Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Vince slipped into a chair, reserving comment on any of it. He needed a few minutes to regroup, to build up another charge of energy. The coffee was bitter and acidic, and his stomach lining felt raw.

“There’s an NCIC search under way for reports of missing children in the age groups of the victims,” Ken said.

“Once VICAP is totally operational, we’ll be able to search the database based on the perp’s MO,” another agent said.

“And once the technology is developed I’ll be able to watch the World Series on my wristwatch,” said another. “Someday isn’t going to help us today.”

Had anybody ever heard of anything on a violent child predator with a similar MO? Why a shotgun? Why obliterate the faces? Did that point to murder by a relative or someone else who knew the children? Or was the shotgun a signature meant to make a statement as to the psychological state of the UNSUB (unknown subject)?

Ken stood at the gigantic whiteboard, jotting down ideas being thrown at him on one part of the board and noting pertinent questions on another.

Vince took it all in, his mind half on the case details, half on his colleagues. They were all in shirtsleeves, but the day was young, and all neckties were still neatly in place.

He had known most of these guys a long time. They had worked a lot of cases together and they had a lot in common in addition to backgrounds in law enforcement and years in the Bureau. Three of the five guys in the room right now-including Vince-had been in the marines. John had served in the air force. They had the common experiences of trying to juggle marriage and family with the job-and in several cases the common experience of marriages falling apart because of the job.

“You’re quiet, Vince.” The voice came from the head of the table.

Vince met eyes with his old friend-who seemed not the least bit surprised to see him. Vince spread his hands and shrugged.

“Sorry, Ken,” he said to the agent at the board. “But we’re just spinning our wheels until they figure out who these kids are. Unless you want to do two profiles: one for a stranger as the UNSUB, one for a person known to the kids. That’s a hell of a lot of work when you’ve got how many other cases ongoing? Ten? Twelve?”

Ken looked at the end of his rope.

“But hey,” Vince said. “What do I know? I’m just an old cop from Chicago. I can reach out to a gal I know at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They’re only up and running for a year, but they get a lot of anecdotal information we don’t. I can go make the call right now.”

Ken nodded. “Thanks, Vince. I appreciate it.”

Vince got up and left the room, going directly back to the men’s room where he puked up the coffee. He rinsed his mouth out and stood for a moment, assessing himself in the mirror, seeing what his colleagues were seeing.

He had always been a big, good-looking guy: six three, two hundred pounds, built to play football. Now he was a tall, raw-boned man, twenty pounds underweight. He hadn’t lost the chiseled bone structure of his face, or his large dark eyes, or his wide white smile, thank God. He had something to fall back on. And there was color in his face at the moment, but when his blood pressure returned to pre-puking normal, his complexion would be a pale reflection of the steel gray heavily threaded through his black hair.

The hair had grown back thick and wavy, thank God. Bald had not been a good look on him.

For a moment he flashed back on that late March evening, walking to his car with his groceries, his mind on a case. That was as much as he had been able to recall. And even that memory had probably been manufactured by his brain. Witnesses had stated a guy in a hooded sweatshirt with a gun in his hand had walked up to him, demanded money. He hadn’t reacted quickly enough. The assailant pulled the trigger.

Three weeks went by before he regained consciousness and was told by his doctors that he was a miracle. The.22-caliber bullet had entered his skull and never exited. Only time would tell the extent of the lasting damage to his brain.

He had found it ironic. All his years in law enforcement, and he had never been injured. He, Mr. FBI, had to get mugged in a Kroger’s parking lot, shot in the head by a junkie.

Leaving the men’s room, he went to his desk. As was his habit since the Marine Corps, it was neat and orderly, and he could have laid his hand on any piece of paper he needed without having to make a mess. An orderly environment spoke of an orderly brain-except for the shards of brass in the middle of his.

After chewing down a handful of antacid tablets from his desk drawer, he made his phone call, got some information, and went back to the meeting where he handed Ken a piece of paper with a phone number on it.

The discussion had moved on to a series of sexual homicides in New Mexico near the Mexican border. The investigation was involving the Mexican authorities who were asking to send two of their detectives to Quantico for a crash course in profiling.

The morning wore on. Vince bided his time, letting the agents with active cases take their turns. As the meeting wound down, his friend at the head of the table made eye contact again.

“You didn’t come in because you missed looking at all these ugly mugs,” he said.

“No.” Vince cracked a lopsided smile and chuckled. “Where’s Russo? I came to look at her.”

Rosanne Russo was the only woman in the unit and more than used to taking a rash of shit for it.

“She’s at a conference in Seattle.”

“Damn. My luck.”

“What have you got, Vince?”

He rose to his feet slowly, so as not to touch off a bout of vertigo. “I’ve got a possible serial killer in Southern California. The guy abducts women, tortures them, and glues their eyes and mouths shut with superglue.”

“Pre- or postmortem?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“What’s the victim profile?”

“One of the vics had an old record of arrests for prostitution. No ID yet on the latest one.”

“How many vics?”

“Three in two years.”

His friend frowned. “That barely meets criteria.”

“Tell that to the dead woman they found yesterday. She was buried in a public park with her head aboveground.”

Eyebrows went up. Now it was interesting. This was a jaded bunch. There wasn’t much in the way of human depravity they hadn’t seen. It took something pretty out there to impress them.

“Photos?”

“They just found her late yesterday. No photos yet.”

“What about from the other two cases?”

“Were the other bodies buried in the same manner?” another agent asked.

“No and no.”

“You don’t have any paper on this,” his friend said. “ I haven’t seen any paper on this.”

“Nope. I was just wondering if anyone had come across this See-No-Evil, Speak-No-Evil thing with the superglue before. Roy?”

Roy was the resident expert on sexual assault and sexual homicide, although they all had dealt with their share of it. Roy shook his head.

“I’ve seen eyes gouged out, acid poured in them. I’ve seen lips cut off, objects wedged in the mouth, mouths taped shut. No superglue.”

“Okay,” Vince said and took his seat again. “I was just wondering.”

His friend at the end of the table wore the my-ass expression. Everyone else got up to go to lunch, exchanging handshakes, concerns, and pleasantries with him as they made their way to the door. With him and the boss still sitting at the table, no one bothered to ask if he was coming to lunch.

When the door had closed and they were alone, his friend let his own concern show on his face. He got up and came to Vince’s end of the table.