My Lost Daughter (36 page)

“The various medical examiners' conclusions were that the UNSUB either shoved the victims' heads forward onto their chests or ordered the victims to do it themselves and then proceeded to fire a single shot into the inion of the victim's skull, assuring that the path of the bullet would strike perfectly in the midline. The bullet ripped up the center of the inferior portion of the cerebellum and continued forward through the floor of the fourth ventricle, plowing through the medulla, the pons, and the midbrain, destroying the centers that made the victim function.”

Mary looked up from the autopsy report. “In layman's language, the UNSUB killed the brain stem and therefore the victims.”

“How did he get the victims' heads down to expose the brain stem?” Genna Weir asked. “The victims were alive at that point, right, so there should have been some type of struggle? Did any of the autopsy reports indicate the victims were knocked unconscious prior to death?”

“No,” Mary answered. “There was no sign of assault or injury other than the single shot to the back of the head. If you will turn to page thirty in the materials I've prepared for you, you will see an image that superimposes the injuries in all five victims.” She waited while the agents flipped through the packets to the page. “As you can see, there's no more than a few millimeters difference in each wound.”

George “Bulldog” McIntyre, a huge man who roared to work on a Harley, spoke up. “The UNSUB is obviously a sharpshooter. Maybe he's a disgruntled cop out to use his skills in a different way. Want me to put out a bulletin to law enforcement agencies in the areas where the killings occurred?”

Mary glanced over at Adams, expecting him to answer and then realized he was actually placing her in charge of the entire investigation. “Good idea, Bulldog.” She wondered if Adams was simply trying another avenue to keep her in the unit. It wouldn't work, even though she was flattered he trusted her to run an investigation of this magnitude. The recent homicides had been in the southern California area, and she and Brooks would have a better chance of
tracking and possibly even apprehending the killer if she went forward with the transfer.

“Okay,” she said, placing her hands on the table. “You can study the crimes in more detail on your own. The most important thing is to establish a credible profile. There's another aspect of these crimes that I haven't mentioned. All of the victims had either a past incident of attempted suicide, served time in a mental hospital, or suffered from a debilitating illness. One of the most recent victims was a paraplegic.”

“Interesting,” Pete Cook, the unit's psychologist, said. “So there's a possibility they all wanted to die. Is that what you're saying?”

“Precisely.”

Mark Conrad was in his late fifties and was a quiet, somewhat withdrawn individual, but his knowledge base and insight were second only to John Adams. “If I may render my opinion?” he said in his slow articulated fashion. “The victims all had families or loved ones to support, but they no longer found life worth living and they purchased life insurance policies. I presume this was less than two years before their deaths, so a suicide would not be covered.” He paused for a long time, the team knowing he was gathering his thoughts before continuing. “Somehow they managed to hire a professional assassin to fulfill their desires.” He looked at Mary, who was astonished that he had put things together so fast.

“But how did they hire the same assassin and where did they come up with the money to pay him?” Weir interjected. “They couldn't be well-off or they wouldn't care about the life insurance money.”

Bulldog laughed. “Nobody has any money today, so that could apply to just about anyone.”

“I agree with Weir,” Adams said, turning toward Mary. “What have you found out about the victims' finances, Stevens?”

“We don't know a great deal about the most recent victim's finances, but the earlier ones were either living in poverty or only
slightly above it, which makes it highly suspicious that they would expend money on life insurance. Before we go too far with this, I'd like to tell you the premise I've developed. The victims had someone kill them, but I don't believe they paid him. I think they found this person in a suicide club.”

“Shit,” Mark Conrad said. “Sorry, chief, but this is one hell of a scary situation. Are you saying there could be a serial killer prowling the Internet looking for willing victims?”

“Yes,” Mary answered, “and he's finding them in suicide clubs. If you look in the right places, suicide clubs aren't that hard to find. Killing yourself has become trendy.”

“We need a profile of this UNSUB,” Adams told them, glancing at his watch. “He's moving fast so we need to move faster. Mary, who are we dealing with?”

“I believe he's a white male, mid to late twenties. I disagree that the UNSUB is a former marksman or sharpshooter for a law enforcement agency, nor does he have military training. When you think about it, anyone could make a perfect shot with a stationary, compliant subject. He's an elitist. He's also confident and knows he's superior but he possesses no need to brag. We're not going to get a letter or any type of communication from him like the BTK or the Son of Sam, regardless of how long this goes on or how many people he kills.” Mary paused and took a sip of her water. “He could be big and strong or he could be small, depending on whether or not he disposes of the body or kills them on-site and leaves. Oh, we've confirmed that he uses a 9mm Walther. He's either wealthy or someone wealthy supports him. A Walther isn't a street gun, so we have to assume he has access to money.”

“He's killing all over the map,” Bulldog said. “Is there any pattern?”

“The first kill that we know about was in Dallas, the next in Houston. Then sometime during the summer, I think he decided he didn't like Texas and moved to California. Maybe he didn't like
the heat or he wanted to be near the beach. That's another reason I believe this is a fairly young man. Another possibility is he somehow exposed himself in Texas.”

“Explain how the suicide clubs work,” Adams told her, sitting sideways in his chair to make room for his long legs.

“Some of the sites are free, and others charge a modest fee, generally in the range of ten to fifteen dollars. Which sites are legitimate and which are merely making money off these pathetic individuals is difficult to discern.”

“They're probably all scams,” Mark Conrad said, the unit's skeptic. “Besides if you were depressed enough to want to kill yourself, would you really try to find help over the Internet? Stuff you put on the Net never goes away. When you're eighty, your grandkid could find out you once joined a suicide club.”

“You're already dead, remember?” Weir said. “And who cares what people are going to think about them thirty years down the line? Have you looked at the crap people put on YouTube? There's no such thing as pride anymore.”

The unit's psychologist spoke up again. “I think all of you are taking this far too lightly. The statistics on suicide are staggering. I've seen some of these sites. Type the word ‘suicide' on Google and see what comes up. People want to know recipes for poisons, different medications that can kill them, how long it takes to starve to death. It's gruesome stuff. Have you forgotten how popular Dr. Kevorkian was?”

“Hey,” Bulldog said, chuckling. “Why do we have to bust our balls to track down a guy who's giving people what they want? He wants to kill. They want to die. Everybody's happy.”

“I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that,” Adams said, scowling. “Please continue, Stevens. Explain about the list.”

“Okay, when a person joins one of the clubs, they're placed at the bottom of a list. They then have to assist the person's suicide at the top of the list. No one reveals why they want to die. Nothing like that is required.” Mary rolled her neck around to relieve the
tension. “Since none of this is legal, there's no way to know which person is serious or if they just stumbled onto the site and decided to hang around and bullshit someone into thinking they're suicidal. Most sites have chat rooms and members instant message each other, so I'm sure this kind of thing eventually comes out. Anyway, after you provide proof of the person's death, you move up a notch on the list. How soon it takes for you to die depends on how many people are on the list.”

Pete Cook was beginning to get excited. “And because most of this is transpiring over the Internet, members of a suicide club could live anywhere in the country. What's the price of an airline ticket if you want to die and you're too chicken to do it? You don't have to pay the person who's going to help you. All you have to do is transport them to your location.”

“You can't carry a gun on a plane,” Genna Weir said. “I bet you a thousand bucks that one of these wannabe suicides slipped through the noose and may know what our UNSUB looks like, even his real name and other identifying factors. I'll put some ads on Craigslist and see if anyone bites.”

“Has anyone considered that the UNSUB may actually be suicidal?” Cook asked. “Maybe everyone in the group decided to use the same method, even share the same gun. They could ship the Walther to each other.”

“It's obvious you aren't a shrink anymore, Pete.” Weir smirked, folding her arms across her chest. “I doubt if you could get a bunch of depressed people to agree on anything, let alone the exact means and method of their deaths.”

“I agree that's a stretch, Pete,” Mary said, having already considered something along those lines and discarded it. “We have to get a fix on where this man is or we'll never be able to stop him.” Her face muscles twisted and her eyes narrowed. “He loves what he's doing, understand? I mean he absolutely loves killing people and walking away without any guilt whatsoever. This is paradise to him. All those terrible desires he's held inside over the years are
worth something now. He's a fucking humanitarian. That's what makes me so furious.”

“We understand, Mary,” Adams said, rocking back and forth in his chair.

“You're right,” Weir said, walking over to fill up her coffee cup. “This one's a bastard straight out of Hell. He doesn't even have to work for it. All he has to do is find these pathetic people.”

Bulldog slammed his fists together. “We'll get him, Stevens.”

Mary placed her head in her hands for a moment, then looked up. “Excuse me for getting carried away.”

Mark Conrad was sitting next to Mary and patted her on the shoulder. “We've all been there.”

“Okay,” she continued, composed now. “I believe he has a hiding place, more or less a base of operation where he can come and go at will without anyone noticing. But this isn't a house or an apartment. I don't even think it's a hotel. It could be a motor home, but it doesn't fit my image of him. I know this sounds silly, but I see this place along the lines of a cave, somewhere unique, somewhere we'd never think to look.”

“So he's driving,” Bulldog said. “You don't think he's the type to travel by bus or motor home, so he has to be driving some kind of car. All that does is take care of the gun. He could be driving an Aston Martin from the way you've described him, Stevens.”

“It's about a four-hour drive from Houston to Dallas,” Mary told them. “And it's six between San Francisco and Ventura, where the most recent murder took place. What if he organizes his kills and takes only suicidal individuals who live in the same general area? That way, he can knock off one and then kill the other before moving to another hideout.”

She stopped speaking, momentarily losing her train of thought. She had only had a few hours' sleep during the past two days. In addition to preparing the materials for the meeting, she'd had to line up a moving company and call her mother to tell her they were leaving. Luckily the Bureau would pay for it because she wasn't going to have time to pack and that made it costly.

People were beginning to fidget so she picked up an eight-by-ten paper that she had pasted onto cardboard and held it up for the agents to see. “I picked this up off the Net at three-fifteen today.”

The mood in the room instantly changed. Seeing what appeared to be a handwritten note was sobering. “Saturnalia refers to the Roman dedication of the temple of the god Saturn which was held on December seventeenth,” Mary explained. “Now we have a date, and perhaps this computer placard or whatever it is gets you into a specific suicide club. If you continue to follow these types of leads, you may eventually find the actual URL for the suicide club. For all I know, it's a physical address, but I have no idea how to find it. This club may be located in the San Francisco area or the person who posted it uses a server out of San Fran. Tracking down random postings on the Internet is time consuming.”