And it was probably for the best. I didn’t really want to live it down. I’d nabbed my serial killer in that case all right, right away. In fact, I’d caught Juan Alvarez so quickly that he’d hung himself in his cell under the accusations. After which the real killer continued to strike again, and again, and again.
His family had screamed for my head, rightfully so, with every murder that continued to be committed after Alvarez’s suicide. We didn’t catch the actual killer until three more children were killed.
“Well?” Raritan intoned.
I steadied myself before speaking. “Don’t worry, Jimmy. I’ll get this information into ViCAP as soon as I get back. It only happened twenty-four hours ago.”
Raritan eyed me. “Now that’s closer to what I wanted to hear. You know as well as I do that you have a killer on your hands, and not some random boyfriend. Quite possibly one who just came out of his shell. And if that’s the case, it might be easier to find him, because he’s more likely to trip up. So do us both a favor: quit screwing around and get on it, all right?”
I held up my hands. “Hey, listen. Don’t beat around the bush, Jimmy. Just come out and tell me like it is.” I waited for a smile, but received none in return. I gave up and stood to leave. “Okay, okay. You got it. Anything else?”
“Just one more thing.” Raritan suddenly wore a tight-lipped smile that suggested he struggled to suppress even more unbridled rage. He motioned toward a newspaper lying on one of the chairs. “I almost forgot but, yes, there is one more thing. You see that over there?”
“Newspaper?”
“Yeah. That’s quite a news story about you and your Damnation Algorithm in there.”
“Oh yeah? That’s good, right? I didn’t realize this had come out today. You mind if I take this copy?”
Raritan’s smile grew broader, but at the same time somehow less genuine. “Oh no, not at all. And after you read it? Send me a memo with how you propose that the FBI and the Vatican begin to make amends, now that you’ve managed to officially offend the Catholic Church all the way up to the pope.”
“What?”
Raritan held his hand up and closed his eyes. “I’m not even taking the time to discuss this further. Next time, stipulate that the Bureau gets to review a copy of the interview before you go pontificating, and I use the word with every single ounce of irony intended, about the long-term implications of your scientific discoveries. I’m up to my elbows in other people’s assholes over this.”
“Can I just say one thing?”
“Nope, no, you can’t. Not anything at all. I have a three o’clock.” Raritan extended his hand with the most lifeless enthusiasm I’d ever seen in a proffered handshake.
I made a point to roll my eyes as we shook hands. “Always a pleasure, Jimmy.”
“And I feel the same. You take care now, Lucas, and don’t forget to write.”
Late that afternoon I slumped into a seat in the exit row of the plane back to New Orleans to ruminate on my heartwarming and “life-reaffirming” visit with Raritan. As I recalled our conversation, I realized that I still hadn’t had a chance to read the news article.
I fished the folded paper out of my briefcase and read:
DNA-BASED ALGORITHM DEEPENS DIVIDE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
The article described our recent publication in
Nature Genetics,
which had shown correlations between genetics, epigenetics, and serial killer behaviors—the basis for the so-called Damnation Algorithm, the exact same data I’d just covered in my lecture. Although the reporters had only interviewed me on the scientific aspects of our discovery, the article primarily highlighted the controversy our discovery had created by implying that the moral choices an individual makes might already be prewired in their very own DNA.
I groaned as I read further.
The research has been characterized in various circles as ranging from dangerous to blasphemous. A high-ranking official at the Vatican spoke under conditions of anonymity. “These results are unsubstantiated and the researchers have made claims which are not validated in a larger population. Quite simply, a person’s moral fate is not predestined by his or her DNA.”
That may be, but Madden and colleagues remain unfazed.
I wondered for a surreal moment who, exactly, had told them I remained unfazed? The article went so far as to end by advising its readership
not
to look at their DNA, because after all, “you might not like what it’s telling you.”
I folded the paper and crammed it into the seat pocket in front of me. I tried to block it from my mind, because I had far more important things to worry about than asinine news reporting. My number one priority was to get the Anna Cross case into ViCAP.
Not because Raritan had essentially threatened my livelihood if I didn’t, but because I knew that we were dealing with a potential serial offender. Every moment mattered.
I tried with only moderate success to sleep during the rest of the flight. I dozed a few times, but thanks to my spat with Raritan, every time my eyes closed, the memories of the Alvarez case returned.
Back then I hadn’t been content to wait; everything had to be now, now, now. We always needed convictions yesterday. And I was good at bringing them in. I was advancing rapidly in Quantico when Juan Alvarez crossed my path. He was a young man who, based on a behavioral profile I’d put together, was arrested for the murders of three young children in Washington, DC. While awaiting trial he hanged himself in his cell, unable to bear the guilt of suspicion. He wasn’t on a suicide watch.
Upon hearing the news I felt relieved—my hunch had been correct. But the very next day, the telltale bite mark showed up on a fourth child victim. And later, on a fifth. And ultimately a sixth.
Juan Alvarez had been innocent, and I might as well have tied the noose around his neck and killed those next three kids.
After that I began dreaming nightly that Juan Alvarez had come back from the grave, the sheet still tied around his broken and disjointed neck, to drag me back down into his coffin.
A month after his suicide, I woke up with a fever just shy of 106 degrees and managed to somehow dial 9-1-1. The EMTs found me naked in my kitchen, water running and ice cubes on the floor. I spent three weeks in the hospital, barely surviving a severe case of viral-induced encephalitis. I’m certain that the guilt I felt in the wake of that case had liberated some latent virus buried deep within my own DNA.
When I finally recovered, I requested a transfer from the hectic world of the BAU. I couldn’t bring myself to stop being a criminal profiler, but I realized I could limit my casework by taking what would appear to be a demotion and becoming a state profile coordinator instead. At my request, they sent me to the Louisiana field office.
I never recuperated fully, though. And every now and then the young man I killed sometimes returns in my dreams.
I woke up with a jolt when the plane touched down in New Orleans.
* * *
Anxious to get home, I gunned the Explorer out of short-term parking. As I made my way onto the Twin Spans I looked at the clock: it was seven o’clock. If I hurried, I’d cross Pontchartrain without incident and be in Bay Saint Louis within the hour. I’d have the data for the Cross case entered into ViCAP well before midnight.
I was on the far side of Slidell when my cell phone rang—a 228 area code from Mississippi. The voice on the other end belonged to Donny Noden, an old friend of mine and the sheriff of Harrison County. Donny had worked for the DEA before switching to local law enforcement, and we played poker occasionally.
He paused uncharacteristically after we exchanged hellos, and I realized he wasn’t making a social call. “We, uh, we just found another body down here, and we figure you better come on over and take a look. Looks like the same deal as that Anna Cross case.”
“You’re sure, Donny?”
He gave me a few more details. I cursed myself silently in the rearview mirror for allowing another girl to die before classifying the Cross murder as the work of a serial killer. The exit for Bay Saint Louis came and went, and I continued east along I-10, trying desperately to ignore the guilt that threatened to consume me as I drove.
* * *
An hour later I found myself following yet another deputy through a forest. I spied Donny at the far edge of the illuminated crime scene and walked over.
“Here she is,” he said, stepping aside to reveal the newest victim.
I knelt beside the young woman, who sat in the same fully clothed posture as Anna Cross had, hands reaching out and resting on spread-eagled knees. The gray flesh of this girl’s face gave off a sickly glow: she’d been exposed far longer than the first victim before being discovered. Abnormally thick black reading glasses were perched perfectly on the bridge of her nose. Several swaths of her blonde hair had already begun to fade back to their natural, darker hue.
This time, however, the bloody word
TAN
sat perfectly centered upon her forehead.
One of the CSIs told us her name was Jessica Harrison, a twenty-three-year-old resident of Silver Run, Mississippi. Her driver’s license had been found in her back pocket, along with a folded clip of cash. The seventy-eight dollars still on her person had all but nullified the possibility of a robbery-murder.
The victim had been leaned against a large tree stump just a few hundred yards from the highway. The signature of the killing was almost identical in every way to the Cross murder scene, except for the word
TAN
atop the new girl’s forehead.
And, this time, the yellow-green Ein Shemer apple was still clutched in the dead woman’s hand. Closer inspection revealed a thin rectangular slit on the surface of its peel, too.
“Lucas,” Donny’s voice sounded behind me, “we had company earlier this evening.”
I stood. “What kind of company?”
He shook his head, exasperation clearly evident in his tone. “Before you got here. A crew from
The Times-Picayune
shot some film of the crime scene before we had a chance to seal it off. They took off before we could stop them.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’re sure they were from the
Times
?”
He nodded. “Yeah, we ran the plates. Anyway, bastards from the
Times
have already called, asking for more specifics.”
“Shit,” I said simply. “They’ll definitely run something tomorrow.”
Donny frowned, twisting the wrinkles of his face like a bloodhound’s. “I’m sure they got pictures. They’ll screw this whole hot damned investigation up,” he said.
“Not necessarily.” I looked back at Jessica Harrison’s body leaning against the stump. The rigor mortis that caused her hands to sit extended like a beggar’s palms also made the green apple clutched in her fingers plainly visible. It was almost a certainty that the news photos had captured the apple in the dead victim’s hand.
“But we know they took pictures, Lucas. One of my boys saw them popping ’em with a magnification lens. They’re going to give away the signature.”
I faced him. “But we still have an ace in the hole.”
“What do you mean?”
“They may know about the apple, and will probably tell the world. But they don’t know about the razor inside. So even if they do publish photos, we can still weed out any whack jobs that try to claim responsibility. If the real killer does call to confess, or claim responsibility, or taunt us, he’ll be the only guy who will mention the razors.”
Donny nodded slowly as he listened, and a rare look of relief crossed his features. “I guess you’re right.”
I turned to take one last look at the body and saw the coroner kneeling beside her, unfolding a body bag. “Hey,” I said, catching his attention, “we’re done here. When the ME and the photographers are finished, she’s all yours. Conduct a full autopsy, but do one other thing, too.”
The man looked up and squinted, removing his small, gold-rimmed glasses and wiping them on his shirt. “What’s that?”
“Make certain,” I said, “that the blood from those letters on her forehead are swabbed individually into collection tubes and sent for DNA analysis. And make sure that a sample from each is sent to the New Orleans field office, too. Okay? Duplicate samples. These guys can give you the info for the second shipment address.”
“You got it,” said the coroner, replacing his glasses and unzipping the black bag the rest of the way. The muffled sound of thunder pulsed in the distance.
I turned to speak to Donny again, but he’d already moved away and begun conversing with his deputies on the far side of the crime scene. He caught my gaze, so I gave him the familiar two-finger wave from my right temple to signal my departure. He gave it back, but it looked strange and out of place next to the somber cast of his face. Somewhere along the way, a once-jovial gesticulation between friends had become suffused with world-weariness.
I knew that look: it was a look of dread. The same dread that anyone in law enforcement feels whenever they know they’ve uncovered a perp who’s just getting started, just getting warmed up, and there’s sure to be plenty of death and despair in the days and weeks to come.
I left without another word to anyone, just as a light rain began to filter through the tops of the trees.
The sound of a car engine outside my house woke me from a deep sleep later that same night. It took me a few seconds to realize I had driven back from the crime scene and fallen asleep on my living room couch.
Bright lights suddenly cut through the front windows and the sound of tires crunching through the gravel driveway followed. I grabbed my Luger from its holster on the coffee table and moved slowly toward the front door. A rapid series of footsteps clacked across the porch, and a sharp rap on the door echoed throughout the house.
My sister’s voice called, “Lucas?”
A momentary relief at the familiar voice quickly gave way to a renewed sense of alarm. My sister lived in Picayune, and she usually didn’t drop by for social calls after midnight. Something was wrong.