Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [54]
“Agreed,” Chuck said. “At this point, he’s the one closest to the victim, so we can’t eliminate him yet, and, in any case, he could prove useful.”
“So you say this Ana Watkins was so desperate for attention that she faked being stalked?” Krieger asked.
“That’s what I’m beginning to believe,” Lee answered. “Isn’t that an odd coincidence that she was actually being stalked?”
“I’m not sure she was,” Lee said. “I don’t really know yet. But I can see her faking the whole thing to get attention.” “From who?” Butts asked. “You?”
“Yep,” said Chuck.
Lee flushed and held his throbbing arm to his side.
“So she was that into you?” Butts asked.
“I’m sure she was getting attention from other people, too,” Lee said. “Her boyfriend, probably coworkers—if she did invent the whole thing, you can bet she let everyone know about it.” Then he thought about her face that night. “She really was scared—whether or not she had invented parts of it, there was no doubt she thought her life was in danger.”
“You know,” Krieger said, “this UNSUB needs attention, too. He isn’t just punishing his victims—his crimes are also a ploy to be noticed.”
Lee looked at her, surprised by her insight. For all her pooh-poohing the idea of profiling, he thought, she had good instincts.
“That’s exactly right,” he agreed. “This is someone who feels he can’t attract attention unless he behaves in ways increasingly outside societal norms.”
“Or, to put it another way,” Chuck said, “he’s displaying all the attributes of a sociopath. Right?”
“Exactly. There’s another possibility, too. The diary entry could refer to her therapist. Maybe she was going to confront him about something.”
“Or even her boss at the Swan,” Butts suggested.
“Right,” Lee agreed.
Krieger studied the note. “She wasn’t faking it,” she declared. “Her fear was real.”
“How can you tell?” asked Chuck.
“If she was faking it, she would have been more elaborate. When people lie, they add unnecessary details—”
“You’re right!” Butts cried, spewing rugelach crumbs into the air. “That’s one ‘a the ways you can tell if a perp is lying: too many details!”
Krieger gave a dignified sniff and turned to Chuck and Lee. “As I was saying, this note is too brief to be a ruse—it is succinct and to the point. She really is talking to herself, not to some imaginary audience. Look at the wording: ‘Must confront him.’ She doesn’t say ‘I must confront him'—no, she leaves off the subject of the sentence altogether, because she already knows who the subject of the sentence is.”
Butts apparently couldn’t help himself. “That is goddamn brilliant, is what that is!”
Krieger’s only reaction was a tiny upward curl of the left side of her mouth. “The real question that remains is who is the object of the sentence?”
There was a hesitant tap on the door.
“Come in,” Chuck said.
The door opened just enough to admit Sergeant Ruggles’s head. With his clean-shaven, shiny face, he looked like an anxious schoolboy.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but DC Connelly is on the line.”
Chuck rolled his eyes. “I’ll take it outside. Keep going without me,” he said to the rest of them as he brushed past Ruggles, who stood in the doorway staring at Krieger. With his thick neck, bald head, and short, muscular legs, he reminded Lee of a bull terrier.
“Is there anything else, Sergeant?” she said, returning his gaze.
“Uh, no, there isn’t,” he replied, still staring, as if she were the Medusa and he were rooted to the spot by the sight of the writhing snakes on her head.
Butts rescued him. “Rugelach?” he said, thrusting a crumbling fistful under the sergeant’s nose.
“Uh, no thanks,” Ruggles said. Retreating hastily, he closed the door behind him.
Lee thought he saw the corners of Krieger’s mouth turn up in a smile as she watched him go.
“Now then,” she said, turning back to him and Butts, “where were we?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lee Campbell looked out at the rows of upturned faces in the lecture hall. Most of them were thoughtful and attentive, hoping he would have answers for them—some kernel of wisdom