Chapter 21
Killer in the Land
The smooth walnut of his cane’s derby handle formed a perfect cup for Parker’s chin. He rested it there while he sat hunched over in a visitor chair across from Becky Fulbright’s immaculate desk. His eyes were fixed on the polished surface devoid of all the things that cluttered his own workspace, including Becky herself, who had asked him to meet her this morning to review the Collector case. She’d stepped out to take a call the moment he’d arrived, leaving him to contemplate, like a Zen koan, the purpose for a desk if not to be a resting place for unopened mail, unread publications, and stacks of papers.
His meditative trance was broken when Becky returned and took her place behind the empty span of particle board and cherry veneer. She made a show of pocketing her phone. “Sorry about the wait. Had to take a call from Warner. It seems you made quite an impression in Vegas.”
Rebecca Fulbright was a compact woman in her early forties who kept herself fit by cycling what Parker thought were absurd distances through the Virginia countryside. She had spiked auburn hair and big hazel eyes with white oval patches around them where the sun that tanned the rest of her face had been blocked by sunglasses. The masklike tan marks made her look like a raccoon and called attention to the fine lines visible at the corners of her eyes and between her eyebrows, evidence of a lifetime of both easy laughter and frequent worry.
Parker stared up at her without removing his chin from the cane. He was giving her his best bored, indifferent impression and believed he was nailing it. “Do you think the boss is still showing Divine his dinghy?” he asked, suppressing an urge to sing a verse from the old Beetles song, Rocky Raccoon.
“What?”
“I’m just wondering if Warner is still playing hide the torpedo with his old navy colleague.”
She squinted at him the way she did when she was annoyed, further deepening the lines around her eyes. “Michael’s married.”
“And?”
“Stop. I didn’t ask you here this morning to gossip about our boss.” She leaned over her desk. “Besides, Michael looks out for you. He’s a big reason why you’re still on active duty.”
Parker lifted his chin from his cane and gave her an apologetic look. “You’re right. I should be more appreciative. Me, being a useless cripple and all.”
She straightened. “Okay, enough bullshit. What do you have?”
“I think I’ve identified some common traits in the victims and the beginnings of a profile for our unsub.”
“Our unsub? As in a single perpetrator?”
“Maybe.”
“Then I was right,” she said.
“There’s always a first time, but don’t let it go to your head.”
“Whatever. Let’s hear it.”
“He,” Parker began, “because it’s almost always a man, has the means to travel or has a job involving travel.”
She smirked and waved her hand dismissively. “Established.”
“And he,” Parker reemphasized the unsub’s gender, “exhibits the following characteristics.” Ticking them off on his fingers, he recited, “He’s White, young, but not a kid. I’d say in his mid-twenties to early thirties. He doesn’t have any close friends, and the people who do know him describe him as quiet, lacking confidence, and odd or quirky. He likely lives alone and possesses above average intelligence.” Parker wiggled his eyebrows. “What do you think? Impressive right?”
“Well, I would be impressed,” she said, “except you just described the prototypical serial killer.” She pointed to a bookcase in the corner. “I think I may have read that exact description in one of your books.”
He pushed himself out of the chair with his cane and hobbled over to where she was pointing. She had both his textbooks and the novel he’d written during the eighteen months he had spent on disability. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “My, my, I didn’t realize you were such a fan.”
“I am required to read what my employees publish,” she quipped.
He selected the most recent of the texts, Hunting the Hunters, A Guide to Forensic Behavioral Analysis, 2nd Edition and flipped to a page in the first chapter. “Yes. Here it is.” He turned toward her and read, “The common belief is the prototypical serial killer is an aloof White male, between the ages of twenty and forty, who is of high intelligence, and comes from an abusive household.”
He looked over the book at her. “Is that what you are referring to?”
“I guess you don’t recall the next paragraph.” Parker continued reading, “As forensic behavioral scientists, we must not rely on common beliefs, as they will bias our analysis, and they are often wrong. Statistics compiled from over one hundred years of homicide case data indicates serial killers, defined as those who kill two or more people with a period of inactivity between kills, come from all races and age groups proportional to their percentage of the overall population. Though, one common belief appears validated by the data, serial killers are overwhelmingly male.” He closed the book. “There is no such thing as a prototypical serial killer.”
She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers in a give-me gesture. He hobbled over to her and handed her the book.
“I remember that,” she said as she flipped to another page. “But I also remember this: ‘If the data does not support the prototypical serial killer profile, why does the public’s perception persist? The simple answer appears to be serial murders perpetrated by the young, White male demographic get the most media attention. Again, as scientists, we must ask why? The easy explanation is killings by members of the privileged class gone bad are more newsworthy than killings by members of disadvantaged populations caught up in poverty-induced violence.’”
She raised a finger to ward off the triumphant sarcasm percolating in his throat. “But another possibility could be hidden in the numbers. Young, intelligent, White males may disproportionately commit more organized and complicated murders of random victims which makes those murders more terrifying to the public. Staying out of crime-ridden neighborhoods offered no protection from Ted Bundy.”
“Man, can I write or what?” he said.
She tossed the book on her desk with a thud. “So, our killer is the prototypical, intelligent, aloof, young, White male with the means to travel. Great. That’s probably what? Thirty million potential suspects. And only then if we limit it to US residents.” She scowled at him. “A useless profile.”
Parker gave her a diabolical grin. “Yes. Yes,” he responded in his best Anthony Hopkins impersonation. “But as Hannibal Lecter might say, ‘What does he covet, Clarice?’”
She made a face. “Ears.”
“Exactly. He collects ears. Why would he do that?”
“He’s sick. Maybe he has small ones or big ones and he’s looking for something better.”
Parker cocked his head. “Let me think about that for a moment.” He tapped his finger on his chin and then wrinkled his nose as if the idea itself reeked. “No. I don’t think so. He doesn’t envy his victim’s anatomy, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” he said with mock seriousness. “You know what I think?”
“I’m dying to know.”
“I think the ear collecting and the way he’s killing with a sword are all part of some elaborate fantasy he’s living.” He studied her, impregnating the moment, “In the Metaverse.”
She rocked forward in her chair. “What?”
“You say that word often.”
“What?”
“See, you said it again.” He pulled his phone from the breast pocket of his blazer and nodded at the television on her wall which was tuned to one of the cable news networks with the sound turned off. “Can I stream to that?”
Her big eyes got bigger. “First Metaverse and now streaming? What happened? Did you find technology religion in the desert?”
“Yeah. I’ve gone full-blown geek. I even visited one of those places everyone goes now. You know? To plug into the Verse, man.” He made air quotes when he said Verse.
“You’re kidding! Did you go in? To the Verse, I mean?”
“No, but I got enough of a look to make me curious.”
He told her about how he’d stood with a pair of amphetamine-fueled kids and watched a player kill another player and remove their ears. “The player took them for trophies. Like our unsub.”
“Interesting. You think the killer is modeling behavior he sees in the Metaverse?”
“I think it could be where he’s learned to do it, and where he selects his victims from.”
Becky bit her lip. “Hmm. Seems like a bit of a stretch, but billions of people do this Verse thing.”
“Do you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I think it’s weird. Though my cycling club has started organizing more virtual rides. No flat tires, no one gets hit by cars, and you can ride anywhere in the world. Who knows? Maybe I’ll give it a try.”
“Don’t. It’s weird.” Although, he thought, if she did, she wouldn’t get the raccoon-eye tan lines pedaling under a computer-generated sun. He pointed at the television again. “Make the screen do its thing so I can share this photo.”
She pressed some buttons on the television remote, and he fiddled with his phone until the image of Jyothi Reddy’s headless body stretched out on a gurney appeared on the screen.
Becky jumped. “Jeezus, Parker. You could’ve warned me before putting that up.”
“Sorry. Wrong picture.” He grinned and selected another picture from his phone. The photo of a living Jyothi Reddy from Donna Baker’s notes replaced the gruesome image of her decapitated body. “Honestly, I don’t understand your reaction. You send me those kinds of photos all the time. I was beginning to think you had some kind of fetish for them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Fuck you. What are we looking at?”
“One Jyothi Reddy.”
“The Nashville victim?”
“That’s her.”
“Pretty girl. Tragic. What’s the point?”
“See what she’s holding?”
“Yeah, a toy sword. So?”
“Look what it says on her T-shirt.”
“‘You haven’t lived until you’ve died in the Land of Might and Magic?’”
“That’s the game where I saw the player take the trophies.”
“Now that’s very interesting.”
“I spoke to the detective in charge of Jyothi’s case. Nice lady. A bit of a downer, but nice. I got her to ask the woman’s mother if the deceased played this game. It turns out she was obsessed with it. Jyothi’s mother told the detective her daughter spent all her free time in the game playing a character called Danaka. The mother called it an addiction and said her daughter spent a fortune doing it.”
“Hmm. What about the other victims? Did they play this game too?”
Parker rubbed his leg and reached for the pill vial in his pants pocket but reconsidered popping the pills in front of Becky. “Jaden spoke with LVMPD about Tate. Same story. Tate’s wife said her husband was addicted to the game. It was destroying their marriage.”
“What about the Clearwater girl, Loveridge? Did she play too?”
“Don’t know yet. Turns out the detective working that case is out on a medical. Been out for a month. That’s why it took so long for the ViCAP filing. Guy had a heart attack, massive.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. Especially for me, because the sergeant I spoke to said he had no one available to fill in on the case. He gave me Abby Loveridge’s mother’s information and told me to call her myself.”
Becky made a hissing sound. “I seem to remember you teaching me we do research and analysis in BAU. We are not investigators.”
“Becky, I need the information for the victimology, unless you are comfortable with the prototypical profile.”
She sighed. “No. That isn’t going to help anyone catch him. We need more.”
“And we can’t wait for this detective’s heart to heal,” Parker said. “Our unsub seems to be on a two-week kill schedule. If he stays with it, he’s going to kill again in the next six days.”