The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(35)

“Wasn’t the protocol a group text message?”

“This is only for you and Curtis. Don’t bother going back to the command post. You were right. There’s a new vic. Tarkoff’s texting you the address.”

In times like these, I hate it when I’m right.





16


It was a county road a few miles off George Washington Memorial Parkway, pitch-black in all directions except for the rhythmic pulse of the law enforcement vehicles’ candy-colored lights and their focused high beams, which bored directly ahead into the stand of pines.

Vail pulled behind the line of cars as snow flurries began to fall, twinkling in her headlights like wayward lightning bugs zipping this way and that. She got out and blinked away the snowflakes that stuck to her eyelids, then came up alongside Hurdle, who was standing at the perimeter puffing on a cigarette.

“Curtis’ll be here any minute,” he said, not bothering to turn to look at her. He blew smoke out the side of his mouth, away from Vail. “How’d you know he was gonna kill again so fast?”

“He’d been in the slammer for seven years. Most incarcerated offenders are able to turn off the instinct, the hunger. They don’t have any choice, really. Marcks appeared to be one of them—but as soon as he was free, he was like a kid in a toy store. So many potential victims, all he had to do was choose one he wanted. And strike. This had been building inside for years.”

“Like pulling a cork out of a champagne bottle.”

“What was wrong with my kid in a toy store simile?”

“Like mine better.”

Two headlights threw their shadows against the black tree trunks of the tall pines. Vail turned and saw Curtis get out of his car.

“Haven’t even had time to digest my dinner,” Curtis said as he made his way toward them.

Victim could’ve probably said the same thing.

“Let’s go do this.” Hurdle dropped the butt to the ground and squished it with his shoe into the wet asphalt.

They slipped booties on and ducked beneath the crime scene tape, where a patrol officer with a flashlight directed them to another cop, who was standing below ground level, in a slight clearing next to a body.

Lindy Dyson was there, her kit splayed open and a few portable lights standing on tripods surrounding the corpse.

“Do we know who she is?”

Without a word, Dyson handed back a Virginia driver’s license.

Vail took it and used her phone light to read it. “Tammy Hartwell. Thirty-four. Corrective lenses.” Vail looked up and scanned the body. “She’s not wearing any glasses.”

“Contacts?” Curtis said. “Or maybe she wasn’t driving when the perp came upon her.”

“Or maybe they fell off in the struggle.” Behind them was Leslie Johnson. “Got here as soon as I could.”

“We had a theory on MO,” Curtis said. “He entraps them when they’re driving, uses a ruse to get them out of the car, then gets close enough to easily and quietly disable them. Maybe he makes believe his car is having problems. They stop and come over to help him, and that’s when he anesthetizes them. He takes them somewhere and tortures them, brings them to a secluded area, usually a park or a wooded area, and dumps the body.”

“Well, that seems to fit,” Hurdle said.

“Doesn’t pose them,” Vail said, “at least not overtly. He leaves them face-up, probably so we see the bloody lines. Abdomen’s laid bare. As we discussed, those lines mean something to him. He wants us to see them.”

“Well, he succeeded,” Hurdle said. “We see ’em.”

Curtis licked a few flakes of snow off his lips. “And the excised genitalia. Don’t know about you, but that’s just friggin’ gross.”

Vail turned to him. “Did you think we’d find that anything but gross?”

“How long’s she been out here?” Johnson asked.

Dyson checked her watch. “I did a liver poke. I’d say about four hours. Lucked out that a hiker found her before some animal realized he hadn’t gotten enough to eat today.”

“Cause of death?”

“Severed carotid,” Dyson said.

Curtis looked up into the falling flurries. “Like the others.”

Like the others. Vail considered that. Except that this was not exactly like the other murders.

“Problem?” Curtis asked.

“Nah, just giving it some thought. It’s like the other MOs, and yet it’s different. He usually spent time with the body before dumping it. But he didn’t do that here. He’s not been out long enough to ‘enjoy’ his time with the victim. Why would he spend so much less time with this woman?”

Hurdle crouched to get a better look at the body. “What you said earlier. Maybe he was so excited to be free, to be able to kill again, that he couldn’t contain himself. He was so eager to kill that he had to do it. He couldn’t wait. Kind of like premature ejaculation.”

“Not a bad analogy. I guess that’s possible. But for him, it’s not just the kill that he’s after. It’s the whole process, the interplay with the victim, the power he exhibits over her while he tortures her. He skips parts of his ritual, it won’t be nearly as enjoyable for him.”