At least Trent didn’t have to wrestle with letting Rees see the files waiting in the conference room, testaments of Dryden’s evil. There was nothing she could tell him about those that he didn’t already see every night when he closed his eyes.
“How do you like your coffee, Special Agent?”
Trent looked up into the kind, blue eyes of the small town police department’s dispatcher. The moment they’d entered the stations and he’d met Oneida Perkins, he’d decided the strapping blonde would be a good person to have on his side. A jack- of-all-trades type, she seemed to be practically bursting with competence. In everything, maybe, except making coffee.
He took another breath of the burned coffee scent hanging in the air. “Thanks. But I’ll have to pass.”
“Hmm. First FBI agent I’ve met who doesn’t down the stuff the way Packer fans guzzle beer, but okay…”
“Trying to reduce my stress level.”
“And foregoing coffee works for that?”
“Not really, but it gets my doctor off my back.”
“Good to hear someone is off your back. Cassidy in there seems to be eager to climb on.”
Trent gave her a careful smile.
“No worries,” she continued. “The chief is on your side. And I’ll take good care of your lady there.”
“Risa? She’s not my lady.”
“As a profiler, I suppose you know all about denial, huh?” Oneida let out a snort, then not waiting for an answer, she bustled to where Risa sat, her skirt swishing with each purposeful stride. “How do you like your coffee?”
Trent turned away and forced himself to enter the conference room.
Cassidy didn’t look up from the file he was studying, but a second man immediately sprang to his feet and crossed to the door.
“Special Agent Burnell?” Tall, broad shouldered, and with gray at the temples, the man thrust a hand forward, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners with a smile. “Schneider, sir. Jeff Schneider. I’m Lake Loyal’s Chief of Police. It’s an honor to finally meet you.”
Trent shook Schneider’s hand, a warm, strong shake. The varied responses he received from local law enforcement personnel never ceased to amaze him. Much of the time his presence was met with skepticism or even downright contempt, as with Cassidy. But then there were some who saw federal agents in a much more positive, even glamorous light. Schneider must be among the latter group.
“Honor to meet you, too, chief.”
“Please, call me Schneider. Or Jeff. My department has only half-a-dozen full-time officers, including me. Working on getting more. But if there’s something we can help you with, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Quit pumping Burnell’s hand like some damn bootlicker and sit down. We have work to do.”
Schneider shot Cassidy a grin so false it cracked at the edges. “Schettler’s ran out of strawberry rhubarb pie again, Cassidy? Is that why you’re such a damn asshole?”
Cassidy grumbled, something unintelligible, then reburied his attention in the file.
Great. As if Trent didn’t have enough problems. Now he had to worry about a couple of feuding local cops.
Once they were all seated, Cassidy spoke, not looking up. “Where is your profile of Dryden?”
“There is no written profile,” Trent said.
“Why not?”
“We don’t want a comprehensive written report leaked to the press. Too many factors could be misconstrued, sensationalized.”
“You think one of us is going to leak it?”
“He didn’t say that, Cassidy.” Schneider glanced Trent’s way. “Right?”
Trent grabbed one of the file boxes and dragged it toward his side of the table. “It’s policy. Not aimed at any specific agency.”
“Better not be.”
Trent did not have the patience for this. Unfortunately, when stakes ran high, so did human emotion. And as hard as cops tried to set themselves apart, him included, they were all human.
“We want to be able to choose what details to release,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “Details that will make the serial offender nervous. Make him take unnecessary risks. Or force him into the open. If reporters get their hands on a written report that contains the entire profile, we lose that ability.”
“Makes sense,” Schneider said.
Trent focused on Cassidy. “Do you have a media office set up?”
“In Baraboo.”
The county seat was a fifteen or twenty-minute drive from Lake Loyal. Close enough that the press wouldn’t complain too much, and yet far enough away to give law enforcement some breathing room. “How about space for the task force?”
“We have a few empty cubicles,” Schneider volunteered.
Trent eyed the small town police chief. “I appreciate the offer, but this station isn’t going to be big enough.”
“I’ll have Oneida call the area churches. Bet they’ll let us use some space. Fellowship rooms and whatnot.”
“Better get on that,” Cassidy said, making a show of checking his watch. “And you’d better get your memory up to speed, Special Agent.”
Trent picked up the stack of photographs he’d glanced through in Dryden’s cell. “I’ll be ready.”
While Schneider found space for the task force and Cassidy started sorting crime reports, Trent flipped through the pictures. The wedding shot of Dryden and Nikki. The seductive poses of Farrentina Hamilton.
He set the photos back on the table and reached for the closest box of old case files. He plucked a file from the box, flipped open the manila folder and leafed through the contents. His fingers closed over a stack of crime-scene photos.
One of the coeds Dryden murdered stared back at him with unseeing blue eyes. He remembered her name. Ashley Dalton. A twenty-year-old with two younger sisters and an interest in biochemistry. Her mutilated, naked body glowed white in the photographer’s flash. Her torso, sliced down the middle and dressed the way a hunter dresses a deer carcass. Her long, blond hair tangled around her face.
He snapped the folder shut and reached for another, the haunting details of Dryden’s crimes rushing back to him. Rushing back to him, hell. They had never left. They were as much a part of him as his pounding heart, his straining lungs, his racing mind.
The woman in the second file was Dawn Bertram, a grad student studying psychology. A beautiful girl, Dawn had green eyes, not blue. But the rest was the same. The hunter fantasy. The long, blond hair that framed her lifeless face.
That was what didn’t add up about the photos of Farrentina Hamilton. Her brunette hair. Ed Dryden preferred blondes.
Cassidy leaned toward him across the table. “What do you see, Burnell?”
Trent pushed the crime-scene photos toward him. “All of Dryden’s female victims were blond. It was a big part of his signature. He killed blondes. Only blondes.”
Schneider took his seat at the table. “What, was his mother blond or something?”
“Not his mother.”
“Wife?” Schneider asked.
“A few months after his mother died of cancer, he married a blonde. She was in college when they met. A year or so into their marriage, she gave birth to twin girls and suffered from several medical problems, as did one of the children. At that point, she was unable to see to her husband’s needs.”
“Let me guess,” Schneider said. “That made him angry.”
“He began acting out his violent fantasies on women who looked like his wife.”
“That’s twisted.”
“It made him feel powerful, in control. Power and control he didn’t have in his normal life. Every time he killed a blond college student, he could fantasize that he was asserting power over the wife who he believed was rejecting him.”