The Expert
Neither Detective Galen McCaffery nor his partner, Will Benning, was overjoyed at Chief Espinoza's decision to ask for the help of the state police in solving the murder of an unidentified woman whose nude body was found propped up against a headstone in a derelict church graveyard. They both felt such a request reflected badly on their ability to do their jobs.
"We are trained detectives," Will pointed out when his superior officer relayed the news to them. "Our job isn't to write speeding tickets and direct traffic."
"No one is taking you off the case. But you've never worked a homicide before, and this is no cut-and-dried murder. Hell, we don't even know who the victim is or where she came from. Our little town doesn't have the resources for this kind of investigation."
"I suppose it will be an advantage to have the state crime lab process the forensic evidence," Galen reluctantly conceded.
As it turned out, there was very little physical evidence left at the scene. In fact, it quickly became apparent that the victim had been killed elsewhere and her body left at the cemetery after it was washed clean of any possible DNA.
"It appears that our only hope of solving this case is to learn the woman's identity and then determine who wanted her dead," Detective McCaffery surmised after reading the reports from the state crime lab.
"And what if the unsub didn't have a clear motive for his actions?" Will inquired.
"The unsub? What do you think this is, an episode of Criminal Minds?"
"I wish it were. Actors get paid a hell of a lot more than real cops do."
"Ain't that the truth!" his partner agreed.
When the phone on his desk rang, Galen answered it before the second ring. The news was not good.
"So much for the state's superior resources," he grumbled.
"What is it?"
"They haven't been able to ascertain our Jane Doe's identity. Her prints aren't on file, and her description doesn't match up with any known missing persons. They've sent photos of her teeth to dentists in the area, but no luck."
"She might not be from around here. She could have been hitchhiking on the interstate and gotten a ride from the wrong guy."
"I hate to say it, but it seems more and more likely that we're not going to solve this case."
"Our chances do appear to be equivalent to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack."
When the body of a second young woman was discovered two weeks later, whispers of "serial killer" started to spread through town. It was what Chief Espinoza had feared from the beginning. There was a psycho on the loose, and he was targeting his town—and worse, he was most likely one of its residents.
* * *
Two months into the investigation, with the body count now at three, Detectives McCaffery and Benning, even with help from the state police, were no closer to finding the killer.
"Three women are dead!" Galen exclaimed with frustration. "You would think someone would notice one of them is missing."
"Not necessarily."
The detectives turned at the sound of an unknown voice.
"Can I help you with something?" Galen barked, annoyed at the interruption.
"It's more like the other way around. I'm here to help you."
Will, staring wide-eyed at the well-dressed, distinguished-looking middle-aged gentleman, was momentarily speechless.
When at last he found his voice, he turned to his partner and asked, "Don't you know who that is?"
"No. Should I?"
"That's Dr. Winfield Saunderson!" Then he turned his attention to the visitor and stammered, "W-won't you h-have a s-seat?"
"Thank you, Detective ...?"
"Benning. Will Benning. And this is my partner, Galen McCaffery."
"Winfield Saunderson," Galen muttered, trying to recall where he had heard the name before. "Wait. You're that guy from the FBI. You helped put the Seattle Slayer behind bars."
"I'm no longer with the Bureau. I took an early retirement."
"Dr. Saunderson here has had a hand in capturing more than two dozen serial killers," his partner explained. "He's written more than a dozen books, and since leaving the FBI has given lectures and seminars on criminal profiling to police departments around the world. He's also served as a consultant to New Scotland Yard, Interpol, Japan's National Police Agency, France's Police Nationale, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Germany's Bundespolizei."
"I see you've been following my career," the former federal agent laughed.
"I've read every one of your books," Will claimed, sounding more like an adolescent girl meeting her teenage idol than a police officer encountering a law enforcement colleague.
"What's a rock star like you doing in our little town?" his partner wondered.
"You have a serial killer on your hands. There are three dead women and no suspects. Yet no one has called in the FBI."
"We've been working with the state police since the first victim was discovered," Galen said defensively.
"So, your chief is willing to trust the staties but not the feds. Is that about right?"
Will nodded his head in response.
"Well, I'll have a talk with him. Once I assure him that I have no intention of trying to run the investigation, that all I want to do is offer advice based on my years of experience catching serial killers, he may accept my offer."
"Don't count on it," Galen uttered under his breath as the former federal agent entered Chief Espinoza's office.
* * *
It was not until the body of Jane Doe 4 was found that the renowned profiler received a phone call from a humbled (and desperate) chief of police. In six months, his department—even with the assistance of the state crime lab—had made no progress in the case. Not only were there no suspects or persons of interest, but they still did not know the identity of the four dead women. They needed Winfield's expertise if they hoped to catch the maniac.
When the profiler entered the interrogation room, Detectives McCaffery and Benning were waiting for him with crime scene photographs and field notes spread out on the table.
"Here they are: Jane Doe 1, 2, 3 and 4," Will announced, pointing to each girl in turn.
Dr. Saunderson took a small digital recorder out of his pocket and spoke into its microphone as he examined the photos and read the notes.
"Victims are all Caucasian, ages roughly between eighteen and twenty-five. All are of average height and below-average weight. All have red hair. Each of the women has been strangled. The unsub then washed the victims thoroughly before dumping their bodies. The most unusual aspect of the killings is that he drew a smiley face on each of the girls' foreheads."
He clicked off the recorder and turned to the two investigators.
"I take it no mention of these drawings was made to the media?"
"No," Will answered. "We decided it best to keep that information from the press."
"Good idea. You can count on at least one person coming forward with a false confession. If he doesn't mention the drawings, you'll know he's not your unsub."
"We also didn't want some reporter referring to him as the Smiley Face Strangler or the Happy Face Killer," Galen added.
"Is there anything else?" Winfield asked, tucking the recorder back in his pocket.
"These letters," Will replied, taking four evidence bags out of the cardboard storage box and placing them on the table in front of the consultant. "They were sent here to the police department, one after each of the killings."
The baggie marked Jane Doe 1 contained a single five-by-seven sheet of yellow paper that read, "Gray skies are gonna clear up."
"That sounds familiar," Saunderson observed. "It's from a song, isn't it?"
"It's called 'Put on a Happy Face.' It's from the musical Bye Bye Birdie. And this one, following Jane Doe 2, 'brush off the clouds and cheer up.' That's from the same song as are the third and fourth letters: 'take off the gloomy mask of tragedy' and 'pick out a pleasant outlook.'"
"Looks like our killer is into Broadway show tunes," Galen suggested.
"Not necessarily," Winfield argued. "It could be he just likes this particular song."
"It does fit in with the smiley faces he draws on his victims' foreheads," Will noted.
"Speaking of which, has your state crime lab run any tests on them?"
Galen, unlike his partner, who believed in all the psychological analysis rigamarole, felt the best tool to solve crimes and successfully prosecute the perpetrators was forensic evidence. To him, it was a simple matter of trenchant facts versus hypothetical theories. Consequently, he had read the crime lab's reports so thoroughly and so often that he committed the details to memory.
"Our killer"—he stubbornly refused to use the word unsub—"used lipstick, specifically Maybelline, part of their Color Sensational Loaded Bolds line. The shade is called Dynamite Red."
"Can we trace the sale of this lipstick to anyone?"
"You're kidding, right? We're talking Maybelline, not some designer brand. It's sold virtually everywhere! Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens—even Dollar General. And at a price under ten bucks a tube, it's doubtful the killer paid with a credit card."
"You don't know that. And if he did pay in cash, someone might have thought it odd to see a man buying lipstick."
"You want us to question all the cashiers in town to see if they remember someone who bought a tube of lipstick six months ago?"
"Have your men got any other leads to follow up on?"
Galen shook his head, feeling as if he were a student being chastised by a schoolteacher. His partner may be kowtowing to this so-called expert, but, frankly, he was tired of the man's air of noblesse oblige.
"I'll get them right on it," he said sullenly.
"And while you're at it, have someone check with Amazon and other online retailers and see if you can get a list of everyone who bought that particular shade of red lipstick."
"What if he didn't purchase it himself?" Will wondered. "What if he used a tube that belonged to his wife, a girlfriend, a sister or his mother?"
"That doesn't fit the profile."
"Ah, yes, the profile!" Galen said with a smirk. "Have you any theories on who, or what, this guy is yet?"
"Based on what I've seen here today, I have," Dr. Saunderson declared. "We're dealing with a white male in his late twenties or early thirties. He's a loner with few or no social skills. No formal education. Grew up in a strict, religious household, most likely Catholic. He washes his victims' bodies, you see, and that's a sign he feels remorse over what he's done."
"Maybe he's just trying to wash away any incriminating evidence," Galen proposed.
"That's a secondary motive, at best. Remember, this unsub is driven by his needs."
"And what are they?" Will asked.
"To subjugate women and thus prove his masculinity. In my opinion, he has difficulty with women in positions of authority. He probably had an overbearing mother, a strict teacher who frightened him or a woman boss."
"In other words, this guy is a real loser," Galen laughed.
"More likely, he was physically, verbally or sexually abused as a child—maybe all three."
"And that's your profile, huh?"
"Yes."
"I'm no expert, but I've come up with a profile of my own."
"And what is it?"
"We're dealing with one sick bastard who ought to be put down like a rabid dog."
* * *
Jane Doe 5 was discovered the following day. In all respects, she fits the pattern of the other four victims. She was found nude with her body washed clean. A smiley face was drawn on her forehead with Maybelline Dynamite Red lipstick. A fifth note arrived at the police department the day after the body was found. It was another lyric from the same song: "stick out that noble chin." Again, all attempts to ascertain the victim's identity proved fruitless.
After conducting an autopsy, however, the medical examiner revealed a new piece of the puzzle.
"Our victim wasn't a redhead," she announced when Detective McCaffery paid a visit to the morgue.
"Her hair looked red to me," he insisted.
"It was dyed that color, which is not surprising since only two percent of humans on the planet are born with red hair. What is surprising is that she was a natural blonde."
"What's so surprising about that?"
"Most women go to great lengths to bleach their hair blond. Why would a girl with naturally blond hair want to dye it red?"
"So, the girl liked red hair. To each his own," the detective said with a shrug of indifference.
"Surprising because most women go to great lengths to bleach their hair blond. Why would a girl with naturally blond hair want to dye it red?"
"I don't think she did dye it."
"But you just said ...."
"I found trace amounts of an unknown substance along the back of her hairline. There was more of it on her scalp. I sent a sample to the state lab for analysis. They say it's Clairol Nice'n Easy, specifically, a shade called light radiant auburn. This is the type of hair color people buy and apply at home. Our victim would have first applied the color to her hair. Then, after several minutes, she would rinse it thoroughly. Afterward, she would apply a conditioner. Yet, I found no sign of conditioner in her hair."
"Maybe she ran out."
"A colorseal conditioner comes with the kit."
Galen's mind quickly explored possible reasons why no conditioner was found on the victim's hair. His eyes brightened when one occurred to him.
"She could have been killed while she was in the process of coloring her hair," he hypothesized with growing excitement. "She might have been at her sink, rinsing her hair when the killer came up behind her and strangled her."
"That's one possibility," the medical examiner conceded. "But I think it's more likely that the killer was the one who colored her hair, either before or after he murdered her."
"Why would he do that?"
"If you want to know about the killer's motives, you ought to ask the expert."
"You mean Dr. Saunderson? I don't know. I think half of what he tells us is pure bullshit."
"You may not agree with him, but he is a genius. He's the Mozart of behavioral analysis."
"Why do you say that?"
"He was a child prodigy, graduating from college when most kids his age were entering high school. He earned his degree in forensic psychology when his peers were going to the senior prom and his doctorate soon afterward."
"That doesn't make him infallible."
"He's never been wrong before—not to my knowledge, anyway."
"Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything."
* * *
"The M.E. went back and checked our previous victims," Galen announced when he and his partner met with Dr. Saunderson to discuss the new developments in the case. "After combing through their hair—literally—she discovered traces of the same Clairol Nice'n Easy hair coloring on each one."
Will, hoping to impress the expert with his own limited knowledge of behavioral analysis, added, "Ted Bundy killed women with long brown hair who reminded him of an ex-girlfriend. Our unsub may be doing the same, but since red hair is relatively rare, he uses hair dye to make them fit his need."
"I disagree," Winfield countered, shattering the young detective's confidence. "I think the color of the hair is much more symbolic. He poses his victims in the nude, yet there has been no sign of any pre- or postmortem sexual abuse."
"What are you getting at?" Galen asked, taking over the conversation as his partner silently sulked.
"He uses Dynamite Red lipstick to draw the smiley faces, and he dyes his victims' hair red. Think. What does the color red represent?"
"Blood?"
"No. Sin, or more accurately, lust. The term 'red light district' is often used to refer to the part of town where prostitution runs rampant. 'Scarlet woman' is a name given to promiscuous females. In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the red 'A' signified an adulteress."
"Do you think these victims were all prostitutes and that he hopes to rid the world of them?"
"What you're describing is what is referred to as a mission-oriented killer. That type of unsub seeks to improve the world by ridding it of a group of people that he perceives to be undesirable. I don't think that's the case here. Our unsub desires these women. However, his strict religious upbringing causes him to see these perfectly natural feelings as sinful. How does he deal with the overwhelming guilt he feels? By transference. In his mind, he makes his victims the guilty parties. They're the sinners, the lustful creatures that tempt him. To reinforce their culpability, he strips them, colors their hair red and then humiliates them by drawing on their foreheads with red lipstick."
"But why a smiley face?" Will inquired, rejoining the discussion. "Why not put the lipstick on their lips?"
"I believe the smiling face represents a parent, clergyman or some other figure of authority who is pleased with him for having avoided temptation. It's reinforcement for the validity of the act."
"And the letters he sends us after the murders? What's that all about?"
"It's his guilty conscience again. He knows that he's broken the law. He's reaching out to the police in the hope that he'll be forgiven."
* * *
Detective McCaffery opened the envelope addressed to him, expecting to find the usual junk mail inside. When he saw the five-by-seven sheet of yellow paper with the familiar block-style printing, he felt as though the temperature in the room had plummeted.
"We've got another one," he informed his partner.
"Another what?" Will asked, looking up from his paperwork to his partner's pale face. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Yeah. It says, 'Wipe off that full-of-doubt look.'"
"Another note? But there's been no body."
"Maybe we just haven't found it yet."
"With the number of men we've got out on patrol, we will soon enough."
"The other notes," Galen said, slowly recovering from the shock. "They were addressed to the police department in general. This one has my name on it."
"Why you?"
"What? Are you jealous?"
"No, I ...."
Galen did not care to listen to his partner's explanation. He went to his computer to find the complete lyrics to "Put on a Happy Face." When he found them, he printed out a copy. He then took a yellow marker out of his drawer and highlighted all the lines that the killer had sent in his letters.
"I hope to God this whacko isn't going to kill a girl for every line here."
"I'm sure we'll catch him first," Will confidently predicted. "And he'll be locked up for the rest of his life."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's another body somewhere out there. I doubt he'd send that note if there weren't."
"I'm going to give Winnie a call and let him know."
Galen noticed that after only a few meetings, his partner had progressed from Dr. Saunderson to Winnie. Could it be the two men had forged a relationship that quickly, or had there been discussions between them that Galen was not party to?
Now, I'm the one who's acting jealous, he chastised himself.
When the decomposing remains of Jane Doe 6 were eventually found, the recently killed Jane Doe 7 was discovered nearby. The note, this time addressed to Detective Benning, came the next day.
"'Slap on a happy grin,'" Will read aloud before putting the sheet of paper into a plastic evidence bag to be sent to the crime lab for analysis—not that he expected it to yield any clues.
Meanwhile, the press clamored for more details. Chief Espinoza, pressured by the police commissioner, who was being hounded by the mayor, requested that more men from the state police be assigned to the task force.
"Whether we add ten men or a hundred, it won't make much of a difference," Galen complained to his superior officer. "We've got nothing to go on. If we only knew who these women were, we might stand a chance of catching this psycho. We've run sketches of the victims in the newspapers, and we've shown them on television. No one in town recognizes them. Surely, they can't all be hitchhikers!"
"Does our expert have any theories on who they are or where they come from?" the chief inquired.
"He believes the unsub is a local," Will answered, "and that he abducts his victims from the city and brings them back here."
"It's always bothered me that no one has noticed these girls are missing," McCaffrey mused.
"Dr. Saunderson says they're transients," Will explained. "They're either homeless or runaways."
"Even people who live on the streets form attachments. Often, social workers and other homeless people notice when they go missing."
"Let's not get too bogged down in trying to find out who the victims were," Espinoza advised. "It's the killer's identity we need to discover."
"We haven't forgotten that," Will asserted. "Thanks to Dr. Saunderson's help, we know everything about him—everything except his name and address, that is. But we'll learn them soon enough."
Despite the chief's advice, Galen could not get the victims out of his mind. These were seven young women who ought to have been in college, planning a wedding or waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right to come along. Instead, they were brutally murdered, and their bodies were left exposed and humiliated for everyone to see.
And no one has noticed they're dead and gone. There's no one to mourn or miss them. It's as though they never existed.
* * *
"Jane Doe 8," Galen whispered as he looked down at the killer's latest handiwork. "I hope at some point in your life you knew love. Maybe you were once someone's cherished daughter. What happened to you? How did you end up here, destined to be buried in a pine box with only a reference number to identify your remains?"
"You talking to corpses now?" one of the state troopers teased him. "You need a break from this case. Maybe a two-week vacation in the mountains or on some tropical island."
"Nah. I won't rest until I find this bastard."
The note was waiting for the detectives when they arrived back at the station. This time, it was addressed to Dr. Saunderson in care of the police department.
"Obviously, he wants us to know he's aware of my involvement in the case," the former FBI profiler assumed when he saw the envelope.
"Were you hoping to keep it a secret?" Galen asked.
"No. Serial killers sometimes get involved in the investigation. They like to show up at the crime scenes or at the victims' funerals. In cases where a body hasn't been found, they often volunteer to join the search party."
"What you're saying is that while we're looking for him, he's out there watching us," Will said.
Galen took the computer printout from his desk and highlighted the latest lyrics of the song: "and spread sunshine all over the place."
"When he gets to the end of the song, do you think he'll stop?"
"Serial killers rarely stop killing unless they're incarcerated, hospitalized or dead."
"Or they move on to a new location," Will added. "Maybe our unsub will pack up and look for a fresh start somewhere else."
"We keep assuming he lives in the area," his partner noticed. "We already compiled a list of the single, white men under the age of forty who live in town. Of the few that fit the profile, not one of them appears to be the killer. What if we're wrong? What if he doesn't live here? What if he's using our town as a dump site?"
"If not in this town, then he lives somewhere close by," Winfield maintained. "He wouldn't risk traveling any long distances with a dead body in his car."
"Yet you think he abducted the women in the city. In which case, he would have to bring them here in his vehicle and run the risk of getting caught."
"He could easily have drugged them and propped them up on the seat, making it appear as if they were only sleeping."
"Christ!" McCafferty cried, frustrated by their lack of progress. "We're no closer to finding this guy than we were on day one."
"That's not true," his partner disagreed. "It wasn't until after Jane Doe 3 that we had a profile of him."
"And where has that gotten us? We still have no idea who he is."
* * *
When Galen returned home later that night, it was well past eight o'clock. Marsha, his wife, had kept his dinner warm. He was lucky that she was very understanding when it came to his work. But then, they were married for less than two years, and until the recent serial killings began, his job had been pretty much a nine-to-five one.
"You poor baby!" Marsha cooed when he walked into the kitchen and collapsed into the chair. "You must be exhausted."
"One of the state troopers told me I needed a vacation."
"Sounds great!" she laughed as she poured him a glass of wine to go with his lasagna. "Maybe once you catch this killer, we should book a cruise. With all this overtime you've been working, we ought to be able to afford it."
"If we catch him, you mean."
"You will. I have faith in you."
When he finished his dinner, Galen took a shower while his wife cleaned up the kitchen. Afterward, the couple sat down on the couch together to watch television. During one of the many commercial breaks that interrupted the network programming, a candidate running for national office ranted about the evils of immigration and the threat it posed to American jobs.
"I think we should stick to Netflix and DVDs until the elections are over," Marsha complained. "Then we won't have to listen to these hatemongers preying on people's fears."
"That's my tree-hugging liberal," her husband teased and kissed her cheek.
"Go ahead and laugh, but I know you feel the same way."
"Yes, I do. When I see ICE agents herding up women and children like they were cattle, it makes me sick—and then separating children from their parents!"
"Okay, calm down. You've got enough on your plate, trying to catch this killer. You don't need to worry about the plight of the poor immigrants."
"You're right—as usual! Why don't we ...?"
Images flooded his mind: visions of dead redheads with smiley faces drawn on their foreheads were interspersed with those of frightened women and children being kept prisoner in migrant detention centers.
"An immigrant!" he mused, his face radiant as though he had experienced a religious epiphany.
Marsha looked at him questioningly.
"I couldn't imagine one young woman, much less eight, being abducted and killed and no one noticing she's missing. That might be because the killer's victims are here illegally. Even if such women had friends or family in this country, they wouldn't risk going to the authorities for fear of being deported themselves."
"You could be right," his wife agreed.
Galen looked at his watch.
Half past ten. That's not too late.
"Where are you going?" Marsha asked as he put on his shoes.
"I want to run my idea by the expert."
"Now? Can't it wait until tomorrow?"
"Every minute counts. As we speak, the killer may be hunting Jane Doe 9."
The detective's cell phone was out of his pocket as he pulled the front door shut behind him.
"Hi, Dante," he said when the dispatcher answered. "It's McCaffery. Can you give me the name of the hotel where Dr. Saunderson is staying? I have to see him ASAP."
"He's not at a hotel. He's staying in a private residence at 182 Hemlock Trail."
"Thanks."
After a fifteen-minute drive, the detective pulled into a long, winding driveway and saw the custom-built log cabin set back from the road on a heavily wooded parcel of land. Winfield was surprised when he opened the door and found McCaffery standing on his front porch.
"I'm sorry to come here at this time of night," Galen apologized. "I tried to call you, but your phone was turned off."
"Somehow, the press got my number. They've been hounding me all day. Won't you come in?"
"Nice house. Is it yours?"
"It belongs to a friend of mine. He's in the Middle East right now, so I've borrowed it for a few months."
"He must have money. This place has to have cost a few million, easily."
"Did you come here to talk about real estate?"
"No. You know it's bugged me throughout this entire investigation that no one ever reported the victim missing."
"I'm well aware of that."
"It finally occurred to me that these women aren't American citizens. If an illegal immigrant vanishes, people would probably assume she was taken by ICE agents."
"That's an interesting theory."
"You're the expert. What do you think? Does this fit in with your profile of the killer?"
"It's funny," Winfield chuckled. "I thought you were the one who believed in forensics and good, old-fashioned police work. It was your partner who took everything I said as though it were God's spoken word to the masses."
"I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt."
"How kind of you."
Galen suddenly regretted his rash decision to visit the former FBI agent. At the police station, the profiler was condescending, albeit polite, but on his home turf, he was smug and sarcastic.
"Look, I'm sorry I bothered you. We can talk about this tomorrow."
"No. You're here now. Let's talk. Why don't you sit down? I'll get you a drink. Beer? Wine? Something stronger?"
"Beer's fine."
Dr. Saunderson went into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a bottle of Sam Adams for his guest and a glass of chardonnay for himself.
"I didn't bring a glass. I imagine you're the type of man to drink right from the can or bottle."
Galen did not react to the thinly veiled insult. There were more important issues here than his injured pride.
"When I was a kid," the profiler began, slowly sipping his wine as he spoke, "I was fascinated by murder. This was before such crimes became family entertainment on cable networks like Investigation Discovery and Oxygen. I kept scrapbooks of newspaper clippings of killings. I read every book about men like Jack the Ripper, H.H. Holmes, Manson and the Boston Strangler I could get my hands on. Even from an early age, I never had any doubts about what I wanted to be."
"A cop? An FBI agent?"
The chilling smile on Saunderson's face went beyond arrogant. The esteemed behavioral analyst gave the appearance that he believed himself to be a god.
"It made me an expert. Tell me, Detective McCaffery, how much do you know about your partner?"
"Will? He's a nice kid. Quiet. Keeps to himself a lot. Why?"
"Didn't you pay attention to my profile? He fits the bill. He's a white male. Early thirties. A loner with limited social skills. Went to the police academy but not to college. His father was a minister, and his mother was a strict disciplinarian who left him with a deep resentment of women."
"You think he's the killer? No way. He doesn't resent women. And you're wrong about his mother. I've met her. She's a sweetheart."
"He's not married, is he?"
"No, but ...."
Galen suddenly felt like he had not slept for a week.
"I ... I have to use your bathroom."
"Down the hall, first door on the right."
The detective's legs could barely carry his weight. He wanted nothing more than to lie down on the floor and sleep. When he stepped into the bathroom, he splashed cold water on his face.
Could Will really have killed those women? Could I have been working beside him for five years and not realized what a monster he is?
Out in the living room, Dr. Saunderson turned on his stereo.
What's that he's playing?
Galen tried to clear the haze from his brain by splashing more cold water on his face. Then he cracked the door open in an effort to hear better. He recognized the voice of the singer; it was Dick Van Dyke.
"'Stick out that noble chin.'"
"Why is he playing that?" the detective asked his reflection. "And why do I feel so tired?"
He opened the medicine cabinet, hoping Dr. Saunderson had some type of stimulant on hand. What the detective found, however, was a tube of lipstick: Maybelline. Dynamite Red.
I'm not tired. He put something in my beer.
Detective McCaffery put his fingers down his throat and forced himself to vomit in the toilet. As he wiped his mouth with a wet washcloth, his eyes were drawn to the wastebasket. Inside it was an empty box of Clairol Nice'n Easy hair color. He did not have to read the package to know what shade it was: light radiant auburn.
Still fighting the effects of the drug placed in his beer, the detective threw open the bathroom door.
"It's you. That's what your lifetime of fascination in murder made you: a killer."
"Congratulations. I always thought Benning was the one who would figure it out, not you. But you put it all together. Including the fact that I chose illegal immigrants as victims. Well done, Detective!"
Galen swooned and had to grab the doorjamb to keep from falling.
"What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to strangle you and plant evidence of the crime in your partner's apartment. That, along with my profile, will close the case."
"So, Benning will go to prison, and you'll probably write another bestselling book bragging about how you singlehandedly captured the Smiley Face Killer."
"Wrong! Thanks for playing," the deranged murderer joked. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot your partner—in self-defense, of course. And, as for me ... I was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. I've got less than a year to live."
The song on the stereo came to an end and then began to play again from the beginning.
"'Gray skies are gonna clear up,'" Dick Van Dyke sang.
"I always liked that song," Winfield said, his eyes glittering with madness.
A wave of dizziness struck the detective, and not even the doorjamb could keep him on his feet. He slid down the wall and onto the floor. The profiler stood above him, staring down at his prey and singing along with the upbeat music coming from the stereo.
He's toying with me, Galen realized, barely able to keep his eyes open, like some sadistic, demented cat with a helpless mouse.
"What are you ... waiting for?" he managed to say.
"Are you eager to die, Detective?"
McCaffery closed his eyes, too exhausted to verbalize the two-word expletive that came to mind.
"I suppose it's time for me to put you out of your misery."
As the defenseless detective felt the killer's cold hands encircle his throat, his only thought was of his wife.
"'And spread sunshine all over the place,'" Saunderson sang like an actor performing in front of an audience at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. "'Just put on a hap—'"
The front door unexpectedly burst open, and Will Benning stood on the threshold with his gun drawn.
"Put your hands up in the air where I can see them," the ashen-faced detective shouted.
Saunderson thought of resisting. Suicide by cop would be preferable to a slow, painful death. But then he considered the sensational headlines once the identity of the killer was made public and changed his mind. At least for the next several months, dying or not, he would be able to bask in the media attention.
I'll be every bit as famous as the serial killers I studied. Not only in the law enforcement community, but with the general public as well. I'll go down in the annals of crime with Gacy, Bundy, BTK and Dahmer.
"How did you know it was me?" the former FBI profiler asked as the detective handcuffed him.
"I didn't," Will admitted, only after he ascertained that his partner had a steady pulse and was in no immediate danger. "I phoned Galen's home to speak to him, and his wife told me he was on his way to see you. I didn't want to be left out of the loop, so I got in my car and drove over here. It wasn't until I walked up your front steps and heard you singing that I knew the truth."
"Another case solved by pure dumb luck!" Saunderson exclaimed, not willing to give the detective any credit.
"It wasn't luck. Not really. You fit the profile."
"Profile? I made that up to throw you off track. Besides, it doesn't fit me at all."
"I'm not referring to your profile. I'm talking about my partner's. He said during our first meeting with you that the killer was 'one sick bastard who ought to be put down like a rabid dog.' And he was right."
"Put On A Happy Face" lyrics by Lee Adams and music by Charles Strouse, from the musical Bye Bye Birdie.
Using Nice'n Easy hair color wasn't so easy for Salem (and the result wasn't so nice).
