Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

Washington, D.C.

Keith Evans was exhausted. As the agent-in-charge of the D.C. Ripper task force he was expected to set an example by outworking the FBI agents under him. Last night, he’d crawled into bed after midnight. Now it was 5 A.M. and he was up again, groggy, eyes raw, and with no time to shower before heading to the scene of the Ripper’s latest atrocity, a Dumpster in the alley behind a Chinese restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland. The task force office had been notified as soon as the locals realized they had another victim of the Ripper. Evans was sorry that the Bethesda police were so competent; he could have used the extra sleep. At least the bastard had been considerate enough to leave the body only a few miles from Evans’s house.

After finding a parking spot a block from the crime scene Evans took a swig from his thermos and grimaced. He’d been too rushed to put up a fresh pot, and the day-old coffee he’d reheated in his microwave was barely tolerable. As Evans trudged along the sidewalk the wind blew a page of newsprint toward him. He was so exhausted that the skittering sports page hypnotized him and it took an effort to pull his eyes away from it. Evans shook his head to clear it. The Ripper case was wearing him out. When he looked in the mirror he no longer saw the fresh-faced Omaha detective who’d broken a serial case that had stumped the FBI. The agent-in-charge of the FBI task force had been hunting the killer for three years and he was so impressed by Evans’s spectacular detective work that he’d convinced the young man to apply for a spot in the Bureau.

When Evans started the course at Quantico he’d been twenty-nine, six two, and a rock hard 190. All of his hair was sandy blond, his skin was tight, and his blue eyes were piercing. Evans was almost forty now and he resembled that younger man only from a distance. There were gray hairs among the blond, and you could see black shadows under his eyes when he removed the glasses he needed for reading. He was carrying an extra ten pounds around his waist and his shoulders were slightly stooped. And the truth was that he’d never duplicated the intuitive leap that had led him to crack the case in Nebraska. There had been victories or he wouldn’t be heading up the Ripper task force, but they’d been accomplished by dogged police work rather than brilliant deduction.

Along the way, Evans’s long hours had ruined a decent marriage and worn him down; not the best state for dealing with an extremely bright murderer. And there was no denying that the Ripper was smart. He knew police procedure and he was great at covering his tracks and eliminating trace evidence. There were the usual theories about the killer being a cop or a cop wannabe, some disgruntled security guard who had not been able to qualify for the force and was taunting the police to prove they’d made a mistake in rejecting him. But anyone with half a brain could go online and learn all about crime scene investigation. The truth was that the task force had no idea who was behind the killings that were starting to freak out the good citizens of Washington, D.C., and its environs.

A barrier manned by a Bethesda police officer had been set up across the mouth of the alley to keep out curious civilians who, despite the early hour, were already straining to see the activity around the crime scene. Evans squeezed through them and stopped on the other side of the sawhorse to sign the security log that contained the names of everyone who entered the crime scene and the time they’d signed in and out. The alley was swarming with crime scene technicians, uniformed cops, and agents recognizable by their blue windbreakers with FBI stitched on the back in bright yellow letters. Evans pulled on a pair of latex gloves and donned a set of Tyvek paper booties even though he knew it probably didn’t matter what he deposited at the crime scene now that it had been compromised by the cops, techs, and agents who’d been through the alley in the past few hours, not to mention any civilians who had wandered by since the killer had deposited his grisly package.

The Dumpster was halfway down the alley, and a body bag holding the victim lay next to it. At the other end of the alley was the van that would transport the corpse to the morgue for the autopsy. Standing next to the body bag was Arthur Standish, the county medical examiner, who was sipping coffee from a Starbucks cup. Evans trusted Standish, who had done a thorough job autopsying the second Ripper’s victim before the Bureau got involved.

Evans started toward the body but was intercepted by a stocky officer with a salt-and-pepper crew cut.

“Ron Guthridge, Bethesda PD,” the man said as he extended his hand. “I was in charge of the scene until your boys took over.”

“Keith Evans. I’m lead on the FBI task force.”

“I know,” Guthridge said, grinning. “You’re a TV celebrity.”

“Thanks for calling so fast,” Evans said, ignoring the dig. He was the public face of the FBI on this one. His fellow agents had been ribbing him about how bad he looked at his press conferences. Now he had to put up with kidding from the locals.

“Believe me I’m pleased as punch to turn this baby over to you.”

“Do we have an ID?”

Guthridge nodded. “The victim is Charlotte Walsh, an AU student. We have an address for her apartment, too.”

“And you know this because you found Walsh’s ID in the Dumpster under her body.”

Guthridge’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

“The Ripper always leaves his victim’s ID under the body,” Evans said, regretting that he’d had the urge to show off as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Exhaustion was eroding his IQ. “We haven’t made the fact public,” Evans added quickly.

“No one will learn it from me,” Guthridge assured him.

“Has anyone visited her apartment?” Evans asked.

“No. As soon as we realized we might be dealing with the Ripper I put everything on hold so I wouldn’t step on your toes.”

“I appreciate the courtesy.”

“Like I said, this is your baby and you’re welcome to it.”

“Great way to start the day,” Dr. Standish said to Evans when he and Guthridge arrived at the Dumpster.

“I love the smell of garbage and dead bodies in the morning.”

Standish chuckled and Evans flicked his head toward the body bag. “Why do you think we have another Ripper victim?”

Standish was suddenly serious. “The eyes are missing.”

The authorities hadn’t told the public that the Ripper removed his victims’ eyes, either. It was always good to hold back certain facts to weed out false confessions.

“What about the substance we’ve been finding in their mouths?”

“I won’t be able to tell until I’ve conducted the autopsy and sent a sample to the lab.”

Minute traces of a substance had been discovered in the mouths of all four of the Ripper’s victims but the FBI lab had not figured out what it was and why it was there.

“Hillerman, bring over the wallet,” Guthridge yelled at the tall, thin African-American policeman who was in charge of logging in the crime scene evidence.

Hillerman brought over a plastic evidence bag containing, among other items, a black leather Prada wallet. Evans fished the wallet out of the bag and examined its contents. The driver’s license belonged to Charlotte Walsh and listed an address a few miles from American University.

Evans squatted down and unzipped the body bag. He knew what to expect but he was still appalled by the horrors one so-called human being could visit on another member of the human race. The Ripper dressed his victims before disposing of their bodies, but Evans could still see the black holes where the poor girl’s eyes should shine and her throat, which looked like a wild animal had gotten at it. There was no question that the pretty girl in the driver’s license photograph and the abused young woman in the body bag were the same person.