him.
“Yeah.” MacNally kept his gaze on the approaching penitentiary.
“Supposed to look like the US Capitol in DC. Funny, don’t you think? They built this place and designed it to hold the worst of the worst. Criminals, all of ’em. And they made it look like the place where our senators and congressmen do their business.” The man chortled heartily, then leaned forward, inches from MacNally’s face. “You should laugh, asshole. Where you goin’, may be the last time you feel like laughin’ for a long, long time.”
MacNally turned to face him but kept his expression impassive. The last thing he needed was to antagonize a law enforcement officer on his way to doing hard time at a penitentiary. He didn’t know what it was like inside, but he imagined that the inmates and guards did not get along well. He did not want to make the situation worse.
The van chugged down the road, a wide green median, not unlike pictures he had seen of the National Mall, laid out to his right. Ahead was a tan stone guard tower with a gray- green roof. An American flag flew beside the structure.
As they approached, MacNally had to admit that the place looked like a government structure. He had never been to the U.S. Capitol, though he remembered seeing a photo in a high school textbook. If the guard was right, and it seemed like he was, the Capitol was an imposing edifice.
The monstrosity ahead sported massive columns that striped the front of the building. But they weren’t real-they appeared to be carved from the limestone surface, as if in relief. The vertical windows were barred. What looked like nearly four dozen concrete steps led up to the entrance.
At the top of the facade, below the dome, the words United * States * Penitentiary were engraved into the stone’s face. As if there was any doubt.
The transport squealed to a stop and a marshal reached over to unshackle MacNally’s restraints from the metal bars of the seat. “Up, let’s go. End of the line.”
MacNally was led down the steps of the van and up the stairs of the penitentiary. The sun’s heat tightened the skin on his face as if he had walked into an oven. But it was a wet heat; humidity was a killer at this time of year, in this part of the country.
But as Walton MacNally was soon to find out, that would be the least of his problems.
The morning gloom hovered outside the large windows of Homicide, bringing a more intense chill than even the first few days of Vail’s visit. Roxxann Dixon was en route, toting a packed bag. Vail had invited her to room with her for as long as she was in town working the case.
Clay Allman’s San Francisco Tribune article made page one. Vail, Burden, and Friedberg huddled over the worktable, reading the paper, when suddenly Vail stood up straight. “Son of a bitch.”
Friedberg’s eyes darted around the page. “What’s wrong?”
“You guys read as fast as a third grader.”
“Oh.” Burden frowned and pushed back from his desk. “He mentioned you.”
“Yeah, he mentioned me.”
Friedberg tilted his head. “And mentioning you is a problem… why?”
“It’s one thing for the UNSUB to know certain things about our investigation. This kind of offender, he’s gonna want that interaction. We have to control it, even fan those flames- but very carefully. I’ve unfortunately been a part of a few of these cases, and it can really complicate things. I’d rather handle it low key-”
“You?” Burden asked. “Low key?”
“This UNSUB’s got a lot of narcissism and grandiosity. He’s arrogant and self-assured, the kind that taunts law enforcement. He’s posed his bodies in public to show off his handiwork, how great he is. It’s a monument to his skill as a killer. So announcing the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit is involved turns up the stakes, makes him feel more important. So that’s not bad. But mentioning me by name. That focuses things on me. I’d rather be in the background, in a position where I can pull strings the offender doesn’t know I’m pulling. But now that I’m on his radar, he’s going to be playing to me.”
“How’s that?” Friedberg asked.
“There’s a strong pull between profiler and offenders. Cat and mouse stuff. But the fact I’m a woman…makes it worse. Some of them see it as cool. After their arrest, a lot of ’em want to meet the woman profiler who worked their case.”
“And that’s bad?”
Vail chuckled. “He’s not looking at it as a situation where we’ll meet after the arrest. He’s going to do his best to find me before then.”
“So you want protection,” Burden said.
“Me? Protection? No. I’m saying that it adds a dynamic we didn’t need, a complication we’d have been better off without. And-it just goes to my point that we need to control the media, what they release. Even the precise wording they use in their reports, their articles-”
“Can’t unring a bell.” Burden tossed the paper on the desk. “What’s done is done. Let’s run our investigation based on what we know and what we don’t, not what the media knows and doesn’t know. Okay?”
“Of course,” Vail said, “but to ignore the media’s role and how the UNSUB-”
“I’m not ignoring it. But you planted that inane bit about the ocean. You wanted him to contact you. Maybe he will.”
“You. I wanted him to contact you.”
Burden grumbled something under his breath, then shook his head. “I’m beginning to think that the only thing that’s gonna solve this thing is good old fashioned ass-to-the-grindstone police work. Now. I think we need to look at the ’82 case and see what it can tell us regarding our current vics.”
Friedberg said, “I put out a message to Millard Ferguson.”
Vail ground her teeth. They’re missing the point. “And? Has he replied?”
Friedberg coyly pulled out his BlackBerry and thumbed through it. He tilted his head back to look out the bottoms of his glasses. “He did. Wants to meet.”
Burden grabbed his sport coat. “Why don’t you two go, I’m going to follow up with-”
“Agent Vail.” Before Burden could finish his sentence, a woman entered the room from the outer reception area. “This just came for you.” She handed Vail an envelope.
“Who’s it from?”
“It was messengered over. The man said it was time sensitive and
