Vail 01 - The 7th Victim (32 page)
Vail considered this before speaking. “Well, only one of the VICAP cases is still unsolved, and that’s in Vegas. Way out of this guy’s geographic range. Besides, other than the writing, the ritual behavior is very different.” She handed him back the report. “Not only does this tell us that none of these other cases are related to Dead Eyes, I think we can reasonably assume that Marci Evers is, in fact, Dead Eyes’s first vic.” Establishing the first victim of a serial killer often provided important clues because the offender was not as sophisticated when he started killing, and thus was more likely to have made mistakes.
“You’ll be getting a call from Kim Rossmo,” Vail said. “I sent him the case, asked him to work up a geographic profile for us.”
Del Monaco nodded. “I’ll look for it.”
Vail stood and glanced at Gifford. “Thanks for hearing me out.”
“Use the time off wisely, Karen. Clear your head of Dead Eyes, even if it’s only for a few days. Get your house in order, and then get your ass back in here. We sure could use you.”
Vail forced a half-smile, then walked out. She wanted to think Gifford was being genuine, but she could never be sure with him. She took one last peek at her empty office, then headed to the elevator.
thirty-five
A
light drizzle fell as Vail showed her credentials then drove through the checkpoint leading to the FBI Academy. Gifford’s idea of getting Dead Eyes out of her thoughts for a while had merits. Besides, it would allow her some time to focus on the other mystery in her life, the identity of her biological mother.
light drizzle fell as Vail showed her credentials then drove through the checkpoint leading to the FBI Academy. Gifford’s idea of getting Dead Eyes out of her thoughts for a while had merits. Besides, it would allow her some time to focus on the other mystery in her life, the identity of her biological mother.
On the way out of the commerce center, she had given the front desk receptionist the photo of Emma and Nellie, and asked her to place it in intra-agency mail for immediate shipping to a buddy of Vail’s, Tim Meadows, at the FBI lab.
Once in the car, she had called Meadows to explain the package he would be receiving. “I need a huge favor, Tim. I want a computerized aging of the woman on the right. It’s personal, not for a case.”
“That’s bigger than a huge favor. We’re not supposed to—”
“I know, Tim. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. The woman is my mother. I need to find her.”
There was a few seconds of silence. Vail figured Meadows was mulling over her request. “Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll do it, but it’ll have to wait till eight o’clock, when I clock out. At least if I get caught I won’t be doing it on taxpayer time.”
She thanked him, then left a voice mail message for Bledsoe, relaying and explaining the VICAP findings so he could share them with the task force. She told him she would call him soon.
Vail chose a spot in the main parking lot and made her way toward the administration building. The Academy was laid out like a campus, with multistory earth-toned structures connected by nearly identical windowed corridors, or tubes. If you weren’t careful, you could find yourself wandering down one of the hallways without the slightest hint of where you were. Directory maps, mounted on the walls and lettered in white against a milk chocolate background, provided three-dimensional renditions of the campus. Labeled plaques above each map used oversized arrows to point you in the proper direction. The directories were especially helpful to senior law enforcement supervisors who attended the eleven-week National Academy certification program to improve their management, administrative, and investigative abilities. Without the maps, or a personal guide to take them through the labyrinthine hallways, the attendees might never find their way to class.
Vail walked into the administration building, signed in at the receptionist desk, and passed the x-ray machine en route to the glass doors. With the darkness outside and the windowed corridors well lit, she felt like a rodent on display in a maze.
She walked into the library’s rotunda and looked up at the second and third stories, marveling at the beauty of the large room. The architects who created the Academy were not typical government designers. This complex was functional, but like a high-end home it had a majestic flair, a feeling of grandeur and self-importance.
She sat down at one of the computers and logged onto the system. Huddling over the keyboard, she organized the information in her mind. Emma’s maiden name was Irwin, and she had been born in Brooklyn. While Vail didn’t know anything about Nellie Irwin, she made the initial assumption she had also been born in New York. If her searches came up empty, she could then widen the parameters.
She curled some hair behind her right ear, then attacked the keyboard. Like a fisherman, she would first troll the waters where information would be most likely to yield results: birth and death records, then real estate holdings, criminal databases, and so on until she got a tug at her line . . . something that would make her stop the boat and weigh anchor.
The next three hours passed without thought of food. People came and went, the overcast darkness had dissipated into a rural star-lit sky, and her stomach finally let her know it was beyond late. She made her way into the closed dining hall, picked out a ready-made turkey sandwich, and devoured it in a matter of minutes. She had been checking her cell throughout the evening, hoping it would bring news of Jonathan’s improvement.
But like a criminal facing a murder charge, the BlackBerry remained silent.
Vail returned to the library and reviewed her notes. She had located Nellie Irwin’s place and date of birth: Rutland Road in Brooklyn, February 16, 1947. She did not have a criminal record, but had worked two jobs, from 1964 through 1967. She worked one week into 1968.
Vail had been searching by social security number, so even if she had gotten married, she still would have been able to trace her. But there was nothing . . . not even a tax return had been filed. She widened her search to the entire United States, then waited as the computer sifted through records.
As she reached for her cell phone to dial in to the hospital, the vibration of a text message startled her.
Jonathan—
Jonathan—
She pulled the device from her belt and looked at the display. Not the hospital. A number in DC. Headquarters. Tim Meadows.
AT 9:45 P.M., the drive from Quantico to the Hoover Building took forty-five minutes. She was checked against a clipboarded list of expected guests and given clearance by the FBI Police sentry standing at the mouth to the underground garage. She parked and continued up the elevator to the lab, where all was quiet except for the plucking of Andreas Vollenweider’s New Age electracoustic harp. She followed the music to a back room lit with subdued fluorescents, where Tim Meadows sat at a twenty-four-inch flat panel screen, moving his mouse across an image.
“Don’t look,” he shouted at Vail as she neared.
“What, this is a surprise?”
“I would think so,” he said.
She glanced around the room. She had only been in the back room once, about three years ago. They’d added some equipment since then, but it was nevertheless the same: a techie’s dream. Floor to ceiling electronics were mounted in steel racks that resembled bookshelves. Wires and cables snaked up and down, side to side, feeding one device and sucking from another. Reel-to-reel tape decks stood beside TV screens, VCRs, DVD players and burners; stacks of VHS tapes and jewel cases, labeled with case numbers and dates, littered the Formica desk that sat like an audience inside a three-sided stage, facing the digital and analog devices . . . the performers who put on the show.
Vail remained ten feet behind Meadows, who had angled his body to block the screen. Her eye caught an LED clock that hung on the wall above Meadows’s head: it was 10:40 P.M. but she felt wide awake, as if she had just gotten out of the shower.
“I really appreciate you doing this, Tim. I owe you.”
“Yes, you do. How ’bout dinner at McCormick & Schmick’s?”
“Whoa, that’ll place a strain on the wallet. This photo that good?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He struck a couple keys, then said, “Okay, come on over.” Onscreen was the original photo Vail had sent to Meadows. Seeing it again—seeing Emma—sent a pang of emotion coursing through her gut. In that split second, she felt sympathy, anger, frustration, love. And distance.
“Okee dokie. That’s the original. Now, you didn’t give me any parameters to work from, that being what year the photo was taken, so I had to do a little extra work.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Not a problem. Consider it the appetizer. How about clams on the half-shell?”
“How about I’ve got a kid to clothe and feed?”
Meadows winked at her. “But they’re soooo good.”
“How would you know?”
“Read a review.” He indicated the screen, zoomed in on the photo. “I determined, through a little chemical analysis of the paper and the approximate age of the automobile fender in the background, that this was taken around 1959 or ’60.”
Vail looked up at the ceiling and did the math. “That’s probably about right.”
“Thought so.” A self-satisfied smile thinned his lips. “So, working on that assumption, I first enlarged your mother’s face to this,” he said, then clicked the mouse. “Then I began aging it. Here’s about age twenty.” The computer morphed the facial features and a mature woman stared back at her. “Then, if I keep going, we can see her age through the years.” He struck another series of keys and the image subtly shifted, changed, evolved.
“What a horrible thing to see. Bad enough watching the aging process in the mirror. At least it happens gradually. This thing makes it happen in a matter of seconds.”
He looked at her. “Happens to all of us. Wrinkle here, sagging there, some age spots thrown in for flavor.”
She frowned. “See this one?” Her finger found the exact spot on her cheek without having to look in a mirror. “This isn’t flavor, Tim. It’s aggravation.”
The computer beeped and they turned to look at the screen. “Ah, very good. There she is. That’s your mother, aged to about sixty.”
Vail stared at the screen. She immediately recognized the face. “Holy shit. . . .” She pried her eyes away and rested them on Meadows, who was smiling at her.
She swallowed hard. Her eyes were pulled back to the image as if drawn by an unseen force. “Can you make a print of that?”
“You betcha.” He clicked with his mouse. “It’ll take a few minutes.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Thought you might.”
“How accurate is this thing?”
“You questioning my work?”
She didn’t answer.
“Pretty accurate. But not a hundred percent. Things happen to people, stress and other environmental factors come into play that influence the result. I’d use it as a guide.”
But Vail knew the answer before he’d responded. It was a very accurate result.
“By the way you’re looking at the screen, I take it you recognize her. Shit,
I
recognize her.”
I
recognize her.”
Vail nodded, but couldn’t pull her gaze from the screen.
“Whatcha gonna do?”
The Andreas Vollenweider CD ended just as she was about to answer, and an eerie silence permeated the room. “I’m not sure.”
VAIL’S FIRST COURSE OF ACTION had been to return to the FBI Academy. It was now approaching midnight, but she still felt no signs of fatigue. She was a bloodhound, nose to the ground, sniffing her trail. Her prey was near, so near she’d actually seen it. Now it was a matter of gathering information before going in for the kill.
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