She's Not There (23 page)

The afternoon the profiler arrived, Tina spotted the large, dark-blue van as it moved into the circle drive and stopped in front of the door. She looked on in wonder when the side door opened as if by magic and a long ramp slowly emerged from the van, lowering to touch the ground. A thin, sharp-eyed man operating a motorized chair rolled down the ramp. Tina ran to get Eric, who hurried to put a portable ramp on the front step for their guest.

Like many of her peers, Lisa hated to admit that anyone other than a practicing clinician could be so insightful of the forensic psyche as to actually be able to pinpoint a killer’s profile, but she was determined to keep an open mind.

When he entered the room, Mason Orth appeared small, but Lisa quickly realized that his position in the chair concealed his height. He wore a soft, taupe fedora, reminiscent of another era. When he took it off, hanging it on the back of the chair, she saw that his hair was mostly silver, although he didn’t look more than sixty.

Eric introduced them. Orth’s eyes drew her to him, eclipsing the effect of his handicap. They were piercing, intense. When he looked into her eyes, she felt like he could see her deepest secrets.

He held his hand out to her. When their palms met, her feeling about him intensified. He was going to help them; she could feel it.

“Please, call me Mason. David told me you’re a psychologist. We’ll have to put our heads together and see what we can come up with.”

Did he think he could win her over with that line? “It’ll be a pleasure. David’s told us wonderful things about your work.”

“I hope I can live up to his praise.” He laughed, the sharp planes of face softening. He turned to Eric. “I want to thank you for your generosity in inviting me to dinner, but if you don’t mind I’d like to see these whiteboards I’ve heard about.”

Eric motioned toward his office. “Of course. We won’t be having dinner for a while yet.”

They showed him into the office. He guided his chair to the middle of the room, looking over each woman’s photo and information without speaking. Eric excused himself while Lisa took a chair, silently waiting for a comment from the enigmatic man. Minutes passed.

Mason Orth’s intensity filled the room, the silence almost eerie. The spell was broken when he asked, “Lisa, are you convinced that these disappearances are the work of one person?”

Lisa wondered how he’d known she was still in the room; he’d addressed her without moving from his position in front of the boards. Bewildered, she replied, “I wasn’t at first. I was only sure that something wasn’t right. I never believed the rise in the statistics could be put off to chance—it was too high. The police think it’s the work of one or more of a number of deviant online groups, or an organization helping women to leave abusive relationships. Their head of computer crimes, James Wilson, believes ‘multiple factors’ are responsible.”

Turning to her, he asked, “What do you think?”

“I don’t believe these women have run off or been killed by their husbands. The more we dig, the more it looks like there was a man on the fringes of these women’s lives, a man who was careful to stay in the background, invisible. I am convinced there is one person out there targeting this specific group of women.”

“Quite fascinating, isn’t it?” He turned back to the photos. “The obvious conclusion would be that the key to this mystery lies with the victims. Find why he’s targeting abused women, and you’ll find your killer.”

“You don’t think we should focus on the obvious—why he’s killing abused women?”

Observing the photos, he answered, “One would be inclined to think he had a grudge against them for some reason. However, it could easily be something as overt as the fact that he enjoys killing women—and these women are a group whose disappearances can be blamed on many factors. Rather convenient for him when there is a ready-made suspect for the law to concentrate on—disappearances that can be explained away.”

Lisa was impressed. “We haven’t thought of it that way. It’s so simple it makes perfect sense.”

He turned back to face her. “Yes, but there is nothing simple about your killer. He’s an extremely complex man.”

TJ was running late. By the time she joined the group, they were seated at the dinner table, sharing another of Teresa’s sumptuous suppers. Tonight’s menu was beef stew served with Parmesan cheese bread. It smelled wonderful. Teresa rushed to put a serving in front of her, shooing Tina back to their room.

They introduced TJ to Orth. The man’s penetrating eyes made her uneasy. She’d been against bringing him on board, but if he could help them wrap things up, she’d hear him out.

After dinner, they gathered in front of the whiteboards. The profiler turned to TJ. “I understand that researching these women was your idea. I always like to start at the beginning, so tell me why these disappearances piqued your interest.”

TJ was taken off guard; she’d planned on being an observer. That nagging feeling that had come to her when studying the whiteboards was still with her. She’d been hoping a new insight might break it loose. “Goin’ way back, my sister was abused by her husband until he was stopped by the police—permanently.” She neglected to add that she had been “the police” who’d stopped him.

“Bout’ a year later Eric hired me to find something that might help to get him out of jail on appeal. After doin’ all the legwork and getting to know Eric, I was convinced he didn’t kill his wife.” She explained the rest of her story, including what they’d been told about the statistics by Richard Conlin and James Wilson.

“A mutual friend told me Lisa was goin’ in to MPD about the stats. Thought the police had blown the whole thing off, and when I heard someone else was interested, decided to see if I could get her to help me.”

“The Milwaukee police are still ignoring it?”

“Yeah, so far. Dependin’ on what we can give them, Waukesha and Oconomowoc are gonna rework Jamie Denison and Kayla Schilling’s disappearances once we turn over our information. We’ll give em’ everything we got, including whatever you have to add. And we’d like you to be here when we do it.”

TJ hadn’t planned on asking him to be there. Something about Orth made him credible, assured her his expertise could improve their chances with the law.

Orth waited a bit before he spoke, his eyes appraising her. “Let me think about that. I’ll get input from all of you tonight. I’ll give you a written report eventually, but I’ll be able to tell you my impressions before I leave. Then you can decide if you think it will be helpful to have me here when you address the police. And I would encourage you to include a representative from Milwaukee.“

TJ grimaced. “Well, I know Richard Conlin would come. Not sure he’d bring an open mind.”

“I’d think that the fact that the area police are going forward would convince them, if nothing else,” Orth commented.

After dinner, they reviewed all the evidence and information from the interviews. TJ added that she’d located Tim Aiello, the stagehand who had talked to Kayla at Vinnie’s the night she’d disappeared. He admitted Kayla had pissed him off when she’d so rudely given him the brush-off. He had an alibi for the evening, however. The stagehands shared rooms and his roommate remembered him coming in before eleven because he’d interrupted an important phone call from his wife who was almost ready to give birth. Aiello admitted he watched Kayla after she blew him off and had seen her leave with a man. The interesting part was he remembered, “The dude had gray hair.”

Orth grew quiet after they’d shared everything they thought was important. They left the room to have coffee and dessert in the kitchen. After he’d finished his coffee, the profiler started talking.

“I don’t think what I have to say will be a surprise to any of you. I believe the Milwaukee police are wrong, and you folks have it right. This is the work of one man. There is always the possibility of an accomplice, but I think it’s unlikely. There is a possibility that your killer is a woman, although the odds are against it, and the missing bodies would leave us to deduce that the killer had the strength to take them with him and somehow make them disappear. My feeling is that the perpetrator is a male.

“His profile? Serial killers tend to be Caucasian men in the twenty to forty age range. If your witnesses were accurate about the gray hair, I’d guess he’s not a lot more than forty and prematurely gray. He’s not an attention seeker, or there would have been bodies found. Part of him isn’t proud of what he is doing, but the other part wins out.

“He’s successfully disposing of the bodies of these women, so I would expect him to own or have access to a vehicle which would make that possible—a van, an SUV with darkened windows, even a truck with a closed bed.

“He’s organized. These murders—if indeed they are murders and he doesn’t have the women stashed away somewhere as prisoners—are well planned. He’s highly intelligent, most likely employed as some kind of professional or even a businessman.”

Lisa frowned. “What about what we’ve heard from witnesses—that some of the women were rude to men who approached them?”

Orth brightened. “That’s the interesting part! All your victims are very attractive women. Vulnerable to their abusers, yes, but bright women, employed at above average jobs. Your killer convinced them to keep their liaisons with him a secret—probably by playing the safety card—and they went along with it. They would have feared repercussions by their abusers if it were known they were seeing him. It follows that he’s a charming, good looking man, and also manipulative.”

Jeff said, “I thought all these guys were loners.”

“He very well could be. He feels in control with these women, so he is free to be outgoing with them. His social skills may be limited in any other setting.

“To get back to your question, Lisa, here is what I find intriguing. If his trigger were these women’s derogatory comments to men that are unattractive to them, it would seem to follow that he himself is unattractive. Since we know that to be highly unlikely, it reveals that he either was unsightly at one time and carries a grudge, or has some kind of hidden handicap. Maybe he’s bald and wears a wig. Possibly he has a sexual dysfunction or an abnormally small penis. It could be any number of things really, and when the police find him, it’ll become apparent.”

Lisa sighed. “
If
the police find him.”

Orth looked at her sympathetically, a half-smile on his narrow face. “I understand you’re discouraged. But the police will have to do their work, and without any bodies it will be difficult to find him. There’s a good chance he owns property where he disposes of his victims. I’m afraid it’s possible he could relocate as soon as he becomes aware the police are finally on to him.” His last words were not what any of them had wanted to hear.

After Mason Orth left, TJ had to admit that he’d been impressive. What she’d been most taken by was that he hadn’t tried to wow them with any impossible little details. His profile seemed to fit with the amount of evidence they were able to provide. Most importantly, he backed up what they’d been trying to tell the police.

Orth’s report would be their final coup.

Richard had tried to call TJ since the botched weekend, but she’d chosen to be unavailable. He was seeing someone else; she knew the signs. But she needed to see him. It was after nine when she called him. When he answered she asked him to meet her at Vinnie’s.

She got there before Richard and sat in a booth on the back wall. When he sat down across from her, she realized the usual sexual tension between them was absent. He wore a new sweater with jeans and a leather jacket, the red of the sweater emphasizing his gray-sprinkled hair. Funny, but he looked different to her now—older, tired. If he was seeing another woman, she wasn’t perking him up any.

“Been a while,” TJ opened.

“Sorry about our weekend.”

She smirked. “No you’re not, but I didn’t ask you here to bitch about it. There’s somethin’ I need to talk to you about.”

“About time.”

“Remember that Lisa Rayburn who came to see you about the missing women stats?”

Richard fumbled his drink. “Huh?”

Interesting.
This wasn’t going to be what he’d expected. Must have thought she was going to talk about their relationship and he was the one seeing someone else. He’d be back eventually, expecting things to go on as always. But this wasn’t the time to tell him it wouldn’t ever be the same.

“Lisa and me have been collecting evidence for you.”

Now she had his attention. He was angry. She knew him well enough to know it even though his expression hadn’t changed. The little vein that travelled from the middle of his left eyebrow to his temple grew as his blood pressure rose, and it looked about to burst.

She began, “Patty Barkley told me about Lisa goin’ to see you . . .”

As she talked, Richard listened without interrupting, but the vein in his forehead throbbed throughout her speech, his eyes ablaze with anger when she concluded by telling him they’d hired a profiler.

“You did all this behind my back? I expected more of you, TJ. Of us.”

“What
us
? The ‘us’ that were going to go away for a weekend? You think I don’t know you’ve met some chick you’re spending time with?”

Richard shifted in his seat. “Okay. We’ll leave out ‘us’ out of this conversation. You knew how I felt about your sticking your nose into police business.”

She’d noticed he hadn’t risen to the bait either time she mentioned another woman.

“What police business? You and that dickwad Wilson just blew it off.”

Through gritted teeth, he said, “I told you before—there was nothing concrete to investigate.”

Gotcha!
“My point exactly. We’re going to give you something concrete. Tomorrow at Eric Schindler’s place—10:00 a. m.”

Smiling smugly, she sat back and sipped her drink.

Richard threw back his scotch and stormed out.

The next morning the group, along with Orth, Maggie, and David were gathered in Eric’s living room. They were joined by the two cops from Waukesha, Brookfield, Pewaukee and New Berlin; all areas that had victims on the whiteboards.

Eric had sent Teresa out with Tina for the morning, but she’d refused to leave until she’d prepared two huge urns of coffee and put out juice, bagels, and Kringle from a nearby bakery. Shannon had come out to take over for Teresa during the meeting. A fire was roaring in the hearth, ready to welcome anyone coming in from the frigid weather; the temperature had dipped to below zero the night before.

TJ wondered if Richard would arrive as promised. When she saw him the night before, she hadn’t meant it to be personal—though, of course, it was. Maybe he’d send someone else. She doubted it though; he’d be too curious to stay away.

When the doorbell rang Eric went to answer the door. TJ heard Richard’s voice as it opened and felt a sense of satisfaction that he’d shown up. For her, it gave more credence to their work than anything else that had taken place since they started. Her gratification was short-lived when he walked in accompanied by that arrogant prick, James Wilson. It was her turn to be pissed.

Swallowing her anger, TJ introduced them to the group. She’d deal with Richard later.

“Just so it’s clear to all of you,” Richard announced, “we are here as a courtesy only. Our presence doesn’t mean we condone police work being done by civilians, or that we are committed to move forward with an investigation based on evidence presented to us here. It’s our understanding that two departments from Waukesha County
are
going to begin an investigation based on today’s information. If it turns out there is any solid evidence that impels us to move forward on this, we’ll work with the other departments.”

The room went quiet after his speech. TJ was livid. Not that she’d expected anything more from MPD, but combined with Wilson’s unwelcome presence, it really burned.

Maggie stepped forward and introduced herself and her partner. “Detective Conlin, the reason we’ve committed to this is because four of the missing women, two of whom are Jamie Denison and Kayla Schilling, lived in Waukesha County. Quite a few are from Milwaukee. It makes sense to join forces if there is a pattern here that crosses county lines.”

Richard said nothing. He and Wilson moved toward the coffee displayed at the side of the room.

The whiteboards were displayed in a semi-circle in the living room, incongruous next to the plush, leather furniture and warm fire. Zabel and Feinstein from Waukesha were poring over them, careful to stay far from a developing pissing match between MPD and OPD.

After everyone had their coffee, TJ and Lisa made the presentation on what the group had collected, explaining their conviction that the disappearances pointed to the work of one abductor. 

Greg Zabel raised his hand and asked, “What about Danielle Ventura? Is she one of your purported victims? Or is she connected to your research in some other way since she was killed right here in your backyard?”

They’d anticipated this. Lisa addressed the questions. “We believe her death was intended to be one of us.”

Their audience, silent at Lisa’s revelation, watched as Eric brought out a poster he’d assembled presenting a photo of Danielle next to one of Lisa. The room hushed as the resemblance between the two women became apparent—Eric had been sure to find photos emphasizing their similarities.

Eric addressed the assembled officers. “As you can see, there is a striking resemblance between Lisa Rayburn and Danielle Ventura. As most of you know, I’d dated Danielle a few times before the night she died. Our best guess is that she was here to find out who was staying here at the house. In doing so, she took a short cut through the woods in order to be unobserved. Our killer, waiting for one of us to leave the house, mistook her for Lisa.”

When no further questions were raised, David introduced Mason Orth. Orth described the unsub as he had for the group. If his support of the group’s theory made a difference to Richard Conlin and James Wilson, it wasn’t evident in their stoic expressions.

After Orth concluded and answered questions, everyone broke into cliques, discussing just what the information meant to the various departments, and whether they would be acting on it. Richard headed for the coffee urn with TJ following.

She had to ask. “So what do you think?”

“I have to admit you people did a great job. But it doesn’t change anything. There’s no hard evidence. No bodies have been found; no one has identified your mystery man. You aren’t even sure there isn’t more than one perp.”

TJ turned away from him and leaned on the island, staring sullenly out into the living room. “Why’d you bring Wilson?”

Richard poured his coffee and pointed at her with a slice of Kringle. “You know he’s the one who did all the research on this when the stats showed up so high. And you of all people should know we don’t have the staff to open an investigation when there’s no hard evidence.”

TJ tuned him out as she watched the interactions in the room. Wilson was admiring the antique tools mounted over the fireplace. She saw Shannon making a move toward him, engaging him in conversation. They sat down on the stone apron of the fireplace.

Shannon was beaming. He definitely was a hot-looking guy. Backlit by the fire, his taupe hair gleamed silver and his handsome features glowed.

TJ had been ready to give Richard a sharp retort when it happened. Pieces of the puzzle came together, hitting her like a physical blow—the silver hair, Wilson’s computer skills, the attack on Charles when no one else knew what they were planning. Turning away from Richard, she fled from the room, leaving him waiting for a comeback.

With the bathroom door locked behind her, TJ stood in front of the mirror, hands on the vanity, collecting her thoughts. She wanted to run out and tell the others, but knew she had to hold back until she had time to think it through. After a few deep breaths, she opened the door and saw Jeff standing in the hall waiting for her.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m fine.”

He didn’t look convinced. “You want to go somewhere after this—maybe for a drink?”

It was unlike Jeff to suggest a drink this early in the day; he had to be worried about her. She couldn’t be with him now; she needed to be alone.

“No, thanks. My stomach’s a little queasy.” That much was true.

He said, “Maybe you should rest for a while before you go to work.”