Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) (21 page)

“This is crap,” Tracy said to Kins. She had worn the same clothes for twenty-four hours, hadn’t showered, felt tired and gross, and was otherwise in no mood to be kept waiting.

“Let’s just hear her out,” Kins said, sounding as tired as Tracy felt. “Then we can get out of here before stupid rubs off on us, and get something to eat.”

“Screw it,” she said, standing. “I’m not waiting any longer.”

Tracy was about to tell the receptionist they were leaving when a fit-looking young woman with short hair, hoop earrings, and skin the color of rich milk chocolate walked into the lobby.

“Detective Crosswhite? I’m Amanda Santos. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I couldn’t get off a phone call with DC.” Santos’s handshake was firm but not the bone crunching variety some of Tracy’s female colleagues employed.

“Not a problem,” Kins said, suddenly attentive.

Santos wore a conservatively cut but formfitting black suit, making Tracy even more self-conscious about her own haggard appearance. She adjusted the collar of the blouse beneath her corduroy jacket as Santos led them down the hall.

“Can I offer you coffee?” she asked.

“You can,” Kins said. “Unless you have a means to intravenously inject the caffeine.”

When Kins glanced in Tracy’s direction, she gave him her best “Please, she is so out of your league and you’re married anyway” look.

Kins’s smile widened.

Armed with cups of coffee, they stepped into a conference room of fluorescent lights, ceiling tiles, and the same generic black-and-white photographs of government buildings. Santos sat behind three file folders. Tracy and Kins sat across the table from her.

“So do you have a name for us?” Tracy asked. “Can I tell the prosecutor to swear out a warrant and we all go out for breakfast?”

“I wish I did,” Santos said, displaying perfect white teeth.

Of course they are,
Tracy thought.

“Unfortunately I’m not optimistic that’s going to happen anytime soon. I don’t envy you.”

“I don’t envy us,” Kins said.

“What makes you say that?” Tracy asked.

“You have an organized killer. A disorganized killer is much more impulsive and haphazard. Disorganized killers make mistakes, leave fingerprints, fail to keep from being seen. Organized killers consider murder to be an art that they are trying to perfect. They don’t make mistakes.”

Tracy thought of Beth Stinson. “What do you mean by ‘trying to perfect’?”

“I mean they practice. Let’s start with the mechanism your killer uses to strangle his victims, which is elaborate and well thought out. It’s doubtful your killer perfected it the first time he employed it, especially since he’d have to move quickly before his victim regained her ability to struggle.”

Tracy sat forward, ignoring her coffee. “So there could be other victims out there but possibly not killed with the exact same signature? Slight variations?”

“There could be,” Santos said. “Organized killers try very hard to blend in, to lead seemingly stable lives. They don’t kill out of passion or anger. They’re methodical and they’re intelligent. Some have a working knowledge of police work and forensics, and, unlike other killers, they don’t tell anyone what they’re doing. They don’t want to be caught.”

“Is that why he’s not having sex with his victims?” Kins asked. “He doesn’t want to leave behind physical evidence?”

“It could be, but I don’t believe this is about sexual gratification.”

“What is it about?” Kins asked.

“It’s about power and control and dominance. It could be he believes the women he’s targeting are beneath him and he
wants
you to know this is not a sexual act.”

“Or he could be impotent,” Tracy said.

“I don’t think so,” Santos said.

“Why not?”

“Because I would expect to see some other type of sexual act, penetration of the victims, something.”

“Maybe he gets off on the torture,” Tracy said.

“I’m sure to an extent he does, but unlike other serial killers I’ve studied, he isn’t trying to hide his victims’ bodies. He’s not taking their dance cards or IDs. He wants people to know who the ‘victims’ are and how they died. That speaks much more to someone trying to make a statement, and I think the statement is—this isn’t about sex, and he doesn’t consider them victims; he considers them bad people deserving of punishment.”

“Is that his motivation?” Kins asked.

“He could have multiple motives,” Santos said. “Or his motive may be evolving with each murder.”

“If you had to offer an opinion,” Tracy said, “what would you say his motivation is?”

“He’s hog-tying them,” Santos said. “That word originated from the hog-tying of pigs. My opinion is he’s angry and hostile toward this subgroup of women. It might also be part of a psychological ritualism or internal psychodrama directly related to some perverted fantasy. Your guy could be acting out a script in his head. When Ted Bundy was interviewed, he told the detectives every detail of his crime until the final moments of his victims’ lives. He considered those moments to be intimate between him and the victim.”

“In what way?” Tracy asked.

“We’ll never know,” Santos said. Bundy had been executed.

“All right then, so what’s this guy’s script?” Tracy asked.

“He’s interesting,” Santos said. “Despite the hostility, he uses Rohypnol to subdue his victims rather than physically assaulting them, which fits with the rope pulley system and the use of cigarettes to burn the bottoms of their feet.”

“How so?” Tracy asked.

“He doesn’t touch them. He isn’t killing them. They’re killing themselves. I think it’s his way of divorcing himself from, and justifying, the murders.”

Kins put down his coffee mug. “What about the fact that the bed is made and the clothes are folded?”

“Definitely a ritualistic act,” Santos said. “Those are common chores many children are required to perform.”

Kins frowned. “So, what, this guy thinks he’s killing his mother because she made him make his bed?”

Santos shook her head. “I’m not a fan of the Freudian crap that every boy wants to sleep with his mother. I wouldn’t get too wrapped around the wheel about why he’s killing these women. What we’ve learned is that these guys kill for one common reason. They enjoy it.”

Despite her reluctance to meet with a profiler, Tracy was starting to like Santos.

“Is he crazy?” Kins asked.

Santos shook her head. “I think he’s very sane, and by that I mean he definitely knows right from wrong. Look, Detectives, I could give you some psychobabble bullshit explanation about why someone chooses to kill being a complex process based on biological, social, and environmental factors, but that’s not going to help you. And frankly, it’s why profilers have gotten such a bad rap. We try too hard to figure out
why
these guys kill when it’s really not possible to identify all of the factors that cause an individual to become a serial murderer. Think of the billions of things that have gone into developing who you are. I’m not just talking genetics and upbringing—think of all the things you’ve experienced every day of your life that have shaped who you are. That’s why there’s no template for these guys. The best we can do is to try to identify certain common traits.”

“What would those traits be?” Tracy said.

“Antisocial behavior in early childhood.”

“Skinning the neighbor’s cat or lighting the dog’s tail on fire,” Kins said.

“Getting in fights at school,” Santos said. “A seeming lack of remorse for bad acts, a callousness toward physical pain or torture. Then, usually by late twenties, the urge to control and to kill becomes too powerful to resist, and once they begin to kill, to act out their fantasies, the delusion, whatever it is, takes over.”

“But there are instances of serial killers who have stopped killing, some for decades,” Kins said. “Ridgway killed most of his victims between 1982 and 1984, and he wasn’t caught for two decades.”

“Ridgway claimed to have killed as many as eighty women,” Santos said. “Who knows when he stopped? He was also married multiple times and could have fulfilled some of his sexual fantasies and impulses with his wives. The same might be true of the BTK Killer in Kansas. My point is, the impulse to kill never left, and the longer the period of time in between killings, the harder that impulse became to suppress. Once they started, they couldn’t stop.”

“So we can expect this guy to keep killing,” Tracy said.

“I’m afraid so.”

Kins sat forward. “Let me ask you something. How likely is it, if this guy is all about getting away with killing these women, that he would stalk a police officer?”

Santos looked across the table to Tracy. “If it is the same guy, it would be unusual, but not unprecedented. Detective Crosswhite has been in the news. Serial killers have big egos. They want to be the center of attention. He could see you as stepping into his spotlight.” Santos paused. “Or he could see you as his ultimate prize.”

CHAPTER 32

T
he man who greeted Dan in the small reception area did not look much like the profile picture on the firm website. James Tomey had aged and put on weight since the photographer’s visit. He wasn’t fat, but he had the bloated appearance Dan associated with someone who drank too much. It showed mostly in a broad and puffy face accentuated by thick lips and a full mane of blond hair.

Tomey extended a hand. “You O’Leary?”

“I am.” Dan looked up at Tomey. He guessed the attorney was six four.

Tomey shouted down a hallway. “Tara, the conference room open?”

“Garth has it booked.”

“For what?”

“The Unger deposition at one.”

Tomey tugged up a shirtsleeve, revealing an expensive wristwatch. “Put me in there until then.”

“He’s got crap all over the table.”

“Just put me in there.” He rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder who’s working for whom.”

Dan had run a quick Google search on Tomey. The attorney shared the suite with four other defense lawyers: three former public defenders and one prosecutor. The firm specialized in DUI defense, police misconduct, civil rights violations, sexual deviancy and felony, and misdemeanor defense. They offered payment plans and took plastic.

“You want coffee?” Tomey asked, pouring himself a cup.

“No, thanks,” Dan said.

Tomey had the trial lawyers’ swagger. He hadn’t hesitated when Dan called and asked for an hour of his time to discuss Wayne Gerhardt, and now Tomey’s body language as he led Dan into a conference room revealed no concern. In Dan’s experience, attorneys like Tomey were usually more gunslinger than technical practitioner. They shot from the hip, which meant they could be sloppy, and unpredictable.

Tomey pushed a stack of papers down the freshly waxed dark wood table and sat back sipping his coffee. “So, Wayne Gerhardt?”

“I was hoping you could tell me a bit about his case.”

“He’s hired you?”

Dan had not told Tomey he was a lawyer. “I’m just looking into some things for a friend.”

“Who’s that?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge my client’s identity.”

“The sister, right? She never wanted him to plead. He almost didn’t.”

“Why did he?”

Tomey pursed his lips. “Had to. Prosecutor had him by the short hairs.”

“Did Wayne Gerhardt confess?”

“I can’t tell you what he said and didn’t say—that’s a privileged communication—but I’ll tell you he claimed he was innocent. That doesn’t matter though.”

“Why not?”

“Because the evidence is what matters, and they had it in spades. Gerhardt had been at the house that day; his fingerprints were all over the place. He had no alibi. And the neighbor made him. Plus, I didn’t like the jury. You get a feel for these things. They were gonna hang him.”

“He pled after the neighbor testified.”

“Had to. Like I said, she’d made him. Dead certain.”

“She didn’t seem dead certain in her police statement.”

Tomey gave a condescending smile and set down his coffee mug. “Mr. O’Leary, I’ve been doing this a while now, and let me tell you, what the witness says to the police doesn’t mean squat. What matters is what she tells the twelve idiots seated in the idiot box, and what she told them was she saw Gerhardt at the house. You try to impeach a nice old lady like that too much and the jury just ends up disliking you and your client even more.”

Tomey’s condescending tone confirmed he thought Dan was a private investigator, and Dan was content to let him keep thinking it. “I can appreciate that,” Dan said. “What about the DNA evidence? Why not get it tested?”

Tomey showed Dan his palms. “You get the DNA tested and it proves it’s your client, the prosecutor isn’t going to swing a deal. He can’t. He’s got to go for the jugular. What’s he gonna tell the victim’s family if he doesn’t? You see the problem? You guess wrong and you just signed your client’s death certificate, because they’re gonna hang him.”

“And what if the DNA proved it wasn’t Gerhardt?”

“See, this is what the general public doesn’t understand. The DNA was on her clothes. It wasn’t inside her. He drops his seed inside her and it isn’t your guy, now you got something to argue. But the medical examiner’s report said no sex. So even if the DNA hadn’t been a hit, it doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. It just means she picked up DNA from some other guy—a boyfriend or somebody else who’d been in the house. It isn’t definitive. It isn’t exonerating. So you’re gambling. You’re gambling on the death penalty or life without parole versus twenty-five years. Gerhardt was young. With good behavior, time served, maybe he gets out in fifteen.”

“No sex in seventy-two hours?” Dan asked. “So what was your guy’s motivation?”

Tomey shrugged. “Who knows, right?”

“What was the prosecutor’s theory?”

“Didn’t get the chance to rape her because she died.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

“Who?”

“Beth Stinson. You said the DNA could have belonged to a boyfriend. Did she have one?”

“I don’t remember whether she did or didn’t; what I’m saying is you’re gambling with the house’s money you go down that road.”