Crush - Alan Jacobson [39]
Vail entertained thoughts of responding, but before she could speak, Lugo said, “I met with Kevin Cameron. Karen and Roxxann joined me and we asked him all the standard questions. He didn’t know anyone who’d want to harm Victoria. There was something about a family disagreement going back forty years or so between the owners of Silver Ridge and the Montalvo family.”
“And we spoke with Frederick Montalvo,” Dixon said. “We delivered the news, and he was pretty broken up, as you’d imagine. Karen and I didn’t feel there’s much to this disagreement—”
“Hold on a second,” Mayor Prisco said. “The Montalvos and the owners of Silver Ridge have had a long-running feud and you don’t think it’s relevant?”
“We’re looking into everything,” Vail said. “But since we’re dealing with a serial killer, and since these types of things—bad blood between families—don’t fit with the psychopathy seen in the behaviors at the crime scene, it’s unlikely there’s a relationship. But as I said, we’re looking into it.” She again glanced at Brix.
Brix cleared his throat. “Just . . . have confidence that we know how to run an investigation. We’re good at this type of thing, Mayor.”
Prisco’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I’m sorry. I’ll—I’m just concerned, is all.”
“We’re all concerned,” Owens said. “That’s why we’re taking this very seriously.”
“And it’s why I think we need to take the next step,” Vail said. “If we want to accelerate this investigation, we want to push this killer into the open. We want to play to his weaknesses.”
Zimbrowski pushed his glasses up on his nose. “What weaknesses?”
“He’s a narcissist,” Vail said.
Fuller sat forward. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“I think we do. At least from what we’ve seen, there’s a good chance that’s what we’re dealing with.”
“And how does this impact your investigation?” Prisco asked.
“Narcissists feel they’re superior to everyone else. They recognize that what they’re doing is wrong, but they just don’t care. And they want credit for what they’ve done. One such case you may be familiar with is the Zodiac Killer from nineteen—”
“Don’t even say it,” Zimbrowski said.
“That case is still unsolved,” Prisco said. “If you start talking like that around here, people will absolutely freak out—”
“I don’t want to hear those words again,” Nance said. “In this room or outside it.”
Vail looked around the room, waiting for someone to object. All the cops were looking down at the table or stimming with pens or the edge of their binders.
Finally, Vail said, “No disrespect, but I’m giving you advice on how to catch this killer. I can’t be swayed by your sensibilities about—whatever it is you’re worried about. Because this killer, if we can get him to communicate with us, will reveal information about himself we can use to catch him. And that’s vital, because right now, we’ve got shit. And that’s something to be worried about.”
There was quiet before the mayor asked, “How do we get him to communicate with us if we don’t know who he is?”
“We go public with this, we go on TV, the newspapers—”
“Are you out of your mind?” Fuller asked. “We’ll have widespread panic.”
Vail crossed her arms. “Sounds to me like you’ve read all of the Douglas and Ressler and Underwood books on profiling, Scott. You know what I’m saying is right.”
“I don’t know that. Those books don’t talk much about narcissism. Besides, you don’t know for sure this guy is a narcissist, so going public now is the wrong thing to do. Let’s get more evidence first, see more behaviors before we can determine if he’s really got Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”
Fuller, in throwing around medical terms, sounded authoritative and, judging by the way the suits were looking at him, had captured their attention. He also appeared to be saying what they wanted to hear.
“More behavior,” Vail said, “means more bodies. How long do you think you can keep this under wraps? And how upset are people going to be when they find out you knew you had a serial killer loose and you failed to warn them?”
“I challenge your theory of a serial