The Professor (23 page)

Monday morning

Mick stood in the break room, staring out the window, thinking the same thing he’d debated in the shower, while he was shaving and during the drive to the office. There was more to Meg’s story. She’d sobbed with a desolation that still shook him. There were pieces he didn’t know about, but he had to stop making assumptions. He dealt in facts. Why was he apparently incapable of doing that in his personal life?

He casually greeted two other agents who wandered in and poured mugs of coffee, but he continued staring out the window, discouraging conversation. He’d made a huge mistake with the rape thing. Thank God, he’d kept his mouth shut about the abuse.

If he wanted a real relationship, Meg had to trust him. This weekend, she’d opened the door a crack. From the incident she’d let slip on Saturday, her childhood had been less than ideal. Abuse was so personal, the results as varied as the individual. The one thing he was sure about in this whole mess was Meg’s strength. Once she trusted someone and opened up, she could come to terms with whatever happened and move on with her life. For reasons he didn’t fully understand, he wanted to be that person.

That surprised him. He knew his personality. He wanted to catch bad guys, uphold justice and all that, but he’d never had a superman complex. He never felt he had to save the world. He felt inexorably entangled with Meg, though, and he hoped he’d wedged his foot far enough into the opening to keep her from slamming the door shut again.

“Morning, Mick.” Frank ambled into the break room. “Good weekend?”

“Interesting.”

Frank poured sugar and cream into his coffee and poked through the box of pastries on the counter. “I shouldn’t eat this junk.” He turned and looked Mick over. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had woman trouble.”

“What?” Mick threw him a startled glance.

“Only a woman can make you brood that way. Who is she?”

“You don’t know her. And everything’s fine.”

Frank slurped his coffee. “Well, whatever it is, get over it. We’ve got the morning report with the cap’n in about two minutes and another session with Dr. Mathews after that.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“At least Mathews knows what he’s doing,” Frank said.

“I don’t think I could take another round with that idiot the Geiger family pulled in.” Mick poured out his cold coffee and turned to face another day.

The conference call included detectives from Greenville, Spartanburg and Newberry. Agents who were helping with the legwork crowded the SLED conference room. Mick suspected all three police department phones were similarly surrounded.

They covered the cars, the photos and the nightclubs. Theories were debated and discarded. Assignments followed. Identifying the suspect held the highest priority. Some of the agents drifted away, ready to begin the search.

Dr. Mathews, the forensic psychologist, joined the call at eleven. “It’s fascinating,” he said. “Let’s start with the tangible—the car. Simply owning it is a peek at this killer’s
alter ego. While he’s driving it, he becomes the man he sees himself being. Not proper and respectable, but recklessly heroic. The James Dean loner women fantasize about, as he fantasizes about the coeds who rejected him when he was a teenager.”

“He’s killing women ’cause he couldn’t get a date?” An incredulous, anonymous voice sounded from the speaker.

“It has more to do with his victim selection than his motivation. Sexual sadists vent deeply rooted urges on carefully chosen targets. You’re familiar with the parental issues.”

“So we’re talking about how he chooses the victims?” The voice sounded like Robbins’s.

“Partially. Consistently, sexual sadists have abnormal relationships with women. He’s lonely, afraid of women, laughed at, rejected. He hates them and dreams about them. Dreams of bringing them down, humiliating them the way he was humiliated. Destroying them. As a result, a sadist will turn to violent rape or necrophilia.”

“Necrophilia?” someone asked.

“Sex with dead bodies.”

That produced shudders around the table. Mick heard a few agents whisper, “Gross.”

“The second consistent for the sadist is the need for power over the sexual object,” Dr. Mathews continued. “He achieves it through violence, restraint and intimidation.”

“Where does the e-mail fit into that?” Frank asked.

“They’re mind games. He sends messages to let the victim know he can walk in and out of her life at will. As often as he wants, he can remind her of his presence. She doesn’t know when he’ll appear or what direction the attack will come from. But she knows it’s coming. He’ll wear her down. Stalk her. Incapacitate her before he moves in for the kill.”

“What about the ones he’s sending Agent O’Shaughnessy?”

“Taunting the police is typical for this type of killer. In earlier times, it was letters. E-mail is so prevalent, it’s not surprising he uses that conduit. Understanding the computer systems well enough to cover his tracks is consistent with the intelligent, loner personality. He’d be drawn to the impersonal method.”

“Can you tell anything about him from the messages?”

“The ones to the victims are consistent with dehumanizing them. Note he refers to the women as ‘property.’ He makes them objects that can’t reject him. Items he can control.”

“And the ones to the police?” The voice was female. Mick thought it might be Ward.

“It could go two ways. He could be trying to co-opt you. It’s part of his fascination with the police. Or it could simply be additional posturing. I think it was Kemper who said at his trial, ‘It was a triumphant-type thing. Like taking the head of a deer or an elk would be to a hunter.’ Our killer is the hunter and the victims are his trophies.”

“He’s used that—the hunter reference,” Mick said.

“He’s overreaching, pushing the military and historical connections. Perhaps he’s drawn to the charisma of the military figure—masculine, aggressive, commanding. He’s seeking to draw those attributes to himself.

“He definitely wants to be important,” the doctor continued. “It’s reflected in his word choice—multi-syllable when a simpler word would suffice. The usage is stiff, however, unlike the natural speech rhythms of someone who actually uses the language that way.”

“Wouldn’t a professor—like maybe a history teacher—use big words and military references?” Anderson asked.

“He may be a professor, but his academic career has likely languished. He feels he isn’t getting the respect he deserves.”

“So this is a way to get attention?” Anderson persisted.

“Possibly, but I think that’s too simple. It’s part of his fantasy world. How he sees himself versus how the outside world views him. Most likely, he appears isolated and socially withdrawn. He lives a secret life and shows the world a mask of contentment, pleasantness and ordinariness.”

“A wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

“I’m not sure it’s that deliberate a choice.”

“It seems like he has issues with attractive people,” someone said. “Like they get unwarranted privileges.”

“He’s right. Studies have proved it. Attractive people are perceived as smarter and nicer. They get preferential treatment.”

“Not all them take advantage of it,” Mick protested. “Plenty of unattractive people get ahead. Look at Ross Perot, Donald Trump.”

“Yes, but it’s telling that he chose
you
, Agent O’Shaughnessy, to receive his messages. It’s personal for him.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely making it personal.” Mick muttered.

“It’s part of the power and control—dominating not just the women, but you. He knows he’s raising the risk level, but it’s enormously thrilling when he succeeds.”

“What do you mean by ‘succeeds’?” he asked.

The psychologist didn’t answer the question. “Are you married, Agent O'Shaughnessy?”

Mick took a quick look around the room. The other agents were watching him. “No.”

“Involved?”

Damn, this is embarrassing.
“I don’t see that this is relevant.”

“It is. You’re an alpha male. He wants to be one.”

“I’m not—”

“You are,” Dr. Mathews interrupted. “In high school, did you date much?”

He shrugged, although the doctor couldn’t see him. “Sure.”

“Pretty girls? The cheerleaders and class president?”

He avoided looking at the other agents. “Well, yeah.”

“Even then, our killer hated you—or someone like you. The one who got the girls. The popular guy.”

“This isn’t about me.” He was starting to get annoyed.

“Indirectly, it is. You represent the adversary in the subject’s private war. He hated the men as much as he hated the women he couldn’t have. The rest of us remember those days. There was the popular crowd and the losers. Most of us were somewhere in between. Insecure. Hormones raging. Add an element of mental
instability, and you have a recipe for a sexual offender.”

High school was a good memory, Mick thought defensively. A group of friends, his father still alive. School was a blur, but he remembered the time outside it. Glorious falls and springs, before the tourists descended. Hot summer days, and hotter nights. Dancing at the Magic Carpet. Drinking beer in the dunes; the fumbling sex that followed.

Had he noticed the guys at the fringe of his group, guys who wanted to be part of it? If he had, he’d dismissed them. A pall of shame abruptly tarnished the memories, and he resented the psychologist for polluting them.

“He knows he’s increasing the risk by engaging you,” Dr. Mathews continued. “But his fantasies control him just as he seeks to control his victims. With the women, he’s all-powerful. But if he can dominate
you
, the reward will be beyond description. He's taunting you already, relishing each small victory. Therefore, I’ll ask the question again. Are you involved with someone?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

Frank didn’t react, but Mick knew he’d get the third degree later.

“She’s at risk,” Dr. Mathews said flatly. “His fantasies are growing now, almost beyond his restraint. In them, he sees his enemy defeated and helpless. He does what victorious warriors have done since the beginning of time. He claims his prize.”

He listened with a numb horror to the danger he might have put Meg in.
The Professor doesn’t know about her,
he thought frantically.
No one knows. She’s a secret.

A secret.
The words drained the blood from his face.
Oh, God, what have I done?

“If the Professor finds out about her, if he finds her, the compulsion to take
your
woman will be overwhelming. It’s more than sexual aggression. It’s a display of masculine power. The only thing that could make it better for him would be if he could somehow rub your nose in it—taunt you, make you watch—while he violates her. He’d have conquered you completely.”

Rage burned inside Mick at the psychologist’s words. To have that sadistic pervert touch Meg would hurt him horribly. An assault would send him on a maniacal rampage of his own.

To be forced to watch, helpless, while it was carried out would destroy him.

Monday afternoon

Mick tuned out the noise from the surrounding desks. He’d already left messages for Meg at her office and the sorority house. Why in the hell didn’t she have a cell phone? He was almost ready to call the Clinton PD and ask them to check on her.

He concentrated on the report in front of him. The Professor case had entered another lull, as he waited for one of a hundred threads to lead somewhere. This morning, the captain had pointedly reminded him he had other cases ongoing. He wanted a status report by the end of the day.

The phone rang and he grabbed it, hoping it was Meg. The static nearly drowned out Detective Ward’s voice. “O’Shaughnessy?” Her cell phone sputtered, then cleared. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, that’s better. What were you saying? Something about a sexual assault?”

“You were right,” she said. “I talked to the Sex Crimes guys here and at the sheriff’s departments about unusual rapes that never got past the initial report. I’ve found one case already and a guy from Simpsonville’s supposed to call me back. A woman called him after reading the
Greenville News
article this weekend. Both cases sound related—bondage and roofies.”

“Any suspects for the one you found?” He set the report aside and moved a pad of paper closer.

“None. All they had was the initial report from the patrol officer who responded at the hospital. The victim didn’t want to report it. Apparently, she was uncooperative.”

“Why?” He scribbled
earlier assault?
on the notepad.

“It could’ve been anything. The system isn’t kind to rape victims. The important thing is, the hospital report’s in the file. The rock was there.”

“It was?” Mick asked. He underlined the words and added
Spartanburg sheriff’s.

“Yeah. It’s our asshole. I’ve already called the victim and she’s agreed to talk to me.”

“I’m in Greenville. Want me to meet you?”

Ward hesitated. “Let me talk to her alone. She’s down on men. She might do better with just me.”

“Okay. Let us know what she says.”

He disconnected, tried Meg again and then returned to the paperwork—anything to drown his concern. He’d finished the report on the prison contraband and was deep into the suspected informant inside the Taylors PD when he sensed Frank’s presence.

“Cap’n called. Said we might have another victim.”

Mick grabbed his jacket as he stood. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll drive.”

Frank flipped on the emergency flasher when they left downtown Greenville and merged onto I-385. Other drivers dropped their gaze to the speedometers and eased into the right-hand lane. Frank ignored them as they swept past the slower vehicles. When they passed the I-85 exchange, Mick asked, “Where are we going?”

“Clinton.”

Clinton; where Meg lived.
His heart skipped a beat before his brain took over.
The odds of that are miniscule. Don’t think it. Don’t connect her to the Professor, even in your thoughts.
“What do we know?”

“Not much. Clinton PD called it in to Headquarters. It has all the right elements. White, college girl, stalking e-mails from a professor. Columbia didn’t say anything else. Just said to get down there.”

He felt the fist of fear ease. “No body?”

Frank shook his head. “This one’s still alive. Sounds like we got lucky, got to his target before he did.”

“Could be another false alarm.” Hundreds of young women, terrified by the murder coverage and the reports of stalking e-mails, had flooded police stations throughout the state with copies of messages.

“Maybe. It could be he’s made a mistake. Didn’t Dr. Mathews say the perv would start screwing up?” Frank frowned. “There must be something for the cap’n to send us down there.”

Mick took an easier breath. No dead woman waited for them. It might even be the break they were looking for.

None of this involved Meg. He’d find her when he finished this—whatever this was—and make her tell him what was going on. Her pain washed over him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing slowly.
Meg, sweetheart. Nothing’s that bad.

“About this woman you’re involved with,” Frank began.

Mick’s eyes popped open. He did not want to discuss Meg with Frank. A chirping noise interrupted them. “Hold on.”

He fished his cell phone out of his pocket, grateful for someone’s timing. He spent the rest of the trip on the phone getting updates from dozens of detectives now sorting through various haystacks. Nothing from the cab driver. He left another message for the cab dispatcher. The calls effectively prevented Frank from asking questions about his new girlfriend.

As he talked, he watched the land flashing past the car window. They cleared the industrial campuses south of Greenville and the sprawling new subdivisions planted in former farmland. An occasional mature tree, spared the developer’s blade, poked its head above the rooflines. The developments looked raw and new, both the oversized McMansions and the cheaply built, starter ranches. Finally, a stretch of woods turned the roadside the rich green of pines. Sumac flamed at the edges, and an occasional hardwood thrust sunward in a miniature clearing, glowing with autumn color. It was only a matter of time before they were strip-mined for more sprawl. The thought did nothing to improve his dark mood.

Frank took the Clinton exit, and fear again nibbled at the edges of Mick’s conscience. It took a firmer bite when his partner swung onto the perimeter road around Douglass College and approached the string of Greek houses on the north side of the campus. A CPD cruiser and a campus security car splashed patterns of blue and red lights over the walls, the trees and the growing crowd outside the apartment building across the street.

This is why doctors don’t operate on their families,
the rational part of Mick’s brain commented.
And why cops don’t get involved with witnesses and victims.
Fear had the rest of him by the throat.

Frank parked behind the Clinton patrol car and climbed out. Mick opened his door, but just sat, staring at the building.

“You coming?”

It couldn’t be Meg. How many women lived in the building? Women he didn’t know. Women he didn’t love.

Frank looked at him, then glanced at the building. “Ah shit, Mick,” he said, as he finally understood the silence. “You want me to handle it?”

“No.” Whatever spell had rendered him motionless faded. “I’ll do it.”

The agents moved past the cluster of students at the door. The sidewalk and lawn were filled with students, buzzing in either frightened or curious tones. The campus security guard recognized the two agents and started in their direction. Sidestepping a group of girls, Mick left Frank to deal with the security guy and bounded up the stairs.

On the second floor, he heard voices from the right and turned in that direction. Meg’s apartment was on that side, at the front of the building. A group of girls, apparently neighbors, some in jeans and one in a bathrobe, peered through Meg’s open door. Over their excited murmurs, he heard Meg’s voice. “You can’t take my computer.”

The words were reasonable, but the note of hysteria under it made him push harder through the crowd.

A uniformed officer faced Meg. In a glance, Mick absorbed the space. Small and neat, a sofa and chairs stood before a bay window. A table separated the sitting area from the kitchenette in the far corner. A desk and shelves were built into the wall on the left. A door near the kitchen probably led to the bedroom. Few personal items were visible—books, candids of friends, but no family photos. A calendar hung above the desk. It was marked with dates for tests and papers, sorority functions and school events. Saturday said simply,
Mick
, he noticed.

“I have to take it in.” The patrolman was becoming irritated with Meg’s obstinacy. “It’s evidence.”

“Of what?” Mick asked calmly.

The patrolman swung around. His name tag said
Tolliver
. “I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to wait downstairs.”

Mick’s attention was on Meg. She looked trapped, standing defiantly in front of her desk. He reached into his jacket, absently noticed the cop’s hand dropping to his pistol and unsnapping the holster. Mick extended his badge case. “Agent O’Shaughnessy, SLED.”

Tolliver’s hand relaxed, but he didn’t move. “We’re taking the computer in for analysis.”

“But I have to have my computer for school,” Meg protested. Her tone provided the subtext: how many times do I have to say this? She glanced at Mick, reddened and looked away.

He walked past the uniform and gently moved Meg aside.

“Mick.” Her voice carried warnings on multiple levels.

“It’s okay.” He opened the lid to the laptop. Even at a distance, he could feel her faint trembling. It rumbled below the surface like the quivers of the old Cooper River Bridge when a truck crossed it. He looked up and met her eyes.
I’ll take care of you,
he telegraphed. “Show me.”

She reached past him, carefully not touching him, and typed in her password. The routine task of restarting the laptop gave her a moment to regain her composure. Behind them, the Clinton officer shifted his weight, clearly not happy with the direction events were taking. From the corner of his eye, he saw the patrolman look from him to
Meg and back again, as he tried to decipher the emotional dynamics roiling the room.

Let me know when you figure it out,
he thought wryly, before returning his attention to Meg.

She opened Outlook and the screen filled with incoming messages. Moving the cursor to the left panel, she clinked on a folder labeled “Weirdo.”

How appropriate
. The text of the latest message filled the screen. Mick read quickly, steeling his face into an expressionless mask.
The language, the tone. Dear God, it was him.

He reached for the mouse. “May I?”

She nodded and one by one, he forwarded the messages to both the computer jockeys in Columbia and his own work e-mail address. “Is this all of them?”

“Yes.”

The last message cleared the outgoing folder. “Done,” he said calmly and closed the program. “I need you to back up your hard drive.”

“You aren’t listening. I have to have my computer for school.”

“I can arrange a loaner.” He’d give her his personal computer if it came to that.

“But…”

“Meg, we need to analyze the messages and establish a chain of custody.”

He watched the muscle in her jaw flex as she struggled to maintain her composure. By focusing on holding on to her computer, she’d managed to avoid the awful truth—the messages were from a killer.

“Back up your computer.” He nudged her to get her moving.

Wordlessly, she connected an external drive and keyed the program. All three silently watched the program complete its task, then Meg turned off the machine.

Mick handed the computer to Tolliver. “Will you wait for me downstairs? We want someone out front tonight. It’s already been cleared with your captain.”

He closed the door on the curious crowd in the hall and returned to Meg. Now that the immediate crisis was past, reaction was setting in. She was losing it. Eyes squeezed shut, jaw locked, she was shaking with the effort not to cry. Her white-knuckled fingers dug into the tender flesh of her upper arms as she fought for control.

Oh, Meg.
He watched helplessly as she curled into herself. He wanted to take her in his arms, but feared she’d break down completely if he did. As he watched, she forced her hands to her sides. Her chin rose and she momentarily met his gaze. “Do you need something else?”

You. For you to trust me. Why didn’t you tell me about this?
None of that was the right thing to say. “How are you doing?”
Oh, jeez, that was even more stupid.

“I’m fine, Detective. Just peachy.” There was a defiant edge to her brittle voice. Her eyes darted to the desk, the door, anywhere but him.

“Agent.”

Her lip trembled. “Don’t, Mick.”

He took a step closer and she retreated to the kitchen.

“Is there anyone you can call? Someone you can stay with tonight?”

She turned her back and fiddled with something on the counter. “I’ll be fine.”

He wanted to take her home with him, but knew better than to even think about it. “You shouldn’t be alone. What about your parents?”

“No.” Her voice was emotionless.

“Have you called them?”

“Why?” Bitterness seeped through.

Why?
He blinked in surprise. “I gather you don’t have a great relationship with your parents. But they have to be worried.” His sister was across the state at the College of Charleston. He’d called her repeatedly, checking up on her.

“They haven’t worried about me in seven years. Why should they start now?”

Her voice was calm, but her hands trembled as she picked up a mug, then abruptly set it back down.

“Why…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” The emotional content in her voice was off the scale again—pain, anger, fear.

Whatever had happened—the things he didn’t know anything about—had destroyed her already fragile relationship with her parents. Another piece of the puzzle dropped into place—her frantic need to push others away before they left her. In a time of need, her parents abandoned her. Anger surged at the people who’d deserted her. No matter what had happened, they were her
parents
. You don’t walk out on family. And whatever the thing was, it was still an open, bleeding wound, not an old scar.

At that moment, he felt completely helpless. Until she let him in, he couldn’t change anything. He couldn’t even give her the emotional support she so desperately needed. He had to say something. He couldn’t just stand there, staring at her. “There’ll be a patrol car outside. You’ll be fine.”

“Oh, yeah, Mick. I’ll be just
fine
.” She twirled around, anger uppermost now.

“Meg.” He took a step closer.

“What am I supposed to do tomorrow,
Detective
? And the day after that? Or the day someone blinks and he makes me disappear? He’s chosen
me
. He’s told me I’m next.”