P. Parrish - Paint It Black

But by the end of the evening, even Wainwright had begun to come around to Emily’s assertion that the killer was black. There was no choice really; they had to believe her. There was no evidence to the contrary.

When Louis had arrived at the station early the next morning, Emily was already at work. She had tapped back into VI–CAP searching for any other cases up in New Jersey with MO’s similar to the Broward County and Ocean County cases-black victims who had been beaten, stabbed, and painted. When she found none, she had expanded her search to all East Coast states, specifically jurisdictions near water. Still drawing a blank, she expanded the MO to victims who matched any of the three criteria-stabbed, beaten, or painted. She was looking specifically for bodies that had been left in water.

They had pored over the faxes, looking for red flags. But so far, they had uncovered only a handful of cases that were similar to the six they already had. There were no more exact fits. There were a half dozen middle-aged black victims who had been stabbed to death, four who had beaten to death. Some had been left in lakes or rivers, one even in a swimming pool. But none had been painted.

Louis tossed the fax he was reading on the table. His ass ached from sitting, his eyes were fuzzy from reading. He pulled his legs off the table and slowly got up, stretching.

“We’re never going to get through all this shit,” he muttered, taking off his glasses.

She didn’t look up.

“Farentino,” he said, “shouldn’t we be concentrating on evidence we have instead of evidence we don’t have?”

“You don’t have any evidence,” she said, still not looking up. “You don’t have prints, hairs, fibers, or witnesses, for God’s sake.”

“We could be trying to match the blade.”

“You want to go visit pawnshops, be my guest.”

“We could be looking for an expert, or a knife show or something. There’s lots of things we could be doing besides sitting here looking at paper.”

She looked up at him. “He’s in here. I know he is.” She paused. “I got the impression the other night you were interested in this.”

He stared glumly at the mess of faxes that they hadn’t even looked at yet. “I am,” he said.

She smiled slightly. “But you want to be out there. You’re a cop. You can’t help it.”

He heard the low murmur of the dispatcher’s radio behind him. It was Candy, reporting in from the Sereno causeway. He heard Wainwright answer from his post out on Captiva. There were thirty men out tonight, counting the sheriff’s department and extras from Fort Myers. Cruising, watching the beaches and the causeways. And she was right; he wanted to be out there with them, even though he knew they had no chance of catching him in the act.

There was really nothing to do now but wait for the next body to be found.

Louis went to the map on the bulletin board, staring at the pins that marked the places of the abductions and crime scenes. Yesterday, they had added maps of Ocean County, New Jersey, and Broward County, Florida.

“Maybe it’s got something to do with his job,” he said, staring at the pins.

“What does?”

“The water. Maybe it’s part of his job.”

She let out a sigh. “Possibly. Or maybe it’s just part of his hunting ground. Bundy liked college campuses.”

Louis fell quiet again. He could hear the scratch of Emily’s pencil on paper.

“Why the gap?” he said quietly.

Farentino looked up at him.

“I mean, why did he kill up in Jersey, then wait almost nine months before he killed again in Fort Lauderdale? Then wait some more before he killed three men here?”

Emily gave a weary shrug. “It’s common. Sometimes these guys can go for months or years without killing but then the stressor kicks in and sets them off.”

Louis turned to look at her. “Stressor?”

“Yeah, it’s like a trigger. Something that sets him off, some crisis in his life that he can’t cope with.”

“So something down here triggered him to kill Tatum?” Louis asked.

“Maybe. Or maybe there are cases in between we haven’t found yet.” She dropped the pencil and ran her hands roughly over her face. “What we really need to do is find the first case. You can usually tell a lot about the killer from that.”

“You don’t think the one up in New Jersey was the first?”

She shook her head slowly. “No, it was too much like all the others. Serial killers aren’t usually perfect on the first try. They get better at what they do. If we find earlier cases, I’ll bet they are not as. . refined.”

“Strange choice of words, Farentino.”

She shrugged.

He picked up the files again, opening to the personal report on the Barnegat Light, New Jersey, victim. He was fifty-five years old, a high school geography teacher with a son. No known enemies, no odd lifestyle patterns, just didn’t return home from work one night after coaching a Little League game. He looked at the black-and-white Xerox of the autopsy photograph. Specks of black paint could be seen on the man’s face, but at least he had a face.

Louis opened the other two files from Broward County. One was a fifty-year-old janitor whose service truck was found in a bank parking lot, door open. The other was a forty-eight-year-old X-ray technician who walked five blocks to a store for a pack of cigarettes and never made it home.

Louis turned to the photographs. The same. The faces were beaten but intact.

“He didn’t beat these men as badly,” Louis said, sliding the photos over to Emily.

She didn’t even look at them. “Like I said, he’s getting better at his work.”

They were silent again. The radio traffic hummed in the background. It was too quiet.

“Why does he leave the bodies out in the open? Why not hide them?” Louis asked.

Emily looked up again and gave him a small smile. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“I have a lot to learn about this,” he said.

She leaned back, stretching her arms above her head. “Some of these guys want their victims found because they are taunting police or-this is sick-they are really proud of their work.” She paused. “Then there are some who want to be caught.” She hunched back over the files and put her glasses back on. “But those are few and far between.”

Louis remembered the debris on the causeway where Tatum was found. “I think he just thinks they’re garbage,” he said, tossing the photos back on the table.

Emily nodded thoughtfully. “I think you’re right. How a killer disposes of the body is crucial to understanding him. This killer has no use for his victims, takes no souvenirs, and makes no effort to hide the bodies from us. When he’s done, he’s done.”

The phone rang. It was Wainwright’s line. Louis punched the button.

“Sereno Police Department.”

“Dan?”

“No, this is Kincaid. Louis Kincaid.”

“Shit. This is Chief Horton over in Fort Myers. Where’s Dan?”

“On stakeout, Chief. I’m-”

“Get Dan on the radio. Now.”

“What’s-”

“We got another victim.”

“Same MO?”

“Yeah. Except this one’s alive.”

Louis yanked open the door to the Fort Myers Police Station, and was met in the lobby by a short, muscular man with a brush cut and intense brown eyes. He wore gray uniform pants and a white shirt that stretched tightly across his chest. He thrust out his hand.

“Chief Horton,” he said, pumping Louis’s hand as he pulled him through a door. “You must be Kincaid.”

“Right, and this is Agent Farentino,” Louis said, nodding behind him. Horton gave her a cursory smile.

“Dan said you’d get here first. He’s about five minutes out.”