Johnson acknowledged Rooney’s comment. “Might be right. Might be wrong.”
“And then there’s the issue of this note,” Vail said, “which is new. Has nothing to do with MO.”
“May just be a tweak,” Rooney said, “at us. Not like we haven’t seen that before.”
“Where are we with the homosexual bars?” Curtis asked.
Hurdle frowned. “Let’s go into the living room. I just feel weird discussing this in front of the … victim. I mean, I know she’s dead, but it doesn’t feel right.”
They moved into the elaborately decorated space, where Hummel collectibles were meticulously laid out in a display cabinet whose shelves had been recently dusted.
“We’ve got the two bars under surveillance,” Hurdle said, “and several others in DC and Virginia. Undercovers come and go, mingle, and report back. We’ve given them an old mug shot of Gaines. Waiting on the DMV to send us what they’ve got—which is hopefully more recent. So far no sign of Marcks.” He turned to Vail. “Where are you on your ‘reassessment’?”
“You serious? You think I can snap my fingers and come up with something on the fly?” Not like I’ve never done that before. But he doesn’t know that.
“What reassessment?” Rooney asked.
As Vail explained, Rooney sucked his teeth. “I think that’s smart. You want some help?”
“From you? Hell yes.”
“Let’s talk it through for a minute. Start at the beginning. What do we know about Marcks?”
“Less than ideal childhood. Our knowledge is limited and based on interviews with relatives and neighbors because he refused to talk with us after his arrest. What we were told is that he was sexually abused as a child. My guess is that it stopped as he grew older because he was probably a big teenager and could defend himself and challenge the person who was abusing him. Likely a close relative. Father, maybe his mother. Hard to know unless he tells us. Not something he’s probably shared with anyone. And not something he’d have shared with me even if I’d been successful in sitting down with him.”
“He’s a sexual mutilator,” Rooney said, “if I remember correctly from Tom’s Wednesday briefings.”
“Good memory. He cuts the vics, parallel lines in the abdomen, and then severs the genitalia.”
“The genitalia seems pretty straightforward. What about the lines?”
“Hard to know. Comforting for some reason.” Vail thought a moment. “But why he did it may be less important now than the fact that he needed to do it. Especially since we know who the UNSUB is.”
“True.”
“Except,” Curtis said, “that now we’re looking at the possibility that Marcks may’ve had an accomplice.”
“Yeah.” Vail rested her arms on her hips.
“Let’s explore that,” Rooney said. “There’s strong evidence that Marcks is gay. And we know there are a number of gay serial killers who worked in pairs. Was there anything in the behaviors that might indicate there were two different offenders at work?”
Vail mulled the files in her mind, thinking through each of the killings. “Nothing that Underwood specifically called out. He did think, at one point, that there were two offenders. I saw notes in the margin of one of his reports. But he obviously abandoned that concept in his final assessment.”
“And what about you? Forget Tom’s work on the case. What do you think?”
“It might answer a few questions I had in terms of things I couldn’t account for. It was early in my career. I wasn’t about to second-guess a legend.”
“But now you’ve got the chops to do just that.” Rooney folded his arms across his chest. “So tell me. What questions did you have?”
“On the ninth victim there were cut marks on the body that were different from the slices we’d seen on the previous victims. They were shallower, and on the back, between the shoulder blades. I couldn’t explain that. It might indicate a second killer.”
“Anything else?”
Vail’s gaze drifted off, up to the ceiling. “Victim ten. There was something in the way he was penetrated that was different. Linkage to Marcks by the specific way the vics were killed is correct—except that the subsequent sexual interaction is different. More anal tearing. Underwood interpreted it as more anger on the part of Marcks, but it could indicate a second offender.”
Curtis shook his head. “Without forensics, how do we know for sure?”
Vail and Rooney shared a cynical look.
“It’s very difficult,” Rooney said, “because with a pair of killers there’s usually one alpha and one beta—the follower. And most, if not all, of the behavior that’s expressed at the scene is from the alpha.”