Killer Profile

Hotchner asked, “Anything with geographic profiling?”

Reid shook his head. “This is a huge area. The UnSub’s safety zone could be any of a hundred places without him ever having to hunt in or even near it.”

“What about a pattern with the crimes?”

“None that I can detect,” Reid said. “There’s certainly no geometric pattern evolving. But when Luke John Helder was dropping bombs in rural mailboxes, to make a smiley face on the map of the U.S.? No one saw that pattern until he told them.”

“All right,” Hotchner said. “Prentiss, you and Tovar head to the Aurora PD and talk to the chief.”

“Right,” Prentiss said.

“Morgan, get with Garcia—try to ID the victim if the locals haven’t.”

“Yep,” Morgan said.

“Rossi, you and Reid go with Lorenzon and hit the crime scene. Much as I hate its existence, it’s nice to get a fresh look for a change.”

“Talk about mixed blessing,” Rossi said, getting up.

Reid merely nodded.

“And you, Aaron?” Rossi asked.

“We’ve only got one suspect,” Hotchner said. “Our colleague Detective Denson—I’m going to try to figure out where he’s been lately, without tipping to him we’re looking.”

“Good luck,” Rossi said. “It’s a whole different deal when a suspect is a cop—they have access to the playbook. Be nice if we had a realfriend in the Wauconda PD.”

“Would at that,” Hotchner said.

Even with the majority of rush hour traffic headed into the city, the drive to Aurora took the better part of two hours.

The forest preserve sat on Hankes Road, west of Aurora and just east of a little town called Sugar Grove. The promise of another hot, humid day made a haze of the air as they followed a blue-and-white around a bend to the preserve.

As the FBI Tahoe pulled in, the squad car pulled off to the right and behind another squad. Three more blue-and-whites and a couple of unmarkeds were along the other side of the blacktop drive. A last squad was parked across the entrance, its occupant climbing out as they pulled to a stop a few feet short of the obstruction.

Rossi glanced around. “No ambulance?”

“They took the body away already,” Lorenzon said. “Fu

The uniformed officer came to the driver’s side and Lorenzon showed his ID.

“And these two?” the officer asked.

“FBI,” Rossi said, showing his credentials.

Reid followed suit.

“Park over there,” the officer said, pointing to the unmarked cars. “You’ll have to walk in. It’s not far.”

Lorenzon pulled the car up the road and off onto the shoulder. They walked back, passing the car blocking the entrance and, as they did, three men came walking from the other direction, the first with a camera, the second carrying a crime scene kit, and the third obviously a detective.

The photographer, shorter than the other two, stood maybe five-ten and weighed in at about one-seventy. He had a heart-shaped face, ruddy cheeks and blond hair. The crime scene analyst was an African-American with a shaved head. Maybe forty, he was building a little belly despite an otherwise muscular build; he wore wire-framed glasses and walked with a slight limp. The detective, blond and blue-eyed, tall and wide-shouldered, had walked off a recruiting poster for the Aryan Nation; he wore a navy blue suit and dark glasses.

Lorenzon and Rossi nodded to the photographer. “Jerry Peters,” the photographer replied, shaking hands with Rossi and Lorenzon.

“You on the Aurora PD?” Lorenzon asked.

“Freelance,” Peters said. “Too many crimes, not enough cameras. I’m all over the suburbs.” He shrugged. “You help where you’re needed.”

They turned to the detective.

“Detective Henry Karl,” the cop said, extending his hand. “Aurora Police Department.”

Rossi introduced himself and they shook hands. The senior agent then introduced Reid and Lorenzon.

“Glad to meet you,” Karl said with a wide smile. “Thanks for pitching in. This big guy is our crime scene tech, Orlando Ramirez.”

The African-American with the crime scene kit shook hands all around, then took a step back, his limp exaggerated a little.

“Football?” Lorenzon asked, nodding toward the leg.

Speaking with the barest trace of a Spanish accent, Ramirez said, “I wish. Nine mil in Cuba, when I was a boy.”

“Ouch,” Lorenzon said.

Rossi nodded toward the crime scene. “What have we got here?”

“A nightmare,” the photographer said.

The cop and CSA nodded and shook their heads, in accidental synchronization.

“We don’t usually have anything like this out our way,” Karl said. “We’re far enough from the city that not much of the slime rubs off. Hell, we would have thought it was just a robbery gone bad without that photo… plus Detective Tovar calling us to tell us this was part of a serial crime.”

“This isn’t just far from the city,” Reid said, looking all around. “This preserve is at least five miles from anywhere. Any idea how the UnSub got out? Are there tire tracks?”

“Ay, mierda,” Ramirez said. “This place has more traffic than you would think, Agent Reid. Sightseers, picnickers, nature lovers, people looking for a little privacy in God’s great green world. Are there tire tracks? What does a bear do in the woods? We’ve been here since before sunup, and most of what we’ve done is take tire impressions and pictures of tire tracks. Your suspect, though, he left another way.”

Reid cocked his head. “What other way?”

Ramirez gave a harsh single laugh. “On a damn bicycle.”

Rossi said, “I’ve seen weirder.”

“Come with us back to the scene,” Karl said. “Orlando and Jerry found some good evidence, I think.”

The six men followed the blacktop a quarter of a mile into the woods to where a gravel parking lot filled a small clearing on the right. The victim’s car sat at the far end.

The car—a newer, green Honda Accord—had Illinois plates.

Rossi asked, “Is he a local?”

Karl shook his head. “We traced the plate to a Peoria guy named Vern Latham. Salesman for a company that deals with Mastodon, local company that makes tractors and earthmovers.”

“So,” Rossi said, “here on a sales call?”

“Yeah,” Karl said. “We’re trying to retrace his steps, but it’s hard, since no one seems to have seen him since he left Mastadon yesterday afternoon.”

Rossi shook his head. “ Someonesaw him.”

Reid studied the car and its position. He leaned inside to look at the bloodstains.

“Three shots,” Karl said. “Probably a .22. I doubt he ever saw it coming.”

Reid said to Rossi, “It’s as we thought—Aileen Wuornos.”

The others had come over by now.

“Who?” Karl asked.

Rossi turned to them. “You haven’t seen this morning’s Chicago Daily World?”

Karl grunted. “I wouldn’t wipe my ass with that rag.”

Ramirez said, “They don’t sell it out this far.”

Rossi nodded. “Okay, I better bring you fellas up to speed.”

Quickly the profiler did so.

“Son of a bitch,” Peters, the photographer, said. “He’s copying famous serialkillers?”

“Yes,” Reid said. “This one is Aileen Wuornos, and it’s a frankly audacious choice for a male UnSub. Wuornos was a prostitute in Florida who shot seven men. Six were found and identified. Peter Siems’s car was found, but his body never was. This crime was supposed to match that. Except he didn’t think you’d find the body so quickly.”

“You’re sure about this?” Karl asked.

Reid said, “Call it probability.”

Rossi put a hand on Karl’s shoulder. “Trust us,” he said. “If Dr. Reid says it’s Wuornos, it’s Wuornos.”

Reid’s eyes narrowed to slits. “This may mean we have a male UnSub whose physicality lends itself to a remarkable masquerade.”

Rossi said, “Dr. Reid means the UnSub probably pulled off a drag queen routine that fooled his victim.”