Текст книги "Killer Profile "

Автор книги: Max Collins

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Rossi lifted an eyebrow and added, “That may be because he views himself as a performance artist, for whom the ultimate expression is not the murder itself, but the photographic record of that murder.”

Shaking his head, Tovar said, “So, where does that leave us—back at square one?”

“Not completely,” Reid said. “We know his signature.”

“Yeah,” Lorenzon said, “his signature is he kills people.”

“Signature?” Tovar asked. “He’s used a gun on two, cut up two, and God only knows what he did to the other.”

Rossi said, “Don’t confuse signature with MO.”

“There’s a difference?” Tovar asked.

With a nod, Rossi said, “ ‘Modus Operandi’ is how he does the crime. ‘Signature’ is what he has to do for the crime to get him where he’s going. What gets him off.”

“And what’s that?”

Rossi pointed at the picture on the flat screen. “The photos.”

Morgan twitched a frown. “Someone is re-creating murders by some of the most infamous serial killers of all time—why?”

“Simple,” Prentiss said. “This guy wants to be infamous, too.”

They all turned toward her, Hotchner noticing that Rossi gave her an encouraging nod.

“Is there any other way this pathology makes any sense?" she asked. "An UnSub who wants to make a place for himself in the Hall of Infamy?”

Nobody seemed to have an answer for that.

Raising his voice just a little, bringing the focus of the room to the oldest old pro among them, Rossi said, “He’s killed five people in three different jurisdictions—which means he’s working hard at not getting caught, even though his desire for recognition has him sending photos on ahead. He’s got to have some knowledge of police work, and even police politics—he knows these jurisdictions won’t cooperate with each other without someone like Detectives Lorenzon and Tovar pushing them.”

Hotchner nodded, adding, "The UnSub probably also knows the more places he hits, the longer it will take for people to identify his MO and ID him as a serial. Despite the photos he’s sending, he likely expected to go longer without us being brought in.”

Lorenzon looked toward Morgan. “Then you aregoing to help us?”

“Not my call,” Morgan said, and turned to Hotchner.

“Yes, Tate,” Hotchner said, “we’re going to help.”

Lorenzon nodded. “Thank you. We’re going to need it.”

No one disagreed.

“JJ,” Hotchner said, “let’s start by you telling Wauconda PD we’re coming in at the invitation of both Chicago and Chicago Heights. Tell them we’d like to oversee a joint task force among the jurisdictions involved in the case. My guess is, before this is over, it won’t be just three.”

“On it,” Jareau said.

Turning to Reid, Hotchner said, “Background history on the cases he’s copying.”

“Pleasure,” Reid said.

“Prentiss, read the police reports and start working on victimology.”

“Right.”

Hotchner sighed heavily. “All right, people, let’s get packed up. We’re wheels up at Andrews in an hour.”

Tovar said, “Thank you for coming on this.” Hotchner said, “We’ll do everything we can, Hilly.”

“Does that mean… ?”

“It means we’ll catch him.”

They all rose except Rossi, who lingered. He sat staring at the last photo.

“Damn,” he said, and then he laughed, once, harshly.

They all turned to him, with Morgan halfway out the door.

“It’s a serial killer greatest hits album,” Rossi said. “By a goddamn cover band.”

Chapter Two

July 28 Chicago, Illinois

   Derek Morgan kept his eyes closed, not letting anyone know he was awake yet. They were still in the air, somewhere over the Midwest. Around him, the others were chatting quietly or working on their laptops. Always a hundred-and-ten-percent effort kind of guy, Morgan had not outslept his fellow teammates due to exhaustion or indolence. He just knew that this would be the last chance to really rest until they brought this killer to ground.

Morgan had spent part of the hour before they left calling his mother to tell her that he would be coming home on a case, promising he’d find time to see her—he just didn’t know when. His mother had just been happy to hear his voice. “Whenever you have time, son,” she had said. “I know how demanding your work is. I’m proud of you!”

Anyone who encountered the BAU team would soon identify Morgan as the resident tough guy. Nonetheless, Morgan still phoned his mother every Sunday. Family remained important to him, and that was no axiom: his had been a close, tightly knit family. That the BAU was going to Chicago to help families that weren’t that much different from his own was not lost on him. The two young women found in Lakewood Forest Preserve could have been his own sisters but for the age difference.

Someone plopped onto the seat next to him, but Morgan forced himself to not move or open his eyes.

“You really think,” Prentiss said, “pretending to be asleep is going to fool a profiler.”

Smiling, Morgan said, “Maybe you’re not that good.”

She ignored that. “Hotchner asked me to brief you about what we’re doing when we hit the ground.”

“Don’t say, ‘hit the ground’ in midair. It’s bad luck.”

“After we land,” she corrected herself. “I never would have pegged you as the fear-of-flying type.”

“More fear of dying.”

“That, either, frankly. You might as well open your eyes. We’re having a conversation, you know.”

His eyes came reluctantly open. “Is that what this is?”

“Seems to be. When we land, Hotch says he wants the two of us to take the Chinatown crime scene. He thinks you’re the only one who knows the city well enough to find it without help.”

“Not a problem,” Morgan said with a yawn, then rubbed his face with one hand and sat up a little straighter. “How long?”

“Till we hit the ground?”

He grinned at her. “You’re evil.”

“I like to think of it as ‘wicked.’ We land in about half an hour.”

Morgan glanced around the plane. “What are everybody else’s assignments?”

“Rossi and Reid will go to the first scene—Chicago Heights—using Tovar as a guide, though Rossi’s a Chicago boy himself. Meanwhile, Lorenzon will accompany Hotchner and JJ to talk to the Wauconda PD, and then they will visit thatcrime scene.”

He grunted. “Something, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

"A killer hiding inside the MOs of other killers."

“It’s a variation on an old theme, Morgan.”

Morgan nodded. “Hiding in plain sight.”

Nearly an hour later, the team was loading up three black Chevy Tahoes provided by the Chicago FBI field office. The heat was even more oppressive than usual, the humidity so high it couldn’t have been much harder to breathe if they’d been under Lake Michigan.

Having walked out with two carry-ons and loaded them into the Tahoe, Morgan found himself dripping sweat. Once their gear was stored and their weapons ready, the vehicles took off in three different directions, Hotchner and Jareau, accompanied by Lorenzon, to the north, Rossi and Reid, along with Tovar, to the south, while Morgan with Prentiss in the rider’s seat drove east.

He followed I-90, then turned south after it merged with I-94. Outside, the afternoon sun blazed down, reflecting off their vehicle’s hood; but inside the air-conditioning hummed quietly. Morgan left the car radio off—he was in work mode.

They had been on the road the better part of ninety minutes when Prentiss asked, “How much longer?”

He gave her a sideways, arched-eyebrow look. “Didn’t you work in Chicago before you joined the BAU?”

Prentiss smiled but didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“A while.”

“Then you knowhow much longer, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Just making conversation.”

“You don’t have to go out of your way to be friendly with me, Emily. I like you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“By which I mean, I respect you. You’ve done well.” He returned his eyes to the swarming traffic. “But you figure Hotch is still testing you.”

“Why would he be testing me?” Her voice sounded a little defensive. “It’s been over a year, and I wasn’t exactly a novice when I joined the BAU.”

Morgan grinned. “Hell, Emily, he’s still testing me. I’d say he’s still testing himself. He’s the team leader. That’s part of his job. And just maybe you’ve noticed he’s wrapped tighter than a new spool of thread.”

“He lacks confidence in me.”

“Why do you say that?”

She shrugged. “Hotch knows I know Chicago. But he had youdrive.”

“Maybe he thinks it’s a man’s job.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Yes.” Morgan laughed. “Is there a possibility you’re overthinking this?”

She smiled again and looked away as they crossed the Chicago River. He had to pass the street they wanted and exit the expressway at Thirty-first Street, then work his way back to Twenty-fifth. He went west on Thirty-first for a block, turned north on Wentworth and followed that through the light at Twenty-sixth, taking a left onto Twenty-fifth, only to find that the street was blocked by fireplug-sized columns of cement after about a car-length, turning the street into a cul-de-sac, leaving Morgan on the wrong side. Still, an alley ran back south and that would keep him from having to make a U-turn to get out.

“Of course,” Prentiss said, “ Iwould have known not to do that.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Yes,” she said.

The first building on the south side of the street faced Wentworth, the alley running behind it. Across the alley to the west, the first thing Morgan saw was a set of four concrete stairs with wrought-iron railings, the stairs leading to thin air, the building they rose to long since demolished, going nowhere except to overlook a stretch of grass and weeds, surrounded by a four-foot cyclone fence.

Prentiss gave him a look. “Stairway to heaven?”

“If it is,” Morgan said, “next door you’ll find the stairway to hell.” He looked down the block at the next residence from the building-less stairs.

The house with 213 stenciled on the mailbox next to the front door was a dirty beige two-story. From his angle parked at the northeast corner, Morgan could see that something drastic, probably a fire, had happened to the huge structure once upon time.

The front half of the building was the dirty beige siding; the back half was old, bronze-colored brick. A door on the east side split the border of the two halves, which would be the entrance to the middle apartment, and where the alley curved around behind the building would be the entrance to the rear apartment. The length of two normal houses, the ungainly structure might have been constructed half from LEGOs and half from Lincoln Logs.

“Weird damn building,” Morgan muttered.

He drove down the alley, then turned west on Twenty-sixth and then right again on Wells, taking one last right, coming around on Twenty-fifth, then pulling up to the building in question.

He parked in front.

They were in the heart of Chinatown, the part tourists never ventured into. Chinese-American pedestrians strolled up and down the street and through the alley; several others sat on back porches of the three-story building that faced Wentworth, many smoking as they watched the strangers in the fancy SUV climb out into the late afternoon swelter.

More sat on stoops along Twenty-fifth, all with their eyes on Morgan and Prentiss. The old cliché about Asians being inscrutable was contradicted by the faces whose eyes were trained on the two FBI agents—reading the distrust and suspicion there didn’t take much in the way of profiling skills.

Prentiss, trying out a smile on several of the neighbors, asked, “How did a killer get that barrel into the apartment with this many witnesses?”

“My guess is it’s a little different at night,” Morgan said. “Chinatown’s always been a closed community to the Bureau. What happens in Chinatown stays in Chinatown.”

“You mean, ‘Forget it, Emily. It’s Chinatown?’ ”

“Something like that.”

“Well, according to the report, the police thoroughly canvassed the neighborhood.”

Morgan glanced at her. “What did they find?”

“They got exactly as much information as you would expect.”

“Meaning nothing.”

“Meaning nothing.”

Using a pocketknife, Morgan cut the crime scene tape. Then from the pocket of his slacks, he withdrew a key Lorenzon had given him and unlocked the door.

“After you,” he said.

Prentiss smirked; she was a good-looking woman and even her smirk wasn’t hard to look at. “I don’t care what anybody says, Derek Morgan—you’re a gentleman.”

They entered the dark building, each using Mini Maglites to help find their way through the shadows. Even though the windows lacked curtains, the glass was so grimy that little light made it through.

Using her Maglite, Prentiss searched and finally found a light switch. She flipped it, but nothing happened.

“Not a surprise,” she said.

“No wonder no one saw anything,” Morgan said. “If we can’t see out, it’s a good bet nobody can see in.”

“Where was the barrel situated?”

Morgan glanced around in the gloom, getting his bearings.

“Over there,” he said, pointing to a hallway that led to a bedroom.

The layout was fairly simple: a living room led into a small kitchen with an eating area and a tiny bedroom down the hall, which led to the second floor and two more bedrooms and a bathroom. Morgan walked the whole thing and got the feeling no one had lived here for a long, long time—nobody but an occasional homeless inhabitant, anyway.

Once he was back downstairs, he found Prentiss shining her light around the edges of the windows.

“You read the report,” Morgan said. “When was the last time someone lived here?”

“Three years ago.”

“No one since?”

“Squatters maybe, but no one on the books.” Morgan nodded. “What do we know about the corpse?”

“Other than he’s a John Doe?”

“Yeah.”

Prentiss lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “He was stuffed in the barrel postmortem. The UnSub poured lime in to keep the smell down, and to hasten decomposition—of course, that means the UnSub doesn’t know that lime actually helps preservea body. I don’t know why people think lime speeds decomposition.”

“Old wives’ tale. Nasty COD?”

She nodded and raised a pale hand to her throat. “Cause of death was strangulation.”

Morgan watched Prentiss move to the next window in the front and start poking around the edges with her flashlight beam.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

She stopped and turned to face him. “One thing that wasn’t in the report was how the UnSub got inside. The door wasn’t jimmied and that barrel got in here somehow.”

Morgan nodded. “Right. He had to either have a key or he came in through a window and unlocked the door, so he could wheel the barrel in.”

They were already referring to the UnSub as “he”—these murders seemed a man’s crime, nothing about it indicated a rare female serial killer, although the lack of sexual assault left that open.

“If the UnSub had a key,” Prentiss said, forehead creased with thought, “where did he get it?”

“Or if he came in through one of the windows,” Morgan said, gesturing toward one, “why didn’t anybody see him?”

She put both shoulders into a shrug. “Late at night, probably. But with that barrel, he had to have it somewhere nearby.”

“The cops haven’t explained it?”

Prentiss shook her head. “I know it’s not supposed to be up to us to gather the evidence, but how this UnSub got into the place might tell us something about him.”

“Agreed,” Morgan said. “You keep looking here– I want to check something out.”

He went into the kitchen, where he turned the knob on a door he thought might adjoin the middle apartment; but he found a short hallway with the middle apartment’s door on the right, at the far end, and nearer, on the left, a stairway leading down.

Shining his light ahead of him, he descended ten steps into a dank basement redolent of urine and mildew.

No wonder nobody checked down here,he thought.

Cobwebs drooped everywhere but in the stairwell itself, where they had been removed. A thick layer of dust coated the floor, the furnace, and a few scraps of worthless furniture. He shone his light on the floor and saw footprints in the dust.

He used the light to follow them back to a half window on the far wall. One of two panes had been broken and the latch opened from there. The window was only about twelve inches high and twenty inches across.

Now they knew something about their UnSub: he was a lot of things, but overweight wasn’t one of them.

Morgan went back upstairs, told Prentiss what he’d found, and told her not to step on the floor. He had left the door open just in case, by some miracle, prints might turn up on the basement side.

He got out his cell phone and called Hotchner and detailed to the team leader what they had found, and suggested Lorenzon get his crime scene team back right away.

July 28 Chicago Heights, Illinois

   Dr. Spencer Reid felt a little bit like the kid who had been dumped on his older brother for the day. He rode in back of the SUV with Rossi and Tovar up front. The Chicago Heights detective was behind the wheel, even though it was an FBI vehicle.

Up front, the two men were discussing baseball, the Chicago Cubs in particular, an area of expertise not among Reid’s skill set.

Rossi was saying, “You really think this is the year?”

Tovar nodded as he drove them south. “They won the division last year, didn’t they?”

“Then got spanked by Arizona.”

“Yeah, but the pitching’s better now.”

Rossi shrugged. “Believe it when I see it.”

From the backseat, Reid watched the neighborhood change as they cruised farther south from mostly Caucasian to mostly Hispanic to mostly African-American. By the time they reached their destination, however, the neighborhood had become a middle-class melting pot of variant homes and blacktop streets with no curbs and no apparent storm sewers.

Tovar drove through a neighborhood of well-tended homes that varied from ordinary single-story boxes to brick-faced two-stories that looked like they had fallen off the mansion truck and landed beside the road in the wrong neighborhood.

“Odd mix of houses,” Reid said.

“Yeah,” Tovar said. “Some of the old houses are being bought up, torn down, and replaced by newer ones. Other oldies are getting the renovation treatment.”

“Gentrification,” Rossi said. “Gotta love it.” But he clearly didn’t.

“Oh yeah,” Tovar said. “The neighborhood’s changing.”

Reid asked, “For the better?”

“Matter of opinion,” Tovar said. “Certainly isn’t better for the Andrews family.”

The Chicago detective pulled the Tahoe to a stop next to a plain but well-maintained one-story tan house surrounded by trees and bushes. “This is where the daughter was parked with her boyfriend when they were shot to death back in April.”

Reid looked around, trying to get a feel for the neighborhood. The houses were not terribly close together and they all appeared well cared for, a fairly typical middle-class neighborhood. Across the street, a park spread out before them, a parking lot on the far side of the block.

“Quiet,” Reid said.

“Too quiet, like they say in the old movies,” Tovar said. “No crimes to speak of, here.”

They climbed out of the SUV, each taking a moment to survey the area. Reid couldn’t take his eyes off the parking lot across the park. Trees shaded the cars that were nosed in, facing this direction. To see who was or was not inside those cars from there was impossible without binoculars or a high-powered camera lens. The powerlessness gave him an uneasy feeling.

Rossi asked the Chicago detective, “Did the boy and girl park alongside the house and make out, you know, as a regular thing?”

“They had been dating for a while,” Tovar said.

“I think it’s safe to say that night wasn’t the first time they’d sat there and necked, yeah.”

Reid nodded across the way. “That park would give someone an easy place to surveil the victims.”

“Of course,” Rossi said, “but how did he know they would be there on this particular night? Nothing indicates whether this was a randomly chosen couple, or one that the killer had selected and watched over time.”

Reid agreed.

Tovar looked blank.

Rossi said, “The boy, Benny Mendoza? His coach had taken Benny and his girl to the White Sox game that night. Benny was a promising young ballplayer. Anyway, the game got rained out late. The boy and girl didn’t get back till well after midnight.” Rossi made a face at Reid. “How the hell could the UnSub have known that?”

Reid considered that for a moment; then he put some pieces together. “Let’s suppose he was indeed stalking the couple.”

“Suppose away,” Rossi said.

“If he’s re-creating Berkowitz’s crime, it’s the street he’s most concerned with—Hutchinson Avenue. What if he was stalking more than one couple along the street, and this one, Andrews and Mendoza, was the couple that happened to show up at the right time?”

Tovar said, “Wrong time, you mean.”

Rossi was looking at Reid, hard. “You’re saying it could have been anyone along the street?”

“It’s possible,” Reid said. “Son of Sam shot individuals as well as couples.”

“Dr. Reid could be right,” Tovar said. “The weather was bad that night. Rained like hell most of the evening. I doubt if there were a lot of people out and about.”

Reid said, “This isn’t the only house visible from the park.”

Rossi said, “It would be easy to watch most of the street from that parking lot.”

“There’s something else,” Reid said.

The other two turned to him.

"Our UnSub is patient. He takes care and exercises a certain artistry, but he’s not a perfectionist—he’s willing to fudge a little on his re-creations.”

Rossi eyed Reid skeptically. “And you’ve reached this conclusion how?”

Reid shrugged. “He waited.”

Rossi chewed on that momentarily. Then he said, “He sat in wait until his victims came along. Yeah.

I’ll buy that.”

“No, I think you miss my point—I mean, he waited past midnight.”

The other two stared at him.

“Technically,” Reid said, articulating something he’d discerned on first reading the report, “he missed the anniversary of the Son of Sam killing. He shot them in the early morning hours of the eighteenth.”

“What does that mean?” Tovar asked.

Rossi sighed, gave Reid a little smile that meant, Nice going, and said to the Chicago cop, “It means that even though he’s re-creating crimes, our UnSub is willing to adapt his crime so that he gets his kill… even if it undermines the exactness of his recreation.”

Tovar still seemed confused. “And what does thattell us?”

Rossi tilted his head just a little, then righted it. “Even though he’s patient and highly organized in his planning, he’s goingto kill—that’s the priority– even if it doesn’t fall within the exact boundaries of what he’s trying to create.”

“Or rather,” Reid put in, “re-create.”

Rossi nodded, then went on: “Reid used the word ‘artistry,’ and I think that’s right on point: in his own way, probably in his own mind, our UnSub is an artist. Instead of just painting or sculpting the things that inspire him, he’s acting them out.”

“It wasn’t clear until we got here,” Reid said, “but aren’t these jurisdictions where he committed the crimes rather far apart?”

“Yeah,” Tovar said, with a nod.

“ Howfar apart?” Reid asked.

Tovar gestured vaguely. “The Chinatown crime scene is about an hour from here, depending on traffic. The Wauconda crime scene is at least an hour and a half north of here.”

Reid’s eyes tightened. “That tells us something too.”

“Which is?” Tovar asked.

“He’s mobile,” Reid said.

“He owns a car,” Rossi agreed.

“What kind?” Tovar asked, a smile creasing his face. It was a joke.

Smiling back, Rossi said, not joking at all, “Something inconspicuous, probably an older car that would blend in. It won’t be anything too flashy and the color will be something neutral or subdued, too. He’s been spending a lot of time planning these crimes. He has to’ve spent a lot of time in the areas where they took place… and no one noticed him.”

“Okay,” Tovar said, impressed. “I can get on board with that.”

Reid asked, “Were all the crimes committed at night?”

“This one was,” Tovar said. “The other two, the bodies were found well after the murders, so there’s no way to know for sure.”

Reid turned to Rossi. “If he’s spending this much time in these places, doesn’t he have to have some job freedom?”

Rossi nodded, once.

Tovar asked, “Why not just unemployed?”

Rossi shook his head. He patted the SUV near where they stood. “Not likely with the distance between these crime scenes and Chicago gas prices. He’s got a job that allows him at least some freedom.”

“You’re sure of this?” Tovar asked.

“It’s an educated guess,” Rossi said. “But a very educated guess.”

The Hispanic detective mulled that. “Maybe his wife works, or he’s somebody that doesn’t have to work, ’cause his family left him money or something.”

“Possible,” Rossi said with a tiny smile. “Not probable.”

Mind going a million miles an hour, Reid said, “His job doesn’t give him the satisfaction he needs, either.”

“Why do you say that?” Tovar asked.

“These crimes are all about getting attention,” Reid said. “There’s no indication of any sexual aspects to the killings, so the UnSub’s doing it for two things: self-satisfaction, a twisted sense of self-worth you might say; and, again, the attention.”

Rossi said, “You can’t be a performance artist if there’s no audience.”

Reid and Tovar both turned to look at the goateed FBI agent, his words having hit them both fairly hard.

As Reid digested the idea, Tovar turned toward the house. Following the detective’s gaze, Reid turned as well and saw a stocky man of about five-nine striding across the yard in their direction. He had short hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a sad, pouchy face etched with a frown.

Tovar stepped forward, hand extended. “Mr. Andrews.”

“Detective Tovar,” Andrews said politely. He wore khakis and a tan-and-brown striped Polo shirt. “Good to see you again.”

Reid and Rossi let the detective take the lead.

Tovar said, “Vernon Andrews, this is Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi and Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid from the FBI.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Rossi said, shaking the man’s hand.

Andrews nodded. “Thank you.”

“For what it’s worth, we’re here to help bring the person who did this terrible thing to justice.”

“If I can help in any way, don’t hesitate.”

Andrews was saying this as he shook Reid’s hand, the grieving man’s grasp limp and cool, a dead man’s handshake.

Reid added his condolences.

“Thank you,” Andrews said.

“Mr. Andrews,” Reid went on, “we’d like to ask you some questions, if that would be all right.”

“Will it help find my daughter’s killer?”

Rossi said, “We hope so, sir.”

“Then please ask. But I’m afraid I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t already told Detective Tovar.”

“We know what happened,” Rossi said. “Right now, we’re more concerned with why it happened… and how.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Andrews said.

Rossi said, “The police have given us a good picture of the night your daughter and her boyfriend were killed. We want to know what led up to that moment.”

“How on earth can I help with that?”

With a small, respectful smile, Rossi asked, “Mr. Andrews, would you call yourself an observant man?”

With a shrug, Andrews said, “I try to be.”

“Let me ask you then—did you see anyone watching your house or the neighborhood in the weeks before your daughter was shot? Someone who didn’t belong here?”

The grief-stricken father considered that for a long moment.

Finally, he said, “You know, I never gave it a second thought before… but Addie told me one night, last March? That she had thought someone was watching her and Benny, when they were parked next to the house. Actually, it was a kind of accusation—she assumed it was her mother or me, spying on her. At the time, I was so worried about convincing her that she should trust us, that she must’ve just been imagining things, that I… I never took in account that someone might actually be watching them.”

Reid asked, “Did Addie say whyshe’d thought you were watching her and Benny?”

“She said… said it felt like someone was there in the darkness when they were sitting in the car. With all the trees around the house, she assumed it was Doris—that’s her mom. Or me.”

“And it wasn’t?”

“No. I’m as protective as the next father. But we were young once, we knew the kids needed some time to themselves… and, anyway, we trusted Benny. Hewas a good kid, too. We liked him. I’m pretty sure Addie loved him, though she hadn’t told us that.” He looked at Tovar. “You’re a parent, Detective. You understand.”

Tovar nodded gravely. “It’s a balancing act between trying to protect them and letting go.”

“Yes,” Andrews said, and swallowed. “I should have protected her more. Did I screw up?”

Rossi said, “No, sir. No…”

“Should I have taken what Addie said more seriously, about someone watching her? I screwed up, didn’t I?”

Gently, Rossi touched the father’s sleeve. “No. You didn’t. Let go of that thought. It’s no good.”

Andrews swallowed again, and nodded. “But I can’t help but blame myself, Mr. Rossi.”

“We’re going to find the one to blame, Mr. Andrews,” Rossi said firmly. “And it’s not you.”

As the four men stood in a loose semicircle, a short, heavyset woman in a blue T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes emerged from around the house. The blue T-shirt was emblazoned with a white cross next to which the words St. Vincent’s Parents Association were printed. The woman’s blonde hair was trimmed short.

Reid could easily see the resemblance between mother and deceased daughter.

“This is Doris,” Andrews said. “My wife.”

She gave them a wan smile. She still seemed shell-shocked from the loss of her daughter, even though months had passed.

Reid also knew that the haunted look would probably never go away, not entirely. He had seen it far too many times in his relatively short tenure with the BAU. Parents never got over the loss of a child. Not really.

They asked her the same questions they had posed to her husband. She, too, shook her head when asked if she had seen anyone watching the neighborhood; she, too, commented that her daughter had accused her parents of watching her and Benny.

Frustrated, Reid turned to Rossi who shrugged. They would get the police to canvass the neighborhood again, but so much time had passed that they would be incredibly lucky if anyone remembered anything.

“I’m sorry,” Andrews said. “It looks like we’ve let you down. And if we’ve let youdown, we’ve let Addie down.”

Rossi jumped in. “I know it’s natural to blame yourselves. You have to understand, you didn’t have anything to do with what happened to your daughter.”