Part 11 (1/2)
”Hey, I might only have two years of college, but the Fed here-” Marquez indicated Garon ”-he's got a degree.”
The man stared at Garon without blinking. It was disconcerting. ”Fed?”
”Sure,” Marquez said. ”He's FBI.”
”I...I didn't know they'd called the Bureau in on this case,” the man stammered.
”We requested his help,” Marquez said. He didn't say why.
The man looked less confident. ”Well, of course, the FBI would have experts on serial murder,” he murmured, almost to himself, ”and you'd need one for this case.”
Garon frowned. ”Why do you think this case is a serial killing?”
The man laughed hollowly. ”No reason. It's just, there was a very similar case in the papers last year sometime. That was a child, too. It was in Texas somewhere. Two of them would make it serial, wouldn't it?”
Garon stared at him. ”We're not prepared to call it that just yet.”
The man was all smiles as he walked them out. ”Anything more I can do, I'll be here. Just ask.”
Marquez and Garon left, walking slowly back to the Bureau car that Garon had driven here in. The man watched them leave, waving again as they got into the car and pulled away.
”I don't like him,” Marquez said suddenly.
”Why not?”
Marquez s.h.i.+fted, adjusting his seat belt. ”I don't know. There's something about him. Something not right.”
Garon gave him a curious look. ”How long have you worked homicide?”
”Four years. Why?”
Garon smiled to himself. ”You carry a gun with you when you empty your trash can.”
Marquez's eyes widened. ”How the h.e.l.l did you know that?”
”You keep one by the bed, one in the bathroom, one in the kitchen and you wear a spare in an ankle holster.”
”Who's being investigated here?” the younger man demanded.
”I'm right. You know I am.”
Marquez made a rough sound in his throat. ”They aren't catching me off guard,” he said firmly.
”You need to work in another area for a while,” he commented. ”Too many homicides will burn you out.”
”And you'd know this, how?”
”I was in the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, and then in SWAT,” he said. ”I wanted something to keep my mind busy. But I saw too many dead people. I woke up one night with a victim sitting in the chair beside my bed, asking why I didn't shoot before the kidnapper did. The victim had been a hostage.” He shrugged. ”You can work homicides too long.”
Marquez laughed hollowly. ”I guess so.”
”But don't ask for a transfer until we solve this case,” Garon added. ”I think you're right about the murders being related. He's good. He's very good. He put the body in a field near the road, where it would be found easily. He wanted her found. If your crime scene investigator was right, she'd been tortured for some time. That means the killer has to have a place where he feels comfortable keeping a child bound, without fear of discovery. It also means he's c.o.c.ky. He thinks he's smarter than we are.”
”Did you ever do profiling?”
Garon shook his head. ”We have professionals who do that. But I've read the crime scene report and talked to the parents. I've worked serial killings before. This guy is a s.a.d.i.s.tic killer. He likes to hurt children. He gets off on their pain.”
”Organized or disorganized?”
”Organized, definitely,” Garon replied, stopping at a red light. ”He took time to dress the child and even put her shoes and socks back on. He posed her at the site where she was found. He tied a red ribbon around her neck. In fact,” he added grimly, ”she was likely strangled with the ribbon.”
”You think there's a connection to the Palo Verde case?”
”Yes, and also to the Del Rio case two years ago.”
”That would make three similar child murders in three years,” Marquez said.
He nodded. ”And that makes it serial murder. We're going to drive over to Del Rio right now,” he added, making a turn. ”If we can't get anybody to talk to us on the phone or via e-mail, we'll just drop in for coffee.”
”I'll bet you they drink instant,” Marquez muttered.
”I'll bet you're right.”
In fact, they did. There was only one policeman on duty when they arrived, and he was responsible for every facet of policing.
He apologized for not answering their calls. ”We've had a clown calling the office day and night to report ghostly apparitions,” he muttered. ”The guy's got two screws loose and every time we ignore him, he threatens us with his family's lawyers. They're rich, his family.” He shook his head. ”It was better when we had the voodoo guy, trying to put spells on us by sticking pins in a G.I. Joe doll.
Garon smiled despite himself. ”We want to know what you've got on the child killing year before last.”
He frowned. ”Now that's a funny thing,” he said. ”No, I don't mean the killing was funny. There was this guy, said he was a reporter for one of the east Texas dailies. He asked to see the file on the murder. I figured it wouldn't hurt, to have a little publicity. Might turn up a suspect. I had a call, so I left the guy with the file and told him I'd be right back. I had to work an accident, and wait for the state police because there were injuries. By the time I got back to the office, the reporter was gone. The phone started ringing. The file was on the desk, so I just stuck it back in the cabinet and answered the phone.” He sipped coffee. ”Next day, I wanted to take another look at the case, so I pulled out the file. It had ten sheets of blank paper in it. No evidence, no crime scene photos, no nothing.”
”d.a.m.n!” Marquez grumbled.
”I know, it was naive to leave the guy alone with the file. But I figured I could track him down. I phoned every daily in east Texas.”
”He didn't work for any newspaper,” Garon figured.
”Apparently not.”
”What was in the file?” Marquez asked.
”Crime scene photos, trace evidence, swatches of the child's underwear.”
Garon frowned. ”Nothing else?”
”Not really.”