Dead Sleep

“Our guy did do something. He died there.”

A wave of heat tells me my face is red.

Baxter’s eyes are merciless. “Special Agent Fred Coates, twenty-eight years old, married with three kids. When the bomb went off, he called the fire department. He got out of his car and shot pictures of the building and the first people on the scene, in case the perp stuck around. Then he got back into his car and called the New York field office on his cell phone. He was talking to his Special Agent in Charge when somebody reached through the window and slit his throat. The SAC heard him coughing up blood for twenty seconds. Then nothing. The killer stole his credentials and camera. He missed one flash memory card that had fallen between the console and Agent Coates’s seat. That’s where we got the shot of you. We lost his pictures of the crowd.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry.”

Baxter spears me with an accusing look. “You think that helps anything? I told you to come straight here.”

“Don’t try to put this on me! I didn’t put that guy there, okay? You did. Whoever killed him would have set that fire whether I was there or not. And I do have pictures of the crowd.”

Both men lean forward, their mouths open.

“Where?” asks Dr. Lenz.

“We’ll talk about that in a minute. I want to clarify something right up front. This isn’t going to be a one-way conversation.”

“Do you realize how important every minute is?” Baxter asks. “By withholding that film-”

“My sister’s been missing for over a year, okay? I think she can wait another twenty minutes.”

“You don’t have all the facts.”

“And that’s exactly what I want.”

Baxter shows Lenz his exasperation.

“Could someone have killed Coates for his wallet and camera?” I ask. “Could his murder be unrelated to the fire?”

“Why leave the cell phone behind?” Baxter counters. “And the car? His keys were found in the ignition.”

“What are the odds that a garden-variety arsonist would murder someone watching a fire?”

“Million to one against. Ms. Glass, that firebomb was planted to do exactly what it did. Kill Wingate and destroy his records. You’re lucky you didn’t go up with the rest.”

“It was Wingate who almost killed me. He could have saved himself, but he tried to save the stupid painting, and like a fool I tried to save him.”

“What painting?” asks Lenz.

“Sleeping Woman Number Twenty. It was the only one of the series he had in the place, and he killed himself trying to save it.”

“I wonder why,” Lenz says softly. “Surely it would have been insured.”

“The insurance wouldn’t have been enough.”

“Why not?”

“When I told Wingate I was going to the FBI, that the women in the pictures were almost certainly the victims from New Orleans, he was ecstatic. He said the new canvas would probably sell for double the standing bid on it, and that was one point five million pounds sterling.”

“Did he mention the bidder’s name?”

“Takagi.”

“What did the painting look like?” Lenz asks. “Like the ones you saw in Hong Kong?”

“Yes and no. I don’t know anything about art, but this one was more realistic than the ones I saw. Almost photographically realistic.”

“The woman appeared to be dead?”

“Absolutely.”

Baxter reaches into the file, removes a photograph, and pushes it across the table at me. It’s a head shot of a young dark-haired woman, a candid shot, probably taken by a family member. It’s well off horizontal, which makes me think it was taken by a child. But that’s not what sends a shiver through me.

“That’s her. Damn it. Who is she?”

“Last known victim,” Baxter replies.

“How long ago was she taken?”

“Four and a half weeks.”

“What was the interval between her and the one before her?”

“Six weeks.”

“And before that?”

“Fifty-four days. Seven and a half weeks.”

This decreasing time span bears out my reading, as well. One theory says that as serial offenders get a taste for their work, their confidence grows, and they try to fulfill their fantasies more and more frequently. Another speculates that they begin to “decompensate,” that the neuroses driving them begin to fracture their minds, pushing them toward capture or even death, and the path they choose is accelerated murder.

“So you figure he’s due for another soon.”

The two men share a look I cannot interpret. Then the psychiatrist gives a slight nod, and Baxter turns to me.

“Ms. Glass, approximately one hour ago, a young Caucasian woman disappeared from the parking lot of a New Orleans grocery store.”

I close my eyes against the fearful impact of this statement. Jane has another sister in the black hole of her current existence. “You think it was him?”

Lenz answers first. “Almost surely.”

“Where was she taken from?”

“A suburb of New Orleans, actually. Metairie.”

He actually got the pronunciation right: Met-a-ree. He’s picked it up from a year and a half of working the case.

“What store in Metairie?”

“It’s called Dorignac’s. On Veterans Boulevard.”

This time he missed it. “Dorn-yaks,” I correct him. “I used to shop there all the time. It’s a family-owned store, like the old Schwegmann chain.”

Baxter makes a note. “The victim left her house a few minutes before the store closed – eight-fifty p.m. central time – to get some andouille sausage. She was making dip for a birthday party at her job tomorrow. She worked in a dental office, as a receptionist. By nine-fifteen, her husband started to worry. He tried her car phone and got no answer. He knew the store was closed, so he got the kids out of bed and drove down to see if his wife had a dead battery.”

“He found her empty car with the door open?”

Baxter gives a somber nod.

This happened to two victims before Jane. “It sounds like him.”

“Yes. But it could be a couple of other things. This woman could have been seeing a guy on the side. She meets him at the store to talk something over, maybe even for a quickie in the car. Suddenly, she decides to split for good.”

“Leaving her kids behind?”

“It happens.” Baxter’s voice is freighted with experience. “But talking to the detective, this doesn’t sound like that type of situation. The other alternative is conventional rape. A guy on the prowl with a van and a rape kit, looking for a target of opportunity. He sees her going to her car alone and snatches her.”

“Has anybody like that been operating in the area over the past few weeks?”

“No.”

“Did any other victims shop at Dorignac’s? Jane must have gone there sometimes.”

“Several shopped there occasionally. The store stocks some regional foods other stores don’t. The Jefferson Parish detectives are grilling the staff right now, and our New Orleans field office is already taking their lives apart. With help from the Quantico computers. It’s a full-court press, but if it’s like the others… none of that will come to anything.”