Ashes to Ashes (6 page)

Walsh hustled along three paces behind him, coughing. “Everything. This whole section of park, including the parking area and the utility shed. The homicide guys called in their own Bureau of Investigation crime scene people and the mobile lab from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as well. They were very thorough.”

“When did this rain start?”

“This morning.”

“Shit,” Quinn grumbled. “Last night—would the ground have been hard or soft?”

“Like a rock. They didn’t get any shoe prints. They picked up some garbage—scraps of paper, cigarette butts, like that. But hell, it’s a public park. The stuff could have come from anyone.”

“Anything distinguishing left at the first two scenes?”

“The victims’ driver’s licenses. Other than that, nothing to my knowledge.”

“Who’s doing the lab work?”

“BCA. Their facilities are excellent.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“They’re aware they can contact the FBI lab if they need help or clarification on anything.”

Quinn pulled up just short of the charred ground where the body had been left, a thick, dark sense of oppression closing tight around his chest as it always did at a crime scene. He had never tried to discern whether the feeling was anything as mystical or romantic as the notion of a malingering sense of evil or something as psychologically profound as displaced guilt. The feeling was just a part of him. He supposed he should have welcomed it as some proof of his humanity. After all the bodies he’d seen, he had yet to become totally hardened.

Then again, he might have been better off if he had.

For the first time, he opened the folder Walsh had given him and looked at the photographs someone had had the foresight to slip into plastic protectors. The tableau presented might have made the average person recoil. Portable halogen lights had been set up near the body to illuminate both the night and the corpse, giving the photo a weirdly artistic quality. As did the charring of the flesh, and the melted fabric of the woman’s clothing. Color against the absence of color; the fanciful vibrance of a triangle of undamaged red skirt against the grim reality of its wearer’s violent death.

“Were the others wearing clothes?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll want to see those photos too. I’ll want to see everything they’ve got. You have my list?”

“I faxed a copy to the homicide detectives. They’ll try to have it all together for the task force meeting. Hell of a sight, isn’t it?” Walsh nodded to the photograph. “Enough to put a person off barbecue.”

Quinn made no comment as he further studied the photo. Because of the heat of the fire, the muscles and tendons of the limbs had contracted, pulling the victim’s arms and legs into what was technically known as a pugilistic attitude—a position that suggested animation. A suggestion made macabre by the absence of the head.

Surreal, he thought. His brain wanted to believe he was looking at a discarded mannequin, something that had been dragged too late out of the incinerator at Macy’s. But he knew what he was looking at had been flesh and bone, not plastic, and she had been alive and walking around three days earlier. She had eaten meals, listened to music, talked with friends, attended to the boring minutiae of the average life, never imagining that hers was nearly over.

The body had been positioned with the feet pointing toward downtown, which Quinn thought might have been more significant if the head had also been posed or buried nearby. One of the more infamous cases he had studied years before had included the decapitation of two victims. The killer, Ed Kemper, had buried the heads in the backyard of his family home, beneath his mother’s bedroom window. A sick private joke, Kemper had later admitted. His mother, who had emotionally abused him from boyhood, had “always wanted people to look up to her,” he’d said.

The head of this victim had not been found and the ground was too hard for the killer to have buried it here.

“There’re a lot of theories on why he’s burning them,” Walsh said. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet, trying unsuccessfully to keep the cold from knifing into his bones. “Some people think he’s just a copycat of the Wirth Park murders. Some people think it’s symbolism: Whores of the world burn in hell—that kind of thing. Some think he’s trying to obscure the forensic evidence and the victim’s identity at the same time.”

“Why leave the DL if he doesn’t want them identified?” Quinn said. “Now he takes this one’s head. That makes her pretty damn hard to recognize—he didn’t have to burn her up. And still he leaves the driver’s license.”

“So you think he’s trying to get rid of trace evidence?”

“Maybe. What’s he use for an accelerant?”

“Alcohol. Some kind of high-test vodka or something.”

“Then the fire is more likely part of his signature than it is part of his MO,” Quinn said. “He might be getting rid of trace evidence, but if that’s all he wanted, why wouldn’t he just use gasoline? It’s cheap. It’s easily had with little or no interaction with another person. He chooses alcohol for an emotional reason rather than a practical one. That makes it part of the ritual, part of the fantasy.”

“Or maybe he’s a big drinker.”

“No. A drinker doesn’t waste good booze. And that’s exactly what he’d call this: a waste of good liquor. He may be drinking prior to the hunt. He may drink during the torture and murder phase. But he’s no drunk. A drunk would make mistakes. Sounds like this guy hasn’t made any so far.”

None that anyone had noticed, at any rate. He thought again of the two hookers whose death had preceded this woman’s and wondered who had caught their cases: a good cop or a bad cop. Every department had its share of both. He’d seen cops shrug and sleepwalk through an investigation if they didn’t feel the victim was worth their time. And he’d seen veteran cops break down and cry over the violent death of someone most taxpaying citizens wouldn’t sit next to on the bus.

He closed the file. Rain ran down his forehead and dripped off the end of his nose.

“This isn’t where he left the others, is it?”

“No. One was found in Minnehaha Park and one in Powderhorn Park. Different parts of the city.”

He would need to see maps, to see where each dumping site was in relation to the others, where each abduction had taken place—to try to establish both a hunting territory and a killing and/or dumping territory. The task force would have maps in their command center, posted and flagged with little redheaded pins. Standard op. There was no need to ask. His mind was already full of maps bristling with pins. Manhunts that ran together like tag-team events, and command centers and war rooms that all looked alike and smelled alike, and cops who tended to look alike and sound alike, and smell like cigarettes and cheap cologne. He couldn’t separate the cities anymore, but he could remember every single one of the victims.

The exhaustion poured through him again, and he wanted nothing more than to lie down right there on the ground.

He glanced over at Walsh as the agent fell into another spasm of deep, phlegm-rattling coughing.

“Let’s go,” Quinn said. “I’ve seen enough here for now.”

He’d seen enough, period. And yet it took him another moment to move his feet and follow Vince Walsh back to the car.

THE TENSION IN the mayor’s conference room was high and electric. Grim excitement, anticipation, anxiety, latent power. There were always those who saw murder as tragedy and those who sensed career opportunity. The next hour would sort out one type from the other, and establish the power order of the personalities involved. In that time Quinn would have to read them, work them, decide how to play them, and slot them into place in his own scheme of things.

He straightened his back, squared his aching shoulders, lifted his chin, and made his entrance. Show time. The heads turned immediately as he walked in the door. On the plane he had memorized the names of some of the principal players here, scouring the faxes that had come into the office before he’d left Virginia. He tried to recall them now, tried to sort them from the hundreds of others he’d known in hundreds of conference rooms across the country.

The mayor of Minneapolis detached herself from the crowd when she spotted him, and came toward him with purpose, trailing lesser politicians in her wake. Grace Noble resembled nothing so much as an operatic Valkyrie. She was fifty-something and large, built like a tree trunk, with a helmet of starched blond hair. She had no upper lip to speak of, but had carefully drawn herself one and filled it in with red lipstick that matched her suit.

“Special Agent Quinn,” she declared, holding out a broad, wrinkled hand tipped with red nails. “I’ve been reading all about you. As soon as we heard from the director, I sent Cynthia to the library for every article she could find.”

He flashed what had been called his
Top Gun
smile—confident, winning, charming, but with the unmistakable glint of steel beneath it. “Mayor Noble. I should tell you not to believe everything you read, but I find there is an advantage to having people think I can see into their minds.”

“I’m sure you don’t have to be able to read minds to know how grateful we are to have you here.”

“I’ll do what I can to help. Did you say you’d spoken with the director?”

Grace Noble patted his arm. Maternal. “No, dear. Peter spoke with him. Peter Bondurant. They’re old friends, as it happens.”

“Is Mr. Bondurant here?”

“No, he couldn’t bring himself to face the press. Not yet. Not knowing …” Her shoulders slumped briefly beneath the weight of it all. “My God, what this will do to him if it
is
Jillie… .”

A short African American man with a weightlifter build and a tailored gray suit stepped up beside her, his eyes on Quinn. “Dick Greer, chief of police,” he said crisply, thrusting out his hand. “Glad to have you on board, John. We’re ready to
nail
this creep.”

As if he would have anything to do with it. In a metropolitan police department the chief was an administrator and a politician, a spokesman, an idea man. The men in the trenches likely said Chief Greer couldn’t find his own dick in a dark room.

Quinn listened to the list of names and titles as the introductions were made. A deputy chief, a deputy mayor, an assistant county attorney, the state director of public safety, a city attorney, and a pair of press secretaries—too damn many politicians. Also present were the Hennepin County sheriff, a detective from the same office, a special agent in charge from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension with one of his agents, the homicide lieutenant from the PD—representatives from three of the agencies that would comprise the task force.

He met each with a firm handshake and played it low key. Midwesterners tended to be reserved and didn’t quite trust people who weren’t. In the Northeast he would have given more of the steel. On the West Coast he would have turned up the charm, would have been Mr. Affable, Mr. Spirit of Cooperation. Different horses for different courses, his old man used to say. And which one was the real John Quinn—even he didn’t know anymore.

“… and my husband, Edwyn Noble,” the mayor finished the introductions.

“Here in a professional capacity, Agent Quinn,” Edwyn Noble said. “Peter Bondurant is a client as well as a friend.”

Quinn’s attention focused sharply on the man before him. Six five or six six, Noble was all joints and sinew, an exaggerated skeleton of a man with a smile that was perfectly square and too wide for his face. He looked slightly younger than his wife. The gray in his hair was contained to flags at the temples.

“Mr. Bondurant sent his attorney?” Quinn said.

“I’m Peter’s personal counsel, yes. I’m here on his behalf.”

“Why is that?”

“The shock has been terrific.”

“I’m sure it has been. Has Mr. Bondurant already given the police his statement?”

Noble leaned back, the question physically putting him off. “A statement regarding what?”

Quinn shrugged, nonchalant. “The usual. When he last saw his daughter. Her frame of mind at the time. The quality of their relationship.”

Color blushed the attorney’s prominent cheekbones. “Are you suggesting Mr. Bondurant is a suspect in his own daughter’s death?” he said in a harsh, hushed tone, his gaze slicing across the room to check for eavesdroppers.

“Not at all,” Quinn said with blank innocence. “I’m sorry if you misunderstood me. We need all the pieces of the puzzle we can get in order to form a clear picture of things, that’s all. You understand.”

Noble looked unhappy.

In Quinn’s experience, the parents of murder victims tended to camp out at the police department, demanding answers, constantly underfoot of the detectives. After the description Walsh had given of Bondurant, Quinn had expected to see the man throwing his weight around city hall like a mad bull. But Peter Bondurant had reached out and touched the director of the FBI, called out his personal attorney, and stayed home.

“Peter Bondurant is one of the finest men I know,” Noble declared.

“I’m sure Agent Quinn didn’t mean to imply otherwise, Edwyn,” the mayor said, patting her husband’s arm.

The lawyer’s attention remained on Quinn. “Peter was assured you’re the best man for this job.”

“I’m very good at what I do, Mr. Noble,” Quinn said. “One of the reasons I’m good at my job is that I’m not afraid to
do
my job. I’m sure Mr. Bondurant will be glad to hear it.”

He left it at that. He didn’t want to make enemies of Bondurant’s people. Offend a man like Bondurant and he’d find himself called on the carpet before the Bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility—at the very least. On the other hand, after having Peter Bondurant jerk him out here like a dog on a leash, he wanted it made clear he wouldn’t be manipulated.

“We’re running short on time, people. Let’s take our seats and get started,” the mayor announced, herding the men toward the conference table like a first-grade teacher with a pack of little boys.

She stood at the political end of the table as everyone fell into rank, and drew breath to speak just as the door opened again and four more people walked in.