Red Tide (Siren Publishing Classic) (5 page)

“Okay, Kenny.”

They said their good-byes and George rejoined the group inside the restricted area.

Kenny climbed back into his car and started it, cranking the air up to maximum. He’d been with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office for five years. Before that, he spent fifteen years in south Florida, the last seven with the Dade/Metro homicide department in Miami. While there, he completed the FBI training course for law enforcement at Quantico. He’d also been the officer in charge of the Tamiami Trail Strangler case, which was brought to a successful prosecution. Kenny left south Florida to get away from the rising crime. Unfortunately, Tampa was slowly but surely beginning to catch up with its southern sister.

The pit of his stomach felt like a lead ice cube, and he sat there for a moment before driving away. He didn’t want this. This was his fourth serial killer, the second such investigation he’d overseen.

He drove to the station and went up to his office, closing the door behind him. Stretching out on the cheap vinyl sofa, he let his eyes wander. On the walls hung several awards for meritorious duty, thank-you letters, a letter from the former governor. There were a few pictures of him with some of his buddies from Metro/Dade, pictures of Taco, his German Shepherd, him on various trips.

He closed his eyes and let his mind wander.

* * * *

“Okay, gentlemen. And lady,” he added for the benefit of Karen Stoffer, who he knew didn’t give a damn about political correctness anyway. “What do we know about this guy?”

Karen spoke up. “Some beige or tan carpet fibers on her shoes, results still pending, possibly a Porsche. The UNSUB’s shoe prints are Bally, indicating money. Tire tracks are Pirelli, expensive, could fit a sports car, possibly a Porsche as well, also indicating money.”

“Good. Is he giving them the dope?”

George consulted his notes. “The lab results on the first two showed they could be from the same source. We’ll have to wait for test results on the new bag.”

“So is he a doper? Or is that his hook, to get them to let their guard down?”

“We haven’t been able to get a lead on the bills yet. He’s probably getting them from secondary sources, maybe businesses. We’re working that angle now,” George said.

The psychiatrist, Alex Bates, spoke up. “He’s methodical, careful, leaves little in the way of physical evidence. This indicates he plans his moves. He isn’t overcome by bloodlust. He probably appears to be a normal person.”

“He likes boiled peanuts,” George added.

Kenny nodded. “Yes, found shells by Denise Stanley, and the last two victims had them in their stomachs, as well as shells at the location. Autopsy will probably show Stanley ate some, too.” He thought for a moment. “What would that tend to indicate?”

“We’re looking for Jimmy Carter?” George joked.

The comic relief was welcomed. Even Kenny cracked a smile.

“Funny, George.” Kenny chuckled. “But seriously, folks, what would it indicate?”

He received confused looks from around the table, so he continued. “Possibly a native Southerner? If so, that may say something for his demeanor. If he is a native Southerner, possibly from this area? We know he’s methodical, so picking his dump sites might go along with that, which might indicate a local familiarity with the region.”

Karen added, “He’s obviously not a slob. The Ballys, the care he took to leave no evidence on her.”

“Well, that’s not entirely accurate,” he said. “Peanut shells, the baggie of coke, the hundred, tracks.” He paused. “Are we seeing any patterns to this yet?”

“Checked lunar, zodiac, numbers, nothing, nothing, nothing. Random dump patterns, different types of places,” Karen recited from her notes.

“Dump sites?” Kenny asked, already knowing the answer, but wanting the entire group to participate in the brainstorming session.

“Deserted, but easily accessible. They were places he probably scouted out ahead of time. They aren’t easily seen from the road.”

He paced up and down the room, slowly circling the table, occasionally making notes on the whiteboard as he passed. Intense in his concentration, he tapped the marker against the palm of his left hand while he walked. “What do we know about the victims?”

Another detective spoke up. “All prostitutes, all users, no particular physical resemblance.”

Kenny paused to write on the board, then continued around the table. “Now, the million-dollar question is why is this SOB doing it?”

“Fun?” someone offered.

Alex Bates spoke up again. “Too methodical, but it is for pleasure. He doesn’t maul them. Forensics show he seems to kill them during sex. This leads me to conclude that it’s sexual gratification he’s after.”

Kenny looked at him. “So our boy literally gets off on killing them?”

“Correct. I mean, he might be turning this into a sort of game. That’s why he doesn’t care about the peanut shells and prints on the baggies and bills. We’ve only gotten partials off them. But he always takes the condoms. He’s smart enough to know DNA evidence would send him to Ole Sparky.”

“They don’t use Sparky anymore,” someone quipped. “They get a needle in their arm now.”

“I know,” someone else added. “What a shame.”

“Wonderful,” Kenny said sarcastically, but added it to his ever-growing list. “Physical traits?”

Dr. Paul Drucker, the ME, went next. “Well, like Alex said, there’s no semen, apparently he’s still using a condom. We did find a few pubic hairs that indicate a dark blond, meaning white male.”

“Typical.” Kenny wrote on the board. “Besides, it fits the victim profile.”

Drucker continued. “He kills them at the dump sites. No physical evidence to support him transporting them post mortem.”

“Okay,” Kenny wrote again. “He’s intelligent and methodical. Not a hothead. He bides his time. Am I right, Alex?”

The psychiatrist nodded in agreement. “I’d say so.”

“And he’s probably in pretty good physical shape?”

Drucker checked his notes again. “He totally overpowered his victims. No ligature marks on the hands or feet. Strangulation in all three cases, bare hands by the looks of the bruises, and he’s got big hands. The victims weren’t marked up, no extraneous sadism or brutality.” He looked up. “Aside from the killing itself, of course.”

Kenny added to his list. “Okay, George. What about those other cases FDLE came up with?”

George thumbed through a few pages of notes until he found what he was looking for. “You’re not going to like this. The ones in Palm Beach and Tally are definitely our guy. However, they came up with two other probables. One in Miami, and one on the Tamiami Trail in Naples. We’re still waiting for a response from the ViCAP inquiry.”

Kenny capped the marker and tossed it on the table. “I want autopsy, lab reports, and the ViCAP profile as soon as they come in. That’s all for now.” The rest of the group gathered their papers and filed out.

Finally alone, Kenny slumped in his chair and swiveled around to stare at the board and the notes he’d jotted down.

“Who are you?” he muttered.

He backed his car out of the garage that sunny Saturday afternoon and examined it, studying it with a practiced eye. Just a tiny scratch on the hood. A little rubbing compound would easily take care of that. The car’s interior looked spotless. With the exception of a few splotches of road grime, the exterior was the same.

This was part of his post-hunt ritual. He pulled the floor mats out and put them to the side, then went over every inch of the interior with his giant Craftsman shop vac. When he’d cleaned it to his satisfaction, he took a spray bottle of cleaner and several soft, white rags, and went over all the surfaces that could pick up fingerprints. This done, he put the vacuum away and uncoiled the hose to wash the car, starting with the floor mats.

Cleaning the car was a precise ritual. It required painstaking attention to detail, but he had done it so many times that he had his method down pat, allowing his mind to drift.

It was one of the few occasions he really allowed himself to delve into the past.

During his reminiscing, he washed every inch of the car’s surface, including the mag wheels and sidewalls. He took a chamois and removed the water spots before buffing out the small scratch. Then he polished the entire car. The process took several hours, but when finished, the car looked showroom-new. Smiling at his work, he drove the car back into his tidy garage, closing the door behind him.

No, the police would have to build quite a case against him. With the first two or three victims, he’d been young and stupid and didn’t wear a condom. As crime investigation became more sophisticated, he decided it was the prudent thing to do.

He walked through his spotless house, into the den, and turned his computer on. It wasn’t his hobby he was concerned about the police discovering, but the web at his fingertips. He had a shipment due into Hernando Beach, but the boat had been out of contact for over twenty-four hours. Just one of many, he checked on the progress of the others, via a mainframe on Grand Cayman, where all the information was routed for him.

Before the computer, his “business” was large, but it was difficult to keep track of everything. With computers, his organization grew by leaps and bounds, allowing him to easily keep track of all his holdings. He even went to the trouble of having an elaborate redundant backup system installed, one designed to his specifications. Easy to use and virtually foolproof, but with state-of-the-art encryption, and he could access it from anywhere. He kept none of this data on the one at the office. That was far too risky. He had a network program which allowed him access to his home computer from anywhere. He also incorporated a keystroke-capture program in case he ever suspected someone of tampering with the machines. Just in case, he had a nuclear option, a software script that would wipe and rewrite his home hard drive to prevent detection from law enforcement.

He sat back and sighed. Something was wrong with the shipment, and he hoped it wasn’t what he suspected. His regular captain was in the hospital with a severe gall bladder attack, so he’d been forced to let the mate take the cruiser up the coast alone. Unfortunately, the mate had little experience navigating the shallow, rocky Intracoastal Waterway along the Gulf. At his last check-in, he reported that near Sanibel Island, he drifted off course out of a channel and hit bottom, damaging the props. The boat would have to be hauled and inspected for damage not only to the props, but the shafts as well.

Oh well.
A boat is a hole in the water you throw money into.

He realized he hadn’t made his journal entry yet. He opened up the word processor program. He liked to keep track of his hobby.

He never revisited any of the sites. That would be stupid, and it wasn’t something that interested him, anyway. He found pleasure in the hunt, followed by the kill itself, the moment, the final act. Once completed, it became a thing of the past, holding no meaning for him. He didn’t even follow the police investigations other than what he read in the paper.

Except for his journal.

With his journal entry completed, he saved it and ran a system backup before shutting the computer down. He got out of his chair and stretched. He was supposed to meet Jenna in a couple of hours and had to get cleaned up.

The boat rocked slightly in the calm water as Mitch splashed in. Ed handed her speargun and stringer over the side. The men watched her descend and swim for the anchor line. Ed glanced at his two friends. “Might as well go ahead and drown some bait. She may be down there a while.”

Jack reached for his pole. “So, Ed. When are you and Mitch going to become an item?”

Ed, concentrating on Mitch’s bubbles, didn’t hear Jack’s comment. “What was that?”

Ron laughed. “You and Mitch. She’s a beautiful woman, she’s intelligent, and she’s right in front of your nose.”

Ed turned to the two lawyers. “You left out that she’s also married.”

Mindful of his promise, Ron shook his head. “Details, details. She’s only married according to the State of Florida. How long’s it been since she’s lived with John? Three years?”

“Three and a half,” Ed corrected.

“Then there you go.” Jack’s bearded face lit with glee. “Hey, you have to be thinking about it if you’re keeping track.”

Ed glanced away long enough to get a fix on Mitch’s bubbles, then turned back to his friends. “If she was interested in me, she’d tell me. I’m not going to spoil a good friendship.”

Jack scratched his head. “Ed, let me tell you something. If you don’t make the first move, you’re going to waste a lot of time.”

“I don’t need a lecture on my love life.”

“
What
love life?” the other two men quipped.

Ed frowned at them. “I sometimes think the two of you have made getting Mitch and me married your sacred mission. Why don’t the two of you try to put some fish in the cooler? You know damn well you’ll never live it down if she comes up with more fish on her stringer than you catch.”

“C’mon, Jack,” Ron said. “He’s right about Mitch. She’ll never let you live it down after the way you shot off your mouth this morning.”