“What you did took guts. You saved Sarah Lowe’s life and stopped a killer who murdered at least two children,” Ressler said.
Mulder sat up straight. “You said ‘at least.’ Does that mean you think he killed even more kids? Ones you haven’t found yet?”
Because that’s what I think.
“Recovering Daniel Tyler’s body proves something I was afraid of.”
His throat went dry. “What?”
Ressler unwrapped a roll of antacids sitting on his desk, popped two in his mouth, and swallowed them. “That Earl Roy Propps didn’t start murdering kids five days ago. He’s been doing this for a long time.”
Something clicked in Mulder’s mind. “Did you find the bikes in the backyard? Did they belong to other kids? Earl Roy had a bike for Sarah. He said it was a gift. I thought maybe the other bikes were gifts, too.”
“We found the bikes,” Ressler said. “But we aren’t sure who they belonged to yet.”
“Then what made you think Billy Christian wasn’t Earl Roy’s first victim?”
“It’s my job to catch killers like Earl Roy, and I’ve been doing it long enough to recognize when I’m dealing with an experienced serial killer.” Agent Ressler pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’ll hear about it on the news tonight, if the media hasn’t figured it out already.” He leaned against the wall behind his desk. “We found a third child’s body, in another mausoleum at Rock Creek Cemetery. So that makes four victims, now.”
“How did you know where Earl Roy hid the bodies? Did you find something at his house? Like a list? Or did he tell you himself?”
Ressler sat down again and propped his elbows on the desk. “No. We didn’t have anything that concrete. But leaving the bodies in mausoleums fit Earl Roy’s profile.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by his profile.”
“It’s not a term many people use outside of the BSU. A profile is a psychological description of a violent offender based on what we know about their crimes,” Ressler explained. “It’s like putting together a puzzle when you don’t have all the pieces—or the picture on the box to help you. My job is to fill in the missing pieces—ideally, before a killer leaves a trail of victims.”
Mulder sat on the edge of his chair, hanging on Ressler’s every word. “So the profile helped you figure out where to look for the bodies?”
“Exactly. Earl Roy is what we call a ritualistic killer. He engages in specific rituals that have symbolic meaning to him.” Ressler pushed up his sleeves. “For example, he killed Billy after eight days, and he planned to do the same thing with Sarah. He left a bird pierced with arrows that were arranged in the same pattern with each body—it all pointed to a killer who would dispose of the bodies in the same way, and leave them in similar locations.”
“So you started searching crypts?” Mulder pictured Ressler and a bunch of FBI agents wandering around Rock Creek Cemetery with crowbars.
“I let the cadaver dogs do that part,” Ressler explained. “They’re trained to find human remains.”
“In a cemetery? The whole place is full of human remains.” It sounded like trying to find a needle in a skyscraper-sized haystack.
“I said the same thing the first time one of my instructors at the FBI Academy introduced the concept. But cadaver dogs are highly trained. Some only detect old remains, and other dogs, like the ones we took to Rock Creek Cemetery, are trained to detect odors related to certain stages of decomposition.”
“I still don’t get it,” Mulder said.
“This won’t sound very scientific, but we used cemetery records and the process of elimination. Since Earl Roy left Billy in an empty crypt, we assumed he would’ve done the same thing with his earlier victims. So we only searched mausoleums, not graves, and we eliminated the ones without any empty crypts. We started with the mausoleums closest to the one where Billy’s body was found.”
Once Mulder realized that FBI agents weren’t being pulled through the graveyard while they clung to the leashes of a pack of bloodhounds, he was impressed by the scientific nature of it all. “How long did it take the dogs to find the right crypts?”
“A few hours. Daniel’s body was in a mausoleum two plots away from the one where Billy’s body was found, and the girl’s remains were recovered from the mausoleum across from it.”
“The other victim was a girl?” Mulder barely got the words out.
Ressler nodded. “She disappeared in 1972.”
“You’re sure? Could it have been 1973?” he asked, his pulse drumming.
“Normally, I would say maybe. Remains that old take longer to identify. But in this case, we were able to ID the victim because of surgical evidence. She had pins in her hip from orthopedic surgery after a car accident.”