Saturday Afternoon
The sheriff’s office was in the city of San Antonio adjacent to the detention center. It was a sturdy brick multistory building in the middle of a light industrial area, right off the freeway. Lucy had been to the jail a few times to interview suspects, but she’d never had cause to go into the station.
The sheriff was responsible for the county jails and court security, but also maintained patrols and investigative units throughout the entire county, not just the unincorporated areas. The local FBI office worked with both the city police and the sheriff, and had a good relationship with each office, save for—apparently—Jerry Walker.
Jerry handed Lucy a visitor’s pass and led her upstairs and down the hall to the homicide unit’s small corner of the building. No other detectives were at their desks.
Jerry had his own small office, a sign of seniority. He could be the lead investigator—it wouldn’t surprise her considering his years of service.
He flipped on the light and pointed to two tall, unorganized stacks of files. “Hardcopies. You’ve seen the important points in the information we sent over to the FBI.”
“Which wasn’t complete.”
He didn’t comment.
She glanced around. There was a chair for her, but no place to review the files. “Do you have access to a conference room that we can use for a couple of days? Just to spread out a bit. I’ve found that looking at the evidence side by side can help.”
“To each his—or her—own,” Jerry said. “I can grab a conference room, but I don’t know how long I can keep it. We don’t have the space around here.”
“We can set up at the FBI, we have a room I can use for the duration of the investigation.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back. Jerry stared at her, eyes narrowed, once again suspicious. “Not going to happen, Kincaid,” he said. “I’ll get permission to use a room for the duration of this investigation, if I have to. Grab those.” He took one of the two stacks, gesturing toward the other.
She followed him down the hall. He looked into several rooms before pushing open the door of a small room with a lone narrow window and a table that could seat four people if they crammed. “We can use this.” He dumped the files on the table.
She wasn’t going to complain. There was a floor-to-ceiling whiteboard on one wall that would be useful.
“Since I already know what’s in these files, I’m going to grab a sandwich. Can I get you something?”
She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t know when she’d be able to get lunch, so she said, “That would be great, thank you.”
“Anything specific?”
“I’ll eat almost anything.”
“I’ll be back in a few.” He stepped out, closing the door behind him.
She sighed. Back to square one. She hated walking on eggshells around people, and she really wanted to know what had happened between Jerry and the FBI in the past. It might help her understand why he was so hostile toward her.
Lucy sat down with the files and in minutes forgot about Jerry and his issue with her and the FBI. She started mapping out the crime scenes and the assault on each victim and couldn’t shake the belief that these three murders simply made no sense.
Jerry had already done an extensive amount of work. When the first victim turned up—Billy Joe Standish, also killed on a Friday night—the police thought it was a personal attack. Standish had been beaten by the side of the road and shot. They interviewed everyone he worked with, his wife, his family, his neighbors. Standish had a reputation for drinking on the weekends and had two misdemeanor charges for fighting. But there had been no brawls in the last year, and no one had any idea who would want him dead. He had no alcohol or drugs in his system. They interviewed people in the area, both residents and businesses, to see if there had been any recent break-ins—perhaps Standish had seen something. Because even though he had a reputation for being a weekend partier, he was a charitable guy—he’d spent a week in Houston after the flood helping rescue stranded families. So it wasn’t a stretch to think that if he saw someone breaking into a business, he might do something about it.
Except, nothing. No break-ins in months, and he was killed nearly half a mile from any private residence. The quarry near where his body was found was empty at night and never had cash or unsecured equipment on the premises.
Jerry had made notes to talk to the wife again about any threats—he’d asked her once, she couldn’t think of any, but he also noted that she became hysterical the two times he talked to her. When the second victim turned up, Jerry apparently hadn’t followed up with Susan Standish again. The case took a different direction, and Jerry worked diligently to try to find a connection between Standish and James.
There was not one connection that he could find. They didn’t go to the same church (James didn’t go to church at all; Standish went sporadically); they didn’t run in the same circles (James was white collar, upper middle class—Standish blue collar, barely making it). Not the same doctor, not the same dentist, not the same vet. (James had a cat; Standish had two yellow Labs). They lived in different communities. Susan worked at an elementary school, but not in the same district that the James kid attended, and they didn’t drive the same type of car. Standish was Ford; James was Toyota. They had no friends in common.
And now a third victim, who seemingly had no connection with the first two.
The basement—which had high, ground-level windows so it didn’t feel like you were buried—had a decent cafeteria set up like an old-fashioned diner with hamburgers, a soup of the day, a salad bar, and sandwiches. The specialty was a club sandwich, but Jerry’s favorite was the seasonal turkey—from October 1 through New Year’s, the cook offered a carved turkey, stuffing, and homemade cranberry sauce sandwich that was to die for. Ten more days, Jerry thought. The food was fresh and reasonably priced, and Jerry was all about good, cheap food.
He had a headache, so he dry-swallowed three aspirin while he waited in the short line—short since it was both Saturday and after the lunch rush.
Doris Jackson had worked in the cafeteria since before Jerry became a cop, and considering he’d been here for twenty years, that was forever. She knew every cop by name, always had a smile, and while she didn’t gossip, she knew everything that went on in the sheriff’s office. If there was an officer down, she worried and fretted with the rest of them, always preparing sandwiches and snacks to take to the hospital. When the sheriff found out that Doris was spending her own money to feed grieving cops, he created a fund to cover the cost. Everyone had assumed that the cafeteria—which was run by the county—took care of the expense. Doris had shunned a tip jar for years, but the sheriff bolted one to the register. “You and your crew deserve it.” Then he put the word out that everyone could spare a dollar a day.
“What are you feeling like today, Mr. Jerry?” Doris asked.
“Meatball sub.” He needed something substantial because he’d eaten breakfast on the run.
He didn’t know what to get Agent Kincaid.
“You need something else?”
“A fed I’m working with on this case. She said get her anything.”
“Club is always a winner.”
“One of those, then.”
Doris smiled, called out the order to the chef, and Jerry paid her. He slipped two bucks in the tip jar.
He stood aside and waited, checking his phone. He texted Jeanie, his wife, that he didn’t know when he’d be home, probably not before six, and he’d call later. It was Saturday and she was used to his erratic schedule.
He had to get out of this mood. Kincaid was young and a rookie, but she didn’t seem like an idiot. He simply didn’t want to work with the feds. He knew he had a bias, but at the same time he had a hard time forgiving the local FBI office for their screwup.
Kincaid wasn’t even here. Hell, she was probably still in high school.
He’d told Kincaid that the FBI messed up two of his cases, and that wasn’t a lie, but it was only the one—the kidnapping that ended in the death of two young boys—that soured him on his federal counterpart. The FBI had never admitted they made a critical and fatal error.
The agent in charge of that investigation had left the bureau, last Jerry heard, but that didn’t make the situation any better. He’d had ten years to fume. The feds had dismissed his concerns about their approach. The whole case was a mess, but he had known they were going to get those boys killed. He knew it and he fought them and they’d removed him from the case. Just taken him out of the equation. Yes he lost his temper, but the lives of two kids were at stake. He couldn’t sit back and let it happen.
He was removed and the FBI didn’t truly understand the situation because they didn’t listen to him—that agent didn’t listen to him—and Jerry had never forgiven them. Never. Because had they realized the situation wasn’t as it appeared to be, those boys might be alive today.
None of that was Kincaid’s fault, and he was trying to separate the cases. But the whole psychology crap irritated him. That was exactly what the feds said ten years ago, that the kidnapper—a relative of the family—wouldn’t hurt the boys. There had been no sign of violence, nothing in the kidnapper’s psychology that suggested she would hurt her nephews. It was a family dispute, and the FBI was so damn confident in their theory, they made several missteps.
One thing Jerry knew was people. He may not have graduated from a prestigious university—got his AA at SAC, the oldest community college in Texas, right here in San Antonio—but he wasn’t an idiot. He might not be able to throw around the latest terms of misbehavior, but he understood people. He knew criminals and victims. He understood motivations, maybe not able to articulate them like some folk, but he knew in his gut. And when he was first on the scene when those two boys were grabbed by their aunt on their way to school, he knew something was different about this case. Something wasn’t adding up. But because he couldn’t give the jerks at the FBI more than his gut impression based on years of police work and talking to thousands of people on the street as first a beat cop then an investigator, well, they completely dismissed him.
“Jerry,” Doris called out, a bag packed with his order.
He walked over to the pickup.
“You’re a million miles away,” Doris said.
“Thinking about a tough case.”
“I heard about it.”
“You did?”
“Three men, same killer.”
“Looks that way.”
“You’ll get him. I know you will.”
He smiled. “Glad for your confidence, Doris.”
“But that ain’t what put the frown on your face,” she added. “You’re thinking about those boys again.”
Sometimes, Doris seemed downright psychic.
“The feds are all over this.”
“Same one?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s your answer, ain’t it?”
He didn’t know that there had been a question, but Doris had a long memory. He hadn’t been in a good place ten years ago after the kidnapping and murders. He nearly got himself fired. Started drinking heavily, was angry and temperamental and put himself and others at risk. He’d ended up taking a month off and got his life back together, thanks mostly to his boss, and his wife. His boss told him to get his act together or he was gone. First half of the wake-up call. So he took leave, and Jeanie was a rock. Firm when he was angry, sympathetic when he blubbered like a kid. She probably should have left him, he was so moody, but she pulled him out of his hole. He loved her more now than he did when they’d married twenty-seven years ago.
The thing was—he had mostly accepted the outcome of the Barton kidnapping. He’d done everything in his power to fix it, he knew—and they shut him out. That wasn’t on him. But he couldn’t put aside how the FBI had screwed everything up.
He was just waiting for Lucy Kincaid to do the same thing. Only now, because he maintained control of the case, she didn’t have the final say. She didn’t have the authority. And if she overstepped, he would cut her out so fast her little rookie head would spin.
Lucy jumped when the door opened. She felt foolish, but she was so immersed in reading the files and taking notes that she almost forgot where she was.
“Excuse me,” a tall, lean female deputy in uniform said as she entered. “I’m Assistant Sheriff Maria Jimenez. I oversee the investigative unit. I spoke to your boss this morning, wanted to introduce myself since we haven’t had the pleasure.”
Lucy stood and shook her hand. “Lucy Kincaid. Nice to meet you.”
“You’ve been busy,” she said, waving her hand to the stacks of papers Lucy had set out. Lucy had rearranged the files to better help her see patterns.
“I’m visual,” Lucy said.
Maria glanced down the hall, then shut the door. “I know that Jerry has been fighting sharing this investigation, but the sheriff and I agree that we need all hands with this, especially now after a third body dropped. Just so you know, Jerry Walker is hands down the best investigator we have in our office. The strongest combination of experience and instincts. I understand that he’s been distant and nonresponsive the last two weeks, but I talked to him this morning and want to make sure you understand that the FBI is welcome in our investigation. My office has an outstanding relationship with your office, and your reputation precedes you. You have a lot of friends in SAPD. If you have any issues, please let me know.”
“If I have any issues with Investigator Walker, I’ll talk to him about it,” Lucy said. She wasn’t going to go running to Jerry’s boss because he was a jerk. “It might help if I understood his animosity toward my office. He said the FBI messed with two of his investigations.”
Maria hedged. “They may have, but only one affected him. It was before my time. I was in the military stationed overseas so all I know is rumor and innuendo, which I won’t repeat. As far as Jerry is concerned, he felt that the FBI made a fatal tactical error on a kidnapping case. He recognizes that it was the agent in charge of the investigation, but he blamed everyone and the aftermath was difficult.”
Lucy needed to know more about that case.
The door opened and Jerry walked in with a bag. He glanced at Lucy, then nodded to his boss. “Maria. I emailed you a preliminary report.”
“Got it. Just wanted to introduce myself to Agent Kincaid. Let me know what you need, Jerry—the sheriff is getting press calls, wants to have a press conference on Monday with something.”
“The press can just go pound salt for all I care,” Jerry said.
Lucy refrained from grinning.
Jerry continued. “We’re waiting on the autopsy. Talked to the morgue, they can’t fit him in tonight—they have a full house right now, and it’s the weekend so they’re short-staffed. Tomorrow afternoon, but might be Monday morning. Once we have the evidence processed we’ll go back and review each of the cases to identify any commonalities. This guy is going to make a mistake, and he might have already.”
“Let’s hope it’s before another body drops,” Maria said. “The press haven’t connected these murders, but it’s only a matter of time, so the sheriff is taking a preemptive step. He’s going to announce it’s the same killer, unless you come up with something in the next thirty-six hours that says it’s not.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Maria left and Jerry sat in the chair across from Lucy. He stared at the papers laid out in front of her, then glanced up at the whiteboard where Lucy had created a time line.
“You’ve been busy in half an hour.”
“The time line was easy,” she said. “I had one already created from the information you’d sent earlier, and it was just a matter of adding the Garcia case.”
“And did your magic ball tell you who the killer is?”
She ignored the comment. “There are a couple of things to add to the MO,” she said. “The method used is consistent—pending Garcia’s autopsy—and the target—male victims—but I don’t think that we can now discount that each of the victims was married and under forty. All three were killed at night, between ten p.m. and two a.m., and their bodies were found within hours. The killer made no effort to conceal or move the bodies.”
Jerry unwrapped his sandwich—it smelled real good—and said, “Just because the victims are married doesn’t mean that they weren’t random.”
“But how are you defining random? Are they random because the killer picked them out at that moment, or random because the killer didn’t personally know them when he chose to target them?”
He chewed, thinking about her comment. “Meaning, the killer either just decided to kill—which would mean whether they were married doesn’t factor into it at all—or the killer picked the victim, then stalked him, learning about him and his habits before killing him?”
“It’s the latter,” she said.
“Why do you think that?”
He wasn’t being antagonistic at this point, which was a relief. “At a minimum, the killer spent a little time studying each victim’s routine.” Lucy rose and went to the whiteboard. “First, the crimes were committed in three different areas—northwest, southeast, and north of San Antonio. All were committed when the victim was coming home from work or a business trip. If the killer was just looking for a lone male, he would likely have stuck to the same area, and out of all of the areas, the rural area where Standish was killed offers the best protection for the killer—very few people use those back roads that late at night.”
Lucy glanced at her notes, but she already knew the case well. “Standish was killed coming back from Houston. According to his wife’s statement, he’d been working in Houston Monday through Friday on a temporary construction job for the three weeks leading up to his murder. You confirmed with his employer that his shift ended at four thirty. He was staying at his brother’s house while working the job, went there to shower, have dinner, and left Houston at approximately seven twenty that evening, according to his brother. He called his wife at nine thirty when he was at a gas station to tell her he’d be home in an hour. At eleven, when he still wasn’t home, she called his cell phone and he didn’t answer. He could have been followed from the gas station.”
“We viewed all security cameras in the area and found nothing to help us.”
“Right,” she said. “His body was found two miles south of I-10 on a two-lane road he always took home, according to his wife.” She looked at the map. “Farm to Market Road. Between the I-10 exit and where his body was found, there are a few light industrial businesses, an auto body shop, a couple houses set far apart. His body was found just south of a quarry that—based on the website and the street view maps—I suspect has cameras, but he was around a bend, right before a series of long driveways that lead to residences. The road is remote, not a major thoroughfare.”
“Your point?”
“The killer had to specifically target him.”
“He could have just have been the unlucky guy to get pulled over—if the cop theory is accurate—or was followed from the freeway.”
“The killer targets lone males. At a minimum, he would have had to have spotted him at some point in order to follow him or … or stage something to force him to stop. Because though that road is not busy, especially at night, if the target was truly random, then was it just blind luck that the killer stumbled upon a male driving alone?”
“You don’t want it to be random.”
“No, I don’t—because he’ll be that much harder to catch. And in most random killing sprees, there isn’t this much time between attacks. Truly random killers who are not sexually motivated are rare. The sniper on the East Coast terrorized residents for a short period of time before he was caught, and chose his victims apparently at random. Israel Keyes, who was arrested here in Texas, killed for more than a decade, picking his victims at random and moving from state to state to avoid detection, but he was sexually motivated. Son of Sam—Berkowitz—picked many of his victims at random, and there’s a dispute whether they were sexually motivated because he didn’t rape his female victims, and he killed both men and women.”
“And so?” Jerry said. “You don’t want him to be random, so what?”
“What I want means nothing. I just don’t think that he’s picking his victims spontaneously. Maybe that’s a better word than random.”
Lucy stared at her timeline, considering. Her analysis was falling into place, but there were still holes, and she needed to talk it out.
“Four weeks between the first two murders and three weeks between the second and third murders. Is he escalating? Did he want to make sure the police weren’t onto him after the first murder, so waited longer for the second? And now … he’s emboldened. Three dead, he’s cocky and confident. If he has another target, he very well could speed up his time line.”
Jerry didn’t say anything for a minute. He chewed another bite of his sandwich and slid the bag over to Lucy. “I didn’t know what you might like, and Doris who runs the shop downstairs said a turkey club is always a safe bet.”
“Thank you,” she said. Was he thinking about her comments or just eating?
She resisted the urge to keep talking, because she didn’t have anything else substantive to go on—she’d reviewed the evidence reports when she first got them, reread them now, and there was little physical evidence at each crime scene. Partly because of the terrain—the first victim was on a gravel pullout next to the road, killed only feet from his car. The second victim was in a golf course parking lot between the airport and his house—it was only a fifteen-minute drive, but for some reason he’d stopped. It was after midnight, everything was closed except for the theater across a wide boulevard from the golf course entrance. Why had he stopped? Cop or someone needing help?
“Let me play devil’s advocate for a minute,” Jerry said.
“Please do.”
She was relieved he spoke, because five minutes of silence was making her antsy.
“If the victims aren’t random, then in all likelihood they knew their killer and weren’t in fear for their lives. They exited their vehicle. If the killer isn’t a cop, they knew him or weren’t threatened by him.”
“Agreed.”
“Yet it could be that the killer followed them from their origin and when he suspected they were getting close to home—all three victims were found within a mile of getting off a major highway or thoroughfare—the killer acted.”
“If it’s a cop, he flashed his lights and pulled them over. I can see that. Yet in my experience, there is always a reason.”
“Maybe the victims cut him off. Road rage.”
“And he always carries a handgun, stun gun, sledgehammer, and duct tape in his car?”
“This is Texas. Those tools are good for a lot of things, not just murder.”
She was about to argue, then realized that her husband always had a handgun, tools, and duct tape with him—Sean had a concealed carry permit for his gun, he’d once half joked that duct tape was the most useful resource created by man, and he had a tool chest in his trunk with anything he might need on the road.
“Road rage is generally immediate,” Lucy said. “Maybe rear-ending the car, yelling, drawing attention.”
“But not unheard of. You’re the one who believes in the psychology garbage. So what would make a person mad enough to kill?”
She fumed at the slight, but didn’t respond. “First, I firmly believe that almost everyone is capable of killing another human being under the right circumstances. I’m not talking about cops and criminals, I’m talking about average people. A mother home alone with her baby when someone breaks into the house. A father who snaps when his son’s child molester gets off on a technicality. A heat-of-the-moment argument. Sometimes it’s rash and immediately regretted, sometimes it’s not. But if these victims are because of road rage or a vehicular slight, that would mean the killer has the calm, ruthless patience to follow the victims for miles without tipping his hand—otherwise, the victims would have called nine-one-one, or they wouldn’t have pulled over. That calm patience that ends in a violent, albeit brief, attack seems … at odds.”
“I have no idea what you mean.” Jerry finished his sandwich, crumbled the wrappings into a tight ball, and tossed it into the wastebasket in the corner.
“The murders were violent, but they weren’t prolonged. There wasn’t uncontrollable rage. Hit the victims, beat them, duct-tape their mouth, shatter the bones in their hands, then shoot them in the face—”
“I’m aware of the MO,” he said dryly.
Lucy was getting angry. “Can I do a demonstration?”
He looked surprised, then shrugged.
Lucy walked out of the small office and down to the larger room filled with cubicles. She glanced at all the cops before she found one that matched the general build of the latest victim—Julio Garcia, five foot ten inches, 170 pounds. The other two victims were both six feet—the first a solid 200 pounds of muscle, the second a leaner 180. But Lucy wasn’t sure she could drag a two-hundred-pound man. “Deputy?”
“Yes, ma’am. Deputy Bryce Hangstrom.”
“May I borrow you for five minutes? And I need you to take off your utility belt.” She didn’t want it to get caught on anything when she dragged his body.
He looked skeptical. Jerry stepped behind Lucy. “Go ahead, Bryce, I want to see what Agent Kincaid plans on doing.”
Bryce smiled, took off his belt, and handed it to another cop.
“We’re going to reenact the first crime scene because there was less space, but all three victims were killed in roughly the same manner.” The narrow space between the road and a gulley. She grabbed a stapler off a desk, then pulled a chair over to the large area in front of the elevator. “Bryce.” She motioned for him to sit. “Now just do what I say, and I promise I won’t hurt you.”
He laughed and sat down.
“Jerry,” Lucy said, trying to ignore the crowd of spectator cops who were watching her. “We know a few things. We know that the victim pulled over his car and there was no identifiable sign of malfunctioning. We know that the victim rolled down his window. And we know that the killer exited his vehicle without fear—the keys and phone were in each car, there was no attempt to call nine-one-one. I’ll be the killer.”
She leaned over Bryce, as if looking down and through a car window, two feet away. She had the stapler behind her back. As she worked through this in her head, she realized that the killer probably had a backpack or purse or something to carry the hammer in. “Thank you so much for stopping. My car isn’t working, and the tow truck is an hour away.”
“Maybe I can help,” he said.
Lucy nodded and said to Jerry, “I think most people would help, especially if the person is clean-cut and doesn’t appear to be a threat. Maybe there was a car with the hood up. And this is the South—honestly, in California most people would drive on by, but here I’ve found people more willing to help.”
A few chuckles, then a, “You’re from California?” in a derogatory tone.
“San Diego,” she said, “the most beautiful beaches in the country.”
She went back to her reenactment. “We know a few things about the attack, but the theory about the order of blows to the victim is based on the autopsy, and some of the findings are inconclusive. For example, you can often tell what blow was fatal, or which blow was first, either from the bruising or because of trace evidence from one part of the body to the other, and a good coroner will be able to count the actual blows based on tissue damage, but determining whether he was hit first in the chest then the groin, we don’t know. With the first victim, the coroner was firm on a couple of facts.” She had a thought and said, “Hey, can someone time this?”
“Got it,” a female deputy said, holding out her phone.
Lucy waited ten seconds to allow for the time it took to convince the victim to get out of the car, then said, “Okay, Bryce, get out of the car and follow me to mine.”
He did.
“What’s the first thing you would do if someone has their hood up?”
“I’d be thinking they ran out of gas.”
“With the hood up?”
He shrugged. “Well, it’s dark, so I’d want a flashlight to see if something is obviously wrong.”
“Or it could be a flat tire.”
“That would be obvious.”
“Not in the dark. You go around to check the tire you can’t immediately see and what? Squat? Do that.”
He did. She took the stapler and said, “This is a steel-headed sledgehammer. We know it can do extensive damage. I’ve now hit you hard at the top of your spine—there was severe bruising and a chipped vertebra in the autopsy, enough to know that it was the single greatest force used in the attack. But he was hit twice on the back, once at the top of the spine, and once in the lower back. I would argue that if he was standing at the engine, the blow to the lower back would be followed by the upper back; in reverse if he was squatting.” She mimicked the two blows without actually hitting the cop. “Fall over,” she said to Bryce.
He fell to the floor. “Even though I’m hurting, I’m going to fight back, because I know this guy is serious. Either rob me or kill me.”
“I now sling the hammer—think a two-to-three-foot handle—into your groin. Are you fighting back now?”
He winced. “I’m dying at the thought.”
Laughter.
“Standish was two hundred pounds, a solid guy, physically fit. The killer hit him multiple times.” She motioned with the stapler four to five times. “We know from the autopsy that the victim died from the gunshot almost immediately after the beating—minutes. We know that all three victims were hit with a contact electricity charge, likely a Taser in stun mode. Standish had a burn pattern on his shirt and subsequent tissue damage on the lower left side, so if the killer was facing the victim, he used his right hand.”
“Ninety percent of the people in the country are right-handed,” Jerry said.
“Just an observation, because if he had the Taser in hand, he had to put down his hammer. Or is he left-handed, and used his nondominant hand to stun the victim? Did he use it because the victim was fighting back?”
“What about the duct tape?” Jerry asked. “We know the killer used it, but removed it before shooting him.”
That made no sense, to take the time to tape his mouth. She frowned. She “stunned” Bryce, then pretended to duct-tape his mouth. Now she hammered his hands multiple times, beating them into the ground. “Standish had a minimum of eight hits on his hands, shattering virtually every bone in both hands. It’s possible the killer targeted the hands first, but it makes more sense if the victim is incapacitated first with several serious blows to sensitive parts of his body. After the hands are smashed, he removes the duct tape and fires once, close range, directly into the victim’s face.” As she spoke, she held her fingers out like a gun standing over the victim. This felt right to her. It was dominate, finished. “Bang.”
There was silence. “There was no robbery—nothing was taken off the body or the car except for the duct tape, which the killer brought with him.” To the female deputy she said, “Time?”
“Three minutes, ten seconds.”
More silence.
“No more than five minutes between the time the victim stopped and the killer drove off,” Lucy said. “And probably closer to three. I spent time talking in the demonstration. This killer most likely didn’t do a lot of talking.”
She held her hand out to Deputy Bryce. “Thanks for being my dummy,” she said to laughs.
“Anytime.”
Lucy waited until she and Jerry were the last ones in the corridor. “I see what you mean,” Jerry said. “Calm, but violent.”
“This killer knew exactly what he—or she—was doing.”
“She?”
“Do we have evidence that the killer was a man?”
“We don’t have evidence that the killer was a woman.”
“Historically, if we’re dealing with a serial killer, and we have male victims who are not homosexual, fifty-fifty the killer is female. I’m not saying that here definitely—I’m just saying we can’t make an assumption right now.”
Jerry thought a long minute. She was getting used to his slow deliberation, but it made her antsy. “Well, I see your point,” he finally said. “Would have to be a strong woman. Standish was two hundred pounds.”
“The bodies weren’t moved—Garcia was, but not far, and he was the smallest of the three victims. If I’m right, and the victim willingly got out of the car and was hit from behind—suggesting they didn’t know their killer. Most physically fit women can use a hammer, and a mallet or sledgehammer like Ash is researching would provide far more force and damage to the body. I’m not saying the killer is a woman, but until we know more we can’t rule it out.”
“And the beating was a punishment? Why not just shoot him in the head and be done? Why not shoot him in his car and leave him? He’s still dead.”
“That’s a really good question,” Lucy said, “and it’s bothered me from when I started looking at this case after the second murder. Cause of death on the first two victims was the gunshot to the head, not the beating, though it was severe. It looks like the beating was a message. Like you said, punishment of some sort. But still controlled, because there has been no evidence that the killer used his fists or feet on the victim. Just the hammer, in a controlled manner, on all three victims.” Though she would definitely want to talk to the medical examiner about any inconsistencies, no matter how small. “The one thing that really doesn’t make any sense is why the duct tape? Why take the time to put it on then remove it minutes later?”
“To stop the man from screaming? While Standish was in a remote area, James was not—the golf course parking lot he was in was right across from a shopping center with a movie theater.”
“Makes sense, at least for James.”
“My big question, punishment for what?” Jerry mused. “Seems if we figure that out, we’ll find the killer.”
“Which brings me back to my theory. These victims were specifically targeted. They connect—maybe not to each other, but to the killer. A slight, a theft, an old grievance—and now that the killer has gotten away with three murders, he—or she—will be emboldened and want to try for four. And my guess? Sooner rather than later.”
Jerry headed back to the conference room, and Lucy followed. “Well, Agent Kincaid,” he said, “you make a compelling argument, and you sure know how to put on a show.”
She wasn’t positive he was giving a compliment, so she simply shut the door and waited.
“I can certainly buy into your theory,” he said, “but I don’t think we can make any assumptions at this point. There are too many unknowns.”
“That’s why we need to sit down with the first two wives again and not only go over what happened in the days and weeks leading up to the murders, but dig deeper. Look at any lawsuits these men may have been party to—or their families. Small claims on up. Accidents. Accusations. Anything is fair game.”
Jerry sat down and looked at her time line on the whiteboard. “Married men under forty living in San Antonio,” he mumbled. “That’s a mighty big group.”
“Looking at the Standish murder—it’s hard to picture that it was the first time for the killer.”
“You think there’s another victim we haven’t found?”
“Not with this MO. Something like this would have popped in one of the databases, it’s too specific to miss. Though maybe you can tag someone to look for similar, not identical, crimes in Texas and surrounding states.”
He smiled. “I already have someone working on it.”
Lucy wasn’t surprised. “Good, because less than five minutes to beat a man half to death then shoot him in the face, then having the wherewithal to remove the duct tape and make sure you have all your weapons—is bold. Five minutes, then the killer leaves. A first-timer? Possible. But not likely.”
“I agree with you there. To look a man in the eye and shoot him in the face? Yep, the killer had a purpose. Damn cold-blooded.”
“Intentional. Planned. Cold and bold.” He looked at her oddly, but Lucy ignored it and continued. “I read the ballistics report—it was clean.”
“Yep. The gun hasn’t been used in a crime. A thirty-eight, could be revolver or semi-auto. If it was a semi-auto, the killer was calm enough to collect his brass. Either way, both are very common handguns.”
“When do we talk to the widows?” Lucy asked. “I want to give Marissa Garcia a day or two to process, because I don’t think we’ll get anything out of her right now. But the others—Susan Standish and Teri James—I have questions.”
“Are they so pressing that we need the answers today?” He looked at his watch. “It’s after four on a Saturday. I don’t just want to show up at their homes without specific information to share. We need to wait until we have the autopsy, at a minimum, and officially connect Garcia to the others.”
She didn’t want to wait, but he was right—there was nothing pressing they needed to know today. “What time is the autopsy?”
“I’ll find out and call you, fair?”
She nodded.
“Then Monday—Susan Standish is a teacher, so I don’t want to disturb her until after classes. I’ll reach out and suggest we meet at her house late afternoon Monday?”
“Okay. And James?”
“Teri James—she owns her own business, an accountant like her husband. I’ll contact her Monday morning and find a good time to meet.”
“What about the daughter? We should talk to her—she’s a teenager, right?”
“Fourteen,” Jerry said. “She was away that weekend at a sports clinic. Volleyball, I think. Left Friday afternoon. The wife said she and James were going to drive up to Austin watch her play Saturday morning. Poor kid—we had a deputy drive up and get her. The wife was in shock, didn’t think it wise to let her drive.”
Lucy felt for the young teen. “Losing family to violence is so damn hard.”
“Did you lose someone?”
She hadn’t been thinking of her own loss—her nephew Justin, who had been her best friend when they were little, had been killed when they were seven. It had impacted everyone in the Kincaid family, but as a young child Lucy had been partly shielded. In some ways it was worse because she knew that Justin was gone, that someone had killed him, but she didn’t know the details for a long time because her family refused to talk about it.
Today she was thinking of Sean’s son Jesse, who had lost his mother a little over two months ago and was still having a difficult time processing what had happened leading up to his mother’s death, and the stress of the aftermath.
“Lucy, did I say something wrong?”
“We’ve all lost someone we love. My stepson’s mother was killed this summer. Jesse’s thirteen, it’s been harder on him than he’s admitted.”
“I’m sorry,” Jerry said with sincerity. “How about this—I’ll reach out to the two widows, and we’ll talk to them on Monday, at their convenience. Since you want to view the autopsy, I’ll meet you at the ME’s office tomorrow—” He held up his phone. “—they just sent me a message that Garcia is scheduled at noon.”
“I’ll be there.” She looked the files and notes she’d spread out. “Is it okay that we leave this here?”
“Yeah, leave it. I’m going home, too. I’ll walk you out.”