Make that three people. Dr. Victoria Willig was on the in with McKenzie too, it seemed. That was good. The more comfortable McKenzie became with his sexuality, the less it would matter at work. She had a tolerant bunch of cops around her-they’d have no problem with him being gay. But the department as a whole was a different matter. Metro Police was like the military and professional sports-don’t ask, don’t tell.
“We’re going to be late,” he said.
“I know that.” She pulled away from the curb, turned left on Sixth and headed across Broadway to Twenty- first. “You obviously found something.”
“I did. The symbols I didn’t recognize, the triangles and the circles with crosses in them? They represent the Watchers. They’re the guardian angels, invoked during circle spells for protection.” He shoved a sketch under her nose. She glanced down to see what looked like stick figures.
She looked back at the road. “The Watchers represent the points on the compass?”
“More than that. They correspond to the elements, the seasons, the stars, the planets. North, South, East, West-Earth, Air, Fire, Water. The Watchers are vital to just about every aspect of witchcraft. But most importantly, they’re called upon for protection. The symbols on the letter represent the protective elements. The killer, the letter writer, was looking to keep himself blessed, that’s for sure. Like a talisman. A good luck charm.”
Taylor glanced over at him. “I never knew it was good luck to write in blood.”
“Power comes from blood. That’s what it’s all about.”
“So what’s with the stick figures?”
“Those are the positions the Wiccan holds when calling to the Watchtowers. When you go back over the crime-scene photos, you’ll notice that the bodies of the victims were in these positions as well-either arms to their sides or outstretched, like the North, East and South Watchers.”
“Ah. Of course.”
McKenzie caught the note of sarcasm in her voice. “Some people take this very seriously, LT. They live in this world. They believe. It’s not so different from going to church, you know. Everyone needs something to believe in. Pagans just look to things that are a bit more tangible than what you and I are aware of.”
Taylor yawned widely, her ears cracking with the effort. The sun came out from behind a cloud, glinting off the metal of the cars around her. She slipped on her sunglasses.
“I’ll tell you this. Belief or not, I want to catch whoever did this and punish them. I subscribe to the higher power of handcuffs, you know?”
Eighteen
Quantico November 1 8:50 a.m.
“S o you admit that you were having an affair with Dr. Douglas?”
Tucker leered at him, and Baldwin wondered what exactly was going through his mind. Had Tucker been on the receiving end of Charlotte’s favors? He looked the man up and down-the bald pate, the pouchy stomach, the gray skin. Possible. Charlotte never looked at the package, only worried about what was in the box. She had a tendency to find contents that could be shifted to appease her every desire. He’d have to walk even more carefully now.
“I never denied that. We were colleagues in a pressure-cooker situation. We were working a gruesome case. You know how it gets, sir. It wasn’t the first time two teammates turned to each other for solace.” Baldwin refused to look away, met Tucker’s eyes squarely. Come on, you wanker. You’ve been boning your executive assistant for years, and we all know it. What are you really looking for?
Tucker had the good grace to blush. “I think we can fast-forward through the gory details now, Dr. Baldwin. Let’s begin again, with Susan Travers. She was the fourth alleged victim of Harold Arlen, correct?”
“No, she was the fifth.”
Northern Virginia June 15, 2004 Baldwin
The smell made him nauseous. No matter how many autopsies he participated in, which thankfully were few and far between, he could never get his stomach to cooperate properly. The drive up from Quantico, coupled with the wicked hangover and a slightly dirty feel from screwing around with Charlotte, had made him even more queasy than usual.
He let his mind drift away from the little body being examined on the autopsy table. Susan Travers was the fifth victim in as many weeks. Baldwin had been brought in after the third victim, eight-year-old Ellen Hughes, had disappeared on her way home from school. She’d been found dead three days later-legs broken, stabbed once in the chest-tied to a tree in Great Falls Park.
His team was still relatively new. Two months ago, they’d been fresh-faced agents recently acquired into the behavioral science unit. They still thought it was cool to be working there, hadn’t seen enough of the horrors the work held in store for them. They were normally only tasked for crimes against adults, but they’d been pulled in on this case to help out when the lead profiler for BAU One had suffered a heart attack.
This Great Falls case had tempered their enthusiasm pretty damn quick.
Baldwin had handpicked the team: Caleb Geroux was from New Orleans, a homicide detective with a nose for wheedling confessions out of suspects; Jessamine Sparrow, as fine-boned as her name foretold, his new computer genius and a former hacker; and Olen Butler, his forensics expert. Butler was an especially significant find-in the months before Baldwin brought him on the team, he’d developed a brand-new DNA program for their CODIS systems. The combined DNA index system was working hard to match DNA samples from crimes across the country, and Butler’s intuitive program utilized an aspect of ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, to make the CODIS matches quicker and deeper than ever before.
The team was a load of talent wrapped into one small entity, the Behavioral Analysis Unit Two. Baldwin’s unit.
Charlotte Douglas was the most experienced profiler on his team, with a doctorate in criminal psychology from Georgetown and a gift for self-preservation. Unlike the others, she’d been assigned to the team two months earlier. His boss, Garrett Woods, had “done a favor” for another bureau chief and brought her on board.
Baldwin only knew the basics about Charlotte; the parts of her jacket he was allowed to see were straightforward: education, commendations, experience. She wasn’t one for chatter about her past, and he wondered for a moment why that was. She’d made mention of boarding schools once, of being raised away from her family, but that was all he knew.
Did he want to know more?
You know a lot more about her now than you did yesterday. That she was a real redhead, for starters. That she was fearless in bed. That she cried out in her sleep like a kitten having a nightmare.
See, dumbass? This is what happens when you fuck a teammate. Great job.
He mentally berated himself for a few minutes, then dragged his focus back to the autopsy. They were finishing up now, conclusions being drawn. The wound tracts were identical, the signature too specific. Susan Travers had been killed by the same man who murdered four other little girls in the case the media was calling the Clockwork Killer. To Baldwin, he was simply the unsub, the unnamed subject.
The medical examiner was relatively certain that Travers had been dead for four days, which meant time was running out. Their unsub was operating on a weekly schedule; it was possible that another little girl would go missing today, be murdered tonight, and turn up three days from now. Unless Baldwin got his head in the game and stopped him.
Nineteen
Nashville 10:00 a.m.
H illsboro High School had none of the charm of the many private schools in town. It looked like an industrial plant from the sixties, all cramped windows and metal rebar. The gymnasium was close to the road, dirty white brick with green accents; the school itself set farther back, crouching on the surrounding land.
