Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(65)

“Uh huh. I was processing information. It’s all processed now.”

A half-dozen or so FBI techies and LAPD homicide detectives were still on the scene. The latest Pearl Jam played from somebody’s radio. The lead singer seemed to be in terrible pain. Dr. Rudolph’s wide-screen Mitsubishi TV was on, but with the sound turned off. One of the techies was eating an egg sandwich off greasy paper.

I went searching for an agent named Phil Becton, the FBI’s suspect profiler. The Man. He had been called down from Seattle to gather all the available information on Rudolph, then match it against known data on other psychopaths. A profiler, if he or she is good, is actually invaluable in an investigation of this kind. I’d heard from Kyle Craig that Becton was “spooky good.” He had been a sociology professor at Stanford before he joined the Bureau.

“You fully awake? Ready for this?” Becton asked when I finally located him in the master bedroom. He was at least six four, with another three inches of wiry red hair. Plastic evidence pouches and manila evidence envelopes were spread all around the bedroom. Becton wore one pair of eyeglasses, and had another pair on a chain around his neck.

“I’m not sure if I’m awake,” I told Becton. “This is Dr. Kate McTiernan.”

“Nice to meet you.” Becton shook hands with her, studying Kate’s face at the same time. She was data for him. He seemed a weird man, perfect for his job.

“See there,” he said, pointing across the bedroom. The FBI had already taken apart the Gentleman’s clothes closet. “You were right on the money. We found a fake wall that Dr. Will Rudolph Hess built behind his skinny clothes closet. There’s about a foot and a half of extra space in there.”

The clothes closet for his suits had been too skinny and peculiar. I’d made the connection in that strange region of the edge of sleep. The closet had to be his hiding spot. It was a shrine, but not to his expensive suits.

“That’s where he kept his souvenirs?” I made an educated guess.

“You got it. Little waist-high refrigerator-freezer back there. It’s where he kept the body parts he collected.” Becton pointed to the sealed containers. “Sunny Ozawa’s feet. Fingers. Two ears with different earrings, two separate victims.”

“What else was in his collection?” I asked Phil Becton. I wasn’t in a hurry to look at feet, ears, fingers. His trophies from the murders of young girls around L.A.

“Well, as you’d expect from reading the murder-scene briefs, he liked to collect their underwear as well. Freshly worn panties, bras, pantyhose, a woman’s T-shirt that says Dazed and Confused and still smells of Opium perfume. He likes to keep photographs, a few locks of auburn hair. He’s so neat. He kept each specimen in its own plastic bag. One through thirty-one. He’s labeled them with numbers.”

“Preserve the smells,” I muttered. “The sandwich bags.”

Becton nodded, and he also grinned like a gawky, goofy teenager. Kate looked at the two of us as if we were both a little nuts, which we were.

“There’s something else I think you should see, though. This, you’re going to appreciate. Come over to my office.”

On a plain wooden table next to the bed were some of the Gentleman’s treasures and souvenirs. Most of the paraphernalia had already been marked. It takes an organized task force to catch an organized killer.

“Spooky good” Phil Becton emptied out one of the five-by-seven-inch envelopes so I could see the contents. A single photograph fell out of the envelope. It was of a young male, probably in his early twenties. The condition of the photo, as well as the male’s clothing, suggested it had been taken years earlier. Eight to ten years was my quick guess.

The hair on my neck was starting to rise. I cleared my throat. “Who’s this supposed to be?”

“Do you know this man, Dr. McTiernan?” Phil Becton turned to Kate. “Ever see this man before?”

“I… I don’t know,” Kate answered Phil Becton. She swallowed hard. The Gentleman’s bedroom was quiet. Outside on the streets of Los Angeles, the orangish-red glow of morning had fallen over the city.

Becton handed me metal tweezers that he kept handy in his breast pocket. “Flip it over for all the vital stats. Just like those Topps baseball cards we used to collect as kids. At least we did in Portland.”

I figured that Becton had collected a lot more than baseball cards in his life and times. I carefully turned over the photo.

A neatly handwritten legend was on the back. It reminded me of the way Nana Mama identified every single old photo in our house. “Sometimes you forget who people are, Alex. Even people in photographs with you,” she told me. “You don’t believe me, but you’ll see as time passes you by.”

I didn’t think that Will Rudolph was likely to forget the person in the picture, but he had handwritten a legend all the same. My head was spinning a little. We finally had an unbelievable break in the case. I was holding it right under my nose with crime-scene tweezers.

Dr. Wick Sachs, the handwriting on the photo read.

A doctor, I thought. Another doctor. Imagine that.

Durham, North Carolina, the legend continued.

He was from the Research Triangle area. He was from the South.

Casanova, Rudolph had written.





Part Four