The Samaritan (21 page)

Trent said that the individual would probably be quiet and reserved, a loner. He would have few close friends but might well hold down a steady job. He would be unassuming but not unapproachable, given his likely abduction process, and it was likely he could be charming when it was required. The Samaritan would be someone capable of blending into the background, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Those words had triggered the memory of the encounter on the roof of the parking structure. Open hands and a disarming smile.
I don’t think he’s stupid enough to walk up to you and introduce himself.

She’d tried to put those suspicions to one side for now, made herself focus on what the shrink was saying.

The lack of evidence of sexual assault on the female victims was interesting, he thought, as was the quite specific victim profile in the LA cases. He confirmed Allen’s impression that the Samaritan was all about the kill: not motivated by sexual aggression, but by the unique thrill of ending another person’s life. Trent offered an aside that the disinterest in sex would probably translate to his “normal” life as well, and could suggest a difficult relationship with his mother. He’d smiled disarmingly at that, cracking, “But, then, I have to drop some Freud in somewhere; otherwise people get disappointed.” Following on from that, Trent posited that he would not be surprised if the killer’s mother—or some other female close to him—resembled the victims.

So far, so routine. But Trent had one other supposition, one that reminded Allen of what the medical examiner had said. He thought it was very likely that the Samaritan had military training. And not just any military training, either.

“He plans these murders carefully,” he’d said. “They’re not random crimes of passion, although he does enjoy his work—there’s no doubt of that. The planning, the setup, the execution, the way he removes vehicles and clothes and personal effects. The care he takes not to leave DNA or fingerprints. That he takes his victims from one place, kills them in another place, and dumps them in a third place. It’s like he’s sanitizing. Erasing the evidence he was ever there.”

“What are you saying?” Channing, the FBI liaison had asked him. “Are you talking some kind of black ops experience? CIA or something?”

“That would fit,” Trent had agreed. “A regular serviceman would be much more likely to use a gun. And far more likely to kill people in a spree, rather than one by one. It’s the evidence of training and the approach he takes that suggests that type of background to me.”

Channing in particular had pushed him on the other cases in the eleven states that had been identified as possibly related. Dr. Trent had reiterated that he hadn’t been asked to or had time to look into this in detail, but he was firm that nothing he’d seen so far conflicted with anything he’d gleaned from the initial investigation in LA. In fact, everything he’d read had reinforced his conclusions: an intelligent, meticulous lone psychopath with military training. The possibility of multiple murders in other states merely proved how careful the killer was: roaming far and wide, concealing some bodies, allowing others to be found. He’d operated undetected for at least five years and possibly longer.

Finally, he’d confirmed their assumption that the primary crime scene would be within a three- to five-mile radius of the dump site. Which still left tens of thousands of homes and hundreds of miles of hiking trails to check. Trent’s final words seemed to create a tangible chill in the room.

“I’m afraid he won’t stop until he’s caught. There’s no burnout with this type of killer.”

As the meeting broke up, Allen checked her phone and found two missed calls: one from Denny and one from Darryl Caine in Traffic. She returned the second one and learned that they’d caught a break: Long Beach PD had reported that Sarah Dutton’s Porsche had been found on their turf.

Allen didn’t complain when Mazzucco offered to drive, and they made the journey in almost total silence, both of them processing the information from the meeting they’d just left. Mazzucco broke the silence after fifteen slow minutes on the 710.

“So, basically, we’ve narrowed it down to an outwardly normal male with psychopathic tendencies.” He looked from one side to the other. “I guess he picked the right town.”

“The special ops angle is interesting,” Allen said. “Remember what Burke said about seeing that kind of thing in the army? It ties in, and it’s a little more specific. If Trent is onto something, we might be able to narrow it down that way.”

“I thought you said behavioral profiling was a crock of shit.”

Allen was distracted, suddenly thinking about Blake again. Blake and his well-informed tip about Fort Bragg. They trained Special Forces at Bragg, didn’t they?

“Allen?”

She looked back at him. “When did I say that?”

“Most recently?” He thought about it. “Last week. But you say it a lot.”

Allen rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I was just talking about guys like that drawing big bucks for applying the same common sense that you and I use every day. But yeah, okay, I’ll admit it. This time he came up with something that
might
be useful.”

“Might. You know what the problem is?”

“Same as it was before: narrowing the suspect pool down.” Allen looked out of the window as the traffic flew past on the opposite side of the central reservation. “The United States has been at war in various countries for a decade and a half. There’s probably more people walking around with the kind of skills and experience Trent was describing than at any time in history.”

“Scary, when you put it that way.”

“And if we’re talking CIA or the SEALs or whatever, we’re getting into sealed records territory, government-approved fake identities.”

“Maybe Channing will be able to help with that.”

Allen looked back at him and smiled over her glasses. “Ever the optimist, Jon.” They passed a minute in silence before Allen said, “I think we should talk to Blake.”

Mazzucco scrunched up his face. He didn’t say anything.

“The Peterson lead looks good, right?”

“The FBI’s including it,” he admitted, then glanced over at her. “Maybe they ought to include Blake, too.”

She told him about her attempts to look into his background last night and that she’d managed to confirm he’d flown into LA only after Boden was killed and from far enough away that it was unlikely he could have been here on the Saturday night. Mazzucco said nothing.

They arrived at the address in Long Beach a couple of minutes later. It was an auto-repair shop. A sign out front told them it was O’Grady’s Complete Auto Service and that they worked on foreign and domestic. They went inside and found two uniformed LBPD officers with one of the mechanics: a hulking black guy crammed into blue overalls. Sarah Dutton’s Porsche Carrera was up on a hydraulic jack, the tasteful curves of the vehicle obvious under the sheets that had been draped over it.

Allen took her badge out and introduced herself and Mazzucco to the two officers—one male and one female—and the guy in the overalls.

“We got a tipoff this guy had a stolen Porsche,” the male cop explained. “We ran the vehicle number from the chassis and it turns out it’s the one you people are looking for.”

“Whoa,” the mechanic interjected, his hands outstretched. “I told you. I don’t know nothin’ about this being stolen.”

The female cop, Officer Danniker, glanced at her notes and back up at the man. “That’s right. You said you, uh . . . found it,” she deadpanned.

The mechanic had a foot in height and at least one fifty in weight on the cop, but he still withered under her direct stare after only a couple of seconds.

“Yeah, I mean, I know a guy who found it. He brought it in. I was just about to call you guys when . . .”

He tailed off. Allen and Mazzucco exchanged a look, stood back, and let the officer continue embarrassing the guy. They just needed to tie up one piece of information, anyway.

“And this guy you know. Does he make a habit of . . . finding vehicles?”

The guy opened his mouth to say something, then stopped, as though calculating the minimum amount of help he could get away with giving. Allen shot Mazzucco a glance and he obliged.

“Maybe you didn’t catch it before, but this is a homicide investigation. We’re sure you wouldn’t want to impede us in any way. I mean, I can tell you’re an upstanding member of the community.”

The mechanic looked from Mazzucco to the uniformed officer, his eyes those of a cornered animal. He sighed and nodded reluctantly. “His name is Luis Herrera. You didn’t get it from me. He told me some white guy parked it in Watts, got out, and left the keys in and the engine running.” He glanced around his interrogators, as though expecting them to laugh at the idea of somebody walking away from an unlocked Porsche in a rough neighborhood, practically inviting it to be stolen.

If Allen hadn’t known the provenance of the car, she would indeed have found the idea ridiculous, but it made a certain amount of sense. How much easier to outsource the disposal of the vehicle. If the Samaritan had done the same thing with the other cars, chances were excellent they had been stripped down for parts or resprayed and sold on. Either way, it would be much more difficult to find them, and even if they did, the best information they could hope to get was where the cars were abandoned.

“We’ll need an address for this guy Herrera,” Allen said. “I don’t suppose he said what this vehicular philanthropist looked like?”

The mechanic drooped his head and looked up at her, playing dumb.

“The white guy who left the keys in the Porsche,” she said slowly.

He shook his head. “Nah. Said he was a creepy sumbitch, though.”

“Creepy how?”

The mechanic shrugged. “I don’t know. Crazy-looking, I guess. I told him you’d have to be.” He grinned and then looked at the covered-up Porsche, the grin fading as he remembered that finders wasn’t going to mean keepers.

They called in a forensic unit to impound the Porsche. The two LBPD officers were only too happy to pick up Luis Herrera and bring him down to the PAB for Allen to interview. The hunt for the Samaritan was a big deal, and Allen wasn’t surprised they wanted a piece of the action, however tenuous. She didn’t think it would be difficult to lever some cooperation out of Herrera. It was more than likely he’d have a record long enough that a deal on a charge relating to the theft of the Porsche would look very attractive. She doubted they’d get anything of much use, but it might help to confirm some of the physical attributes suggested by Dr. Trent.

Five minutes later, Mazzucco and Allen were in the car, headed back downtown.

“Dead end,” Mazzucco said.

“Huh?”

“If he left the Porsche on the street, you can bet it was sanitized first. We’re not gonna find anything.”

Sanitized
. Allen caught that Mazzucco had used military terminology, perhaps unconsciously.

“So what about Blake?”

Mazzucco kept his eyes on the road. Didn’t say anything for a minute. “I have to check something out. I think it’ll take me a couple of hours. I’ll drop you off.”

41

They made a short detour to pick up lunch at a place Allen liked: In-N-Out Burger. She’d discovered the place not long after transferring, and was proud of her find. She ordered two cheeseburgers and asked for them “animal style”—lots of grilled onions and extra special sauce.

They ate in the car without much in the way of conversation, and then headed straight to the PAB. Mazzucco was cagey about exactly where he was going when he dropped Allen off on West First Street, but that suited her just fine. She promised to check in with him by phone soon and got out of the car, heading toward the entrance doors across the open, triangular plaza out front.

As she neared the main doors of the building, she saw a familiar figure sitting on one of the flat stone benches on the opposite side of the plaza from her. The figure raised one arm in acknowledgment and smiled behind his sunglasses. Allen looked away and at first intended to keep walking but had to stop when she heard her name called.

The tall male jogged across the space toward her, smiling. She kept her expression carefully neutral.

“Hey,” he said as he caught up with her.

“What are you doing here?”

“You haven’t been answering my calls,” he said. As though that answered everything.

“You ever think there might be a reason for that, Denny?”

Denny tried on a confused expression that looked entirely fake. “Is this about the other night?”

Allen sighed. “No. It’s about every night. I thought you got the message.”

He looked genuinely confused now. “You sent me a message?”

Jesus
. Had she
ever
been attracted to this guy? She was amazed he had the wherewithal to dress himself in the morning.

“Denny . . .” Allen was actually grateful when she was interrupted by her cell phone buzzing. She excused herself and turned her back to him as she took the phone out. She half expected—or maybe just wanted—it to be Blake, but it was a land number with an LA area code. Which meant it had to be work because, unfortunately, everyone else she knew in LA was right here.

“Allen here.”

It was Danniker, the female LBPD officer from the garage earlier.

“We picked up Luis Herrera. We’re with him at the PAB if you can get down here.”

“Great job. I’m right outside, actually. Where are you?”

Danniker told Allen which floor and which interview room, and Allen thanked her again and hung up, turning back to Denny. He was waiting expectantly, displaying the soulful puppy-dog look that she’d mistaken for depth for too long.

“I gotta go.”

“Can I call you?”

“No, you can’t. Goodbye, Denny.”

She turned and strode toward the doors and didn’t look back.

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting down across an interview room table from Luis Herrera. Officer Danniker had remained in the room at Allen’s invitation, but was standing back against one wall, leaving plenty of space for Allen to work.