Full Tilt

49

Quantico, Virginia

Carly Salvito settled into her desk at the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and got ready for the new case coming her way.

The word out of the morning meeting was that a bad one had emerged out of Region 3, the Midwest.

She logged onto her computer, then took in her unit, the soft murmur of conversations and the clicking of keyboards as some forty crime analysts worked at solving crimes. The program, known as ViCAP, maintained the largest investigative database of major violent crime cases in the US.

Salvito’s unit collected and analyzed information about homicides, sexual assaults, missing persons and unidentified human remains, searching for links among cases that were scattered across the country.

ViCAP was headquartered within Critical Incident Response Group-the CIRG building-at the FBI Academy about forty miles southwest of Washington, DC, nestled in an expanse of Virginia forest.

Salvito had come a long way from Queens, where she’d been a detective with the NYPD, before becoming an FBI crime analyst with ViCAP.

Like most CAs, she was devoted to the program and its ability to connect cases and catch criminals. Given her background, she was good at assuring detectives that the information they submitted, particularly their holdback information, which only they and their suspect knew, was zealously guarded by the FBI analysts.

“I know your holdback is your case. I’ve been there,” Salvito would tell them. “We follow your instructions to the letter. No other agency sees your holdback without your say-so.”

Before Salvito scrolled through her files, she opened her can of cold diet cola. She preferred cold soda in the morning to coffee. As she took a sip her computer pinged.

This is it. Here we go.

The new case came via Minnesota out of the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in Saint Paul. Salvito keyed in her security codes to the file. It had been submitted by BCA Agent Lester Pratt. She went first to the Details of Discovery section, showing the date that a homicide victim was found in Lost River State Forest, near the Canadian border.

She’d been buried alive.

The body belonged to an unidentified white female, five feet four inches, one hundred twenty pounds, age between twenty-four and twenty-eight. Her fingertips had been disfigured, likely with acid. Still, Minnesota had submitted them to the national fingerprint database.

Good, they were smart to do that. It could be a signature.

The victim also had a tattoo of a small heart with wings on the left upper neck. That was submitted to databases for missing persons. They’d also submitted a dental chart. DNA from the crime scene had been submitted to CODIS and other databanks. Given the backlog at CODIS, results might take a while, but sometimes people were lucky.

No evidence of sexual assault.

Salvito reflected for a moment before continuing. There was a lot of other detail to review but like most CAs, she then went right to the evidentiary mode, key fact evidence.

In this one, the critical piece of evidence was the tire impressions at the scene belonging to the suspect’s vehicle. No other tracks or impressions were detected at that scene, aside from foot impressions believed to belong to the victim and the suspect. In the case of the suspect, it was believed he wore a size-twelve boot.

The holdback was the belief the suspect recorded the crime, arising from impressions from a tripod that were found in soil in which conditions were consistent with the time frame for the tire and foot impressions.

Okay, we’ll just lock that away.

The tire impressions were made by 10-ply radials, LT245/75R16, load range E. The file included photos of casts, enlarged to show tread wear and other characteristics.

This is good. This is pretty unique. It’s a solid identifier.

Salvito took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then, using the tire evidence, ran a comparison with other similar cases in the system for the region and states she was responsible for. She was in Region 1, and the states that fell to her were South Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey and New York.

Starting with South Carolina, she entered codes and information about the tires. In a few seconds the response was negative. Then she tried Maryland and found nothing. New Jersey yielded no response, as well.

Last one, New York.

She keyed in the information, hit Enter and within seconds a file was found. She opened it.

Goodness, this file’s huge, with numerous victims and details.

She went to the key fact evidence.

There was a necklace with a guardian angel charm.

And tire impressions.

The tire impressions were made by 10-ply radials, LT245/75R16, load range E, the same as with Minnesota.

Bingo! Salvito clapped her hands. Gotcha!

The file had been submitted by Detective Ed Brennan, Rampart PD.

Salvito reached for her phone.