Face of a Killer

14

Topper’s sharp bark scared the crap out of her. Her heart raced. It was a good second or two before she realized that Topper started whining to get out. And a second or two after that before the mysterious figure walking up her steps materialized into her neighbor Arturo.

She flicked on the porch light, opened the door, and Topper bounded out.

“Hey, baby!” Arturo lowered his suitcase onto the porch to greet his dog.

Sydney slid her pistol behind her, shoved it between her waistband and the small of her back, then stepped from behind the door, smiling as best she could under the circumstances. “Have a good trip?”

He looked up at her. “Yeah… Oh my God. You’ve been drinking.”

“Why is it no one thinks I drink?”

“Because you don’t. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just didn’t expect you back this late.”

“Change of plans. Hope the great white ghost wasn’t too much trouble?”

“Never,” she said, as a taxicab took off. Score one for Topper. It was a strange car, it didn’t belong, and the accent she heard was probably the driver’s. “Guess I didn’t expect you in a cab.”

“Suitcases are hell on a motorcycle. They’re hell in a taxi when you nearly whack your hand off trying to get it out of the trunk.”

“Well, dump it, come over and join me for a beer. It’s yours, and I can use the company.”

He dropped his suitcase inside his door, then walked in.

Sydney brought him a beer from the fridge, saw he’d picked up the old photo of her father. “Your dad, right?” “Yeah,” she said, grateful he didn’t seem interested in the other two papers left on the tabletop. Not that they’d mean anything to him. Hell, they didn’t mean anything to her, yet. She handed him his beer; he took it, nodded at the photo.

“You never mentioned he was a D-boy.”

“A what boy?”

“Delta Force. The dark soldiers,” he added at her look of incomprehension. “Come on, Syd. You had to have known.

Long hair, hockey helmets, the guy in front flashing the letter D

…”

“Those are hockey helmets?”

“You never saw Black Hawk Down? God, my little brother dragged me to see that at least fifteen times. His big dream.

These guys are the best of the best. They went in to do things no one else could.”

Sydney laughed at the thought. “Not my dad. He enlisted for a couple years, but after, he was like a contract employee or something. He took photos. That’s it.”

He opened his beer, tapped the picture with his finger.

“Your dad and these other guys are special ops. Well, except maybe the guy in uniform,” he said, pointing to Gnoble’s picture. “The D-boys, they didn’t wear uniforms. You should find out what he did. Might be interesting. God knows my little brother would be all over it.” He dropped the photo on the table, drank his beer, talked a bit about his trip to

L.A., while Sydney pretended interest. Even so, her gaze kept straying to the photo, trying to determine if what Arturo said could be true. After several minutes, he glanced at his watch, took one final swig of beer, then said, “Hope you don’t mind, I gotta get up for work in the morning.”

“Yeah, me too,” she said. “And thanks for the lasagna and cheesecake.”

“Anytime.” Arturo and Topper left, and Sydney sat there, staring at the photo, wondering what else about her father she didn’t know.

Prescott hated black coffee, but he’d been up all night reading poll reports, trying to see where the senator needed to beef up his campaign, and the only thing that was bound to keep him awake at six in the morning was the thickest, darkest coffee that Starbucks sold. Of course, that’s what they made cream for, and he dumped a ton in, replaced the top on his cup, then stepped from the store into the chilly October morning, still dark. He turned the corner, walked about a half block, when someone pushed him into a darkened doorway. His coffee went flying. He landed against an iron grid covering the windows of a closed business. Before he could move, right himself, a hand came up, shoved his head against the cold metal of the grid. He could feel it cutting into his cheek, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

“You goddamned son of a bitch,” came the harsh whisper in his ear. Richard Blackwell. Prescott recognized the voice.

“Let go of me.”

“The fuck I will. I should kill you right here, you bastard.” Blackwell pulled up on Prescott’s arm. Pain shot through him, lifted him to his toes.

“If you don’t let go of me, I’ll have you arrested. Here. Now.”

“For what?” Blackwell whipped him around, slammed him into the grating, his hand at Prescott’s throat. “I’ll break your windpipe so fast, you won’t get the first word out.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know what the fuck you were thinking the other night. Or did you think I wouldn’t find out you tried to run over the senator’s favorite FBI agent with your car?” “It just happened.”

“Happened? How the fuck? You’re lucky you missed. You know what sort of evidence is left when a body hits a car? Evidence that can be traced back to your car.”

Blackwell loosened his hold slightly and Prescott sucked in air, tried to remain calm, but his heart thumped in his chest. “It was a mistake. I admit it.”

“A big mistake. Which means I’m outta here.”

“No!”

“And what? You’re gonna stop me?”

“I’ll double the offer.”

Blackwell narrowed his gaze, as though contemplating. Prescott had hired Blackwell because he came highly recommended, with a history of working black ops for the military, a clean record, and a checkered past. He was perfect for the job.

“Here’s the thing, dickhead,” Blackwell said. “The moment I find out someone else is horning in on my mark, that person becomes a liability to me. Even if it’s the person who hired me. You do not want to become a liability to me. Clear?” he said, tightening his hand around Prescott’s throat once more.

“Abundantly.”

“Good. Unfortunately for your stupidity, you’ve removed one course of action. Using a vehicle as a means of death. She’s bound to have said something about nearly being run over. That makes it suspicious if she’s killed by a car down the line. Which is why I’ve come up with this idea.” He stepped back, pulled out a folded newspaper from his overcoat pocket, then pointed to an article.

Prescott took a deep breath, tried to look calm as he eyed the newsprint, read something about identifying a Jane Doe. “A drawing of a dead girl?”

“Not just any dead girl. It fits close with the case the Bureau picked up from San Francisco PD, the girl who’s in the hospital. I’d say they’re working with a serial killer who missed his mark by one. But they’re not even connecting the cases publicly.”

“A serial killer?”

“Yeah. We could do something with it, but it’d be complicated.”

“Why can’t we just do a simple hit? No muss, no fuss?”

“Because, dumbfuck. The FBI isn’t likely to sit back and ignore a hit on one of their agents. Nor would they ignore a hit-and-run on one, either.”

“What about a suicide?”

“FBI, remember? They suspect everything. This is the best way.”

“We-I don’t want her to suffer.”

Blackwell eyed him, his gaze fixed with a look of disbelief. “And what? Being slammed with a car was gonna ease her pain?”

“She’s a friend of the senator’s, for God’s sake.”

Blackwell stepped closer, put his face right up to Prescott’s. “This is a no-brainer. One agent stands in the way of the objective. Remove the agent, obtain the objective.”

“As long as you don’t forget the idiot who left a suicide note, which several people have read. We remove them, too?”

“Whatever it takes. I’ve got a friend at Houston PD. We were partners in the service. He’s looking into the note to see if the situation is salvageable…”

Prescott pushed Blackwell away from him, trying to regain some control, make sure the man knew he wasn’t afraid and was the one really in charge. “Tell me why you think this Jane Doe case works in our favor?”

“My sources tell me that there’s absolutely no DNA found on that Hill City Jane Doe. They’ve got no way to tell if she’s the victim of the guy who did the girl in the hospital. And top it off, the investigating detective’s an idiot.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Your little agent’s been in contact with the girl in the hospital, and her sketch of the Jane Doe conveniently appeared in every Bay Area paper this morning. So why not set up your agent as the next victim?”

“You think you know enough about their cases to do that?”

Blackwell smiled. “Like I said, it’s a no-brainer.”***

Richard Blackwell watched as Prescott walked off, before heading in the opposite direction. He took out his cell phone, hit the speed dial.

“We’re on,” he said, to the man who answered. “With double the salary.”

“Nice job. You know what to do.”

Perhaps Sydney shouldn’t have finished the remaining two beers in the fridge last night. That thought magnified when, head pounding, she pulled on her gray sweats for her normal morning run. She’d made it as far as the bottom of the stairs, then turned around and went back inside. Running was definitely out. Not that she’d gotten dead drunk, more that she wasn’t used to drinking that much. Instead she spent the time allowing the hot shower to erase some of the night’s stresses. It did little but give her time to think, which, looking back, made the run seem so much easier in comparison, headache and all.

What she couldn’t figure out was how could her father be in some sort of special ops and never mention it? How could her mother never have mentioned it? And what the hell did her father do in the service if his job wasn’t simply to take the damned photos and drawings he’d always said was his responsibility? She thought of Gnoble, his political aspirations, and it occurred to her that if they were doing something glorious, he, of all people, would have announced it to the world. Instead, McKnight committed suicide when he was being investigated for a high-powered political appointment, after mentioning something about her father. Something worth blackmailing for.

By the time she dressed, grabbed the envelope with the photo, then left for work, her mood was downright ugly, and she attributed it directly to stepping outside her routine. She cussed out two drivers who’d gotten in her way, and left the McDonald’s empty-handed when the poor clerk couldn’t figure out how to ring up a sausage sandwich without egg, something Sydney thought was a perfectly reasonable order. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she realized that her temper was flaring at a pace that had all the earmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder. Probably nothing to do with the drinking or missing her run, and everything to do with revisiting her father’s murder case and the man who had been convicted of killing him. Not that she could forget Scotty’s bombshell and that damned photo McKnight had mailed to her. At least that’s what she told herself, when Lettie informed her that Dixon wanted her in his office for a briefing on the Jane Doe from Hill City.

She shoved the manila envelope in her top drawer, schooled her features, trying to appear calm, not let on that she was having any issues unconnected to the current cases. A moment later, Michael “Doc” Schermer walked in. Tall, slim, with white hair and dark eyes, he’d been given the nickname because he looked more like a doctor than an FBI agent. Rumor had it that he’d originally wanted to be an eye doctor, but somewhere along the way ended up at the FBI. And the Bureau took full advantage of that “look,” using him in any undercover operations that involved the medical field, including the Harrington insurance fraud case that Dixon was so anxious for her to finish.

“Morning, Fitz,” Schermer said, with a polite nod. “Morning, Doc.” She liked him for two reasons. He was nice and he’d never been friends with Scotty. That not only earned him bonus points in her book, it also meant that she could trust him not to feed info back to Scotty-which was a lot more than she could say about Scotty’s old roommate from the academy, Tony Carillo, who walked in a moment later. Carillo was just a few years older than she, late thirties, stood maybe an inch shorter than Schermer’s six-three.

Carillo was not an easy man to ignore, and for more reasons than his warped sense of humor and quick Italian temper. He had dark eyes and olive skin, with a perpetual five o’clock shadow, even at eight in the morning, which always gave her the feeling that he’d just climbed out of bed- leaving a very satisfied woman behind. She wasn’t sure he would’ve been amused at such a thought. Word had it that he’d recently taken up celibacy after discovering his wife was sleeping with another man.

That was not, however, the reason she’d done her best to avoid Carillo ever since she came to San Francisco. It was more to do with the fact she was a by-the-book agent. If Carillo followed any rules, they were of his own making, and sometimes she wondered how it was he and Scotty, polar opposites, ever became friends in the first place.

Carillo and Schermer flanked the doorway to Dixon’s office, and Schermer said, “Heard you think we have a serial killer working the area.”

She handed Dixon her notes on the case. “So it appears.”

“Yeah?” Carillo said, crossing his arms, eyeing her. “How’d you get it, when you weren’t even here the past couple days?”

Dixon replied, “The case isn’t hers. She was on a sketch down in Hill City. Found a Jane Doe with injuries similar to our kidnap victim, Tara Brown. Possible sexual assault, head wound, stab wounds, and a bite mark on her breast, which, I might add, wasn’t noted by the investigator, but was found in the autopsy.”

“They missed it?” Carillo asked. “How the hell do they miss something like that?”

“Could be an oversight,” Sydney replied. “Small department. Possibly the detective wasn’t advised at the autopsy.” Or possibly he was an idiot, but that thought she kept to herself. She briefed Carillo and Schermer on what she’d found. “If there’s nothing else,” she said, after finishing, “I have another case I need to finish up.”

“What?” Carillo said. “You’re not going to try to get assigned?”

“I’ve got cases of my own to work,” she replied.

“Thanks,” Dixon said. She left, glad to be out of Carillo’s company, and she overheard Dixon tell the two, “I agree with Fitzpatrick. Good possibility we’ve got a serial rapistmurderer on our hands. I want the two of you to head down to Hill City, see if they missed anything else of significance.”

She thought about warning Carillo and Schermer about the detective down there. Maybe she would after she got something to eat, then dug up a contact for Houston PD to see if she couldn’t get a copy of that suicide note. She took the elevator to the deli, realized she’d forgotten to get money, and managed to dig up enough change from the bottom of her purse to cover a bag of cookies. Some breakfast. She couldn’t even get the damned bag open. By the time she returned to the office, cookie bag still intact, Carillo and Schermer were back at their desks, talking with a few other guys. They were laughing about something, but shut up the moment they saw her, their expressions suddenly turning far too innocent.

She had bigger things to worry about, like breakfast, and the cop-proof bag it was contained in. The guys mumbled their faux greetings as though nothing were amiss, and their laughter gained momentum after she passed by.

She ignored them, reached her cubicle, gave one last tug on the bag, and cookies went flying, one of them rolling four cubicles down, landing at Schermer’s feet. “Crap!”

A burst of laughter followed, and Sydney could see them over the top of the divider. They were looking right at her, no doubt having seen the cookie debacle. Schermer leaned down, picked up the cookie, and tossed it back at her. Carillo was on the phone, trying to appear serious, and he turned his back on them and her, waving for everyone to be quiet-just as her phone rang.

On cue, they all shut up. Well, two could play this game, and Sydney picked up her phone and said in her cheeriest voice, “Special Agent Fitzpatrick.”

“Are you the agent who did the drawing? The one in the newspaper?” The voice was low, not a whisper, but definitely sounding as though the caller was trying to disguise his identity.

She brushed the cookies and crumbs into a pile on her blotter, then picked a broken one, eyed the men. “Which paper?”

“The Chronicle.”

“Yes.” Surely these guys could come up with something original?

“I like your drawing.”

“Do you have some information regarding the case?” Sydney asked in her best official voice. The guys were leaning over Schermer’s desk, and Carillo was still shushing them to be quiet.

“Yes,” came the voice. She looked at the cookie, couldn’t believe the thought that just crossed her mind, because it was totally out of character… Do it, a voice seemed to say, and for once, she listened. Threw the cookie. And was horrified when it hit Carillo on his back. Schermer nearly died laughing. That was when she realized she couldn’t hear the laughter on her phone, as the caller continued with, “I’m going to look for another one. And bite her, too. Just like the others. Just like the girl in the drawing. Maybe I’ll bite you. I really like your drawing.”

“ Who is this?”

A click, and then dial tone. And the cookie came flying back at her, bounced against her shoulder and onto the floor, just as Dixon stepped out of his office. “What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” Carillo said, covering the phone receiver with one hand as everyone hightailed it back to their cubicles. Schermer wasn’t so lucky and tried to blend into the background.

Dixon’s gaze swung past them, down the hall, at the clerical staff who apparently had left their work to watch. “You three, my office, now.”

“The guys were just having a little fun. Me, I’m innocent,” Carillo replied. “For once.”

“ Now.”

Carillo said into the phone, “Look, I have to go. We’ll continue this conversation later.”

The three of them marched in, and before Sydney could get a word in edgewise, Schermer said, “Hey, it was just a sketch, a parody.” He opened a manila folder, showing a piece of paper inside. “have you seen this suspect?” was scrawled on the top just above a stick figure with a smiley face. He’d signed it: Michael Jacob Schermer, substitute artist.

Carillo eyed the drawing. “Pretty good likeness, don’t you think?”

Sydney barely glanced at the drawing. “Please tell me you were the one who called my desk?”

“Not unless you’re the one asking me for alimony.” “Did you?” Sydney asked Schermer.

“No one did.”

She knew what she was hearing, but didn’t want to believe it. She had to believe it. There was no other explanation. “Son of a bitch.. .”

Dixon looked at each of them in turn. “Someone want to tell me what I’m missing here, besides the fact we’ve mistaken our office for a high school cafeteria food fight?”

The room felt suddenly chilly, and Sydney crossed her arms as she tried to comprehend the full impact of what this meant. “The phone call,” she said, trying to think of all the possibilities, one being that someone was playing a cruel, sick joke. Sydney looked at Carillo. “We haven’t released info on our victims being bitten. So either someone with enough knowledge about the case just called, or the UnSub did. And if it was him…” Sydney thought about the words she’d heard. “He’s about to kidnap another woman.”