Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Franny’s eyes got big. “Does Vince think Peter Crane is a k-i-l-l-e-r?”

“You do realize most adults can spell, don’t you?” Anne said. “Spelling doesn’t prevent eavesdropping.”

“But they have to work harder at it,” Franny said loudly, squinting at the old ladies.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Franny.”

“Call Vince. He might not have an answer, but you can always screw his brains out.”

“Don’t try to distract me just yet,” Anne said, too familiar with his MO. “I have a real problem here.”

“But I don’t know how to help you, sweetheart,” he confessed. “I don’t want you involved in this mess at all.”

“Mr. Franny!”

One of Franny’s kindergartners came charging over to the table. A bright-eyed, adorable moppet with a head of curly brown hair.

Franny went instantly into kindergarten-teacher mode, making a face of wild surprise and slapping his hands against his cheeks. “Oh my gosh! It’s CASEY! How are you today? Are you having breakfast?”

“I already did. I had pancakes!” As evidenced by the syrup smeared on the face and fingers that grabbed hold of Franny’s hands.

“I’m having pancakes too!” Franny said.

The parents stopped by and exchanged pleasantries. As they left, Franny turned back to Anne, made a wacky face, and said, “Poop-in-the-sandbox kid. I’m going to go disinfect myself. And when I come back you’re going to get your mind off this for an hour, young lady. Drink up!”

“The girl is in critical condition,” Dixon said. “She’s not expected to make it. Just like Lisa Warwick, her eyes and mouth had been glued shut. She was strangled. Somehow he didn’t quite finish off the job. Who knows how long her brain was deprived of oxygen. She’s severely dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia.”

He stood at the front of the room, the eyes of all of his detectives, along with personnel from two neighboring counties, riveted on him. Mendez passed out new flyers with a close-up photo of the necklace Karly Vickers had probably been wearing at the time of her abduction.

“We believe she was wearing this necklace,” Dixon went on. “It’s the logo from the Thomas Center. All women who graduate the program get a gold one. Staff have the same necklace in silver. Karly Vickers was not wearing hers when she was discovered. The perp might have kept it as a souvenir.”

“Did the Warwick woman have one?” Hamilton asked.

“She was an ex-staffer. She would have owned one. Go back into her apartment to see if it’s there.”

“He took the time to bury the Vickers girl, but not to make sure she was dead?” Hicks said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“She barely had a pulse,” Dixon said. “He probably just didn’t pick up on it.”

“Or it might not be an accident,” Vince said. “He could have left her alive as part of a taunt. He leaves a living victim and we still can’t find him. Proves his omnipotence.”

“How are we supposed to respond to that?” Dixon asked. “This guy’s running around thinking he’s God.”

“Tell him he made a mistake. Go in front of the press and announce that he made a crucial mistake and it’s only a matter of time before you close him down.”

“A bluff,” Mendez said. “But what if he calls us on it?”

“It’s got to be a damn good bluff. Something he can’t prove or disprove, something that gets under his skin and starts to make him worry a little.

“He’s intelligent. Hard science will get his attention. Something to do with trace evidence or we tell him the FBI has come up with a new method of lifting fingerprints from a human body or that he can be linked to a victim through DNA. We don’t quite have that technology yet, but it’s coming soon. We can certainly talk a good game about it, enough to make him worry a little.

“That’s what we want,” Vince said. “We want him either careless or worried. That’s when he’ll make a mistake.”

“But at whose expense?” Mendez asked. “He’s going to be trolling for another victim, isn’t he?”

“He will be whether you challenge him or not. He’s at a place where he’s sure he’s smarter than all of us combined. He’ll get drunk on that power.”

“Let’s table the idea for the moment,” Dixon said. “We need to finish processing the scene at Jane’s. Maybe the CSIs will come up with some actual forensic evidence and we can make a bluff with some teeth in it.”

“A little truth sells a lie every time,” Vince agreed.

“What’s going on with Gordon Sells?” Dixon asked.

“He’s still not talking,” Trammell said. “The nephew lawyered up last night, but we’ve got him talking deal with the DA’s office. I think we’ll get something out of him soon. He’s not liking what he’s hearing about prison.”

“What about the victim?”

“There are about half a dozen possible victims among the missing persons we’ve looked at within the target area,” Campbell said. “Based on gender-we’re assuming female; based on size-relative to the length of the femur found; and looking at an age range from twelve to thirty. BFS will be doing the comparisons of dental records.”

Detectives were assigned to canvass Jane Thomas’s neighbors in the event anyone might have been up at three in the morning to see a car drive by. The deputy assigned to patrol the neighborhood had been called to report in.

It probably hadn’t been dumb luck that their UNSUB had happened into that yard to bury a body just after the prowl car had left the street not to return for an hour. He had to have been watching from somewhere.

“Tony,” Dixon said. “What’s your agenda?”

“I want to go to the scene, then talk to Steve Morgan, and I want to bring Peter Crane in and question him about that solicitation bust and Julie Paulson. He also needs to account for himself for last night.”

Dixon nodded. “I’m going to make a statement to the press regarding Karly Vickers at noon. We’ll do it here out in front of the building. Try to get them away from the hospital. I’ve posted deputies at all entrances to Mercy General, and I have no doubt they’ll still try to get in.”

“Where’s Miss Thomas?” Vince asked.

“She’s still at the hospital. Sedated for the time being. She was pretty shaken up.”

“Have somebody keep an eye on her, Sheriff,” Vince said. “If this guy decides to make a big gesture with his next victim, she’s the obvious choice.”

Vince, Mendez, and Hicks rode together to the Thomas home where news vans lined the street, and reporters crowded the front lawn.

Ball cap pulled low over his eyes, Vince hung back, letting the two detectives take the attention of the media, then slipping past while they barked out “No comment’s.” If Dixon decided to go along with the idea of challenging their killer, Vince would be stepping into the spotlight soon enough. But the disclosure of his involvement would come on his terms, not the media’s.

Jane Thomas’s property was slightly larger than the average lot, and bordered on two sides by a narrow, shallow ravine, thick with trees. Their killer could have made his way around to the backyard garden this way without risking a neighbor seeing him. Karly Vickers was a small woman-105 pounds according to her driver’s license-easily carried by an average-size man in good shape.

He wouldn’t have been visible from the house, digging at the back of the garden. If he knew the garden was there, he wouldn’t have even had to bring his own shovel. One had been generously provided for him by the garden owner.

Still, it was a bolder move to bury a body here than in the park where Lisa Warwick had been found. Cocky. Theatrical. Personal? Did he have some axe to grind with Jane Thomas? Maybe she was the one with the enemy, not the victims.