The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(93)



“He’s obviously got a good defense attorney,” Vail said.

“He was living in Richmond, moved to Roanoke, then supposedly lived out of a trailer on some property he inherited from his uncle.”

“He still have that land?” Ramos asked.

“Nope.” Tarkoff flipped a couple of pages in his notebook. “There was some weird thing with the title and he lost it. I didn’t have time to look into the problem, but bottom line is he doesn’t have that property or the trailer that was on it. But when they took the deed over, they found evidence of firearms storage and what appeared to be an underground bunker.”

“Bunker,” Walters said. “What kind?”

Tarkoff pulled up some photos on the PC at his station, angled the screen toward the group, and then clicked through the pictures. “Freeze-dried food, six dozen liter water bottles, LED tactical lights, shortwave radio. That kind of stuff.”

“Looks like MacFarlane is a survivalist,” Curtis said.

“At best.” Ramos leaned in for a closer look. “A militia member at worst. Preparing for the government apocalypse where the black helicopters descend and declare martial law. Could be why he was prepared with a submachine gun. In case we came knocking.”

“We did,” Vail said. “And he came up shooting.”

“That does go along with stuff we found in the Gaines residence,” Curtis said. “Guess I should refer to it as the house he commandeered.” He reached over and pulled out packets of stapled sheaves of papers. “Good lead-in to what I wanted to discuss. Got a printout of preliminary forensic findings, including an inventory of items found throughout the Gaines house.” He handed copies to Vail, who took one and passed the rest to Morrison, seated behind her.

She began looking over the report, stopping at the list of DVDs. “So it wasn’t Gaines’s face in the video we watched.”

“No,” Curtis said. “Either way, that’s got no impact on our ability to catch Marcks or Gaines. Cyber team’s evaluating the metadata on the discs to track their source.”

Walters folded back a page. “Might help us catch the scumbags who create and distribute this trash. And maybe the ones who commit crimes against children. But it’s not gonna help net us our guys. Directly, at least. Unless there’s a local connection.”

“I agree,” Hurdle said. “We’ve got child pornography charges on him, but that’s an administrative matter, way I see it. First we gotta find these knuckleheads. We’ll worry about prosecuting them after the fact.” He paused, no doubt realizing that both were concerns. “Whatever. You understand what I’m saying.”

“We don’t have any confirmation yet on MacFarlane?” Vail asked as she glanced over the itemized inventory.

“I was told DNA’s being run. Problem is, we don’t have any exemplars on file. I asked the lab to reach out to MacFarlane’s sister, who lives in New Jersey. Not perfect, but it’ll give us a real good idea if he was staying in that house with Gaines. And before you ask, yeah, we’ve got her under surveillance. Phone calls, email, text, all being monitored in case he contacts her.”

As Vail’s eyes moved down the page, she got stuck on two words: diethyl ether. That’s a chemical and it’s got ether in the name. She pulled out her phone and tapped out a quick text to Prati.

“Karen. Yo, Vail.”

She hit “send” and looked up. All eyes were on her.

Hurdle lifted his brow. “You said you had some things to discuss.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I do.” And depending on what Prati says, I may have more. “Yesterday, before Marcks got the drop on me, I mentioned an arson case the BAU’s handling. I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with Marcks. But I found out some stuff that leads me to think there’s a connection. What, who … I’m not sure yet.”

“Don’t keep it to yourself,” Morrison said.

“I think I was telling you about the chemical—” Her phone vibrated. She glanced at the display. Prati responded to her text. “Hang on a sec.”

diethyl ether is the chemical name.

ether is the common name for the

chemical like water is the common

name for h2o. so--same thing

Vail looked up from her cell. “And it just got a little more interesting. So the anesthetic that Marcks used to temporarily subdue his victims was also used as an accelerant at the arson scenes, for the crime concealment fires.” She explained why such an approach was unusual. “But we know that Marcks is gay. And ether is sometimes used by homosexuals during sex. So that explains why he’d have it, why he’d be familiar with it and its effects. And I’m willing to bet that the label has a warning on it about its flammability.”

“Does look increasingly likely there’s a connection,” Hurdle said.

“And,” Vail said, holding up the forensics inventory from Gaines’s house, “there’s a six-pack of Sterno cans listed here. The arsonist used Sterno as well. Thomas Underwood, one of the founding profilers back in the late seventies who drew up the original assessment on Marcks, initially thought there might be another UNSUB, an associate. But he abandoned that theory. Now it looks like he might’ve been right.”

“Gaines?” Curtis asked. “Or MacFarlane?”

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