Vail 01 - The 7th Victim (25 page)
VAIL ARRIVED at the commerce center and parked. She looked in the rearview mirror and tried to fix herself up, but she had to admit, she looked like hell. She still had Robby’s car, no purse, no makeup, and she still had not been home to shower and change.
She took the elevator up to the second floor, punched in her ID code, and wandered down the hallway toward Gifford’s office. It was three times the size of her own cubicle, with a huge picture window view of the surrounding Aquian foliage.
Vail knocked on the open door. Gifford looked up and motioned her in. A phone was stuck to his ear and he was nodding. “I know, but that’s just the way I want it. I don’t care if he thinks he’s the fall guy. . . . You know what? Fine, then he is. Tell him whatever you want to tell him.” He grunted, then hung up.
“If this isn’t a good time—” Vail started.
“No, no. Sit down. Any time’s a good time to meet with one of my agents who’s been—how should I put it . . .
arrested?
Any time’s a good time to sit and chat about how one of my agents beat the living crap out of her husband, landed in jail, and didn’t even bother to call her superior to give him a heads-up. I’ve gotta get a fucking call from the Fairfax County PD. Some grunt lieutenant tells me he’s got some bad news for me.”
arrested?
Any time’s a good time to sit and chat about how one of my agents beat the living crap out of her husband, landed in jail, and didn’t even bother to call her superior to give him a heads-up. I’ve gotta get a fucking call from the Fairfax County PD. Some grunt lieutenant tells me he’s got some bad news for me.”
“Sir, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the embarrassment to you, to the Bureau—”
“You’re supposed to be working on a task force. Dead Eyes, remember him?”
“Sir, I was going to call you when I got out of jail. Things dragged on, and I didn’t get out till almost two this morning. I was on my way to the task force op center to get my car and my purse, and to leave a message on your voice mail. We got texted en route by Paul Bledsoe. There’s another vic.”
Gifford sat back in his leather chair. “Another Dead Eyes vic?”
Vail nodded.
“Shit.” His eyes roamed his desk for a moment before coming to rest again on Vail’s face. “You look like crap.”
“I know, sir. Haven’t been home yet. While at the vic’s house, I got word my son was in the hospital—” She felt the urge to cry again, but fought it back into her throat. Took a deep breath. “His father pushed him down the stairs. He’s in a coma.” She turned away, wiped at the tears beneath her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
She nodded. “I will beat these charges against me, sir.”
He picked up a pen from his desk and stared at it. Vail knew what was coming. The fact he didn’t make eye contact with her made it all the more inevitable.
“I hope you realize that I’m truly sorry about what I have to do. But I’ve got to place you on paid administrative leave, effective immediately. You can keep your creds and gun. But you need to stay away from work. I spoke with OPR a little while ago. They’ll be here at eleven to interview you. Cooperate with them. Remember, they’re on your side in this. Internal review is a formality. At the moment, this is obviously a personal matter. Once they’ve opened their file, they monitor the situation. They’ll only act if the charges stick.”
Vail was looking at the floor. “I understand, sir.”
“Why don’t you go wait in your office, get your desk straightened up. When OPR is ready for you, I’ll let you know.”
She stood from her chair and headed for the door. “Thanks,” she said, without turning to face him. Then she walked out.
twenty-seven
S
traighten up her desk, that was what Gifford had told her to do. But her desk was neat. She looked around her office, wondering just how serious this OPR review would be. She was, after all, arrested for assaulting her ex-husband. How would that play out? She was innocent, but was it merely a matter of giving Gifford an excuse to let her go? Did he want her gone? He was sometimes hard to read. Vail challenged him, sure, but she was damn good at what she did. That counted for a lot, didn’t it? She knew the answer to that was,
not necessarily.
traighten up her desk, that was what Gifford had told her to do. But her desk was neat. She looked around her office, wondering just how serious this OPR review would be. She was, after all, arrested for assaulting her ex-husband. How would that play out? She was innocent, but was it merely a matter of giving Gifford an excuse to let her go? Did he want her gone? He was sometimes hard to read. Vail challenged him, sure, but she was damn good at what she did. That counted for a lot, didn’t it? She knew the answer to that was,
not necessarily.
Vail needed to clear her mind, stop stressing over what might happen. She opened Outlook and downloaded her email, not knowing if they’d allow her to keep accessing her Academy mail while on leave. She paged through the unimportant messages, dashed off a quick reply to a prosecutor on another case that was going to trial, and was about to close down when she saw one that caught her attention. The subject read “It’s in the”—and sent a shiver through her body.
She glanced down at the preview pane, where the text hit her like a brick across the forehead. She opened the message and read:
The hiding place smells like some musty box I once opened when I was looking for his cigarettes. It’s strong and kind of burns my nose. And it’s small and dark, but it’s mine. He doesn’t know I have it, which means he can’t find me here. And if he can’t find me, he can’t hurt me. I can think here, I can breathe here (well, except for the smell) without him yelling. I sit in the darkness, alone with myself, where no one can hurt me. Where he can’t hurt me.But I watch him. I watch everything he does through little holes in the walls. I watch him bring home the whores, I watch what he does to them before dragging them upstairs to his bedroom. Sometimes I even hear what they’re saying, but most of the time I just see. I see what he does.But I really don’t have to see. I already know. I know because he does the same things to me.
Holy shit. He’s communicating with me. Dead Eyes sent me a message. Had there ever been a serial offender who sent the cops an email? A letter, yes, but an email?
Not that she’d ever seen. Emails are inherently easier to trace—
Not that she’d ever seen. Emails are inherently easier to trace—
She looked at the sender’s name: G. G. Condon. She knew that would be a dead end, that it was easy to obtain an email account with fake information. She tried forwarding the message to the lab, but nothing happened. She clicked File/Print, yet the page came out blank.
“What the hell?”
She pressed the PrtScn key to take a “picture” of the screen—everything that was displayed on her computer desktop—and pasted the image into a Word document.
Vail lifted the phone and dialed CART, the Computer Analysis Response Team, and informed the technician, Cynthia Arnot, of what she had. While she was on the line, the email vanished from her inbox.
“It’s gone?” Cynthia asked.
“Gone,” Vail said, furiously scrolling through her Outlook inbox. “Like it was never there. All my other messages are there, but this one just . . . disappeared.”
“Check your Deleted Items folder. Maybe you accidentally deleted it.”
“I didn’t delete it, Cynthia.” Nonetheless, Vail clicked to the folder. “Not there.”
If she’d been able to retain the email, they could’ve gone into the originating server, tracked the routing information, and traced it using digital clues largely unknown or poorly understood by the average computer user. The offender may think he’s smart; the Bureau’s experts were often smarter. But without the message. . . .
“I did get a screen shot of it.”
“Very good, Karen. Send it over, let us take a look at it.”
“I’m not losing my mind. I didn’t delete it. Could it be some kind of virus?”
“Not likely. But there is some interesting stuff out there that can make messages unprintable, make them self-destruct, allow them to spy on your movements and passwords—”
“This isn’t just spyware, Cynthia. I’m working Dead Eyes. I’ve got reason to believe this message was from the offender. This could be huge.”
“We’ll do our best. Meantime, shut it down and unplug the PC. I’ll send someone over to get it, we’ll need to go through the hard drive. Just because a message is deleted doesn’t mean we can’t pull traces of it off the disk. But it’ll take a while.”
Vail glanced at the clock and realized OPR would be arriving soon. “Would it help to tell you we don’t have a while?”
“Nope.”
Vail leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Didn’t think so.”
“OKAY, LISTEN UP,” Bledsoe said as they walked through the door to the op center. “I hope everyone made good use of the hour off, because we’ve got more work to do. More legwork and more brain-work. I know you’re all tired. So am I.” He ripped open a box of Danish and set them on the table in front of him. “Before we get started on the new vic, I want an update on all our loose ends. This thing is threatening to get away from us real fast, and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The detectives and Hancock took their seats. Vail’s chair was conspicuously empty.
“What about Karen?” Sinclair asked.
Bledsoe stood in front of the whiteboard at the short end of the living room. “We go on without her. I’ll brief her later.” He pulled the cap off a marker and wrote “Dental patient lists.”
“Sin, you’re first up.”
“Right. Vic worked for three dentists. I’ve gotten patient lists from each of them and have someone at my office crunching the names. No correlations so far, but they’re not done yet. I had them start with the most recent two years.”
Bledsoe made a couple of notes on the board. “Good. Hernandez, you were doing the employee lists.”
“Still gathering info. But I’ve got a few things I’m working on. Hits on three registered sex offenders. I’m running their sheets and talking to co-workers. I’ve got appointments with the personnel managers to correlate work shifts, days off, days called in sick, and so on.”
“Interviews with victim families, friends, neighbors . . . we’re all doing that. Anybody still have open appointments?”
“I’ve got one parent to follow up with,” Manette said. “Parents are divorced, father’s out of town.”
Bledsoe made some notes on the whiteboard, then recapped the marker. “Ex-cons with facial disfigurements? Who’s got that?”
“Mine,” Sinclair said. “Had thirty-five to choose from. I’ve still got a dozen to get through, but so far it’s a dead end. A few are dead, six or seven are in the slammer again, and the rest had solid alibis.”
“Anything on the massage therapy angle?”
“Nothing,” Sinclair said.
“I got myself a free massage from a major hunk,” Manette said.
“I’m happy for you,” Bledsoe said. “I owe all of you the soil analysis on Sandra Franks’s place. Lab said it was all native to the area, mainly from the vic’s backyard.” He tossed his marker on the desk in front of him. “Make sure Vail gets your VICAP forms so she can correlate all the victimologies. Maybe there’s something in there.”
Manette snorted. “That’d be real helpful, seeing as we got dick right now.”
“Oh,” Bledsoe said. “Something else on Franks. Autopsy and x-rays showed antemortem bruising on her right cheek as well as a broken nose. Appears the UNSUB punched her.”
Robby leaned forward. “That’s new. Maybe something tipped her off and she and the UNSUB got into it. She was into working out, maybe she fought back and landed a good shot. Any defensive wounds?”
Bledsoe consulted a pad in front of him. “No, but the left hand is missing. If she punched him with her left hand, there’s no way to know.” He turned the page. “And she is—
was
lefty.”
was
lefty.”
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