‘‘The dope is column A,’’ Morgan said, and then wiggled the bag with the knife. ‘‘Column B is federal time.’’
Rossi said, ‘‘Both is the all-you-can-serve buffet.’’
Minchell’s face turned as white as the bandage on his nose.
Then he said, ‘‘Sit down with one of those sketch artists? Sounds like fun. Sure. Glad to help.’’
Chapter Nine
August 7
Chicago, Illinois
The man some were calling the UnSub prided himself on his planning, on never leaving any detail untended.
Yet here he was doing something simple, checkingto make sure that dolt was still buried if not dead, and now, looking down at the road, he could see that he was about to be interrupted, some moron butting in on his private business. . . .
Headlights turned into the gravel driveway and started up the long hill to the house, toward the
back of which the UnSub had, prior to this intru
sion,been heading. The sultry night (actually early morning—the time was one fifteen a.m.) offered up only a few lonely clouds that drifted like lazy smoke, blotting out the moon and a thousand stars. His own car was safely hidden in the barn, so the property should still look vacant.
So who the hell could be wandering up the driveway?
As the vehicle drew closer, he could make out a Ford Bronco. . . .
‘‘More the merrier,’’ he said with a shrug, then chuckled, and headed to the backyard just as planned.
There, he saw at once that the grave seemed fine, undisturbed, and the man beneath the earth made
no sound. The UnSub found his shovel behind the
bushes where he’d left it, then leaned it against the back wall of the house—couldn’t set a trap without a carrot.
Moving back along the far side of the abandoned house, keeping the structure between him and the approaching vehicle, he came around the front as the Bronco eased up into the side yard.
The UnSub had his gun drawn as he knelt next to the corner of the old house, waiting to see who his caller was. If this was some lost tourist seeking directions, who knocked on the door, got no answer,and then headed back to the Bronco, who knows? He might just choose to be merciful. After all, his strong suit was not improvisation, but carefullycalibrated performance.
And if this wasn’t some poor traveler seeking assistance?Well, that was different, wasn’t it?
A man climbed down out of the Bronco. When he appeared at the front fender, he was clearly no lost tourist, not with a pistol drawn and a face as
clenched as a fist. The UnSub could barely make
out the man, who wore a T-shirt and jeans, and— other than a shaved or possibly bald head—the intruder’s features couldn’t be made out, not distinctly.
The intruder headed cautiously around the back
of the house while the UnSub reversed his directionand circled around behind. As surmised, the bald man had spotted the pipe in the ground, and the propped-up shovel, and immediately holstered his weapon, grabbed the implement and started digging.
The UnSub let him dig a while.
Then, coming up behind the intruder, the UnSub said, ‘‘Don’t turn around.’’
‘‘It’s over, asshole,’’ the bald man said, stopping his work, leaning on a shovel full of dirt. ‘‘Denson, Wauconda PD. You’re surrounded.’’
‘‘Am I?’’
‘‘I
knew
it was you. . . .’’
‘‘If you knew—’’
That was as far as the UnSub got before Denson spun, throwing the shovelful of dirt toward him.
The UnSub had anticipated this move, however,
and sidestepped, and shot the bald cop in the belly before the man ever got his gun back out. The bald man did an awkward little pirouette and dropped facedown into the shallow hole. He was breathing heavily, but whether conscious or not, the UnSub couldn’t tell.
‘‘Gut shot like that,’’ the UnSub told his guest, who could possibly hear him, or possibly not, ‘‘it should take a while for you to die. Maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. Although, it’s likely you’ll suffocate first.’’
Picking up the cop’s gun from the ground, stickingit in his waistband, the UnSub whistled ‘‘WhistleWhile You Work’’ and he casually started
refilling the grave on top of the intruder who now lay on the very slightly exposed plywood casket, from which perhaps could be detected the tiniest whimpering.
Smiling as he casually tossed a shovelful of dirt to plop onto the man’s back, the seeping exit wounds turning the dirt damp, the UnSub said, ‘‘Don’t you fools know? I’m always a step ahead.’’
That gunshot, before, would have sounded like a cannon going off out here in the middle of nowhere,so it was best to finish fast and leave.
That’s just what the killer did.
Once the burial was complete, the ground patted down hard around the pipe, he returned the shovel to its place behind the bushes, pulled his vehicle out of the barn, pulled the cop’s in. The last thing he did, before shutting the barn door behind him, was remove latex gloves that prevented him from leaving fingerprints on anything; these he threw into a corner of the barn.
He got into his car and drove away. Here he was in the middle of the night—actually, the early hours of morning—and he still had work to do.
Who was it said, no rest for the wicked?
Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid knew he was blessed in his ability to get by on short sleep. On the BAU, that was as valuable to Reid as his intelligence or his memory.
Hotchner had phoned just before six a.m., barely four hours after Reid had finally crawled into bed, and told him to be in the hotel lobby, ASAP. Fifteen minutes later, mildly disheveled, hair still damp from a hurried shower, Reid exited the elevator into the lobby to find Hotchner, Prentiss and Rossi waiting.
Hotchner, newspaper folded under his arm, his countenance perhaps even more tense than normal, looked typically impeccable in his navy blue suit, as did Rossi in a gray suit of his own. Prentiss too seemed to have taken more time than Reid getting ready, and Reid wondered if he had been the last one called or whether the others were just better organized.
The next elevator car opened and muscular Morgan emerged looking like he’d walked out of a magazine ad in black loafers, slacks, and a T-shirt that might have been spray-painted on.
Only Jareau was MIA, and Reid wondered where the normally hyper-punctual JJ was until he spotted her through the hotel’s glass doors. She, too, was impeccable in a gray pants suit, though her hair swung animatedly as she paced a small patch of sidewalk, cell phone pressed to her ear, engaged in a heated conversation with someone.
Seldom had Reid seen JJ this upset—she was naturally cool and her liaison role required her to be cooler than that; but now and then she lost it, though judging by her gestures, she was as worked up now as he’d ever seen her. As she marched back and forth beyond the door, her expression said that whoever was on the other end of the call had not informed Jareau she’d just won the lottery. . . .
Reid turned to Hotchner. ‘‘What’s going on? That’s not JJ’s normal style.’’
‘‘
This
is going on,’’ Hotch said tersely. The team leader took the paper from under his arm and handed it to Reid like a summons he was serving.
And as tentatively as someone who’d just been so served, Reid opened the newspaper—the Chicago
Daily World
. Not in a class with the
Trib
or the
Sun-Times
, the
Daily World
ran a distant fourth in what was, essentially, a four-paper circulation race. What the paper lacked in readership and integrity, it made up for in sleaze and salaciousness.
The headline read, ‘‘Artist’s Grisly Tableau.’’ Then, below that, in a slightly smaller font, it said: ‘‘Serial Killer Claims Seventh Victim.’’
‘‘
Seventh
victim?’’ Reid asked no one in particular as he continued to read.
Under the headlines, just above the fold, was a color photo of an empty car with blood on the seat and windows.
‘‘This is our UnSub’s work?’’ Reid asked.
‘‘Seems to be,’’ Hotchner said.
‘‘How did that paper get this before we did?’’
‘‘The UnSub sent it to them,’’ Hotch said, biting off the words. ‘‘That and the photos from the other crimes. The other three papers are cooperating and not running them, but the
Daily World
is going all out. . . . On page three, you’ll see the rest.’’
Frowning, Reid asked, ‘‘What about consideration for the families of the victims?’’
Shrugging, Hotchner said, ‘‘Evidently, the
Daily World
feels the public’s ‘right to know’ trumps that.’’
Reid blew out air. ‘‘These must be all over the Internet, already.’’
Until now, Jareau had done a yeoman’s job of keeping the murders off the front page and off the lead story of nightly local newscasters. The murders had been covered by the newspapers and TV, of course; but thanks to her efforts, the copycat aspect had been kept out, as part of the ongoing investigation.
That minimized citywide panic and, as Hotchner and Rossi had reasoned, put the killer on edge as the news coverage did not feed what they already knew to be a hungry massive ego. Of course, a possible downside of that strategy was that it might speed up his kills, as the UnSub sought to garner media attention through sheer volume. Now, thanks to the
Daily World
, that point was moot.
Reid held the paper up and pointed to the grisly photo. ‘‘Do we know where this crime scene is?’’
Morgan said, ‘‘Lorenzon and Tovar are working the phones—we’re assuming the photo was sent to the local PD, as well, although if it went snail mail, it might not have shown up yet.’’ He gestured with open hands. ‘‘But it’s just about got to be one of the outlying suburbs—none of the nearer ones have claimed it.’’
Prentiss added, ‘‘The area in the background appears to be woods, but . . .’’ She shrugged. ‘‘. . . there are lots of wooded areas around Chicago. Garcia’s also on the job, trying to track down the police department. This time the UnSub used e-mail to send the photos to the newspaper. That’s new.’’
Morgan said, ‘‘So an area PD may have received the photos via e-mail attachment already.’’
Reid frowned in thought. ‘‘Then this is a fresh kill. . . .’’
‘‘Probably sometime last night,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘Possibly the night before, but I doubt it. E-mail tells us he’s looking for more immediate gratification.’’
Reid’s eyes tightened. ‘‘Do you think he’s devolving?’’
‘‘How could he not be?’’ Rossi asked. ‘‘He abducted the first victim in March, at least the first one we know about, and made sure that body wasn’t found until July. Now, he kills another in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours and can’t even wait for the mailman to deliver the picture, he’s so proud of his work—for the first time, he e-mails it to speed up the process. Not only do I think the UnSub’s devolving, I think he may be in spree mode and won’t stop killing until we stop him. Every day, hell, every
hour
that we don’t have him in custody puts another innocent in danger. How long did Cunanan take?’’
Rossi was referring, Reid knew, to notorious spree killer Andrew Cunanan, who killed five people, then himself.
In case any of the others weren’t as familiar, Reid said, ‘‘Cunanan threw himself a going away party in San Diego on April 24, 1997. His first two victims were in Minnesota—Jeff Trail in Minneapolis and David Madson in Rush City. Next, Cunanan turned up here in Chicago, where he killed a prominent real estate developer named Lee Miglin. Then he drove Miglin’s car to Pennsville, New Jersey, and killed a cemetery caretaker named William Reese. That was May ninth. He didn’t show up again until he shot the famous designer Gianni Versace in Miami on July fifteenth. The police finally found him in a Miami houseboat on July twenty-third, where he had shot himself to avoid capture. Almost exactly three months after his ‘going away’ party.’’
Rossi was smirking at Reid. ‘‘You could at least credit me with a footnote.’’
‘‘Your spree-killing book
is
the standard reference,’’ Reid said, with a shrug.
Rossi’s eyes widened in the way they sometimes did when Reid made a point.
Then Rossi said, ‘‘Well, this guy’s not going to be
around
in three months. At the rate he’s going, he’s not going to last three
weeks
. I think he’s got the fever, and I think his temperature is still going up.’’
Hotch nodded grimly. ‘‘No question he’s accelerating. But let’s not get too far out in front. Let’s deal with things as they come.’’
Reid glanced back through the glass doors as Jareau snapped her phone shut, then came through the main lobby door and marched toward them, heels firing off like gunshots on the marble lobby floor. Her anger was so extreme it almost cancelled out her prettiness. Almost.
Hotchner asked her. ‘‘What did the editor say?’’
Jareau took a deep breath, then let it out, and seemed to will herself into a more calm state. ‘‘I asked the gentleman how he thought the families of the victims would react to these photos, and he said, ‘Read tomorrow’s edition. We’ll be interviewing them all today.’ ’’
Hotchner chuckled but there was no humor in it. ‘‘Did he say anything about knowing where the crime scene is, or the name of the victim?’’
‘‘If he has that,’’ Jareau said, ‘‘he’s not saying.’’
Reid frowned. ‘‘He ran the photo of a murder victim, without knowing whether the family had been notified or not?’’
Jareau, her eyes hot in her cold face, said, ‘‘I don’t think he’s the type to care.’’
‘‘All right,’’ Hotchner said, taking control. ‘‘Back to the office—we need to get started. He’s not slowing, so we need to speed up.’’
Half an hour later, they entered their conference room to find Lorenzon and Tovar waiting, the older detective talking on the phone, while Lorenzon sat punching keys on a laptop.