“The Hangman website creator.”
“I’ve researched him more since we last spoke. About ten years ago, he started blogging about famous murder cases and the methods of murder they employ. He went into detail about hangings, including knots. He never named the Hangman in the entry but heavily alluded to the case. He went into detail about the position of the bodies and the victims. Some of what he discussed came from not only public records but also police files. Someone on the inside fed him information either out of carelessness, stupidity, or greed.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s forty-nine now. Twenty-four at the time of the murders.”
“What about DNA? Have you examined the clothing found at the original crime scenes?”
“I have. And I pulled several hair fibers from two of the victims’ clothes. Being tested as we speak. A day or two longer and I’ll likely have results. Call me.”
“And you’ll let me know about the letters?”
“I will.”
“Thanks, Andrews. I do appreciate your work on this case.”
“Shield Security takes its commitments very seriously.”
Andrews escorted her out of the building, and as she headed out of the lot, she felt no closer to catching the Hangman. The case was a tangled mess. Before she second-guessed her decision, she called Novak.
He picked up on the first ring. “Julia.”
The deep timbre of his voice had a soothing quality. “I’m leaving Shield now. Vic Carson is back in town. Thought I’d pay him a visit. Care to join me?”
“I would like that very much. Meet me at my office.”
Unmindful of the hour, Andrews called Dr. Kincaid at the medical examiner’s office. When he found out she’d left for the day, he dialed her private cell. When she answered, she was shouting and sounded rushed. In the background he heard the sounds of a rock concert.
“This is Dr. Kincaid,” she said.
“Garrett Andrews with Shield Security.”
“Wait a moment, let me get to a quieter spot.” Muffled sounds followed before he heard a door close. “Sorry about that; I’m at a club. How did you get this number?”
“It’s what I do.”
“Right. What can I do for you?”
He’d never met Dr. Kincaid in person but had seen pictures of her in the media and online. He tried to imagine the highly professional woman in a club with rock music pulsing around her. Was her hair down? Was she wearing glasses? The image he conjured was appealing.
“I’m working with Agent Vargas on the Hangman case,” Andrews said.
“Yes, I heard.”
“I would like to review the autopsy report for her father, Jim Vargas.”
“He was a suicide. Why would his death be relevant?” Her voice had lost the breathless quality and was back in control.
“It may not have any bearing on the case. But he was the lead investigator, and he was mentioned as a possible killer. I have reexamined all avenues of this case, but not his death. Can you secure the records?”
“It might take a day or two to retrieve them from archives. I can’t release them to you. But you can come by my office and look at them.”
“As soon as you have them, call me. I’ll drive down immediately and review them.”
“Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Andrews?”
The downbeat of the background music pulsed. “No, that will be it, Dr. Kincaid. I look forward to your call. Thank you.”
He hung up and turned toward the pictures Julia had retrieved from the Wayne home. He’d scanned them, and they were each now displayed on three large computer monitors.
Vicky stood in the foreground of all the photos. In all she was smiling and staring at the camera. She wore a halter top and hip-hugger jeans that showcased large breasts and a narrow waist. A belly button ring winked from her navel. Her gaze was aimed directly at the camera in two images, but in the other two she looked to her left as if someone had caught her attention.
However, his interest shifted from the young girl who had less than one month to live to the background—the Richmond city skyline. As Julia Vargas had theorized, it had been taken from across the river toward the old tobacco warehouse district. A construction site beside a partly built skyscraper gave him the timeline he needed. It had been taken approximately October of 1992. A newspaper and police report search revealed that there’d been three private parties in the Manchester district in that month. The events had been newsworthy because they’d attracted several hundred people. The cops had raided one of the parties and made dozens of drug arrests. No one had been able to pinpoint who had set up the party.
He enlarged the faces in the background and noted there were six men and sixteen women who’d been captured by the picture frame. Some faces were too blurred or turned in such a way that facial recognition would not be possible. But there were at least four men and nine women among the set of pictures that he had enough facial points to analyze. He isolated each face and fed them into the program.
He rose from the workstation and moved to the break room to pour a fresh cup of coffee. He already knew it would be a long night. But he didn’t care. Chasing killers who thought they’d gotten away with murder filled him with purpose, and for a few hours the ghosts he’d left behind in Iraq didn’t taunt him.
The Hangman dug a ring of keys from his pocket and opened the basement door to his work space. He pushed open the door, clicked on a light, and then immediately closed the door behind him. The room was as he’d left it. Workbench filled with a collection of power tools, hooks, and strands of a half-dozen strips of rope.
He adjusted a light at his workstation and sat on a stool. Reading glasses on, he clicked on his computer and searched for mention of the Hangman in the news. There’d been brief accounts of an unidentified female found dead in a city warehouse. The article ended with: Police still investigating possible motives.
He sat back and pulled off his glasses. The media had mostly ignored the first murder two and a half decades ago. A lone woman of questionable virtue had died in the city. And no one cared. By the second death there was some interest, and by the third he’d had everyone’s attention.
General apathy this go-around confirmed to him that people really didn’t change that much. They didn’t see danger or crisis until it was in their face. Too late.
Maybe if Julia hadn’t rattled cages with her undercover investigation, or if she’d left the Hangman alone, it would be different. But she’d done both, and he could no longer ignore her. To prove to everyone, especially Julia Vargas, that the Hangman had never gone away and the Popovs never forgot, he would have to kill again.
“This one might be the charm,” he muttered with a smile.