Believe No One (31 page)

Gordon pinched his thumb and index finger together to make a circle.
Okay.
Though it was far from okay.

The divemaster crab-walked down the steep incline and shone his light under the overhang. Gordon leaned against the rock face. The light began to fade, darkness closed in from the edges of his mask and he gasped, realizing he'd been holding his breath.
Breathe, you fucking idiot.
Hold your breath, and CO
₂
builds up in the blood; it's narcotic, and it can kill a diver, fast. He waited with his back to the wall of the cliff and focused on keeping his breathing slow and regular until his CO
₂
levels normalized and the torch beam brightened again.

A second later, sharp, frantic arrows of light darted right and left into the dark waters below him. Beams from John's torch. A ball of silver flashed past his face, mushrooming up and out as it rose; air from divemaster's regulator. Gordon had to grip the rock to stop himself tearing after it to the surface. Because when he'd peeped into the darkness under the overhang, he had seen a face staring back at him.

The narcissistic person has built an invisible wall around himself.

He is everything, the world is nothing. Or rather: He is the world.

E
RICH
F
ROMM
,
T
HE
A
RT OF
B
EING

Incident Command Post, Westfield, Williams County, Oklahoma

It wasn't any easier watching the recording a second time around, but Fennimore worked to establish a mental distance from what was happening on the screen, focusing on small details: the words the killer used, his movements, his body language, trying to discover context from flashes of the kill room as the clumsily edited recording cut from one camera shot to another.

They were crammed into a tiny meeting room with a single two-foot-square window and a floor fan to make up for the lack of air con, the heat from the data projector cancelling out the meagre cooling it provided. Dunlap, Fennimore, Simms, Hicks and Detmeyer were in the room; Professor Varley was contributing via Skype. They already had a list of physical details from the recording: the bloody bandage around the man's hand; brief glimpses of the walls showing a ribbed surface. Biometrics programs at the FBI had been put to work, estimating the killer's height and build using comparators in the room: the netbook computer on a stand in one of the shots; the defibrillator; cameras and lamps he stood next to; the size of his hands relative to Sharla Jane's face and body. Step length and gait mapped from the recording would be additional identifiers – if they ever got close to the man.

‘Dr Quint says the fact he used a block and tackle to raise and lower the weight explains why she didn't find bruising or soft-tissue injuries. The weight was just enough to stop Sharla Jane's lungs inflating.'

Collectively, those present took a deep breath.

Dunlap stopped the recording after the killer resuscitated Sharla Jane. ‘What does he mean, “This is not what I want?”' he said. ‘Does he feel bad about this?'

‘I don't think so,' Fennimore said. ‘He says, “I'll do it my own way.” As if previously he was acting under instruction, and now he's rejecting that instruction.'

‘You think there's a second mind at work here? I'd be fascinated to hear your reasoning.' Professor Varley, sensitive as always to anyone treading – be it ever so softly – on his turf.

Fennimore had set up his own netbook at one of the table placings, so they could all see the forensic psychologist and he could see the digital projector screen. Fennimore borrowed the remote and rewound to the section where the killer lowered the weight onto Sharla Jane's chest, then quickly raised it.

‘Look at that – he's fumbling. He hasn't a clue what he's doing – he's used to someone
telling
him what to do.'

Varley looked sceptical.

They watched the killer's frantic attempts at resuscitation.

‘He's panicked. Terrified,' Fennimore insisted.

‘The death of another human being is traumatic, even for a murderer,' Varley said.

‘He's killed five times before; you'd think he'd be better at it,' Fennimore said. Varley opened his mouth to speak, but the killer had started screaming at Sharla Jane, and Fennimore cut across him, pointing at the screen. ‘See that? The one time he loses control is when he thinks Sharla Jane is telling him what to do.'

For a few moments, the two men eyed each other, mutually hostile, then Detmeyer, calm and unruffled as always, opened his hand, asking for the remote control. Fennimore handed it over and the psychologist sped through to the last section.

‘Do you want me to stop?' the killer said. Then again, gazing directly into the camera lens, ‘Do you want me to stop?'

‘That repetition,' Detmeyer said. ‘He does seem to be talking to someone.'

‘Of course he is,' Varley said. ‘He uploaded the murder onto the web in a bid for notoriety. He knows he has an audience.'

Detmeyer said, ‘Agreed. But he seems to address someone
in particular
in the repetition. And there is a slight stress on the word “you”.'

‘There is not a
scintilla
of evidence he had an accomplice,' Varley said.

‘Okay, the jury's out on that one,' Dunlap said. ‘What else do we have?'

‘Can you wind back to his self-pitying speech, just before he removes the duct tape?' Simms asked.

Detmeyer obliged and they listened to the killer complain that he did right by the victims, gave them a nice home, but women always wanted more.

‘Sounds like he's hankering after a meaningful relationship with the women, but feels doomed to fail,' Dunlap said.

‘A man like that doesn't want an equal partnership between two adults, he wants to be worshipped,' Simms said.

For once, Varley deferred to the woman in the room. ‘He wants to be seen as a rescuer, a redeemer—'

‘A god,' Simms said flatly, and he inclined his head, another tacit agreement.

‘Women in Sharla Jane's situation aren't used to being “treated right”,' Detmeyer said, paraphrasing the killer. ‘His victims just emerged out of the most debased and desperate situations, and he is kind and attentive – at least at first. They must admire him, adore him, even. But as they regain some self-respect, even a little confidence, that relationship will inevitably change. They will see his weaknesses, as well as his strengths. He will sense the downgrading of his status from god to man, and he will
not
like that. They are no longer an extension of him; he feels a loss of control, and he finds that offensive, repellent, even terrifying.'

The recording ran on, and the man screamed at Sharla Jane, ‘I can't stand the way you
look
at me.'

‘We know he's not disfigured,' Dunlap said. ‘Everyone we talked to said he's Joe Average, but he doesn't like to be watched?'

‘Disfigurement can be in the mind,' Detmeyer said. ‘But he doesn't say, “I can't stand you
looking
at me.”' He played back the next section. ‘He says, “I can't stand
the way
you look at me.” See the expression on her face? She's pleading with him.'

Fennimore nodded. ‘Then he screams, “I CAN'T HELP YOU.”'

‘He's saying he can't give her what she needs,' Detmeyer said.

‘A god, failing in his own eyes,' Simms murmured.

Detmeyer nodded slowly, still staring at the screen.

Dunlap spoke up. ‘He
cares
that he failed her?'

‘Only insofar as it damages his self-image. His little lecture about putting the boy through shit with her addiction shouldn't be mistaken for compassion for the boy. It's self-pity – he's talking about himself,' Detmeyer said. ‘He's aware of others only as an extension of himself.'

‘But if he identifies with the children,' Simms said, ‘there has to be a chance some are still alive?'

She's thinking about Suzie,
Fennimore thought and, despite the heat in the room, he felt a chill.

‘This is a man entirely without compassion.' Professor Varley had been silent for some minutes, and Fennimore had almost forgotten his presence. ‘He exploits the children to gain the mothers' trust, and to exert control over them. That's all.'

Fennimore looked to Detmeyer for confirmation, and he gave a small nod.

‘Meanwhile, he's out there, and the kids are still missing,' Dunlap said.

A knock at the door, and Detective Valance entered, bringing a welcome breath of cool air from the corridor. He was holding a sheet of printer paper in one hand and a pen drive in the other.

‘Incoming,' he said. ‘Team Adam got back on the rib pattern on the walls of the room. They think it's the interior of a shipping container. Ellis put a couple extra teams on the haulage-firm canvass. But that's not the big news.' His gaze shifted excitedly from one investigator to another. ‘He just uploaded another recording. A message.'

He clicked a pen drive into a spare USB slot in the netbook and loaded the recording.

The man was dressed in black, as before, masked, with just a slit for the eyes and mouth.

‘It was me who put Sharla Jane Patterson on the Internet,' he said, his voice flat and unemotional. ‘Laney Dawalt was one of mine, and Rita Gaigan and Shayla Reed – a whole bunch of others, too. But that wasn't me.' He paused, realizing he had contradicted himself, seemed to rethink. ‘So we're clear? I
did
it, okay? I
killed
them – but that was me on autopilot. And that is all in the past. I don't follow orders any more. I'm a hands-on kinda guy and, from now on, what I say goes.'

He looked into the camera lens, and behind the ski mask, he smiled. That smile was rammed full of violence and threat and quiet, unfulfilled rage.

‘
I
decide when I'm ready to stop,' he says. ‘I'm BTK. And I've barely made a start.'

The screen went dark.

‘Are we sure this is our man?' Dunlap asked.

‘FBI biometrics aren't complete yet,' Valance said. ‘But he's the same build, it sounds like him, voice analysis is a good match to the other recording. And here's the kicker: Shayla Reed's name isn't on any list we gave to the media.'

It was their man, all right.

‘BTK?' Simms said. ‘Sounds familiar.'

‘Dennis Rader,' Detmeyer explained. ‘Killed at least ten people in Wichita, Kansas between 1974 and 2005. He sent taunting letters to the police. He even named himself – he didn't want the media coming up with something he didn't like. BTK stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill”.'

‘It's his joke,' Fennimore said. ‘Instead of binding, he's
blinding
his victims.'

‘So our killer's a copycat?' Dunlap asked.

Detmeyer seemed doubtful. ‘Rader stalked his victims, broke into their homes, tied them up and killed them in a variety of ways. He murdered men, women, children – a whole family on one occasion. Ligatures and strangulation played a big part in his fantasies. Our killer gets close to the families, becomes a member of the family, even. We don't know what he did with the kids, but I don't see any real similarities.'

‘He aspires to be as notorious as Rader, but he's creating his own legend,' Varley said.

‘And, like he said, he just got started,' Hicks added.

There was a moment of sinking dread as they calculated how much worse this was going to get, then something engaged in Fennimore's mind with an almost audible click. ‘No. What he
said
was, “I've barely made a start.”'

‘Well, excuse
me,
Professor Higgins,' Hicks said, with the faintest of smiles.

‘It's the difference in construction,' Fennimore said. ‘Wouldn't most Americans say, “I just got started”, as you did?'

‘People do say he talks funny,' Hicks agreed.

‘Like he's from back East,' Simms added. ‘If we could identify where, exactly …'

Dunlap looked to Detmeyer. ‘Can the FBI help with that?'

Detmeyer said, ‘The Bureau has a forensic linguistics database, but it's designed for threat assessment – and we already know the level of threat this man presents. You need an expert in geographical linguistics.'

Fennimore looked at Varley.

‘There's a chap I know at Aston University; he studied linguistics in the United States and retains an interest in the American vernacular,' Varley said. ‘I can ask, but I can't guarantee he'll be available at such short notice. And you will need to provide a quality transcription alongside the recording – otherwise you might as well shut your eyes and stick a pin in a map.'

‘I'll ask Josh Brown to do the transcription and liaise.'

Simms caught her breath and he thought she might object, but she seemed to think better of it and said instead: ‘Our man says he won't follow orders
any more.
Looks like he does have a partner, after all.'

Detmeyer tilted his head. ‘It would seem so.'

Varley said nothing.

‘He killed all those women because he was
told
to?' Hicks said.

‘Oh, I'm sure he wanted to,' Detmeyer said. ‘But it seems he wasn't happy with the
manner
of their deaths, until now.' He glanced at Fennimore's computer monitor, from where Professor Varley gazed unsmiling at the gathering. ‘I hope the Professor will forgive the jargon, but I think what we have here are “codependency” killers. Individually they might be relatively harmless, but together, it's like mixing potassium and water – the result is explosive. Buono and Bianchi, the Hillside Stranglers, worked together. The average age of a serial killer at the time of their first murder is twenty-eight, yet Buono was forty-three years old when they killed their first victim. Many believe that without the influence of the younger man, Buono would never have escalated to murder.'