Sense Of Evil

2

RAFE SAID, “Please don’t tell me the general idea is for you to be bait.”

“Oh, I’m probably too old to tempt him.”

“If you’re past thirty, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Salt and pepper?”

Rafe stared at her, and she chuckled.

“I’m thirty-one. And, no, that isn’t the idea. I’ll do a lot for king and country, but I don’t have a death wish.”

“Done anything to piss off this Bishop of yours?”

“Not lately.”

“Has the profile changed?”

“Not as far as this animal’s fixations go. He’s still after white females with blond hair, and he’s likely to stay within the age range of twenty-five to thirty-five. He apparently likes them smart and savvy as well as strong, which is an interesting twist on the stereotypical image of helpless dumb blondes as victims.”

Rafe said something profane under his breath.

Ignoring that, Isabel went on briskly, completely professional now. “He’s someone they know or at least obviously believe they can trust. Possibly an authority figure, maybe even a cop-or impersonating one. He’s physically strong, though he won’t necessarily look it; he might even appear effeminate.”

“Why effeminate?” Rafe was listening intently, his eyes narrowed.

“These women were killed brutally, with a viciousness that suggests both a hatred of women and doubts or fears about his own sexuality. All three were sexual crimes-deep, penetrating wounds and targeting the breasts and genitals are classic signs of a sexual obsession-and yet none of the women was raped. That, by the way, will probably be his next escalation, raping as well as killing.”

“And if he’s impotent? This sort of killer often is, right?”

Isabel didn’t hesitate. “Right. In that case, an object rape, possibly even with the murder weapon. And it will be postmortem; he doesn’t want his victim to see his possible sexual failure. In fact, he’ll probably cover her face, even after he kills her.”

“So he’s a necrophiliac as well.”

“The whole nasty bag of tricks, yeah. And he will be escalating, count on it. He’s got the taste for it now. He’s enjoying himself. And he’s feeling invulnerable, maybe even invincible. He’s likely to begin mocking us-the police-in some way.”

Rafe thought about all that for a moment, then asked, “Why blondes?”

“We don’t know. Not yet. But it’s very possible that his first victim-Jamie Brower, right?”

“Right.”

“Twenty-eight-year-old real-estate broker. It’s very likely, we believe, that something about her was the trigger. Maybe something she did to him, that’s possible. An emotional or psychological rejection of some kind. Or something he saw, something she made him feel, whether or not she was aware of doing so. We believe she was a deliberate choice, not merely a random blonde.”

“Because she was the first victim?”

“That, plus the uncontrolled violence of the attack. According to the crime-scene photos and ME’s report you sent us, she was riddled with stab wounds.”

“Yes.” Rafe’s lips tightened as he remembered.

“The wounds were ragged, multiple angles, but virtually all of them so deep the hilt or handle of the knife left bruises and imprints in her skin. He was in a frenzy when he killed her. With the second and third victims, except for some minor defensive injuries, most of the wounds were concentrated in the breast and genital areas; Jamie Brower had injuries to her face and wounds from her neck to her lower thighs.”

“It was a bloodbath.”

“Yes. That sort of fury usually means hatred, very specific, very personal hatred. He wanted to kill her. Not just a blonde, not just a representation of his killing fantasy. Her. We believe that by focusing the investigation on the life and death of Jamie Brower, we’re likely to uncover facts or evidence that will help us to identify her killer.”

“Focusing on her how? We’ve accounted for all her movements the week before she was killed.”

“We’ll have to go further back than that. Months, maybe even years; the pressure built inside him for a while before he acted, and during that time their paths crossed.”

“If she was the trigger.”

Isabel nodded. “If she was the trigger.”

“And if she wasn’t?”

Isabel shrugged. “Still a valid, even critical, investigative approach, knowing who the victim was. Who all of them were. We won’t understand him until we understand the women he’s killing. Something more than superficial appearance connects them.”

“They were all unusually successful at their jobs,” Rafe said, relaying the information without the need to consult any file or notes. “Jamie had been Broker of the Year with her company the past three years; Allison Carroll had been recognized both locally and statewide as an outstanding teacher; and Tricia Kane not only had a very good job as a paralegal to one of our most successful attorneys but also was a very talented artist gaining regional recognition.”

“It might be the public recognition of their abilities as much as their success that drew his interest,” Isabel mused. “They stood in a spotlight, lauded for their achievements. Maybe that’s what he likes. Or doesn’t like.”

“You mean he could be punishing them for their success?”

“It’s a possibility. Also a possibility that he was attracted to them because of their success and was rejected by them when he expressed his interest.”

“Men get rejected all the time. They don’t turn to butchery.”

“No. The vast majority don’t. Which is a good thing, don’t you think?”

Rafe frowned slightly, but she was going on before he could comment.

“It means this particular man has some serious, deep-seated emotional and psychological problems, which have apparently lain dormant or at least were hidden here in Hastings until about three weeks ago.”

“Hence the trigger.”

Isabel nodded. “There’s no question about that, not as far as we’re concerned. Something happened. To him, in his life. A change. Whether it was an actual event or a paranoid delusion on his part remains to be seen. But something set him off. Something definitive.”

Rafe glanced at his watch, wondering if there was time today to visit all three crime scenes.

“Starting with the actual crime scenes,” Isabel said, “would probably be the best way to go. According to the map I studied, they’re within a five-mile area. And it’s still hours till sunset, so we have time.”

“Where’s your partner?” Rafe asked. “I was told there’d be at least two of you.”

“She’s settling in. Wandering around, getting a feel for the town.”

“Please tell me she isn’t blond.”

“She isn’t.” Isabel smiled. “But if you’re wondering, she doesn’t resemble the conventional FBI suit any more than I do. The SCU really is an unusual unit within the Bureau, and few of us conform to any sort of dress code unless we’re actually on FBI grounds. Casual and understated are sort of our watchwords.”

Rafe eyed her but decided not to comment on that. “And do you normally show up unarmed?”

“Who says I’m unarmed?” She lifted one hand and gently wiggled her fingers, each one adorned with a neat, but hardly understated, red-polished oval nail.

Hearing the faint note of mockery in her voice, Rafe sighed and said, “Let me guess. Martial-arts expert?”

“I’ve trained,” she admitted.

“Black belt?”

“Got that when I was twelve.” She smiled again. “But if it makes you feel better, I’m also wearing a calf holster-usually my backup, since my service automatic is worn in a belt holster. Our unit doesn’t break all the rules, just some of them; on duty, we’re expected to be armed. Since I was taking a casual look around town, a visible weapon would have been a bit conspicuous, I thought.”

Rafe had noticed that her jeans were very close-fitting from waist to knees, so he couldn’t help asking, “Can you get to that weapon in a hurry if you have to?”

“You’d be surprised.”

He wanted to tell her he wasn’t sure he could take too many more surprises but instead said only, “We’ve set up a conference room here as a base of operations, so all the reports, evidence, and statements are there. Couple of good computers with high-speed Internet access, plenty of phones. Standard supplies. Anything else that’s needed, I’ll get.”

“In a situation like this, the city fathers generally say to hell with the budget.”

“Which they pretty much did.”

“Still, you and I both know it’ll come down to basic police work, so the budget is likely to go toward overtime rather than anything fancier. As for the crime scenes, I really would like to take a look at them today. And it would help if it’s just you and me out there this time. The fewer people around me when I’m studying a crime scene, the better.”

“Fewer distractions?”

“Exactly.”

“We’ve kept the scenes roped off,” Rafe said, “but I’d bet my pension that at least a dozen kids have tramped all over them despite the warnings. Or because of them.”

“Yeah, kids tend to be curious about crime scenes, so that’s to be expected.”

More than a little curious himself, Rafe said, “It’s rained since we found Tricia Kane’s body on Monday; what do you expect to find?”

“I’m not likely to find anything you and your people missed,” Isabel replied, her matter-of-fact tone making it an acknowledgment rather than a compliment. “I just want to get a sense of the places, a feel for them. It’s difficult to do that with only photographs and diagrams.”

It made sense. Rafe nodded and rose to his feet, asking, “What about your partner?”

“She may want to take a look at the scenes later,” Isabel said, getting up as well. “Or maybe not. We tend to come at things from different angles.”

“Probably why your boss teamed you up.”

“Yes,” Isabel said. “Probably.”

Caleb Powell wasn’t a happy man. Not only had he lost his efficient paralegal to the killer stalking Hastings, he had also lost a friend. There hadn’t been the slightest romantic spark between Tricia and him, particularly since she was almost young enough to be his daughter, but there had been an immediate liking and respect from the day she first began working for him almost two years before.

He missed her. He missed her a lot.

And since the temp he had hired was still trying to figure out Tricia’s filing system-and kept coming to him with questions about it-his office wasn’t exactly his favorite place to be right now. All of which explained why he was sitting in the downtown coffee shop sipping an iced mocha and staring grimly through the front window at the media-fest still going on across the street at the town hall.

“Vultures,” he muttered.

“They have their jobs to do.”

He looked at the woman seated at the next table, not really surprised she had responded to his comment because people did that in small towns. Especially when there were only two customers in the place at the time. He didn’t recognize her, but that didn’t surprise him either; Hastings wasn’t that small.

“Their jobs stop when they cross the line between informing the public and sensationalizing a tragedy,” he said.

“In a perfect world,” she agreed. “Last time I checked, we didn’t live in a perfect world.”

“No, that’s true.”

“So we have to cope with less than the ideal.” She smiled faintly. “I’ve even heard it said that the world would be better off without lawyers, Mr. Powell.”

Just a bit wary now, he said, “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Sorry. My name is Hollis Templeton. I’m with the FBI.”

That did surprise him. An attractive brunette with a short, no-fuss hairstyle and disconcertingly clear blue eyes, she looked nothing at all like a tough federal cop. Slender almost to the point of thinness, she was wearing a lightweight summer blouse and floral skirt, an outfit eerily like the one Tricia had reportedly worn the day she was killed.

His disbelief must have been obvious; with another faint smile, she drew a small I.D. folder from her purse and handed it across to him.

He had seen a federal I.D. before. This one was genuine. Hollis Templeton was a Special Investigator for the FBI.

He returned the folder to her. “So this isn’t a coincidental meeting,” he said.

“Actually, it is.” She shrugged. “It was hot as hell outside, so I came in for iced coffee. And to watch the circus across the street. I recognized you, though. They ran your photo in the local paper Tuesday after Tricia Kane was killed.”

“As you noted, Agent Templeton, I’m a lawyer. I don’t really appreciate impromptu interviews with federal officials.”

“But you do want to find out who killed Tricia.”

He noticed that she didn’t deny it was an interview. “I also don’t appreciate typical law-enforcement tactics and questions designed to encourage me to talk carelessly to a cop.”

“Take all the care you like. If a lawyer doesn’t know how much is… safe… to disclose, nobody does.”

“I think I find that offensive, Agent Templeton.”

“And I think you’re awfully touchy for a man with nothing to hide, Mr. Powell. You know the drill better than most. We’ll be talking to everyone who knew Tricia Kane. You were her employer and her friend, and that puts you pretty high up on our list.”

“Of suspects?”

“Of people to talk to. Something you know, something you saw or heard, may be the key we’ll need to find her killer.”

“Then call me in to the police station for a formal interview or come see me at my office,” he said, getting to his feet. “Make an appointment.” He left a couple of dollars on the table and turned away.

“She liked tea instead of coffee, and took it with milk. You always thought that was odd.”

Caleb turned back, staring at the agent.

“She always felt she had disappointed her father by not becoming a lawyer, so being a paralegal was a compromise. It gave her more time for her art. She had asked you to pose for her, but you kept putting her off. And about six months ago, you offered her a shoulder to cry on when her relationship with her boyfriend ended badly. You were working late at the office when she broke down, and afterward you drove her home. She fell asleep on the couch. You covered her with an afghan and left.”

Slowly, he said, “None of that was in the police report.”

“No. It wasn’t.”

“Then how the hell do you know?”

“I just do.”

“How?” he demanded.

Instead of replying to that, Hollis said, “I saw some of her work. Tricia’s. She was talented. She might have become very well known if she’d lived.”

“Something else you just know?”

“My partner and I got into town last night. We’ve checked out a few things. Tricia’s apartment, for one. Nice place. Really good studio. And some of the paintings she’d finished were there. I… used to be an artist myself, so I know quality work when I see it. She did quality work.”

“And you read her diary.”

“She didn’t keep one. Most of the artists I know don’t. Something about images as opposed to words, I guess.”

“Are you going to tell me how you know what you know?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me, Mr. Powell.”

His mouth tightened. “What I think is that alienating me is not at all a good idea, Agent Templeton.”

“It’s a risk,” she admitted, not noticeably disturbed by that. “But one I’m willing to take if I have to. You’re smart, Mr. Powell. You’re very, very smart. Too smart to play dumb games. And at the end of the day I’d really rather not have you as an enemy, never mind the fact that you know all the legal angles and could keep us at arm’s length for a long time.”

“You think I’d do that? Potentially put other lives in danger by withholding information?”

“You tell me.”

After a moment, Caleb crossed the few feet separating them and sat down in the second chair at her table. “No. I wouldn’t. And not only because I’m an officer of the court. But I don’t know anything that could help you find this killer.”

“How can you be so sure of that? You don’t even know what questions we want to ask you.” She shook her head slightly. “You aren’t a suspect. According to Chief Sullivan’s report, you have a verifiable alibi for the twenty-four hours surrounding Tricia Kane’s murder.”

“What the thrillers like to call a cast-iron alibi. I spent the weekend in New Orleans for a family wedding and didn’t fly back here until Monday afternoon. I got the news about Tricia when Rafe called me at my hotel around noon.”

“And a companion places you in your hotel room from just before midnight until after eight that morning,” Hollis said matter-of-factly. “She’s positive you never left the room.”

Without at all planning to, Caleb heard himself say, “A former girlfriend.”

“Former?” Her voice was wry.

A bit defensive despite himself, he said, “We also happen to be old friends, what my father used to call scratch-and-sniff buddies. We see each other, we end up in bed. Happens about twice a year, since she lives in New Orleans. Where we both grew up, and where she practices law, which makes her highly unlikely to perjure herself. Any other nuggets you want to mine from my personal life, Agent Templeton?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Too kind.”

She didn’t react to his sarcasm except with another of those little smiles as she said, “About Tricia Kane. Do you think her ex-boyfriend might have wanted to hurt her?”

“I doubt it. She never said he was violent or in any way abusive, and I never saw any signs of it. Besides, unless he slipped back into town in the last three weeks, he’s out of the picture. They broke up because he thought his pretty face could earn him screen time in Hollywood and he didn’t want Tricia along for what he was convinced was going to be a wild and award-winning ride.”

“Sounds painful for her.”

“It was. Emotionally. She went home for lunch that day and found him packing to leave. That’s when he told her he was going. Until that moment, she’d believed they would end up married.”

“Since then had she ever talked about a particular man?”

“I don’t think she was even dating. If so, she never mentioned it. She was concentrating on her painting when she wasn’t at the office.”

“Do you know if anything unusual had happened lately? Strange phone calls or messages, someone she’d noticed turning up wherever she went, that sort of thing?”

“No. She seemed fine. Not worried, not stressed, not upset by anything. She seemed fine.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Hollis said.

Caleb drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Oh, I have no illusions, Agent Templeton. I know how quickly random acts of violence can snuff out lives, no matter how careful we think we are. But those acts tend to be committed by stupid or brutal people, for stupid and brutal reasons. This is different. This bastard is pure evil.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

She smiled an odd, twisted smile, and her blue eyes had an equally strange, flat shine to them that made Caleb feel suddenly uneasy. “I know all about evil, Mr. Powell, believe me. I met it up close and personal.”

Thursday, 3:30 PM

Isabel stood gazing around the clearing where Tricia Kane’s body had been found. It was mostly in shade now that the sun was no longer directly overhead, which she appreciated since the day was hot and humid. She was conscious of Rafe Sullivan’s scrutiny, but she had been at this too long to allow him to distract her.

Much.

Both the blood and the chalk used to mark body position and location had been washed away by the rain, but she didn’t need either to know exactly where Tricia Kane had suffered and died. She looked down just inches from her feet, her gaze absently tracing the shape of something-someone-that was no longer there.

She had been here, in this sort of place, so many times, Isabel thought. But it never got any easier. Never.

“He got her in the back,” she said, “then jerked her around by the wrist and began driving the knife into her chest. The first blow to her chest staggered her backward, the second put her on the ground. She was losing blood so fast she didn’t have the strength to fight him off. She was all but gone when he began stabbing her in the genital area. And either her skirt came up when she fell, or else he jerked it out of the way when he began stabbing her, since the material wasn’t slashed. He pulled the skirt back down when he was done. Odd, that. Protecting her modesty, or veiling his own desires and needs?”

Rafe was frowning. “The ME says she died too fast to leave any bruises, but he told me privately he felt she’d been jerked around and held by one wrist. It wasn’t in his report.”

Isabel looked at him, weighing him for a moment, then smiled. “I get hunches.”

“Yeah?” He crossed powerful arms over his chest and lifted both eyebrows inquiringly.

“Okay, they’re a little more than hunches.”

“Is this where the special in Special Crimes Unit comes in?”

“Sort of. You read the Bureau’s brief on our unit, right?”

“I did. It was nicely murky, but the gist I got is that the unit is called in when a judgment is made that the crimes committed are unusually challenging for local law enforcement. That SCU agents use traditional as well as intuitive investigative methods to solve said crimes. By intuitive I gather they mean these hunches of yours?”

“Well, they couldn’t very well announce that the SCU is made up mostly of psychics. Wouldn’t go over very well with the majority of cops, considering how… um… levelheaded you guys tend to be. We’ve discovered through bitter experience that proving what we can do is a lot more effective with you guys than just claiming our abilities are real.”

“So why’re you telling me?”

“I thought you could take it.” She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Was I wrong?”

“I’ll let you know when I make up my mind.”

“Fair enough.”

“So I gather you don’t normally inform local law enforcement of this?”

“Depends. It’s pretty much left up to our judgment. The assigned team, I mean. Bishop says you can’t plan some things in advance, and whether or not to spill the beans-and when-is one of them. I’ve been on assignments where the local cops didn’t have a clue, and others where they were convinced, by the time we left, that it was some kind of magic.”

“But it isn’t.” He didn’t quite make it a question.

“Oh, no. Perfectly human abilities that simply don’t happen to be shared by everyone. It’s like math.”

“Math?”

“Yeah. I don’t get math. Never have. Balancing my checkbook stresses me out like you wouldn’t believe. But I always liked science, history, English. Those I was good at. I bet you’re good at math.”

“It doesn’t stress me out,” he admitted.

“Different strokes. People have strengths and weaknesses, and some have abilities that can look amazing because they’re uncommon. There aren’t a lot of Mozarts or Einsteins, so people marvel at their abilities. Guy throws a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball and puts it over the plate three out of five pitches, and he’s likely to be set for life, because very few people can do what he does. Gifts. Rare, but all perfectly human.”

“And your gift is?”

“Clairvoyance. The faculty of perceiving things or events beyond normal sensory contact. Simply put, I know things. Things I shouldn’t be able to know-according to all the laws of conventional science. Facts and other bits of information. Conversations. Thoughts. Events. The past as well as the present.”

“All that?”

“All that. But more often than not it’s a random jumble of stuff, like the clutter in an attic. Or like the chatter of voices in the next room: you hear everything but really catch only a word or two, maybe a phrase. That’s where practice and training come in, helping make sense of the confusion. Learning to see the important objects in that cluttered attic or isolate that one important voice speaking in the next room.”

“And you use this… ability? In investigating crimes, I mean.”

“Yes. The Special Crimes Unit was formed to do just that. For most of us, becoming a part of the unit was the first time in our lives that we didn’t feel like freaks.”

Rafe thought that much, at least, made sense. He could understand how people with senses beyond the “normal” five might feel more than a little alienated from society. Having a useful and rewarding job and a place where they were considered entirely normal had probably changed their lives.

Isabel didn’t wait for his response, just went on in that slightly absentminded tone. “There’s been very little study into the paranormal, really, but we’ve built on that with our own studies and field experience. We’ve developed our own definitions and classifications within the SCU, as well as defined degrees of ability and skill. I’m a seventh-degree clairvoyant, which means I have a fair amount of ability and control.”

Rafe watched as she knelt down and touched the ground, no more than an inch or so from where Tricia Kane’s blond hair had lain. “Touching the ground helps?” he asked warily.

“Touching things sometimes helps, yeah. Objects, people. It’s better when the area is contained, enclosed, but you work with what you’ve got. The ground is pretty much the only thing left out here, so…” She looked up at him and smiled, though her eyes held a slightly abstracted expression. “Not magic. Maybe we’re just a lot more connected to this world and to one another than we think.”

It was hot, the way it is now. But barely light. She could smell the honeysuckle. But that’s all… all she could get about the murder, at least. That and her certain sense of something dark and evil crouching, springing… But only that. Isabel wasn’t really surprised. This place was wide open, and they were always the toughest.

He watched her intently. “What do you mean?”

He had very dark eyes, she thought. “We leave footprints when we pass. Skin cells, stray hairs. The scent of our cologne lingering in the air. Maybe we leave more than that. Maybe we leave energy. Even our thoughts have energy. Measurable electromagnetic energy. Today’s science admits that much.”

“Yeah. And so?”

“Our theory is that psychics are able to tap into electromagnetic fields. The earth has them, every living thing has them, and many objects seem to absorb and hold them. Think of it as a kind of static electricity. Some people get shocked more often than others. I get shocked a lot.”

“Are you getting shocked now?”

Isabel straightened and brushed the dirt off her hand. She was frowning slightly. “It’d be easier if the clairvoyant bits came in neon, but they don’t. That cluttered attic. That noisy party in the next room. In the end it’s usually just a jumble of information, stuff I could have read or heard or been told.”

Rafe waited for a moment, then said, “Except?”

“Except… when the information comes in the form of a vision. That is in neon. Sometimes in blood.”

“Not literally?”

“Afraid so. It’s rare for me, but it does happen from time to time. In the case of a murder, it’s as if I become the victim. I see or hear-or sometimes feel-what they do. While they’re being killed. I’m told it’s a bit startling to watch. Don’t freak out if it happens, okay?”

“You’re telling me you actually bleed?”

“Sometimes. It fades away pretty fast, though. Like I said, don’t let it bother you.”

“Don’t let it bother me? Cops see blood, Isabel, we tend to freak out. In a controlled, professional manner, of course. We take it as a signal that it’s time to do our job.”

Her eyes sharpened abruptly, and she smiled. “Well, if you see blood on me, resist your instincts. Chances are, it’ll belong to somebody else.”

“In Hastings, chances are it’ll be yours. Unless you want to color your hair for the duration.”

“Wouldn’t help. He already knows.”

“Knows what?”

“He’s already seen me, Rafe. One of the clairvoyant bits I’ve picked up. I’m on his A-list.”