The Watcher (10 page)

“You make it sound like a goddamn opera,” Slater muttered.

“To him, it
is
an opera. He’s like a conductor, the one who gets to orchestrate what happens to his victim. He has all the control, all the power. When that omnipotent feeling dissipates with the victim’s death, he – ”

“Gets mad,” Bauer finished.

“That’s an understatement. I think the killer’s now feeling shortchanged. He wanted to spend at least a week on her. He must be furious that she died.”

“I don’t know about him, but I’m pissed as hell,” Slater said, shoving his chair back and striding out of the room.

“He’ll be searching for another girl,” she warned to his retreating back. “He won’t wait long.”

Slater didn’t look back.

Kate returned to her own office with the murder book in hand. She thought of the pink-tinged sand and water at Beale’s Lake lapping against the girl’s body. Of her vulnerable nakedness, and her bare feet digging into the gravelly sand. She closed her eyes in grief out of proportion to the murder of a girl she didn’t know.

Guilt was a sharp tug at the edge of her conscience. Slater had a right to know what Kate knew, or at least what she suspected. Keeping information from a superior was just plain wrong. Soon, she promised, when she was surer.

For the major incident conference later this afternoon, Sheriff Marconi had asked Kate to prepare a psychological profile on the UNSUB – the unknown subject – in the death of Jennifer Johnston. An hour later she was halfway through the report when Slater stuck his head in the door.

“Hey, doc, want to grab some lunch?” he asked. The sudden invitation surprised her.

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

“We could talk about the case.”

“We can do that here.”

“Maybe I need to apologize for my behavior earlier.”

“Maybe?”

“Meet me at Rusty’s. It’s a cop restaurant and hang-out just off the freeway. You’ll see it from the highway on the right, going north.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Two o’clock.” He captured her eyes across the room, forcing her to meet his challenge. “Or are you afraid?”

Slater was a very irritating man, she decided. Charming when he wanted to be. Annoyingly perceptive. Somehow engaging in a rough-hewn way. “Why should I be afraid?”

“Stop answering my questions with a question,” he said, pausing at the door frame.

She couldn’t help smirking. “Do I do that?”

Chapter Ten

Immersed in finishing up the psychological profile of the killer, Kate lost all track of time. She also spent time correlating and analyzing the characteristics of the cases she’d brought with her from L.A., although, of course, she wouldn’t address these at the 4:30 conference.

She might share them with Slater. She felt some relief that she’d told him about the Stuckey case. After all, the murder had occurred in his jurisdiction, and sooner or later she’d have to tell him about the other cases. Would he believe her flimsy evidence? Or, once she confessed her personal involvement and her years of obsession, would he dismiss her as a nut case?

For the moment her reputation protected her, but she was standing at the edge of a dangerous precipice. Being personally motivated in a case that could traverse the entire country put her at risk of having the whole case fall down on her like a house of cards.

Using existing FBI profiles, she matched what she already knew from her private searches against Quantico’s database and the Johnston murder. If Bigler County’s UNSUB
was
the killer she’d been looking for, he’d altered his modus operandi over the last twenty years.

It wasn’t unusual for a serial killer to change certain characteristics as he evolved in his cycle of murder. Sometimes he no longer got enough satisfaction from his previous ritual, or he simply refined his technique.

Like the Johnston murder, no semen had been found at the Preston, Idaho, crime scene. Either the killer was very good from the start, or trace evidence had been degraded, most likely the latter. With most of the cases, no evidence of actual sexual penetration was found, although the crimes were clearly sexual in nature. Nor were the attacks on the other girls quite as vicious as the one on Jennifer Johnston.

Kate believed his level of violence was escalating.

#

Two o’clock arrived too quickly. Kate glanced at the black-rimmed, circular clock hanging above her file cabinet and grabbed her purse. She rushed toward the parking lot and entered the restaurant thirteen minutes later. Marconi had set the incident meeting for late afternoon when the shifts changed. She wouldn’t linger over lunch with Slater because she wanted to review her notes before she spoke to the teams.

In fact, she wasn’t sure why she’d even come. She spotted him in a corner booth, two beers dripping moisture onto a red plastic tablecloth.

She hated beer.

Slater smiled as she approached. “I already ordered,” he said, indicating the drinks.

Kate wrinkled her nose.

“You don’t like beer?” “No.”

“Oops.”

She lifted her eyebrows.

“Honest, I didn’t know,” he protested.

“But you guessed.”

Slater smiled. “Are you profiling me, Doc? Okay, maybe I took a stab about the drink,” he admitted. “You don’t seem like a beer kind of girl. Sorry, that was petty of me.”

Petty indeed, Kate thought as she wondered why Slater was being nice to her. And she hadn’t been a
girl
for many years.

Slater extended his hand across the table. “Truce?”

His grip was warm and firm, and he held her hand a fraction of a second longer than necessary. Everything about Slater was handsome in an outdoor-healthy way. His voice, his laughter, those little crinkles around his eyes when he laughed. She withdrew her fingers and sipped the beer.

“Don’t drink that,” he said. “I’ll order something else.” He beckoned the waitress over. “Let me guess. Wine? A Zinfandel, right?”

“No,” she lied. “Chardonnay.”

His smile was gorgeous, wide and disarming, perfect teeth set in a dark complexion. A lock of thick, black hair persistently fell over his forehead. She could see gray thread though the hair at his temples.

Take a deep breath, Kate admonished herself, forcing down the swelling low in her belly and ignoring the tickle beneath her ribs. “So, Detective, what do you think?”

“I think the Chardonnay works better.”

“I mean the case,” she said, tapping the folder lying on the table near the salt and pepper shakers. “That’s why you brought the folder. That’s why we’re having lunch, remember?”

“Right, the case.” Slater’s face turned resolute, his eyes intense as they bore into hers. “Look, I know I’ve been hard on you. But this case – ” He gestured toward the folder. “We haven’t had an incident like this in the ten years I’ve been in the county. In the last two decades, we’ve had sixty murders, fifty-seven of them solved. That’s only three unsolved cases in twenty years.”

“Four, if you count Mary Stuckey,” she reminded him.

Slater nodded. “If Mary Stuckey really was murdered, I’ll be damned if I’ll let this case go unsolved. I want to catch this murdering bastard before he gets another girl.”

Kate drew back, surprised at his fervor. So far her suggestions had been met with his unflappable rationality. “You think he’s going to do this again, too?”

“You tell me. You’ve been trying to make a good case, haven’t you?”

She suppressed her excitement. Had Slater bought into the idea of a serial killer? His words indicated as much, but would he support her if she went too fast down that rocky road? She hesitated a moment, then plunged on. “Absolutely.”

“Absolutely?” Slater echoed.

“Not only that, but I think he’s done it before.”

Kate intended to tread gingerly now. She was walking a fine ethical line. She wouldn’t undermine the current case. She’d already explained the Stuckey connection, but she didn’t want to say more until allegiances were clear and she knew for certain whom she could trust.

So far, she was positive only of Captain Howes’ loyalty. He’d allowed her to come here from L.A. because he believed in her. By confessing to Slater her belief that the Stuckey girl was murdered, she was
de facto
trusting Slater. She wasn’t sure that’d been a good idea. He hadn’t been in Bigler County during the Stuckey drowning, but others had. Others to whom Slater presumably had strong loyalties.

“The wounds on Jennifer – they show such fury,” Kate said carefully. “It takes a long time to build that kind of rage. I don’t see how this can be his first time. I think he’s killed before – ”

“Two murders by the same man two decades apart?” Slater interrupted, doubt strong in his voice. “Even with the abrasion that you
think
is the same as the mark on Jennifer’s body – ” Slater’s voice trailed off as Kate stared wordlessly at him until he finally understood.

“You’re saying there were others?” he asked. “In between Stuckey and Johnston, there were others?” She heard the incredulity and outrage in his voice.

She nodded. “Maybe he didn’t use the same methods in every case,” she hurried on. “Maybe he varied his rituals. Maybe law enforcement didn’t see a connection.”

“There hasn’t
been
another case like this around here. If you’re right, even the Stuckey killing was disguised as a drowning.”

“Maybe he hid the body or the case wasn’t even in Bigler County,” she countered.

“Then why didn’t he hide Jennifer’s body? Why risk being caught? And why leave the car in plain sight?”

Kate frowned. “It could be part of the thrill for him, flaunting his power. He
wanted
her to be found, wanted us to see his handiwork.”

Slater shook his head. “The mark on her thigh’s too unusual. If this happened somewhere else, the cops would’ve reported it.”

A shiver rolled through Kate’s body. She didn’t like thinking of the crudely-drawn mark on the girl’s inner thigh. She’d seen the crime scene photos from the Preston, Idaho, case – the one she had believed was the murderer’s first kill until she’d gotten the Mary Stuckey hit.

Although there were cuts inflicted postmortem on the Idaho victim, there’d been no report of a sign, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been there. Neither had the psychological significance of the cuts found on the victim’s body been remarked on in the coroner or police reports. These were clear flaws in the Idaho investigation.

Kate hadn’t posed a theory about the infinity mark until Jennifer’s autopsy. She’d have to review the other cases, this time looking for the strange mark, or something similar to it, and analyzing what it represented.

She shook her head. “If it’s his signature, he might’ve developed it recently.”

“And the missing panties?”

“A serial killer can fantasize with a souvenir or trophy or with remembered ritualized behavior. What’s important is the overall pattern associated with the killings. His signature is what distinguishes his acts from other murders, and it’s unique to him.”

“Do you think he’s still in Bigler County?”

“I don’t know. Staying is risky. Transient behavior offers him a degree of safety. Why would he take a chance hanging around after killing Jennifer?”

“Why would he even return to Bigler County if he murdered Stuckey?” Slater countered. He was silent for a moment, brows knit in concentration. “What if he
had
to stay in the area for some reason we don’t know about?”

Kate thought a moment before answering. “It’s possible if the motivation were strong enough.”

“We should run checks on new residents in the area. Say, in the last six months?”

“Go back a year. Some serial killers wait years between their murders. Jeffrey Dahmer went nine years between his first and second killings.”

The waitress interrupted them for their orders, and when she left, they were both silent for a long moment. Finally Slater asked, “How many victims?”

Kate knew immediately what he meant and the enormity of their situation overwhelmed her. “If he’s been at this for twenty years, it could easily be dozens,” she whispered.

“Christ.” Slater swiped his hand over his jaw. “How could that pattern not show up in the Quantico data-base?”

“If he’s on the move, there’d be no obvious connection.”

“Yeah, could be,” Slater conceded, sipping his beer. “A small town like Placer Hills might draw him. It’s less populated and normally wouldn’t have the resources for a rigorous investigation.”

They stopped talking when their lunches arrived. Slater attacked his food with the relish of a man who hadn’t eaten in days, but Kate picked at hers.

Soon she’d have to tell him about the other two cases. And the Preston case. And her connection to the victim. Although she hadn’t told him an outright lie, she’d certainly deceived him. She had no compunction about lying for the good of the case, but Slater, while suspicious and prickly, seemed like a good detective and she hated deceiving him.

He paused in his eating. “What?” he asked, pointing to her plate with his fork. “Don’t tell me the food isn’t any good. It’s delicious. Not like the beer.” He grinned and it took years off his face.