'Not much. I was able to trace him by a credit card slip he used at the local Wal-Mart. I was surprised he hadn't changed his name when he left Detroit.'
'He wasn't under suspicion there and had no reason to change it. He had no idea we were after him.' Montalvo spread documents and photos on the coffee table. 'My investigator was able to gather quite a bit of information, but there's still a lot we don't know.' He tapped a photograph. 'This is the latest photo we have of Henry Kistle, Eve. It was taken two years ago at a barbecue given by his employer, Chad Pelham.'
The photo was of a man sitting in a striped lounge chair holding a can of Budweiser. He was fortyish, well built, with large brown eyes and a thick shock of gray-brown hair. He was smiling into the camera. It seemed impossible to Eve that this was the man who had called her and spat out that poison.
'His employer?' Joe said. 'What work did Kistle do?'
'He was a personal trainer. Pelham owned a gym and Kistle worked for him for over a year. His coworkers said that Kistle was very popular with the ladies. But there was no hint of indiscreet conduct with any of them. Then Pelham decided to cut Kistle's commission, but he didn't give him an argument. Two weeks later Kistle said he had another job, resigned, and took off.' He pulled a newspaper clipping out of the pile. 'Pelham died in a car accident six weeks later. The brakes on his car failed him. No sign of tampering.' Montalvo shrugged. 'But then, the authorities weren't suspecting that he'd been murdered.'
'How do you know he was?' Eve asked.
'Kistle doesn't like authority. He tolerates it because a loner is always suspect and it would interfere with his main goal.'
'And what is that?'
Montalvo drew out three pictures and spread them out on the report. 'Three children were reported missing in the year Kistle worked for Pelham. He didn't dirty his own backyard. The kids all lived in surrounding towns.'
'They were killed?'
'They're still missing. No bodies. Evidently Kistle is clever and very careful. No bodies, no evidence.'
Eve slowly picked up the photo on the top. The little girl was nine or ten, with blond hair in a ponytail. She was laughing into the camera.
'Eve,' Joe said quietly.
'It's okay.' She dropped the photo back on the coffee table. 'Go on, Montalvo.'
'Kistle dropped out of sight for those two years. My bet is that he just settled somewhere else for a while and used fake ID. Only God knows how many killings he committed during those two years. Then, when he thought enough time had passed, he went back to Detroit and used the Henry Kistle name again.'
'And why did he leave Detroit for Bloomburg?'
He threw another photo down. 'Kevin Jacobs. He didn't show up from school one day. He lived in a suburb and again there was no body found. But he was a cute little kid and the media had a circus. Kistle probably felt safer exiting the scene again.'
'God,' Eve whispered.
'He probably gets fake ID every time he's forced to leave a town,' Joe said.
Montalvo shrugged. 'And he's been doing this for years. He's probably an expert at forging documents. I told you, he's very clever.'
'And how do you know that?' Eve asked. 'It wasn't clever of him to call me and run the risk I'd act fast enough to catch him.'
'Maybe he didn't intend to talk to you until he heard your name. Then he couldn't resist.' He gazed down at the photo of Kistle. 'And he evidently likes to take chances. Not with the child killings. He probably realizes how crimes against children arouse the public and he's extremely careful with them. It's part of the joke he has on the world. As long as there are no bodies found, there's no crime and he can go on doing what he wants to do. But he didn't have to go back and kill his former boss, Pelham. It was petty. Why take the chance?'
'Revenge,' Joe said. 'And it made him feel superior.'
'Good guess.'
'It goes along with the profile on serial killers. In most cases it's all about power. Even the sexual abuse is a power play.'
'Then Kistle follows the profile,' Montalvo said. 'He has to be best.'
'You seem certain,' Eve said. 'You can't know what he thinks from these cases you told me about.'
'No, there's something else.' Joe's gaze was narrowed on Montalvo's face. 'What?'
'I had my investigator go back to Murdock, the man who first tipped him that Kistle had told him that he'd killed Bonnie Duncan. He spent three days going over every detail of the time Murdock had spent with Kistle. He came up with a tiny bit of information. Kistle liked to go hunting. He boasted that he'd been dropped into a jungle and survived six months. What does that sound like to you, Quinn?'
'SEALS or Rangers.'
'He was in the Rangers. My investigators spent a week trying to get permission to go through records and ended up using bribery. They had a photograph, or they would never had identified him. He was nineteen when he joined the Army under the name of Tim Hathaway. He later qualified for training to be a Ranger.'
'That requires a hell of a lot of discipline,' Joe said. 'And if he made it, then his instability must have occurred later. Acceptance of discipline isn't in his profile.'
'No, he was as sick then as he is now. He was just able to become what his officers wanted him to become. He showed that same talent later. He wanted that training and he would have done anything to get it.'
'You mean he wanted to learn how to kill in the most efficient way possible,' Eve said.
'And he liked proving he could survive when no one else could. He was superb during the survival tests in the jungle. He was strong and smart and never quit. His reports were glowing when he went on missions. He was polite and obedient and lethal. What else could the Army want?'
'He made it through his hitch?' Joe asked.
Montalvo nodded. 'Honorably discharged.' His lips twisted. 'But curiously enough, three weeks later an Apache helicopter blew up carrying his commanding officer and two of the men Kistle served with. No evidence of anything but an accident, of course. Kistle was an expert by that time. I'd judge that he was releasing some pent-up malice. Maybe one of them was a little too good. As I said, Kistle had to be best.'
'No other killings during that period?' Eve asked.
'Not at or near the base. Perhaps he was getting enough killing on his missions.'
'Where did he go from there?'
'He disappeared from view again for a few years.' He paused. 'The next time he surfaced he was running drugs in Atlanta. He was on drugs himself for a while and I doubt if he would have boasted about killing Bonnie if he'd been clean. At first, Murdock thought he was just fascinated by the case. He read everything he could, talked about it a lot. His attitude was… weird. Feverish, bitter, obsessed. Bonnie was such an appealing little girl that the media wouldn't drop the story. Every time a mention came up, Kistle was glued to the TV set. He kept telling Murdock that everyone in the country knew about the man who killed Bonnie Duncan, recognized his power, and they'd made him a superstar. Then one night when he was stoned, he told Murdock he'd been the one who'd killed her.'
Eve moistened her lips. 'How? Where?'
Montalvo shook his head. 'Do you think I wouldn't have told you? Murdock said he didn't tell him any more, and after he came down from the drugs he never mentioned it again. He might not even remember he told him.'
'Murdock probably wouldn't be alive if he had,' Joe said.
'I agree,' Montalvo said. 'Unless Kistle wanted Murdock to tell someone about Bonnie. Murdock said Kistle was totally fascinated by the case. Maybe he wanted to go back in time and revisit it.'
'He said Bonnie was his inspiration,' Eve said numbly. 'A burning arrow in the dark.'
'Anything else?' Joe asked Montalvo curtly. 'She's been through enough.'
Montalvo shook his head. 'She can take it.' He rose to his feet. 'But that's it. I'll leave the reports and photos here with you, Eve.'
'No bodies,' she said slowly. 'All those years and no bodies. And no hint of a crime except those officers here in Bloomburg. It seems incredible.'
'He may not have been as tidy about cleaning up in other parts of the country,' Joe said. 'But we can
