“QUINCY.”
“This is Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, Boston PD. I’m calling regarding the criminal profile you developed for Charlene Grant. The January twenty-first homicides. As in two murders down, maybe a third to go, which I’d personally like to avoid. Boston’s homicide rate is high enough, thank you.”
“Detective,” retired FBI profiler Pierce Quincy greeted her crisply. “Spoke to my daughter last night. She apprised me of your investigation. Sounds like you have a plan, something involving social media?”
“Seems worth trying. I understand you studied both the first and second crime scene.”
“Prepared the first report for Jackie Knowles. Wrote the second for Charlene, after Jackie’s murder.”
D.D. hadn’t thought of that. “Sorry,” she murmured, not sure what else to say to the retired profiler.
“Crime scene analysis is easier,” Quincy replied simply, “when you don’t know the victim. Therefore, I must add caveats to my second report. It is probably not as objective as the first.”
“Let’s start with the first murder, the Providence scene,” D.D. decided. “My impression from your report, and the lead investigator, Roan Griffin, is that the perpetrator is someone with a high-degree of self-control, advanced communication skills, above average intelligence, and a good deal of manual strength.”
“Agreed.”
“Male or female?”
“Statistics would argue male. Lack of sexual assault, however, complicates the analysis.”
“Gut feel?”
“Can’t get one from the Providence murder. However, factoring in the Atlanta homicide, where the victim was last seen with a woman, I lean toward a female perpetrator. It would explain the willingness of both women to open their doors, even the thorough cleanup afterward. Granted, many serial killers can be meticulous in their ability to sanitize a crime scene, but few think to tend the sofa cushions.”
“Tend the sofa cushions?” D.D. asked.
“They appeared recently fluffed. A distinctly feminine touch.”
“Fluffed? How can you tell that?”
“Can’t, not definitively. But according to Jackie’s neighbor, Ms. Knowles had a tendency to toss the decorative pillows to one side of the love seat and sit on the other. When the police arrived at the scene, however, the accent pillows were perfectly positioned. In fact, the lower cushions and back cushions of the love seat were smoothed out and neatly squared. As one detective observed, it appeared as if no one had ever sat on the furniture. It was fluffed.”
“But Jackie might have done it,” D.D. countered. “You know, tidying up in case she brought up a ‘guest’ that night.”
“True. I’m offering a theory based on supposition, not fact.”
“Well, at least you’re honest,” D.D. informed him.
She thought the profiler might have laughed, but the moment was brief.
“We need to stir the pot,” D.D. said abruptly. “We have two days before January twenty-first. I’ve got Charlene Grant running around Boston, hiding from everyone she knows and currently armed with a twenty-two semiauto-”
“She has a handgun?”
“Legally registered.”
“Won’t help her.”
“Based on supposition or fact?”
“Both. First two victims never fought back. If they didn’t rip off their own fingernails trying to claw away a pair of hands choking them to death, what makes Charlene think she’ll get off a single shot?”
D.D. swallowed hard, not liking that image. “Maybe they did fight back. The perpetrator cleaned up their hands afterward, after fluffing the pillows, of course.”
“Randi had perfectly manicured nails of above average length. Not a single one was broken. What are the odds of that?”
“Tox screen?” D.D. asked.
“Negative for drugs.”
“Could they have been attacked in their sleep?”
“Possible, but lack of oxygen should have bolted them awake, triggering fight or flight. By all accounts, both were capable of fighting.”
“Then how do you explain the lack of self-defense wounds?”
“I can’t.”
D.D. sighed again. “At least you’re honest,” she repeated.
“Sadly, that’s not helping either one of us. Or, on the twenty-first, Charlene Grant. Has there been any contact?” Quincy asked abruptly. “A note to Charlene, anything?”
“No.”
“Unusual,” he commented. “Very, actually, for a repeat offender to duplicate a pattern so precisely. Most killers describe murder as a physical sensation, releasing a chemical in the brain similar to a runner’s high. The first kill is generally impulsive and anxiety-inducing. But after the dust settles, the killer forgets the fear, remembers the buzz, and begins to yearn again. Next kill cycle may take a bit, but over time, the need for the physiological release that accompanies each murder becomes the overriding drive, shortening the kill cycle, leading to more frenzy, less organization, less control. The killer may try to combat the cycle by turning to alcohol and/or drugs as a substitute for the homicidal high, but it rarely works. On the other hand, it does assist law enforcement efforts as the killer begins to disintegrate, making more and more mistakes.”
“Judging by that logic, this killer is still at the infancy of the kill cycle, if he or she can make it a full year between each victim?” D.D. guessed.
“Technically speaking, this killer isn’t yet a serial killer. Takes three. At this point, we have a repeat offender whose pattern is almost technical in nature. More ritualized assassin than serial predator.”
“Maybe because the murderer is a female. She’s not driven by bloodlust, but something else.”
“It’s the something else we need to understand. If we could identify the why, then perhaps that would reveal the who.”
“All right.” D.D. was game. “Why Randi Menke? Why Jackie Knowles? What do they have in common?”
“Both single women living in urban environments. Same age. Both grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, with friends and family in common. More specifically, both were best friends of Charlene Grant.”
“Which Charlene takes to mean that she’s the next victim. Are you as sure of that? Maybe this has something to do with Randi and Jackie. Not Charlie at all.”
“Possible,” Quincy agreed. “With only two murders, we lack enough data points to draw meaningful conclusions. The fact that Randi and Jackie happened to know each other could still be completely random; they knew they knew each other, but the killer did not.”
“I don’t like random,” D.D. said. “I know it happens, but it still hasn’t made a believer out of me.”
“That would make two of us,” Quincy agreed. “So, we’ll make our first assumption: Randi and Jackie share a common link that led to their deaths. Now, in adulthood, they didn’t really. They lived in two different states, separated by nearly a thousand miles. Randi lived in a posh area of Providence, divorced from an abusive husband, worked as a receptionist at a wellness center. Jackie lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, single, lesbian, corporate workaholic. Not so much in common.”
“Wait a minute,” D.D. interjected. “What about the abusive husband? Did Jackie know, perhaps intervene on behalf of her friend, Randi, which might have put Jackie in the doc’s sights?”
“Negative. According to Jackie herself, she never knew Randi was having domestic issues until after Randi’s murder. Apparently, Randi had never confided in her friends.”
“She isolated herself,” D.D. murmured, recognizing the pattern of so many beaten wives.
“In adulthood, the three friends had drifted apart,” Quincy stated. “Meaning, in order to find the common link between Randi and Jackie, you must go back approximately ten years, to when they grew up together in the same small town, attending the same tiny school. And during that time, they were not defined as Randi and Jackie, but as Randi, Jackie, and Charlie. Apparently, the locals often referred to them by a single moniker, Randi Jackie Charlie.”
“The Three Musketeers,” D.D. said.
“Precisely, and given that, I can’t blame Charlene for making the assumption that she’s next. Best case scenario, she wakes up pleasantly surprised January twenty-second. Worst case scenario…”
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” D.D. murmured.
“Exactly.”
“All right,” D.D. said briskly. “For the sake of argument, let’s assume the entire trio has been targeted. So why now? Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to kill them when they lived in the same town? All together? For that matter, why pick them off, one by one? And why on January twenty-first?”
“Excellent questions, Detective. When you find the answers, please let me know.”
“It’s ritualized,” D.D. continued thinking out loud. “The perpetrator’s whole approach is deeply personal to him or her. The date, the methodology, even the individual targeting. Perhaps the target cluster is a trio of friends, but the killer’s style ensures each one dies alone.”
“An interesting observation, Detective.”
“All right, so let’s say the killer is morally opposed to BFFs. First murder was two years ago, nearly eight years after the women had gone their separate ways. Why wait until so many years have passed, then start by attacking Randi on the twenty-first?”
“There are several points to consider there,” Quincy replied. “One, age. The women parted ways at eighteen. Assuming the killer is someone who knew them from childhood, it’s possible the killer is of their peer group. Eighteen is a transitional age, the boundary between being a teenager and being an adult. You could argue the killer needed to gain more experience before having the wherewithal to act out his or her impulse…”
“Grooming,” D.D. muttered. “Had to go to various murder-r-us chat rooms, learn how to get it done.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
“Eighteen is also a pivotal age in mental health. There are many conditions, including bipolar or schizophrenia, that manifest around this stage of development.”
“Meaning, the attacker transitioned from ‘normal’ to ‘abnormal,’ including an abnormal need to kill BFFs?”
“Possible, worth considering, I think. The issue with this theory is that the nature of the crime scenes argues for a perpetrator in full possession of his or her faculties. An organized, not disorganized killer.”
“But something happened,” D.D. murmured. “If you assume that three friends are the target, something happened to make the perpetrator embark on this ritual.”
“Maybe it happened on the twenty-first,” Quincy said.
“Did the women see something, witness something?” D.D. mused. “Maybe they were home for the holidays, as adults, they came across an incriminating auto accident, happened to witness a Mafia killing, something, anything.”
“Question has been asked many times. Charlene has always responded negatively.”
“Okay,” D.D. kept thinking. “Three best friends. Who hates three girls?” And then it came to her, so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “The fourth,” she breathed out. “The fourth girl, who never made the cut.”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Quincy said. “It’s a good theory. In fact, I’m sorry I never thought to ask that question.”
“So I return to Charlene, I ask about other childhood friends.”
“No,” Quincy corrected immediately. “Don’t ask about friends, ask about the girls who were never friends. The loner in the classroom. The girl who always sat by herself at lunch, the outsider, looking in.”
“But you said the killer has above average communication skills. When has that loner had above average communication skills?”
“Maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe Randi and Jackie opened their doors out of lingering pity for a former classmate, not warm welcome of a charismatic stranger.”
“Okay, okay. I can do that,” D.D. muttered. “But even if Charlene remembers a name, I’m down to forty-eight hours to track a person for a case that isn’t even yet my case. Given the time line, maybe this girl is already in Boston, on the hunt for Charlene…”
“You want a strategy that is more proactive?”
“I want to draw the killer to us. I was thinking of setting up a Facebook page, something commemorating the anniversary of the murders, honoring the victims. I want to stir the pot. Crawl inside the killer’s head. How do I do that?”
The phone line fell quiet. She could feel Quincy considering the matter.
“I wish I could come to Boston,” Quincy muttered. “I would feel better, I think, if I were in Boston.”
“Hey, nothing personal, Mr. Former Fed, but Boston PD is not a bunch of local yokels. We try to keep at least one person alive a year. I’m thinking this year that’ll be Charlene Grant.”
“I’m worried about her,” Quincy said quietly.
“You should be,” D.D. said bluntly. “I spent an hour with the girl. She needs to gain about twenty pounds, sleep twenty days, and lay off the twenty-two. Other than that, though…”
“My wife and I. We’ve recently adopted.”
“You have a baby?” D.D. was shocked. She hadn’t seen a photo of the former profiler to determine age, but given that his daughter was a full-grown fed with kids of her own…
“Not a baby. We are much too old for that,” Quincy replied dryly, as if reading her mind. “A ten-year-old girl we fostered first. We love her dearly. And if we are very lucky, one day we hope she will be able to feel that love. But she isn’t there yet.”
“Project,” D.D. said.
“Potential,” Quincy corrected gently. “My wife is a former law enforcement officer as well. We’ve seen both sides of the equation. We know what we’re up against. When I heard of Jackie Knowles’s murder…It was good to have a child in the house again. It was good to remember the promise of the future and not just dwell on past regrets.”
D.D. didn’t say anything. Quincy’s words made her think of everything she loved about coming home to Jack. She’d worried in the beginning that having a baby would limit her ability to do her job. And maybe Jack did limit her hours, but he also balanced the equation. Children, the hope for a better tomorrow, was everything a homicide cop worked for. You took the hit, so your child wouldn’t have to. You put in the long hours, as her case team had done last night, so that other kids could feel safe.
“Fourth friend,” Quincy said.
“What?”
“That’s what you need. Based on your own analysis. You need to create a fictional fourth friend. A fresh target to distract your killer.”
D.D. frowned, turned it over. “But how? If we assume the killer is someone from childhood who knew the trio, the murderer will know it’s false.”
“You need to be the fourth friend.”
“What?”
“The person who initiates the Facebook page. Position yourself as a person of honor and ownership of Jackie and Randi. You met them in college maybe. First Jackie, then Randi, then Charlie. You all hung out together in Boston. You love them, you grieve for them, and now you’ve appointed yourself memory keeper. If your theory is correct, and the killer is a social outsider, that alone will aggravate her. She murdered Jackie and Randi so that they would belong to her. And now in death, you’re taking them back. You’re claiming their memory. Colloquially speaking, that should piss her off.”
“I like it,” D.D. said.
“Killing is about power. So you must interrupt the power equation, deliberately provoking and threatening the authority of the killer. She’s not in control. You are. In fact, you are the best friend Jackie and Randi ever had, because you will keep them alive forever. Your love, your power, is greater than hers.”
“And I have better shoes,” D.D. added. “Women can’t stand that.”
Quincy’s low chuckle. “Sounds like you’re on the right track.”
“Thank you,” D.D. said honestly. “This has been very helpful.” She paused. “Can I ask you one last question?”
“By all means.”
“Could it be Charlene? She’s setting herself up as the third victim, but what if that’s just a ruse? What if she’s the perpetrator and this is how she’s covering her tracks?”
The receiver was quiet again. “I don’t know,” Quincy said at last. “That’s a complicated way to get away with murder. But one thing’s for certain-you’ll know on the twenty-second.”