Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“Yes, I did.”

“If we get the abducted woman back, alive, I’ll be surprised.”

“Why?”

“That didn’t occur to you?” Washington asked.

“Yes, it did, but I want to see if we reached the same conclusion for the same reasons.”

“The reason we don’t have a lead, not a damned lead, on this guy is because we don’t have a good description on him, or his van. And the reason we don’t is that, until the Flannery thing, he wasn’t with the victims more than fifteen, twenty minutes, and he did what he did where he found them. In the Flannery job, he put her in his van, but in such a way that it didn’t give us any better picture of him than we had before. He never took that mask off—by the way, it’s not a Lone Ranger-type mask; the Lone Ranger wore one that just covered his eyes.”

“I picked up on that,” Wohl said.

“That was the one little mistake that Dick Hemmings made, and when I mentioned it to him, he admitted it right away; said that he’d picked up on that, too, and doesn’t know why he put it in the report the way he did.”

“Go on, Jason.”

“In the Flannery job, he put her in his van and drove away with her. I think that convinced him he can take his victims away, and keep them longer. That’s what he’s really after, I think, having them in his power. That’s more important to him, I think, than the sexual gratification he’s getting; there’s been no incident of him reaching orgasm except by masturbation.”

“I agree,” Wohl said, “that he’s after the domination; the humiliation is part of that.”

“So he now knows he can get away with taking the women away from their homes; he proved that by taking the Flannery woman to Forbidden Drive. And since that was so much fun, he took the next victim away, too. Maybe to his house, maybe someplace else, the country, maybe.”

“And the longer he keeps them, the greater the possibility…that his mask will fall off, o

r something….”

“Or that the victim will look around and see things that would help us to find where she’s been taken,” Washington continued. “And this guy is smart, Peter. It is going to occur to him sooner or later, if it hasn’t already, that what he’s got on his hands is someone who can lead the cops to him; and that will mean the end of his fun.”

Not dramatically, but matter-of-factly, Jason Washington drew his index finger across his throat in a cutting motion.

“And he might find that’s even more fun than running around in his birthday suit, wearing a mask, and waving his dong at them,” Washington added.

“That’s the way I see it,” Wohl said. “That’s why I wanted you over here, working on it. I want to catch this guy before that happens.”

“Dick Hemmings, if you’d have asked him, could have told you the same thing.”

“It’s done, Jason, you’re here. So tell me what we should be doing next.”

“Tony Harris has come up with a long list of minor sexual offenders,” Washington said. “If I were you, Peter, I’d get him all the help he needs to ring doorbells.”

“I don’t know where I can get anybody,” Wohl said, thinking aloud.

“You better figure out where,” Washington said. “That’s all we’ve got right now. Tony’s been trying to get a match, in Harrisburg, between the names he’s got and people who own any kind of a van. So far, zilch.”

“Sabara’s got some people coming in,” Peter said. “Probably some of them will be here in the morning. I’ll put them on it. And maybe I could get some help from Northwest Detectives, maybe even tonight.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Washington said. “I think they’re glad you’ve taken this job away from them.”

“I didn’t take it away from them,” Wohl flared. “It was given to me.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Jason, it’s been suggested to me that we might find a psychiatric profile of the doer useful.”

“Don’t you think we have one?” Washington said, getting to his feet. “Whose suggestion was that? Denny Coughlin’s? Or Czernick himself?”

Wohl didn’t reply.