The Lawyer's Lawyer (2 page)

I
want you to do me a favor,” Detective Danielle Jansen said to Stacey. They were sitting in one of those sterile interrogation
rooms in the Oakville Police Department: white walls, metal desk, four metal chairs. Stacey felt a little like a suspect who
was being interrogated although Detective Jansen was very nice.

“What?” Stacey asked.

“This will be a little hard because of what you’ve just been through, but I want you to close your eyes and bring up the image
of the man who attacked you. Can you do that?”

There was another person in the room with them, a sketch artist the department had borrowed from Dade County for a few weeks.
He was sitting off in the corner with a sketchpad on his lap. And behind the window that looked into the room were seven men:
another detective from the Oakville Police Department, two detectives from the Apache County Sheriff’s Department, and four
FBI agents.

“I’ll try,” Stacey replied. It had been a long day already and she was tired. When the attack came, she had acted forcefully
without thinking. Now, after learning
who
her attacker might have been, she was a bundle of nerves. It was going to be difficult to bring that man back to life in
her mind. She closed her eyes.

“Can you see him?” Detective Jansen asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you see his eyes?”

“Yes.”

“What color are they?”

“Blue, I think.”

“Are they large or small?”

“I’d say large.”

“What about his eyebrows—can you see them?”

“Not really. I mean, he’s got eyebrows but they don’t stand out.”

“What about his nose?”

“It’s straight, almost pointy. Not big.”

“That’s good, very good. What about the lips?”

“Thin.”

“Chin?”

“It doesn’t stick out or anything.”

“Ears?”

“Can’t see them. His hair is covering them.”

“You said he had long blond hair—is it straight or curly?”

“Curly.”

“And his beard—is it full?”

“No, it’s kind of stubbly, not very long.”

“How about his teeth?”

“Can’t see them.”

“Anything else? A mole maybe, or a scar—something that will help us identify him?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Okay, Stacey, you can open your eyes.”

Stacey took a deep breath. It hadn’t been so bad. The sketch artist came over and showed them the face he had drawn based
on Stacey’s observations.

“Does that look like him?” Detective Jansen asked her.

“Kinda.”

“Is there anything you would change?”

“I think his face is thinner, that’s all.”

The man went back to his desk and started working on a revision. Within minutes he had a new sketch, which Detective Jansen
again showed to Stacey.

“That’s good,” Stacey said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay. Come on over and sit with me at my desk.” Detective Jansen put her arm on Stacey’s shoulder like a mother comforting
a troubled child and walked with her out of the room and over to her desk.

Stacey liked Detective Jansen. There was something about her that made Stacey calm down even though she felt like a Mexican
jumping bean inside. “Can I ask you a question, Detective Jansen?”

“Sure, and call me Danni. That’s what everybody around here calls me.”

“Isn’t this a hard job to do, I mean, for a woman?”

Danni smiled, looking around the room and seeing what Stacey was observing for the first time. “At times it’s a challenge,
but I love what I do.”

Detective Jansen’s desk was located in a large room with other desks. Men were everywhere, bustling about, hairy arms protruding
from long-sleeved shirts that were folded just below the elbows as if they were all in uniform even though they were detectives.
Stacey noticed that Danni was dressed somewhat like the men: She wore pants and a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves folded
to just below the elbow. She even had a man’s nickname. Her shirt was pink, however, her arms smooth and tanned, her short
hair fashionably styled, and she wore makeup. There was no mistaking her radiant face amid that sea of stubble. She was fitting
in with the boys but only so far.

“Have you called your parents and told them what happened?” Danni asked.

“Yeah,” Stacey replied. “Right after I called you guys. They’re coming up.”

“From where?”

“St. Petersburg. I think they might take me out of school. I don’t want that to happen.”

She was sitting in a chair next to Danni’s desk now. It was Danni’s turn to take a good hard look at this young girl who had
so recently fought off a serial killer. She was about five foot six, a couple of inches shorter than Danni herself but taller
than the five other victims. And she had the look of an athlete, her body firm and toned. None of that would have helped if
it weren’t for the martial arts training. That training had made her the only coed so far to survive the attack of a serial
killer. By doing so, Stacey had given the police their first real evidence to work with.

Danni put her hands on Stacey’s shoulders and looked into her eyes.

“Listen to me. I don’t know if you appreciate fully what happened today. You saved your own life because of what you did.
You were unbelievably brave but you were still lucky. We’ll keep your name out of the papers and we can keep tabs on you for
a few days, but eventually you’re going to be on your own again. We haven’t established a pattern for this killer yet. Once
he knows that we have an accurate description, he will realize that you are the only person who can identify him. It may be
wise to take the semester off while we catch this guy.”

“But I don’t want to.”

Danni understood the sentiment. She’d been eighteen once. All eighteen-year-olds were immortal in their own minds no matter
what the potential danger. However, she understood Stacey’s parents’ concern as well. She had a daughter of her own, Hannah,
and she was a single parent. The fact that her daughter was only ten years old did not allay her fears.

“I’ve got to talk to some people for a few minutes. Stay here at my desk and I’ll let you know when your parents arrive.”

“Are you going to encourage them to take me home?”

“No. I’m going to provide them with the information they will need to make a decision.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Danni smiled again. She liked this young girl. Stacey had a lot of spunk and tremendous instincts. Danni was certain, however,
that Stacey’s parents would take her home. Every parent of a female student at the university was considering taking his or
her daughter out of school. After what had happened to this young woman, it was a no-brainer.

They would never be able to live with themselves if they didn’t do it.

Y
ou handled her very well,” FBI Agent Allan Peterson said to Danni when she entered the observation room where some of the
agents and detectives were still huddled. Peterson was Danni’s partner on the task force formed to find and capture the killer.

“I wasn’t
handling
anybody,” Danni snapped. The words were out before she could catch them.

“Whoa! Excuse me,” Peterson replied. Danni realized immediately that her response was uncalled for. Peterson was trying to
give her a compliment. The stress was getting to her.

“Sorry. Can we get down to business now?”

“We already have,” Peterson said. “We’re running down the Volkswagen and trying to decide what we’re going to do with the
sketch besides giving it to every police officer within a hundred-mile radius.”

“Is somebody actually thinking of sitting on it?”

“Maybe. If he knows we have a good description of him, he might run.”

“And young college students may no longer be killed.”

“Be killed
here
, you mean. If he’s got the urge to kill, he’s going to continue no matter where he is.”

“That’s not necessarily true. Some serial killers have been known to stop for no apparent reason. If we can interrupt his
pattern, he may stop.”

“Danni, we’re not in the hoping business. We’re in the catching business. And if we decide that distributing this sketch is
going to cause our killer to run, we’re going to keep it on the down low.”

Danni knew he was right although she hated to admit it.

“And who’s making that decision?”

“The higher-ups,” Peterson replied. “They’re meeting as we speak. Where’s the girl?”

“Sitting at my desk waiting for her parents to arrive. I think they’re going to take her home.”

“Good decision. This guy knows she’s out there. He’s got to take another pass at her if she stays in school. She’s the only
one who can identify him.”

O
kay, let’s take this new information and try to develop some leads from it. We’ll meet back here at eight tomorrow morning,”
Captain Jeffries said as he dismissed the task force on Tuesday morning. Jeffries was the head of the homicide division at
the Apache County Sheriff’s Office, and Danni had known him for over ten years. His appointment as head of the task force
was a little controversial since the FBI normally liked to run its own show.

The sketch had been distributed to every police officer in the Oakville Police Department, the Apache County Sheriff’s Office,
all FBI agents on the case, and all other law enforcement agencies within a 150-mile radius. That geographical limitation
would expand, as would the number and type of people who would receive the information. The decision had been made not to
release it to the general public at this time.

The task force had set up a hotline after the third murder and encouraged people to call into it with any information they
thought might help. There were two operators assigned and trained to take the calls, which were recorded. They had a series
of questions to ask. Two secretaries typed up the recorded questions and answers, which were then divvied up among the task
force teams. Every morning after the briefing, Danni and Peterson would go through their allotted interviews and make callbacks
if they felt the need to follow up. It was tedious work and, so far, fruitless.

The murders had taken place throughout Oakville over a four-month period of time, and there was no discernible geographical
pattern—or any other pattern, for that matter. Some had occurred during the day, some at night. Victims one and four had been
killed at separate student-housing facilities on Arthur Road south of the campus. Victim one had been strangled while victim
four had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest and abdomen. Victim two was living in a similar complex off Thirty-ninth Street,
northwest of the campus. She had been stabbed and eventually choked to death with her own pantyhose. Victims three and five
lived in houses with other students: three, a few miles east of town, and five, northeast of the campus. They had both had
their throats cut, victim three almost to the point of being beheaded. Two of the victims were blondes; three were brunettes.

Stacey Kincaid was the first coed the killer had attempted to make contact with on campus. He was getting bolder.

Murder number three was the one that hit Danni the hardest because of the sheer brutality. The task force was formed after
that murder. Three was the magic number for the FBI to label someone a serial killer. Before that it was just murder and that
was a local issue. Although Allan Peterson was on the task force, he had not been assigned as Danni’s partner until recently.
He was a tall, handsome blond, not bad to look at, but they were still feeling each other out as partners.

“Anything on the Volkswagen?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s registered to a female student,” Peterson replied. “She parked it at the spot where the victim was attacked but
didn’t lock the doors. Said she had no reason to. Nobody would steal a broken-down old Bug. And get this: It had been there
for three or four days—she couldn’t remember exactly.”

“What are these kids thinking?” Danni said. “Leave your car in the same spot unlocked for days and expect nothing to happen.
I don’t get it.”

“She probably figured nobody would want it—at least, not to stage a murder in. I’ll bet if he knocked her out he was going
to hot-wire it and take her somewhere to do the killing. Those old Bugs are easy to steal.”

“You’re probably right,” Danni replied. “So he had to set that whole scenario up. He knew where the car was. He knew the door
was open. He put his weapons in there. Then he got some books, put on a fake cast, and waited for Stacey to walk out the front
door of Fogarty Hall. He even pretended to open the car door as she watched. Now that’s what I call calculating.”

“Like he was writer, director, and star of his own play,” Peterson observed. “He’s an organized killer all right. No doubt
about it.”

Danni knew exactly what Allan was talking about. There were three types of serial killers: organized, disorganized, and mixed.
Organized killers were usually very bright and plotted their murders, sometimes very intricately. They were usually male and,
in this case, considering the victims, the killer was almost definitely a man. Murders like this didn’t happen in small-town
America every day, but they did happen on college campuses from time to time.

“Did you read that information we received last Friday on serial murders that have occurred in the last ten years?” she asked.

“I’ve seen it before.”

“So you know there was someone killing coeds on the campus of the University of Utah two years ago?”

“And two years before that at Florida State, and before that the University of Texas,” Allan replied.

“Any discernible patterns?” she asked.

“They were all organized killers. The killings in Utah and at Florida State, like here, had no pattern or ritual to the murders
themselves. And the killer was never caught. He apparently just moved on.”

“Any people we know of who were in Utah and are now here?”

“There was a first-year law student who did undergraduate work at Utah. Somebody already talked to him though.”

“Law student? That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s intelligent, but it could.”

Peterson had a law degree and Danni knew it.

“Simply because somebody is a law student and goes to a different graduate school for their studies is not grounds to put
them under suspicion,” he said.

Danni had made the remark as a joke, but they obviously did not have the same sense of humor. She let it go.

“Maybe not, but he’s here, so let’s go talk to him again and see for ourselves if he fits our profile in any way.”

“It can’t hurt,” Peterson replied.