Kiss Me, Kill Me

have hit her first, strangled her, beaten her, or stabbed her. Statistically, sex-related crimes have violent deaths. This isn’t violent. It’s premeditated-the killer brought the plastic bag and took it with him. Why? It’s almost like …” Something was eluding her and she wished she could spend more time with the files.

Lucy asked, “Who goes to these parties?”

Panetta said, “Mostly the under-thirty crowd, a lot of college students blowing off steam on the weekends. Teenagers. Some are headbangers; most are into the alternative music scene; some parties are exclusive to the Yuppie types-work on Wall Street during the day, and party at night. Instead of pot and mesc and beer they snort coke and drink gin.”

“Wade Barnett has a history of playing in the party scene,” Lucy said. “If Wade Barnett is the killer-”

Suzanne cut her off and leaned forward. “Whoa, stop right there. Now you’re jumping to conclusions.”

“He knew the first and fourth victims. He’s the most viable suspect.”

“If Barnett is a suspect, he’s my suspect. Last I checked, I still have a badge and you don’t. Understand?”

Lucy nodded and turned back to the crime board. Suzanne was right. She’d overstepped.

Lucy tapped an index card on the board with Wade Barnett’s name on it. “You already had him on your suspect list, didn’t you?”

“We interviewed him. His name came up in the investigation. We’re following up on things he said, and we’ll follow up on what you uncovered.”

Suzanne stood up and stretched. “It’s late. I appreciate your insight. I’ll be in touch if I hear anything about your missing teenager.”

Sean leaned back in his chair, making no sign of leaving. “You should listen to Lucy. She has a master’s in criminal psychology.”

Lucy blushed. She didn’t want Sean pushing this. “Agent Madeaux is right,” Lucy said.

Suzanne sighed. “Let me sleep on it, okay? It’s been a long couple days. If you think of anything else that might be helpful for me to know, give me a ring.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said. “You might want to ask Dr. Vigo to look at this case. I’m sure he’ll take it, though he doesn’t run the department anymore. I, um, think there’s a complexity here that is uncommon.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Just, I don’t know, I can’t really explain it without knowing more about each crime scene and victim. If you have any questions about my report, call me. I’m happy to help.”

Sean said, “I need my pistol back.”

Suzanne said, “You understand that you’re not allowed to bring a firearm into the City of New York. Will you be leaving tomorrow?”

“We’ll be leaving when we find Kirsten.”

The silence made Lucy uncomfortable. Sean didn’t always play nice with law enforcement.

Suzanne picked up the phone and pressed three buttons. “This is Agent Madeaux. Would you please retrieve Mr. Rogan’s weapon and escort him and Ms. Kincaid to their vehicle? Thank you.”

Once Rogan and Kincaid were gone, Suzanne stared at the whiteboard trying to see what Lucy Kincaid had seen.

“What are we missing?” she asked Panetta.

“Are we missing something?” he countered. “Lucy Kincaid writes a terrific report, and someday the kid will make a great cop, but she’s still a twenty-five-year-old FBI recruit. She has no practical experience in criminal investigations.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. Noah Armstrong-the agent down in Washington-said something that had me thinking he’s worked with her in the past. I’ll pull her file tomorrow and see what’s up.”

You don’t have enough here to create a viable profile.

That was what Quantico had told Suzanne at the beginning. Except they had more now than two weeks ago. And there was more here than they’d had in other cases where the profile had been right on the money.

Cops had been solving crimes for years, long before psychological criminal profiling became an official FBI squad, back in the seventies. Good cops didn’t need a shrink to tell them that someone was a sociopath or had a drunk for a father or that rape was a crime of anger. Most crimes were solved with lots of legwork, logic, and common sense.

Suzanne had watched Lucy closely while she looked at the board. She wondered why she had been so interested in the autopsy report. Suzanne had read Jessica Bell’s report, the one posted on the board, and nothing had stood out. It read just like the other three-except the coroner stated that intercourse in the immediate time prior to death was inconclusive. He speculated-not on the report-that the victim didn’t have sex, consensual or otherwise, the night she died.

Maybe Panetta was onto something, that the guy couldn’t get it up. If there was no sexual assault, did that really change the profile much? Maybe Suzanne should take Lucy’s suggestion and call Dr. Vigo. That was going around protocol-her boss wouldn’t like it. But over the years she’d done a lot of things her boss hadn’t liked.

She said to Panetta, “Are you planning on taking off tomorrow?”

“It is Saturday.” He sighed. “I guess not.”

“We need to reinterview Wade Barnett. Formally this time. And each victim was killed on a Saturday; it’s the only other commonality. Let’s see if we can keep him in prison overnight.”

“He’ll lawyer up.”

“Fine. He said he didn’t know any of the victims, yet we have a witness who connects him with Jessica Bell, and a photo that puts him with Alanna Andrews. Lying to a federal officer is a crime. I can get a warrant on that fact alone.”

Panetta shook his head. “I always thought there was something wrong in that you can lie to street cops but not federal agents.”

SEVENTEEN

Earlier, Sean had made reservations at the Park Central Hotel in midtown, near both Central Park and Times Square. Lucy was tired and didn’t talk as he drove them, wrapped up in the case notes she’d read and trying to figure out what was so strange about the crime scenes. Sean had his hands full maneuvering the car through the hordes of people in the theater district.

She appreciated Sean’s faith in her, but truly didn’t want him to continue pushing her credentials. It made her uneasy, and reminded her that her credentials weren’t good enough for the FBI. She needed to put that behind her and decide what was next.

It was after eleven at night when they finally checked into their room. Lucy walked in and saw a table set with covered dishes and wine. She dropped her bag, walked over, and lifted the covers from the plates. There were sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and chocolate mousse stored on ice. There was even a bottle of chardonnay in a wine bucket.

“You ordered all this?” she asked.

“I knew you wouldn’t want to sit at a restaurant after the day we’ve had, and we missed dinner. It’s just sandwiches and stuff, but I for one can’t sleep if I’m hungry.”

All her frustrations disappeared. Sean truly thought of everything-she would have thought about food after she went to bed and would have slept on an empty stomach.

“Hey, Luce, what’s wrong? You were so quiet in the car.”

She shook her head and smiled. “I was upset with you. Now, it doesn’t seem important.”

“It is important, because it mattered to you. What did I do?”

“It’s nothing-I just-I’m not going to be in the FBI. You made it hard for me to explain that, so now I feel like I am lying to Agent Madeaux. After all your praise about my test scores and my master’s, I couldn’t very well say, ‘Oh, but I wasn’t accepted after all.’ ”

“Noah didn’t tell her-”