The Murderers' Club Page 5

  But my gift hasn’t been helping anyone. Not recently.

  Darren glances at the clock. “Let’s get moving.” He turns back to me. “First stop, the station, and then we’re heading for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.”

  “Really?”

  “I told you we’d do some touristy stuff.”

  I nod, not fully convinced. I know Darren, and I know myself, and I doubt either of us will be able to walk away from a case that’s already sucking us in.

  “And I’ll tell you some of my aunt’s tricks in the car,” he says.

  His aunt’s tricks… I wish I knew whether this psychic stuff was back for good. One waking vision and one dream in less than twenty-four hours? Someone or something’s trying to get my attention.

  I wait until we’re on the road before I prompt him. “So?”

  He swings the wheel to the left and starts to brake for an upcoming red light. “It’s like meditation. You have to open yourself up to your hunches, your second sight, so you can experience it fully and help others. My aunt used to sit quietly by herself every morning as soon as she woke up and every night before she went to bed. In the morning she said it was to access any dreams from the night before, and in the evening it was to unwind and let go of everything she’d seen or heard during the day. Including the bad stuff.”

  “Did she see murder? Violence?”

  “Not very often, no. She was a professional psychic, not in law enforcement. You’ve got to remember that you’re surrounded by crime, by criminals. It’s natural that you’d tap into that side of the gift.”

  I nod, reluctantly.

  Darren continues. “When Rose worked on a criminal case she said it was hard. Real hard.”

  I nod again, this time with enthusiasm. He ain’t wrong there.

  “You can handle it, Sophie. I know you can.”

  “I guess,” I say, but I don’t know if I believe it. I think of the girl from my dream and know I have to try. I breathe deeply, in and out, concentrating on nothing but my breath. After about five minutes, I take myself back to the dream. I instantly see the woman being dragged down a corridor by her hair. She’s crying, screaming and I recognize that feeling all too well. It’s a moment of pure fear, of all-consuming panic. I take a deep breath in and it feels like I’m choking. But I’m not choking, I’m totally consumed by fear. “I can’t.” I open my eyes and shake my head. “I can’t.” I have to fight to gain control of my emotions, to steady my voice and my breathing. All I want to do is run, and keep running.

  Darren glances at me and puts his hand on top of mine. “It’s okay, Sophie. It’s okay.” He pauses. “We can try again later.”

  The thought of later doesn’t thrill me, but I’m more distracted by the warmth of Darren’s hand on mine. I look down at our hands and Darren immediately withdraws his.

  Silence. Then, “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I don’t voice my concern—that she’s lying dead somewhere right now.

  When we arrive at the station Stone is already at her desk, and she looks like she’s been in for a while.

  “Hey, Stone. What’s up?”

  “Hi, Anderson.” She does a double-take. “Carter’s got you working? Today?”

  “I’m just returning the favor.” Darren shuffles some papers on his desk. “Anderson worked me damn hard in DC.”

  I smile, relieved to be distracted by cop banter. “He took a bullet an’ all.”

  Darren nods and sighs heavily. “Like I said, damn hard.” He speaks slowly and lowers the natural timbre of his voice.

  Stone and I both laugh. Ironic really—that people brag about getting shot. I guess it is something to be proud of…but it’s not the getting shot part, it’s the surviving part that’s the real clincher.

  “Well, you sure as hell wouldn’t find me in here on my day off.” This time her comment is directed to both of us.

  “What time you get in this morning, Stone?” Darren’s voice oozes confidence.

  She rolls her eyes. “You got me.”

  “Tell her, Stone.” Darren nods his head in my direction.

  “I got in at six. But I am on duty today.”

  Darren sits down at his desk. “You don’t make Homicide unless you’re a workaholic.” He swivels the chair outward, toward Stone. “So, what have we got?”

  “We’ve got nothing, given you’re on vacation. I’ve got…well not much.”

  Darren waves his hand in small circles. “Give it up.”

  “Nothing on John Doe’s identity,” Stone tells us. “I’ve moved from the U of A student photos to photos from the missing-persons database, matching our guy on age, height and weight and then reviewing the photos. But I haven’t found anything yet and I’m almost done.”

  Darren shakes his head. “It’s damn hard to close them when you can’t identify the vic.” He sighs, loud and deep. “State or national?”

  “National. I’ve been calling around a bit too. In case he’s new and his photo isn’t online yet. But no luck.”

  Darren nods. “They should be running his fingerprints today or tomorrow in the AFIS.”

  AFIS, which stands for the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, is a computer network that compares fingerprints against a database and returns any similar prints that are in the system. It’s then up to a fingerprint expert to manually go through the computer matches and decide if the prints really do match. It’s harder to get a match from a victim, because the database mostly holds fingerprints of suspects and convicted criminals, plus those in law enforcement and the defense industry.

  “Anything else?” Darren asks.

  “Zip. You guys should go and…do something.”

  “One step ahead of you, as usual.” Darren smirks. “We’re going to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.”

  “Cool.” Stone is enthusiastic, so I assume the museum is good.

  “But first, let’s quickly go through this. Make sure you’re heading in the right direction.” Darren manages to say it without being condescending. After all, Stone is a rookie on murder investigations, comparatively speaking.

  We move into a project room to go over the details of the case. Darren writes three columns on the whiteboard—victim, crime scene and suspect.

  “So, the body.” He scribbles down what we know about the victim, one row per item.

  African-American male

  Early twenties

  Not U of A student

  Cause of death: manual strangulation

  Time of death: approximately Thursday

  Naked

  Handcuffed before death

  Head wound

  Posed with handcuffs after death

  “We’ll need to add lab work to this, Stone.”

  She scribbles on her own notepad while she speaks. “Tox screen, blood work, anything forensics gets off the chunk of wood in the guy, and fingerprints. An ID would be real helpful.”

  “Yup. And fingernails. They found some dirt underneath his nails.”

  “I know, you told me already.” Stone is not resentful of Darren’s reminders, more accepting. “And the love heart—it’ll be interesting to see what that was painted on with.”

  Darren moves across to the crime-scene column. “Forensics didn’t find much at the scene, so this one could be tricky, especially given it’s obviously not our primary scene.”

  Darren’s referring to the fact that the vic was murdered somewhere else and then transported and posed postmortem. There may be evidence at the primary scene, but there’s nothing at the university.

  “In the meantime,” he continues, “I want you to go back to the U of A with a photo of our John Doe and see if somebody hasn’t seen the guy before. Take some uniforms with you to help canvass the campus. He wasn’t a student, so what was he doing there? And more important, who was he with?”

  Stone nods, taking in Darren’s instructions. “Don’t forget it’s Saturday.”

  “True, we won’t have everyone ther
e. But the place will still be busy.” Darren moves to the suspect column. “This is an even bigger blank.” He writes Female or small male—teenager and then underneath that he writes Body dumping?

  “Body dumping?” Stone questions.

  “The strangulation marks indicate a woman or small male, but would they have the strength to dump a body?”

  Stone shrugs. “The dump site is very close to the street so they wouldn’t have had far to go from a car to our spot.”

  “True.” Darren taps the marker against the whiteboard. “Any ideas on the love heart, Sophie?”

  “It could indicate a romantic involvement. Perhaps the killer was with the victim, or wanted to be.”

  Stone looks at me. “Does that work for a male or female killer?”

  “Both. Given there’s nothing in VICAP, this could be a one-off. A jilted girlfriend, or a boyfriend with small hands.”

  “To track down a partner we need to know the victim’s identity,” Stone says.

  “Yup.” Darren stops tapping the marker and stares out the window instead. “What about the nakedness?”

  “Indicates the killer felt personal about the vic,” I say. “Possibly due to a sexual partnership or perceived attraction on the killer’s part. It can also be a form of punishment—leaving the body naked and exposed for all the world to see.”

  “And that leads us back to the U of A.” Darren points the marker at Stone. “See what you turn up on campus.” He puts the marker back on the whiteboard ledge and hovers awkwardly, silently.

  Stone stands up. “Go! You guys will love the museum.”

  Darren is conflicted.

  “If you want to stay here, I don’t mind,” I say.

  He only hesitates for a second. “No, no. You’ve got to see some of Tucson. Besides, Stone will call me the minute she finds out anything. Won’t you, Stone?”

  Stone gives Darren an exaggerated smile. “Of course. And I’m sure Bolson will be around to help out the newest kid on the block.”

  Darren laughs. “Not likely.”

  On the way down to the car I quiz Darren. “Are you sure about this? You could cancel your leave and work the case. I really don’t mind.”

  “Nope. I’m all yours for the rest of today and all day tomorrow. What’s another murder case?”

  Despite what he says, I know it’s personal for him. It’s his case, his turf.

  “Mmm.”

  “Realistically we’re going to be sitting around waiting for forensics to call, or shoving photographs in front of college brats.”

  “Charming,” I say, but Darren’s right. There’s a lot of grunt work involved in law enforcement, and canvassing the students won’t exactly be the most fulfilling or challenging day on the job. Nor will it require our experience. “What about my visions?”

  “We can go back to the U of A tomorrow if you like. See if it triggers another one. But today, we need a day off.”

  “Maybe the woman from my dream is a student there.”

  We get in the car and he starts it up. “Can you describe the woman?”

  I nod.

  “To a sketch artist?”

  “Yes.” My voice quickens with the prospect of finding the girl. I reach across and put my hand on the steering wheel, looking at Darren.

  “Monday?” he says, but he already knows the answer. I can’t wait two days, not if she’s about to be targeted. And Darren wouldn’t let it wait either. He sighs and turns the engine off.

  “We’ll get a sketch done. Stone and the uniforms can show it around at the campus later today. We can also see if anybody in the station recognizes her as a dead Jane Doe or a missing person.”

  “I’m hoping she’s alive and kicking somewhere, not a dead Jane Doe. But I guess we need to cover all bases.”

  “We do.”

  “What are we going to tell the Tucson force?”

  He shrugs. “We’ll lie, of course.” He looks pensive for a moment. “There’s not much you can do about the timing thing. Rose used to complain about it. She said sometimes she’d have a sense about whether what she’d seen was in the past, present or future, but often that was the one detail that eluded her.”

  “Great.”

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” We’re both silent as he opens the car door. “Let’s get that sketch done.”

  An hour later I’m sitting with James Powers, the police sketch artist Darren called in, putting the finishing touches on the woman from my dream. A young guy, in his early twenties, Powers is hunched over his sketch pad and his left hand darts around the page. He looks more like a painter, an eccentric artist, than a cop.

  He’s totally absorbed in his drawing, and at the moment he’s filling in the woman’s dark curls—her hair’s the last thing he asked me about so I assume that’s what he’s concentrating on. I can’t see the sketch from where I sit, but so far he’s shown it to me three times, first to check the shape of the nose, then the eyes, then the mouth. Powers wanted to bring the facial features together from description alone, and then to refine it after I see the face as a whole. I’ve worked with sketch artists before and most of them have their own style. The process can also be done on a computer with an identikit, bringing together predrawn sections until the face looks right to the witness, but I prefer the old-fashioned way. It’s definitely one thing that humans do better than computers.

  Finally his hand comes to a stop. “I think we’re finished.”

  He seems tentative, and I’m reminded of Darren’s description of him. Apparently the guy’s only been in the job for a month, and is still lacking in confidence. It doesn’t exactly elicit a whole lot of trust in his talents, despite Darren’s reassurances.

  “There’s nothing else you remember?” Hesitation again.

  “No. That’s it.”

  Powers reluctantly, and slowly, turns his pad toward me. “The moment of truth,” he says.

  The girl has come to life on Powers’s sketch pad; every detail is perfect. “Wow!” is all I can manage. No wonder Darren raved about the guy.

  “So, it’s accurate?” He’s still unsure. “The face shape? The ears?”

  “All spot on. You’re really, really good at this, Powers.”

  He smiles, a wide, relieved smile. “Great.” He tears the page off his pad and hands it to me. “So, what are you going to do with it?”

  “See if she doesn’t ring a bell with someone. Dead or alive.” I don’t elaborate, I don’t tell Powers the lie Darren and I have come up with—that it’s a Bureau case of a girl who was seen being shoved into a car near the University of Arizona.

  Powers stands up and stretches, reaching his hands to the sky. Then he puts his hands on his lower back and arches slightly. “I’ve got to learn to sit right when I do these things.”

  “Good idea. I’d say your services will be in demand.”

  A slight blush rises in his face. He picks up the tools of his trade—the pad, several pencils of different grades and an eraser. “Thanks, Agent Anderson. You’re the first FBI agent I’ve sketched for.”

  Perhaps that fact made him more nervous; certainly his relief is evident.

  “Well, I’m impressed.”

  We’re in one of the station’s project rooms, for quiet and privacy, and I make a move toward the door. He follows and we wander out to the main hustle and bustle of the station.

  “You coming up?” I ask.

  “Nope, I’ve got another appointment lined up across town. Rape victim.”

  I wince. “Good luck.”

  He nods. “Bye.” He turns left, toward the exit, and I head for the stairs and Homicide.

  Darren’s waiting for me and we get things moving with the sketch right away, making copies. We give a few copies to Stone, who’s about to head off to the university with four uniformed officers she’s hijacked. We spin the story and ask her to show the sketch with the photos of John Doe.

  She gives us both a disapproving look. “Fine. But you guy
s really should get your asses out of here.”

  “I’ll just show this around,” says Darren, holding up the sketch, “and then we’ll hit the museum.”

  But it takes us nearly a full hour to circulate the sketch and get back to Darren’s car. No one on duty recognized the girl, but hopefully someone will in the next couple of days. We’ve also circulated the sketch to neighboring states, hoping someone may recognize her in another state.

  “So, are you ready to be riveted by the museum?” Darren tries again.

  “Yes, now I am.” We’ve done everything we can, for today at least. And tomorrow, Sunday, it’s the U of A and maybe another vision. But I still feel ineffectual, as though I should be doing more for the girl. I clench my fists in my lap, thinking of the brunette’s fear. Thinking of my fear.

  NeverCaught: Can’t believe it’s only Sunday. Another four days until I get my next chance.

  BlackWidow: You’ll just have to wait, Never.

  NeverCaught: Easy for you to say. You got the first kill—Malcolm.

  AmericanPsycho: Four days will go quick.

  NeverCaught: Thank God. I’m good to go now.

  DialM: I find our selection quite tiresome at times.

  NeverCaught: I think it’s fun watching how pathetic they are. Their sense of time is already totally shot.

  AmericanPsycho: Yes, that worked well. No watches, no clocks, darkness most of the time. They’ve got no idea.

  BlackWidow: My Jonathan knew their sense of timing was probably off.

  DialM: Hmmm… I don’t like him. He’s too smart.

  NeverCaught: Forget about him. Think about the others… like Brigitte. Have you looked at her bio?

  Name: Brigitte Raine

  Age: 26

  Height: 5’ 9”

  Weight: 130 pounds

  Eye color: Brown

  Hair color: Brown

  IQ: 97

  Occupation: Phone-sex worker.

  Family: Parents divorced, no siblings. No contact with father, mother in France.

  Home: New Orleans.

  President’s take: Brigitte is stunning. Her heritage—French, Brazilian, American—combines to make an exotic beauty. High cheekbones, voluptuous lips and a womanly figure will make her popular with most members of the club.