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  ‘I agree,’ said Massimo. ‘In which case, the next big question we have to answer is: where will he kill again? Will it be here, in Italy, or back in the United States, where we believe he has returned to?’

  Jack grimaced; not because of the seriousness of the questions, but because of a sharp pain inside his head, flying fast and low like a tornado and then fireballing to an explosive stop in his right temple. He felt a twitch erupt in the corner of his right eye, the same twitch he’d developed just weeks before collapsing at JFK.

  ‘I don’t know where,’ said Jack, catching his breath and rubbing his face, hoping to massage away the twitch. Oldwounds hadreopened andthementalscars he hoped had healed were gaping painfully again.

  41

  FBI Field Office, New York

  Howie Baumguard and his new partner, Angelita Fernandez, sat in the conference room waiting for the IT guy to fix the video link to Rome. Howie had brought along a cappuccino with a dense topping of chocolate.

  ‘You going to share that?’ asked Fernandez, a slightly chubby 39-year-old with shoulder-length dark hair that Howie noticed she sometimes pulled back and pinned up in a bagel-shaped plait.

  ‘You mean I should have got you one?’ he asked, almost regretting making Fernandez the first recruit to his BRK task force.

  ‘Would have been nice,’ she teased. ‘It’s okay though, I can improvise.’ She wandered away from the conference table and came back with two plastic cups from the water cooler. She popped one inside the other, grabbed Howie’s cappuccino and tipped herself a share. ‘Thanks,’ she said, sliding back his cup.

  ‘Man, how I hate shy women. When are you girls going to get your shit together and start sticking up for yourselves?’ he asked wryly.

  ‘Got a picture,’ announced the IT guy.

  All eyes flicked to the pull-down screen at the front of the room. Jack appeared, sitting next to Massimo Albonetti, chatting intently about something that was so far still inaudible.

  ‘Good-looking guy,’ said Fernandez. ‘Wouldn’t mind sharing some of that too.’

  ‘What? You like little bald Italians?’ asked Howie.

  ‘Not what I meant,’ said Fernandez, ‘but now you mention it, yeah, I think there are some I could give some bed space to.’

  Howie smiled at her. Fernandez was eighteen months out from a painful divorce. By painful, it should be made clear that it was far more painful for her ex than for her. She’d returned home after a fourteen-hour shift to find him naked in their bed with a neighbouring housewife. After kicking the floozy’s skinny butt all the way down the stairs and out on to the porch, she’d almost pounded her ex unconscious with her bare hands.

  ‘Got sound,’ announced the IT man. In fact, not only had the tech got sound, but it came through so loud, it almost tore the FBI agents’ heads off.

  ‘Down! Turn the friggin’ thing down!’ shouted Howie, jabbing fingers in his ears.

  ‘Greetings from beautiful Rome,’ announced Jack at the level of a jet plane taking off.

  ‘Ciao!’ said Massimo, who then turned to someone off-screen, covered his hand with his mouth and said something in Italian.

  ‘We can’t see you yet,’ explained Jack. ‘Massimo’s just giving one of their IT whiz-kids a tough time. Are you on your own, Howie?’

  ‘No,’ replied the FBI man. ‘I’m here with Special Agent Angelita Fernandez. She joined the task force yesterday.’

  ‘Hi there, Mr King. Pleased to be working with you,’ said Fernandez respectfully.

  ‘Now we see you,’ announced Massimo. ‘I am sorry, Italian telecommunications have not been the same since Marconi died.’

  They all laughed politely and waited for the rooms in Rome and New York to clear of geeks before they got down to business.

  Jack stayed silent and let Massimo run the show.

  ‘I want to discuss several major things during this video conference call,’ he said, looking down at a checklist. ‘Number one, Jack’s involvement at our request. Number two, the mutual need to share information. Number three, the delivery of a package to Italian police here in Rome, containing the head of Cristina Barbuggiani. And number four, the attempted delivery of a package to the FBI, containing the head of…’ Massimo’s voice trailed away, as he looked to his side to check his notes again, ‘… the head of Sarah Kearney, an old victim, maybe the first victim, of the Black River Killer. Is there anything else anyone would like to add to this list?’

  Howie leant towards his microphone, ‘We need to discuss cross-operational issues, involvement of the authorities in South Carolina, mutual database access and such like, but we can take those discussions offline, if you prefer to.’

  ‘Let’s do that, please,’ agreed Massimo. ‘Maybe you can brief Jack and we’ll supply him with a liaison officer at this end?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Howie.

  ‘As you know,’ continued Mass, diving into the agenda, ‘my team here at the Ufficio Investigativo Centrale di Psicologia Criminale has contracted Jack to join us as a consultant in the case of Cristina Barbuggiani. We have done that because we believe there are disturbing similarities to your BRK cases in the United States. To be clear, Jack does not have any police powers and is solely here as an expert civilian. His role is to give us executive input: analysis and profiling work on present and emerging case details, plus, if we make an arrest, psychological input on interview strategy. The last factor will of course be very important if the killer turns out to be a non-Italian and purely American offender.’

  ‘You couldn’t have made a better choice,’ said Howie, warmly. ‘Nothing pleases me more than to see the old bull back in the ring.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Massimo, not quite sure what the American compliment actually meant. ‘We are sending this evening, by secure line, copies of photographs, translated reports and photographic evidence related to the case of the young woman I mentioned to you, Cristina Barbuggiani.’

  Fernandez cupped her hand and whispered in Howie’s ear, ‘I’ve already pulled some background from Italian news reports and there’s an Interpol bulletin too, though no mention of BRK.’

  ‘The press in Italy,’ continued Massimo, ‘especially in Cristina’s home town of Livorno, is treating this as an isolated local murder. They are unaware of any possible link to a serial killer. And we would very much like to keep it that way. Even talk of Italian serial killers is enough to drive Mr Berlusconi’s media mad, and then they make our job all the more difficult. Any mention of an American serial murderer, or a former FBI profiler working with us, would result in our investigation being overrun by the scarafaggi – the cockroaches – of international news agencies. And this we can do without.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Albonetti,’ said Howie. ‘We’re good at keeping the scarafaggots, or whatever you called them, out. If the Italian link were known, it would make our life hell as well.’

  Massimo nodded, approvingly. ‘So that has cleared items one and two from our agenda.’ Another thought hit him. ‘I should just add, once we have liaison officers in place, we will adopt the standard practice of routine twice-a-day report exchanges, morning and night, other communication between designated senior investigating officers coming as and when needed.’ He ticked the top two items on his list. ‘Now let us turn to item three, the head of Cristina Barbuggiani, delivered, anonymously, to us here in Rome, in a package marked simply “To Whom It May Concern”.’

  ‘You say anonymously,’ interjected Howie. ‘Does that mean you don’t know the name of the courier company, or the name of the delivery person from the courier company?’

  ‘At the moment both,’ conceded Massimo. ‘We do not have a name for the person who delivered the package, and while we do have a name for the courier company we cannot at present make contact with them.’

  ‘Why is that?’ pushed Howie.

  Massimo gave a small sigh. The Americans always wanted to dig another level, or rush things. ‘You need to have a little patience with
us on this matter. The address of the courier company isn’t listed; we cannot find a telephone number or any business registrations with our authorities. This may mean the company doesn’t exist. Or it may mean someone is operating a company illegally and is trying to avoid paying taxes. We think it most likely that it does not exist, but please trust us that we will find out all the information first and then share our report on this.’

  Howie could sense the frustration of his Italian counterpart. ‘No problem. I’m sure you guys will get to the bottom of it. I just wanted to check out what similarities or differences there were between the way your package was delivered in Italy and the way we got ours over here.’

  Massimo nodded at the giant Howie on the conference screen. ‘I understand your point. More significant though, I think, is a note we discovered in our package. It was left for us inside the head of the victim. Jack and I have spent much time discussing this note, and he already sees great importance in its content.’

  ‘There’s a copy coming over to you,’ said Jack, taking his cue. ‘In brief, here’s what it says: “Buon giorno Italian police!” Folks, please note that he spells buon giorno correctly and ends the sentence with an exclamation mark.’

  Both Howie and Fernandez made notes.

  ‘“Here is a gift for you, with love from BRK,”’ continued Jack. ‘He makes the clear claim that he is BRK and then ends the sentence with a point and again there are no spelling or grammar mistakes. The next line is a sizzler, get yourselves ready for this. He says “Call it a ‘heads-up’ of what I’ve got in store for you!” Heads-up hyphenated and again the exclamation mark. The language is simple, literate and there is a huge emphasis on trying to impress and engage us.’

  ‘And is this all handwritten, or typed?’ asked Howie.

  ‘Handwritten,’ answered Jack, ‘but in block capitals, so the experts won’t get much from his style.’

  ‘We’ll throw it over Manny Lieberman’s desk when we get the copy in,’ said Howie. ‘He’ll pick something up, he always does.’

  ‘Any sign-off, a PS, or anything like that?’ asked Fernandez unemotionally.

  ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ said Jack.

  ‘I’m sorry, say again?’ queried Fernandez, not sure if Jack was mocking her.

  ‘The letters H and A – HA – he wrote them three times, and in capitals, and with an exclamation mark after each,’ said Jack.

  ‘Sure loves those exclamation marks,’ said Howie. ‘It’s like he got a box of them for Christmas.’

  ‘Then, he finished off with a smiley face and the letters BRK,’ said Jack. ‘So that’s the second time in this short note that he’s tried to tell us that this is all BRK’s work.’

  ‘You mean he’s trying too hard?’ asked Fernandez. ‘Do you think this is a BRK copycat, Jack, rather than the real McCoy?’

  ‘Mass and I have talked quite a bit about this, and we can’t rule out that possibility,’ said Jack. ‘Though to be honest, I’m not sure it matters. Either way, we have a deadly psycho on our hands.’

  Massimo raised a hand, ‘Or two deadly psychopaths.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Jack, fixing his eyes on Howie on the screen. ‘There are certainly similarities between the BRK’s files and the new Italian case, but we can’t lose track of the fact that there are big differences too.’ Jack turned to Massimo. ‘Okay if I give some bullet points on this?’

  Mass nodded his consent, so Jack continued. ‘Victimology looks right for BRK. Cristina was a slim woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. As we know, he likes long, dark hair. He never goes for short-haired victims, so he has an image fixation here, meaning the victim represents a real person in his life. We’re thinking usual suspects – ex-girlfriend, former wife, first love, mother, grandmother; some woman out there is the model for the victims he selects.’

  ‘It’s the old love – hate see-saw again, eh?’ said Howie.

  ‘Exactly,’ confirmed Jack. ‘Some offenders pick certain victims to kill because they represent people they hate but for some reason, usually psychological, they are powerless to harm that actual person. It’s Kemper-like.’ Everyone nodded, remembering the classic case of American serial killer Ed Kemper who was mentally bullied by his oppressive mother. Instead of killing his parent, he murdered his grandmother and grandfather, then a long list of co-eds at the school where his mother worked, even burying some of their heads in land beneath his mom’s bedroom window and then making private fun of her, by telling her how all the girls at school really looked up to her.

  ‘The big difference for me,’ continued Jack, ‘is the head thing. We’re pretty certain BRK took trophies from his victims and we’re fairly sure these amounted only to the left hand of the women he murdered.’

  Fernandez looked down and wriggled the fingers of her left hand, grateful to see all the joints working and intact, including the one where her wedding ring had almost refused to come off despite her yanking at it like a cowboy on the back of a bronco.

  Jack held up his own hand, as he finished his point. ‘We can’t prove the significance of this, but maybe it’s because the left hand is somehow more representative of female fidelity; after all, it’s the wedding-ring hand.’ He fingered the gold band that encircled his own finger and for a fleeting second thought of Nancy, falling confetti and the day they had married almost eleven years earlier. ‘Then again, it may be something not so romantic. The left hand may play a part in his life because he or a woman he once loved had a disfigured left hand. We just don’t know, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That said, heads are something entirely new. He’s removed heads from victims before, but never kept them for any reason, not even as trophies.’

  ‘But these are not really trophies,’ said Massimo, thoughtfully. ‘He had no intention of keeping these body parts. Surely it was more an egotistical action, in keeping with the note he sent? It seems more like a show of strength to me, like he was looking to make sure he got our attention.’

  Jack wasn’t so sure. ‘There’s a lot of psychological debate about what a trophy actually is. Some experts say that just taking anything away from the crime scene, even a button or tiny piece of jewellery, makes it a trophy. It’s a prize, something the killer has won in their own emotional and sexual battle to take a life and they keep it as a reminder of the elation they felt. There’s now widespread evidence of serial killers taking stuff from their victims and not keeping it for very long. Often, they “gift” it elsewhere; they pass stuff on to charity shops or give it to a family friend or neighbour. It’s a repulsive thought, but they clearly get a kick out of putting part of a brutal crime scene into the hands of innocents.’

  ‘Also, they grow bored with it,’ added Howie. ‘Some of them are like teenagers buying their first pornographic magazine. The first time, they’re afraid and excited and it takes all their courage to go shop for it. Then they buy regularly and amass a collection; eventually they start throwing old mags out and need much harder stuff to light their fire.’

  ‘Your line of expertise?’ whispered Fernandez, a little too loudly for only Howie to hear.

  ‘Back to the point,’ said Jack, rescuing his buddy. ‘I buy the egotist angles, that’s certainly all over the note, but not the idea that this guy is after publicity. He’s not a headline hunter. That theory would stand up if he’d sent the heads to the press, but he didn’t, he deliberately sent them to law enforcement offices, so it’s much more like he’s throwing down a challenge to us.’

  ‘We all need to spend a lot more time on the note,’ added Massimo. ‘As Jack said, we will be sending a copy over to you, and I’m sure we’ll be having a much longer discussion about this.’ He turned his left wrist to check his watch and couldn’t help thinking of the saw cut across the same joint on Cristina Barbuggiani. ‘As time is moving on, let’s briefly discuss item number four, the package that contained the head that I am told is of Sarah Kearney, one of BRK’s earliest – maybe even first – victims.’

&nb
sp; ‘Okay,’ said Howie, unfastening his shirt cuffs and rolling up his sleeves in a businesslike manner. ‘I don’t want to get everyone too excited, but we’ve got some good news. We’ve got a healthy trail on the delivery of the package. It was shipped through Myrtle International by a company called UMail2 Anywhere. Turns out they’re a very small courier company, just local to Myrtle Beach, and we’ve found who the pick-up boy was.’

  ‘Did he get a good look at the customer?’ asked Massimo, trying to hold back a surge of hope. A description of the killer would be a real breakthrough.

  ‘We think so,’ said Howie. ‘It’s a guy called Stan Mossman. Not at work today, seems he’s got a pile of time off, days worked in-lieu, that sort of thing. He’s thought to be partying out of state with friends. We don’t know where, or we’d already have pulled him in. We’ve got someone from the local office out on his patch and hot on his heels, so hopefully we’ll interview him tomorrow when he’s due back.’

  ‘Where was the pick-up?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Out at the Days Inn,’ answered Fernandez. ‘The Grand Strand on South Ocean Boulevard. Cheap and cheerful, just a spit from the airport.’