Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [613]
She couldn’t help smiling. “And I promise I won’t ask a single severed-head question.”
Maggie’s cell phone started ringing.
“Excuse me a minute,” she said, flipping open the phone. “This is Maggie O’Dell.”
“O’Dell, glad I reached you. Sorry to interrupt your holiday.”
It was her boss, Assistant Director Cunningham. She could hear papers shuffling and imagined him at his desk, multitasking as he cradled the phone between his neck and shoulder. No holiday for him. She waved an apology to Bonzado as she got up from the table and wandered away for some privacy.
“Actually, I’m working today, sir. Detective Racine and I brought the first two Jane Doe heads up to Connecticut for Professor Bonzado to take a look at.”
“Is it conclusive that the three murders were done by the same killer?”
Just like Cunningham—straight to the point. She had gotten used to his abrupt, unemotional manner. There was more flipping of pages and Maggie could hear what sounded like a TV in the background. Maybe he wasn’t in his office.
“It’s too early to be positive,” she told him, but she knew he’d still want to hear her first impressions. So she continued, “All the decapitations look very similar. We’re talking rage. The guy rips and cuts in a frenzy. Bonzado thinks he uses a hatchet or machete. He’s disorganized during the killings or at least he feels safe enough to go into a rage. The decapitation must happen almost immediately after he strangles them. But then he’s able to compose himself and plan the dumps. I’m still not sure I have any idea what he does with the torsos.”
“Sounds like you’re off to a good start. I hate to pull you away from this, but I don’t have another available agent, especially with Agent Tully still on vacation. Everyone else is out of town on assignment and I have another case that needs a profiler. The body’s been autopsied already, but they could hold it for another day. Do you have enough to put together a profile for Detective Racine and Chief Henderson?”
“It’d be pretty sketchy, but yes, I could do a preliminary.”
“Good. That’ll give them a start. Hold on a minute.”
This time Maggie could hear voices in the background and Cunningham answering them, telling someone he would be there in five minutes. Was this urgent enough that he would be calling from his home? Maggie couldn’t even imagine it. For one thing, she couldn’t imagine Cunningham at home, although she knew he had a wife. There were never any photos or personal items on his well-organized desk or anywhere in his office to suggest a life outside that office. With anyone else it would seem odd. With Cunningham it seemed quite natural that after ten years she wouldn’t even know where he lived, whether he had a three-bedroom house in the suburbs or an upscale apartment in Georgetown.
“Actually I need you on a flight tomorrow morning,” he said before she realized he was back talking to her.
“Where am I going, sir?”
“Omaha, Nebraska.”
CHAPTER 30
Memorial Park
Omaha, Nebraska
Tommy Pakula hated everything about these events—the crowds, the noise and the heat, all served up with warm beer and entertainers from the ’60s, entertainers who had become parodies of themselves. Although he had to admit Frankie Avalon still looked pretty damn good for his age, if only he’d left those silly white shoes at home.
What Pakula especially hated was the hotshot public officials slapping him on the back, pretending—when they were really hoping—that he was one of them. He didn’t know how Chief Ramsey put up with it, either. But as hometown boys—Pakula a graduate of South High, Ramsey of Creighton Prep, but about five or six years before Pakula—they both had to put up with it to a certain degree. The chief more so than Pakula, because he had left Omaha for almost a decade for greener pastures before finding his way back home and working through the red tape of politics and good ole boy networks.