Vail 01 - The 7th Victim (18 page)
“Loose dirt in the hallway and bedroom. One tread mark that matched your shoe,” Bledsoe said. “So that’s of no help. As for the other dirt, they’re running it through the chromatograph and spectrometer. I don’t have the results yet.”
“We didn’t put booties on till after we chased him through the yard,” Vail said. “Ten to one that dirt comes back a dead end.”
Bledsoe shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough. Also looking over hair and fibers. Some latent prints were found, but no hits on AFIS. Except . . . one good latent was lifted from the murals. Judging by the commonly used items in the house as a reference source for Sandra’s fingerprints, seems he used the vic’s severed left hand to paint.”
“That’s just gross,” Manette said.
“All this shit is gross,” Bledsoe said. “Now, as for the other prints ... Sin, what’ve you got?”
Sinclair stood up and stretched. “I’m checking into Franks’s friends and family, just in case the prints are theirs. Some of the latents have probably been there awhile. But I doubt we’ll find anything: with all the blood at the scene, if the fucker wasn’t wearing gloves, he’d have left bloody prints all over the damn place. There weren’t any, so I think the latents are also gonna be a dead end.”
“And that puts us back to where we were. To hocus-pocus psychosymbolism,” Manette said.
A tiny watch alarm started beeping, and Sinclair glanced at his wrist with trepidation. “Got an appointment with one of the vic’s employer’s personnel administrators. This guy’s a real prick.” He pushed out of his chair and gathered up his weathered brown leather shoulder bag.
Bledsoe stood as well. “Okay, let’s get back out there. You know your assignments. Let’s dig a little deeper, see if we can come up with something.”
“DETECTIVE,” HANCOCK SAID, crowding Bledsoe’s space, “you got a minute?”
The other detectives were filing out the front door. Bledsoe shrugged, took a step backward. “Yeah, what’s on your mind?”
Hancock danced a bit, checked over his shoulder, and watched Vail leave with Robby. “I gotta talk to you.” He leaned close again, lowered his voice. “About Vail, I think it could be something.”
Bledsoe’s eyes narrowed a bit, then he turned and led the way into the kitchen. They waited until the front door closed, then he brought his eyes up to Hancock’s. “We’re alone, what’s on your mind?”
“I was reading the files you put together for me. Thanks, by the way, I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Is that what you had to tell me?”
“No, no. I found something in the crime scene manifest for vic number two.” He opened a file he had tucked beneath his arm. “Here, under fiber analysis.” He handed Bledsoe the report.
“Yeah, so? A red hair. What’s the problem?”
“Vail has red hair. The conclusion is that the comparison microscope study matched it to comps on Vail.” He paused, the corners of his mouth sinking, as if Bledsoe should’ve caught on by now. “Vail’s hair was found at the second vic’s crime scene. Why wasn’t anything done about it?”
“Done?” Bledsoe asked. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at Hancock. “What would you have wanted us to do?”
“Did you investigate her?”
“Karen Vail? Special Agent Karen Vail? The woman who has trouble sleeping because this killer is still out on the street?”
Hancock shifted his feet again. “You don’t know her like I know her. She’s devious, ruthless—”
Bledsoe held up a hand. “Okay, Hancock. Thanks for the tip—”
“You need to investigate her. She could be our killer.”
The statement left them both quiet. Bledsoe sighed, then settled into a chair. “That’s a very serious allegation you’re making, you realize that? Based on a strand of hair found at a crime scene?”
Hancock did not answer.
Bledsoe continued: “When an investigator steps into a crime scene, it’s possible his or her fibers, fingerprints, DNA—hell, any trace evidence could be deposited there. That’s one of the challenges we face when our guys answer a call. That’s why we rope off and secure the area—”
“Don’t talk down to me, Detective.”
“I’m explaining why Karen’s hair was at the vic’s house.”
“And you’re
sure
that’s the reason.”
sure
that’s the reason.”
Bledsoe shook his head in disgust.
“Vail was an art history major. We’ve got these blood murals all over the vics’ walls that look like the work of someone with a background in art. Still not convinced?”
Bledsoe pushed out of his chair and stepped up to Hancock, toe to toe. “Look, Vail told me you were a prick. I’ve tried to keep an open mind, because both of you have biases against each other. If this is a cheap shot to discredit her, to get back at her for your problems with the Bureau several years ago—”
“This has nothing to do with that.”
Bledsoe’s head was tilted back, his gaze fixed on Hancock’s eyes. Neither of them blinked. “You want to investigate Karen Vail on your own time, go for it. Have a picnic. Just don’t poison my investigation.” Bledsoe pushed past Hancock and headed out of the kitchen.
“You’ll see,” Hancock called after him. “You’ll see that I’m right.”
nineteen
R
obby walked Vail to her car and stood there a bit longer than necessary after she’d said good-bye and closed the door.
obby walked Vail to her car and stood there a bit longer than necessary after she’d said good-bye and closed the door.
She opened the window and looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sky’s dreary glare. “Something wrong?”
“I, well . . . no.” He looked down at the ground, then gazed at the houses on the street.
“Robby?”
“How would you like to grab some lunch. Or dinner. I’ve got some more questions. Profiling questions.”
Vail sat there staring at him, wondering if he was, in fact, asking her out. This wasn’t the best timing, after what had happened with Deacon—
“You agreed to tutor me, remember?”
But maybe it was exactly what she needed. Take her mind off all the negatives, bring some happiness into her life. Everyone needs balance; it was a lesson she’d learned many years ago. She spoke before allowing herself to think the situation to death. “Lunch or dinner, huh?”
“Or coffee. Whatever.”
“You know, a sharp profiler might conclude she’s being asked out on a date.”
His gaze drifted off to the surrounding houses again. “But a plain old small-town detective might just think it’s two colleagues getting together to talk about a case. Theories and methods.”
“Theories and methods. . . .” A smile crept across her lips. “Okay. I like theories and methods. Reminds me of my favorite course at the Academy. Dinner tonight, six o’clock?”
“Great.”
“Something casual. Meet me at the office, we’ll go from there.”
“Sure, great.”
“Oh, and Art Rooney, another profiler, may want to join us. That okay?”
Robby’s face drooped a bit, though he seemed to try to keep it propped up. He shrugged an indifferent shoulder. “Yeah.”
Vail smiled, squinted against the sun that had poked through the clouds. “You know what, forget Rooney; he’s probably got other plans. Can’t discuss theories and methods with more than just a couple of people anyway, right?”
Robby winked. “Exactly. Pick you up at six.”
ROBBY POURED A GLASS of chardonnay for each of them and set the bottle back on the table. “So you never told me how a nice detective like you got stuck in a gross profession like profiling.”
“It was one of the safest jobs in the Bureau. I had a scare about seven years ago when I was caught in the cross fire during a botched bank robbery.” Her mind flashed back to Alvin in the bank a few days ago. Different scenario, but the setting was all too familiar. “It was just the way things went down. We were following a tip, moving on these guys fast, and I got there first. While I was waiting for backup, the perps came out of the bank. Another couple agents arrived on scene and didn’t know what hit them. The scumbags took out one agent and put the other down with a shot to the chest. I was pinned down but eventually got out of it.”
Robby’s eyes were narrow with interest. “How?”
She took a gulp of wine. “I thought we were going to discuss theories and methods.”
Robby’s eyebrows rose. “We are. Karen Vail’s theories on getting out of a tough spot with only her brains and bare hands—”
“Try a Glock and a spare magazine. And they had MAC-10s. Sprayed the shit out of my car. Windows were blowing out all over the place. We were hunkered down returning fire.” She shook her head. “It was war, right there on the street in the middle of suburbia. . . .”
Robby edged forward on his seat. “And? What happened?”
She took another drink of chardonnay, then looked up and found Robby’s eyes. “What?”
“How’d you get out of it?”
“I got down low, under the car, and shot the perp in the ankle. He went down, the other agent survived, all the scumbags died, and everything turned out okay.” She let the words linger in the air for a moment, staring at her nearly empty wine glass.
“So, the safest job in the Bureau,” Robby prompted.
“After that lovely episode, I realized it wasn’t something I should be doing while trying to raise a child. Jonathan was seven at the time. The thought of him growing up without a mother made me think long and hard about what I was doing with my life.” She laughed a hollow chuckle. “I make it sound as if it was a rational, one-night decision. It wasn’t. It took me weeks to decide what I was going to do. I even thought of leaving the Bureau.”
“Instead you ended up in the profiling unit?”
“While OPR investigated, my ASAC felt it was best to give me a break from my usual surroundings. He loaned me out to nearby police departments to help them solve a few dormant cases. The trails were so cold you could get frostbite just by handling the case folders.”
Robby leaned back in his chair. “Ouch. You think he did that on purpose, to kill your career?”
“Nah, he was a good guy. Besides, if that was what he had in mind, I screwed up his plans big time. I solved almost every one of the cases. Word traveled fast. Got a rep around the Bureau.”
“I can see why.”
“My ASAC sent a memo to the Division Two unit chief at BSU, and next thing I knew I was the profiling unit’s Eastern District liaison. A month later, I was competing with Chase Hancock for the one vacant spot in the unit. Rest is history.”
Robby’s head was tilted and his gaze was fixed on Vail’s face.
She finished off her glass of wine and waited for a response. “You okay?” she finally asked.
“Fine,” he said, breaking his daze and sitting up straight.
“Theories and methods,” she said with a smile.
“Right. And here’s my theory: you’re a special person, Karen Vail, and I’d like to get to know you better.”
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