Текст книги "Killer Profile "

Автор книги: Max Collins

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter Eleven

August 7 Chicago, Illinois

   Generally, Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi was fairly laid-back; right now he was on edge.

Hotchner had phoned twice, over the last two hours—once with the name of their suspect, crime scene photographer Daniel Dryden, and again to alert him that Dryden was still unaccounted for and might well be headed Rossi’s way, if the picture Reid had found in the garage loft was any indication.

Rossi and the two detectives, Lorenzon and Tovar, sat in a black SUV, air conditioner doing overtime. The two cops were in front, the FBI agent in back.

Across the street, in the late afternoon heat, two African-American women sat on the front stoop of 2319, the first-floor windows and the inside front door open. A small window air conditioner chugged in a second-floor window. The women, both in shorts and tank tops, were watching three young children playing in a minuscule front yard, two boys and a girl, none older than five, taking turns chasing a plastic ball, kicking it, catching it, then kicking it again, each squealing with delight, oblivious to the humid heat.

Rossi explained the Dryden situation to the two detectives.

“Daniel fuckin’ Dryden?” Lorenzon said with a head shake. “Him I would’ve never guessed. How would a zero like Dryden have the balls for something like this?”

Rossi said, “That opinion’s part of what motivates him.”

Lorenzon looked puzzled. “My opinion?”

“Not yours in particular, but that sort of mind-set. Dryden had some early success, and now he thinks he’s a loser—and that’s the feeling people get being around him. He’s smart. No question, we’ve seen that. Yet in his day-to-day life, he doesn’t have any self-confidence. He feels he doesn’t have control. These killings, this is how he gets back some control.”

Lorenzon was frowning. “Control of what?”

“The victim, for starters. You remember what we said about manipulation, control, and domination?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“This is where that comes into play. Dryden manipulates, controls, and dominates his prey. For once, he’s not on the receiving end of such things.”

“How can he compare being snubbed to killing people?”

“We’re not talking about reality, Tate—we’re talking about the killer’s perception.”

Lorenzon nodded, but was still frowning in thought.

“Take a hypothetical,” Rossi said. “Suppose you’re driving in Chicago traffic, and get cut off.”

“I don’t have to suppose very hard.”

“Then it happens again! Are you pissed?”

“Depends on how close the guy came, but, yeah, maybe a little.”

Nodding, Rossi said, “Pretty normal response. Our killer would go straight to anger after the first time… and furious enough to kill after the second.”

Tovar said, “That’s screwy.”

“Careful,” Rossi said with a little smile. “You’re getting into highly technical profiling terms now. Meanwhile, back in Chicago traffic, it would never occur to the killer that two separate people simply didn’t see him or weren’t paying attention. For him, this is all part of a conspiracy on the part of society to stifle him, to not recognize his talent, his brilliance. As far as he’s concerned, cops like us are out to get him, not for his crimes, rather as part of a society that’s alwaysbeen out to get him.”

Tovar said, “But this guy’s been a functioning member of society for years.…”

“Sure,” Rossi said. “Being a cold-blooded killer doesn’t rule that out.”

The two detectives gave him a look.

Rossi shrugged. “Sue me. It’s true.”

Across the street, the kids kept playing.

“You know,” Rossi said, with a nod toward the children, “we need to get them out of here—no point in handing him victims.”

Tovar said, “I thought he was after nurses.”

“He’s devolved to a ‘close enough’ state—maybe not nurses, maybe just wiping out everybody at that address.”

Traffic on One-Hundredth Street was steady but everybody knew this was a residential neighborhood and held their speed down accordingly. The profiler and the two detectives climbed down from the SUV, then strolled across the street.

They were halfway when an eastbound gray Ford Crown Victoria, an older model, slowed as it approached. They were almost across when the car picked up speed.

As the car shot by, even though its windows were tinted, Rossi recognized the driver at once. Or was he just projecting his anxieties?

Before Rossi said anything, though, Tovar nodded and pointed. “Was that fuckin’ Dryden?”

This confirmation was all Rossi needed.

He watched as the vintage Crown Vic took a right at the next corner. Sprinting toward the building, jerking his credentials from his pocket, Rossi yelled, “FBI—get these kids inside, now!”

The two women jumped up and ran to their kids, the children mesmerized by the screaming white man.

The two women were also yelling at the children, the caregivers apparently alarmed by Rossi charging at them, with Tovar and Lorenzon in his wake.

That suited Rossi just fine. Anything that got the women and children locked indoors was a good thing.

He yanked his pistol from its holster and one woman shrieked as she dashed into the house with a boy in her arms. Her friend, with two wriggling children to corral, having trouble keeping up, watched helplessly as the door shut in her face. Rossi was close enough now to hear the dead bolt slam home.

The woman outside pounded on the door. “Damn you, Laticia!”

Rossi touched the woman’s arm and she spun on him, teeth bared, eyes wide with fear, her right index finger coming around and scolding him.

“Don’t you evertouch me!”

Holding up his credentials, Rossi said, “I amwith the FBI. It’s all right, we’re here to help.”

“Help what? We haven’t done a damn thing!”

The corner of the curtains of the town house fluttered and Rossi could see the other woman looking out.

He displayed his credentials. “FBI, open the door and let this woman in.”

Laticia shook her head.

Rossi frowned. “Now!”

The woman disappeared from the window. Whether it was to open up or go hide, Rossi could not tell. He waited and, seconds later, he heard the dead bolt slide. The door opened and the woman on the stoop went inside with her two children.

From the doorway, Laticia stared at Rossi, who said, “Shut and lock this door, then call 911—tell them the FBI said you need special protection.”

Eyes wide with terror, the woman shut the door and the dead bolt snapped into place.

Turning to his colleagues, Rossi saw they both had their weapons drawn, Tovar slowly scanning the neighborhood, Lorenzon talking into his walkie-talkie.

Lorenzon was shouting into the radio: “Well, fucking findhim!”

“What?” Rossi asked.

Lorenzon shook his head and said, “While you got the families inside, I called for a patrol car to pull the prick over. Now, they can’t find him orthe car.”

“Not a lot of Crown Vics in this neighborhood, except maybe for police cars. And it was pristine for its age.”

Ninety percent of the cars on the street were what street cops commonly referred to as a Dodge POS or a Chevy POS or a Ford POS—piece of shit.

“Gave ’em the damn plate number,” Lorenzon said, shaking his head again. “The only good news is that the computer IDed the car as Dryden’s. Christ, he’s owned it since his fashion mag days.”

Tovar’s face was red. “Where the hell ishe then?”

Lorenzon said, “Maybe we scared him off.”

“But where to?”

Before any guess could be offered, Lorenzon’s walkie-talkie squawked to life.

“Shots fired,” the cool voice of the dispatcher said. “State University. Science building, first floor. All available officers, 9501 South King Drive, Williams Science Building.”

Rossi asked, “How far away is that?”

Lorenzon said, “Ten blocks maybe?”

“Shit!” Rossi grimaced. “Went straight to the source—nursing students.”

“Goddamnit!” Tovar said.

The three men sprinted to the SUV and climbed in, Lorenzon getting behind the wheel. The African-American detective gunned the engine to life, hit the siren and flashing lights, then—as he dropped the SUV into gear—mashed the gas pedal.

They practically leapt to the corner, turned right, and were halfway up the next block when Rossi yelled, “Stop!”

Lorenzon slammed on the brakes. “What the hell?”

Rossi opened the door and jumped out.

“What are you doing?” Lorenzon asked.

“I know how this bastard thinks,” Rossi said. “He wants to copy Speck. I think this is a diversion.”

“Three nurses shot is a diversion?”

“I think so.”

Tovar’s eyes were huge. “What if you’re wrong?”

“Then you two will nail him at the university.”

Rossi slammed the door and headed back at a trot as Lorenzon sped off toward the university.

When he got to the corner, Rossi hoped to see a squad car out front, officers at the door listening to Laticia’s tale of the three crazy men, waving guns, who had run at her, her friend, and their kids.

Unfortunately, he knew better.

The dispatcher’s call for every available officer would drop the priority of Laticia’s call to rock bottom. He made a quick 911 call himself, gave his name, FBI status and the address.

“That’s the Richard Speck murder house,” Rossi said, “and the copycat we’re all looking for may be in there.”

“Sir?”

“Just give the word.”

Rossi clicked off.

He’d be happier if he could get inside that town house, but given his last visit, that was probably impossible. Problem was, he couldn’t watch the front and back of the place from here, or anywhere else for that matter. The building was set up like a row house, eight two-story. If he went around back and Dryden came to the front, Rossi would never get inside before the killing started. The same was true if Rossi stayed in front and then Dryden came in the back.…

He had told Lorenzon he knew how the killer thought—well, now was the time to prove it. If he was wrong, more innocent people would die.

Think, Rossi told himself.

Dryden was normally organized, highly so. He had deviated from his plan when he’d seen Rossi and the detectives. The thing was, Dryden was devolving so fast, he couldn’t bring himself to cancel his performance. Dryden had, instead, decided to open fire on nursing students at the university.

But that didn’t mean the killer wouldn’t still come back to his original destination.

Speck had strong-armed his way in through the front door, hadn’t he? So Rossi took a calculated risk. The killer wanted to copy the murders at this address; therefore, Dryden would want to go in the front way.…

After ducking into a doorway across the street opposite 2319, Rossi got out his weapon, checked to make sure a round was in the chamber, then lowered it along his leg, barrel down.

His cell phone chirped and he responded. “Rossi.”

“It’s Lorenzon. SOB’s in the wind. One student dead, two wounded.”

“Damnit.”

Ten minutes later, the sun setting, his patience wearing thin as he started to wonder if he was wrong about Dryden, Rossi was just about to holster his weapon and step out of the shadowy doorway when he saw something move across the street.

A vehicle crossed his line of vision, and Rossi wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Then, from behind a car parked two doors down from 2319, Dryden—all Johnny Cash in black T-shirt, black jeans and black running shoes—crept out, crossed the yard slowly, his head on a swivel, looking for cops. A bulge in his pocket might be a small camera, and Rossi was almost sure a black knife sheath was on his left hip and a black holster on his right.

Rossi slipped back into the doorway, counted to five, then peered out again. Dryden was mere yards from the front door now. Stepping forward, Rossi could see a bus coming eastward; the agent used the bus for cover to get to the middle of the street, then took three quick steps and ducked down on the driver’s side of a parked car Dryden had just passed.

Rising slightly, the FBI agent looked through the driver’s-side window toward 2319…

... and saw the back of Dryden. The killer was only two or three steps from the front door now.

Rossi moved forward, using the car as cover, then popped up over the hood and yelled, “Daniel Dryden, freeze! FBI!”

Eyes wide, Dryden spun, a little revolver in his right hand, a hunting knife coming up from his side, in his left hand. He fired two quick rounds at Rossi, missing him, but Rossi did not return fire. The FBI man was a good shot, damn good, but didn’t relish firing when the only backstop behind Dryden was a houseful of children.

Ducking back behind the car, Rossi hoped to draw Dryden into attacking him instead of the house. Two more rounds slammed into the vehicle, making it obvious Dryden was a lot less concerned about what lay beyond his target than Rossi.

Sliding his head up a little, Rossi peeked through the driver’s side window and saw Dryden sprinting toward the car. Another round spiderwebbed the windshield and Rossi dropped and edged to the rear of the vehicle.

As Dryden crept around the car, Rossi slipped behind the back bumper. Dryden rose to see where Rossi had gone, and the FBI agent popped up, too, his pistol centered on the perp’s forehead.

No kids to worry about behind the target now.…

“Drop them or die,” Rossi said matter-of-fact. “Your choice.”

Dryden thought for a long moment, but his weapons remained at the ready.

Rossi had the bastard cold. And the agent already knew the serial killer to be a coward—although Dryden had killed or wounded nearly a dozen people, all his victims had been innocents, caught unaware, and unprepared to defend themselves.

“You don’t get a count of three, Dryden. Drop them now, or die right here, right now.”

Dryden swallowed thickly.

And the weapons clattered to the street.

“Assume the position,” Rossi said. “Against the car, feet back and spread ’em.”

The black SUV roared up and the two detectives piled out of the vehicle just in time to see Rossi hand-cuff the suspect.

Lorenzon read Dryden his rights.

Tovar asked, “How did you know he’d come back to the house?”

Rossi turned his gaze on Dryden, who stared back with small, cold, dead eyes.

“He had no choice,” the FBI agent said. “Not with hisego. You just had to prove you were smarter than us, Danny, didn’t you? Only, turns out you aren’t.”

“I amsmarter than you,” Dryden said. He was trembling but his manner remained smug.

Rossi got a half smile going. “Really? Then why were we here when you got here?”

Dryden glared at him.

“ Bothtimes,” Rossi said, twisting the knife.

“Go to hell,” Dryden said.

Lorenzon gave a quick jerk on the handcuffs. “You first, asshole.”

Rossi said, “Take Danny in. He and I need to have a little talk.”

Two hours later, Daniel Dryden sat cuffed to a table in a brightly illuminated interrogation room at the Cook County jail. In an adjacent, dimly lit viewing room, Rossi stood with Hotchner, Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid.

Hotchner said, “Nothing of note found in his car.”

The gray Crown Vic had been parked on the street a block from the Speck house.

“His revolver was a .22,” Morgan said, “consistent with Richard Speck’s weapon of choice.”

Rossi nodded. “You have the pictures from the darkroom?”

The team leader nodded.

Reid said, “And I Photoshopped that other one– they’re all in here.”

Reid handed Rossi a manila folder.

“Should you be the one to interview him?” Hotchner asked. “You captured him—and antagonized him. You really think he’ll talk to you?”

Rossi shrugged. “You can overrule me, obviously, Aaron. But when I got him pissed off, he didn’t clam up—he went back and forth with me. I think I can get him to do it again. And at length.”

Hotchner’s eyes locked with Rossi’s.

Then the team leader said, “We’re only going to get one run at this—the clock is ticking and it’s not a happy sound. Somewhere out there a man in a grave may still be alive.”

“I know,” Rossi said calmly. “Trust me, Aaron. I got this.”

Hotchner considered that, for just a moment; then nodded.

Rossi entered the interrogation room, glanced at the reflective glass behind which observers lurked, then sat down opposite the dressed-in-black suspect, Rossi’s back to the watchers. He set the folder on the table between them.

Dryden’s blandly handsome face wore a faint smug smile. “Who the hell thought that I’d ever talk to you?”

Rossi smiled. “I did.”

One eyebrow rose. “Are you the Special Agent In Charge?”

“No.”

Dryden shook his head. “I only talk to the SAIC.”

“I’m the special agent in charge of you.”

The suspect grunted a laugh. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“David Rossi.”

Dryden’s eyes, beady and a little small for his face, stared at Rossi for perhaps fifteen seconds. Then he said, “David Rossi the author?”

Shrugging, Rossi said, “I’ve been published.”

“False modesty,” Dryden said with a weird sideways grin. “Doesn’t suit you.”

Rossi gestured with open hands. “You’re right. I’ve written best sellers. I’ve been on talk shows. I’ve done the lecture circuit. I won’t fall back on false modesty.”

Dryden’s smile straightened out. “I won’t, either.”

“You won’t?”

“No?”

“Why, have you accomplished something? I’ve accomplished some things, yes… but you? You’re just another copycat. Files are full of them.”

“I’m no copycat,” Dryden said, and pounded the table as best he could, his cuffs wound through a metal ring on the table. “You wait. Before this is over, you’ll be a footnote in mystory.”

Rossi laughed. “Oh? What story is that?”

“How I killed twelve people. You’re just a glorified secretary, writing books about ‘monsters’ like me.”

Rossi gave him a look. “You’re kidding, right? I write about originals—Gacy, Speck, Bundy, Kotchman—true innovators in their chosen field. No writer, no reader, is interested in just another copycat.”

Dryden lurched forward. “I am not a copycat! I ama true original!”

Leaning back in his chair, Rossi said, “Hey, I don’t want to make you feel bad. Take some pride if you want to. But don’t kid a kidder—Danny boy, you didn’t even make double figures.”

“ Twelve!A goddamn dozen!” The little eyes had grown big. “Count ’em! Two in Chicago Heights, two in Wauconda, one each in Chinatown, one in Des Plaines, one in Aurora, three at the university, and the Kotchman kill who should be dead”—he checked the clock on the wall—“any time now.”

That only added up to eleven, but Rossi didn’t have the luxury of going down that road—he had a missing man to find.

“Yeah,” Rossi said, “he probably wouldhave been dead pretty soon… if we hadn’t found him already. And two of the nursing students you just wounded. Gonna be fine.”

Dryden eyes grew tiny again. “You didn’t find him.”

“What?”

“You couldn’t have found him. I was too careful. Always a step ahead of you chumps.”

“Right, right,” Rossi said, picking up the folder. “Like you were so far ahead of us at the Speck house. That’s why you’re here now, because you were always one up on a chump like me.”

Dryden’s mouth opened but no words came out.

Rossi got up, stepped back from the table, allowing the folder to slip from his grasp, as if accidentally, the pictures sliding out of the folder and onto the table. The fake one Reid had devised, at Rossi’s direction, was a blurry shot that showed a middle-aged man who looked vaguely like Herman Kotchman’s abusive stepfather. This man was strapped to a gurney, covered in blankets, his head just barely visible as he was loaded into an ambulance.

“Excuse,” Rossi said, gathering up the photos and stuffing them back into the folder.

He had given Dryden only a second or two to glimpse the picture, but Rossi knew that was enough. The killer’s fallen face said they’d made a sale: Dryden seemed convinced they’d rescued his premature burial victim.

“How the hell…” Dryden began. The little eyes burned in their sockets. “It took me fucking weeksto find just the right farm!”

“Either we’re not as dumb as you think we are,” Rossi said. “Or you’re not as smart…”

Forehead clenched, Dryden sat forward. “Let me see the photo again.”

Rossi hesitated.

“Ha! I knew it—you dummied the thing, didn’t you? Photoshop bullshit!”

Rossi took the photo from the folder and handed it to Dryden, who studied it. The photographer only needed a moment.

“I was right,” Dryden said, and laughed. “You didn’t even get the goddamn state right on the ambulance’s license plate, let alone the town.”

“Good to know,” Rossi said. “In fact, you’ve just told me everything I need to find the guy.”

“Yeah, right.”

Rossi leaned in. “If you’ll pardon me, Danny, I’m going to go help my team prove whether the chump here is me… or you.”

“If you dofind him?” Dryden said with a sneer. “He’ll be dead.”

“I don’t think so,” Rossi said. “And after we save him, you’ll get to see him again, alive and well and on the witness stand.”

Dryden had nothing to say to that.

Rossi went out and met the rest of the team in the corridor.

Hotchner asked, “What just happened?”

Rossi half smiled. “We got the answer.”

Hands on hips, frowning, Morgan asked, “How do you figure that?”

“Victim’s in Indiana.”

Hotchner squinted at Rossi, as if trying to bring him into focus. “And how do you arrive at that?”

But it was Reid who answered: “Because the ambulance had Illinois plates.”

Morgan’s eyes widened. “You figure because the ambulance had Illinois plates, and this whack job said that was the wrong state, the vic is in Indiana?”

“Yeah,” Rossi said with a shrug. “Don’t you?”

Shrugging back, Morgan said, “How the hell should I know?”

“You really should know,” Rossi said, “because you interviewed his wife. Has her husband been gone overnight?”

“No,” Prentiss said. “She said he worked all night once back in April—and that was the night he killed Andrews and Mendoza.”

Rossi asked, “What was the latest he got home?”

Hotchner thought for just a moment. “In the last few weeks,” he said, “the latest Dryden got in was about two thirty a.m., according to his wife.”

“All right,” Rossi said. “Now, has Garcia looked into missing middle-aged men in the area?”

Hotchner nodded. “Three disappearances reported in the last two weeks. One’s turned up already, and another is a husband who apparently left his wife for his secretary.”

Prentiss said, “The third one was a businessman, Grant Shuler, in from Atlanta. Associates he was calling on reported him missing on July twenty-ninth. They say they dropped him off at his motel the night before, just after ten p.m., and haven’t seen him since.”

“All right,” Rossi said. “Our time span is between ten p.m. and two thirty a.m. Our search grid will be an area that Dryden could drive to and back from in the allotted time.”

“He’s on to something,” Hotchner said. “Let’s get back to the office.”

Forty minutes later, in the field office’s conference room, they huddled over a map of the area.

Rossi said, “Even if Dryden had everything ready at the site—plywood coffin waiting in its hole– and with no traffic at all, it’s over an hour to get to Indiana from Shuler’s motel, and the better part of another to get home from the border. If we figure a minimum of a half hour at the grave site, that only leaves him an hour each way into the state. How far is that?”

Reid drew a circle that included an area bordered by extreme southern Michigan on the north, South Bend on the east, south to Fair Oaks, and Illinois on the west.

Morgan’s eyebrows were up. “That’s still a lot of ground.”

“Don’t forget,” Hotchner said, “he’s imitating Kotchman.”

“Get Garcia,” Rossi said, nodding. “We need a little magic.”

Prentiss made a video connection via her laptop.

“Garcia,” Rossi said. “Match anything you can between Indiana and Modesto, California. Highways, town names, county names, anything that might resonate.”

Garcia asked, “How soon do you need it?”

“Yesterday.”

“No problem.”

On the little flat screen, she turned away and fingers danced gracefully over the keys of her keyboard. She was back in less than five minutes, but looking glum.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Anything even close?” Rossi asked, determined to keep any desperation out of his voice. Had he gottentoo cocky and cost Grant Shuler his life?

“There’s a Highway 120 near Modesto,” Garcia said, “and a Highway 20 in the area of Indiana you’re looking at. Best I can come up with.”

“Good job,” Rossi told her, happy to have a straw to grasp at.

The genie on the screen asked, “What now?”

“We’re looking for vacant farms for sale along Highway 20.”

Prentiss asked, “Why farms along Highway 20?”

“Kotchman lived on a farm,” Reid said. “Dryden has been trying to re-create the crimes in as much detail as possible.”

Rossi said, “He’ll have found a vacant farm. Shuler will be in the backyard.”

“I wish we had more,” Hotchner said.

“It’s what we’ve got.”

Reid seemed more confident: “No, it all makes sense—let’s go with it.”

That was when Garcia piped in to say, “There’s three vacant farms on Highway 20 within your search grid.”

Hotchner leaned in. “Give us addresses and directions.”

Prentiss went with Hotchner in a Tahoe, Reid with the two detectives in an unmarked, while Morgan and Rossi in another SUV went to the third farm. Using their cell phones, they stayed in constant communication. Morgan and Rossi had the farm farthest away.

Hotchner had summoned a medivac chopper to be in the area. If they found Shuler alive, the man would need immediate medical attention.

Lights flashing, sirens wailing, they sped through the muggy night into Indiana. They crossed the border, still flying, getting off the expressway and hurtling down Highway 20. Hotchner and Prentiss were the first to peel off, then twenty miles later, Reid and the detectives went their way.

As they rode, Morgan behind the wheel, the cloudless night bright with stars and a nearly full moon, Rossi could only hope they weren’t too late.

Morgan said, “You know, you alter that timeline by as little as an hour, and we could still be in the wrong state. The victim could just as easily be buried in Wisconsin– that’s only a little over an hour away from that motel, too.”

“If the timeline is wrong,” Rossi said. “But it isn’t.”

“Sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“When I joined this team, the knock on me was that I was too much of a loner, too used to doing things my own way. Now, that we’ve solved something as a team, you’re second-guessing my role? I been doing this a long time, Morgan, and here’s a tip you didn’t ask for but are going to get: you have to learn to trust your talent."

"I do trust it."

“You think you do, but you really need to believethat you’re right.”

“And you,” Morgan said, “need to learn to trust the team.”

“I’m working on that,” Rossi said, nothing negative in his voice.

Morgan slowed as they approached a driveway on the left roadside. “I think this is it.…”

As if to confirm his belief, a FOR SALE sign came into view beyond a small hill. Morgan turned in and followed the gravel road toward a dilapidated white house and faded red barn that stood at the top of a hill.

Rossi’s cell phone chirped. He pulled it off his belt and answered.

“Hotchner. We got nothing at our site, and Reid just called to say they struck out too. How are you two doing?”

“Just pulling in,” Rossi said. “Let you know.” He clicked off, then said to Morgan, “Down to us now.”

Obviously vacant, the house was a tall, two-story box that looked hadn’t seen a coat of paint since the sixties. The barn looked little better. Off to the left of the house, across a side yard, a path worn through it between the buildings, one door hung slightly open.

“Let’s check there first,” Morgan said.

Rossi nodded.

They got out of the SUV, crossed the yard and stood on either side of the open door, their guns drawn. The suspect was in custody, but an unknown accomplice was always a possibility. They nodded to each other, then went in low and fast, each fanning their guns around looking for a threat.

When each was sure his side was clean, he said, “Clear.”

The only thing left in the barn was a navy blue Ford Bronco, locked up tight. They checked in the windows and saw nothing.

Rossi asked, “Where the hell did this vehicle come from?”

Morgan checked the plate. “Illinois. I can get Garcia to run it.”

“Do it.”

Morgan made the call, short and sweet.

They moved behind the house and, using their Maglites in the darkness, quickly found the PVC pipe sticking up out of the dirt.

“Bingo!” Morgan said.

Rossi’s eyes flared. “We might have thought to bring a goddamn shovel.…”

But Morgan spotted the handle sticking out from behind a bush and then they did have a shovel, Dryden’s shovel most likely.

Without a word, Morgan grabbed it and started digging near the pipe. The night was hot and it didn’t take long until his face and bare arms glistened with sweat. He threw dirt over his shoulder, Rossi watching. When Morgan was down a couple of feet, they changed places and Rossi took over, his pace slower but more steady.

The sun was coming up now, the shadow of the house still making it hard for them to see.

Before long, the shovel touched something harder than dirt, but considerably less sturdy than plywood.

“Something,” Rossi said.

They used their hands now, pushing dirt out of the way until they uncovered a shoe with a foot in it connecting to a still mostly buried leg.

“Hell!” Morgan said. “Son of a bitch didn’t even use a box!”

Rossi said, “Wait a minute. The shoe is a Rocky. Copshoe. This isn’t the victim.…”

They dug faster now, uncovering the rest of the body until they were looking down at a man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his head shaved clean, exit wound in his back.

“Denson,” Morgan said.

Rossi grunted. “Poor bastard didfind the killer before we did.…”

And now Dryden’s math made more sense: this was his twelfth victim.

Morgan’s cell phone rang and both profilers jumped a little.

“Yeah,” Morgan said into it. “…thanks.” He clicked off. “Garcia says the Bronco belongs to a Jacob Denson.”

Any sense that this was a crime scene was obviously secondary, since saving a life took precedence over preserving evidence. With care and something near reverence, they lifted the deceased detective’s body out of the grave and laid him carefully on the ground. Morgan did the digging as they went back to work. He had gone another half foot down when he hit something that clunked.

The box.

They dug even more quickly, Rossi pitching in with his hands as they uncovered the top of the box. When its lid was fairly well cleared, Morgan used the shovel to pry a corner loose and—with all the strength of both men—tore the nailed lid off.