Дэвид Балдаччи - The Guilty

“Where and when exactly?” asked Reel.

“Where they used to go. I mean her and Janet.”

“Near where Sherman Clancy’s body was discovered?” asked Robie.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“What time?”

“Midnight.”

“What was the meeting about?” asked Reel.

“Sara wanted money, in exchange for somethin’ she had. Somethin’ I guess the person wanted.”

“Do you know what that was?” asked Robie.

“No.”

Robie and Reel exchanged glances.

Robie said to Emma, “How much money?”

“Enough money to go somewhere else.”

“Smart girl,” said Robie.

“Well, at least our ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine worked,” said Reel as she drove herself and Robie away from the Chisums. “But what a piece of work. I just wanted to slap her face.”

“She’s screwed up,” said Robie. “But then lots of people are screwed up.”

“Present company definitely included?” said Reel, eyeing him.

“Definitely included.”

“If Sara took a call from this person, the cops may be able to trace the call,” said Reel.

Robie pulled out his phone, called Taggert, and relayed this information without telling her about what Emma had told them of the meeting planned for that night.

“She’s checking it,” said Robie.

“We have a lot of time between now and midnight. Where to now?”

Robie pulled out a card. “I need to call them first.”

“Who?”

“The FBI.”

They met about ten miles east of Cantrell.

Special Agent Wurtzburger was there with two of his men.

Robie introduced Reel to the agents.

Wurtzburger eyed her. “So you work with Robie here?”

“I have the privilege, yes.”

Wurtzburger nodded. “Same agency?”

She shrugged.

“Good enough,” said Wurtzburger with a tight smile.

Robie held up the photo of the man and the kids he had printed out from the flash drive and explained to Wurtzburger how he had come by it.

Wurtzburger studied the image. “We can run this through our facial recognition databases, see what pops. So a pedophile, then?”

“Looks to be,” said Robie. “It might tie into the Rebel Yell.”

Wurtzburger put the photo away in his pocket. “I appreciate this, Robie. And in return let me be more frank with you than I have been.”

Robie studied him appraisingly. “Frankness is good,” he said.

“When I told you we were down here investigating casinos, that was not exactly true.”

“What exactly would be true?” said Reel sharply.

“I’m assigned to ViCAP.”

“Violent Criminal Apprehension Program,” said Robie.

“Yes.”

Reel added, “But that really deals with serial killers.”

“Among other things, yes.”

“So are you saying that you’re down here hunting a serial killer?” asked Robie.

“You could say that, yes.”

“Can you fill us in? Why here?”

“Sherman Clancy and Janet Chisum.”

“But what’s the connection?” asked Reel.

“There have been eight other killings in four different states in the last nine years.”

“Okay, but what connects those to the murders in Cantrell?”

“They were killed roughly in pairs with the same backstory. Older man, younger girl. The older man paid for the sex. Then the older man gets his throat slit in his car. The girl gets a bullet to the head and is tossed in a body of water.”

“Where were the other killings?” asked Reel.

“One was in New York. One in Pennsylvania. One in Tennessee. One in Arkansas. And now possibly the fifth set of murders here.”

Robie said, “So the killer presumably is going east to west. Nine years of operation? Is that usual?”

“I can’t say it’s unusual. I’ve worked serial killer cases covering decades of activity.”

“When were the murders in Arkansas?”

“Four years ago.”

Reel did a quick calculation in her head. She said, “So the other murders were spaced roughly eighteen months apart?”

“That’s right,” replied Wurtzburger.

“So the four-year gap might be significant,” she said.

“It might be, yes. There could have been an intervening event. The person might have been in prison, that actually happens quite a bit.”

“If so, he got out and is now killing again?” said Robie.

“Presumably, yes.”

“I haven’t heard about these killings,” said Robie.

“We made the decision not to publicize it. We didn’t want the killer to know that we believe them to be connected. The person might go deep underground if that information got out.”

“And you’re sure the murders here are part of the pattern?” said Reel.

“We can’t be certain, you understand. But I’ve worked a lot of these cases and the similarities are pretty solid.”

“But even so, my father did have a motive to kill Sherm Clancy,” said Robie.

“But not Janet Chisum,” countered Wurtzburger.

“In the other cases was there a longtime gap between the murder of the girl and the killing of the older man?” Reel wanted to know.

“Not as long as in this case.”

“But in the other cases the girl and the older guy were connected? They were having sex. For payment?”

“Yes. The murders in New York took place at the same time. The bodies were found together. In the other cases, the two murders were separate, one by as much as three weeks.”

“So, similar but different,” said Robie.

“You think that’s important?” said Reel curiously.

Wurtzburger said, “In my experience, when serial killers take pains to create a pattern, they must have a really strong reason to deviate from that pattern.”

Robie said, “Okay, we just have to find out what that really strong reason is. And if we do that, then maybe we find our serial killer.”

Robie sat across from Reel in his room at the Willows.

It was a bit before dinner, and they could hear Priscilla clanging pans in the kitchen downstairs.

They had not seen Victoria or Tyler.

The chirp of cicadas reached them from outside. The air was warm and humid, the sun settling down into the west but not wicking away even a bit of the moisture with its descent.

Reel watched Robie’s gaze flick around the room.

“What?” she asked.

He turned to find her staring at him.

“I know that look, Robie. Something’s in your head.”

“This was her bedroom.”

“Laura’s?”

“Yes.”

“You could have tried to talk to her before you drove off into the sunset, you know.”

“What was the point? She’d obviously made up her mind.”

“I’ll forgive your naïveté, since you were only eighteen.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I could explain but it’s over twenty years too late, so I’m not sure what the point would be.”

Clearly frustrated by her response Robie changed the subject. “How do you want to do the Chisum thing tonight?”

“Pretty basic. We get there early and nail whatever and whoever comes along.”

“And if it’s a serial killer?”

Reel shrugged. “I don’t discriminate. I’ll nail him, too.”

“Do you really think this is a serial killer’s work?”

“I don’t know. Wurtzburger presented a pretty compelling case. Although, as you pointed out, there are differences this time.”

“Something is still bugging me.”

“What?”

“My father won’t say whether he was driving the Range Rover that night.”

“Does that really matter? Do you think he killed Clancy?”

“If he didn’t, why wouldn’t he say whether he was driving that night or not?”