Michael Dibdin - Dark Specter

Data submitted to HITS was not only entered into that system but also automatically generated a parallel report which was transmitted to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, there to be matched against similar incidents reported from other states. Kristine Kjarstad had nourished high hopes that this process would provide her with evidence to support her tenuous and largely intuitive theory about the Renton case, but there had been no response, either from HITS or VICAP.

“The problem is, the system isn’t complete,” she had protested to her chief of detectives. “It isn’t mandatory for LEAs to submit data, and a lot of them don’t. New York, California, Texas-some of our biggest violence producers don’t even participate. We do, so anyone who looked at the VICAP stats would end up thinking that the Northwest is the murder capital of America, which is absurd. Plus any cases which are “solved,” quote unquote, get wiped from the Feds’ system! So if the original investigators in Peoria or wherever decide, rightly or wrongly, that it was just an attempted robbery gone ballistic or a family feud or a gang-related hit, whatever, it won’t show on the computer. And that must happen all the time. After all, we almost wrote this one off as a domestic.”

“Which I still think it was,” Dick Rice replied calmly. “OK, so we can’t make a case against the guy … What’s his name?”

“Wayne.”

“Right. That doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. He confessed , for Christ’s sake! That makes sense to me. We buy into this idea of yours, what’ve we got? Some guys hit a house here in Renton, then hop on a plane to Kansas and start over. That’s not the way multiple killers operate. They work their territory, wherever it may be. Look at our Green River guy. He killed at least forty-one women, maybe fifty, and all between here and Tacoma. He didn’t waste his time racking up Frequent Flyer points.”

“Bundy moved around,” Kristine objected.

“Only because he was moving anyway. Utah, he went to law school. Florida, he was on the run after busting out of Aspen. As long as he was living here, this’s where he hit ’em up. Didn’t even bother to change his MO, just kept working the campus. Whereas you want us to believe that there are these guys flitting around the country like sales reps, shooting up houses at random from sea to shining sea. I’m sorry, Kristine. I appreciate your enthusiasm and dedication, but this just doesn’t fly.”

Coming from a man who had served on both the Bundy and Green River task forces, Rice’s words had a certain authority, but Kristine Kjarstad still retained a blind, dogged faith in her idea. What really disturbed her was something that Fred Poison said when she called him to get his views on the file she had sent him in return for the one on the Kansas City murders. Poison hadn’t been any more impressed than Rice by the alleged similarities between the two cases, but his parting words had stuck firmly in Kristine’s mind.

“I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about this, Ms. Kjarstad. I certainly hope so. Because if someone is doing what you say, then it’s theirs to screw up.”

A plane roared overhead, banking into the approach path to Sea-Tac airport. Off to the west, another was moving in toward the city, its landing lights glowing brightly against the bank of cobalt cloud which dwarfed the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula. Above the clouds, another point of light, unmoving, pricked the gathering dusk: Venus.

Kristine thought of all the other planes which must be taking off and landing just then, all over the country. Someone had calculated that at any given moment one and a half million Americans were in the air. Add to that millions more in cars, buses and trains, and you had a continual flow and counterflow from city to city, state to state, coast to coast. It was as if the original impact of the Mayflower on Plymouth Rock had set up a shock wave across the whole continent, amplified by the later waves of immigrants.

For a time, all that energy had been channeled into the epic drive west. Now, thrown back on itself, it produced only this ceaseless turbulence, millions and millions of people perpetually on the move. And somewhere amongst them, perhaps, were two men equipped with.22-caliber revolvers, plastic handcuffs and rolls of duct tape. Sitting on her porch in the quiet evening, Kristine felt an immense weariness run through her. Fred Poison was right. As long as they didn’t make a mistake themselves, such killers would be virtually immune to detection.

Because beneath the superficial restlessness which the European immigrants had brought lay the very different America of the native peoples: rooted, tribally based, rich in local traditions, fiercely independent. That culture had been destroyed, but its ghosts had come back to haunt the one that replaced it. Every town and city jealously defended its rights and privileges against the county authorities, which in turn resented any interference by the state, and all made common cause against the federal government. As a result, law enforcement was divided among thousands of different agencies, each operating independently of the others and responsible only to their own elected officials.

Most of the time this worked pretty well, since most crime is local too. But if someone took it into his head to exploit that gaping fissure between the two Americas, by committing random, motiveless crimes all over the country, he could just disappear right into it. He would be operating nationally, and there was no national police force.

People thought there was, of course. A diet of thrillers and movies had convinced them that whenever the local cops hit a case that was too big for them to handle they simply called in a glamorous FBI special agent played by Kyle McLachlan or Jodie Foster, who promptly sorted the whole thing out. In fact the Bureau had no power to investigate murder, for the simple reason that murder was not a federal offense. The Feds could only muscle in if they could demonstrate that the killings were linked to crimes which were, such as kidnapping or racketeering. Otherwise all they were empowered to do, and then only on request, was to send a representative from the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico to liaise with local police on a consultative basis. Responsibility for the investigation itself remained with the law enforcement agency having jurisdiction in the area where the murder occurred.

In theory, of course, such agencies were supposed to cooperate fully with each other, sharing information and pooling resources. Sometimes it worked out that way, other times it didn’t. But even discounting the usual rivalries, how could a pattern emerge if each part of the emerging puzzle was in the hands of a different player, each of them unaware that the others existed, and struggling to make sense of their own individual fragment?

A rustling in the branches above her brought Kristine’s thoughts back to the present. There was Thomas, clambering nimbly down the tree to finish with an athletic leap into the yard, rushing up to hug her and bug her, demanding food and attention. As they stepped inside the warm, well-lit, wood-sprung house, Kristine promised herself that tomorrow she would lock the file away and devote herself to other work. Maybe she should phone Paul Merlowitz. He still seemed interested in her enough to want to take her out to lunch. It might even be worthwhile mentioning the Wallis house to him. Lawyers knew loads of people. It would make all the difference if Thomas had someone to play with over the summer vacation.

Over the next few days, I explored my new home and fell in love.

The first part did not take long. The island turned out to be much smaller than I had imagined. Despite the rough terrain, I was able to walk from one end to the other in less than an hour. The rain of the previous evening had stopped, the sky had cleared and the sun shone brightly in a pale blue sky.