Vail 02 - Crush (2 page)

DARK-SUITED SECRET SERVICE AGENTS stood in front of the White House fence, stiff and tense. White, red, and blue Metro Police cars sat idling fifty yards away. Half a dozen motorcycle cops in white shirt/black pant uniforms milled about.

Thomas Gifford, the Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge who oversees the Behavioral Analysis Units, badged the nearby Secret Service agent and walked to the ambulance backed up against the short, concrete pillars that sprung from the pavement. Vail sat on the Metro Medical Response vehicle’s flat bumper, her gaze fixed somewhere on the cement.

Gifford stopped a couple of feet in front of her and raked a hand through his hair, as if stalling for time because he didn’t know what to say. “I thought you had dinner reservations. You told me when you left the office you had to leave early.”

“Yeah. I did. And then we saw Yates, and I called it in—”

“Okay,” Gifford said, holding up a hand. “Forget about all that for now. How are you doing?”

Vail stood up, uncoiled her body, and stretched. “I’m fine. Any news on Mandisa?”

“Going into surgery. Shattered pelvis. But the round missed the major arteries, so she’ll be okay. She’ll need some rehab, but she’s lucky. She’s lucky you were there.”

“With all the snipers and Secret Service and DC police around? I think she would’ve been fine without me.”

“That’s not what I’m hearing. They were assessing the situation, moving into position, trying to sort out what the hell was going on. The snipers weren’t going to act unless there was a perceived threat to the president. And callous as it may seem, Danny Michael Yates was only a threat to you and Detective Manette. After Yates said he’d killed a cop, Metro started to put it together. But I honestly don’t know if any of them would’ve shot him before you did. You saved her life, Karen.”

Vail took a deep, uneven breath. “I had a good angle, I saw his arm, his hand—I knew he was going to pull that trigger.”

Gifford looked away, glancing around at all the on-scene law enforcement personnel. “You still seeing the shrink?”

Vail nodded.

“Good. First thing in the morning, I want you back in his office. Then get out of town for a while. Clear your head. A couple months after Dead Eyes, this is the last thing you needed.”

A smile teased the ends of her mouth.

“What?” Gifford asked.

“It’s not often we agree on anything. I usually have some smartass comeback for you. But in this case, I’ve got nothing.”

Vail realized that had been the punch line of the joke Manette had told earlier in the evening. It didn’t seem so funny now.

Vail headed for her car, looking forward to—finally—getting out of town. Where? Didn’t matter. Anywhere but here.

T
he crush of a grape is not unlike life itself: You press and squeeze until the juice flows from its essence, and it dies a sudden, pathetic death. Devoid of its lifeblood, its body shrivels and is then discarded. Scattered about. Used as fertilizer, returned to the earth. Dust in the wind.

But despite the region in which John Mayfield worked—the Napa Valley—the crush of death wasn’t reserved just for grapes.

John Mayfield liked his name. It reminded him of harvest and sunny vineyards.

He had, however, made one minor modification: His mother hadn’t given him a middle name, so he chose one himself—Wayne. Given his avocation, “John Wayne” implied a tough guy image with star power. It also was a play on John Wayne Gacy, a notorious serial killer. And serial killers almost always were known in the public consciousness by three names. His persona—soon to be realized worldwide—needed to be polished and prepared.

Mayfield surveyed the room. He looked down at the woman, no longer breathing, in short order to resemble the shriveled husk of a crushed grape. He switched on his camera and made sure the lens captured the blood draining from her arm, the thirsty soil beneath her drinking it up as if it had been waiting for centuries to be nourished. Her fluid pooled a bit, then was slowly sucked beneath the surface.

A noise nearby broke his trance. He didn’t have much time. He
could have chosen his kill zone differently, to remove all risk. But it wasn’t about avoiding detection. There was so much more to it.

The woman didn’t appreciate his greatness, his power. She didn’t see him for the unique person that he was. Her loss.

Mayfield wiped the knife of fingerprints and, using the clean handkerchief, slipped the sharp utensil beneath the dead woman’s lower back. He stood up, kicked the loose dirt aside beneath his feet, scattering his footprints, then backed away.

A
s Karen Vail walked the grounds of the Mountain Crest Bed & Breakfast, holding the hand of Roberto Enrique Umberto Hernandez, she stopped at the edge of a neighboring vineyard. She looked out over the vines, the sun setting a hot orange in the March chill.

“You’ve been quiet since we got off the plane. Still thinking about your application to the Academy?”

“Am I that transparent?” Robby asked.

“Only to a sharp FBI profiler.”

Robby cradled a tangle of vines in his large hand. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking about.”

“You’ll get into the Academy, Robby. Maybe not right away, with the budget cutbacks, but I promise. You’ll make the cut.”

“Bledsoe said he could get me something with Fairfax County.”

“Really? You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t want to say anything about it. I don’t really want it. If I talk about it, it might come true.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

He shrugged a shoulder.

“Fairfax would be a step up over Vienna. It’s a huge department. Lots more action.”

“I know. It’s just that there’s an eleven-year wait to become a profiler once I get into the Academy. The longer it takes to get into the Bureau, the longer I have to wait.”

“Why don’t you call Gifford,” Vail asked. “I thought he owes you. Because of your mother. Because of their relationship.”

“That was Gifford’s perception, not mine. He promised her he’d
look after me.” Robby glanced off a moment, then said, “He doesn’t owe me anything. And I don’t want any favors.”

“How about I look into it, quietly, under the radar, when we get home?”

Robby chewed on that. “Maybe.”

“I can call first thing in the morning, put out a feeler.”

“No. We’re here on vacation, to get away from all that stuff. It’ll wait.”

They turned and walked toward their room, The Hot Date, which was in a separate building off the main house. According to the information on the website, it was the largest in the facility, featuring spacious main sleeping quarters, a sitting area with a private porch and view of the vines, and a jetted tub in the bathroom. A wooden sign, red with painted flames, hung dead center on the door.

Vail felt around in her pocket for the key they’d been given when they checked in fifteen minutes ago. “You sure?”

“Absolutely sure. I’m wiping it from my mind right now. Nothing but fun from here on out. Okay?”

Vail fit the key into the lock and turned it. “Works for me.” She swung the door open and looked around at the frilly décor of the room. She kicked off her shoes, ran forward, and jumped onto the bed, bouncing up and down like a five-year-old kid. “This could be fun,” she said with a wink.

Robby stood a few feet away, hands on his hips, grinning widely. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Nothing but fun from here on out, right? Not a worry in the world? No serial killers dancing around in our heads, no ASACs or lieutenants ordering us around. No job decisions. And no excess testosterone floating on the air.”

“The name of this room is The Hot Date, right? That should be our theme for the week.”

“Count me in.”

“That’s good,” Robby said. “Because a hot date for one isn’t much fun.”

Vail hopped to the side of the bed, stood up precariously on the edge, and grabbed Robby’s collar with both hands. She fell forward
into him, but at six foot seven, he easily swept her off the bed and onto the floor, then kissed her hard.

He leaned back and she looked up at his face. “You know,” Vail said, “I flew cross-country to Napa for the fine wine and truffles, but that was pretty freaking good, Hernandez.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s just a tasting. If you want the whole bottle, it’ll cost you.”

As he leaned in for another kiss, her gaze caught sight of the wall clock. “Oh—” The word rode on his lips and made him pull away. “Our tour.”

“Our what?”

“I told you. Don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Uh, yeah, I, uh—”

“The wine cave thing, that tour we booked through your friend—”

“The tasting, the dinner in the cave.” He smiled and raised his brow. “See, I do listen to you.”

“We’ve gotta leave now. It’s about twenty minutes away.”

“You sure?” He nodded behind her. “Bed, Cabernet, chocolate,
sex
. . .”

She pushed him away in mock anger. “That’s not fair, Robby. You know that? We’ve got this appointment, it’s expensive, like two hundred bucks each, and you just want to blow it off?”

“I can think of something else to blow off.”

Vail twisted her lips into a mock frown. “I guess five minutes won’t hurt.”

“We’ll speed to make up the time. We’re cops, right? If we’re pulled over, we’ll badge the officer—”

Vail placed a finger over his lips. “You’re wasting time.”

THEY ARRIVED FIVE MINUTES LATE. The California Highway Patrol was not on duty—at least along the strip of Route 29 they traversed quite a few miles per hour over the limit—and they pulled into the parking lot smelling of chocolate and, well, the perfume of intimacy.

They sat in the Silver Ridge Estates private tasting room around a table with a dozen others, listening to a sommelier expound the virtues
of the wines they were about to taste. They learned about the different climates where the grapes were grown, why the region’s wind patterns and mix of daytime heat and chilly evenings provided optimum conditions for growing premium grapes. Vail played footsie with Robby beneath the table, but Robby kept a stoic face, refusing to give in to her childish playfulness.

That is, until she realized she was reaching too far and had been stroking the leg of the graying fifty-something man beside Robby, whose name tag read “Bill (Oklahoma).” When Bill from Oklahoma turned to face her with a surprised look on his face, Vail realized her error and shaded the same red as the Pinot Noir on the table in front of them.

“Okay,” the sommelier said. “We’re going to go across the way into our wine cave, where we’ll talk about the best temperatures for storing our wine. Then we’ll do a tasting in a special room of the cave and discuss pairings, what we’re about to eat, with which wine—and why—before dinner is served.”

As they rose from the table, Robby leaned forward to ask the sommelier a question about the delicate color of the Pinot. Oklahoma Bill slid beside Vail, but before he could speak, she said, “My mistake, buddy. Not gonna happen.”

Bill seemed to be mulling his options, planning a counterattack. But Vail put an end to any further pursuit by cutting him off with a slow, firm, “Don’t even think about it.”

Bill obviously sensed the tightness in her voice and backed away as if she had threatened him physically. Judging by the visible tension in Vail’s forearm muscles, that probably wasn’t far from the truth.

They shuffled through the breezeway of the winery, their tour guide explaining the various sculptures that were set back in alcoves in the walls, and how they had been gathered over the course of five decades, one from each continent. When they passed through the mouth of the wine cave, the drop in temperature was immediately discernable.

“The cave is a near-constant fifty-five degrees, which is perfect for storing our reds,” the guide said. The group crowded into the side room that extended off the main corridor. “One thing about the way
we grow our grapes,” the woman said. “We plant more vines per square foot than your typical winery because we believe in stressing our vines, making them compete for water and nutrients. It forces their roots deeper into the ground and results in smaller fruit, which gives more skin surface area compared to the juice. And since the skin is what gives a red varietal most of its flavor, you can see why our wines are more complex and flavorful.”

She stopped beside a color-true model of two grapevines that appeared poised to illustrate her point, but before she could continue her explanation, a male guide came from a deeper portion of the cave, ushering another group along toward the exit. He leaned into the female guide’s ear and said something. Her eyes widened, then she moved forward, arms splayed wide like an eagle. “Okay, everyone, we have to go back into the tasting area for a while.” She swallowed hard and cleared her throat, as if there was something caught, then said, “I’m terribly sorry for this interruption, but we’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”