Vail continued reading. A shoe was stuffed in the victim’s mouth. “That’s interesting.”
“What, the tie?”
“Haven’t gotten to that yet. The shoe. Stuffing a shoe in his mouth is fairly obvious, and it’s pretty much what you might think it represents-like the vic snitched on the killer, or said something that offended him. He stuffs the shoe in the mouth as if he’s gotten the last word.”
“I know the inspector who handled the case,” Burden said. “Millard Ferguson. He was retiring when I was promoted. I can look him up, see if I can find him, see what he remembers.”
“Anything he gives us is more than what we’ve got now.”
“I’ll get someone on it.” He rose and walked out.
“The tie?”
Friedberg said, “Read further down. Vic had a silk tie wrapped around his neck.”
“Is there another article?”
Friedberg sat down in the chair and scrolled through the document. “Yes. Ten days later.”
They both went silent as they read.
Friedberg pointed at the screen. “Cause of death.”
“Strangulation. The tie.”
“Vic’s name was Edgar Newhall. And-”
“He was fifty-seven. Much younger than our current vics.”
Friedberg leaned back in the chair. “So you think this case isn’t related?”
Vail hiked her brow. “Hard to say at this point. He’s an older male, but a totally different victim group. That said, there’s a lot more we need to find out about Mr. Newhall. Who was he?”
“Who was who?” Burden asked, a sheaf of papers in his hand.
“The vic,” Friedberg said. “Name’s Edgar Newhall. A lot younger than our current vics, and I’d like to know why. We need to find out more about this guy. I’ll take that, you find Millard Ferguson.”
Burden’s phone rang. He reached in front of Friedberg and lifted the handset. “Burden.”
“He doesn’t answer his phone ‘Birdie?’” Vail said.
Burden made a flapping motion with the hand holding the papers. Be quiet. “Say that again?” he said into the receiver. As Burden listened, his shoulders rolled forward.
I know that body language. A new victim.
Burden hung up, then tossed the papers on his desk. “Let’s go.”
THE TEMPERATURE HAD DROPPED INTO the low fifties and the fog had returned. It blew by the skyscrapers with abandon, American flags mounted atop the buildings stretched tight, proudly displaying the stars and stripes.
“Where are we?” Vail asked, seated in the back of the Taurus, her head rotating left and right.
“You mean the area, or relative to the other murders?”
“Relative to the other murders. I’m trying to figure this out spatially, because I have a feeling that’s going to be significant.”
“Why’s that?” Friedberg asked.
“The male bodies, the ones left outside. Those locations were chosen by the offender for some specific reason.”
Burden nodded. “Find the reason, and we may be on our way to identifying the offender.”
“I’m pretty sure of that,” Vail said.
“From Palace of Fine Arts,” Friedberg said, “the new vic’s between a mile and a half and two miles. From the Cliff House, about five miles.”
Not as close as I’d hoped.
“Remember I mentioned geographic profiling? The mental mapping thing? We’re dealing so far with a closed city environment. I’ve got a friend who does it. Could help.”
“You can find out who the UNSUB is based on where he kills?” Burden asked.
“Not exactly,” Vail said. “By evaluating the pattern and location of the victims, we can learn what type of predator he is, how he searches for his victims, and why he goes after the women he does. And by understanding that, we can zero in on where he might strike next. It’s not perfect, but it can be surprisingly accurate.”
They arrived at the corner near 700 Bay Street well after sunset. Sodium vapor streetlights gave off an inadequate, orange-hued glow. Headlighted cars moved along the local streets, but traffic was lighter than what Vail envisioned it would be for a city, even if it was near the end of rush hour.
Burden turned right up the adjacent sloping street and left the Ford in a No Parking zone behind a vacant police cruiser. The officer was twenty feet away, standing in front of yellow crime scene tape he had strung around a wide swath of the immediate area, thumbs poking out through the loops of his utility belt as he paced, watching to make sure kids or dogs didn’t stray across his makeshift boundary.
Beyond the cop was the purpose for their calclass="underline" a man standing upright, pinned against a telephone pole.
“Well that’s just lovely,” Vail said. She swung her body around, taking in the landscape. Off in all directions, homes similar in style to the ones in the neighborhoods where the Andersons and Ilgs lived. Storefront businesses. And a downward angled street running perpendicular to Bay.
A car slowed alongside the crime scene, then parked. Out stepped Rex Jackson, Nikon hanging from his neck and a toolkit from his hand. “This guy’s busy,” he quipped. “And he’s keeping us busy. We haven’t even finished processing his last scene.”
“When do you think you’ll have that for us?”
“This isn’t TV,” Jackson said. “Just like you don’t solve cases in fifty-nine minutes, we can’t process a ton of info in a matter of hours. We’re running with a thin staff and a thinner budget. You’ll have it when we have it.”
“No rush-whenever you get around to it,” Vail said.
Jackson ignored her dig, setting down his kit and shooting photos. He made an adjustment to his camera and took another test picture. Satisfied, he swung left and began documenting the scene.
“Since Rex is here,” Burden said, “let’s leave him alone to process everything before we trample it.”
Forty-five minutes later, Jackson gave them the thumbs up and they moved closer to the victim.
The body was fastened to the pole with the same type of fishing line as the prior victims. He was dressed in a loose-fitting suit. And a number was scrawled across the vestiges of a scar on his forehead.
“Another goddamn number,” Burden said.
Vail tilted her head. “Thirty-five. So, we’ve got thirty-seven, forty-nine, and now thirty-five. A pattern?”
“None I’m seeing,” Burden said. “And it’s pissing me off.”
“What’s the deal with poles,” Friedberg asked. “They’ve all been secured to poles of some kind.”
“Phallic,” Jackson said as he snapped his toolkit closed.
“You could be right,” Vail said. “But it might simply be a means to an end: the act of leaving his victims erect, standing and facing the people who find him, may be what’s important to him. The pole is the easiest way for him to do that.”