Just then, Sheriff Wallace walked into the room. “Whatcha’ll up to?” His mouth was half full of a sausage biscuit; in his hand he held an overstuffed bag from Hardees. Somehow, even though it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, he was already sweating. Damp, yellowish stains emanated from the armpits of his once-white shirt.
“Sheriff Wallace,” I said, “I need some of your men to pull all the physical evidence from the previous cases.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Focus on anything found on or near the bodies. Anything at all-rings, glasses, jewelry, brands of lipstick, clothes. Tucker can explain everything. We’re looking for links. Tucker, you on this?”
“Absolutely.”
Sheriff Wallace pulled a cinnamon roll out of the bag and popped it in his mouth. He looked lost.
“He’s reaching across the board,” I explained, “and he’s touching our pieces, then taking them on his next turn.” I realized I wasn’t making any sense, not to someone who hadn’t heard what we were talking about.
Just then his phone rang. He answered it, looked a little confused, and passed it to me. “It’s for you.”
“Yeah?” I said into the phone as Tucker started bringing him up to speed, trying to summarize our theory in as few words as possible. “Bowers here.”
“It’s Lien-hua. I’ve been trying to find you. I tried your phone, then Ralph’s phone-”
“Long story.”
“I thought you were heading to the dump sites.”
“I am. I’m on my way.”
“Where are you now?”
“The federal building. I was just leaving.” I grabbed my computer and whispered for Tucker to call me if they came up with anything else. I headed for the door. “Where are you?” I asked her.
“On the steps outside waiting for you.”
“What? I thought you were in Charlotte.”
“Ralph sent me back early this morning. He tried telling you, but I guess your cell phone died.”
“Actually, it was his. Never mind.”
She yawned across the phone. “I feel like I’ve been up forever.”
“I’m glad I took the chopper last night. When’ll Ralph be down?”
“This afternoon after he’s done interviewing the security guard. He thought it might be helpful if I joined you since I’ve been to each of the crime scenes so far and…”-she paused for a moment-“I’m the one who’s been working on the offender’s profile.”
Don’t say anything stupid, Pat. Don’t be an idiot. “Yeah. Good. The profile. I love profiles.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
I stepped outside and closed up my phone. Wait, not mine. Dante Wallace’s. Oh well, I could give it back to him later. Nearby, Lien-hua was slipping her phone into her jeans pocket. She had on hiking boots and wore a blue North Face fleece pullover and matching windbreaker to fend off the crisp morning air. With the mountains rising behind her, she looked like she belonged on the cover of an outdoor magazine.
I’d subscribe.
“He’s touching our pieces,” I said, unlocking the car.
“What?”
“Climb in. I’ll explain on the way.”
28
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid finished reading through Governor Taylor’s confidential travel itinerary for the week, and then began perusing the guest list for the upcoming Cable News Forum luncheon. It had cost him nearly $80,000 to obtain this information from a woman named Anita Banner, but it had been worth every penny. And when he found out that she would be there too, he was even more pleased. It would eliminate the need of taking care of her in some slightly less subtle way.
He looked through the glass at Rebekah and Caleb.
The effects of the bacterium were beginning to show. Sweating, nausea, sharp mood swings. The rash would start soon, then bleeding from the intestines, the eyes, and then finally, pulmonary failure. It would not be a gentle death.
He glanced down at his hands and noticed that his shirtsleeve had pulled back, revealing the scar on the inside of his left wrist. He stopped and stared at it, gently rubbing his finger across the discolored skin.
The mark of true love.
Even after all this time, the scar was still visible, a reddish gash just over two inches long. The cut had been deeper than he’d originally thought, and without stitches it hadn’t healed evenly. Over the years it had even broken open a few times. And sometimes, on days like these, it still seemed to bother him. Still seemed to itch.
Maybe it itched because he was thinking about love once again. Maybe that was it. Or because he was thinking about Monday morning and how destiny would finally play out and about his family and about the babies and about the pawns he’d had Theodore leave beside the bodies of the young women and about how it would feel to watch the newscasts in the days following the luncheon as the disease trickled, traveled, spread family to family, husband to wife, lover to lover, friend to friend. One kiss, one sneeze, one handshake at a time. Around the world, evening the scales.
The Cable News Forum guest list read like a Who’s Who of the world’s media leaders and also included speeches by senators, congressmen, and dignitaries about First Amendment issues, the upcoming presidential election, FCC guidelines, and a number of other mediarelated issues. But really, Kincaid wasn’t interested in all that. He was most interested in the attendees: Juan Carlos Mendez, president of the Pacific Media Group; Roberta Stratham, CEO of Satellite Broadcast News, along with all the nation’s premier cable news correspondents and newscasters. And, of course, Governor Sebastian Taylor.
It was perfect. Especially considering the rest of the governor’s schedule for the week-appearances at the Pentagon, National Press Club, and a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In fact, the governor’s speaking schedule was one of the reasons he’d moved the plans to Monday instead of the original date in November.
He grazed the scar with his finger one last time. That afternoon with Jessie had been the first time he’d seen just how far someone would go to prove the depth of her beliefs. Of her love.
But it would not be the last.
Alexis and Bethanie hadn’t understood that. He’d had to spend another $120,000 to take care of them and to keep the plans alive. But in the end it was worth it.
Every time he touched his scar, it was as if he were reliving those moments with Jessie, those dreams of youth, all over again. Caressing them.
Some moments are meant to be caressed forever.
He smiled, pulled the shirtsleeve back over his wrist, and headed off to the Alexander Bros. Trucking Company to ship the vats of blood to Theodore.
29
As we drove higher and higher into the mountains, Lien-hua told me what they’d found out about Jolene overnight-which wasn’t much. I tried to keep the facts of Mindy’s case separate from Jolene. It wasn’t easy, but that’s the nature of this business. Often you need to juggle two, three, five or more cases at a time. I almost never have the luxury of having only one corpse or missing person on my mind.
I told Lien-hua about how the Illusionist was connecting the crimes for us, and I tried to summarize Tucker’s latitude and longitude theory. She listened quietly, then asked, “How does Agent Tucker know about all that stuff? I mean, the chess notation systems and the touching-the-piece thing?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he plays chess.”
Once again she was quiet, thoughtful.
Ralph had told her about the phone call I’d received last night from the Illusionist. She asked a few follow-up questions about it and scribbled observations in her notebook as I answered.
“How does all this fit in with what you know about the offender?” I asked.
“Most serial killers are sexual predators, but this guy doesn’t seem to be. He cares for the bodies, washes them-and I don’t think he does that just to get rid of physical evidence. He doesn’t rape his victims-either while they’re alive or postmortem. It’s more about power and control than sex. Calling to taunt you on the phone is consistent with that.”