Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [58]
And less than thirty-six hours later, yet another body was found.
Adam stood at the head of the conference room table in the state police barracks outside of Lancaster where all involved law enforcement agencies convened to meet with the profiler handpicked by John Mancini to join his team.
In her mid-to-late thirties, wearing a stylish suit of pale green with a matching top under the open jacket, her short blond hair curled softly around her face, Anne Marie McCall was all business. Her impatience to get on with it was well known within the Bureau, and Adam was not the only one who had to suppress a smile as she barely hesitated before introducing herself rather than wait for one of the other agents to do the honors for her.
“I’ve studied your evidence.” She launched right into it, walking around the table and making eye contact with everyone there in his or her turn. “I’ve studied your photos, your reports, your witness statements, your victims, the autopsy reports. I’ve spoken with the homicide detectives and I’ve visited the sites where the bodies were found. Let’s talk about what conclusions I’ve come to.”
McCall stepped back from her chair, her hands on her hips. She was getting into the groove, and would wander around the room, putting together her profile of their killer as she mentally reviewed the notes she’d made while going over all the case data.
“Based on the range of ages of the victims—and I’m not counting the nineteen-year-old here, she was an aberration—we’re looking for a man between the ages of twenty-three and thirty, though I believe he’s probably at the lower end of that range. He’s white, he’s physically strong, capable of lifting and carrying up to at least one hundred thirty-five pounds, the weight of his heaviest victim.”
She stared at the back wall for a long minute.
“Socioeconomic status? Tough to call.” McCall nodded thoughtfully. “He has a great deal of mobility, which could suggest that he’s self-employed, but more likely unemployed. The abductions occurred on different days of the week as well as on a weekend. The victims were all found within twenty-four hours or less following their disappearance. So far, they’ve all been from neighboring communities, some driving time involved, so we know he’s mobile. He’s stealing cars to get around. Stealing and then returning cars. So we know that he has mobility and flexibility in his employment, if in fact he is employed, and in his lifestyle. He is either single, or living with someone who doesn’t keep tabs on him. He’s very, very organized; he knows everything he needs to know about his victims before he strikes. He apparently doesn’t like surprises.”
“Julie Lohmann surprised him,” one of the officers noted.
“And we’ll get back to her in a few.” McCall nodded. “Okay, we know he studies his victims carefully before he goes after them. He follows them, maybe occasionally even speaks to them. It would excite him, knowing that she has no idea of what he’s planning on doing to her. So it follows that he’s a low-key kind of guy, the kind who doesn’t set off any alarms, doesn’t call attention to himself in any manner that would cause suspicion. He fits in wherever he is.”
McCall paused at the window, looked out across the rolling fields and up at the sky, barely noticing that the gathering clouds threatened a sudden storm.
“Where and how does he find his victims?” she asked, then answered, “At ball games. Soccer, softball . . . where he can get close enough to study without anyone being aware that he’s watching. When the game is over, he can even follow his prey closely from the field to the parking lot without drawing any notice at all, maybe hear her voice, catch her scent. He fits in, age-wise—probably looks like any other dad, there to watch his kid.”
She turned to the group and asked, “Who would suspect? Who would know?”
No one sitting around the table moved.
“Now, we’ve concluded that he’s highly organized,” she continued, “methodical, coolly efficient. Determined. He is highly controlled. The rapes, the strangulations, appear