Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia
Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity was written on the FBI crest on the wall of the Academy seminar room where Ted Williams taught.
The Behavioural Research and Instruction Unit, BRIU for short, the former Behavioural Research Unit, dealt with everything to do with human activity and its dangerous excesses. It dealt with criminology, profiling, case analysis, crisis management, hostage negotiations, psychosocial behavior, gang crime, and, increasingly, cyber warfare and terrorism. It was here, in this place, that the term serial killer had originated, serial killer, and it was here that investigative, criminological analysis had been invented, also called profiling. This was also the site of the Evil Minds Research Museum, which displayed the cases of famous serial killers and their legacies - weapons, letters, newspaper articles, and paintings and drawings of the killers, some of them drastic depictions. The Evil Minds Research Museum was perhaps the only facility to which only law enforcement officials and special guests of the BRIU were admitted, and even that only by appointment.
Ted Williams was glad of this, for the museum, he knew, would otherwise have been bombarded with requests from sensationalist interested parties.
Williams had been with the FBI for many years. The captain and former special agent was all but retired; still, he made it a point to teach operational case analysis and profiling to the young cadets and aspiring special agents. His short, trimmed gray beard framed his cheeks, and his thoughtful dark eyes were deep in their sockets as he let his gaze roam over his audience. The seminar was almost over, but the twenty participants were still listening intently. Outside the windows could be seen the Academy's training grounds and the artificial city of 'Hogan's Alley', used for training house fights and car chases. Behind them were the wooded hills of Virginia.
A projector threw an image of a dead but clothed woman on the screen Williams now pointed to. "We distinguish between organized and disorganized killers," he told his audience. "Let's take a look at how that manifests itself. The woman in this picture was raped, having been stripped by the killer beforehand. That's what the ME determined. Since the woman is clothed, the killer ordered her to get dressed again after the rape." Williams pointed to the clothing. "If the killer had dressed the woman, the clothing would be quite different." Again, he let his eyes roam over his audience. "What does that tell us?"
No answer. Either the participants didn't know or were done in by the heat.
"It tells us," Williams continued, "that we are dealing with an organized or orderly offender capable of issuing structured instructions. Even to his victim. The distinction between organized and disorganized alone allows important conclusions to be drawn about the profile of an offender. How the victim dresses after the crime can tell us a lot about the offender's psyche. Okay, folks. We'll cover what happened in this particular case tomorrow. You all have a good day."
The students tapped their desks and left the seminar room.
At that moment, Williams' cell phone, which was on his desk, vibrated. It was muted, as usual, but he saw the display blinking.
It was a familiar number from his past.
He took a deep breath and answered the call.
xxx
The dial tone sounded four times, then a voice answered. "Willimas."
"Ted," said Katherine, sitting in her BPD office, the Angel of Death's old case file spread out on the desk in front of her. "It's Kate Isles."
"Kate?"
"MacDeath."
"MacDeath!" exclaimed Williams. "Damn, it's been a long time."
"Oh yeah. And now I need your help, Ted."
"What happened?"
"Remember that killer from six years ago who cut the marks into his victims' skin?"
Williams thought for a moment. "Yeah, sure. Kenneth Baldwin, the Angel of Death of Los Angeles."
"Yeah," Katherine sighed, running a hand through her hair.
"How did you just come up with him?"
"Because --" She chose her words carefully. "Because we have reason to believe that a copycat is in Boston, continuing Baldwin's work."
"Excuse me?" Williams' bafflement could be heard in his voice even over the cell phone.
Katherine licked her lips and frowned deeply. "We have a body here and a similar pattern of behavior from Baldwin. And very similar cuts. Is your official email address still up to date?"
"Yes, I'm semi-retired but still working for the Academy."
"Then you'll get an email from me in a moment."
After a moment, the images had reached Williams. He stared at the monitor. "The cuts are almost identical."
Katherine nodded slowly. "That's what I thought."
"And the victim? Another man? A burly man?"
"Yes," Katherine sighed. "The boss of a biker gang."
"Does the perp smear blood on the door frames?"
"Not so far," the psychiatrist replied.
"How many murders?"
"So far, only one that we know of."
"And the heart?"
"Missing."
"My God."
Katherine looked frowningly at the years-old file. Williams didn't say a word for a few seconds, either.
"Ted," she began again, "you took me under your wing back then. What are the odds that Kenneth Baldwin is not the angel of death?"
"It could be a copycat," Williams said. "You know best that Kenneth Baldwin has confessed at length. But I'll take another look and get back to you."
The connection ended, and Katherine stared at her cell phone, forcing herself to breathe again.
The ghosts of her past seemed to rise relentlessly from their graves.
xxx
The sun was shining outside the window of Ted Williams' office at the FBI Academy. Still, Williams' gaze was fixed not on this picturesque spectacle but on the screen on which the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program website was open. The VICAP was a database whose origins went back more than sixty years. In the fifties of the last century, a Los Angeles detective had noticed during a murder investigation that the victims left behind by a particular killer were always tied up in a specific way. From this, the detective concluded that the unknown man's current victims wouldn't be the first nor the last. He concluded that the more victims of the killer could be found and examined, the easier it would be to catch him. If the killer were murdering in different states, it would be helpful if people knew of similar murders there as well. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
As a result, the detective decided to read regional newspapers from other cities and states, especially the crime reports, in the city library on days off. He found an article about a similar murder and contacted the police department. Eventually, based on all these clues, the officer was able to catch the murderer.
Eventually, this collection of newspapers became the first computerized violent crime database. It snowballed as it was fed more and more and more rapidly by the various police departments until, by the 21st century, it was what its inventor had wanted it to be in the 1950s: the world's most comprehensive database on homicides and violent crime, available anytime, anywhere, pooling all the knowledge of the FBI and local police administrations.
Williams entered Kenneth Baldwin's data into his laptop and looked under the first heading. Solved Homicides. The last murder, it said, had been committed in New York on Aug. 9, nearly seven years ago. The victim was Jeff Border, son of Detective Leo Border. They had followed countless leads, and at one point, after the entire NYPD was after the killer, they got on the trail of butcher Kenneth Baldwin. Baldwin had cut out the victims' hearts in several cases and cut strange marks into their skin beforehand. After Aug. 9 and the murder of NYPD Detective Nathan Dunn, no other body had been found with similar injuries.
Williams took a deep breath and reached for his cell phone.