Bell squints at the red-faced man, leans in close to keep his voice quiet. ‘Alan Kraus, Pittsburgh public safety commissioner. The woman on his right is his PR staffer. She’s all right, he’s a pain in the ass. Hold up, looks like they’re getting started.’
‘Okay, everyone shut your traps.’ Horner has a booming voice, and his tie seems tight at the neck. ‘Yes, Fitzgibbon, I mean you too. You men at the wall there, find your seats. We’ve only got limited time and I want to get moving, so have a look up here.’
He steps aside to give unfettered line of sight to a large portable corkboard with a series of photos tacked up, including pictures of all three victims as they were in life. Emma sees a photo of the newest victim, obviously taken in the morgue, juxtaposed with a picture of her that looks as if it was cribbed from a college yearbook.
Horner raps his knuckles on the desk in front. ‘Gentlemen, listen up. We have an identification – Patricia Doricott, twenty years old, originally from Akron. She was enrolled at Duquesne. Her body was found yesterday afternoon, at the bus stop on Pine Hollow Road in McKees Rocks. The parents have been notified, they arrived in town late last night. We’re interviewing them for any relevant details. This brings us to a total of three victims in the past three months.’
Horner gives everyone a significant frown, consults his notebook.
‘State of play at the moment – we’re conducting interviews at Duquesne, and door-knocking a three-block radius around Pine Hollow Road and McCoy Road, including the small businesses there. We’re also talking to regular patrons along the twenty and twenty-two bus routes. If you’re on this detail and you find a useful witness, you know the drill, refer them on up the line. Some of you are also taking interviews at charity shops in the general Pittsburgh area about the, uh, wedding dresses. We have some cooperation from out-of-town homicide units on this front – he may be getting the dresses from another county, or even from out of state.’
Horner glares around at the gathered men. ‘Before I turn over to the commissioner, a brief word. I know some of you have been bitching about the shoe-leather work. While I appreciate there’s been more cold calls and street checks on this case in the past few weeks than in the last year, I don’t want to hear any whining about it. That’s the job, gentlemen, and we do the job until this jagoff gets caught. You want to claim overtime, be my guest, but don’t get too excited about it. All right – Mr Commissioner?’
Alan Kraus steps forward, looking uncomfortable about Horner’s cussing, being overly polite in response. ‘Uh, thank you,Chief, hello, folks. First, I want to say that the city appreciates your best efforts on this. This is a terrible thing Pittsburgh is dealing with, and people are worried. A public safety broadcast will go out on local television and radio tonight, and we’re setting up an information hotline – I know some of you will be manning the phones, that’s much appreciated. We’re also cooperating with the colleges to warn young women to attend to their safety.’
Kristin looks around Bell to catch Emma’s eye. They both know what this means for women. ‘Attending to your safety’ is code for not wearing short skirts, or drinking in bars, or having any kind of life.
A detective in the front row raises his hand. ‘These safety broadcasts, are they mentioning this guy has a specific type? Or are we casting the net wide?’
Kraus exchanges glances with Horner. ‘We’re warning all women, of every type and every age. Just because this perpetrator is focused on one type of lady at the moment doesn’t mean he won’t switch things up at some later point. We’re also doing a newspaper appeal for more information from the public. Dr Friedrich, is there anything you’d like to add?’
Friedrich straightens his bow tie. ‘Not really, at this stage. We’re still waiting on results from toxicology and trace examination from the body. We’ll send out a bulletin if there’s any variation on what we already know.’
As Friedrich finishes, Horner fills the gap. ‘Gentlemen, you’ve got the profile. Don’t rule out suspects from surrounding counties – the computer banks say he could live within a two-hour radius of Pittsburgh. He’s got a vehicle, he’s mobile. He may workin town or commute. Keep your options open, is what I’m saying. Anyway, Special Agent Howard Carter, from the FBI task force, would like to say a few words.’
Carter looks more like an academic than a field agent, with his rumpled suit and his glasses, a folder of paperwork under his arm. His baritone gives him a dignity and solemnity appropriate to the subject matter.
‘Good morning. First of all, I’d like to express my appreciation for the level of coordination we’ve got going here between Pittsburgh PD, the local bureau field office, and consulting Quantico staff. That’s really positive. Last time I spoke to you, I said it doesn’t bother me who gets the collar – Pittsburgh cops, FBI – so long as the perp we’re hunting gets caught. I still hold to that. Good cooperation between agencies leads to good information, and that’s something we want to encourage. What’s important is that we grab this guy fast.’
Carter catches eyes around the room to drill the message home. Pittsburgh has its own FBI field office, which has made liaising on this case easier, but interagency cooperation is always delicate. If the Pittsburgh detectives aren’t enthusiastic about visiting Quantico agents on their home turf, they’re keeping a lid on it.
‘I also want to say something real quick about timing. There were three weeks between the abduction of victims two and three, but only two weeks between victims one and two. It seems like he’s waiting slightly longer between kills, but he’s hanging on to them a few days more. We’re still on a tight timeline. Safe to say he’s going to do it again as soon as he’s given the opportunity.
‘Now we’ve got some new insights that suggest the perp might be taking the victims in a social situation, at a club or a bar maybe,so this guy presents okay. Don’t assume he looks like a maniac – he might look like Leif Garrett for all we know. We all learned that lesson after Bundy, I think.’
A general murmur of agreement. Another detective from the front has a question. ‘Excuse me, where’d we get this “new insights” stuff?’
Emma shifts, uneasy.
Carter takes off his glasses. ‘We’ve been tracking the similarities between this case and the Daniel Huxton case in Ohio ’79. The presentation of the victims, the dresses and the sexual assault aspects … It’s all looking a little familiar, and we’ve been consulting in that direction.’ He looks toward the back of the room, and Emma’s heart stops. ‘Miss Lewis, would you like to add anything here? Whatever you can add would be helpful.’
There’s a lurch in her stomach, like she’s on a boat. She wishes to god that Carter had allowed her to write up a report so she could’ve relayed relevant information to Horner without the glare of the spotlight. But now heads are turning, seeking her out.
It seems to take ages to get to the front. There’s no podium, and she sees forty-year-old detectives craning their necks from the back rows to get a look at her. Her throat is very dry.
‘Um. Good morning.’ She avoids looking at specific faces. ‘Okay. My name is Emma Lewis. I don’t have the experience that you detectives have in investigation. What I have is personal experience of dealing with a perpetrator like the one you’re tracking.’
She clears her throat, and her voice comes out stronger. ‘He’s most likely local and blue-collar. He probably won’t have a record, or if he does it will be for something unrelated. He won’t sweatunder questioning – he’ll have good answers. Like Special Agent Carter said, he’ll seem normal, or close enough to normal that you probably won’t look twice. But something about him will seem off. If your radar pings, then I suggest you take a second look.’
She has to say it. She meets the eyes of the men in the room, to make it count. ‘Daniel Huxton was questioned twice by detectives while he had women – including me – stashed away in his basement. Both times, he was released. Don’t be the guy who lets this perpetrator walk out of the station to find another girl to abduct and rape and torture to death. This is going to sound like lame advice, but trust your instincts. Listen for the ping. And good hunting.’
When she returns to her place, she’s shaking. Kristin squeezes her hand.
‘You did good,’ Bell says quietly.
‘Great.’ Her armpits are drenched. ‘Get me the fuck out of here.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
