Crush

“So,” Mann said. “Back to my question. Same guy?”

Vail hiked her eyebrows. “Entirely possible. Though there isn’t generally a crossover between arson and serial killers. Then again, the longer I’m in this business, the more I’ve come to realize we can’t blind ourselves to new and previously unseen, or unidentified, behaviors. Just because we haven’t observed something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s something we’ve discussed many times at the unit. We want to pigeonhole offenders into our neat categories, but there are some who lie outside our observed patterns. This Crush Killer could be one of those.”

“Back to the other question, then,” Dixon said. “Do we go along with what he’s demanding?”

“Yes and no,” Vail said. “I suggest we do just enough to keep the line of communication open. We negotiate. But the bottom line is we keep him talking to us. The more we learn about him from his communications, the better it’ll be for us. At some point he’ll give us something he’s not aware he’s giving us. And that could lead us to him.”

Brix looked around the room. “Comments?”

Fuller shrugged. “Vail was pushing for us to give this to the media, which would’ve been a disaster for the community. And instead of doing that, the guy contacts us.”

Dixon said, “What are you saying, Scott?”

“That maybe it’s not always best to listen to what she’s telling us to do. Before she got here, we did just fine handling murders.”

“You have, what, two murders a year?” Vail paused, realizing she may have inadvertently insulted them. She bowed her head and said, “Look, I’m only here to help. You can take my advice, or not.”

“Help,” Fuller said. “Now we have an arson to investigate, too. That kind of help we don’t need.”

“That’s not fair,” Lugo said. “She didn’t ask to almost be burned alive. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that we’re all here for the same reason. To catch this goddamn killer. Because I don’t know about you, but I think this is a big fucking problem. And if we’re not careful, this guy is going to go on a spree and then we won’t have control of anything. But we’ll have a lot of uncomfortable questions to answer.”

Vail didn’t agree with the “spree” terminology, but the sentiment behind Lugo’s comment was accurate. She decided to sit back and not force the issue; let them come back to her.

Timothy Nance, who had been stealthily observing the discussion, stood up and approached the table. “Congressman Church is very concerned about what’s going on. I don’t want to report back to him that his own Major Crimes task force is at odds about what to do. I need to tell him we’ve got things handled, and that you people are all on the same page and that you have a valid plan of attack. Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me the FBI’s had a lot of experience dealing with serial killers. And this guy is a serial killer, am I right, Agent Vail?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I would like to see us seriously consider what she has to say. Let’s talk about it. Debate it. But in the end, I want what we decide to make sense, and leave the politics and egos out of the equation.”

Vail silently applauded Nance’s speech. Perhaps she had the guy pegged wrong. Perhaps he was merely providing the political voice his boss needed and expected.

“Okay,” Brix said. He approached the whiteboard. “This is what I want to do. We’ve got two investigations going, the murder and the arson. I want to make sure we handle both properly, but I don’t want one interfering with the other. So we’re going to split the task force: Gordon, you and Mann will run the arson investigation. If you need bodies, let me know and I’ll assign some people. Whatever you need, I’ll make sure you get it.”

“I think between us and CalFire, we’ll be fine.”

“Good. Check in with me regularly in case the two crimes were both committed by the same asshole. The rest of you, you’re staying on the Crush Killer with me.” He turned to his right, where an overhead projector arm was mounted to the desk. “Karen, bring that letter over here. Let’s look at these demands and figure out how we’re going to reply.”

DIXON SWUNG THE CAR along the curving road that led from the sheriff’s department building to Highway 29, headed toward downtown and a quick lunch.

Before leaving, Vail had suggested they meet only a portion of the killer’s demands. They would know in a short time whether it satisfied his needs. There was debate—Lugo thought it best to give him what he wanted—if he truly stopped the killing, that would accomplish their goal in the short term while they continued to search for him.

But Vail insisted he would not comply—he would kill again, because he had to. Even if he honestly intended to honor his agreement, he couldn’t. Killing, to him, was a deeply seated psychosexual need, one that he wasn’t fully aware of. So his offer was not valid. Instead, Vail stressed that the goal was to keep him talking with them. And what she devised was designed to do just that. It also risked angering him in a way that could trigger another murder. But there was nothing she could do about that. Because if they didn’t catch him, there would be many more murders, not just the one she may or may not have instigated. They had to keep him engaged and talking with them.

Lugo continued his objections, however. He said that if they don’t give the killer what he wants, what’s stopping the guy from calling up the TV station, identifying himself as the Napa Crush Killer, and telling them about Victoria Cameron’s murder? The story would be assigned to a reporter, who’d follow up with the speed of an Olympic sprinter. They’d make a few calls and it would be a national story in the space of an hour. So they may as well try to get a deal out of it, he reasoned, because maybe, just maybe, he would honor his word.

Vail couldn’t help but shoot him down. If the killer was going to contact the media, she explained, he would’ve already called them. But there was no fun doing it that way. He wanted to force their hand, have the story come from them, from a police department acceding to the demands of a killer because they were helpless against his genius. With narcissistic killers, they needed to feel that others recognized their superiority.

Lugo steamed silently. And Brix decided they would go forward, for now, with Vail’s plan.

They filtered into the parking lot, with Brix, Fuller, Lugo, Mann, and Gordon going their separate ways.

“We’ve got forty-five minutes,” Vail said, as Dixon accelerated onto 29. “By the time we finish lunch, I have a feeling we’ll know if this was the right way to go.”

JOHN WAYNE MAYFIELD sat in his vehicle, eyes on his cell phone clock, which he knew was accurate. When the digital display read 12:00, he headed into the Java PC cybercafe in downtown Napa. There were no surveillance cameras—he had already checked.

He bought a fifteen-minute pass in cash, logged in, and went to the Napa Valley Press website. Scrolled down, then up, and down again. Refreshed the page. Nothing there about him. He glanced at his phone: 12:05. Navigated to a different website, then back again to the Press. And there it was.

The headline read: Napa Crush Lays Down Roots in Community.

What?

He read the teaser paragraph. It said something about a startup company that was launching a new soft drink that had roots in the valley, a rebirth of the wine cooler—

He fisted his right hand and was shaking it, holding back, wanting to pulverize the monitor but knowing that would draw attention—and possibly the police.

Instead, he shoved his curled fingers into his mouth and bit down. Waited for the anger to subside. Finally, he calmed enough to turn his attention back to the screen. There had to be something here. Why else would they post this article if there wasn’t information contained within to address his demands?

He read the article, looking for an embedded message of some sort. Then he found it: a quote attributed to Karen Vail, the company’s director of marketing and promotion. “We thought long and hard about how to launch this product, and we had demands that we couldn’t comply with. But we’re willing to work with the local leadership to show them how much we respect them and their abilities. We’re looking for ways of working with them so all parties can be satisfied. Anyone interested in contacting me can do so at [email protected].”

Mayfield logged off, rose from his chair and walked stiffly toward his vehicle. He had to get out of there