Lisa Miscione - Angel Fire

“Due to some very unglamorous but very important legwork – no pun intended – on the part of Homicide Detective Raymond Barnes,’’ Jeffrey continued, motioning to a heavyset man with a military bearing and haircut, “we have determined this boot to be a Timberland Toledo with a rubber lug sole. This doesn’t help much because it’s a popular boot sold in virtually every men’s retail shoestore in the area.

“The bodies of Christine and Harold Wallace were in bad shape. But we are trying to determine at this point whether he removed their hearts after he killed them or before.’’

“Why is that significant?’’ asked one officer.

The image of Christine and Harold’s gutted bodies flashed on the screen behind Jeffrey. “Because it tells us exactly how sick a fuck we’re dealing with.’’

A ripple of uncomfortable laughter moved through the room.

“Because,’’ Jeffrey continued, more seriously, “the more we know about what he does, the closer we are to why he does it. The more we understand about his motivations, the more we understand him, and the better profile we have.

“So this is what we know about him: His MO is to overpower his victims, either incapacitate or kill them, take them alive or dead to another location, and then to dump their bodies in a third location. The killer’s signature behavior is that he removes their hearts. For those of you that missed last week’s episode of Profiler, a ‘signature behavior’ or ‘aspect’ is something that an offender does above and beyond what he needs to do to commit the offense. It’s something he does to satisfy his emotional needs. Removing the heart is one part of it. I believe that what he does with the heart is another part of it. We’re in the dark as to what the underlying motivation is at this point.

“But we know enough to draw a decent profile. We know that he is an ‘inadequate’ type by the way he blitz-attacked Maria Lopez; he used as much force as he had to subdue her. He forced his way into her apartment and put chloroform to her face. When that didn’t work, he killed her there. We know he is highly organized, in that it was necessary for him to burglarize the supply warehouse and set up an operating room somewhere, stalk his victims, perform his sick ‘surgery,’ and dump the bodies – all without getting caught. He is likely to be white and in his mid-to late thirties, on the older side of the traditional serial-killer profile, because it takes maturity, organization, and skill to do what he is doing. We are probably looking for a person with some medical background but probably not an actual doctor or surgeon. More like a buff, someone that would have liked to have been a doctor but failed in some way. He holds down a job somewhere. He probably lives alone or he has a place separate from his home where he’s doing his crime.

“The other notable element is that this killer seems to have an agenda other than the pleasure of the kill. He wants something else. He has a plan – either real or imagined. Ms. Strong seems to be a part of that agenda.’’ A picture of the items the killer had left on Lydia’s doorstep appeared on the screen.

“The message he left for her indicates he wants some kind of ‘vengeance.’ Whether he wanted revenge on his victims, whether he wants it from Ms. Strong, we can’t be sure.’’

A collage of photos of the victims’ faces loomed on the screen behind him. “So far, the victims are all different physically, crossing age, gender, and racial lines. But they all attended the same church with varying degrees of regularity. They were all leading somewhat lonely lives with checkered pasts. Christine and Harold had extensive records of drug abuse and domestic violence. Shawna was a chronic runaway and a discipline problem. Maria allegedly accepted money for sex. We can see by the way he disposes of the bodies that he is remorseless. These people are less than trash to him. He did not have intimate connections to them in life.’’

The image of Maria Lopez’s trashed apartment was next on the screen. “We were hopeful that Maria Lopez’s apartment would contain some physical evidence. But the only hair we found we matched to Maria Lopez and Michael Urquia, who has been eliminated as a suspect. Same deal with the fingerprints. We found some fibers at the scene, but it takes a while to sort through that, and State is working on it. We found blood and skin under- neath Lopez’s fingernails that has been sent to the lab for DNA testing…we all know that takes forever. Same with the bodies of Christine and Harold – checking for blood or DNA that doesn’t match theirs. Again, it’s going to take a few days. And then it will only help us if our killer has been entered into the system somewhere for some other offense.

“We don’t know for certain if anything was missing from the victims’ personal belongings. Shawna Fox, whose body we have not recovered and who may or may not be one of the victims – though we believe she is – took nothing with her when she left her foster parents’ home. Neither her foster parents nor her boyfriend Greg noticed anything missing from her belongings. In other words, we’re not sure if he’s collecting trophies.’’

Lydia, sitting in a darkened corner in the back of the room, had been listening intently to the facts though she was more than familiar with them at this point, hoping that there was something that she missed. But when Jeffrey mentioned trophies, the image of her mother’s garnet earring occupied Lydia’s mind again for a moment. She remembered it glittering in the palm of Jeffrey’s hand as he’d returned it to her, and she shivered.

“Chief Morrow,’’ said Jeffrey, “this is the plan of attack I suggest. First, you need several stakeouts. One at each site where we found bodies because killers often return to the scene to relive their kill. And one at the Church of the Holy Name because all the victims were parishioners there. And one at the home of Lydia Strong. He has likely developed an obsession with her, and we can expect to see him there again.

“All officers are advised to be on the lookout for someone fitting the profile driving a green or other dark-colored minivan. You can always find a good excuse to pull someone over if you look hard enough.

“Rental-car companies have been advised to alert us if someone using the name Vince A. Gemiennes tries to rent a car. This was the name, obviously a fake, someone used yesterday to rent a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which has since been impounded. The address that was left led Lydia to Christine and Harold Wallace’s bodies today. This could have been a huge break for us but apparently it was a very busy day at Avis yesterday and none of the three women working the counter remember this person enough to give a description. We have them here at the station now, looking over airport security tapes, hoping they will see someone that jogs their memory. Unfortunately, there is no camera directly on the Avis rental desk.’’

“How did he rent a car? He had a fake credit card and driver’s license?’’ asked one uniformed officer.

“Well, we’re not a hundred percent positive. In the file, there is neither the imprint of the card or a copy of the license as there should be. All the girls insist that no one could have rented a car without those things. But the records have disappeared.’’

“But it’s possible that he could be walking around making purchases with a fake credit card.’’

“Yes, and area merchants are being notified via fax and e-mail to be on the lookout for someone using that name.’’

Lydia wrote down the name again in her notebook, Jeffrey’s voice fading to background noise. It was an odd name, clearly fake since there was no record of it at any of the government offices. She traced the letters. Had she heard it before? Did she somehow know this person? She had the sense she was missing something.