The intruder headed cautiously around the back of the house while the UnSub reversed his directionand circled around behind. As surmised, the bald man had spotted the pipe in the ground, and the propped-up shovel, and immediately holstered his weapon, grabbed the implement and started digging.
The UnSub let him dig a while.
Then, coming up behind the intruder, the UnSub said, “Don’t turn around.”
“It’s over, asshole,” the bald man said, stopping his work, leaning on a shovel full of dirt. “Denson, Wauconda PD. You’re surrounded.”
“Am I?”
“I knewit was you.…”
“If you knew—”
That was as far as the UnSub got before Denson spun, throwing the shovelful of dirt toward him. The UnSub had anticipated this move, however, and sidestepped, and shot the bald cop in the belly before the man ever got his gun back out. The bald man did an awkward little pirouette and dropped facedown into the shallow hole. He was breathing heavily, but whether conscious or not, the UnSub couldn’t tell.
“Gut shot like that,” the UnSub told his guest, who could possibly hear him, or possibly not, “it should take a while for you to die. Maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. Although, it’s likely you’ll suffocate first.”
Picking up the cop’s gun from the ground, stickingit in his waistband, the UnSub whistled “WhistleWhile You Work” and he casually started refilling the grave on top of the intruder who now lay on the very slightly exposed plywood casket, from which perhaps could be detected the tiniest whimpering.
Smiling as he casually tossed a shovelful of dirt to plop onto the man’s back, the seeping exit wounds turning the dirt damp, the UnSub said, “Don’t you fools know? I’m always a step ahead.”
That gunshot, before, would have sounded like a cannon going off out here in the middle of nowhere,so it was best to finish fast and leave.
That’s just what the killer did.
Once the burial was complete, the ground patted down hard around the pipe, he returned the shovel to its place behind the bushes, pulled his vehicle out of the barn, pulled the cop’s in. The last thing he did, before shutting the barn door behind him, was remove latex gloves that prevented him from leaving fingerprints on anything; these he threw into a corner of the barn.
He got into his car and drove away. Here he was in the middle of the night—actually, the early hours of morning—and he still had work to do.
Who was it said, no rest for the wicked?
Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid knew he was blessed in his ability to get by on short sleep. On the BAU, that was as valuable to Reid as his intelligence or his memory.
Hotchner had phoned just before six a.m., barely four hours after Reid had finally crawled into bed, and told him to be in the hotel lobby, ASAP. Fifteen minutes later, mildly disheveled, hair still damp from a hurried shower, Reid exited the elevator into the lobby to find Hotchner, Prentiss and Rossi waiting.
Hotchner, newspaper folded under his arm, his countenance perhaps even more tense than normal, looked typically impeccable in his navy blue suit, as did Rossi in a gray suit of his own. Prentiss too seemed to have taken more time than Reid getting ready, and Reid wondered if he had been the last one called or whether the others were just better organized.
The next elevator car opened and muscular Morgan emerged looking like he’d walked out of a magazine ad in black loafers, slacks, and a T-shirt that might have been spray-painted on.
Only Jareau was MIA, and Reid wondered where the normally hyper-punctual JJ was until he spotted her through the hotel’s glass doors. She, too, was impeccable in a gray pants suit, though her hair swung animatedly as she paced a small patch of sidewalk, cell phone pressed to her ear, engaged in a heated conversation with someone.
Seldom had Reid seen JJ this upset—she was naturally cool and her liaison role required her to be cooler than that; but now and then she lost it, though judging by her gestures, she was as worked up now as he’d ever seen her. As she marched back and forth beyond the door, her expression said that whoever was on the other end of the call had not informed Jareau she’d just won the lottery.…
Reid turned to Hotchner. “What’s going on? That’s not JJ’s normal style.”
“ Thisis going on,” Hotch said tersely. The team leader took the paper from under his arm and handed it to Reid like a summons he was serving.
And as tentatively as someone who’d just been so served, Reid opened the newspaper—the Chicago Daily World. Not in a class with the Tribor the Sun-Times, the Daily Worldran a distant fourth in what was, essentially, a four-paper circulation race. What the paper lacked in readership and integrity, it made up for in sleaze and salaciousness.
The headline read, “Artist’s Grisly Tableau.” Then, below that, in a slightly smaller font, it said: “Serial Killer Claims Seventh Victim.”
“ Seventhvictim?” Reid asked no one in particular as he continued to read.
Under the headlines, just above the fold, was a color photo of an empty car with blood on the seat and windows.
“This is our UnSub’s work?” Reid asked.
“Seems to be,” Hotchner said.
“How did that paper get this before we did?”
“The UnSub sent it to them,” Hotch said, biting off the words. “That and the photos from the other crimes. The other three papers are cooperating and not running them, but the Daily Worldis going all out.… On page three, you’ll see the rest.”
Frowning, Reid asked, “What about consideration for the families of the victims?”
Shrugging, Hotchner said, “Evidently, the Daily Worldfeels the public’s ‘right to know’ trumps that.”
Reid blew out air. “These must be all over the Internet, already.”
Until now, Jareau had done a yeoman’s job of keeping the murders off the front page and off the lead story of nightly local newscasters. The murders had been covered by the newspapers and TV, of course; but thanks to her efforts, the copycat aspect had been kept out, as part of the ongoing investigation.
That minimized citywide panic and, as Hotchner and Rossi had reasoned, put the killer on edge as the news coverage did not feed what they already knew to be a hungry massive ego. Of course, a possible downside of that strategy was that it might speed up his kills, as the UnSub sought to garner media attention through sheer volume. Now, thanks to the Daily World, that point was moot.
Reid held the paper up and pointed to the grisly photo. “Do we know where this crime scene is?”
Morgan said, “Lorenzon and Tovar are working the phones—we’re assuming the photo was sent to the local PD, as well, although if it went snail mail, it might not have shown up yet.” He gestured with open hands. “But it’s just about got to be one of the outlying suburbs—none of the nearer ones have claimed it.”
Prentiss added, “The area in the background appears to be woods, but…” She shrugged. “…there are lots of wooded areas around Chicago. Garcia’s also on the job, trying to track down the police department. This time the UnSub used e-mail to send the photos to the newspaper. That’s new.”
Morgan said, “So an area PD may have received the photos via e-mail attachment already.”
Reid frowned in thought. “Then this is a fresh kill.…”
“Probably sometime last night,” Rossi said. “Possibly the night before, but I doubt it. E-mail tells us he’s looking for more immediate gratification.”
Reid’s eyes tightened. “Do you think he’s devolving?”
“How could he not be?” Rossi asked. “He abducted the first victim in March, at least the first one we know about, and made sure that body wasn’t found until July. Now, he kills another in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours and can’t even wait for the mailman to deliver the picture, he’s so proud of his work—for the first time, he e-mails it to speed up the process. Not only do I think the UnSub’s devolving, I think he may be in spree mode and won’t stop killing until we stop him. Every day, hell, every hourthat we don’t have him in custody puts another innocent in danger. How long did Cunanan take?”