The Poet's Blood (Heinous Crimes Unit Book 7), page 7
“Sure,” Christian told him. He paused for a second, considering his next statement carefully. He decided that anything other than honesty here would only get people killed. Especially when it came to Luke. “He’s going to write me again, if he hasn’t already. If I were you, I’d get the letters forwarded to your phone or email. If he’s following the case, he’s going to know more about it than the FBI. He’s going to use that for his own ends. Maybe we can use it for ours, too.”
Patrick read the letter five times. It wasn’t the most shocking thing he’d ever read, but he couldn’t shake the creepy feeling it gave him. Whatever he thought about Windsor, Titan far surpassed it. The man was balls to the wall insane. Even the courts and psychiatrists had agreed that he couldn’t truly be held responsible for his crimes. Patrick remembered the reasoning the judge had given at the sentencing portion of Titan’s trial.
“This is, without hesitation, the most difficult sentence I’ve ever had to hand down. However, I don’t feel any guilt. Your crimes are heinous on a level that has rarely been seen. My issue is that the court has found you insane, meaning you do not understand the difference between right and wrong. I’m bound by that decision. I don’t agree with it, Dr. Titan. You know that right and wrong exists, and you decide where those lines lie in your universe. The mass murders you’ve committed and orchestrated aren’t wrong in your mind. They may even be a holy act. Yet, you do understand the morality that people like me practice. You know it exists. I don’t know if there’s a word for you, Dr. Titan. Insane isn’t correct, but perhaps it’s the closest thing humanity has come up with. Inhuman might work. Something so foreign it cannot be understood. Your existence makes me doubt the existence of God, because I cannot believe he would create something like you.”
Patrick had thought it was a winding and overly dramatic speech when he’d read it in the papers. After reading the letter, he understood.
They’d been on the plane for two hours, and Windsor hadn’t looked up from the tablet Patrick had given him as the plane took off. He’d been reading himself in on the case, everything they had both new and old. The interviews, the forensic reports, coroner’s reports, and the shortlist of persons of interest. Everything. He hadn’t taken a break, not even to glance out of the window.
Patrick had read Titan’s letter and then emailed the relevant people about it. First, his boss. Then, following Windsor’s advice, he’d made sure the prison would forward anything received from Titan. Patrick also took the step of emailing the doctor presiding over the supermax psychiatric facility where Titan was serving multiple life sentences.
He didn’t know exactly what he expected to get from the doctor, only that they needed to be in communication about whatever Titan knew.
Patrick hoped it was nothing but another ruse to mess with Windsor’s head.
So far, he’d heard nothing back from anyone except the warden at Windsor’s prison. He had done everything he could to minimize Titan’s effect, but throwing him into the mix hadn’t been part of the plan.
I didn’t throw him in, Patrick thought. He did it himself, which makes it even more dangerous.
Patrick pushed thoughts of Titan from his head and looked at Windsor. The chartered plane had four seats, two on either side of the main cabin. They were seated opposite each other with a polished wooden table in between them. Each seat had two windows for the passengers to look out at the world beneath them, but Patrick’s was closed, and Windsor hadn’t even considered his.
Patrick decided to speak up. “What do you think?”
Windsor’s head jerked up from the tablet and he blinked at Patrick as if he’d forgotten where he was. After a moment, he came back to reality, his furrowed brow relaxing. “The profilers think the facial mutilation is because the killer has some kind of disfigurement, or at least thinks he does, correct?”
“Yeah. That’s the prevailing theory,” Patrick responded. “Do you agree with it?”
Windsor’s face creased in a small frown. “Then what is making him target the families of congresspeople?”
“What do you mean?” Patrick asked.
Windsor sunk a little deeper into his seat and looked at the tablet again. “The profilers haven’t made any connection between his supposed disfigurement and the congresspeople. They’re assuming the reason he mutilates their faces without taking all the data into consideration. Why their families?”
Astute, Patrick thought. The profilers had discussed the connection, but there was too much disagreement so their reasoning hadn’t made the early reports. Windsor had caught it with ease. “They’re still debating the connection, but the dominant theory is that the killer blames congress for not providing him with the medical care to fix his issues.”
Windsor looked up from the tablet in disgust. “You’re serious?”
“We’re searching medical databases across the US for people who were denied cosmetic surgery by their insurance, then tracking them down for interviews. We’re focusing on facial cosmetic surgery right now, on people who were denied surgery to restore their ears, mouths, and eyes. If that turns up nothing, we’ll look elsewhere.”
Windsor’s eyes grew larger with each word Patrick spoke. “No one has said that’s idiotic?”
Patrick opened his mouth to respond but found that he could only laugh. It took him a second to figure out how to respond. “You say whatever comes to your mind, don’t you?”
“This is definitely a problem,” Windsor answered, ignoring the question. “That’s not a smart angle to take. It’s a huge waste of resources and you’re not going to turn up anything. That’s not what this guy is getting at by mutilating his victims’ faces.”
Patrick crossed one leg over the other, his laughter dying. “The best minds in the FBI are working on this. If they’re wrong, then what do you say is happening? What do you think it means?”
Windsor typed a few words into the tablet’s search engine.
“You know I’m monitoring everything you look up, right?” Patrick asked.
Windsor ignored him until he found what he wanted and turned the tablet around so Patrick could see it. Three monkeys filled the screen. The first covered his ears, the second his eyes, and the third his mouth.
Patrick stared at the image, lost for words as the meaning dawned on him. He met Windsor’s avid stare. “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?”
Windsor nodded. “The killer isn’t angry because he’s disfigured. He does think the federal government wronged him. That’s what the messages nailed to the victims mean. Congress is guilty, but...”
He trailed off and looked away, his gaze going to the window on his left.
“But what?” Patrick asked.
Windsor’s eyes remained on the window. “This doesn’t feel like a known motivation for serial killers.”
“Well, that’s pretty obvious,” Patrick responded. “He’s targeting a specific political group, and the displays are because he wants attention.”
Windsor shook his head. “No. Serial killers have wanted notoriety before. BTK. The Zodiac. They wanted recognition. They wanted their work to be seen. Most were sexual in nature.”
Patrick crossed his arms over his chest. “I know the FBI had more brainpower when you and Titan were agents, but we’re not worthless without you. We don’t think this is sexual in nature, but saying the killer’s motivation falls outside normal profiling standards doesn’t make a lot of sense, either. Not after fifty years of studying them.”
Windsor wasn’t perturbed with Patrick’s disagreement. Patrick may as well have been telling him the cost of a pack of gum for all his defense of FBI procedure mattered to him. “This is more like Kryzenski than Bundy. That’s my point.”
“The Unabomber?” Patrick asked.
Windsor turned the tablet so that the screen faced him. “Yeah, but that’s not right, either. The killer is sending a message, but it isn’t like anything the FBI has ever seen before.”
Patrick didn’t like how this conversation differed from all the others he’d had about the case. No one had said that this killer’s MO had not yet been profiled, only that the targeting of congresspeople’s family increased the pressure. “Are you telling me this to increase your value to the investigation and help you ensure you stay out of prison? We’ve had the top minds in the FBI studying this case, and not one of them said anything remotely similar to what you’re telling me.”
Windsor shrugged. “You got me out of prison to give you my expert opinion. It’s my opinion that everyone working this case is wrong.”
THE POETS
Brian and Bonnie had learned early on at the orphanage that they shouldn’t attempt to hold onto their real names. Someone heard Bonnie call Brian by his birth name. The next thing she knew, her lip was swelling like a yellowjacket had stuck it.
The twins were eight years old when that had happened. Brian had stared with shock, not daring to move in case he got a licking from the same man who’d backhanded Bonnie. He’d waited until the man left, then gone to his sister and put his arm around her.
She hadn’t touched her lip. Daddy had done worse to both of them for less. It wasn’t the pain that made her cry, but the loneliness of their new lives.
“I miss ‘em,” she’d whispered as she clutched her brother. “I miss ‘em somethin’ fierce.”
Brian had started crying and nodded, tears falling down his face. He missed them, too. Momma, Daddy, Aunt Pearl, and Uncle Bo. He missed their dog, Tank. He even missed their cousins, who had always seemed to be on a constant mission to annoy.
Bonnie’s face was buried in Brian’s chest. ”They ain’t comin’ back, are they?”
Brian hadn’t known what to say. He knew about death, they both did. Daddy wasn’t nobody’s fool and he’d often told them he wasn’t raisin’ no fools, neither.
He didn’t want it to be true. He didn’t want them all to be gone. He wanted them to come back. He would have given anything—everything—if his family could come back.
“I don’t know,” he’d told her. “They ain’t supposed to, but maybe they will. Maybe Daddy is different than other people and he might come back.”
Bonnie had gripped his back and burrowed her head deeper into his chest. “I hope he does. I hope they all come back.”
It was all either of them wanted, for their family to return from the dead.
CHAPTER TEN
Patrick followed Windsor around the latest crime scene, a trailer in the middle of nowhere.
“Her body is still at the morgue, right?” Windsor asked.
“Yes.”
Patrick suppressed a sigh. The old woman’s son was raising holy hell, and increasing the pressure with every hour that passed. He wanted the body, insisting that his mother needed a proper burial. However, he’d also said that the FBI Director was incompetent into every microphone they put in his face. He’d also said that they needed to catch this killer as quickly as humanly possible. Holding onto the body was necessary for that to happen. Consistency didn’t appear to matter much to the senator.
Agents and forensics had finished up yesterday. Patrick had requested that he and Windsor look through the trailer alone for multiple reasons. He didn’t want the felon around more people than was absolutely necessary. Partly for Windsor, but to minimize the risk of leaks as well. Right now, only a handful of people knew Windsor was working with the FBI. If the agents or forensic techs saw him walking around the crime scene?
The New York Times would be running Windsor’s face on their front page by tomorrow morning.
Patrick didn’t even want to consider the pressure that would put on the investigation. The heat for bringing Windsor in would be unlike anything he’d ever faced before.
He stood by in the trailer’s kitchen while Windsor examined the scene where the killer had carved up the senator’s mother. The dried maroon bloodstains looked out of place on the otherwise clean linoleum floor.
Windsor walked from the kitchen to the dining room, skirting the table to get to the window. He pushed back the drapes and looked out at the lawn. “They cut her in the kitchen, bagged her in the kitchen, and then...”
He turned and glanced at the living room. “They set her up there. The letters were on her lap, according to the photos. No one moved anything? That’s how they found her, right?”
Images flashed through Patrick’s mind. The naked woman on the couch. Her blood dripping from the bag covering her face, painting her exposed breasts. The letters resting on her thin, pale legs. The nail through her sternum, and the note hanging from it. “Local PD said nothing was moved or touched, and our techs confirmed it.”
Windsor peered out of the window again. “Do we have any information from the neighbors? They hear anything? See anyone peculiar around here lately?”
“There’s nothing and no one for a half-mile in either direction,” Patrick answered. “One neighbor said she has someone come cut her grass once a week, but he didn’t see anyone from up there.” Patrick paused by the entrance to the dining room. “We’re taking care of the investigative portion of the crime, Windsor. If anyone saw anything, anywhere, we’ll know about it. That’s not why you’re here. We brought you in for your insights, not to double check our investigative methods.”
Windsor stepped away from the window and retraced his steps around the table. He said nothing as he passed Patrick on his way to the living room, like he hadn’t heard the agent speak.
Did he really not hear me? Or is he simply ignoring me?
Patrick shook his head and followed Windsor into the living room.
Windsor went to the opposite side of the couch from where Ms. Pinkington had been found. He sat down and stared at the dark screen of the small, box television with rabbit ears on the other side of the room. “Where did the letters come from?”
Patrick halted in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, disgusted that Windsor had sat down. There wasn’t any evidence remaining to disturb, but it still felt macabre. “We think they were in the back of her closet. The hanging clothes were pushed toward the front and there’s an empty box at the very back.”
Windsor didn’t look at Patrick as he spoke. “Were the clothes pushed to the front in an orderly way? Or were they thrown around?”
“I’m honestly not sure,” Patrick answered. “We can go check.”
Windsor stood, the chains on his hands and legs clanking. He did his awkward shuffle by Patrick again, apparently not minding the inconvenience. Patrick was starting to feel a bit like a dog following his master around the house.
The bed was still made. The nightstand on the right side held a lamp and an empty water glass, which rested on a green coaster. Patrick took the room in, but Windsor seemed to ignore it as he did everything else.
He opened the sliding mirror door on the closet, then took a step back and stared at the clothes. “They’re in order. The killer didn’t toss them.”
“What does that matter?” Patrick asked.
Windsor looked over his shoulder at Patrick. “Are you questioning my investigative techniques?”
Patrick narrowed his eyes at the smirk that appeared on the felon’s face. “Right now, I’m questioning every step you take.”
Windsor looked back to the closet. “This wasn’t done in anger. Or at least, not the kind of rage that would cause the killer to throw clothes around. He moved the clothes calmly, took the papers out without disturbing the box, and then placed them on her lap. That’s deliberation.”
Patrick hadn’t seen it until Windsor pointed it out. Now he couldn’t read the scene any other way. None of this was in the files. No one had thought to consider how the clothes had been moved, or noted that the closet hadn’t been ransacked.
“Do you think he knew where the letters were?” he asked.
Windsor abandoned the closet and walked to the foot of the bed. “I don’t know yet.”
Yet. An odd term. Was it unconscious arrogance?
Patrick was grateful that Windsor didn’t touch the bed. Sitting on the couch was bad enough, but to lie on a dead woman’s bed? He would have had to tell him to get up.
“Besides the toddlers,” Windsor continued, “he’s tried to embarrass all the victims, right?”
Patrick nodded. “We’re not sure if that’s actually his MO, or if he’s coming across embarrassing evidence and adding insult to injury.”
Windsor shook his head, his gaze dropping to his white tennis shoes. “No. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?” Patrick asked.
“He just came across two college students having sex?” Windsor shook his head. “Not likely.”
“That’s how he set up their bodies,” Patrick said. “It doesn’t mean they were having sex at the time. He could have picked them up anywhere, doing anything, and staged their bodies like that.”
“Or he could have killed someone who didn’t have a boyfriend, but he didn’t.” Windsor looked up from his shoes. “The second man who was killed? All of those searches and porn videos were the victim’s, right? The digital techs proved that. However, the killer could have picked someone with a different search history, or not used it against him at all. I’ll give it to you. It’s possible you’re right, but this changes things. No one except the deceased knew those letters existed, or that the affair had happened. Her brother-in-law passed over a decade ago, and her husband five years before that. Those letters go back thirty years, and she kept them even after her son got elected to congress. She had to have known the damage they could do if they were ever found. She didn’t throw them out, meaning they were important to her.”
Windsor turned and faced Patrick. “The embarrassment, the shame he’s pinning on these people, it’s important. The note pinned to her chest. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. This killer is making a statement. While it might have something to do with him personally, it’s also bigger than him.”
