Crush

Vail and Robby ate breakfast with their B&B mates—plus another couple who’d arrived last night—and after putting down their forks and draining their coffee, were the first to leave. Vail had to be at the task force at 9 a.m., and she didn’t want to be late.

While en route to the sheriff’s department, Vail thought about asking Robby to call the Vienna police chief to ask permission for him to participate on the task force. But Robby, being a Virginia state law enforcement officer, had no jurisdiction in California. His chief would never go for it: He would say that the locals had plenty of homicide investigators to work the case—and he would be correct. Vail, however, was a different situation. She had a unique skill set the police here didn’t have.

When they arrived at the sheriff’s department, Robby pulled to the curb by the front of the building. “Call me when you’re done.”

Vail’s door was open, the car audibly purring. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s Napa.” He held up a Wine Country News magazine. “No shortage of places to explore. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

VAIL WALKED INTO the conference room used by the Napa County Major Crimes Task Force. Located on the second floor of the sheriff’s department, it was a well-appointed meeting space with a generous oak chair rail lining the walls and numerous gray ergonomic stenographer seats surrounding a sectional faux-marble taupe-and-gray table. A laptop sat in the middle of the table beside a few stacks of printed pages and a plastic container of muffins. County map posters hung beside an expansive pane of one-way glass. A large-format printer sat in the corner beside a wall-sized whiteboard.

Not surprisingly, Vail was the only woman in the room. All heads swiveled in her direction as she strode to a vacant seat. As she sat down, everyone resumed their conversations. Redmond Brix was standing at the whiteboard chatting with a young male in uniform.

“You must be Karen Vail.”

Vail turned to see a man in his late twenties or early thirties, styled hair and thumbs hooked through the loops in his belt . . . wearing polished chestnut boots.

She extended a hand. “Yeah, that’s me. Don’t tell me I forgot to take off my name tag again.” She smiled sheepishly and feigned a look at her shirt.

“Sheriff Owens mentioned you’d be here. I’m Scott Fuller. Detective Scott Fuller, Napa County SD.”

“Sheriff’s a good man. Small world, actually. He took my class on Behavioral Science at the FBI’s National Academy—”

“I know all about it. I’m enrolled to start the program in a couple months.”

“I’ll see you back in Virginia, then.”

“Do you know anyone else on the task force?”

“Just walked in a minute ago.”

“Well, then let me do the intros.” He turned, stuck his fingers in his lips and whistled. Everyone turned. “This is Special Agent Karen Vail, from the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico,” Fuller said. “She’s here to help us with the wine cave murder.”

“Glad to meet all of you,” Vail said. “Actually, I’m with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, and we’re a few minutes down the road from Quantico, in Aquia. We moved out of Quantico a little over ten years ago. But Scott’s right, I’m here to help. If there’s anything I can contribute, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“That’s Sergeant Ray Lugo, with St. Helena PD,” Fuller said, indicating a Hispanic male as wide in the shoulders as he was in the gut—a refrigerator came to mind.

Vail nodded acknowledgment.

“And you already know Detective Lieutenant Brix,” Fuller said. “He’s the Incident Commander for this . . . uh . . .”

“Incident?”

Fuller frowned. “For this murder.”

The door swung open hard and in walked a petite blonde in a tightly cut short-sleeve blouse and professional knee-length skirt. She strode to the front of the room and took a seat near the head of the oval conference table. Every male head followed her movement, and she behaved as if she knew it.

“And that’s Roxxann Dixon,” Fuller said.

Dixon tossed a thick binder on the table and looked up at Vail. “And you are?”

“Karen Vail, FBI.”

Dixon looked around at the attentive male faces. “And why is the Bureau here?” she asked.

Vail waited for someone else to answer. Meanwhile, she was sizing up Dixon. Was she being antagonistic because she enjoyed being the only female on the task force, or was she merely the inquisitive, controlling type? Light blue eyes with unusually muscular arms and legs for a female, so she hit the weights regularly, and her short sleeves in the cooler weather meant she liked to let everyone know it. She was either into health and fitness and working out, compensating for something, or she felt she needed the bulk to compete with the men in her department. I can relate to that, Vail thought.

“Agent Vail is here on my request,” Brix said. “This case has some unusual elements to it and I think she can help. She’s out here on vacation and was . . . in the vicinity when the body was discovered.”

Dixon nodded slowly. Vail could tell she was doing what Vail had done to her: sizing her up, measuring her potential adversary, determining whether she’d truly be an asset, competition for male attention on the task force, or an extreme annoyance with some political heft and an attitude. I’m probably all of the above.

“Which agency are you with?” Vail asked.

“I’m an investigator with the Napa County District Attorney’s office.”

“I’m actually a profiler with Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Vail said.

“Oh,” Dixon said.

‘Oh?’ What does that mean?

“Okay,” Brix said, “let’s get started.” He took a step forward and handed Vail a thick card. “Electronic key. The proximity card will give you admittance to the building and restricted areas. Feel free to use it while you’re here, but we’ll need the prox card back when you leave.”

Vail took it and shoved it into her purse.

“I’ve sent all of you the email with what we had as of last night,” Brix said, passing a stapled sheaf of papers to Vail. The others had official county binders in front of them with requisite materials fastened and punched. “I’ve got a few updates, and some pictures of the victim.” He nodded to Fuller, who took a seat at the conference table in front of the laptop.

Fuller reached around his binder and fingered the touchpad. The screen awoke and displayed photos of the Silver Ridge Estates wine cave interior. Fuller hit a button on a nearby remote. A screen unfurled from the ceiling and the blue light from a projector splashed across it. Fuller pressed a couple of keys and the enlarged image appeared for all to see.

Brix took the group through the crime scene, describing what they were seeing as a supplement to the email he had sent them. Vail studied the photos. They were no doubt taken a short time after she and Robby had left the Silver Ridge wine cave. “Coroner says both wrists were sliced deeply. She bled out fairly slowly because it was done postmortem. Looks like she was strangled.” He nodded to Fuller, who pressed a button on his remote. The slide changed to a close-up of the woman’s neck. Bruising was evident across the skin. “A knife was found beneath the woman’s lower back. Scott.”

Fuller advanced to the next slide. A glistening stainless steel blade filled the screen. “Coroner said it was incredibly sharp, like it had never been used. Problem is, it’s a pretty common kitchen knife made by Henckels.” Nodded to Fuller. Next slide. “And something of interest to Agent Vail . . . the victim’s second toenail on the right foot was torn from the nail bed. Agent Vail?”

Vail leaned forward. “Yes. Well, the fact that the killer did this means that it had some significance to him. What that is, we don’t know yet. But briefly, this is what we call—”

“Signature,” Fuller said.

“Well, we used to call it signature,” Vail corrected. “But we now refer to it as ritual, or ritual behavior. That means it’s something the Unknown Subject, or UNSUB, does with the body that’s superfluous to his primary goal,