Field of Graves (12 page)

He forced the thoughts away. Took a last gulp of his beer. Palmed the small gun, his throw-down weapon from the old days when he was a decent cop. It was ready to go, like a roommate begging to leave on the ultimate road trip.

He lifted the revolver to eye level. Read the words
Made in the USA
engraved on the side. It gave him a sense of pride—wouldn’t do to play with anything foreign, despite the supposed origins of the game. He leaned back in the chair and gave the cylinder a spin. One spin, one try. If it didn’t happen, he’d put the gun away until the next night. The ratcheting noise comforted him, and as it stopped he took a deep breath. Put eight pounds of pressure on the trigger pull and pointed it at his temple.

The staccato tones of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” filled the silent room, startling the gun from his hand. Baldwin grabbed for it and got a grip on it, then groaned and set the weapon in his lap. His fucking cell phone was ringing. Loudly. Insistently. He choked back a laugh. He’d forgotten to turn it off.

Ignore it!
He raised the weapon again.
Just do it. You won’t be able to sleep if you don’t play the game
. But a thought niggled in the back of his mind. Who the hell would be calling? No one had called in weeks. They’d tried, at first. “Take a leave of absence, Baldwin. We’ll be in touch.” And after the first month, they had been. But the calls inviting him back hadn’t been returned. When the case ultimately resolved, they’d sent him a letter giving him a year’s leave, left him alone to battle his demons.

Shaking his head, the curiosity got the better of him. He had all night to kill himself. Hell, he had the rest of his life to do it. He picked up the phone.

“What?” he barked.

“It’s Garrett.”

Baldwin sighed and gently set the gun back on the side table. Maybe it wasn’t his night to die after all.

20

Baldwin didn’t know exactly how to respond to the man on the other end of the phone. He opted for the truth.

“I’m kinda in the middle of something, Garrett.”

“Baldwin, I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important. I’m sorry it’s been so long. After our last conversation, I thought you’d rather not hear from me.”

Baldwin listened with half an ear to the platitudes from his former boss. His thoughts kept drifting to the gun next to him. Hopefully, this was a last-ditch mercy call and he could get back to the game. His attention gradually drifted back to the phone when he heard the word
killing
.

“Huh? What was that again?”

“The Nashville police are working two murders. Coeds from Vanderbilt. There are some bizarre aspects to the deaths. I think they may have a serial on their hands. I just talked to the captain down there. He’s an old friend of mine. Your name came up. Do you feel up to doing a little consulting? Or are you still messing around with your gun?”

Baldwin gave a little laugh. How nice to be so predictable.

“’Fraid I’m a little tied up at the moment, Garrett. With my stellar reputation and all, why the hell would they want me? Let me guess—you didn’t tell him the whole story?”

“Like I said, Mitchell Price is a friend. He knows what went down. He’s a big believer in second chances. So am I. I’m not asking you back to the Bureau. I’m asking you to talk to a friend of mine. Maybe give him a little advice. Maybe sign on for a while to see if they can get this guy who’s hunting young women in your backyard. That’s all.”

“Why don’t you send one of your people?”

“Because this is right up your alley. You’re already on-site. You’re familiar with the territory. And despite what you seem to consider your little fuckup, you’re still one of the best in the business. C’mon, Baldwin. Humor me. Get out of the house for a while. Maybe do some interacting with the rest of the world. It might pull you out of the funk. You have been in a funk, right, Baldwin?”

Therapy. Yeah, he was falling for that.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea, boss.”

“Well, I do. They need another brain, Baldwin, and I don’t have any to spare. Since you’re probably not real up-to-date with the program, we’re losing people right and left. Big bucks on the mashed potato circuit, everybody wants to be a consultant on cable TV. We’re low on resources, and all the remaining personnel are in Minnesota, working a skinner case. Guess you haven’t heard about that either. Never mind. Will you do it? It’s only a conversation.”

“I didn’t ask for any favors, Garrett.”

“This isn’t one for you, Baldwin. It’s a favor to me. Just call Price, go in and see him. You can make the decision from there.”

“Hold on,” Baldwin said as he pulled the phone away from his ear and reached for the TV remote. He turned up the opening of the local ten o’clock evening news. A pretty blond anchor in tortoiseshell glasses, with a long nose and the requisite overbite that reminded men of what a mouth like that could do, spoke quietly, with the intonation of doom only a TV person could muster. Two female students from Vanderbilt University had been found brutally raped and murdered, their bodies left at two of Nashville’s very public sites.

“The press has it.”

“Hard to keep it away from them.”

He stared up at the ceiling, willing the report to go away. He heard a woman’s voice fending off detailed questions nicely.
Quelling the panic,
Baldwin thought to himself. Shaking his head, he turned the TV up to listen.

“... Shelby Kincaid, of Bowling Green, Kentucky. She was a sophomore at Vanderbilt, and was reported missing several days ago by her roommate.” The woman cut off a question: “No, John, we’re not releasing the name of the roommate. Get real.” There was a ripple of laughter throughout the room. “The second victim is Jordan Blake, of Houston, Texas. She was a junior at Vanderbilt. Yes, she is the daughter of Gregory Blake. We don’t have any indication this crime is in any way related to her father’s business.” There was a flurry of sound, voices, papers, phones. The woman ignored it and pressed on.

“We want to pass a message to all students in town. Don’t go out alone. Stay with friends if possible. Keep your doors and windows locked at all times. Go to class in groups. Don’t put yourselves in any compromising situations, especially with alcohol and drugs. We’re doing our best to find the suspect. Thank you.” The shouting started again, but she turned and walked out of the room. A man the TV screen named as Dan Franklin approached the podium. Baldwin wasn’t paying attention anymore.

Man, the chick was pretty. He thought he knew her from somewhere, though she looked a little older and worn a little thin. They’d picked the right woman as their PR spokesman. Spokeswoman. She obviously knew everyone there, had kept them under control.

As he came back from his thoughts, the female anchor threw it to her co-anchor. The story was over. Then it hit him.
Taylor Jackson.
That’s who she was—they’d gone to Father Ryan together. He’d always thought she was hot as hell, but she was more into the popular crew’s scene than he had ever been. He’d never pursued the matter, and he’d bet a million dollars she’d never remember who he was. Besides, she was a couple of years younger, and he hadn’t been on the A-list on the private school circuit. Nashville really was a small town.

Baldwin switched stations and watched as another distraught female anchor gave the details of the rape and murder of the two girls. He was able to get a little more information before they cut away to the footage of the press conference. The rest of the story was a simple reprise. There was no new information coming out tonight.

He knew the cops had much more detail, but there was only so much the public could handle, much less understand. Without realizing he was doing so, Baldwin mentally began forming a profile of the murderer, murmuring to himself.

“Guy’s white, around thirty, complete sociopath. He’s killing in a private place, probably has some menial night job that gives him free movement during the day. Lives with someone who can support him, had a crappy childhood, domineering mother, distant father, yada, yada, yada. Killing girls with similar characteristics of someone close to him, probably has a record, these aren’t his first crimes. Has kept souvenirs, is keeping clippings from the paper and watching the media coverage. Doesn’t date, very organized, stalking the girls. Wants the police to see what he’s done, so he’s dumping in a public place. Lives in the area, has means of transport...” He trailed off. The typical profile of a serial killer.

It was getting redundant, and some of the profilers he knew had been sloppy lately, often throwing the same categories at all the killers, lumping them together. Granted, killers weren’t terribly original, but the complacency that came with dealing with these men was beginning to show. There were “former” profilers all over the cable news networks anytime a series of killings started, and even when there was only one violent crime to go on. They needed to be a little more careful. The word was out that they hadn’t been completely accurate in a few cases. He’d heard a former cop bluster his way through a television interview a few weeks before, saying, “Profilers don’t put cuffs on the criminals.” That could start some trouble.

Baldwin came back from his thoughts to hear Garrett yelling at him. “Sorry. What?”

“God, man, where’d you go?”

“Just watching a little TV.”

“I have something else I need you to know. It’s about Arlen.”

Baldwin tensed. “I don’t want to talk about him, Garrett. All bets are off if you bring him up again.”

“But, Baldwin, there’s new—”

“That’s my deal, Garrett. No Arlen, and I’ll think about talking to your friend. Are we clear?”

“You’re not exactly in a position to make demands on me, Baldwin. Just let me tell you what’s happening.”

“No.”

Garrett was silent for a moment. “Fine, have it your way. Will you call Price?”

Baldwin gave a last longing look at the gun. “Yeah.”

He clicked off the phone and gently set it down on the table beside him. Went into the kitchen, fetched another Guinness. Poured it into an ice-cold mug from the freezer. He’d always preferred it cold, rather than the correct British lukewarm.

The gun wasn’t calling as loudly now. He’d felt a small adrenaline rush at the news reports. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to talk to the captain. He could pull out at any time and come back to his miserable little existence. Maybe fate was dealing him a new hand. He guzzled half the beer, called Price at home, and set an appointment for eight in the morning.

He sat back in the chair, took a smaller sip of the beer, picked up an empty notepad from the coffee table. Began writing out the thoughts in his head. Time to trade the mind of one madman for another.

21

Taylor was wide-awake. She had gone home after the press conference and hit the bed completely exhausted, hoping a good night’s sleep would help her think clearly in the morning. Instead, she kept reviewing the facts of the case. The whiteboard from the squad room shone brightly in her mind’s eye, the faces of the dead girls running over and over through her head.

After an hour of tossing and turning, she finally accepted sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon. She got out of the bed and made her way to her pool table, flipped on the TV as she walked by for noise.

Racked the balls. Took the break. Smoothly cracked the balls into their respective pockets. She felt the tension go out of her shoulders as she finally started to relax. The rain was still coming down. The local weather station had broken into the late-night feed to give radar warnings for the severe thunderstorms moving through the area. Tomorrow’s storms were supposed to be even worse.

Taylor kept a small refrigerator in the back corner of the room. She made her way there and grabbed a bottle of ice-cold Miller Lite. She sipped and mused, expertly sinking ball after ball, reracking, breaking, playing eight ball against herself.

With a delicate meow, her cat jumped up on the table and began batting at the balls. Taylor couldn’t help but laugh. The kitten adopted from the local shelter and named Jade for her green eyes was at the very least Taylor’s best confidante. She had adopted her on a whim. She’d gone into the animal shelter to serve a warrant, saw the scruffy kitten sneeze, and fell in love. She was surprised to realize that she never felt alone when the cat was around.

She racked the balls again, shifting her thoughts to the weird aspects of the case at hand. She hadn’t given the drug angle too much thought. These were college kids, who did stupid things like drink and do drugs to excess. Was it possible straitlaced Shelby had decided to lighten up a little bit, and fell in with the wrong crowd? According to Gladys, Jordan was a habitual user, but no one from her crowd knew Shelby.

The limited connections bothered her. The beer and fatigue were dragging her mind into Park.

Getting more in depth with Shelby’s background had been hard; there was little new information to be gained. Calls around campus had given them a few answers, but left more questions in Taylor’s mind.

She was sure the girl was seeing someone. They hadn’t found any kind of birth control in her things; the campus clinic had no record of her being a gynecological patient with them; they only had a single record on her—she’d received antibiotics for a bout with bronchitis earlier in the semester. No one else had been able to confirm or deny her out-of-class activities—apparently even the students in Shelby’s program didn’t know her well. Her advisor had lauded her with praise. Taylor sensed it was heartfelt, not just laurels for the dead. Her parents obviously cared for her. She was a hardworking scholarship student who seemingly kept her nose clean. So why would someone want to rape her, leave her body at the Parthenon, and cover her with herbs?

The herbs told Taylor that whoever had killed Shelby cared about her, in some sick, twisted way. Even though her body had been abused, she had been given some kind of tender send-off, a show of reverence.

She racked up the balls again.

Jordan Blake was a different story. Her file made much of the tale self-evident. Jordan was out of control. She’d been on academic probation since she arrived freshman year. She’d been booted out of her sorority pledge class, was in and out of the health clinic for three pregnancy scares. Nobody they talked to could give them any definitive ideas on where she had been in the days before her death. It seemed Jordan Blake was friends with everyone and no one.