Vail 02 - Crush (26 page)

“He’s also a fucking arsonist. He tried to kill me. Twice. So forgive me if I don’t share your warm fuzzies.”

Aaron’s eyes narrowed. He studied her a moment, seemed to compose himself, then said, “So what happened here? What should I be looking for out there?”

“He attacked me. Clocked me good,” she said, then turned so her swollen temple was visible. “I recovered my handgun, which he’d knocked from my hand. I was questioning him when I felt a prick in
my neck and that’s the last I remember. When I woke up, Fuller was dead. I’m sorry if I fucked up your crime scene. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I came to, and I was dizzy so I couldn’t stand up. I crawled around trying to find my Glock. But obviously there was someone else out there, so I’d look for a third set of footprints.”

“Obviously?”

“Whoever drugged me, he came up from behind.”

Aaron gave her a look of disgust, then turned and trudged off toward his vehicle. “Don’t go anywhere,” he called into the night air. “I’ll be back to do a GSR.”

“Don’t let him bother you,” Dixon said. “I know you and Scott didn’t hit it off, but he was part of the community. A lot of people saw him as a child prodigy. Some of that had to do with Stan Owens.”

Tires crunched dirt behind them, followed by another swirling light bar and bright headlights.

“Speaking of which,” Dixon said, “here he is.” She turned to Vail, who winced as Marcus applied an icepack to her head. “Be prepared.”

“For what?” Vail asked.

“Owens seems like a nice guy, but he can be a real bastard when he’s pissed. And hearing his stepson’s been murdered ain’t gonna make him happy.”

Owens spent a moment conferring with Brix, who had been helping unload klieg lights and tripods from Aaron’s vehicle. With the icepack pressed to her head, Vail watched Owens’s body language. His shoulders slumped, he brought his hands to his head, grabbed his hair, then walked forward toward the Chrysler. Brix put his arm out to stop him, said something, then Owens swung away, out of his friend’s grasp. Red and tear-swollen eyes reflected in the swirling emergency lights. Then Owens turned toward Vail and they locked gazes. Vail had a feeling this was not going to go well.

As if sensing her thoughts, Robby said, “Oh, shit, here it comes.”

Vail turned to Dixon. “I assume you’re familiar with the saying, ‘It’s about to hit the fan’?”

Owens was approaching with a slow, deliberate gait, his eyes focused on Vail, who looked down at the ground. She felt bad for Owens and didn’t want to be seen as confrontational.

“What the fuck did you do to my son?” Owens said, as he advanced on them.

Vail held up her free hand, and cocked her head to the side, as if to say, “It wasn’t my fault.” But Owens suddenly lunged at her and would’ve landed a hard right had Robby not stepped in front and knocked him backwards to the ground.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Sheriff,” Robby said, looking down at him. “But you need to get your shit together. Agent Vail had nothing to do with your son’s death. He attacked
her
. And if you can’t deal with this rationally and objectively, haul your ass out of here and let your people do their jobs.”

Vail placed a hand on Robby’s shoulder. Owens got to his feet. He was average height, about five-ten, and that made him nine inches shorter than Robby. He wouldn’t move against Vail again. Instead, he ground his molars. The incessant flickering of the red and blue lights lent an uneasy tension to the already edgy scene.

Brix was now at Owens’s side. He put an arm around the sheriff’s back and turned him, then led him away. Brix glanced over his shoulder at Vail. She couldn’t read his expression. Apologetic? Disgust? It was too dark to make it out. Could’ve been either.

The paramedic knelt on a knee and started to pack up his case. Dixon held out a hand. “Hold it a second. I need you to draw a blood sample.”

“A blood sam—I don’t usually do that.”

“I know. But I need it done. Now.”

Marcus looked at the firm expressions worn by the people surrounding him, then knelt back down and opened his kit. He pulled out a plastic-encased syringe and tore it open. “What is it you want?”

Dixon looked out toward Aaron, who appeared to be moving with purpose off in the distance, then said, “I’ll let you know in a second.” She pulled her cell phone and called him. Vail watched as Aaron, now bathed in the bright lights trained on Fuller’s body and the immediate vicinity, moved to answer his phone. He said something to Dixon, then shoved his phone back in his pocket.

Dixon hung up, turned to Marcus, and gave him specific instructions. To Vail, she said, “I’m hoping whatever you were drugged with will still be in your system. If we wait too long, it’ll clear—”

“Yeah, got it,” Vail said. “Thanks.”

“Hey, just trying to keep my head about me, do the right things. Aaron said he’d be over in a bit to get the GSR.”

Marcus reached out, took Vail’s left forearm, and wedged it in his armpit, then, with gloved hands, tied a rubber strip around Vail’s bicep as he prepared to do the blood draw. “When we’re done here, I’ll give you a sterile container. Go into the back of the rig, pee into it, then seal it. It’s not ideal, but we’re improvising here.”

Robby stretched his neck back, rolled his shoulders. “So this UNSUB is getting bolder. He must’ve been shadowing you and followed you and Fuller here. Then he drugged you and killed Fuller.”

“Until and unless we learn more, that seems like a reasonable conclusion,” Dixon said. “But why would he leave Karen alive? And why kill Scott?”

Good questions.
Vail unrolled her shirt sleeve and rose from the bumper. “Could simply be that he wanted to show us he can operate with impunity. Ultimate power. Kill a cop, he’s got total control. As to why he chose to kill Fuller and not me, it might simply have been who had their back to him when he struck.”

“The luck of the draw,” Dixon said. “So to speak.”

“Unless . . .” Vail shoved her hands into the back pockets of her pants and began to pace. “Unless that’s not it at all.”

“How do you mean?” Robby asked.

“We’re missing something very important here.” She pointed at Dixon. “Give me your phone.” Dixon handed it over and Vail hit Send. Aaron answered. “It’s Vail. How was Fuller killed?”

There was a moment’s silence. Vail looked at the phone’s display to see if the line was still active, then glanced off in Aaron’s direction to see what he was doing. She didn’t see him.
Was he still pissed at her? Or was he examining Fuller’s body?

“Aaron, you there?”

“Right here.”

Vail turned, threw a hand up to her chest. “Jesus Christ, man, don’t sneak up on me like that. My nerves are a little raw.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” Aaron motioned to her and she handed the phone back to Dixon, then extended her arm. Aaron
placed a number of adhesive gun-shot residue disks across the back of her hands, sleeves, chest, and torso. He drew a grid in his notebook and made notations as to where each of the round tabs had been placed.

“So how was Scott killed?” Dixon asked.

While Aaron continued his task, he said, “His trachea wasn’t crushed, if that’s what you’re thinking. Looks like he took three forty-caliber rounds to the chest. One is up around the dicrotic notch; looks like stippling on the neck, indicating that shot was very close range, maybe around two feet. Another one looks to be from a little further away than the others. Most likely that was the shooter’s first shot. But I’ll know more once I get him to the lab and I can do a full workup.”

“What about—”

“No. Toenails are intact.”

“Okay,” Vail said. “Figured as much. Thanks.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He pointed at her fanny pack. “You carry a forty-caliber pistol, correct?”

“A Glock 23.”

Aaron pulled an evidence bag from his pocket and extended a hand. “Your weapon.”

Vail shook her head. “Actually, it’s going to the FBI lab.”

“No,” Aaron said, drawing it out as if it was a musical note, “it’s going into
this
evidence bag and back to
my
lab.”

Vail thought about that a moment, then said, “I’m a federal agent and I have to abide by federal rules and regulations. If you’ve got a problem with that, my ASAC is Thomas Gifford. I’m sure he can quote the appropriate section from the Manual of Administrative Operations Procedures. So my sidearm is going to the FBI lab. I’d imagine you can have it once they’re done with it.”

Aaron groaned—it sounded more like a growl—and walked off, back toward the lighted crime scene.

Vail stared off at the ground for a moment, lost in thought. “This isn’t his typical kill,” she finally said. “No ritual behaviors. He didn’t choke Fuller and he didn’t yank off a toenail. He used a handgun to kill him.”

“So what are you saying?” Robby asked. “That this isn’t our offender?”

Vail shook her head. “I’m not saying that.”

“He could’ve been trying to make it look like you killed Fuller,” Dixon said.

“Why would he do that?”

“I’m not saying he did.” Dixon turned to Vail. “But how else would you explain what he did?”

Vail picked up the sterile urine specimen container Marcus had set aside. “If the UNSUB’s motive was merely to fuck with our heads, show us he’s in charge, then it doesn’t matter how he kills Fuller. He was taking a big risk by following us, by entering this vineyard. Even though it was pitch black out, either of us could’ve heard him. But the way a narcissist thinks, he figures he can do this stuff and there’s nothing we can do to stop him. Killing one of us is a big deal. The more shit he does like this, the more it starts to add up and it becomes more difficult for us to contain the fallout. I mean, he killed a cop—the sheriff’s stepson. If he knew the relationships, then his choice was purposeful.”

“He couldn’t lose,” Robby said. “The sheriff’s stepson, a sergeant, or an FBI agent. Either way, that’s big shit.”

Vail was about to respond when Stan Owens appeared behind them. Brix was trailing a few paces back. “Stan,” Brix called out. “Stan, think about this.”

Owens stopped a few feet from Vail—a bit further than normal conversation typically occurs. But Robby was at Vail’s left elbow, and Owens no doubt remembered his recent encounter with the large Vienna detective.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Sheriff.”

“That right?” Owens said. “I don’t know what happened here, but I will find out. I don’t care what it takes, but I’ll make sure you go down for this—”

“Stan,” Brix said. “Stan, you’re not seeing things objectively.”

Owens spun on him. “I’m not? Well, you tell me what happened here. Vail’s here, my son is here, she’s already shown contempt for him, with plenty of witnesses—”

“I show contempt for a lot of people,” Vail said. “When they deserve it. Doesn’t mean I meet them in a deserted vineyard at night and shoot them.”

Owens turned fully back to Vail and set his jaw. “If you did this, I will personally come after you and do to you what you did to Scott. Count on it.”

“Threatening a federal agent isn’t smart,” Vail said. “And it sure as hell isn’t productive. Whoever did this—and it’s likely our offender—is still out there.”

“Convenient, isn’t it? Some guy knocked me out and killed the other guy, then disappeared. They made a movie about that once.”

“
The Fugitive,
” Vail said. “Based on a real case. Dr. Sam Shepard was arrested and convicted for the murder of his wife.”

“They caught him and we’ll catch you, too.”

“Here’s the thing, Sheriff. Shepard was innocent. Someone really did knock him out and kill his wife.”

Owens frowned and was about to reply when Brix clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon. We’ve got work to do.”

As he led Owens away, Vail turned to Robby and Dixon. “If this is our offender, we’ve gotta catch him. He’s getting bolder. And if we don’t do something to stop him, we may not have a choice.”

“Go public,” Dixon said.

Vail nodded. “Give him what he wants.”

N
inety minutes later, the task force was convened at the request of Redmond Brix. Vail had already given her statement to Brix about the shooting and met with an agent from the Bureau’s Santa Rosa Resident Agency to swap out her Glock. Her spent weapon—the one that might have been used to shoot Fuller—was placed in a chain-of-custody evidence bag. The agent provided Vail with an identical replacement.

Afterwards, in the ladies’ restroom, Vail and Dixon splashed their faces with cold water. Dixon pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped her face.

“You feel well enough to go in there?” Dixon asked.

“I’m not going to let you or anyone else try to defend me. I’ll stand up to anything anyone wants to throw at me.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

Vail leaned over the vanity, close to the mirror, and looked at her swollen temple. She gently blotted it with the wet towel. It was extremely tender to touch. “We need to look into Fuller’s background, who he knew, who his friends were. We need a search warrant for his place and any known places he might’ve stored things. If we can establish a link between him and the arson, we can close that case without bias.”

“Better if I ask for those things. I don’t know if your opinion—or requests—would carry much weight with the task force right now.”

“I agree.”

Dixon balled up her fist and crumpled the paper towel, then tossed it in the waste bin. “Let’s do it.”

Mann, Gordon, Dixon, Brix, Lugo, Nance, and Vail were seated around the conference table. Brix had scared up a sheriff’s department
shirt and a pair of uniform pants for Vail to wear so her blood-smeared clothing—rather, Dixon’s blouse and pants—could be forensically tested. Given the late hour and circumstances, Robby was permitted to sit in on the meeting—which Brix promised would be brief and productive.