She's Not There - Madison Marla (книги без сокращений .txt) 📗
Like many of her peers, Lisa hated to admit anyone other than a practicing clinician could be so insightful of the forensic psyche as to actually be able to pinpoint a killer’s profile, but she was determined to keep an open mind.
When he entered the room, Mason Orth appeared small, but Lisa quickly realized his position in the chair concealed his height. He wore a soft, taupe fedora, reminiscent of another era. When he took it off, hanging it on the back of the chair, she saw his hair was mostly silver, although he didn’t look more than sixty.
Eric introduced them. Orth’s eyes drew her to him, eclipsing the effect of his handicap. They were piercing, intense. When he looked into her eyes, she felt like he could see her deepest secrets.
He held his hand out to her. When their palms met, her feeling about him intensified. He would help them; she could feel it.
“Please, call me Mason. David told me you’re a psychologist. We’ll have to put our heads together and see what we can come up with.”
Did he think he could win her over with that line? “It’ll be a pleasure. David’s told us wonderful things about your work.”
“I hope I can live up to his praise.” He laughed, the sharp planes of his face softening. He turned to Eric. “I want to thank you for your generosity in inviting me to dinner, but if you don’t mind I’d like to see these information boards I’ve heard about.”
Eric motioned toward his office. “Of course. We won’t be having dinner for a while yet.”
They showed him into the office. He guided his chair to the middle of the room, looking over each woman’s photo and information without speaking. Eric excused himself while Lisa took a chair, silently waiting for a comment from the enigmatic man. Minutes passed.
Mason Orth’s intensity filled the room, the silence almost eerie. The spell broke when he asked, “Lisa, are you convinced these disappearances are the work of one person?”
Lisa wondered how he’d known she was still in the room; he’d addressed her without moving from his position in front of the boards. Bewildered, she replied, “I wasn’t at first. I was only sure something wasn’t right. I never believed the rise in the statistics could be put off to chance—it was too high. The police think it’s the work of one or more of a number of deviant online groups, or an organization helping women to leave abusive relationships. Their head of computer crimes, James Wilson, believes ‘multiple factors’ are responsible.”
Turning to her, he asked, “What do you think?”
“I don’t believe these women have run off or been killed by their husbands. The more we dig, the more it looks like there was a man on the fringes of these women’s lives, a man careful to stay in the background, invisible. I’m convinced there’s one person out there targeting this specific group of women.”
“Quite fascinating, isn’t it?” He turned back to the photos. “The obvious conclusion would be the key to this mystery lies with the victims. Find why he’s targeting abused women, and you’ll find your killer.”
“You don’t think we should focus on the obvious—why he’s killing abused women?”
Observing the photos, he answered, “One would be inclined to think he had a grudge against them for some reason. However, it could easily be something as overt as he enjoys killing women—and these women are a group whose disappearances can be blamed on many factors. Rather convenient for him when there is a ready-made suspect for the law to concentrate on—missing women who can be explained away.”
Lisa smiled, impressed. “We haven’t thought of it that way. It’s so simple it makes perfect sense.”
He turned back to face her. “Yes, but there is nothing simple about your killer. He’s an extremely complex man.”
TJ was running late. By the time she joined the group, they were seated at the dinner table, sharing another of Teresa’s sumptuous suppers. On tonight’s menu, beef stew served with Parmesan cheese bread. It smelled wonderful. Teresa rushed to put a serving in front of her, shooing Tina back to their room.
They introduced TJ to Orth. The man’s penetrating eyes made her uneasy. She’d been against bringing him on board, but if he could help them wrap things up, she’d hear him out.
After dinner, they gathered in front of the whiteboards. The profiler turned to TJ. “I understand researching these women was your idea. I always like to start at the beginning, so tell me why these disappearances piqued your interest.”
TJ was taken off guard; she’d planned on being an observer. The nagging feeling she’d had when studying the whiteboards, remained. She’d been hoping a new insight might break it loose. “Goin’ way back, my sister was abused by her husband until the police stopped him—permanently.” She neglected to add she had been “the police” who’d stopped him.
“‘Bout a year later Eric hired me to find something that might help to get him out of jail on appeal. After doin’ all the legwork and getting to know Eric, I knew he didn’t kill his wife.” She explained the rest of her story, including what they’d been told about the statistics by Richard Conlin and James Wilson.
“A mutual friend told me Lisa was goin’ in to MPD about the stats. Thought the police had blown the whole thing off, and when I heard someone else was interested, decided to see if I could get her to help me.”
“The Milwaukee police are still ignoring it?”
“Yeah, so far. Dependin’ on what we can give them, Waukesha and Oconomowoc are gonna rework Jamie Denison and Kayla Schindler’s disappearances once we turn over our information. We’ll hand over everything we got, including whatever you have to add. And we’d like you to be here when we do it.”
TJ hadn’t planned on asking him to be there. Something about Orth made him credible, assured her his expertise could improve their chances with the law.
Orth waited a bit before he spoke, his eyes appraising her. “Let me think about it. I’ll get input from all of you tonight. I’ll give you a written report eventually, but I’ll be able to tell you my impressions before I leave. Then you can decide if you think it will be helpful to have me here when you address the police. And I would encourage you to include a representative from Milwaukee.”
TJ grimaced. “Well, I know Richard Conlin would come. Not sure he’d bring an open mind.”
“I’d think the fact the area police are going forward would convince them, if nothing else,” Orth commented.
They reviewed all the evidence and information from the interviews. TJ added that she’d located Tim Aiello, the stagehand who talked to Kayla at Vinnie’s the night she’d disappeared. He admitted Kayla had pissed him off when she’d so rudely given him the brush-off. He had an alibi for the evening, however. The stagehands shared rooms and his roommate remembered him coming in before eleven because he’d interrupted an important phone call from his wife, who was almost ready to give birth. Aiello admitted he watched Kayla after she blew him off and had seen her leave with a man. The interesting part, he remembered, “The dude had gray hair.”
Orth grew quiet after they’d shared everything they thought important. They left the room to have coffee and dessert in the kitchen. After he’d finished his coffee, the profiler started talking.
“I don’t think what I have to say will be a surprise to any of you. I believe the Milwaukee police are wrong, and you folks have it right. This is the work of one man. There is always the possibility of an accomplice, but I think it’s unlikely. Your killer could be a woman, although the odds are against it, and the missing bodies would leave us to deduce the killer had the strength to take them with him and somehow make them disappear. My feeling is the perpetrator is a male.
“Serial killers tend to be Caucasian men in the twenty to forty age range. If your witnesses were accurate about the gray hair, I’d guess he’s not a lot more than forty and prematurely gray. He’s not an attention seeker, or there would have been bodies found. Part of him isn’t proud of what he is doing, but the other part wins out.
