Tovar wore loafers with no socks, jeans, a white shirt with a navy blue knit tie, loosened at the neck, and a gray sport coat. Even though he was balding, what little hair he had looked slept on.
Lorenzon, on the other hand, looked like a page out of the Derek Morgan fashion field manual—a black polo with a Chicago police shield over the left breast, black slacks and socks and black loafers with rubber soles and tassels.
‘‘Anything?’’ Hotchner asked as they entered.
Lorenzon shrugged toward Tovar. ‘‘I think Hilly’s got something.’’
‘‘Thank you, Chief,’’ Tovar was saying into the phone. ‘‘We’ll have someone out to talk to you ASAP.’’ He clicked off.
‘‘What?’’ Hotchner asked.
‘‘That was the Aurora chief of police,’’ Tovar said. ‘‘Far west suburb. The crime scene is in their jurisdiction. Killer shot the victim three times in the chest, and left him in a place called the Aurora West Forest Preserve.’’
Tovar rose and went to a map on the wall and stuck a push pin into the area he’d referred to, making it one of five pins, each representing a crime scene.
Reid considered the five pins—one way up north in Wauconda, another way south and east in Chicago Heights, then in Chicago’s Chinatown, on to the Gacy house also on the north side and now, this latest one, far west and on a line halfway between the two easternmost pins. He struggled to divine a pattern, mentally connecting the dots, first this way, then that, going through the various possibilities until he was certain there was no help there.
Hotchner asked, ‘‘Anything with geographic profiling?’’
Reid shook his head. ‘‘This is a huge area. The UnSub’s safety zone could be any of a hundred places without him ever having to hunt in or even near it.’’
‘‘What about a pattern with the crimes?’’
‘‘None that I can detect,’’ Reid said. ‘‘There’s certainly no geometric pattern evolving. But when Luke John Helder was dropping bombs in rural mailboxes, to make a smiley face on the map of the U.S.? No one saw that pattern until he told them.’’
‘‘All right,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘Prentiss, you and Tovar head to the Aurora PD and talk to the chief.’’
‘‘Right,’’ Prentiss said.
‘‘Morgan, get with Garcia—try to ID the victim if the locals haven’t.’’
‘‘Yep,’’ Morgan said.
‘‘Rossi, you and Reid go with Lorenzon and hit the crime scene. Much as I hate its existence, it’s nice to get a fresh look for a change.’’
‘‘Talk about mixed blessing,’’ Rossi said, getting up.
Reid merely nodded.
‘‘And you, Aaron?’’ Rossi asked.
‘‘We’ve only got one suspect,’’ Hotchner said. ‘‘Our colleague Detective Denson—I’m going to try to figure out where he’s been lately, without tipping to him we’re looking.’’
‘‘Good luck,’’ Rossi said. ‘‘It’s a whole different deal when a suspect is a cop—they have access to the playbook. Be nice if we had a
real
friend in the Wauconda PD.’’
‘‘Would at that,’’ Hotchner said.
Even with the majority of rush hour traffic headed into the city, the drive to Aurora took the better part of two hours.
The forest preserve sat on Hankes Road, west of Aurora and just east of a little town called Sugar Grove. The promise of another hot, humid day made a haze of the air as they followed a blue-and-white around a bend to the preserve.
As the FBI Tahoe pulled in, the squad car pulled off to the right and behind another squad. Three more blue-and-whites and a couple of unmarkeds were along the other side of the blacktop drive. A last squad was parked across the entrance, its occupant climbing out as they pulled to a stop a few feet short of the obstruction.
Rossi glanced around. ‘‘No ambulance?’’
‘‘They took the body away already,’’ Lorenzon said. ‘‘Funny—the victim wasn’t in the car, but in a shallow grave in the woods. They found it pretty easily.’’
The uniformed officer came to the driver’s side and Lorenzon showed his ID.
‘‘And these two?’’ the officer asked.
‘‘FBI,’’ Rossi said, showing his credentials.
Reid followed suit.
‘‘Park over there,’’ the officer said, pointing to the unmarked cars. ‘‘You’ll have to walk in. It’s not far.’’
Lorenzon pulled the car up the road and off onto the shoulder. They walked back, passing the car blocking the entrance and, as they did, three men came walking from the other direction, the first with a camera, the second carrying a crime scene kit, and the third obviously a detective.
The photographer, shorter than the other two, stood maybe five-ten and weighed in at about one-seventy. He had a heart-shaped face, ruddy cheeks and blond hair. The crime scene analyst was an African-American with a shaved head. Maybe forty, he was building a little belly despite an otherwise muscular build; he wore wire-framed glasses and walked with a slight limp. The detective, blond and blue-eyed, tall and wide-shouldered, had walked off a recruiting poster for the Aryan Nation; he wore a navy blue suit and dark glasses.
Lorenzon and Rossi nodded to the photographer. ‘‘Jerry Peters,’’ the photographer replied, shaking hands with Rossi and Lorenzon.
‘‘You on the Aurora PD?’’ Lorenzon asked.
‘‘Freelance,’’ Peters said. ‘‘Too many crimes, not enough cameras. I’m all over the suburbs.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘You help where you’re needed.’’
They turned to the detective.
‘‘Detective Henry Karl,’’ the cop said, extending his hand. ‘‘Aurora Police Department.’’
Rossi introduced himself and they shook hands. The senior agent then introduced Reid and Lorenzon.
‘‘Glad to meet you,’’ Karl said with a wide smile. ‘‘Thanks for pitching in. This big guy is our crime scene tech, Orlando Ramirez.’’
The African-American with the crime scene kit shook hands all around, then took a step back, his limp exaggerated a little.
‘‘Football?’’ Lorenzon asked, nodding toward the leg.
Speaking with the barest trace of a Spanish accent, Ramirez said, ‘‘I wish. Nine mil in Cuba, when I was a boy.’’
‘‘Ouch,’’ Lorenzon said.
Rossi nodded toward the crime scene. ‘‘What have we got here?’’
‘‘A nightmare,’’ the photographer said.
The cop and CSA nodded and shook their heads, in accidental synchronization.
‘‘We don’t usually have anything like this out our way,’’ Karl said. ‘‘We’re far enough from the city that not much of the slime rubs off. Hell, we would have thought it was just a robbery gone bad without that photo . . . plus Detective Tovar calling us to tell us this was part of a serial crime.’’
‘‘This isn’t just far from the city,’’ Reid said, looking all around. ‘‘This preserve is at least five miles from anywhere. Any idea how the UnSub got out? Are there tire tracks?’’
‘‘Ay,
mierda
,’’ Ramirez said. ‘‘This place has more traffic than you would think, Agent Reid. Sightseers, picnickers, nature lovers, people looking for a little privacy in God’s great green world. Are there tire tracks? What does a bear do in the woods? We’ve been here since before sunup, and most of what we’ve done is take tire impressions and pictures of tire tracks. Your suspect, though, he left another way.’’
Reid cocked his head. ‘‘What other way?’’
Ramirez gave a harsh single laugh. ‘‘On a damn bicycle.’’
Rossi said, ‘‘I’ve seen weirder.’’
‘‘Come with us back to the scene,’’ Karl said. ‘‘Orlando and Jerry found some good evidence, I think.’’
The six men followed the blacktop a quarter of a mile into the woods to where a gravel parking lot filled a small clearing on the right. The victim’s car sat at the far end.
The car—a newer, green Honda Accord—had Illinois plates.
Rossi asked, ‘‘Is he a local?’’
Karl shook his head. ‘‘We traced the plate to a Peoria guy named Vern Latham. Salesman for a company that deals with Mastodon, local company that makes tractors and earthmovers.’’
‘‘So,’’ Rossi said, ‘‘here on a sales call?’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ Karl said. ‘‘We’re trying to retrace his steps, but it’s hard, since no one seems to have seen him since he left Mastadon yesterday afternoon.’’
Rossi shook his head. ‘‘
Someone
saw him.’’
Reid studied the car and its position. He leaned inside to look at the bloodstains.
‘‘Three shots,’’ Karl said. ‘‘Probably a .22. I doubt he ever saw it coming.’’
Reid said to Rossi, ‘‘It’s as we thought—Aileen Wuornos.’’
The others had come over by now.
‘‘Who?’’ Karl asked.
Rossi turned to them. ‘‘You haven’t seen this morning’s Chicago
Daily World
?’’
Karl grunted. ‘‘I wouldn’t wipe my ass with that rag.’’
Ramirez said, ‘‘They don’t sell it out this far.’’
Rossi nodded. ‘‘Okay, I better bring you fellas up to speed.’’
Quickly the profiler did so.
‘‘Son of a bitch,’’ Peters, the photographer, said. ‘‘He’s copying famous
serial
killers?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Reid said. ‘‘This one is Aileen Wuornos, and it’s a frankly audacious choice for a male UnSub. Wuornos was a prostitute in Florida who shot seven men. Six were found and identified. Peter Siems’s car was found, but his body never was. This crime was supposed to match that. Except he didn’t think you’d find the body so quickly.’’
‘‘You’re sure about this?’’ Karl asked.
Reid said, ‘‘Call it probability.’’
Rossi put a hand on Karl’s shoulder. ‘‘Trust us,’’ he said. ‘‘If Dr. Reid says it’s Wuornos, it’s Wuornos.’’
Reid’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘‘This may mean we have a male UnSub whose physicality lends itself to a remarkable masquerade.’’
Rossi said, ‘‘Dr. Reid means the UnSub probably pulled off a drag queen routine that fooled his victim.’’
Eyes wide, Karl said, ‘‘Posed as a woman, and what? Picked him up somewhere, a bar maybe?’’
‘‘As a working hypothesis, yes.’’
Reid faced the Aurora detective. ‘‘Where was the body buried?’’
‘‘Over here,’’ Ramirez told them, and led them to an area not far into the woods.
The grave had been shallow, blood still visible in the bottom.
Reid shook his head. ‘‘He couldn’t have thought this would fool anyone. . . .’’
Peters said, ‘‘Maybe he wasn’t trying to hide the body.’’
‘‘He
should
have,’’ Reid said. ‘‘That was part of the Siems crime. He got the date wrong too—that crime was July 4, 1990. He missed by over a month. This is, generally, the Siems scene . . . but he’s getting sloppy.’’
Peters frowned. ‘‘How many has he killed?’’
‘‘Seven, that we know of.’’
‘‘How sloppy can he be, if he’s at large after seven of these atrocities?’’
Reid said nothing. Turning to Ramirez, he asked, ‘‘Any evidence from the grave?’’
‘‘Just that he used a camp shovel to dig it. The marks on the sides aren’t wide enough to’ve been caused by a full-sized shovel.’’
Looking back toward the parking lot, Reid asked, ‘‘How did you determine the UnSub left by bicycle?’’
‘‘I came across something,’’ Peters said, and led them over to a spot past the other side of the parking lot.
Soon they stood around a bare area of grass surrounded by piles of leaves.
Peters pointed. ‘‘He had something buried here under the leaves. Could have been a bike.’’
Then Ramirez and Peters led them further into the woods to another area that had been cleaned away, this one larger than the first.
Rossi, hands on hips as he looked down, asked, ‘‘What do we have here?’’
Ramirez said, ‘‘The escape route.’’
‘‘Yeah?’’
Ramirez pointed to thin ruts in the grass. ‘‘Tire tracks from a mountain bike.’’
‘‘Could it have been a motorbike?’’ Lorenzon asked. ‘‘Kind of out in the boonies for a bike, aren’t we?’’
‘‘Maybe, but it’s not motorbike tracks. The killer had a bicycle snugged here and did his thing and just pedaled away.’’
Rossi was nodding. ‘‘This guy’s organized,’’ he said.
Karl’s eyes went from Rossi to Reid and back again. ‘‘One of you says he’s organized, the other says he’s getting sloppy. Do you guys
really
know what the hell you’re doing?’’
Rossi gave the detective a sly smile. ‘‘Hard to believe, maybe, but we do. The UnSub has been organized in how he
plans
the crimes, but he’s becoming more disorganized in his actual carrying out of the crimes.’’
‘‘Isn’t that a contradiction?’’ Peters asked.
Rossi’s smiled broadened. ‘‘Isn’t making murder an art form a contradiction in itself?’’
Hotchner was livid.
He had spoken on the phone, personally, with the editor of the
Daily World
, who had gone on and on about the first amendment and freedom of the press when obstruction of justice was more like it. The team leader knew he should have left this critical work to Jareau and got off the phone as soon as he realized how futile the effort.
Shortly thereafter, Jareau came into the conference room. ‘‘I’ve got the court order! I found a federal judge who will let Garcia into the
Daily World
’s e-mail account.’’
‘‘Take Prentiss,’’ he said. ‘‘Go serve it to that editor.’’
‘‘You don’t want to go yourself?’’
Shaking his head, Hotchner said, ‘‘I don’t think I can be in the same room with that defender of the freedom of press right now.’’
Jareau smiled. ‘‘All right. But I intend to enjoy myself telling him to move over and let us in.’’
‘‘Enjoying yourself is allowed, if the job gets done.’’
Jareau and Prentiss left.
Only Morgan remained in the room with Hotchner. Bent over his laptop, Morgan seemed deeply involved in something. Hotchner made himself put his anger aside and get back to work. Letting out a long breath, he rubbed his forehead and sat down at his computer.
This day was shaping up to be another long, bad one and he knew that the clock was ticking. With the UnSub back in business, and spreading news of his deeds to an even wider circle of the media, before long a full-blown panic would grip the nation’s Second City.