Annie nodded. “He’s totally turned his life around. He’s become a minister, counsels the other prisoners.”
Sam started to say something and Annie cut him off. “And yes, I know he isn’t entitled to any of the proceeds from the book, but he doesn’t want the money. He’s donated it all to a charity that provides college money for the children of victims of violent crimes.”
“That could all be bullshit, and you know it,” Sam said.
“It could be. I for one don’t believe it is. I’ve met with him. I’ve talked with him. I think he’s the real deal.”
“Annie, you of all people know how good these guys are at pulling off a con.”
“I do know that. But this time, I think it’s for real,” she insisted. “He has nothing to gain. He’ll never come up for parole. There won’t be any time off for good behavior, and he doesn’t want any. He wants to serve his sentence-his debt, he says-but he’s determined to do what little good he can do while he’s in prison. So no, Sam, I don’t think you have anything to worry about where Frank Myles is concerned.”
Sam sighed. “Okay, so no one pops out at me. That doesn’t mean that someone here”-he tapped on the folder-“isn’t behind the killings.”
“We’ll take a good hard look at each of those people,” John assured him, “but for now, I think we have to look beyond that list.”
“Why don’t you tell Sam what you’re thinking, Annie?” Fiona suggested.
Annie took off her reading glasses and set them on the table. “The fact that the killer has deliberately selected locales that are tied to you, and that he seeks his victims randomly on dates that are anything but random tells us a great deal about him. I’m sure it’s occurred to you that he’s very organized. He’s willing to wait for months to kill again because he needs the date and the place to be right. That tells me he’s patient, that he’s used to having to exercise patience. He has the will power to put off doing what he wants to do until the time and place are what they must be. So I’m thinking we need to go back in time, maybe even before you were with the FBI. Is there anyone back there who might have reason to blame you for something? More specifically, think about who might believe he has cause to blame you for something he himself might have done.”
Sam shook his head. “I can’t think of anyone like that, Annie.”
“Take your time. It could be something very subtle. Hopefully, it will come to you in time, but probably not today, which is fine. We have other things to discuss.” Annie pushed back her chair and stood. Sam knew within seconds she’d start to pace around the room, a habit of hers. She’d once said she thought better when she was moving.
“This latest murder.” Sam’s face went white. “Whoever this person is, he knows the details of my life. Well enough to know that Carly died on August fifteenth. Well enough to know that, even if I missed the others, killing someone on that date in that particular place is going to get my attention.”
“And that’s what this is all about, Sam. He’s waving a red flag in your face, challenging you. See me. Find me.”
“Stop me?” Fiona wondered aloud. “Is that what he wants? For Sam to find him and stop him? Maybe even kill him?”
“Death by cop? Or in this case, ex-FBI? Could be.” Annie stopped to ponder the possibility. “I actually like that a lot.” She leaned on the back of the chair. “So, Fiona, have you given any thought to trying your hand at profiling? I heard there’s an opening.”
“I thought it was filled. What’s his name?” Fiona frowned.
“Doesn’t matter. He quit. He wasn’t any good anyway,” John told her.
“Anyway, to get back to our actor. Okay, he has Sam’s attention. He has all our attention, though he doesn’t give a flying fuck about the rest of us. It’s Sam he’s challenging. So we have to ask ourselves, to what end?” Annie glanced around the room. “What now?”
“Well, he’s trying to draw Sam out, to engage him,” Fiona began, then stopped. “You said maybe he wants to be stopped, maybe even to be killed. Maybe by Sam’s hand.”
Annie agreed. “So the next question is, what has he done that was so horrible that he deserves to die? I don’t mean these current murders. These are all just means to an end to him. I believe there’s something in his past-way back, maybe-that he feels guilty about.” She turned to Sam. “John and I talked about this earlier this morning. We both know you feel personally responsible for these murders, but here’s the thing, Sam: this is all about his guilt, not yours. He’s projecting it onto you because he can’t face what he’s done-not what he’s doing now, but something he might have done a long time ago.”
“You’re saying someone he used to know did something that’s haunting him now, but he’s trying to get even with Sam for it? Like, somehow he holds Sam responsible, but only because he can’t admit to himself that he was the responsible party?” Fiona frowned. “Did that make any sense, Annie?”
“It made perfect sense. That’s exactly how I see it. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how far back we have to go to look for him. We’re going to have to rely on Sam to come up with a few possibilities.”
“Honestly, Annie, I can’t think of anyone.”
“We all have people in our past who we might have injured in some way without even knowing it. It could be someone like that,” John said.
“I’ll give it some thought, but I’ve made it a point all my life to just get along, let others live their lives, not judge. Shit, I can’t even remember the last time I had a real argument with anyone.”
“There’s someone there someplace,” Annie assured him. “I only wish I could help you sniff him out.”
“In the meantime, we have another murder,” Fiona reminded them.
“You didn’t give me any details on the phone,” Sam said.
“That’s what I’m going to do right now.” She passed around several photos of the crime scene. “These were taken by the medical examiner’s office.”
Sam stared at the pictures. The man’s body was dressed all in black and was propped up against a heavy chain fence.
“What’s this in his hands?” he asked.
“It’s a Bible,” Fiona told him. “And that building in the background is the Virginia State Correctional Institute at Calumet. It’s right outside of-”
“Yeah, Sanderson. I get that part. But I don’t get the Bible.” Sam stared at the photo.
“The victim is forty-seven-year-old Kenneth Wilke. He worked at a nearby convenience store,” Fiona said pointedly, “but he’s dressed like a-”
“Like a priest. Minister to the incarcerated,” Sam muttered. “One of the acts of mercy is to minister to prisoners.”
“Right. Wilke worked the late shift. Surveillance cameras show him leaving the store by the back door ten minutes after his shift ended. All the employees park behind the store. Wilke’s car was still there the following day, but he never showed up for work. They called his home number but his girlfriend said she hadn’t seen him since the day before.”
“She hadn’t called the store to find out if he was there?”
“She also works at night. She stocks produce at a local supermarket. She generally gets home before he does, so she hadn’t noticed until the next day that he wasn’t there.”
“So the theory is that he was taken as he exited the building, forced into the killer’s car and driven to…” Sam thought it through. “I’m guessing he wasn’t killed where he was found.”
“Right.” Fiona folded her hands in front of her on the table. “There’s a field on one side of the prison. The police found an area where the high grass has been tamped down and there are tire tracks leading into the field. They believe the killer drove into the field and got as close to the most remote section of fence as he could without being seen. They found the kill site in the field near where the tire marks stop. They also found a pair of jeans and a white shirt with the name of the convenience store on the front. They figure the killer made the victim change into the black clothes, then strangled him right there. That would have been easier than killing him first, then trying to undress and dress the dead body. The postmortem stab wounds were made after the body was posed at the fence. There’s no evidence the body had been dragged, so we’re figuring he must have picked the victim up and carried him.”