Vail rubbed her gloved hands together. “I can give you a number of potential reasons why he does that. Same with the lines he carves in their abdomens. An important thing to remember is that killers who mutilate make up a very small subset of offenders. First off, they’re just about always men. Second, most of the men who mutilate do it for utilitarian purposes: they dismember so they can get rid of the body parts and prevent identification.
“Then you’ve also got offenders who are offensive mutilators. He’s pissed and gets his revenge by attacking the genitalia, the sexual areas of the body. The smallest group of this already small subset are the guys who do it because they get some sexual satisfaction out of it. Some wear the vulvas they cut away. Others play with them.”
“Thanks for that,” Hurdle said. “I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
“Honestly,” Vail said, “for the purposes of catching Marcks, why he’s doing these things to his victims is not as important as our observations. And that brings us back to his sexual orientation being a key to finding him.”
“Because that’s where he’ll be finding his new victims?” Morrison asked.
“Or it could just be a place of safety and comfort for him, where he doesn’t think we’d look for him. Before he was arrested, he did not get his victims from gay hangouts. And not all of them were gay.”
Hurdle took a moment to bring Tarkoff and Morrison up to date on their new undercover op involving gay bars.
“We were never able to determine how he found his vics,” Curtis said. “And he wasn’t exactly forthcoming about it—or anything else—when we had him in the box.”
“Let’s get back to victim preference,” Hurdle said. “Because that holds a lot of promise for catching him. If we know the victim population, and we can narrow the geography where these people congregate, we can use that to our advantage. Morrison, get with Walters. That’ll be your focus.” He turned to Vail. “When do you think you’ll have an answer on whether or not this victim is one of ours?”
“Let’s see if we can get an ID. That might help.”
“If the vic’s gay, would you think it’s more likely a Marcks kill?”
“Not necessarily. It could’ve been opportunistic. Guy stumbles on Marcks—who might’ve been planning to stay in the park overnight—and he has to kill him to keep him quiet.”
“Or,” Morrison said, “maybe the vic and Marcks knew each other years ago and this was a retribution kill. Way he’s dressed, could be a lawyer. Let’s see if the vic matches one of Marcks’s defense attorneys.”
“Whoa,” Vail said, holding up two gloved hands. “Before we go running in a million directions with a ton of assumptions, let’s pull back a second. I think there’s a real good chance this was Marcks. We’ve got a general witness description that matches well and we’ve got a fugitive killer on the loose in the area. For now, I’d call it ours. But by morning we should know more definitively.” Her phone vibrated. She struggled to get it out with her gloves on, so she pulled one off and answered. “Art. Kind of late to—”
“Got another crime scene. Arson case. Fresh. If you’re not busy, thought you’d want to take a look.”
Busy? Nah, just sittin’ around watching mindless reality TV.
“Where?”
“In the sticks. I’ll text you the address.”
“On my way.” She hung up and asked Hurdle if there was anything further he needed her for tonight. “Crime scene one of my colleagues wants me to take a look at. We good here?”
“Got it covered. Have fun.”
Oh, yeah. A blast.
30
Vail arrived at the address the GPS directed her to—but aside from a mass of emergency responder and law enforcement vehicles, she would have sworn she was in the middle of nowhere. Thick stands of Hickory, Cottonwood, and Hemlock trees obscured the residence from the road, and there were no neighbors for quite a distance in any direction.
She pulled up behind the fire marshal’s truck and found Art Rooney moments later, walking alongside a man and a woman dressed in fire department uniforms.
Rooney excused himself and met her about twenty yards from the burned-out structure, small flare-ups of fire still visible here and there, firefighters quashing them as soon as they sprouted.
“Is it definitely arson?” Vail asked.
“Affirmative. I’ll show you what we’ve got so far—but let’s not forget that it’s below freezing and damp out because of the snow, which makes an accidental fire less likely to do such dramatic damage—without some very substantial help.”
“Same guy?”
“Hard to say just yet, but my gut says yes. If nothing else, look at a basic fact: the arsonist we’re looking for chooses his targets in rural areas where there’s distance between the houses—which means it delays discovery, allowing it to burn longer before the fire department can get to it. More importantly, rural areas are served by volunteer fire departments.”
“Not as experienced?”
“Potentially—but they have to go to the station first to get the trucks. And then they go to the fire. That obviously allows it to burn longer. That extra time means less evidence left behind for investigators to find. Our arsonist has done this in every single instance. That alone is an identifiable MO.”
“But there’s more.”