Max understood the importance of understanding the motives of the killer, as well as victimology. It was crucial in any criminal investigation, but doubly important—and harder to understand—in a cold case, where time and distance created a layer of distorted memories.
Yet Lucy took profiling—which was exactly what she was doing, Max realized—to another level. She personalized it, which couldn’t be easy considering that one of the victims was her nephew. She compartmentalized as well as any cop Max had met. Maybe too well. Is that why she’d seemed so cool and distant? Even after they’d spent the day together, Lucy hadn’t warmed up. She was polite, professional, cordial, but Max knew the only way she’d ever understand Lucy was to observe her. She certainly wasn’t someone who shared much about herself. Max could get anyone to talk—either because they wanted to or became so irritated with Max that they talked just to make Max go away. Few people were as close-lipped as Lucy Kincaid. The closest she’d come to was her assistant, David, but even he wasn’t this complex.
Interesting.
Arthur said, “Agent Kincaid, it sounds like you have a good foundation on a profile. You certainly don’t need my input. I would concur with your assessment, but I have one thing to add. Did you note that all of the mothers were in the legal profession? Two were lawyers—Nelia Stanton and the most recent, Blair Caldwell; Mrs. Porter was a court reporter and Mrs. Donovan was a paralegal.”
“I didn’t quite make that connection,” Lucy said. “We knew that one or both parents were lawyers.”
Dillon spoke. “Arthur, are you thinking that the killer is also in the legal profession?”
“I’m connecting the dots that Lucy already put on the map. I concur that the killer has some connection to each family, and probably the strongest connection to the first victim, Justin Stanton. I don’t know that he wasn’t the first victim, however—if there was another three to five years before him, you’re looking at a woman who could easily be in her sixties. Justin may have been the first after the loss of her own son, so it took her time to build up to it—and in taking that time, with her own professional background, she was able to come up with a plan that protected her. Victim Zero, for example, may simply be her own son, the trigger of her psychotic break.”
“I see what you mean,” Lucy said. “And if she has the intelligence coupled with the psychosis, she could plan out the entire murder, beginning to end.”
“Psychotic?” Max said. “What exactly do you mean, Arthur? How can someone this looney tunes function in a professional job for the last two decades and continue to commit such cold-blooded murder?”
“Psychology is not a hard science,” Arthur said. “It’s more complex because while we have certain standards and rules, we don’t have absolutes like in physics or chemistry. What we have is a wealth of information and experience from life, and an analysis of like crimes. When dealing with a female killer, we have a more finite set of data because females historically don’t become serial killers. Females are passion killers. A cheating spouse. A boyfriend who left them. Mercy killings. Poison is the primary method because it separates the killer from the murder.”
Arthur took a sip from his coffee mug, then cleared his throat, and continued. “Severe depression plays a bigger part in the makeup of lone female killers—meaning those who do not have a killing partner—especially those who target their family, like Andrea Yates. Women also tend to focus in the world they know. A nurse who thinks she’s saving someone a lifetime of pain and suffering—that is her justification—but in fact her psychosis is often much darker than that. She justifies it to herself—that she is noble or doing society a great service or ending the pain of another—but that’s her logical answer to her darker need to take a human life as punishment and the sense of power it gives her. A sense of … playing God. The killer we’re looking at has completely separated herself from the act of murder. She’s only looking at the outcome—making the family suffer—not the act itself. I suspect she takes so long between crimes for two reasons. First and foremost, she needs to relocate. She has a powerful self-preservation drive, and knows that the longer she stays, the more likely someone will look to her for murder—possibly because of her own guilt and obsession and inability to stay out of the investigation. Essentially, she doesn’t completely trust herself. Second, she doesn’t have a specific target initially. It takes time to develop this pattern. To find a cheating spouse who has one son and fits the profile of her own past.”
Dillon said, “Do you think that the killer was working with my sister Nelia—she was a lawyer for a defense contractor, she didn’t work in a law office—or with my brother-in-law, Stanton? Stanton was a prosecutor at the time, he had many more colleagues. Nelia worked for the legal counsel, who was a man and much older. I may be able to find out if there was anyone else with a legal background at her company, but it’ll be difficult.”
“I couldn’t say,” Arthur said. “I suppose I would be inclined to think that she’d work with the wife, only because she has some sympathy toward the female in the partnership, but the Stanton case is unusual because both parents were lawyers.”
“What we should be looking for then,” Dillon said, “is a list of female lawyers, paralegals, court reporters—anyone who worked for the County of San Diego or for the defense contractor, who came from out of state and then left employment within a year of Justin’s murder.”
“And moved to Santa Barbara,” Max said. “Because the Porters lived in Santa Barbara.”
“Employee records are generally private,” Arthur said. “It may be difficult to get any viable list.”
“I’ll talk to Andrew,” Lucy said.
“You may need to consider turning this over to the local field office, Lucy,” Dillon said.
“No,” Max interrupted. “Absolutely not. While I appreciate Lucy’s help on this, I’ve worked with law enforcement on many cold cases over the last decade. If we don’t give them something solid, they will shelve the entire investigation. I can’t go to them with this theory and expect them to expend resources when one of the crimes is ostensibly solved—Donovan—and one of the crimes is currently pending trial. They’ll laugh as they slam the door in my face if I suggest a grieving mother is going around killing little boys to force other mothers to grieve. Oh, and I only have evidence of crimes committed more than fifteen years ago.”
“Max is right,” Lucy said. “Every FBI office is spread thin right now, and has been for years. Violent crimes goes to the bottom each and every time.”
“We have friends, Lucy,” Dillon said.
“And when I have something actionable, I will call in every favor. But we don’t have it now.”