phone. “No bars.”

“No bars in Napa? Some other time and place, that would be funny.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Humor is the best defense mechanism. Honestly, this sucks, Karen. You needed the time away. It was my idea to come here. I’m sorry.”

“As our colleague Mandisa Manette is fond of saying, ‘Sometimes
life just sucks the big one.’” Vail’s thoughts momentarily shifted to Manette, how she was doing in recovery. It didn’t last long, as the snap of Robby’s phone closing brought her back to the here and now.

“Okay,” Vail said, “one of us goes, just to see if she’s alive. We don’t want to totally destroy the crime scene.”

“Might as well be you,” Robby said. “Get a close look, see if you see anything worthwhile.”

Vail stood there, but didn’t move. “I already see stuff that’s worthwhile.” She sighed in resignation, then stepped forward. “Like you said earlier, nothing but fun from here on out.”

V
ail crouched a few feet from the body, outside the penumbra of bloody soil, and shone the flashlight across the woman’s face, then worked her way over the chest, and on down to the leather shoes.

Robby stood twenty feet away, well beyond the visible field. “Feel her pulse.”

“Yeah, no need to. She’s done. Too much blood loss. No color left in the face.”

“Check it, just—just to be sure.”

Vail frowned, shifted her weight, and said, “I know death, Robby. I’m sure. Dead as the wood in those oak barrels back there.”

Vail continued surveying the body with the light. Miguel was correct—the woman’s breasts were severed, but then she never truly doubted that Miguel saw what he thought he saw. It’s kind of a hard thing to get wrong, even when stunned with fear.

“Sharp knife, probably a few inches in length.” She examined the slices, which were surprisingly clean. “No hesitation marks. Definitely not the first time this UNSUB has killed,” she said, using the law enforcement abbreviation for “Unknown Subject.”

“Any ritual behaviors?” Robby asked.

“Ritual” was a term used by profilers to describe unique activities a serial killer engages in with his victim’s body. Like a behavioral fingerprint, they were vital to understanding or identifying a particular killer.

Vail pointed at the victim’s chest. “For one, severing the breasts is a biggie.”

“Yeah,” Robby said. He cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I mean, aside from that.”

“Her pants and underwear are pulled down to her knees. If there was penetration of any sort, pulling down the pants wouldn’t be ritualistic, but if there wasn’t any sexual assault involved, then it would be. Follow me?”

“Yeah. If he pulled down her pants and . . . violated her, then there’s a reason for pulling the pants down. If he didn’t violate her, there’s no reason to pull down her pants. In which case it’s probably related to his messed up childhood.”

“Righto. But keep in mind that it’s hard to draw conclusions on only one finding. There could be staging involved, so it’s impossible to say for sure just yet.”

“Staging. To throw off the cops?”

Vail pulled a pen from her pocket and gently nudged away the woman’s collar. “If he’s killed before, he may try to create a different looking crime scene, or the appearance of a new motive, just to misdirect us. That’s why we have to consider the totality of the circumstances.”

“And what would those be?”

“Every behavior is analyzed and reconciled with the logic of the forensic evidence. You have to examine each aspect of the crime scene to see if the offender carried out each key attribute to its logical conclusion. Are they sequentially logical?”

“Because unless the offender is a cop or a CSI, he wouldn’t know all the details of crime scene reconstruction.”

“Exactly.” Vail shifted her weight to the right, leaned forward, and shone the light over the groin. “We’ll have to wait for the ME to tell us about penetration. Hard to tell.”

“The breasts?”

“Don’t see them.” She twisted and motioned to the forklift behind them. “See if there are keys in that thing, maybe you can shed some light on the situation.”

Robby turned and made his way out of the room to the forklift. He leaned in, and a second later the vehicle’s engine purred to life and the headlamp glowed brightly.

Vail rose from her crouch and stepped out of the beam’s way. She looked down at the body.
Doesn’t look any better in the light
.

A man wielding a powerful flashlight swallowed the mouth of the room. Robby spun, ducking from the beam’s painful brilliance, Vail’s Glock out in front of him.

“This is a crime scene,” Robby shouted. “Get back.”

The man, silhouetted by the handheld and the glare of the forklift’s headlamp, said, “Yeah, I got that. But I’m supposed to be here. You’re not. Now lower that fucking gun or we’re gonna have a big goddamn problem.”

“You are?” Vail asked, holding up a hand to shield her eyes.

“Detective Lieutenant Redmond Brix, Napa County Sheriff’s Department.”

Vail moved her head to the side, still fighting the glare. “Karen Vail, FBI. And that man with the Glock in your face is Detective Robby Hernandez, Vienna PD.”

“Vienna?” Brix asked. “Where the hell is Vienna?”

“Virginia,” Robby said, as he lowered his weapon.

Brix dropped his flashlight out of Vail’s line of sight. “Glad to meet you . . . Not really. Now, you mind getting outta my crime scene?”

Vail raised her hands in resignation, then backed away to Robby’s side.

Brix, his attention still on Robby, said, “Mind telling me, Detective, what you’re doing with a handgun in California?”

Robby handed the Glock to Vail.

“It’s my backup piece,” she said as she bent over to reholster it on her ankle.

Brix frowned. There was nothing more he could say.

“Crime scene’s yours, Lieutenant.” Vail rested her hands on her hips and watched as Brix stepped forward, following Vail’s path to the body. He lowered his Maglite and ran the beam over the victim. When the brightness hit the area of severed breasts, Brix rocked back involuntarily. He caught his balance and looked away a moment, then seemed to force his eyes back to the body.

“God damn,” Brix said. “Shit.” He turned away, then marched out, into the large storage room. Vail and Robby followed. “You okay?” Vail asked.