“Might. A possible link, possible method. I’m going to lay it out as soon as Mira’s in the room.” She glanced over, then handily caught the tube of Pepsi that Roarke tossed her. “Progress?” she asked him.
“I have fifty-six most possible, given their vocations or avocations. Still coming.”
“Okay. Peabody, get the screen up, backed with the disc I brought in.” She nodded when Mira came in. After taking a long sip, Eve put on the headset.
“Listen up, people. I need your full attention. If you can’t eat pizza and think—”
“You got pizza?” was Jenkinson’s complaint in her ear.
“We’re working on a new theory,” Eve said, and began to lay it out.
9
“ONE OF CORRINE DAGBY’S COWORKERS AT THE time of her death remembers—or more accurately thinks she remembers—the vic mentioning she was up for a part in a play. Off-off Broadway. If she spoke of this to anyone else, family, friends, other students in her classes, they don’t recall.
“Melissa Congress, second vic, secretarial position. Last seen leaving a club Lower West, well lubricated. This remains, most probably, a grab. A moment of opportunity. She was, however, known to complain with some consistency about her level of employment, her pay, her hours. There remains a possibility that she was approached about interviewing for another position and therefore knew or recognized her abductor.
“Anise Waters,” Eve continued. “Grad student at Columbia. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Russian, and working on a master’s in political science. She sometimes supplemented her income by tutoring, most usually on campus. Last seen leaving the university’s main library. Wits stated that she took a pass on joining a group for drinks, claiming she had work. As she was a serious and dedicated student, it was assumed she was heading home to study. She didn’t mention, to anyone’s recollection, an outside tutoring job. The language discs she checked out from the library were never recovered. The vic did have a scheduled tutoring job, on campus, the next day. It was assumed she’d checked out the discs for that purpose.
“Last, Joley Weitz. Last seen leaving Arts A Fact, a shop where she was employed, at approximately seventeen hundred. The vic did pottery, and had sold a few pieces she had on consignment at her place of employment. Her employer stated that the vic mentioned she had an important stop to make before she got ready for a date with a new boyfriend. The boyfriend was identified and cleared. As the vic had a dress on hold at a boutique she frequented, it was thought picking that item up for her date was her stop. She never reached the boutique, if indeed that was her intended destination.”
She waited a moment, let it soak. “New theory. The vics were approached by the unsub at some time. York gave dance instruction, Rossi moonlights as a personal trainer off-site. It’s a reasonable assumption all or most of these women were offered a private job, and went to their killer. I’ve begun examining the other cases, outside of New York, and believe this possibility extends. We have an assistant chef, a photographer, a nurse, a decorator, a data cruncher, a freelance writer, two health care aides, two artists, a clerk in a nursery—plants, the owner of a small flower shop, a librarian, a hair and skin consultant, a hotel maid. A music instructor, an herbalist, a caterer’s assistant.
“No link but physical appearance was ever found between these women. But if we factor in this possibility. An opportunity to head the kitchen for a private dinner party, to do a photo shoot, private nursing care, write an article, so on.”
“Why didn’t anyone know they were going off for a private job, an audition?” Baxter asked.
“Good question. Some of them are likely grabs, as we assumed all along. It’s also possible he took the time once they were inside the location to engage them in casual conversation, determine if they had told anyone. In some cases, outside jobs would be against their rules of employment. Cop moonlights as a security guard, a bouncer, a body guard, he keeps it to himself. Dr. Mira? Any thoughts on this?”
“It could be another form of control and enjoyment. Inviting his victims in, having them willingly enter, would be yet more proof to him of his superiority over them. It may indeed be another part of the ritual he’s created. The lack of violence on the bodies—and by that I mean the fact there’s no evidence he used his fists, his hands to strike, to throttle, that there is no sexual molestation—indicates he isn’t physical in that way. The violence is through implements and tools. A method such as you’re theorizing would fall within the structure of his profile.”
“I like it,” Baxter commented. “Makes more sense to me, if he’s hitting on sixty or over, he’d use deception instead of force to bag them.”
“Agreed,” Eve said. “If this holds, it indicates he’s aware they’re physically stronger than he is, or might be,” Eve put in. “All these women were in good physical shape, a number of them in exceptional physical shape. He targets young, strong women. We believe he isn’t young, maybe he isn’t particularly strong.”
“Which may be one of the reasons he needs to subdue, humiliate, and control them.” Mira nodded. “Yes, by luring them into a location he has secured, he’s dominated them intellectually, and then he proceeds to dominate them physically up to and including the point of their death. He not only masters them, but makes them other than they were. And by doing so, makes them his own.”
“What does that tell us?” Eve scanned the room. “It tells us one thing we didn’t know about him before.”
“He’s a coward,” Peabody said, and gave Eve a quick, inner glow of pride.
“Exactly. He doesn’t, as we believed, confront his victims, doesn’t risk a public struggle, even with the aid of a drug. He uses guile and lies, the lure of money or advancement or the achievement of a personal goal. He has to know them well enough to use what works, or has the greatest potential of working. He may have spent more time observing and stalking each vic than we previously supposed. And the more time he spent, the more chance there is that someone, somewhere, saw him with one or more of the victims.”
“We’ve been shooting blanks there,” Baxter reminded her.
“We go back, interview again, and ask about men the vics spent time with at work, who may have taken one of their classes or talked about doing so. A month ago, two months ago. He wouldn’t have been back since he abducted them. He’s done with them; he’s moved on from that stage. Who used to hang out at these locations, or frequent them who hasn’t been there in the last week for York, the last three days for Rossi.
“McNab, dig into Rossi’s comps, find me a new outside client. Roarke, names, addys, place of employment on everyone on your list who feels like she fits. Feeney, keep at the Urban War angle. Body identification, comments, commentaries, names of medics officially assigned, of volunteers where you can find them. I want photos, horror stories, war stories, editorials, every scrap you can dig up. Baxter, you and Trueheart hit the street. Jenkinson, you and Powell stay out there, find somebody whose memory can be jogged.
“Write it up, Peabody.”
“Yes, sir.”
She started out, and Feeney caught up with her. “Need a minute,” he said.
“Sure. Got something?”
“Your office.”