Velocity

“Can’t argue with that.”

They moved inside the quiet house. Whenever Vail entered an offender’s residence, a strange feeling washed over her. All the evil this killer conjured was conceived here. Like the behaviors the killer left at his crime scenes, his home was a diary of sorts: unedited, the raw idiosyncrasies and habits of human nature lay bare before her. The way he folds his towels, his laundry, his clothing. Are his shirts on hangers in closets? Neatly arranged on shelves? Are there dishes in the sink? Does he hoard newspapers, magazines, odd trinkets?

Everything she saw before her was like words in a novel; each room a chapter. Overall, that book told an important story about this offender. Who he was, at the core of his daily existence, unfiltered. Because he never expected to get caught, he had no reason to hide who he was.

And Vail was not disappointed. She had anticipated a neat, orderly living environment. Possessions well cared for. Trophies and framed certificates of his accomplishments. And nothing to suggest anyone else was responsible for, or had contributed to, his achievements.

After walking through the living room—dominated by an intricately carved walnut table with matching formal chairs—she moved into the hall and then the family room.

Dixon called out to her from the den. On a couch in the corner was a box containing an unopened pay-as- you-go phone. “No surprise there. I’m sure the one he’d been using is here somewhere, if he didn’t already dump it before we grabbed him up.”

“Even better,” Vail said, heading toward a desk along the far wall. “His PC.”

Dixon joined her by the window, which looked out at the mountains.

“Does the Sheriff’s Department have a cyber crime division that can go through the hard drive?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s as good as what you’ve got at the Bureau. You want to wait, or do you want to see if there’s anything on here about Robby?”

All questions should be that easy. Vail turned on the monitor and flicked the keyboard. The computer fan whirled to life and the screen read, “Windows is resuming.” She looked over at Dixon. “It was on standby.”

“How’d you know?”

“Narcissists tend to leave their computers asleep so they can get right to work when inspiration stirs them.”

Dixon squinted. “Really?”

“No,” Vail said. “I just made that up.”

Dixon suppressed a smile, then nodded at the desktop, which had loaded.

“But narcissists think they’re immune to the consequences of their own actions, functioning on almost a delusional sense of omnipotence.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Vail said, “I didn’t think his PC would be password protected. He never expected to be outsmarted. To be caught.” She sat down and moved aside a bottle of half-drunk Cakebread Cabernet. Moused over to the Computer icon and opened Windows Explorer. The familiar file tree appeared and she scrolled to Documents.

“You think there’ll be anything incriminating on here?”

Vail leaned closer to the screen. “Count on it. Because he didn’t expect us to catch him, there’s no need to take safeguards or use deceptive techniques to protect his information from the police. Besides, if it got to the point where the cops were doing what we’re doing and poking around his house and computer, he’d be in deep shit. In which case he wouldn’t care what we found.”

Vail used the document preview feature in Explorer to quickly scan the files without opening them. She pointed at the screen. “Here’s the ad he sent to the Press.” Then she remembered reading something in an FBI forensics bulletin. “COFEE.”

Dixon looked at her. “Now?”

“No, no, not the drink. COFEE’s an acronym for a forensic tool Microsoft developed for cops, so they can copy evidence off a computer before it’s turned off and moved to the lab. Once a computer’s shut down, this kind of data vanishes.”

“You have any idea how to use it?”

“It’s just a thumb drive. You plug it in and a few minutes later, it’s captured all the data. Aaron’s on his way over; he can do it and send it to the FBI’s cyber crime unit.” She gestured at the PC. “Who knows what’s on here? What websites he’s visited, who he’s been communicating with. From what I remember reading, some of that stuff is stored in temporary files. We don’t want to lose it.”

“Fine. I’ll make sure he has this COFEE thing with him.” Dixon pulled her phone, walked outside, and called Matt Aaron while Vail continued to poke around John Mayfield’s files.

Dixon returned a minute later. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. But he doesn’t have that COFEE device. He knows about it, but he never got one.”

“You’re shitting me. They’re free.”

“He said to leave the PC on. He’s gonna make a call and see if he can have one overnighted.” Dixon pointed at the screen. “Check his email. He use Outlook or web-based email?”

Vail looked down at the taskbar and saw the Outlook shortcut. Clicked and watched as the logo splashed across the screen while the software loaded. It immediately began downloading Mayfield’s mail. While it negotiated with the incoming server, Vail went to the Sent items folder, where she found a couple of the messages he had sent them. Seeing them again, and sitting at the keyboard he used to send them, sent a shudder through her shoulders.

“You okay?” Dixon asked.

“Now there’s a loaded question if there ever was one.” Vail chuckled. “Believe me, you don’t want an honest answer.” She clicked on the Start button, then typed “Napa Crush Killer” in the search field. It was the title of the first PowerPoint slide in the gruesome document Mayfield had sent the task force. A few seconds later, a series of results appeared. The one she was interested in—the PowerPoint document—was at the top of the list. Having received what was, in her mind, the ultimate confirmation, Vail rose from her chair and said, “I’ve seen enough. The techs can do the rest.”

They walked through the house, pausing long enough in each room for Vail to take it all in, the contents, their layout, and orientation. Last stop: the two-car garage. The first thing Vail noted when she pulled open the door was a potpourri of grease, oil, and gasoline odors hanging on the stale air.

Dominating the occupied bay was an older, highly polished Audi. She knelt down to examine the immaculately swept gray floor, which featured painted lines indicating where the car was to be parked. And the wheels were lined up exactly where they were supposed to be. “Interesting.”

Vail rose from her crouch. Against the far wall, across the empty parking slot, stood a six-foot-tall red Craftsman tool chest, the compartments all neatly closed. She walked over beside Dixon, who was pulling open each of the drawers. An assortment of tools and hardware stared back at them. Nothing suspicious or helpful.

In the empty car bay, atop a generous workout pad, was a barbell set and bench, cradled in V-brackets. A Platypus water bottle lay on the floor beside the weight stack. Vail stood there staring at the awkwardly shaped plastic container. “I’ve seen that recently.”

“The water bottle?”

Vail nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay. So what?”

Vail hiked a shoulder. “So nothing.” She gave a final swing around the garage.

Car doors slammed on the other side of the roll-up door. Vail pressed the wall-mounted opener and the sectional crept upward with silent precision. Standing there was CSI Matt Aaron, booties on his feet and tool kit in hand, with Brix and Owens bringing up the rear.

“Glad to see you two were totally fine with contaminating my crime scene.”

“We’ve still got someone out there who could be in distress,” Dixon said. “Waiting around didn’t seem to be in his best interests. Not with another killer out there, who could be related to Mayfield in some way.”

“We’ll have that COFEE device tomorrow morning,” Aaron said. “We can post an officer outside the house to make sure no one touches the PC before it gets here.” He set down his kit against the wall. “Find anything that’ll help you locate your missing guy?”