Crush (Karen Vail Series) Read online

  She walked into the large room and crossed the shiny taupe floor toward the far wall, where the gurneys were docked. To her right, on the other side of the window, stood Robby.

  Robby leaned close to the glass. In a filtered voice, through the intercom, he said, “So we’ve got severed breasts and a torn-off toenail.”

  “You’re looking for the behaviors,” Owens said, standing to his right. “What’s it called?”

  Vail leaned back from the body. “Ritual behavior. The things the killer does with the body that aren’t necessary for the successful commission of his crime. They’re unique to each particular offender. He does them repetitively, and he doesn’t change them—so you’ll see them in every one of his kills.” She looked to Owens. “If this UNSUB has struck before, it’s likely these ritual behaviors will help us link his victims.”

  Owens was nodding. “Hate that. If you don’t use this stuff regularly, you forget it.”

  “There’s a lot to it,” Vail said. “And we’re always learning more, expanding our knowledge base.” She nodded at Abbott. “Anything you can tell us?”

  “I haven’t gotten too far into it—uh, I mean her—but both wrists were sliced. Very sharp utensil, which is . . .” She reached beneath the stainless autopsy table to a lower shelf and lifted a plastic-wrapped and evidence-labeled knife. “This.”

  Vail didn’t take it, but she visually inspected it.

  “Must’ve brought it with him,” Vail said. “Not the kind of thing you find in a wine cave.”

  “Definitely not,” Owens said through the intercom.

  Vail turned back to the body. “Anything else?”

  “Knife was found beneath the lower back. He wanted us to find it.”

  “Apparently. COD?”

  “Asphyxiation, actually.” She moved the light to the woman’s neck. “See?” Abbott pointed with a gloved index finger. “Hallmark injuries to the lower jaw. Man strangs. The victim was moving her head back and forth, producing those abrasions. If I had to guess, he used a blunt object, possibly even a forearm, like a bar arm, to crush her trachea.”

  Vail looked over at Robby, who was craning his neck to look at the monitor. “Crush her trachea?” he asked.

  Vail leaned in for a look. “That’s a new one. I don’t think I’ve seen that before. Usually the offender uses manual strangulation, or a ligature. But crushing the trachea . . . that’d take an awful lot of force. I mean, there’s a lot of tissue there. You’ve got the thyroid and cricoid cartilage in front of it and the spinal column behind it. And the trachea itself is pretty tough cartilage.”

  Abbott was nodding. “It was a very violent act.”

  “Was a device of some sort used—a bar or pipe?”

  Abbott looked down at the body, considering the question. “I’m not sure. There are no tool marks. I’ll look to see if there are any traces of metal or paint embedded in the skin, but I didn’t find anything unusual during the initial exam. Then again, I couldn’t guarantee you’d find anything. Especially if it’s wrapped in something.”

  Vail leaned forward and looked at the eyes. “Petechial hemorrhages?”

  “Yes.”

  Vail nodded. Makes sense. “Any scrape marks on her back?”

  Abbott stepped back, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, there are. Upper back and the parietal region of the skull. Pretty deep, actually.”

  “He pushed her against the cave wall as he cut off her air supply. And the lips—inside, indentation marks?”

  “You mean from cupping her mouth?” Robby asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Let’s check.” Abbott gently parted the lips and rolled the upper portion into position. Shined her light. “Yup.”

  “Okay, so he confronts her face on,” Vail said.

  “So he might’ve known her,” Robby said, “or sweet-talked her, to get close enough.”

  Vail nodded. “Reasonable conclusion.”

  “So what do you think is going on?” Owens asked.

  “Hard to say,” Vail said. “Not enough information to formulate an opinion.”

  “Best guess?”

  Vail looked back at the body. She understood the desire of cops to know what she was thinking, but she also hated being pressured into drawing conclusions before there was enough information to make an accurate assessment.

  But it did give her the opportunity to ask a question for which she still wanted an answer. “Have there been other murders like this one?”

  “If there was a woman murdered with her breasts cut off, even you would probably have heard about it, all the way at Quantico. You gotta realize we don’t have many murders here. About two a year. That’s it. Been that way far back as I can remember.”

  Vail looked over at Robby through the window. “And you think Vienna is quiet.” To Owens: “Sheriff, right now, all I can say is the guy is likely intelligent, organized, and confident. More than that will have to wait.” Vail turned to Abbott. “Thanks for the look. Technically, I guess, I wasn’t here.”

  She found her way back down the hall to the conference room and pushed through the door. She pulled a card from her pocket and handed it to Owens. “If you find anything else we should know about, would you give me a call?”

  Owens took the card. “Sure thing. But . . . and I probably should’ve asked this up front . . . how are you involved with this case?”

  Robby cleared his throat. “We’re not.”

  “But we found the body in the cave,” Vail said. “We secured the scene until Lieutenant Brix could get there.”

  “Redd Brix?”

  Robby said, “Yeah, know him?”

  “Not many people in this town don’t know Redd.”

  “He doesn’t seem to be too cooperative,” Robby said.

  “He doesn’t like outsiders looking over his shoulder. Can’t say I blame him.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Vail said, “but a killing like this could be a big problem. And with only two murders a year, you guys may not be . . . equipped to handle this type of thing. Nothing to be ashamed about, it’s just a matter of getting some help from someone who’s been down this path before.”

  “Tell you the truth, if it was up to me, I’d give your ASAC a ring and get you hooked up here. But I have to tread carefully. Don’t wanna step on toes. You know what I’m saying.”

  “I do, but—”

  Owens held up a hand. “Let me do my thing behind the scenes. Be patient. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.”

  EIGHT

  With nothing to do but wait, Vail and Robby headed to Calistoga Day Spa, where Vail would take in a mud bath, hot springs, and hour massage. It was a pampering to which she was unaccustomed—in fact, had never had, in her life.

  Robby dropped her at the spa and had the next few hours to himself. When he returned to pick up Vail, she walked into the glass enclosed lobby by the front desk with her hair back in a headband and a smile on her face.

  “Good time?”

  “If I closed my eyes, I could sleep for hours.”

  He carried her duffle to the car and tossed it into the back seat. “So how was the mud bath?”

  “Interesting. I mean, I’m lying there, totally relaxed, then I realized that I’m lying in a pile of warm cow shit. And I paid a lot of money for it.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Once I got the thought out of my mind, it was very soothing. Not as relaxing as the massage. I had this hunk named Pedro, and he had these really strong hands—”

  “Do I want to hear this?” Robby asked.

  “Apparently not.” She looked over at him and grinned. “Jealous?”

  Before Robby could answer, Vail’s phone started ringing. She reached into the rear seat and fished it out of the duffel. “Karen Vail.”

  “Yeah, this is Stan, Stan Owens.”

  “Stan . . . you got something for us?”

  “Sort of. I had a chat with Redd Brix. I think you should
go and talk to him, see if you can get him to request the BAU’s involvement.”

  “You think he’ll go for it?”

  “I softened him up for you, told him about my experience with the National Academy. He did a lot of listening, didn’t say much. Thanked me for the call.”

  “Well, thanks, Stan. We’ll go chat with him right now. Any idea where he is?”

  “Matter of fact, yes. It’s his day off. He’s at a buddy’s house digging out an old wine cave.”

  “Digging out an old wine cave? Is that like spelunking?”

  “Not sure what that is, but that cave is legendary stuff here in the valley. A hundred years ago there was an earthquake that caused a cave-in at one of the premiere wineries in the region. Black Knoll Vineyards, been around since 1861. Legend is that there were some special bottles in that cave, and when the earthquake hit, they were buried alive, so to speak. Some old geezer convinced his neighbor he knew where the cave was located, and it happens to be on land belonging to Brix’s friend.”

  Vail took down the address, thanked him, and plugged it into their GPS.

  “You don’t really want to go there now,” Robby said. “You’re oiled, massaged, and relaxed. Let’s go shower, get dressed, have a nice dinner—”

  “Proceed to the highlighted route,” Stella’s GPS voice announced.

  Vail shrugged. “You heard the lady.”

  NINE

  “You have arrived at your destination, on the left,” Stella said.

  Vail compared the address to her notes and said, “Indeed we have.”

  Robby nodded at the portable electronic device in Vail’s hands. “You like that thing, don’t you?”

  “She’s grown on me.” Seeing Robby’s twisted mouth, she said, “What, don’t tell me you’re intimidated by a female voice telling you where to go.”

  “You tell me where to go all the time.”

  “Exactly. Turn right.” Vail thumbed a hand at the signpost. The numbers were lettered in block gold leaf on the label of a magnum wine bottle in the hands of a large statue of a waiter dressed in a tuxedo.

  “Something tells me this is going to be interesting,” Robby said as he swung the Murano onto the driveway.

  They drove a hundred feet before they came to an electric gate, which sat splayed open. To the right was a well-maintained mushroom-colored guard shack, which stood empty.

  “Guess we just let ourselves in,” Vail said.

  Just past the small security shed was a cutout in the fine gravel and compacted dirt that lined the paved roadway. A silver Ford sat parked parallel to the path in one of the available slots.

  “Wanna walk?” Robby asked. “We don’t know where Brix is on the property, might as well explore.” He slid the Murano into the spot in front of the Ford and they hiked along the asphalt toward the house, which sat thirty yards ahead.

  “Gorgeous property,” Vail said. Exquisitely maintained vineyards, arranged in precise rows, lined the land to the north and south. “My feeling is that if we go to the front door, good chance they’ll tell us to go home.”

  “But if we wander around, we’re just a couple of bumbling idiots looking for Brix.”

  “Exactly.”

  The house was a gray, four-story, stone-faced structure with mature palms fanning out from either side of the entrance. A six-car garage sat to the left of the main building, attached by a covered walkway with vine-covered columns. Vail and Robby hung a left by the palms and moved down a graveled path for about fifty paces.

  They stopped and surveyed the landscape. Ahead of them lay closely cropped grass-covered rolling hills, with a sharp drop-off slightly to their right. Robby pointed in the direction he felt they should proceed, and they made their way down the sharp grade, moving sideways to control their descent.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Knee’s a little sore, but no problem.”

  The land flattened out, and further right, behind the house now and a hundred yards away, was a group of nine men holding shovels, perched beside a rectangular thirty-foot hole in the ground. A conical mound of overturned dirt sat along the far edge of the pit. A large, covered, blue-and-white wheeled cooler reclined at an angle on a secondary pile of dry soil.

  As Robby and Vail neared, Vail made out Redmond Brix, beer in one hand and the handle of a shovel in the other, the tip stuck into the grass.

  “Can I help you?” asked a man in a security uniform standing beside Brix, a two-way fastened to his belt. “This is private property.”

  “Front gate was open.”

  Brix turned. His face drooped as he caught sight of Vail. He frowned, then motioned to a man in jeans, leather gloves, and designer sunglasses. “This is one of my closest friends, Al Toland. He owns this property. Al, this is FBI Agent Vail and Detective Hernandez, from Virginia.” Brix introduced the rest of the men, other friends and hired workers, who dipped their chins and tipped their hats in acknowledgment.

  One of them had a high-end digital SLR camera around his neck, Nikon D700 embroidered into the strap.

  “Good to meet all of you,” Robby said. “Sorry to intrude.”

  “Goddamn right,” Brix said. “It’s my day off. Can’t a guy get a break?”

  “Hey, this is our vacation,” Vail said.

  Brix cocked his head. “No one’s asking you to keep sticking your nose in places you don’t belong.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Robby said.

  Vail threw him a look.

  “Javi,” Toland said to the uniformed security guard, “go shut the front gate, please.”

  The security guard immediately headed off in the direction from which Vail and Robby had come. Brix stuck his shovel deeper into the dirt and trudged toward them, then motioned them to an area a few yards from the other men.

  Vail faced Brix and said, “Look, we’re just trying to help, that’s it. If there’s some information we can offer to help catch the guy who filleted that woman, then we’ve done our job.”

  “Your job? You have no job here. Do us all a favor, Agent Vail, go and visit some wineries, enjoy your time in the wine country with Detective Hernandez. Once you get home, it’s back to the grind.”

  Vail couldn’t help but think that this could’ve been Robby uttering those same words. And in another sense, Brix was right. What the hell was she doing here? She was on vacation. She should’ve been enjoying the beauty of the Napa Valley, tasting some of the world’s best wine, decompressing, letting her knee heal. That was the plan. But some killer with a sharp knife had shredded those plans.

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with here, Lieutenant. If this guy has killed before, and I think that’s very likely, this is something you don’t want to fool around with. You need to get out in front of it now, before it’s too late. Ask Sheriff Owens. He’s been through the FBI’s National Academy program. He’s been exposed to this type of killer.”

  “Then I’ll know who to ask if we find another body.”

  “The woman from Silver Ridge Estates had a missing toenail. Second digit, forcibly removed.”

  “Yeah, I heard all about it. Stan called me. You were at the morgue. Those are some balls you got there, Agent Vail. You sure know how to endear yourself with the locals.”

  “We’ve offered our help, but you haven’t exactly been open to what we have to offer.”

  “We’re not small-town cops. We can do our job just fine without the FBI’s help. Thanks for your concern.” He took a quick pull from his beer, then pointed the mouth of the bottle to a spot behind them. “Why don’t you two run along now and have a nice day.” He turned away, then walked back to his shovel and pulled it from the ground. “Let’s get back to it, guys, we’re losing light.”

  Vail sucked on her lip but didn’t move.

  “Come on, Karen,” Robby said, gently taking her hand and leading her away.

  “WE’VE DONE EVERYTHING WE CAN,” Robby said, as they hiked past the six-car garage, headed tow
ard the Murano.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s dealing with. And that means more women are going to be killed because he can’t put his ego aside.”

  “Sheriff Owens understands. Let him do his thing, maybe he can talk Brix into asking the BAU for help.”

  Vail sighed. “Fine. We’ve done everything we can, right?”