Greg Iles - Dead Sleep

“So you figure he’s due for another soon.”

The two men share a look I cannot interpret. Then the psychiatrist gives a slight nod, and Baxter turns to me.

“Ms. Glass, approximately one hour ago, a young Caucasian woman disappeared from the parking lot of a New Orleans grocery store.”

I close my eyes against the fearful impact of this statement. Jane has another sister in the black hole of her current existence. “You think it was him?”

Lenz answers first. “Almost surely.”

“Where was she taken from?”

“A suburb of New Orleans, actually. Metairie.”

He actually got the pronunciation right: Met-a-ree. He’s picked it up from a year and a half of working the case.

“What store in Metairie?”

“It’s called Dorignac’s. On Veterans Boulevard.”

This time he missed it. “Dorn-yaks,” I correct him. “I used to shop there all the time. It’s a family-owned store, like the old Schwegmann chain.”

Baxter makes a note. “The victim left her house a few minutes before the store closed – eight-fifty p.m. central time – to get some andouille sausage. She was making dip for a birthday party at her job tomorrow. She worked in a dental office, as a receptionist. By nine-fifteen, her husband started to worry. He tried her car phone and got no answer. He knew the store was closed, so he got the kids out of bed and drove down to see if his wife had a dead battery.”

“He found her empty car with the door open?”

Baxter gives a somber nod.

This happened to two victims before Jane. “It sounds like him.”

“Yes. But it could be a couple of other things. This woman could have been seeing a guy on the side. She meets him at the store to talk something over, maybe even for a quickie in the car. Suddenly, she decides to split for good.”

“Leaving her kids behind?”

“It happens.” Baxter’s voice is freighted with experience. “But talking to the detective, this doesn’t sound like that type of situation. The other alternative is conventional rape. A guy on the prowl with a van and a rape kit, looking for a target of opportunity. He sees her going to her car alone and snatches her.”

“Has anybody like that been operating in the area over the past few weeks?”

“No.”

“Did any other victims shop at Dorignac’s? Jane must have gone there sometimes.”

“Several shopped there occasionally. The store stocks some regional foods other stores don’t. The Jefferson Parish detectives are grilling the staff right now, and our New Orleans field office is already taking their lives apart. With help from the Quantico computers. It’s a full-court press, but if it’s like the others… none of that will come to anything.”

I’m about to speak, when shock steals my breath. “Wait a minute. By what you’ve told me, the man who took the woman from Dorignac’s couldn’t have killed Wingate.”

Baxter nods slowly. “Nine-one-one in New York got the call about the Wingate fire at seven fifty-one p.m. eastern time. The Dorignac’s victim disappeared from Metairie between eight fifty-five p.m. and nine-fifteen central time. That’s a maximum difference of two hours and twenty-four minutes.”

“So there’s no way the same person could have done both. Not even with a Learjet at his disposal.”

“There’s one way,” says Baxter. “The incendiary device used to ignite the gallery had a timer on it. If it was set long enough in advance, the same person could have gotten back to New Orleans in time to take the woman from Dorignac’s.”

“But it wasn’t,” I think aloud. “He wasn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I saw him.”

“What?”

As quickly as I can, I describe the drama of the man from the alley, shooting the blind photo over the crowd, and sending the fireman and cop after him.

“Where’s your film?” asks Baxter, his eyes burning with excitement.

“Not here, if that’s what you’re thinking. Are you positive Wingate’s murder was related to my sister’s case?”

“Virtually certain,” says Lenz.

“So you’re saying there’s more than one person behind the disappearances.”

“I’m not saying it. The evidence is. Two UNSUBs, not one.”

UNSUB is FBI-speak for Unknown Subject. “Two killers operating as a team?”

“It happens,” says Baxter. “But teams usually work side by side. Two ex-cons in a van, snatching and torturing women, that kind of thing. What I’m postulating would be something far more sophisticated.”

“Have you ever seen anything like that before? People cooperating over a long distance to facilitate serial murder or kidnapping?”

“Only in child pornography,” says Baxter, “and that’s a different thing.”

“It’s unprecedented in the literature,” says Dr. Lenz. “Which does nothing to rule out the possibility. Harvesting women’s skins was unknown until Ed Gein was caught doing it in the fifties. Then Tom Harris used it in a book and made it part of the national consciousness. In our business, you proceed from a very simple given: everything imaginable is possible, and may well be happening as we ponder it.”

“How would it work?” I ask. “How do you see it?”

“Division of labor,” says Lenz. “The killer’s in New Orleans, the painter in New York.”

“But Wingate was killed in New York.”

“Different motive. That was self-preservation.”

“I had the same thought up there. So the New Orleans guy kidnaps the women. How does the New York guy do the paintings? He works from photographs? Or he flies to New Orleans to paint corpses?”

“If that scenario is the answer,” says Baxter, “I pray to God he flies. We can take backbearings from airline computers and work out a list of potential suspects.”

“Could it really be that easy?”

“It just might be. It’s been a long eighteen months, Ms. Glass. Nobody knows that better than you. We’re due for a break.”

I nod hopefully, but inside I know better. “If Wingate was killed to silence him, how do you think it happened? The logic of it?”

Baxter leans back and steeples his fingers. “I think Wingate himself told the UNSUB in New York about the Hong Kong incident. Wingate’s phone records show a call from the curator of the Hong Kong exhibit to his gallery within an hour of your making the disturbance in Hong Kong.”

“Wingate knew about Hong Kong while I was talking to him?”

“Undoubtedly. Though I doubt he knew it was you who caused the disturbance.”

“If he did, he was a hell of an actor.”

“Did he try to get information from you?” asks Lenz.

“Not really.” A hot flash brings sweat to my face. “What if he was setting me up for the killer and got caught in his own trap?”

“Quite possible,” says Baxter. “If Wingate somehow knew it was you in Hong Kong, then he knew your sister was in one of the paintings. Maybe he knew everything about the crimes. He calls the UNSUB and tells him you’re coming to the gallery, but he doesn’t want any violence there. He also wants to know who you’ve talked to before you die. Wingate thinks you’re going to be murdered after you leave his place, but the UNSUB has a better idea. He sees his chance to take you both out.”

“That’s it,” I murmur. “Jesus. Wingate ensured his own death.”

“Almost certainly,” says Lenz. “And Wingate could have been the key to this whole case. Goddamn it.”

“I’m not sure he knew that much.”

“You believe what he told you?”

“To a point. I don’t think he knew the killer’s name. He said he wasn’t even sure if it was a man or a woman.”

“What?” both men ask in unison.