Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) (20 page)

“That would not be good,” Chandler said. “Nothing could stop him from gaining entry or access.”

Vail considered that. “Nothing’s stopped him so far.”

They stayed at the scene until they had gotten everything they could, then Chandler made sure he had their contact information. “I’ll get you what I can, as soon as I can.”

Vail thanked him and headed out to her car. Fonzarella joined her a few feet from the curb. “You gonna be able to work with me on this?”

What am I missing here? It’s my case.
“Of course,” she said.

“Good. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning. We’re gonna catch this bastard. Just a matter of time.” He winked at her, then turned and walked toward his sedan.

THAT EVENING, WHEN Vail got home, Jonathan was still awake. She played with him, read him a bedtime story, and put him in his crib. Deacon was asleep on the couch when she walked back downstairs.

“Hey, sleepyhead. If you’re that tired, why don’t you get into bed? You’re going to wake up with a backache again.”

He pushed himself up and then sat staring at her. His hair was disheveled and he hadn’t shaved this morning.

“You feeling okay?”

“Not really.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Just not … happy, I guess.”

Vail sat down beside him. “With me?”

“No. It’s … I don’t know.”

She examined his face. “Did you go to work today?”

“I took a sick day.”

“That’s the third one you took this month. Aren’t you worried they’re going to—”

“I don’t want to discuss it, okay?” He rose from the couch.

“Keep your voice down. I don’t want you waking the baby.”

Deacon shook his head, then headed toward the stairs. “Whatever.”

Vail started after him. “Maybe you should go see someone, figure out what’s bothering you.”

“It’s just stress. I’ll be fine.”

Vail watched him climb the steps, shoulders slumped, shuffling heavily up the stairs. “I’m worried about you.”

Deacon kept moving. He did not answer, did not stop.

31

>MANHATTAN SOUTH HOMICIDE SQUAD

Tuesday, February 23, 1999

Vail sat down at her desk and slid her chair toward it. In the center of the blotter was Special Agent Mark Safarik’s thick blue business card, crisply embossed with a gold FBI seal over the words “Profiling and Behavioral Analysis Unit.” She ran her fingers over the ridges. It felt expensive, prestigious.

She lifted the phone, hesitated, then dialed. As it rang, she wondered what Fonzarella would say about profiling. Almost immediately, she realized that she did not care what he thought.

“Mark Safarik.”

“Agent Safarik, this is Karen Vail, with the NYPD. We met at the—”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember. How’s your case coming along? Did you find that first victim?”

“Not yet. But I wanted to submit my case to your unit. How do I do that? Do I have to fill out forms, like VICAP?”

“Did you get anything off VICAP?”

“Nothing came up.”

“The database is still incomplete, so that doesn’t necessarily mean any-thing. As to submitting a case, it’s a pretty informal process. If a law enforcement agency or even the district attorney prosecuting the case wants help, they can call us directly and speak with an agent. If the agent thinks it’s something we can help with, he’ll prepare a communication explaining the contact and the reason we should assist. He then sets a lead that the case be opened and assigned. Internally, we call it ‘O and A’d.’

“The requesting detective can also send a letter directly to the PBAU for help or he can contact the local FBI office. He’d then be put in touch with the NCAVC coordinator—the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime—and he or she would make the request.”

“Let’s keep it simple. Consider this call me contacting you directly.”

“Right. So I’ll write it up to be O and A’d and give it to my supervisor for approval. He usually approves it. Just send me a written request on letterhead so we have it formalized in the file. A lot of these cases go to court, assuming we catch the offender, and we want to have all the T’s crossed. We don’t want these guys getting off on a technicality or have the case be subject to challenge.”

“I’ll get your letter. Let’s do this.”

“One other little detail. I’ve got the western region, but the other agent who spoke to your class, Art Rooney, he’s got the east. You want me to leave him a message? He’s in Germany teaching a section on behavioral analysis at a homicide conference.”

“Sure, that’d be great.”

“Have you ever been here? To the academy?”

“Always wanted to, but no.”

“You’re not that far. You have time next week? Come by, I’ll take you around.”

Vail pulled out her calendar and flipped a few pages. She scheduled Monday around two o’clock, thanked Safarik, then headed over to Fonzarella’s desk to check in with him. But she would not mention her trip to the profiling unit. At this point, there was no reason for him to know.

VAIL GOT OFF I-95 at exit 148 and entered the FBI side of Quantico marine base. She followed Agent Safarik’s directions and turned left, past a large brown brick wall with metal lettering that read, FBI Academy. It had rusted a bit and bled down onto the stone facing beneath it, but in her eyes it did not diminish its prominence.

She parked in the lot by Jefferson Hall and entered the building, then walked up to an enormous maple veneer administrative desk and faced a prominent red stop sign: “100% ID CHECK. All Visitors Must Sign In.” As Vail presented her identification, she examined the sizable FBI seal etched in a glass pane along the back wall.

“Detective Vail’s with me.”

She turned and saw Agent Safarik standing there, handing something to the woman behind the counter. After she had her visitor’s tag, he led Vail through the glass-enclosed corridors that connected the various buildings on the campus. He took her to the armory, indoor shooting range, cavernous gymnasium, and Olympic-size pool.

“We do a lot of training exercises in there,” Safarik said as they stood in the entryway on a level overlooking the water. “New agents have to meet certain basic swimming requirements, but our hostage rescue team has to be proficient in drown-proofing techniques and all kinds of blindfolded recovery exercises. Rigorous stuff.”

They ended in the high-ceilinged café, where Vail grabbed a sandwich and a banana and they sat down at a table near a group of new agents, who were sporting red rubber handgun mock-ups in their holsters.

“So tell me about your case,” Safarik said as he grabbed a handful of trail mix.

She described the victims and gave their years of death, and then jumped right to the drawings on their necks.

“I haven’t been able to figure that out,” Vail said. “There’s no point to it.”

“But there is. First of all, he doesn’t have to do it, right? I mean, his goal is to kill the woman—and to enjoy doing it. So if we look at the diagram he draws, it’s not to kill her, right?”

“Right.”

“The other concern of the UNSUB is to avoid getting caught. Drawing on the body obviously doesn’t help him there, either. So if it doesn’t serve his two primary purposes of killing her or evading law enforcement, he’s doing it for some other reason.”

“I sense that you’re going to tell me what that reason is.”

Safarik chuckled. “I am. It’s pretty simple, actually. It’s something he enjoys doing. And it’s arrogance, to put him in a different category above other killers. He’s differentiating himself, drawing attention to himself, taking on more risk. It’s like a dog pissing on his territory, or an artist taking credit for his painting by signing his name. And he wants all his vics to be connected in some way so that he gets credit. A guy like this, he would freak out if someone came forward and tried to take credit for one of
his
kills.”

Vail stopped chewing. “Wait, so if that’s the case, why couldn’t we plant a story in the media saying that someone walked into a precinct and confessed to the murders? And that the police are questioning him and that an arrest appears imminent? We’d decline comment because it’s an active investigation. Wouldn’t that piss him off? He may call in and say, ‘No, it wasn’t him, it was me!’”

“Oh, it would piss him off all right. I’m not sure it’d make him come forward and confess, but it could make him kill again. If it sets him off, he might kill just to show you that while you have this other guy in custody, another murder’s happened.”

“Or he could contact me directly, a letter or a phone call, to let me know we have the wrong guy.”

“Sure. As long as you understand the risks,” Safarik said. He grabbed another handful of nuts. “He’d get over his rage and then enjoy showing you you’re wrong. I use the term ‘enjoy’ loosely because psychopaths don’t feel emotions like you and I do.”

“How do you know he’s a psychopath?”

“I don’t. I don’t know enough about the case to make an assessment. But a very high percentage of serial killers are psychopaths.”

“And crazy,” she said with a laugh.

“Not crazy. Not insane. They know what they’re doing and they know it’s wrong. And they know it’s against the law. They just don’t care. But they are definitely in their right mind.”

“It’s just not the ‘right mind’ for a civilized society.”

“Exactly.” He checked his outsize watch. “Why don’t we head over to the profiling unit? Art Rooney should be back in the office by now. You can hand him your file personally. And I’ll put together some research articles to take with you.”

VAIL FOLLOWED SAFARIK’S Bureau car—or “G ride,” as he called it—down I-95 to the Aquia Commerce Center, about fifteen minutes away.

As they climbed the steps to the second floor, Safarik said, “We used to be holed away in the subbasement of the academy, next to the BSU—the Behavioral Science Unit. No windows, low ceilings, cinderblock walls. It was a bunker. We used to say we worked in a place that was ten times deeper than dead people.”

“Kind of fitting, I guess, considering the work.”

“They realized we needed more room—and some sunlight—so a couple of years ago they moved us here. But I kind of liked the old place. It put me in the mood. It was grim, spooky. Don’t get me wrong—I like my new office—but the subbasement had … I don’t know,
character
.”

They were buzzed in the main door and headed down the corridor. He stopped behind a man in a gray suit with salt-and-pepper hair. “Tom. I want to introduce you to a detective out of New York. Karen Vail. Karen, this is Thomas Gifford, the new ASAC—assistant special in charge—of the PBAU.”

Gifford looked her over, then shook her hand. “Detective.” He glanced at Safarik. “I thought I assigned this case to Rooney.”

“Yeah—I was just showing Karen around the academy.”

“Rooney could’ve done that. I want you to help Phoenix PD get some traction on the poisoner case.”

“Just about done with my report. Headed back to my office right now.”

Gifford frowned, then gave Vail a nod. “Detective. Good luck with your case.”

VAIL MET WITH Rooney, and when she handed over the case file, he invited her into his office. He had a window overlooking a wooded area between the two office buildings on the Aquia complex, the miniblinds tilted down to showcase the greenery.

He settled his lean frame into the high-backed ergonomic chair and motioned her to the guest seat on the opposite side of his desk. His southern accent and crew cut reminded her of the early Apollo astronauts she had studied in school.

“My specialty is arson and bombing, so I’m not too sure why I landed this case. But give me the broad strokes and we’ll go from there. And I’ll keep Safarik in the loop to make sure I’m tracking the right way.”

“That’d be great.”

Rooney shrugged. “Mark and I pick each other’s brains all the time. Not a problem.”

Vail spent the next few minutes outlining the major points of each murder and then got to a question that had been bugging her.

“I can’t figure out why the second crime scene was different from the others. Why a male, and why a chair instead of the bed?”

Rooney rocked back a bit as he considered her question. “Variation in a series of crimes could be because of the high degree of impulsivity of the offender. That said, the selection of male versus female could be because the male was special to the offender in some way. He might’ve had a personal connection, and, obviously, not a positive one.”

“He was a Mafia capo. I’m sure a lot of people would’ve liked to drive a piece of glass through his carotid.”

Rooney chuckled. “Then that might not be something that’s going to help you solve this case. But differences in victim selection could also just boil down to the killer needing variation. Psychopaths get bored. It’s part of who they are, so they’ll vary their crimes just to keep it interesting. That’s assuming he’s a psychopath. Do you have doubts that this vic is from the same offender?”

“No—none at all.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind as I take a look at the case.”

They chatted a bit more, then Vail thanked him. “I’ve gotta get on the road or the traffic’s gonna kill me.”

“You headed home or are you staying overnight?”

“Home. Hopefully I’ll get to see my baby before he goes down for the night.”

And then there’s my husband. If only I could figure out what’s going on with him.

32

>MANHATTAN SOUTH HOMICIDE SQUAD

Wednesday, February 24, 1999

Vail had an email from Art Rooney waiting in her inbox when she sat down at her desk. She replied, then saw another message from the police commissioner’s office outlining the issues facing them with the pending turnover to the year 2000 and what the Y2K issue meant in terms of computer programming and their internal systems. It had been an ongoing effort, since there was no clear opinion among the experts on how widespread or damaging the problem would be when the calendar turned to 2000—or even if there would be a problem at all.

And given the NYPD’s spotty record in launching technology initiatives, this is going to be interesting.

As she finished reading the email, Antonio Fonzarella passed her desk.

“Oh,” Vail said. “I need a few minutes of your time.”

“On our case?” he asked, continuing on, thumbing through a couple of sizable envelopes and not bothering to look at her.

“Yeah. I submitted it to the FBI’s Profiling and Behavioral Analysis Unit and wanted to share some of what I learned.”

Fonzarella stopped walking and turned, advancing toward her, his face crumpled into an angry scowl. “You did what?”

Vail swiveled around in her chair. “I was intrigued by their presentation and I think we need help. It was assigned to one of the profilers who—”

“That wasn’t your call to make.”

Vail tilted her head. “What are you talking about? This is my case.”

“News flash, rookie. The chief of detectives runs the show. Everything gets run past him and he gives us thumbs up or down.”

Jesus, talk about micromanaging.

“You, me, and anyone else who’s involved in this case, we’re just the soldiers. The case isn’t ‘yours’ to manage anymore. On a minute-by-minute basis, the lead’s shared by both of us. We need something, we call the chief. But since you’re green behind the ears, the chief’s given me the nod to be his liaison. And what all that means, sweetie, is that I’m calling the shots.”

Speaking of shots, I’ve got sixteen rounds in my Glock with your name on them. Asshole.

“Capisce?”

Vail swiveled her chair back toward her desk. “I don’t speak Italian.”

“Then here’s the translation for you: call your buddies at the Bureau and tell ’em thanks but no thanks, that you had no authorization to make the request and that if we need their help, it’ll come from me or the chief of detectives.”

“I’m not your secretary.” Vail grabbed a piece of scrap paper and wrote down the phone number. “But here you go,
Fonzie
. You can call them yourself. I’m telling you, though, I think they can help. They’ve
already
helped. If you can’t see past your ego to realize that we don’t know it all, then I’ve got a lot more on my plate than I thought.”

He crumpled the paper and tossed it onto her desk. “Here’s one thing I’m sure of.
You
don’t know it all. Don’t speak for me. Now make that damn call and tell your Fed buddies to stand down. I don’t need their help.”