People can think themselves into having a headache. I knew, because I did it from time to time and now was one of those times. I had stared at the autopsy pictures for so long that I was starting to point out specks of dust that might be leads.
“Go smoke, and then maybe you’ll have an epiphany,” Lucas finally growled at me. I went outside. Fiona followed me.
“May I have one?” She asked.
“Are you going to eat it?” I replied.
“The reason it’s hard for me to be around you when you are smoking is because I’m a former smoker,” she said.
“Then you will resent me if I give you one because I will be enabling you.”
“Give me the damn cigarette, Aislinn.”
I smiled at her swearing and using my full first name as I opened my pack to her. She took one out and lit it like a professional. I lit my own.
“This is why I quit the NSA,” she said after a moment.
“Because of the smokers?” I was suddenly confused.
“No, because it made me want to smoke. I stared at computer code all day and worked on cyphers in my down time.”
“Maybe you should spend more time at the gun range or breaking down doors. Beating up assholes helps relieve my frustration.”
“In theory, that sounds like a good plan. Reality rarely turns out like the theory though.”
“I know. It seems impossible that the deaths are a coincidence, but with every hour, I am leaning more and more in that direction.”
“I hope that isn’t your epiphany,” Fiona smiled at me. “Why would Helena dream about a fire if she didn’t start it?”
“Guilt that she did not stop Gavin sooner and she believed Alejandro was responsible for the other deaths, so she took on that guilt as well.”
“I don’t buy that and I don’t think you do either.”
“I do not,” I admitted. “But I do not see a way that this works out where Helena is not the killer and that would be difficult since her movements were accounted for on the day of the fire by the asylum.”
“So, she didn’t start it, but she knew about it. Maybe she’s psychic.”
“No offense, but I do not believe in psychics.”
“None taken, but you should. I didn’t believe violent people attracted violent people until I met you. You just radiate it sometimes. It’s like you are struggling with some kind of demon to keep from hurting someone. I saw it tonight with Alejandro, when you two were face to face with only the table between you. He might have wanted you dead, but you wanted to hurt him a lot more than he wanted you dead. It’s not just him either. Sometimes, you just start putting out those vibes and we all feel them and know that violence is coming. I think psychics are just more in tune to emotions, so when the rest of us aren’t feeling that vibe, a psychic would still be feeling it.”
“Xavier has a theory that psychopaths excrete pheromones. It is why we attract one another. However, science does not support the idea that humans of any sort excrete pheromones.”
“Science doesn’t support the idea that sociopaths and psychopaths have emotions either. You and I know they are wrong. You have some strong emotions, just fewer of them.”
“I still cannot tie that into why Helena dreams of a fire she did not start and could not have seen.”
“But she only dreams of the fire,” Fiona said. “That’s traumatic, don’t get me wrong, but the stabbing was far worse. So why doesn’t she dream of it if she believes her brother is responsible?”
“Someone told her about the fire,” I looked at Fiona. “No, someone told her about a fire and she connected it either correctly or incorrectly with a series of possible murders and attributed it to her brother. That still doesn’t explain why she doesn’t dream of the stabbing that she would have attributed to her brother as well.”
“Oh shit,” I said. “There is a timeline problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maria said Alejandro had Helena committed six years ago. Her records show she was admitted right after Gavin was killed, and that was almost twenty years ago. Why would they lie about that?” I asked.
“They?” Fiona countered.
“Alejandro and Maria. Why would they lie about when she was committed?”
“They didn’t,” Fiona answered. “Her commitment was voluntary. When Alejandro had her committed, it was still voluntary, but at the request of a federal agent.”
“Which changes the definition of voluntary,” I said.
“However, even as a voluntary commitment, her movements were still tracked.” Fiona pointed out.
“That is true, but I do not think Helena did the killings. I think Alejandro had her voluntary status redefined so that we would think she did them.”
“But he couldn’t have done them.”
“He did not need to do them,” I answered. “He had someone else do them.”
“Who?” Fiona asked.
“Another sibling, one that I am not sure Maria and Helena know about.” I tossed my cigarette on the ground and raced back into the building. Fiona followed at my heels. Her height made her stride longer and she easily kept up with me.
“Whoa!” Lucas said as I burst into the conference room.
“When Alejandro got arsenic poisoning and it looked like he was going to go into full renal failure, you started checking into siblings, right?” I asked Xavier.
“Yeah, there were four of them.”
“Gavin, Helena, Maria and who?” I asked.
“Another boy,” Xavier said. “But he was dead.”
“Did you see his death certificate?”
“No, but Maria told me about him. He died six years ago.”
“Where? How?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Xavier answered. “Why?”
“Gigantism runs on both sides of Alejandro’s family. A large man held down one of the victims and stabbed her repeatedly. ASPD also runs in Alejandro’s family. If you are right about it being carried on the X chromosome, then he also had ASPD. What if he was or is our witness killer?”
“I’m on it,” Fiona said, moving to her keyboard. Her fingers were loud in the quiet room as we all waited. “There’s no record of another sibling.”
“How can we catch killers when no one fruckin’ exists in these godforsaken databases?” I hit the tabletop with my fist and was rewarded when papers flew off it.
“Let me rephrase that, there’s no record of him, but I think that’s because he’s been scrubbed from the databases. Any good hacker could do it.” Fiona said.
“Who would do that for Alejandro? And why?” Xavier asked.
“I do not know, but he is not going to be baited by me again, not as effectively. He will be watching for it.” I sighed. We needed a good psychopath. Unfortunately, they were all in the hospital being put back together.
“What about Hunter?” Fiona asked.
“He is a borderline,” I answered. “There is a hierarchy within the deranged community and borderlines are low; think of it as a born of blood vampire versus a bitten and changed vampire. Those of us with ASPD have physical differences from the rest of the population. Borderlines do not have them, so they are inferior. It is kind of snobbish, I know, but that is how it works. Alejandro will recognize him as a borderline and feel superior.”
“Really? That’s the snobbish comment and not the vampire reference you just threw out as a metaphor to a pagan?” Fiona looked at me.
“Believe it or not, it is a good metaphor and I have used it before. It has nothing to do with you being a pagan. I would have used it if you had thought you were a werewolf,” I told her.
“Oh hell,” Lucas jumped from his seat. “Alejandro has had a problem with Malachi for a long time, longer than your existence with the Marshals. When Malachi joined the FBI, VCU was new. One of their first cases was in Nebraska. Some guy lost his mind and started killing women. Malachi never figured out why, because Malachi killed him. His name was Roberto Johnson. Considering Alejandro’s parents liked to give their children Spanish first names and very Americanized last names, it would fit the pattern.”
“Why did comments about werewolves and vampires make you think of that?” I asked Lucas.
“Because at the time, I was also working for the FBI and Malachi asked me if I could think of any reason to punch a hole in the base of someone’s skull. The best I could come up with was to drain the fluid around the brain and from the spine,” Lucas answered.
“Is there a reason someone would want to do that?” I asked.
“Not that I can think of, but it’s efficient. The victim can’t fight back with having the fluid around the brain drained. The synapses can’t fire without the fluid to act as a conductor,” Xavier answered. “You put LSD in there, directly into the fluid around the brain and I can’t even imagine the effects. Death would be the least of a person’s worries.”
“Uh, well,” Fiona frowned, “Malachi doesn’t have a case file on a Roberto Johnson.”
“That’s impossible,” Lucas walked over to the computer. “Are you sure you have checked all of them?”
“Yes,” Fiona huffed at him. “There’s no such person in his files. However, I did find an article in a Nebraska newspaper about the FBI gunning down a serial killer that was preying on women. No mention of names, but he killed seven before the FBI shot him.”
“Who does one hire to make someone disappear from the history books?” I asked.
“Why?” Gabriel countered.
“I would like to remove some things about myself,” I answered.