Prentiss was smiling just a little.
The guy patted the air in front of him. ‘‘Whoa, whoa, I was just havin’ some fun with you guys.’’
Prentiss said, ‘‘Do we look like we stopped by for the matinee?’’
‘‘Sorry, sorry. Bad joke. Stupid joke. We don’t get the FBI around that often.’’
Hotchner arched an eyebrow and asked, ‘‘But sometimes you do?’’
Now their host
was
worried. ‘‘I was just kidding around. I am glad to help you people. What do you need?’’
The secretary turned away, possibly stifling a laugh, albeit probably not the laugh her boss had hoped to get out of her.
‘‘Let’s start again,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘Name?’’
‘‘Marshall—Art Marshall.’’
‘‘Good,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’’
Marshall smiled feebly.
Prentiss said, ‘‘Would you mind if we sat down?’’ ‘‘No. That’d be fine.’’
‘‘Do you have any chairs?’’
‘‘Sure. Absolutely we have chairs. Consuela, couple of chairs for our guests!’’
She said, ‘‘Yes, sir,’’ and rose and got them chairs.
The agents sat down.
Then Hotchner said, ‘‘Now, let’s talk about a car.’’
‘‘
Which
car?’’ Marshall asked, suddenly finding himself on more comfortable ground.
Actually, that was a good sign: if Marshall were up to anything illegal with this business, Hotchner knew, the question would have unnerved him, not relaxed him.
Prentiss said, ‘‘A 1995 Honda Civic, navy blue.’’
‘‘Consuela, bring it up.’’
The young woman, back at her desk, ratty-tat-tatted at the computer keyboard and the screen on her monitor changed to display a table.
‘‘We have three 1995 Honda Civics,’’ she said.
‘‘Three?’’ Prentiss asked, obviously surprised. ‘‘All navy blue?’’
‘‘All navy blue.’’
Hotchner said, ‘‘This one was registered to a man named Edels.’’
Consuela nodded, checked the screen, then took a sideways look at her boss. ‘‘We just filed the paperwork to sell that car.’’
‘‘We know,’’ Hotchner said to her. To her boss, he said, ‘‘Did you know the police had run this plate number as a missing car?’’
Marshall shrugged. ‘‘I can’t keep track of every car that the cops are looking for. I stop at due diligence.’’
Hotchner had not expected above and beyond the call of duty from the manager of a business self-dubbed Buccaneer.
Prentiss asked, ‘‘When was it towed?’’
‘‘March thirty-first,’’ Consuela said.
‘‘Ten days after Bobby Edels disappeared,’’ Hotchner said to Prentiss. He asked the secretary, ‘‘Where was it towed from?’’
Consuela read the screen again. ‘‘A private lot north of Davis Square Park, down by the railroad yards.’’
‘‘What was the car doing there?’’ Hotchner asked, as much to himself as anyone.
Marshall was shaking his head. ‘‘Not much down that way.’’
Hotchner stood. ‘‘We’ll be calling in a crime scene team to take the car.’’
Marshall frowned. ‘‘What about my money?’’
Prentiss said, ‘‘You’ll have to settle for the satisfaction of knowing you may help catch a murderer.’’
‘‘You can’t eat satisfaction.’’
Hotchner, with no expression whatsoever, said, ‘‘Skip a meal.’’
They nodded good-byes to the manager and his secretary, and stepped out onto the lot.
Prentiss said, ‘‘That was pretty funny.’’
Hotchner gave her a look. ‘‘Don’t tell anybody.’’
Using his cell phone, Hotchner phoned SAIC Himes at the Chicago field office and arranged for someone to come tow the Civic to the FBI garage.
Hotchner said, ‘‘We’ll need somebody to finger-print all the Buccaneer tow truck drivers, too.’’
‘‘Not a problem,’’ Himes said. ‘‘What
is
a problem is we just got a call from the police department in Des Plaines. They’ve found a body in the crawl space of a vacant house at 8213 West—’’
‘‘Summerdale,’’ Hotchner said, finishing the sentence.
‘‘How in the hell did you know that?’’ Himes asked.
‘‘That’s where John Wayne Gacy lived.’’
‘‘You have got to be shitting me.’’
‘‘I wish I were,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘We’re on our way.’’ He clicked off and punched in Rossi’s number, knowing all he had to do was give David the address, and the significance would be obvious.
Rossi said, ‘‘Morgan and I can be there in . . .’’
Hotchner could hear Rossi conferring with the Chicago native.
‘‘. . . an hour.’’
‘‘I’m with Prentiss,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘We’re farther away, but we’re coming too.’’
In a Tahoe a few miles away, Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi clicked off and pocketed his cell phone.
Shaking his head, Morgan said, ‘‘Gacy?’’
‘‘Yeah. The clown prince himself. Let’s shake it.’’
Along with Lorenzon (who rode in the back), they had been in Chinatown canvassing the neighbors along Twenty-fifth Street, looking for anyone willing to talk about the house at 213. They had been there over an hour and were pitching a shutout—not a single person thus far had let them get past showing their credentials before the door closed in their faces.
The midafternoon traffic was light and Rossi watched with some admiration as Morgan wove expertly through it; in forty-five minutes, they were pulling up to the house of death.
Although untold misery had been perpetrated within, from the outside this was an unprepossessing brick-front bungalow with a picture window left of the propped-open front door, and a long, narrow driveway running up the left side. The gateway to hell had rarely looked more benign.
Several police cars, both marked and unmarked, sat on either side of the street, an ambulance backed into the driveway. The yard had been cordoned off with crime scene tape and several officers milled around outside. A nearly constant parade of personnel, both uniformed and plainclothes, made its way in and out of the front door.
Morgan parked and the two agents and the detective climbed out of the SUV. As they crossed the street, a plainclothes guy, obviously a detective, came out of the house and saw them. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a block-shaped head with thinning gray hair. This obvious old-timer wore a suit that screamed Sears-off-the-rack, barely disguising the gun on his hip, and Rossi would have pegged the guy a cop even without his erect posture and swagger. Right behind the plainclothes veteran came a slightly shorter guy with brown, curly hair and a digital SLR camera hanging on a lanyard around his neck. He wore a maroon polo, black jeans, and black sneakers and appeared pretty fit. Another lanyard around his neck held a plastic ID.
The Old School detective instantly nodded in their direction and cut across the lawn toward them.
‘‘Lorenzon!’’ he called in a husky baritone, as he neared them, the photographer trailing slightly.
‘‘Andy Wallace,’’ Lorenzon said. ‘‘Haven’t seen you since that crazy asshole on the expressway, couple years ago.’’
‘‘That crazy asshole you
shot
, you mean.’’
Lorenzon shrugged. ‘‘He
did
shoot at me first.’’
‘‘There is that. But tell me, Tate—was it worth enduring the shooting board?’’
Lorenzon managed a grin. ‘‘You know, I think it was.’’
‘‘So much for nostalgia. What are you doing out here at
this
crime scene?’’
‘‘FBI investigation,’’ Lorenzon said. ‘‘Task force. And speaking of nostalgia . . .’’
Wallace grimaced, glanced at the Gacy house. Then he nodded toward the photographer. ‘‘This is Daniel Dryden. Crime scene photographer with Cook County. Helping us out today.’’
Lorenzon made introductions to Rossi and Morgan and they shook hands all around. Rossi explained to Wallace and Dryden about the copycat serial killer, the snail-mail photos to departments, and the investigation in general.
Rossi said, ‘‘We’ll talk to your chief about joining the task force. In the meantime, maybe you can get us caught up on what happened here.’’
‘‘Hell of thing,’’ Wallace said, shaking his head. ‘‘What kind of sick fuck thinks copying
Gacy
is a good idea?’’
Rossi said, ‘‘That’s what they pay me to find out.’’
They were about to get down to business when Wallace’s cell phone trilled.
He stepped away from them, answered, said, ‘‘No shit,’’ a couple of times, then clicked off.
He turned back to the task force members and said, ‘‘You guys were right. That was my captain— he told me he just got a picture in the mail.’’
‘‘Jesus,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘He’s not even paying any attention to the dates anymore. . . .’’
Morgan said, ‘‘Definitely escalating.’’
‘‘This task force is growing faster than I’d ever want it to,’’ Rossi said. Then to Wallace he said, ‘‘Who found the body?’’
Wallace said, ‘‘Meter reader. The house still has an old-style gas meter. Inside the house, in the laundry room. Reader had a key to get in and noticed the cover off the crawl space. He shone a flashlight down there, saw what he saw, then called us.’’
‘‘How did the killer get in here with the body?’’
‘‘Window in the kitchen in the back of the house,’’ Wallace said, gesturing. ‘‘He cut a hole in the window, slipped in, then unlocked the back door. It’s a quiet neighborhood. If he did it late at night, no one would have even noticed.’’
Rossi asked, ‘‘Have you identified the victim?’’
‘‘White male, early twenties, no ID, still dressed, partially buried in the crawl space under the house.’’
Morgan nodded toward the innocent-looking, nondescript bungalow. ‘‘House is vacant?’’
‘‘Has been, off and on, since Gacy,’’ Wallace said. ‘‘No one with even a vague idea of what went on in there has ever wanted to live in that house. Of course, there’s nothing vague about
this
killing— looks like it was done by someone who knew about the original crimes.’’
‘‘What makes you say that?’’ Rossi asked.
Wallace jerked a thumb at the bungalow. ‘‘I was a rookie when this went down back in ’seventy-eight and ’seventy-nine. I hadn’t been on the force six months when the excavation started. I hate this goddamn house. The body? To me, it looks like the killer, to pull this off?
Had
to’ve been in the house with us back then.’’
Rossi said, ‘‘It could be as simple as he saw photos. This thing was heavily covered.’’
‘‘Yeah, well, what we saw didn’t make the papers or any of the magazines or even the books about the case.’’ Wallace’s tone and his expression were grave. ‘‘He must’ve seen the actual crime scene photos.’’
‘‘Who had access to those?’’
Wallace shrugged. ‘‘Really, just cop shop people.’’
‘‘From just around here, or Greater Metropolitan Chicago?’’
‘‘You know how it is, Agent Rossi. Cops cooperate. Somebody wants a look at famous crime scene photos, you show ’em.’’
‘‘But there’d be no record of who looked at them.’’
‘‘No. Nothing like that.’’
Rossi and Morgan traded a wary glance. Rossi figured their UnSub would be a police buff, but maybe he was more than just a buff. He had never met this Wauconda detective, Jake Denson, but Hotchner had told him about the encounter. Now, Rossi wondered if Denson had some tie to their new John Doe, too. . . .
‘‘Excuse me,’’ Dryden said. ‘‘But . . .
I’ve
seen them. The photos?’’
They all turned to him.
‘‘And so have a lot of people all over the country, who have no connection to Chicago.’’
Rossi frowned. ‘‘How’s that?’’
‘‘Well, I’ve seen the Gacy shots at forensic photography seminars, crime scene analyst seminars, and, frankly . . . if you know where to look . . . some of ’em are even on the Internet.’’
Rossi sighed, shook his head. This news did not make their lives easier.
‘‘We canvassed but got bubkes,’’ Wallace said. ‘‘This guy’s a ghost.’’
Rossi laughed humorlessly. Then he said, ‘‘ ‘Even then the cock crew loud, and at the sound it shrunk in haste away and vanished from our sight.’ ’’
Morgan’s forehead frowned and his mouth smiled as he said, ‘‘
Hamlet
?’’
Rossi gave up a rumpled grin. ‘‘It was either that or ‘I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.’ ’’
After her meeting with SAIC Himes, Jennifer Jareau had returned to the conference room to find it empty.
This was not unusual. Though much of the public, and even some cops, thought what the BAU did was hocus pocus and that they sat in an ivory tower divining their profiles from crystal balls or tea leaves, the truth was they spent most of their time out in the field . . . which meant the media/police liaison spent a great deal of her time alone, or at least away from the rest of the team.
None of the agents had ever made her feel like anything less than a one hundred percent participant in the BAU, but it still nagged her, sometimes, that they were off busting their humps while she was sitting here in the office.
In her worst moments, she felt like the team mascot or the little sister who wanted to tag along and rarely got to. She worked hard and contributed to the effort, she knew that. Still, they were out in the field now.
And she wasn’t.
Going to her laptop, she hooked up a video feed with Garcia.
‘‘What’s up?’’ her friend asked.
Jareau shook her head. ‘‘Everybody’s in the field.’’
‘‘But you,’’ Garcia said. ‘‘Listen, while you were—’’
‘‘Meeting with SAIC Himes?’’ Jareau offered.
‘‘Yeah, while you were doing that, they got a call about another body.’’
Jareau straightened, surprised she hadn’t been alerted. ‘‘Where?’’
Garcia’s eyes widened, and—with much more melodrama than a mere address would seem to warrant—she said, ‘‘8213 Summerdale in Des Plaines.’’
Jareau shrugged. ‘‘Oh-kay—what am I missing?’’