Vail 01 - The 7th Victim (44 page)
Bledsoe shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Just got it.” He looked past her at everyone in the living room and seemed to take roll. His eyes settled back on Vail. “How about you take us through it?”
“Wait a minute,” Del Monaco said. “I thought I’d do that—”
“I know, but I’d rather Karen do it. No offense.”
Del Monaco frowned and walked away, his shoulder giving Vail a slight nudge as he passed. Bledsoe winked at her, then took his seat.
Vail asked to borrow the color copy from Del Monaco, who picked up the report and held it above his head. You want it, come get it, he was saying.
Vail took the power struggle in stride and moved across the room as gracefully as possible with a bum knee. She took the papers from Del Monaco and decided to remain there to discuss the report. She stood in front of him, her back to his face. He emitted a noise that sounded like a growl, then scooted his rolling chair a few feet to the side, away from his desk.
“I asked Kim Rossmo at Texas State to put together a profile for us,” Vail started. “I’ve worked with Rossmo on a number of cases and have been super impressed with the work he’s done. This one was prepared by William Broussard, his associate.” She flipped to the front page of the report.
“I’m not familiar with geographic profiling,” Sinclair said.
Manette reclined in her seat. “Probably more
might haves
and
might have nots,
” she said.
might haves
and
might have nots,
” she said.
“I think you’ll find this a bit more palatable, Mandisa,” Vail said. “It’s a computer algorithm that focuses on an offender’s projected spatial behavior using the locations of, and the spatial relationships between, that serial offender’s crime sites. A geographic profile works real well with a behavioral assessment, because how an offender chooses the areas he preys in is influenced by who he is and what motivates him.”
“So this is an objective measurement?” Bledsoe asked.
“Yes and no. It’s got both quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative part uses objective measurements to analyze what Rossmo calls ‘point patterns’ created from the locations of the victim target sites. The qualitative part comes from an interpretation of the offender’s ‘mental map.’”
“I wanna hear more about the computer stuff,” Manette said. “I got enough theories. Gimme something concrete.”
“Rossmo developed something called criminal geographic targeting that takes the locations of the offender’s crime scenes and produces a three-dimensional probability distribution of where the offender’s home or workplace would be. The greater the height of the point indicates a greater probability that this is where the offender would live or work. This 3D distribution, which he calls a ‘Jeopardy Surface,’ is then superimposed over a map of the region, giving us a ‘geoprofile’ of the offender. Rossmo says the geoprofile is a fingerprint of the offender’s cognitive map.”
“This shit actually work?” Sinclair asked.
“Indeed, this
shit
does work,” Vail said.
shit
does work,” Vail said.
Del Monaco, still fuming over having been rebuffed by Bledsoe, craned his neck to be seen around Vail’s body. “I’ve worked with this guy. I can personally vouch for him.”
Vail turned slightly and gave Del Monaco a sharp look, wanting to tell him that neither she nor Rossmo needed his endorsement. “What this does,” Vail said, “is help us focus the investigation. And when we finally come up with some suspects, we can prioritize who to pursue first, based on where they live and work.”
“We can also then put patrols on alert in the more statistically probable areas of offender activity,” Robby said.
“I like it,” Bledsoe said.
“That concrete enough for you?” Vail asked Manette.
She bobbed her head, chewing on her lip. “I like it, too. But I’ll wait to give you my opinion till after we catch this bastard.”
“So what’s it show?” Bledsoe asked.
Vail looked to Del Monaco. “You have copies?”
He opened a brown manila routing envelope and pulled out a stack of stapled packets. They were passed around the room.
“Turn to page eight,” Vail said, finding the spot herself. The splash of colors hit her like a sunset on a cloudy day. A huge difference from the black-and-blacker fax.
“Looks like we’ve got some areas to focus on,” Robby said.
Sinclair’s face was buried in the document. “That’s an understatement. Looks like, what, three or four hundred square miles? That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“Yeah, but the areas are prioritized. Look at the key, it’s called out by color and by height of the three-dimensional drawing.” There was quiet again as everyone studied the map.
Manette leaned back in her chair. “Still a lot of ground to cover. There’s no guarantee he’ll stick to one particular area just because we think he will. And if we take patrols away from one area because we’re banking on him hitting another—”
“Helluva gamble,” Sinclair said. He winked at Vail. “And I know about gambling.”
Bledsoe straightened up. “Yeah, well, everything we do involves a certain amount of risk. Sometimes it’s just guesswork. This at least gives us some statistical analysis and a focus. And last I heard, we’re out of sure bets. I’ll get the info over to the involved PDs, let them decide how to use it.”
A cell phone started ringing and Robby and Sinclair checked their pockets. It was Sinclair’s.
“Give the PDs my number,” Del Monaco said to Bledsoe. “They may not know what they’re looking at or what significance to give it.”
Bledsoe nodded. “We’ll make the calls together.”
Sinclair flipped his phone shut and tossed it on his desk. “Bit of news. On Hancock. I say we plug the asshole’s info into that geoprofile, see if his house falls in the highly probable areas. We already know his workplace did. That was a buddy of mine. Hancock’s not alibied for any of the Dead Eyes kills. He was in town and off duty for each of them.”
Robby’s eyebrows rose. “I say we lean on him again. At least for Linwood, maybe all of them.”
“I’ve got someone on him,” Bledsoe said. “Discreet tail, recording his movements. So far he’s been pretty mobile, putting in applications at all sorts of security firms, even a few law offices. Nothing suspicious.”
“Not with us watching him,” Vail said. “He may be an asshole, but given his law enforcement experience, he’d be extremely sensitive to a surveillance team.”
Bledsoe grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen wall. “I think we got enough for a warrant. Hernandez, it’s your jurisdiction.” He tossed the handset across the room to Robby. “I’ll get with the lab at my station, get a forensics team out to his house. We’ll want to go over that place with a vacuum cleaner. Literally.”
Sinclair laughed. “Guess that’s one way of seeing if he’s clean.”
forty-nine
H
e looked at the newspaper article they’d written on the bitch Linwood. State senator, big deal. Didn’t they know she was as corrupt as most politicians? All they care about is themselves.
How can I raise more money? How can I get reelected?
e looked at the newspaper article they’d written on the bitch Linwood. State senator, big deal. Didn’t they know she was as corrupt as most politicians? All they care about is themselves.
How can I raise more money? How can I get reelected?
All politicians have their dark secrets. Affairs, trysts, backroom deals. Buried tax dodges. And other secrets, the kind this bitch Linwood kept. The kind of secrets worth killing for.
He wondered how long it would be till they found it. If they were good, it shouldn’t be much longer. If they were as incompetent as it seemed they were—look how long it was taking them to catch him—they might never find it. It then hit him. Maybe he should’ve made it more obvious.
But what’s life without challenges? If he made it so easy, served it up on a plate for them, what would that say about him? He’s better than them, he’d proved it. There was nothing they could do to find him, as he had suspected all along. But he only had a couple more things to accomplish, and then he’d be done. What if he finished and they never figured out who was responsible? How much fun would that be?
Who would know? No one. How disappointing.
He didn’t
have
to stop. He didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to, so maybe he wouldn’t. The thrill of the kill was so exhilarating, so ... filling. When the feeling struck, it had to be satisfied. Which got him to thinking: maybe he wasn’t as in control of things as he’d like to have thought. Maybe it’s not that he’d
want
to continue killing, but that he would
need
to continue.
have
to stop. He didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to, so maybe he wouldn’t. The thrill of the kill was so exhilarating, so ... filling. When the feeling struck, it had to be satisfied. Which got him to thinking: maybe he wasn’t as in control of things as he’d like to have thought. Maybe it’s not that he’d
want
to continue killing, but that he would
need
to continue.
The thought suddenly excited him. He opened the freezer door and pulled out his growing collection of hands. Each one a memory, each one special in its own right.
He set them out on the table, in a circle around some papers he’d recently obtained. Pretty funny reading through this stuff . . . a profile prepared by Supervisory Special Agent Karen Vail. Very impressive. They had a supervisory agent on his case, not just a special agent. They were all special, weren’t they?
They
seemed to think so.
They
seemed to think so.
Oh, here’s a good one: “‘He’s bright, above average intelligence. He may have a background in art, either in practice or in school. He might even be a frustrated artist. . . . ’”
A frustrated artist?
“Bitch! I’m not frustrated, I AM an artist! Come look at my studio, see my work. Talk to my students. How dare you doubt my talents!”
A frustrated artist?
“Bitch! I’m not frustrated, I AM an artist! Come look at my studio, see my work. Talk to my students. How dare you doubt my talents!”
He found his spot in the document and continued reading. “‘He’s got some deep-seated issues . . . an abusive childhood’. . . Jesus, is it that obvious? Yes!
An abusive childhood.
Are you incredibly stupid, or just incredibly unenlightened? I told you that in my writings. I couldn’t have said it any plainer. Did it take an FBI profiler to figure that one out?”
An abusive childhood.
Are you incredibly stupid, or just incredibly unenlightened? I told you that in my writings. I couldn’t have said it any plainer. Did it take an FBI profiler to figure that one out?”
He skipped to the next paragraph. “‘Fixation on eyes could be symbolic . . . perhaps the father put him down by telling him everyone
sees
him as a failure . . . ’” Now that’s perceptive. He hadn’t thought of it that way. Very interesting. And he had to admit, pretty damn accurate. She nailed that one. Gotta give credit where it’s due. He was fair in that respect.
sees
him as a failure . . . ’” Now that’s perceptive. He hadn’t thought of it that way. Very interesting. And he had to admit, pretty damn accurate. She nailed that one. Gotta give credit where it’s due. He was fair in that respect.
She can’t explain the evisceration. Think anger, Supervisory Special Agent Vail. Think the utmost in humiliation, in power. Of what it represents.
He turned the page and read some more. Digesting all this would take a while. But judging by what little they had on him, he had the time.
fifty
C
hase Hancock’s home was a well-groomed one-story, renovated in recent years with built-in teak furniture, flat-panel television with surround sound system and frilly window coverings that screamed women’s touch. But Hancock was not married and never had been. One might assume he had hired a decorator.
hase Hancock’s home was a well-groomed one-story, renovated in recent years with built-in teak furniture, flat-panel television with surround sound system and frilly window coverings that screamed women’s touch. But Hancock was not married and never had been. One might assume he had hired a decorator.
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