Twisted (23 page)

Why did the state let her keep her kids?

Who knew? Mark had seen worse offenses go un-addressed
by overworked, underpaid bureaucrats. It was no excuse, but it was reality. At any rate, the Mosses were apparently left to their own devices until three years later when the fire department was summoned to handle a fire on the neighbor’s property, where this time
Damien
Moss, then thirteen, admitted to locking a puppy in a storage shed before setting the structure ablaze. On this occasion, a sheriff’s deputy made it out to the Moss house, but CPS was never notified.

The sheriff’s office, Child Protective Services, the school system—all bore the blame, according to Moss’s lawyer, for letting a troubled young boy slip through the system.

“That’s some sob story,” Mark said, then realized he sounded unbelievably jaded, even for him.

“Yeah, too bad the jury didn’t think so,” said the agent who had been reading him the transcript. “They spent only an hour deliberating and came back with life, no parole.”

“I’m thinking they didn’t like the shovel,” Mark said.

“Probably not.”

David Moss had been convicted of picking up a waitress in a bar, taking her home to her house after her shift ended, and beating her to death with a shovel that had been sitting on her back porch. Had she gotten bad vibes from the previously charming stranger and decided not to invite him inside? Had they had an argument in the car? The events leading up to the murder remained murky, according to the transcript. But what wasn’t in doubt was the existence of David Moss’s fingerprints all over the shovel as well as the garbage bag used to dispose of the victim’s body in a nearby Dumpster. Another
damning bit of evidence was a smear of her blood on the gearshift in David’s car.

“Or it could have been these photos,” the agent said. “Not something anyone on that jury’s likely to forget. They’re just . . . shit, you don’t want to know what a two-hundred-pound guy can do with a shovel. You really wouldn’t believe it.”

Unfortunately, Mark was quite familiar with what an angry man with a shovel could do to a defenseless woman. But he didn’t mention any of that because he was busy formulating questions that might pertain to the current case.

Fire setting—a component of the homicidal triad that included torturing animals and bed wetting—was a definite part of both brothers’ repertoire. Also, their father had worked at a timber company. Dara Langford had been a PR rep for a timber company. Did Damien Moss blame the company where his father died for causing the event that left him in the care of a violent mother? And was there any significance to the fact that the boys’ mother had the same name as of one of Death Raven’s victims?

The questions were piling up faster than Mark could answer them. At the moment, they were only useful insofar as they provided insight into David Moss’s life, which would help Mark relate to him during the interview. Mark’s brother, Liam, was a former Marine, and he’d passed along one of his favorite military sayings: Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance. Mark took the advice to heart.

“Anything else in there?” he asked as his phone beeped a low-battery warning.

“Sure, plenty. But as far as relevant to this Damien you’re looking for? I’m not seeing anything. The public defender left me a voice mail after lunch. Said he never met anyone in Moss’s family. Said as far as he knew, everyone was dead but the brother, and they were estranged.”

“Thanks for the help.” Mark spotted the Huntsville exit and cut over to the right lane. “Call me if anything new comes in.”

Mark clicked off and plugged his phone into the charger. The screen told him he’d missed a call from Allison, but he had no intention of returning it. At least not right now. He didn’t want to muck up the excellent job he’d done of pissing her off on the steps of the station house. He needed her mad at him. He could handle her anger. He could even handle the shocked indignation he’d seen on her face when he’d essentially patted her on the head and told her to go play cop in her backyard. She’d probably decided he was a condescending prick, and he didn’t blame her.

What he couldn’t handle were those smoldering eyes that looked up at him and promised heaven.

Come home with me.

He could still hear her voice, low and sultry, as she’d gazed at him back at the bar. Her eyes had promised not just sex, but
sex.
Ecstasy. The kind of soul-searing heat that might actually succeed in distracting him from the soul-numbing drudgery that had become his life.

What her eyes
didn’t
promise was an easy out. She was too young, too vulnerable, too idealistic—although she’d flat-out deny the last two. And there was no getting into
it with her and getting out without someone—namely Allison—winding up hurt.

Another hurt, bitter woman was not something Mark needed in his life right now.

He exited the highway and passed a big green sign:
WELCOME TO HUNTSVILLE, HOME OF SAM HOUSTON.
Mark thought it was an interesting motto for a town that was much better known for being home to the busiest execution chamber in the nation, not to mention six prisons. He drove through several intersections and took the familiar highway that would lead north of town to the Ellis Unit.

It had been years since he’d been to the Ellis Unit, which for decades had housed Texas’s infamous death row. After seven condemned inmates attempted an escape, the row was moved to the newer, more secure Polunsky Unit a short drive away.

Mark remembered Ellis from that previous visit, when he’d interviewed a convicted murderer who had managed to kill three wives before detectives caught on to him. Prison had taken a toll on the man, and he’d looked defeated during their two-hour meeting. He’d described the prison as “hell on earth” and said the worst part about it wasn’t the violence or the food or the boredom—it was the noise.

Mark had heard the complaint before. Noise carried inside the concrete walls, and the incessant shouts and taunts and clanging doors drove many men over the edge.

Mark had been interviewing prisoners for years now, but this meeting was liable to be especially challenging.
First, he needed to establish a rapport. Information flowed much better when the subject felt at ease. Mark’s habit was to make a production of asking the guards to remove the handcuffs, which immediately established a small degree of trust. Next, Mark would offer something—a smoke, a stick of gum, a business card, whatever. Didn’t matter. Again, it was about building trust so the convict would talk freely. Finally, the questions would begin. He’d start with the easy ones first—basic biographical info and maybe the undisputed facts of the case—to establish a baseline. Once he had a grasp of the prisoner’s default expressions, he’d go for the hard stuff—MO, motive, elements of the crimes that remained in dispute.

Mark had discovered that most convicts—especially lifers or those condemned to death—had only one thing left, and that was an abundance of time. They didn’t generally mind being interviewed, but for the meeting to provide any value, Mark had to get at the truth. Many career criminals were skilled manipulators and some relished the idea of spending a few hours jerking around a fed. So Mark had learned early on to separate the truth from the lies.

Mark’s colleagues often said he was a “gifted” interviewer because he had a talent for seeing the invisible. But what he saw wasn’t invisible—it simply took a trained eye. Mark picked up on every little stress signal—from a small change of expression to a slight shift in voice or pitch. He picked up on extra bits of information that were added to a story just before the lie came. He picked up on body language, and all the subtle cues that signaled a person’s stress level was mounting.

Mark was an expert at reading both verbal and nonverbal cues because he’d been doing it all his life. Children from violent households made great lie detectors because their ability to read people and situations wasn’t just a hobby—it was a survival skill.

The problem with David Moss was that he could very well be the most difficult sort of interview subject: a psychopath.

Psychopaths were brilliant liars. Stress while lying was caused by worry and feelings of remorse, but true psychopaths had no conscience and hence, no stress. They lied easily and without breaking a sweat. Even while deceiving people, their demeanor tended to be glib, shallow, sometimes even charming. If David Moss fell into this category, Mark would adjust his strategy. He’d do the very thing he despised doing, but had been forced to do on countless occasions to get a convict to open up and reveal details about his life.

He’d feed his ego.

And although Mark hated pumping up the ego of a sadistic killer, he believed the ends often justified the means. He’d learned to hide his contempt while he talked to people. Some of the brag sessions Mark had listened to over the years had yielded information that led to re-opened cold cases and recovered bodies and closure for families who had waited years for news about a loved one.

Mark tapped the sedan’s brakes as the highway curved through a dense thicket of trees. The road looked familiar here. Through the swishing wiper blades, he soon spotted the redbrick sign for the Ellis Unit. He entered the prison grounds and pulled into the visitors’
lot near the building. It was relatively empty, as today wasn’t a normal visiting day, but Mark had put in a call to the warden to arrange a special interview due to the exigent circumstances of the case. He left his phone in the charger—he wasn’t allowed to take it in the interview room anyway—and jogged through the downpour to the building’s front entrance.

In the lobby, he brushed the rain from his sleeves and combed his fingers through his hair as a potbellied guard shoved a binder across the counter.

“Name, badge number, agency,” the guard intoned.

Mark passed the man his ID and jotted his information on the first line at the top of the page. He slipped his Glock from its holster and placed it on the counter, then added his spare magazine, his handcuffs, his key chain, and his wallet to the pile of contraband.

“Any cell phones, pagers, laptops, knives, cash, tobacco, lighters, matches—”

“Just my smokes.” Mark smiled and patted his breast pocket.

The guard pursed his lips, then nodded. The man had a pack of his own in the pocket of his uniform.

“Proceed through the double doors, left at the first hallway, first guard station is on your right,” he said. “Captain there will show you into the attorneys’ room. We got y’all set up in there. Prisoner’s already on his way down.”

“Already?” Mark checked his watch. He was half an hour early, and the guard hadn’t even made a call.

“The detective’s back there waiting.”

A cold feeling settled in Mark’s stomach. He glanced
at the log. He flipped to the previous page and zeroed in on the name at the bottom of the list.

Mark felt his temper rising as he pocketed his badge. He plowed through the double doors and strode back to the first guard station. The man buzzed him through and Mark entered a secure corridor where a single door stood ajar.

Inside the room, Allison sat in a chair, staring down at her notebook and clutching a pencil. She looked like a college kid about to take a final exam.

Mark swallowed a string of curses and stepped through the doorway.

“What are you doing here?”

Her gaze snapped up. She narrowed her eyes at him. “I
knew
it. You lied to me.”

“What are you doing here?” he repeated, and his voice sounded amazingly calm, given that his stress level had just shot through the ceiling.

“What does it look like? I’m interviewing Damien Moss’s brother.”

“You came here by yourself?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the empty room. “Looks like. Why?”

Mark gritted his teeth. He looked her over. She had on those slim-fitting black pants and the gray blazer he’d noticed at this morning’s meeting. She wore one of those stretchy white shirts underneath, which clearly outlined the shape of her breasts. She had on heeled black
boots
, for Christ’s sake. If someone ordered a stripper dressed as a detective, she’d show up looking exactly like Allison did at this very moment.

Mark felt like his head was going to explode.

She leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “What exactly is your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“Reynolds sent me here. He knows the warden and helped me get the interview set up.”

Reynolds, of course. Mark could have throttled the guy. He took a deep breath and changed tactics.

“You know, you’re right,” he said, pulling the door closed for privacy. “This is a good idea. I’m glad we’re pursuing it. But we’re up against a time limit here, so why don’t I go ahead and—”

“I was here first.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “
That’s
what you’re going with? Finders keepers?”

Her expression hardened. “Don’t patronize me, Wolfe. I’m here to do my job. This could help us locate Damien.”

“You’re right. But
I
will conduct the interview.”

She shrugged. “Fine, we’ll both do it.”

“Allison.” He felt his control slipping. He was getting dangerously close to losing it. He clenched his teeth and struggled for calm. “Let’s at least agree that I have
years
more experience conducting this sort of interview. Can we agree to that, please?”

She stood up, looking affronted now. “What is it you have against me doing my job?”

“Nothing at all. And your job is in San Marcos.”

She fisted her hand on her hip and stepped closer, and God help him, he could smell her shampoo.

“Our best lead is right here,” she said. “It’s entirely possible he could point us straight to our suspect. We
could
arrest
said suspect before he has a chance to murder any more women.”

“Do you even know who we’re dealing with?”