Authors: Leslie Tentler
“You can start by fact-checking Clarkson’s piece on the drive-by shooting in Brentwood.” He returned his attention to his computer monitor. “I want it online ASAP.”
Sensing she’d been dismissed, Mia left his office. She passed Walt Rudner, who was leaned back in his desk chair, its frame creaking under his considerable girth as he yakked on the phone. Upon seeing her, he lowered his tone, but Mia had already heard enough to know he was talking about her deputy escort to work. They’d driven the squad car into the parking garage, then walked her into the newspaper lobby through the enclosed rear entrance to draw as little attention as possible. Mia had been instructed to call when she needed to leave the building. She’d also heard Eric telling the deputies to make sure they weren’t followed.
It was a strange way to live.
She collected her things from where she normally sat in the maze of cubicles that held the features reporters. Her new responsibilities would transfer her to one of the desks up front, facing the newsroom. She’d just gotten settled in when Walt brushed by, shoving his thick arms into his blazer as he lumbered toward the lobby. He had the look of a hungry jackal that had just been told a rabbit dinner was about to be served.
“What’s going on?” His excitement made her uneasy.
“I just got a tip. A dead female. The Feds are involved.”
32
T
he body had been dumped behind a tire store in a slightly run-down section of Old St. Augustine Road on the city’s south side. Eric stood with Cameron as the M.E.’s office conducted its examination.
“Internal temperature is consistent with the outdoors,” an attending physician said, kneeling beside the body. He removed the thermometer that had been inserted into the liver, another affront to what was left of Karen Diambro. “Combined with the stage of rigor mortis, I’d say she’s been dead about thirty-six hours. The pattern of burn marks suggests she was hooked to some kind of electrical device and repeatedly shocked. I don’t know if it was a form of torture or the C.O.D., especially considering the other wounds to the body—there’s a lot to choose from here. That’s all I can tell you until I get her on the table.”
Eric thought of the agony the woman had endured, as well as the little boy now left without a mother. In addition to the grim burns and extensive bruising, the underwear-clad corpse held other, more familiar markings—the numeral ten carved into the stomach and ten raw, open wounds on her fingers where nails should have been. He looked away, trying to keep a handle on his anger and emotion.
The morning was heating up, the sun already creating little shimmies of heat off the parking lot asphalt. JSO deputies were holding back the crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk to gawk. Detectives Boyet and Scofield were in front of the hastily strung up crime scene tape, talking to the tire store’s owner, who had found the body when he arrived for work.
“He didn’t even attempt to hide this one. The employees park back here,” Cameron said as they took a few steps away.
It was a notable deviation. The others so far had been well concealed in nonurban areas. In fact, the body of one of the victims—Cissy Cox—had yet to be recovered. But it was almost as if this one had been left where it would be quickly found. The damage to the body was the worst so far.
“The foiled abduction on Saturday night could’ve served as a stressor, which would explain the change in M.O.,” Eric theorized. “A guy like this doesn’t like to mess up. He took his anger out on Ms. Diambro. Maybe he wanted us to see what he’d done as a way to reassert his power.”
“What about his fixation on having his next victim watch?”
“That plan failed and he was too irate to control himself.” Eric was all too aware the next victim was supposed to have been Mia. “He was geared for the kill and couldn’t delay his gratification any longer.”
Disposing of the body here had been a significant risk. Eric had been on this area of road before and it was well populated, even at night. The unsub had driven his vehicle around back and unloaded the body, not even bothering to stash it in the nearby metal Dumpster. His eyes searched the tire store’s brick exterior but he saw no surveillance equipment, only a clearly displayed sign that stated No Loitering.
“Check the dry cleaners next door and the quick print across the street for security cameras—maybe they got something,” he instructed a passing field agent.
A news van had shown up on the street, parking in front of a line of stubby palmettos. It had the same call letters as the television station that had run the interview with Ms. Diambro’s ex-husband. The body’s discovery would certainly mean its replay today. Eric prepared for a new wave of criticism.
“Agents? We’ve got something.”
They returned to the body, watching as the physician extracted something from the mouth with a long pair of medical tweezers. “It was stuffed into her throat. I almost didn’t see it when I made the oral exam.”
It appeared to be a folded piece of white paper. Eric realized what it was. A business card, flecked with blood and still wet with the victim’s saliva. He felt a jolt as the physician carefully opened it to reveal the familiar insignia and black typeface.
Eric A. Macfarlane, Special Agent. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Violent Crimes Unit.
Cameron shook his head as the pale-faced physician held out the card.
“Bag it,” Eric murmured. The card wasn’t one of his current ones. The design was several years old. He suspected the unsub had gotten it from Rebecca’s purse. He’d kept it all this time as a souvenir.
“So what’s your take on this?” Cameron asked a few minutes later. The crew from the M.E.’s office had turned the body over to complete their exam, revealing the mottled lividity marks where blood had settled after circulation had ceased. Once they were done, it would be Forensics’ turn to get a better look. They’d go over the body for other clues—fibers from rope or carpets, human hairs not belonging to the deceased.
“My take is that he’s going to want another captive soon—”
“I’m talking about
you,
Eric. He rammed your card halfway down her throat. You don’t consider that some kind of challenge?”
“No more than sending me recordings of dead women,” he said quietly.
“You know what I think?” Cameron looked out over the crowd of onlookers before returning his gaze to Eric. “I think this guy’s escalating and Karen Diambro’s corpse was nothing more than a gift box for holding a message to you. You’re an obsession to him.”
Eric didn’t respond. Instead, he was thinking of the past two days. So far they had a high-risk abduction attempt gone awry, the beating death of Penney Niemen out in the open, and now the poorly hidden corpse of another victim, dumped in a high-traffic locale.
“We’ve learned something, at least,” he said. “When this bastard gets angry he loses control and takes bigger risks, which increases the chance of us catching him.”
“So what do we do?”
“We piss him off.”
It was late afternoon, and pretty much everyone on the
Courier
staff who wasn’t on an immediate deadline had gathered around the flat-screen in the newsroom.
Mia stood among them, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched the televised press conference. Eric faced the cameras behind a microphone-heavy podium, giving an update from the Bureau building’s lobby on the identification of Karen Diambro’s body earlier that day. He appeared solemn, his tone authoritative as he provided a statement prepared by the joint task force.
Much of the information wasn’t new to her, since Walt had returned from the crime scene a few hours earlier. Mia herself had fact-checked his article, which had already been posted online and was slated for the paper’s Tuesday print edition. But it was what
hadn’t
been included in the story that truly sickened her. Walt had talked to the deputy who had been first responder to the 9-1-1 call from the tire store, and he’d described the heinous injuries to the body. Mia’s heart ached for the Diambro family. She also felt for Eric and the pressure he had to be under.
On the television, a buzz broke out among the reporters in attendance as he opened the floor to questions. The queries came at him at a dizzying speed, but he fielded each with clarity and brevity.
Ms. Diambro’s ex-husband has been critical of the investigation. What is the FBI’s response now that the body has been found?… Is it true the killer has been in touch with you, sending audio recordings made of the victims prior to their deaths?… Agent Macfarlane, your own wife was believed to be a victim of the same killer in another state three years ago. What led him to Jacksonville, and should you be heading up the investigation, considering your personal involvement?
The last question had come from Walt, who was at the press conference. He was off camera, but Mia recognized his gruff voice. Eric had made no public comment following the profile on him that had run in the
Courier
the previous week, but he spoke now.
“Based on key evidence, we’re confident that the perpetrator of five murders in Maryland three years earlier is the same man currently at work here in Jacksonville,” he said. “As you know, the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit is called in when serial crimes—namely homicides—cross state lines or when other law enforcement agencies request assistance. It is the VCU’s belief the subject of this investigation is in actuality a Florida native who lived in Maryland during the time frame the murders there occurred. For whatever reason, he has since returned to his home state and after a period of dormancy, is now operating here.”
He paused, preparing to answer the second part of the question. Several cameras flashed, and Mia realized her heart had begun to beat harder.
“My late wife, Rebecca Garner Macfarlane, was the fifth and final victim in Maryland. I offer no commentary on that other than to give my sincere assurance that I will capture her killer, and the killer of nine other women to date.”
The lobby exploded with follow-up questions, but Eric nodded to an Asian-American female in the first row who Mia didn’t recognize as a local journalist.
“Agent Macfarlane, can you give a profile of the man dubbed The Collector?” she asked.
“We have a physical composite provided by an unnamed witness we’ve shown before, which should be appearing again on camera right now.” As he spoke, the screen switched to the more recent sketch Mia had worked on with the artist.
“The unknown subject is Caucasian, early to mid-forties, approximately six feet tall with a slightly receding, dark hairline. He’s average-looking and unremarkable in appearance,” Eric emphasized. “Psychologically, he is an extreme narcissist with a highly inflated sense of self-worth. While arrogant, he’s a severe underachiever in all aspects of his life—financially, socially and emotionally. He is single and unemployed or works at a low-paying job, and has few to no friendships. We also have reason to believe he is asexual or may have latent homosexual tendencies. The abductions and murders have not been sexually motivated, and he is thought to regard women as inanimate objects he can overpower and control. In fact, dominance is the one thing that gives him stature in a world he is otherwise largely incapable in.”
The television screen returned to Eric. “If you believe you’ve seen the man in this sketch, or know his whereabouts, I urge you to call the task force hotline.”
The number appeared at the bottom of the screen. More questions were shouted from the floor, but he took a step back and another member of the task force came forward to conclude the conference. Mia felt a chill fall over her. The artist’s sketch had captured her abductor perfectly, right down to the coldness in his eyes. It was disturbing to see it again.
“You all right?”
As the others dispersed and headed back to their desks, Mia turned to find Grayson studying her. He’d slipped out of his office at some point and joined the group watching the news conference. “You’re as white as my shirt.”
“I’m fine.”
He lowered his voice. “You provided the sketch, didn’t you?”
Mia hesitated, then gave a faint nod.
“Impressive. The memory-retrieval sessions must have worked to some extent—at least until you had to stop.” He lifted one hand and added, “
And I know,
it’s something we’re not allowed to report on. I’m keeping the promise I made you. No matter what I said this past weekend, the sci-fi stuff at the NAS stays off the record.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. She felt a small flare of hope that some part of their friendship might be salvageable, after all.
Grayson was called away and Mia went back to the news desk, drawn by the ringing telephone. As she answered it, her thoughts remained elsewhere, however. She’d been on the brink of discovering something key during those sessions, she was certain of it. Her abductor’s face, the cinder-block building in the woods, her flight on the interstate south of Jacksonville. What else might she have remembered?