The Face of Death (26 page)

I put the diary down again as the rising sun greets me through the windows. There’s no way I can finish this before I have to go in to work, but at least I have my answer: No one believed her because he covered his tracks when he killed the Langstroms. No one was after Sarah, they’d probably thought, she was just having a run of really bad luck. This was borne out by the events that followed with her first foster-family.

That being the case, a new question arises: Why had The Stranger decided to come out into the open now?

I ignore all of the other questions, the ones about Sarah and the landscape of her soul; those edges are far too sharp for such a beautiful sunrise.

BOOK TWO

Men Who Eat Children

30

I CURSE THE RAIN AND READY MYSELF FOR THE RUN TO THE
front steps of the Los Angeles FBI building.

Southern California had very little rain and a whole lot of sun for nearly a decade. Mother Nature is making up for lost time with a heavy rainstorm every three days or so. It started in February and it’s been going on for two months now. It’s wearing thin.

Nobody carries an umbrella in Los Angeles, even if they should. I’m no exception. I stuff the copy of Sarah’s diary into my jacket to protect it, grab my purse, and poise my thumb so I can hit the lock button of my key fob on the run.

I open the door and sprint, cursing, cursing, cursing. I’m drenched by the time I arrive.

“Rain got you good, Smoky,” Mitch remarks as I pass through security.

No response beyond a smile or a grimace is expected. Mitch is the head of security for the building, a grizzled ex–military man; fifty-five or so, fit, with hawk eyes and a certain coldness to him.

I drip-dry on the elevator as I head up to the floor my office is on. Other agents ride up with me, looking just as bedraggled. Everyone got drenched; each region has its own piece of stubbornness. This is ours.

The current incarnation of my position is known as NCAVC Coordinator. NCAVC stands for “National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime” and it is headquartered in DC. Every bureau office has someone in charge of being the local “rep” for the NCAVC, a kind of Amway network of death. In sleepier, slower places, one agent covers multiple areas of responsibility, NCAVC Coord being just one of many hungry mouths he or she has to feed.

We’re special here. We get some of the best psychos around, in a volume that justifies a full-time Coordinator In-Charge (me) and a multi-agent team. I have been in charge of my team for almost a decade. I hand-selected everyone; they are the absolute best around, in my not-so-humble opinion.

The FBI is a bureaucracy, so there are always rumbles and rumors about changing the name or the composition of my squad. For now, we are here, and we are generally more than busy.

I head down the hallways, turning right and then left as I continue to drip on the thin, tight-woven gray carpet until I get to the NCAVC Coord offices, known within the building as “Death Central.” I enter and my nose twitches at the smell of coffee.

“Good grief, you’re drenched.”

I give Callie a baleful look. She, of course, is dry and perfect and beautiful. Well, not perfect, maybe. Her eyes are tired. A mix of pain and painkillers? Or just a lack of sleep?

“Coffee ready?” I mumble.

The need for caffeine is great.

“Of course,” Callie says, pretending to be offended. “You’re not dealing with an amateur here.” She indicates the pot. “Freshly brewed. Hand-ground this morning by yours truly.”

I go over and pour myself a cup. I take a sip and shiver in mock-delight.

“You’re my favorite person ever, Callie.”

“Of course I am.”

Alan comes ambling in from the back part of the offices, cup in hand.

“Thought I was your favorite person,” he rumbles.

“You are.”

“You can’t have more than one favorite person,” Callie complains.

I toast her with my cup and smile. “I’m the boss. I can have as many favorite people as I want. I can even have rotating favorite people. Alan on Monday, you on Tuesday, James…okay, James is a stretch. But you get the idea.”

“True enough,” Alan says, toasting me back and returning the smile.

We all share a comfortable silence and sip Callie’s divine coffee. Letting the morning creep through us at a decent pace. It’s not always like this—in fact, it’s rarely so. Many, many mornings the coffee comes in Styrofoam, is far from divine, and is drunk on the run.

“Did everyone get here before me?” I ask. “Geez. I thought I was being an early bird. The conscientious boss and all that.”

“James isn’t here yet,” Alan offers. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Started reading that diary.” He gives me another toast with his cup, a bit sarcastic this time. “Thanks for that.”

“Likewise,” Callie says.

“Then we’re a club,” I reply. I rub my eyes with one hand. “How far did you guys get?”

“I got to the arrival at her second foster home,” Alan says.

“I’m not there, yet,” I say. “Callie?”

“I finished it,” she says.

The door opens and James enters. I nurse a secret satisfaction that he’s as soaked as I am. Later in arriving too. Ha ha.

He doesn’t say anything to anyone. Just marches past us toward his desk.

“Good morning,” Callie calls after him.

“I finished the diary last night,” he calls back.

That’s all he says. No “hello” or “good morning.” James is all business.

“That’s our cue,” I say. “Let’s get to work.”

I’m facing everyone. They’re seated, I’m standing.

“Let’s begin with the diary.” I tell them where I’ve gotten to. “James, you finished it. Fill me in. Anything immediately probative past what I’ve already read?”

He considers this. “Yes and no. She goes into another foster home, and that doesn’t end up well. She has some bad experiences in the group home. Oh, she intimates at one point to having been sexually abused.”

“Great,” I mutter.

“From a purely investigatory standpoint,” James continues, “there are three areas of immediate follow-up based on what she wrote. There’s the original crime scene—the murder of her parents. There’s the cop who took an interest in her. Cathy Jones. Jones disappears later, and Sarah doesn’t know why.”

“Interesting,” Alan notes. “And there is his mention to her of prior victims. The poet, the philosophy student.”

“Okay, that’s good,” I say. “Now let’s talk about motive,” I begin. “Revenge. Does anyone disagree?”

“Makes sense,” Alan says. “‘Pain,’ ‘justice,’ all that. The question is, revenge for what? And why is Sarah in the mix?”

“Sins of the father,” I say.

They all look puzzled. I fill them in on my deductions from last night.

“Interesting,” Callie murmurs. “Something the grandfather did. It’s possible.”

“Let’s examine the overall picture. He stated to Sarah that he is ‘making her over in his own image.’ He calls her his sculpture and gives that sculpture a title:
A Ruined Life
. What does that tell us?”

“If he’s making her into him, that he thinks
his
life was ruined,” Alan replies.

“Right. So he devises a long-term plan, not to kill her, but to destroy her emotionally. That’s pretty severe pathology. It tells us he wasn’t just ignored by Mommy. Something was done that requires devastation of a girl’s life as a response. What are some possibilities?”

“Going off the ‘own image’ concept,” Alan says, “he orphaned her. So he was probably orphaned at an early age himself.”

“Good. What else?”

“I think he was raised in an unsupportive environment,” James says. “He destroyed anyone or anything that vaguely promised to become a support system for Sarah. He isolated her completely.”

“Okay.”

“Additionally,” James continues, “we can surmise that he was the recipient of sexual abuse.”

“Based on?”

“It’s inductive. Orphaned, a lack of emotional support—he fell into the wrong hands. Statistically, that means he was sexually abused. It fits with the sheer ambition of his plan for Sarah. Fits with the need for a plan at all.”

“Callie? Anything to add?” I ask.

Her smile is cryptic. “Yes, but for now I’ll just say I agree. Let’s get to me last.”

I frown at her, she sips her coffee and smiles, unfazed.

“So he was orphaned and abused,” I continue. “The question: Which does he want revenge for, one or both? And why multiple victims?”

“I don’t follow,” Alan says.

“We have Sarah as a living victim, a kind of symbolic recipient of revenge. Fine. If we follow that line of thought, the Kingsleys become incidental. Collateral damage, their bad luck to have fostered Sarah. But we
also
have, per Sarah’s accounts, the poet and the philosophy student. Why were they in the line of fire? And why the difference in MO between them and Vargas?”

Alan shakes his head. “You’ve lost me.”

“Vargas got the same treatment as the Kingsleys,” James explains. “His throat was cut, he was disemboweled. Terrible enough, I guess, but not the most painful way to go. When he talks about the poet and the philosophy student, it’s different. Sounds like their deaths were no fun at all. The same goes for Sam and Linda Langstrom. Nothing quick or painless about that.”

“You’re saying he changes his MO based on what he considers to be the severity of their crime?” Callie asks.

“I’m saying he feels like he’s handing out justice. Within that paradigm, not every offense merits the same punishment.”

Alan nods. “I’ll buy that. Let’s call them primary and secondary victims. Vargas and the Kingsleys would be secondary victims. Sarah and her parents, the poet and the philosopher, they’d be primary victims, deserving the worst he can dish out.”

“Yes,” James replies.

“Except we’re theorizing that Sam and Linda are secondary, in their own way,” Alan muses. “Descended from the
actual
bad guy.”

“Not secondary to
him
, though. It still fits the construct. If Grandfather Langstrom did something to affect The Stranger as a child, and he’s no longer available for justice, then his progeny deserve to suffer by proxy,” James says.

“It would also mean that The Stranger views Granddad’s crimes as particularly bad,” I say.

“You’re basing that on what he’s done with Sarah?” James asks.

“Of course.”

“How do you know the poet and the philosophy student, whoever they are, didn’t have children as well? How do you know there aren’t other Sarahs out there?” he asks.

I pause, considering this pretty unsavory, pretty
terrible
thought. “I guess I don’t. Okay, so we theorize he was orphaned, fell into the wrong hands, and suffered abuse. The scars on his feet support that. Anything else?”

Silence.

“My turn,” Callie says. “I spent a good part of my evening digging through Mr. Vargas’s computer. It’s infested with pornography of every kind, including hardcore kiddie porn. He’s indiscriminate in his perversion. In addition to the kiddie porn I saw scat, bestiality.” She makes a face. “Vomit eating.”

“Okay, we get the idea,” Alan says, looking distressed.

“Sorry. All of that, however, seemed to have been for personal consumption. It supports what we already know: Mr. Vargas was an unpleasant individual. His e-mail wasn’t revelatory either. The video clip, however, was.”

“Video? Of what?” I ask.

She indicates her monitor. “Crowd around and I’ll show you.”

We form a semicircle. The media player has already been invoked. “Ready?” she asks.

“Go ahead,” I reply.

She hits play. A moment of blackness. An ugly rug comes into view.

“I recognize that,” I murmur. “The carpet in Vargas’s apartment.”

The camera jitters and the shot moves up, rolling around like a drunk as the camera is wrestled onto a tripod. It settles down to auto-focus on the same sad bed, the one I’d found Vargas and the girl dead on. A nude girl clambers onto the mattress. She’s too young, only just pubescent. She takes a moment to arrange herself. Gets on her hands and knees. Her wrists are in handcuffs.

“That’s the girl from last night,” I say.

A voice outside the shot murmurs something. I can’t make out the words, but she turns her head up and looks right into the camera lens. Her living face is placid, almost docile. It’s not all that different from her dead face. She has beautiful blue eyes, but they’re as hollow as a drum. Full of nothing.

Jose Vargas comes into view. He’s dressed, wearing blue jeans and a dirty white T-shirt. He looks his age. His back is slightly stooped. He’s unshaven. His face is tired, but his eyes, they’re bright. He’s looking forward to whatever it is he’s about to do.

“Is that a switch in his hand?” Alan asks.

“Yes it is,” Callie replies.

The switch is a thin branch that’s been stripped from a tree. I can see a hint of its green core at one end. Vargas has prepared for corporal punishment the old-fashioned way.

He moves behind the girl. Leans forward, seems to be checking the camera. Nods to himself. He gives the girl a critical eye.

“Ass higher in the air, fucking
puta
,” he barks.

The girl hardly blinks. She wiggles a little, forcing her posterior higher.

“That’s better.” Checks the room again, the camera, again. “That’s good.” A last nod to himself and Vargas gives the camera his full attention. He smiles and it’s an ugly smile, full of brown teeth or the spaces where teeth should be.

“Man needs a dentist,” Alan mutters.

“So, Mr. You Know Who,” Vargas begins. “Hello.
Buenos dias
. It’s your old friend, Jose.” Vargas gestures at the girl. “Some things, I guess, never change.” He spreads his hands to indicate the room. Shrugs. “Other things, they change a lot. Money is not so good these days. All that time in prison, it left me with not many—what do they say?—
job skills
.” Another gap-toothed smile. “But I have skills, yes? You know this. I remember them, the things you taught me when I was younger, in those times that were better. I’ll show you how
much
I remember. Yes?”