Crush

officer’s on the line. Putting it on speaker.”

“Hello? This is Davina Erickson with CHP. I just sent you a photo—”

“This is Roxxann Dixon, Major Crimes Task Force. We’ve got the photo.” She bent over the laptop and scrutinized the image. “Looks like a USB flash drive. Is that what it is?”

“Yes, ma’am. Secured with masking tape to the Silver Ridge landmark sign.”

“Okay,” Dixon said. “Carefully remove the tape and preserve any fingerprints that might be on it. Secure the area as a crime scene. I’ll send a CSI to document it. But get that flash drive over to us as fast as you can.”

“Lights and siren, got it,” Erickson said. “Do you want me to leave before the scene is secured?”

Brix snapped his handset shut, then turned toward the speaker phone. “This is Lieutenant Redmond Brix. St. Helena PD just dispatched an officer to secure it. Soon as he arrives, get that flash over here.”

“Ten-four.”

Lugo disconnected the call.

Vail rose from her seat and paced. In a matter of minutes, they would have some answers. And hopefully some way of tracking the offender. But no matter what information they obtained from that flash drive, it would be more than they had now.

She glanced at the clock: 4:05. Less than three hours before she was supposed to walk out the door, officially on vacation. How the hell am I going to do that? Can’t deal with that now. She turned away. “Anyone know how USB drives work?”

Agbayani looked up from his pages of notes. “Beyond the obvious, you mean.”

“Yeah,” Vail said. “Like what can we tell from the device?”

Lugo lifted the receiver. “I’ll call down, see what the geeks can do for us.”

As Lugo made the call, Agbayani held up his notepad. “Did anyone happen to notice when Maryanne Bernal was murdered?”

Dixon held up a hand in a gesture that said, of course. “About three years ago.”

“And . . .” Agbayani said, as if they should all suddenly “get it.” When no one replied, he said, “That was around the time the Georges Valley AVA board was discussing Superior Bottling’s first contract. Right? It’s now up for renewal. The initial term was three years. Maybe Maryanne was against it back when she was on the board.”

“And she was killed because of her opposition to the contract?” Vail asked.

Agbayani nodded.

“I’ve got a problem with that. It just doesn’t fit. Roxxann and I have been through this. Serial killers don’t kill for money, they kill because it fulfills a psychosexual need that’s rooted in their past.” Actually, male serial killers don’t kill for profit. For now, she was comfortable rejecting the possibility the killer was a woman. But if the offender was a man, it could mean they were seeing something different here. She had to be more flexible in her thinking.

“Still,” Agbayani said, “I think we should look into it.”

Dixon pulled her phone. “I’ll call Ian Wirth, ask him about Maryanne and see if that was the case.”

“I’ve got an answer for us on the USB device.” Lugo leaned back in his chair and swiveled to face everyone. “We can track the device to a particular PC, maybe get a set of prints off the keyboard and desk if they haven’t been used. But it doesn’t give us a location, so unless we know where that PC is located, it won’t tell us where to find it.”

“So in a legal sense, if we know what PC he used, we can prove it in court by tracing the USB to a specific PC.”

“Yes. According to Matt Aaron, when a flash drive is inserted into a PC, Windows logs it and writes a little bit of code to the drive to make a record of the device. This ensures the operating system doesn’t get confused when you insert or remove it. It also records successful file transfers and even the file transferred and when. He also said the drives have serial numbers embedded in them as well as the manufacturer, model, and device characteristics. So once we get the UNSUB’s file off it, maybe we can trace it, see where he bought the flash.” He tossed his pen on the table. “As if that’s gonna do us a whole lot of good. Other than wasting more time.”

The conference room phone rang. Lugo looked at it, then sighed and leaned forward to pick it up. He listened a moment, then said, “Erickson just delivered the flash drive. Aaron’s got it.”

Vail leaned both elbows on the desk and ran fingers through her hair. This has to be it. For me, at least, time is running out. Just like it could be running out on the next victim.

MINUTES PASSED. The room phone rang. Lugo answered it, listened, then told the caller to hold.

“KNTV’s downstairs. They’re ready to go. But they want to know what the story’s about so they can set up the shot.”

Brix and Dixon shared a look. Vail knew what they were thinking. All the pieces were in place and things were coming to a head.

“Have them set up in the second floor lobby,” Dixon said. “Tell them there might be a wait because we’re engaged in sensitive negotiations. But we think it’ll be worth their while.”

After Lugo relayed the message and hung up, the tone from Outlook indicated a new email had arrived. He slid his chair forward and checked out the message. “Aaron sent us the document. It’s a PowerPoint file.”

“Can you put it up on the screen?” Vail asked.

“Yeah,” Lugo said. He thumbed the white remote control to his left and the screen unfurled from the ceiling. He pressed a couple of buttons on the laptop, the projector flickered to life, and the Windows desktop appeared on-screen. Lugo double-clicked the PowerPoint attachment and it opened.

“Napa Crush Killer” appeared in bold letters on the first slide.

“May I?” Vail asked.

Lugo handed over the remote and Vail advanced to the next slide: a list of nine names.

Vail felt a pounding in her head. “Holy shit. If this is real, he held up his end of the bargain. Which means we need to, also.”

Dixon pointed at the screen. “Ray, print this page.”

Lugo was staring at the screen, but didn’t move.

Dixon looked over at Lugo. “Ray. Print the list.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” His mouse movements appeared on-screen as he sent the page to the printer.

Vail scanned the list: there were names missing. It was incomplete—but she would worry about that in a minute. Next slide. A video file was embedded. “Double-click that,” she told Lugo.

Lugo’s mouse pointer skidded across the screen and found the image. The video jumped to life. Onscreen: a shaky, dark, grainy, moving image of a lifeless woman.

“Oh, shit,” Agbayani said. “Don’t tell me this is what I think it is.”

Vail rubbed her forehead. It was exactly what Agbayani thought it was. She wanted to divert her eyes, but she couldn’t. This was her job, what she signed up for. And unfortunately, watching videos of an offender’s handiwork was becoming a more frequent occurrence.

“Audio,” she said, her voice coarse, strained. “Is there audio?” Lugo pulled his eyes from the screen and pressed a button.

Sound filled the room’s speakers. But the offender wasn’t speaking. His breathing could be heard, rapid. The bastard’s excited. He’s loving this. “Son of a bitch.” Vail realized she was balling her right fist so hard her knuckles hurt.

The camera panned down and showed what looked like a hand—no, a wrist. Blood oozing. It ran a few more seconds, then ended.

Without a word, Vail pushed the remote to the next slide. Still photos of other victims she did not recognize. She paged through them, stopping long enough at each photo for everyone to get a look at the victim’s face. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Not all the vics are accounted for,” Dixon said. “But there are plenty we didn’t know about.”

“No names on the pictures,” Brix said. “There’s no way for us to match up those photos with missing persons, unsolved cases. Shit, we don’t even know if these vics are from California.”

“I only recognize Dawn Zackery and Betsy Ivers,” Vail said. She was reluctant to broach the subject, but