The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [26]
It was a wide-angle view of Melanie Hoffman’s bedroom. Vail took a second to scan it, then said, “Stabbed through the eyes with ordinary steak knives taken from the vic’s apartment. Eviscerated stomach, kidneys, and liver. Left hand severed but not recovered by the techs. Small intestine tied around the victim’s thighs. Blood painted all over the walls.” She paused for a moment to let the information sink in. “Victim was a recent addition to a DC accounting firm. Nothing stood out in the interview with the parents. Couple of things to follow up on, but that’s it. The task force was reassembled, headed up by Paul Bledsoe, Fairfax County.”
One of the agents leaned forward. “I haven’t looked at this case in a while, but are we still thinking this guy’s disorganized?”
Vail looked at the man who had asked the question. Tom van Owen, a nine-year veteran of the unit. His cuticles were red and inflamed, the skin peeling from being incessantly picked. Even now, he sat reclining in the ergonomic chair, absently scraping at the calluses around the nail bed with his other hand.
“I don’t think so,” Vail said. She clicked past the next few slides until she reached the ones that showed the murals. “Even though there is an awful lot of blood, I’m not convinced it’s a sign of disorganization.” Vail thought of Chase Hancock’s “painter” comment. She clenched her jaw, irritated he may’ve been right.
“He used weapons of opportunity. Those knives,” Dietrich Hutchings said. He waved at the screen with his thick-framed reading glasses. “They’re the vic’s, you said.”
“I know that points to disorganization, but I’m thinking something else.” Typically, disorganized offenders did not bring weapons with them; they used common objects found in the victim’s own house. “Cause of death appears to be asphyxiation, just like the others. So the knives aren’t opportunistic weapons,” Vail explained. “The knife wounds are postmortem—making them part of his ritual, not his MO. The fact that he knows most women have a set of steak knives in their kitchen, which means he doesn’t have to risk hauling knives with him, indicates organization. Not disorganization.”
There was quiet for a moment before Art Rooney spoke up. Rooney had a crew cut and a military politeness and formality to him. He had once called the Quantico Marine Base home. “So we’re adjusting our profile to indicate a mixture of organization and disorganization.”
Vail hesitated. “I haven’t had much time to digest this. At this point, I’d have to say yes. If not almost completely organized.”
“Did the vic have defensive wounds?” Rooney’s slow, Southern demeanor seemed to be out of sync with the rest of the profilers’ urgent tones.
“None. Which again suggests this guy is planning his approach better, possibly using guile and disguise to comfort his vics before he takes them out. Definitely organized.”
Rooney frowned and his eyes again found the screen. “But the mess, the blood. . . .”
Vail respected Rooney’s profiling abilities and understood his point: typically, a crime scene like Melanie Hoffman’s indicated a disorganized offender, one of lower intelligence who did less planning. Their attacks tended to be blitzlike, creating more blood. Vail paged through the slides to the murals. “I think we’re looking at a series of paintings here. I’m having prints of these sent over to BSU for analysis. There might be some deep-seated message in here. I’ve also asked for them to be examined by an expert in Impressionist art, in case the offender had art training.”
“An artiste. That’s a new one,” Frank Del Monaco