Kovacliska - Ashes To Ashes Part 13

Two unmarked utility vans from the PD fleet were parked in the alley,loaded with the necessary office furniture and equipment. All of it wascarried into the former Loving Touch Ma.s.sage Parlor, along with boxes ofoffice supplies, a coffeemaker, and, most important, the boxescontaining the files on all three murders attributed to the killer thedetectives privately called Smokey Joe.

Quinn worked alongside the others. Just one of the guys. Trying to blendinto another team like a free agent cleanup hitter drifting from onebaseball park to another. Brought in by management to hit a dinger inthe big game, then cut loose and sent on to the next crucial moment. Thejokes felt forced, the attempts at camaraderie false.

Some of these people would feel they knew him-by the time all this wasover. They wouldn't really know him at all.

Still, he went through the motions as he always did, knowing none of thepeople around him could tell the difference-the same way people workingside by side with this serial killer wouldn't know or suspect. People ingeneral had a myopic view of their own small worlds. They focused onwhat was important to them. The rotting soul of the guy in the nextcubicle didn't matter to them-until his disease touched their lives.

In short order, the Loving Touch had been transformed from a brothel toa tactical war room. By nine o'clock the entire task force hada.s.sembled: six detectives from the Minneapolis PD, three from th.e.s.h.eriffs Office, two from the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,Quinn, and Walsh.

Walsh looked like he had malaria.

Kovac briefed them on all three murders, finishing with the autopsy ofthe Jane Doe victim, complete with photographs that had been rushedthrough the lab for processing and enlarging.

"We'll have some of the preliminary lab results today," he said as hepa.s.sed the gruesome pictures around the table. "We've got a blood type-0positive-which happens to be Jillian Bondurant's-and a gazillion otherpeople's.

"I want you to note the photographs of wounds where sections of fleshhave been cut from the body. We had similar wounds on the first twovics.

We're speculating the killer may be cutting away bite marks.

But with this latest, he might have cut away any identifying marks thatcould prove or disprove the victim's ident.i.ty: scars, moles, et cetera."

"Tattoos," someone said.

"Bondurant's father is unaware of Jillian having any tattoos. Accordingto his lawyer, he couldn't come up with any distinguishing marks at all.

Jillian had been out of his life for about half of hers, so I guess it's not surprising. We're trying to come up with photographs of her in a bathing suit or something, but no luck so far.

"We're proceeding on the a.s.sumption that Jillian Bondurant is the vic,"

he said, "but staying open to other possibilities. There've been a few calls to the hotline, people claiming they've seen her since Friday, but none of them have panned out yet."

"Are you going to bring up the K word?" asked Mary Moss from the BCA.

She looked like a soccer mom from the suburbs in a turtleneck and tweed

blazer. Oversize gla.s.ses dominated her oval face. Her thick gray-blond pageboy seemed in need of a serious thinning.

"There haven't been any ransom demands that we know of," Kovac said,

"but it's not beyond the realm."

"Big Daddy Bondurant sure never jumped to the kidnapping conclusion,"

Adler said. "Anyone find that strange besides me?"

"He heard about the driver's license found with the body and accepted

the probability the body was hers," Hamill concluded.

Adler spread hands the size of catcher's mitts. "I say again: Anyone find that strange besides me? Who wants to believe their child is the

decapitated victim of a homicidal maniac? Man as rich as Bondurant, isn't he gonna think kidnapping before murder?"

"Is he talking yet?" Elwood asked, chowing down a bran m.u.f.fin as he

perused the autopsy photos.

"Not to me," Kovac said.

:"I don't like the smell of that either."

"His attorney called me last night and left a message," Quinn said.

"Bondurant wants to see me this morning' Kovac stepped back, nonplussed.

"No s.h.i.t? What'd you tell him?"

"Nothing. I let him hang overnight. I don't particularly want to meet

him at this stage of the game, but if it helps you get a foot in his door .

Kovac smiled like a shark. "You need a lift over to the Bondurant house, don't you, John?"

Quinn tipped his head, wincing. "Do I have time to call and up my life insurance?"

Laughter erupted around the table. Kovac made a face.

"He gave me a lift from the morgue last night," Quinn explained.

"I thought I'd be going back in a black bag."

"Hey," Kovac barked with false annoyance, "I got you there in onepiece."

"Actually, I think my spleen is over on Marquette somewhere.

Maybe we can pick it up on the way."

"He's been here a day and already he's got your number, Sam," Liskajoked.

"Yeah, like you should talk, Tinks," someone else countered.

"I drive like Kovac only when I've got PMS."

Kovac held up a hand. "Okay, okay, back to business. Back to the bitemarks. We ran that feature through the database back when we werelooking at the first murder, searching for any known offenders in themetro-murderers or s.e.x offenders-who had bitten or cannibalized victims,and came up with a list. We also ran it through VICAP and came up withanother list." He lifted a sheaf of computer printouts.

"How long before we can confirm or deny this body is Bondurant S. Gary"Charm" Yurek of the PD had been designated media spokesman for the taskforce, giving the line of official bulls.h.i.t to the press every day.

He had a face worthy of a soap star. People tended to become distractedby the utter perfection of his smile and miss that he hadn't really toldthem anything.

Kovac looked now to Walsh. "Vince, any word on the girl's healthrecords?"

Walsh hacked a phlegm-rattling cough, shaking his head. "The Parisoffice is tracking them down. They've been trying to contact thestepfather, but he's somewhere between construction sites in Hungary andSlovakia."

"Apparently, she's been the picture of health since her return to theStates," Liska said. "She's had no serious injuries or illness, nothingto warrant X rays-except her teeth."

"He screwed us up but good taking her head," Elwood complained.

"You come up with any ideas on that, John?" Kovac asked.

"Could be he meant to jam up the investigation. Could be that the bodyisn't Jillian Bondurant and he's sending some kind of message or playinga game," Quinn suggested. "Maybe he knew the victim-whoever she was-anddecapitated her to depersonalize her. Or the decapitation could be thenew step in the escalation of his violent fantasies and how he playsthem out.

He could be keeping the head as a trophy. He could be using it tofurther act out his s.e.xual fantasies."

"Judas," Chunk muttered.

Tippen, another of the sheriffs detectives, scowled. "You're not exactlynarrowing it down."

"I don't know enough about him yet," Quinn said evenly.

"What do you know?"

"Basics."

"Such as?"

He looked to Kovac, who motioned him to the head of the table.

"This is not by any means the completed a.n.a.lysis. I want that madeclear. I did a quick read-through of the reports last night, but ittakes more than a couple of hours to build a solid, accurate profile."

"Okay, you've covered your a.s.s," Tippen said impatiently. "So who do youthink we're looking for?"

Quinn held his temper in check. It was nothing new to have a skeptic inthe crowd. He had learned long ago how to play them, how to pull themaround a little at a time with logic and practicality. He leveled hisgaze on Tippen, a lean, homely man with a face like an Irishwolfhound-all nose and mustache and s.h.a.ggy brows over sharp, dark eyes.

"Your UNSUB is a white male, probably between the ages of thirty andthirty-five. s.a.d.i.s.tic s.e.xual serial killers hunt within their own ethnicgroup as a rule." Pointing to the close-ups of wounds from the crimescene photos, he said, "You've got a very specific pattern of wounds,carefully repeated on each victim. He's spent a long time perfectingthis fantasy.

When you find him you'll find a collection of S&M p.o.r.nography. He's beeninto it for a long while. The sophistication of the crimes, the caretaken to leave no usable physical evidence, suggests maturity andexperience. He may have an old record as a s.e.x offender. But record orno, he's been on this course from when he was in his late teens or earlytwenties.

"He likely started with window peeping or fetish burglaries-stealingwomen's underwear and so forth. That may still be a part of his fantasy.

We don't know what he's doing with the victims' clothing. The clothes hedresses them in after he's killed them are clothes he's chosen for them from his own source."

"You suppose he played with Barbie dolls as a kid?" Tippen said toAdler.

"If he did, you can bet they ended up with limbs missing," Quinn said.

"Jesus, I was kidding."

"No joke, Detective. Aberrant fantasies can begin as young as five orsix. Particularly in a home with s.e.xual abuse or open s.e.xual promiscuitygoing on-which is almost a sure bet in this case.

"He's likely murdered long before your first victim and gotten away withit. Escaping detection will make him feel bold, invulnerable. Hispresentation of the bodies in a public area where he could have beenseen and where the bodies would certainly be found is risky and suggestsarrogance. It also suggests the type of killer who can be drawn to the investigation. He wants attention, he's watching the news, clippingarticles from the paper."

"So Chief Greer was right yesterday when he said we should make astatement to this creep," Kovac said.

"He'll be just as right today or tomorrow, when we're ready to make amove."

"And it looks like your idea," Tippen muttered.

"I'll be happy to let you suggest it to the bra.s.s, Detective," Quinnsaid. "I don't give a rat's a.s.s who gets credit. I don't want my name inthe paper. I don't want to see myself on TV. h.e.l.l, I'd just as soon bedoing this job in my office sixty feet underground back in Quantico. Ihave one objective here: helping you nail this son of a b.i.t.c.h and takehim out of society forever and ever, amen. That's all this is about for me.

Tippen dropped his gaze to his notepad, a nonbeliever still.

Kovac buffed a little sigh. "You know, we got no time for fence p.i.s.sing.

I'm sure no one in the general public gives a rip which one of us hasthe biggest d.i.c.k."

"I have," Liska chirped, s.n.a.t.c.hing the giant ceramic p.e.n.i.s away fromElwood, who had set it on the table as a centerpiece. She held it up asproof of her claim.

Laughter broke the tension.

"Anyway," Quinn went on, sliding his hands into his pants pockets andc.o.c.king a leg, settling in, subtly letting Tippen know he wasn't goinganywhere and wasn't bothered by his opinions. "We have to be carefulabout how we draw him in. I'd suggest starting with a heavily publicizedcommunity meeting held in a location central between the dumping sites.

You're asking for help, for community partic.i.p.ation.