“Sometimes,” Garcia said, “I’m very happy to be sequestered in my little domain.”
Then she was gone.
Jareau wondered why her cell phone wasn’t ringing itself crazy already. She snapped it off her belt to see if it was turned off or the battery’d gone dead. But the phone was on and the battery indicator read full.
The police, the media, someoneshould be calling her for help or a comment or something.
She continued to eyeball the device, confused by why it remained mute. She was concentrating so hard, she couldn’t help but flinch when the thing vibrated in her hand, and she almost threw it, reflexively, against the wall.
“Jareau.”
“Hotchner. You heard?”
“Yes, Garcia told me. I’ll get right out to the scene.…"
“No—sit tight. The Des Plaines Police are waiting for your call—they’re going to join the task force.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The victim at this crime scene is a John Doe, male, white, early twenties. Garcia’s working on the identification.”
“All right.”
“I guess I don’t have to tell you.…”
“That the media’s going to run wild with this? No. You don’t.”
Hotchner said, “Just a heads-up. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody, but I know we’re in good hands.”
“Thanks, Hotch.”
“We should be back soon,” Hotchner said, and clicked off.
The phone remained silent for almost ten whole seconds before it rang again. “Jareau.”
“Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Jareau?”
She didn’t recognize the voice. “Yes. May I help you?”
“My name is Logan Brinkley. I’m managing editor of the Chicago Examiner.”
That didn’t take long,Jareau thought as she said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Brinkley?”
“I think it might be what I can do for you, Special Agent Jareau.”
“Please explain.”
A momentary pause. “I just received several photos via e-mail.”
“Yes?”
Again Brinkley hesitated before continuing. “They are very… disturbing.”
Jareau felt another wave of nausea, only this one hung on a while.
“They were photos of murders that have occurred in the Chicago area over the last few months— homicides that the involved communities have no idea are related. And it’s clear the policehave known.”
Jareau wondered how many other media outlets had been sent the pictures. The Trib? The Sun-Times? The television stations? The potential media onslaught was almost too much to consider.
The overriding factor, however, was that she had to tell Hotch. Not just to alert him that the media was going to be more intrusive now, but to tell him that the UnSub’s behavior had escalated.
Taunting the police was one thing; sending full-color press releases another.…
Managing editor Brinkley was saying, “The publisher wants to run all the photos in tomorrow’s edition, despite their… graphic nature. I can’t blame him, since the police behavior here is certainly questionable. Still, I managed to convince him that we should call the FBI first. So, here I am.”
“Running those photos,” Jareau said, “could seriously impede a federal murder investigation.”
“Please, Agent Jareau. How many times has a government flack uttered those words?”
“I can’t deny that,” Jareau said coolly, though the harshness of the word “flack” offended her. “I can’t comment directly on an ongoing investigation, of course… but it would be safe to say that any killer who sends pictures of his crimes to a newspaper is looking for attention.”
“Agreed. But perhaps, if we give it to him, he will stop.”
“Mr. Brinkley, how long have you been in the newspaper business?”
“Thirty-two years.”
“And in all that time? Have you ever heard of a serial killer stopping becausehe got attention from the press?”
Several moments crawled past. Then: “You make a reasonable point, Agent Jareau.”
“Thank you,” she said. “You seem like you want to do the right thing here, Mr. Brinkley. Perhaps we can work something out.”
“You’ll give us an exclusive?”
She wanted to say: How many times has an editor of some tabloid rag uttered those words?
But what she did say was, “I can’t make that promise, Mr. Brinkley—not where the public safety could be jeopardized. I do have an idea of how you can sell papers and not interfere in our investigation… and you can do a service to your community as well.”
“I’m listening,” Brinkley said.
“I can give you a twenty-four lead on one thing. Did you get a photo of a young man partially buried in a crawl space?”
“Yes,” Brinkley said.
“The victim is a John Doe. You can run a photo of his face with a plea for anyone who knows him to come forward and identify him.”
“I don’t havea picture of just his face.”
“You will. Our digital intelligence officer will send it to you while she investigates the path the killer’s e-mail took to get to you.”
Brinkley considered that. “And if I fight to keep your agent out of our computers?”
“First, our tech is smarter than you and smarter than me and you couldn’t keep her out with Bill Gates’s help. And second, you want to help us catch this killer—I know you do. That, Mr. Brinkley, makes for favorable press… and it won’t be limited to just your own paper.”
After a moment’s thought, Brinkley said, “Special Agent Jareau, I believe you have yourself a deal.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brinkley. Now, I have one more question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Did he send the photos to the other media outlets?”
Brinkley’s voice was subdued. “I don’t think so. Mine was the only name in the address box and there were no others in the courtesy copy box either. If he didsend the pictures to all the media outlets, would he have taken the time to send a copy to one person at each outlet, individually? That would take a lot longer than just spamming us.”
“I agree.”
“And if he did send mass copies, why send a singlecopy to me? No, Special Agent Jareau, I think it’s possible that he only sent them to us. Then again, it’s not like any other media outlet would tell me if they had copies of these things.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You might put your computer whiz on it.”
“I might at that.”
“Now, Agent Jareau, if I may… one bonus question?”
“All right.”
“You haven’t told Chicago that there’s a serial killer out there—why?”
“It’s a policy of the FBI and the BAU not to discuss ongoing investigations.”
“Yeah, right, that’s the officialese,” Brinkley said. “But how long have you known?”
“Off the record?”
“I could do that,” he said.
“Because of the jurisdictional considerations, and the involved departments not sharing information until now? Two days.”
“Oh hell,” Brinkley said.
Jareau sighed. “That kind of response I’ve been hearing a lot lately.… Our digital intelligence officer, Penelope Garcia, will be in touch within the next half-hour. She’ll send you the picture and start tracking the e-mail, Mr. Brinkley. I want to thank you for your cooperation.”
“We’re not all in it just to make money, Agent Jareau. I’ve seen the photos and I would do everything I could to keep them out of the Examiner, but the last word here is seldom mine. As a concerned citizen, though, I want you to catch this monster and relegate him to some dark hole forever.”
“We’re trying to do just that.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brinkley.”