No one had ever asked Vincent the right questions, because no one had ever known what the right questions were.
“Hello, Vincent,” Jennifer Takemoto said.
The detectives watched as the psychiatrist began to interact with Foley, speaking to him in a series of short statements—friendly comments on the view that required no response from the patient but allowed him to become used to her presence. She now stood next to him by the window; framed against the dark sky, their silhouettes were only a foot apart. Eli Peterson watched every step and weighed every word.
Madison’s cell vibrated in the inside pocket of her blazer. She reached for it, and when she saw the caller’s number, she pressed the Answer button and left the room.
“Madison,” she said.
“Detective, it’s Fred Kamen,” the man said. “From the FBI.”
Madison allowed herself a small smile: as if there could be another Fred Kamen in her acquaintance. Weeks earlier, when she was deep in her war against Harry Salinger, Kamen—one of the best and brightest of Behavioral Analysis Unit 4 and the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program at the FBI—had given her invaluable support. He was also an old friend of Detective Sergeamt Brown, Madison’s partner, and that, more than anything else, made him a good man to know in Madison’s book. Was he calling about Kevin Brown? Had he heard that Brown had failed the firearms test?
“Mr. Kamen, it’s been a while. How are you?”
“It’s twenty degrees outside, Detective—that’s how I am.” The tone was still more East Coast academic than law enforcement.
“I see.”
Kamen was not the small-talk type. “I have something on my desk. It was flagged for our possible interest, and it came back to you.”
“What is it?”
“You were looking to match a latent handprint on a homicide case? The victim was a Ronald Gray.”
The smudged handprint on the tiles of the bus station restroom.
“Yes, I certainly am. How—”
“Because the match is to someone I have known about for a number of years. Peter Conway. And he’s organized crime.”
“Organized crime?” Madison’s mind started running through possibilities and scenarios.
“Yes,” Kamen continued. “Your print has turned up twice in homicide investigations connected to racketeering, fraud, and extortion. Never enough points of similarity to do anything about it, mind you, but enough to get flagged.”
“How many points do we have for my case?”
“Seven.”
Madison sighed: the courts handled anything between eight and sixteen points of similarity in their trials; a defense attorney would tear a hole right through a seven-point match.
“How did you get the original prints?” she asked Kamen. “Was Conway ever charged with anything?”
Kamen hesitated. “No, we have his prints courtesy of an undercover agent who gave us a glass Conway had drunk from. We have his DNA, too. That investigation is still open, and the agent died under suspicious circumstances three weeks later.”
“Conway’s work?”
“Very probably. His prints are not in the system, but should they ever turn up anywhere, we take an interest.”
“I understand,” Madison replied. “Mr. Kamen, what we’re looking at here is a homicide that is connected to a twenty-five-year-old kidnap and murder. The kidnapping—three children—was in all probability tied up to threats of extortion related to a restaurant. It would fit the organized-crime model and explain why Conway turned up in Seattle and started a cleanup operation.”
“Yes, most of his work has been on the East Coast. It’s a very specialized crew. I joined the early investigations because they needed a behavioral-analysis angle: the killings are always different; there is no identical pattern that makes them stand out in the ViCAP database. Except for one thing, and once you know it, that’s how you keep track of them: they use what they find at the crime scene against the victim.”
Madison closed her eyes and saw Warren Lee’s body on the autopsy table. “I know what you mean. I have seen their work here in Seattle in the last week. And I don’t think they’re done yet.”
“Madison, sometimes the victims just disappear. No bodies, no trail, and no evidence.”
Jerry Wallace.
“Witnesses and informants have not fared well. I’m going to send you everything I can on Conway and his crew,” Kamen said.
“Any other names? Biometric information for any of them?”
“They don’t have records. What we have is what our agent had managed to collect before he was killed.”