sleep. Zack would have known those mutilations would get the case sent to Homicide Special where we were on deck. He left Parker Center at four o'clock Friday afternoon. That gave him plenty of time to find Vaughn, torture him, get the money, and do the murder. That first body was easy to see from the river bank, so he knew it would be found quickly. He also knew we'd probably catch the squeal because, as the killer, he had control of the timetable.
Alexa was still frowning as she made a few more notes.
I picked up Agent Orange's book and handed it to her. 'According to Underwood, stress is the big precipitator for serial murder. The big stressors are marital, financial, and work related. Zack hits bars and stars on all three.
'When we got to Vaughn Rolaine's body it was midnight, and while we were waiting for the MEs, I remember looking into Zack's car, and seeing that he was crying. Later he told me that Fran had thrown him out on Thursday and asked for a divorce.'
'And you think that's what snapped him,' Alexa said. 'He's lost his marriage; he knows the divorce will bankrupt him, so he goes to see Vaughn Rolaine to get the stolen money. Starts chopping off fingers, and kills him in a rage.'
I nodded.
'What else?'
'Well, lots of stuff. None of it alone is very earthshaking, until you add it all up.'
I retrieved Motor City Monster from her, opened it to a chapter entitled 'Antecedent Behaviors in Criminal Profiling,' and then gave it back.
'According to this book, the first murder done by most serial killers is close to home. Underwood calls it killing in the comfort zone. Zack and I worked for two years in the West Valley. That area was definitely in his comfort zone.'
She was writing again.
'After the unsub kills Vaughn, he goes postal. All the latent rage from his childhood comes out, the signature elements of the murder. He carves the Medic symbol on the chest-all the other postoffense behaviors. If these victims are father substitutes, he covers up the vic's eyes so his dead father won't stare at him. That chapter you're looking at is about parental abuse and the early psychological factors that help form serial criminals. Parents play a big role. If his father sodomized him or abused him physically, that could be a huge factor. If his dad was a medic in Nam, that explains the symbol on the chest.
'Zack told me a few days ago, when I was driving him to his brother's, that he wished his father hadn't done something. I asked him what, and he wouldn't say, but said something about not being in control of his destiny. That his actions were written in his DNA long before he was born.'
'And you think that's why he's killing father substitutes?'
I nodded. 'According to Underwood, most serial killers vacillate between extreme egotism and feelings of inferiority and self-contempt. They're not in control of their lives or emotions, so they crave control in the commission of their murders and often look for jobs that give them a sense of authority.'
'Like a cop,' Alexa said.
'Exactly. There's a thing Underwood calls the sociopathic or homicidal triad. It includes bed-wetting, violence against animals or small children, and fire starting. This book says if two of those three conditions are present, you're heading for big trouble. They're often precursors to serial crime. His psych evaluator hinted that Zack used to be a bed-wetter and I found out that he ran over the family dog the week after Fran threw him out.'
She was just looking at me now, her notepad forgotten on her lap.
'Stress plus rage equals blitz kills,' I said. 'The doctor psychoanalyzed Zack for two days and said he appeared to be a cognitive disassociative personality, incapable of having relationships. He also said Zack might be a narcissist. According to Underwood's book, that's a pretty classic mindset for a homicidal sociopath.'
'You want my opinion, Shane?'
'Of course. It's why I'm telling you all this.' 'Okay, let's take your points one at a time.'
She looked down at her notes. ' 'Re-interview VR' could stand for re-interview victim's relatives as you suggested, and Zack was so drunk, he simply forgot. But it could also stand for half a dozen other things. To name a few, it could mean 'Re-interview victim's Realtor,' or 'victim's rapist' if she had a prior sexual assault. You've still got some back-checking to do on that.'
She kept her eyes on her notes. 'Forgetting for a moment that huge leap you just made that Zack's dad was a corpsman in Nam, let's just deal with natural probabilities.' She paused, then asked, 'How many of the homeless men in the West Valley would be Vietnam vets?'
'I don't know.'
'Ten percent?'
'Maybe.'
'That makes the odds of our unsub killing a vet about ten to one. So far, we've only identified three. It's not impossible that it's a coincidence they're all vets.'
'I guess you're right,' I said. 'But I don't think it's a coincidence. How could that be?'
'I don't know. I'm just playing defense here. Putting in the exculpatory evidence.' She consulted her notes again. 'If Zack was planning on stealing Arden Rolaine's money, why would he include the fact that it was missing in his case notes? Wouldn't it be smarter to just leave out that fact all together?'
'Van Kelsey was his partner. How could he leave it out?'
'Yeah, but Van Kelsey retired well before Vaughn Rolaine was murdered. Zack could have easily gone back and removed that material from the Arden Rolaine case files. But he didn't. Why?'
She had a point.
'Then there's the whole question of Davide Andrazack,' she continued. 'You don't really believe Zack killed Andrazack, right?'
'That's right. It was a political assassination.'
'We've completed our computer sweep of the Glass House and none of the bugs we found in the police department was on computers that included Fingertip case information or a description of the chest mutilation. That means it's still possible that Andrazack was killed by the Fingertip unsub and that it wasn't a political assassination. So, which is it?'
I didn't know. 'What about the polygraphs the chief was doing on the ESD techs?' I said. 'If we could find out who planted those bugs, maybe we could roll him.'
'Nothing yet,' she said.
'What about the medical examiner's computers?' 'Still checking, but so far they're clean.'
Alexa was slowly shooting down my entire framework.
'So you think I'm nuts.'
'No, I'm just showing you some holes in your theory. So far, you have nothing that directly ties Zack to any of these murders. It's just intriguing speculation. You better find some evidence if you want a municipal judge to write an arrest warrant.'
'Alexa, believe me, I don't want this to be true. It might just be a lot of coincidences, but don't we need to find out?'
'What do you want me to do?' she asked.
'Zack lived in Tampa as a kid. Contact the police department there and find out if they have a record on him. You might have to get somebody to unseal a juvenile record if he had one. Next, we need to find out, Was he a loner? Did he beat up younger kids? Did he kill or torture pets? Was his father a medic in Vietnam? You know the questions to ask, but we have to keep this strictly to ourselves. If we're wrong and it gets out, it could destroy what's left of him.'
Alexa closed her book and frowned. 'Of course, you know, either way this turns out, we're gonna end up being wrong.'
Chapter 43
