Winter Kill - lanyon Josh (электронные книги без регистрации TXT) 📗

Meeting Rob’s disbelieving gaze, Frankie said impatiently, “Am I the only one paying attention around here?”

“To what?” Rob demanded.

“The fires, the dead animals.” She glared at him. “Pagan symbols scrawled on a church wall. For God’s sake, Zeke. You watch all these alphabet soup cop shows. Tell him.”

Rob spluttered, apparently unable to believe what he was hearing. “Wait a minute. We’ve had some vandalism, yes. And, yes, a lot of these kids have guns before they’re ready. Hell, everybody around here has a gun.”

“You don’t see it because you don’t want to see it,” Frankie said.

“Zeke doesn’t see it either!”

Maybe not, but what Frankie was saying made sense to Adam. He’d felt from the first that Frankie knew something was very wrong in her little burg, and one thing he’d learned through the years was to trust cops when it came to what was happening on their own beat.

Zeke said nothing. He was staring at Frankie as intently as if he was lip-reading.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for the other shoe to drop,” Frankie said. “When Dove’s body turned up, I thought this is it. But I was wrong. Wrong about Dove. Not wrong about the rest of it.”

She believed it. Every word. And Adam could see that as much as Rob wanted to argue, dismiss what he was hearing, he had too much respect for Frankie. She knew her job and she knew her town. He looked at Adam.

“She could be wrong,” he said.

Adam nodded. She could be wrong.

Two murdered women in three days indicated she could also be right.

“Okay,” Rob said. “Then let’s start pulling everything we’ve got on every one of these women.”

“What about that asshole Gibbs?” Zeke asked. “When do we question him?”

Adam looked at Rob.

Rob said grudgingly. “We didn’t find anything at his cabin.”

“And the Alaskan police didn’t find anything the first time they searched Robert Hansen’s house either,” Zeke said.

“Who the hell’s Robert Hansen?” Frankie demanded.

“The Butcher Baker,” Zeke answered.

Frankie shook her head. Rob said, “When did you become such an expert on serial killers?”

“You think you’re the only one around here who knows how to do his job?”

“No.” Rob held onto his temper with obvious effort. “I’m just saying I don’t think we can jump to any conclusions about Gibbs.”

“The hell we can’t! He’s the only freak around here that fits the profile.”

“We don’t have a profile yet,” Adam said.

Zeke looked ready to jump to his feet again and start pounding his chest. Frankie said, “I think a cooling off period might be a good idea for everybody. We’ll let Mr. Gibbs chill out in a cell for a bit. We’ve got plenty to charge him with when the time comes.”

That was real life due process. Practicality versus ideals. Adam said, “It’s too early to know whether Gibbs is involved or not. What we want to avoid doing is questioning him with an assumption of guilt.”

“No? Okay. Thanks for explaining basic interrogation techniques,” Zeke said.

Adam sighed inwardly.

“We do have information regarding the museum thefts,” Frankie said. “Aggie and I have been going through Cynthia’s records. It looks like two items were taken: a large wooden mask in the shape of a raven’s head, and a knife. The mask would be very valuable. Worth several thousand dollars.”

“There’s a healthy market for stolen antiquities,” Adam said, “but I don’t believe the mask was taken to sell.”

“If that was the case, all the masks would have been stolen,” Rob agreed. “This nut had time to arrange Cynthia’s body in a diorama; he sure as hell had time to cart the rest of the masks out of the museum.”

“Then what?” Zeke asked.

Frankie said reluctantly, “The knife wasn’t so valuable. However, according to Cynthia’s notes, the handle of the stolen knife was also carved in the shape of a raven.”

Zeke looked blank. “What are we dealing with?” he said. “Some psycho birdman?”

“I’ve been reading up on raven legends,” Rob said.

“You’ve been reading legends about ravens?” Zeke said. Even Frankie looked surprised.

Rob’s expression was sheepish. “I checked a couple of books out of the mobile library last night, that’s all. Agent Darling guessed that the missing mask was a raven.” He shrugged, not looking at Adam.

“Well, what did you find out?” Frankie asked.

“Nothing. Masks were created to resemble certain animals that were considered sacred or powerful. Sometimes the masks were believed to have magical powers.”

“Magical powers!” exclaimed Frankie.

“I’m just telling you what I read. There are a lot of legends and stories about ravens—and crows—but nothing that really fits. In some cultures they’re bad luck or harbingers of death. They feed off carrion, so they’re sometimes viewed as mediators between the dead and the living. Not so according to the stories of the Klamath Tribes. Those are mostly creation stories. In Modoc legends they’re tricksters, pranksters. But that doesn’t mean they’re not the hero of the story.”

“You’re not looking deep enough,” Zeke said.

“They’re frightening,” Adam said. Zeke gave a harsh laugh. Adam ignored him. “They’re a menacing-looking bird. It may be something that simple.”

“Go on,” Frankie said.

Adam was still formulating his thoughts. “Supposing you’re right and Joseph’s killer is the same man who attacked, or tried to abduct, the girls in December and January. He was described as wearing war paint, which to me indicates this is someone who identifies with Native American culture and who is developing his persona.”

“His persona?” Zeke questioned. “Like what? He’s becoming a super villain?”

Rob said, “I see what you’re saying. He’s evolving.”

“Yes. He is. He’s creating a…self concept.”

“He’s making it up as he goes along,” Zeke said.

“I think that’s correct.”

“I mean you.”

“Shut up, Zeke.” Frankie seemed to be thinking. She shook her head. “This has to be an outsider. We’d have noticed somebody like that. Some crazy with a raven fetish.”

Rob said, “An outsider wouldn’t know about the museum.”

“You do get a lot of people moving through here during the holidays,” Adam said, “All the same, I think this is someone local. The kind of incidents you mentioned the other day: vandalism, animal mutilation, fires…that’s classic. It’s a serial killer on training wheels. This is someone who has been testing the boundaries for a while.”

“Male,” Rob said. “Caucasian.”

“Probably. In this case, almost certainly.”

“Young,” Frankie said.

“That’s going to be relative.”

“Late twenties to early thirties,” she qualified with great certainty.

Zeke said, “He’s not walking around wearing an I Love Ravens T-shirt.” He threw Adam a challenging look. “You don’t have to be in the FBI to know that much.”

No, you just had to watch a few episodes of Criminal Minds. If this were a TV show, Zeke would be the unsub. Adam said only, “A lot of those assumptions have been challenged in recent years.”

“We do have one piece of good news,” Frankie said. “Or maybe good news isn’t the word for it. The phone recovered near Echo Falls is definitely Tiffany’s. It’s pretty smashed up; it looks like she—or someone—dropped it on the rocks near the waterfall. The State Police are doing what they can to retrieve her data. Zeke, I want you to have another talk with the friend Tiffany was supposed to spend the weekend with. Something about that story doesn’t sit right with me.”

“I’ll be happy to.” Zeke shoved back his chair and rose.

Frankie glowered at him. “Go easy, Zeke. Azure isn’t the only victim. Tiffany is a victim too, until we know otherwise.”

After Zeke walked out of Frankie’s office, Rob said, “He needs to take some personal time off, Frankie. He’s a loose cannon.”