Croaker: Grave Sins (Fey Croaker Book 2) Read online

  “That’s right. The distinctions between the two types of serial killers are one of the main tenets of Ressler’s research.”

  “Let me see what I remember about this stuff. Murders by disorganized killers have a random quality. Disorganized killers are less specific about their victims. They usually commit the killing with whatever weapon is at hand and usually leave the body where it can be found easily.

  “Organized killers, on the other hand, choose their victims with care – looking for somebody who approximates in size, shape, age, and coloring what they have been fantasizing about killing. An organized killer will take time savoring the murders and will go to great lengths to make sure they are not caught. They understand about physical evidence and so rarely leave fingerprints or other easily identifiable goodies. They are also likely to conceal the bodies of their victims or move them from the original crime scene.” Fey stopped and picked up her tea cup. “Sounds like a lecture from Murder 101, doesn’t it?”

  Ash laughed softly. “You’ve got the basics down for sure.”

  “Where does that leave us with this series?”

  “I think it’s pretty clear our suspect is an organized killer. The way the victims were tied up and the sadistic bent of burying them alive speaks of at least some advanced planning.”

  “That figures. And organized killers are the more difficult of the two types to catch.”

  “Without question.”

  Fey frowned. “The ritual with the arm sticking out of the grave. Do you think the killer may be taunting the police with that quirk? Thinking maybe the graves won’t be found unless the arms are left as a sign post?”

  “I’d have to think about that in the overall context, but my first reaction is that the arm left sticking out is part of the killer’s fantasy.”

  “Was there any physical evidence in the first case?”

  “Semen was recovered from the rectal cavity. Blades and McCoy had it blood-typed and sent for DNA analysis. Beyond that there was nothing of significance.”

  “Was the sexual activity conducted before or after death?”

  “Before. The victim was buried alive, the same as in the new case. The sex also appears to be consensual – no tearing of the rectum or other scarring.”

  “The victim wasn’t an anal virgin then?”

  “It’s doubtful.”

  “And there’s no ID.”

  “Nothing from DOJ, and nobody inquiring about local missings.”

  “Sounds as if the victim was probably a rent-a-boy. Those kids go missing and nobody cares.” The alarm on Fey’s watch went off, and she reached down to silence it. She checked the time. “I’m sorry, but I have to get to an appointment. I’ll be heading back to the station afterwards in about an hour. Can you start a preliminary profile on the suspect? I think we have to establish victim identity first, but until we do, we may need somewhere else as a starting point to begin looking for the needle in the haystack.”

  “I’ll do what I can. How about we touch base tomorrow morning at the station?”

  “Sounds good.” Fey paused for a second, looking gravely across the table. “Listen,” she seemed to fumble for the right words. “Thanks.”

  “No sweat.” Ash winked at her. “Nobody can do it all themselves. We all can use a bit of help from time to time.”

  “Amen,” Fey said. “Amen.”

  Chapter 17

  “Tell me, Fey. What made you first decide to come and see a psychiatrist?”

  Fey took a deep breath. “I’ve told you all this before.”

  “You may have told me your reasons, but you haven’t accepted the reasoning yourself.”

  Dr. Emma Winters was physically a small woman, but her presence in the tastefully decorated consulting room was strong. At sixty years old, dark hair still fell thickly across her shoulders with a natural shape and bounce that other women would kill for. Her eyes were a riveting, almost unnatural violet, emphasized by large framed glasses that perched on a patrician nose.

  “I came to you because my life is going to hell in a hand basket.”

  “No. That’s not why you came to me.”

  “Okay. Then you tell me.” Fey sounded petulant – a teenager put out by a strict parent.

  “You came to me because you realized that certain areas of your life were getting beyond your control. You may not have realized what was happening to you on a conscious level, but you were sharp enough to recognize the symptoms.” Dr. Winters sat in a comfortable wing-back chair with her hands folded in her lap. Fey sat across from her in a matching chair. A low coffee table between them supported a spray of miniature roses.

  “If you say so.” Fey’s tone was shut down hard.

  Dr. Winters rubbed her fingertips gently along the fabric of the chair arm. “Listen to yourself, Fey. This is why you came to me for help. Your constant verbal ripostes are the most obvious manifestation of the forces responsible for undermining your relationships.”

  “Psycho-babble, gobbledy-goop. I could have told you that without having to pay you a hundred and ten dollars for a shortened hour. So, big deal.” She shrugged. “So, my tolerance level for garbage no longer registers on the scale.”

  “Your antagonistic attitude, and your lack of patience, are simply other symptoms of the dysfunction that is at the root of your problem.”

  “I knew a doctor once who didn’t have any patients.”

  “Very funny.” Dr. Winters wasn’t laughing. “Do you want me to give you a rim-shot?” she asked quietly. This was Fey’s third visit to her office, and Dr. Winters had been battling Fey’s verbal defenses from the beginning.

  “Don’t smirk, Doc,” Fey said. “You make me sound as if I’m a talk show candidate – ‘Next on Oprah, dysfunctional cops and their screwed-up lives!’” She stood up in agitation and walked around the room. A large painting full of pale yellow ribbons billowing softly against the faintest tinge of blue breeze stopped her at its center, and she stared at it as if trying to lose herself in its whimsy.

  Dr. Winters remained silent, and after a few long moments Fey returned to sit down again.

  “I’m sorry, Doc. I’m just having a real hard time with this. You don’t know how long it took me to work up the courage to come and see you in the first place.”

  “I have an idea, since you cancelled your first three appointments.” The doctor’s voice was soft, almost lulling. “I sensed you would come eventually, given time.”

  “I couldn’t go to the Department for help,” Fey said. “They tell you that anything you say to a Department shrink is confidential, but that’s crap. The simple act of asking to see a Department shrink puts a straight-jacket on your career. I’ve seen it happen time and again. An officer or a detective goes to a Department psychologist, and before you can turn around, all of their senior officers are aware of the problems.”

  “Is that why you pay my bills in cash and won’t allow my office assistant to bill your medical insurance?”

  “Absolutely. I can’t afford any trace of my association with you to get back to the Department.”

  “And you truly believe that somebody within the department hierarchy keeps track of medical billing for mental health visits?”

  “I know it sounds paranoid, but I’ve been on the receiving end of just that kind of information, and I don’t want to be the subject of it.”

  Dr. Winters reached one hand across to where Fey was sitting on the edge of her chair. “Fey, you are safe here. Sometime, somewhere, you’re going to have to let your defenses down. If you refuse to make yourself open to change then change will be impossible.”

  “You’re telling me it’s like the old joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb.” Fey waggled her eyebrows, simulated a Groucho Marx cigar, and put a funny accent in her voice. “Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.”

  Dr. Winters laughed this time. A full-bodied laugh of enjoyment. “We’re supposed to be serious. Y
ou can’t keep trying to make me laugh.”

  “Not trying…succeeding.”

  “You’re only succeeding in running away from why you came to see me. If you’re afraid of the dark, you can turn on a light. It makes the dark go away, but it does nothing to confront the fear.”

  “What are you telling me, Doc?” Fey pushed herself back in the chair and tried to assume a serious expression. Her agitation level, however, visibly rising again.

  Dr. Winters’ eyes twinkled gently. “There are surface issues we can address.”

  “Such as?”

  “Many women involved in traditionally male dominated professions display similar characteristics, so you are not alone.”

  Fey shrugged her shoulders again. “A sinking ship is still a flooding vessel. It doesn’t matter how many sailors are going down with you.”

  “Stop it, Fey,” Dr. Winters said sternly. “At least allow me the courtesy of finishing my discourse before you steamroller over it. Self-pity isn’t very flattering.”

  That stung. Fey checked her watch. Fifteen minutes of bobbing and weaving left in the session. It seemed like forever. Why had she chosen to put herself through this? She was fighting it every step of the way, yet she felt compelled to return.

  “All males have a female component of their psychological makeup called the anima,” Dr. Winters continued. “Conversely, females have a male personality component called the animus. For women attempting to succeed in professions where male behavior and thinking is demanded or rewarded, the danger lies in the animus becoming the controlling factor in their personalities.

  “By repressing their feminine behavior and allowing their male side to dominate, women react to their male counterparts from the standpoint of aggressive competition – the way men generally deal with each other. In some cases this can help women to get ahead in traditional male professions, such as police work, but generally difficulties arise in two areas.

  “First, if you totally repress your femininity on the job, your behavior becomes out of balance – it becomes all male and you lose the advantages that your female side provides. This causes problems with male coworkers whose feminine component, their anima, is keeping their male personality traits in check. In essence you, as a woman, become more male than the men with whom you work, sometimes to the point of becoming obnoxious and disliked. You are now hindering your chances of success instead of enhancing them.

  “Secondly, this repression of your femininity is not something that can be turned off the moment you’re done with your work day. It carries over into your private male/female relationships. As a result, instead of your feminine side reacting to a male companion as a lover, your male side gets in the way again. Instead of a romantic relationship – female reacting to male – you have male reacting to male in an aggressive or competitive manner, which can quickly destroy what each of you is seeking.” Dr. Winters paused, observing the effect her words were having on Fey. “I see you recognize the phenomena.”

  “Perhaps,” Fey said, reluctantly. “But what can be done about it?”

  “This is not something that happened to you overnight, so it is not something that you will be able to change immediately. Being aware of the problem and understanding it is a start, but bringing your personality back into balance will be a gradual process. All behavior is carried out through roles. You must simply start to be more aware of the role that you are supposed to be playing at any given time. You cannot convincingly act the part of Hamlet in the personality of Falstaff, but an actor – aware of the demands of each characters’ personality – could effectively portray Hamlet in the morning and Falstaff at night. In other words, you must become cognizant of the personality demands of the many roles you play and act them accordingly.”

  “It’s kind of like working undercover,” Fey stated. “Assuming a new identity, a new role, to convince the bad guys that you can be trusted.”

  “In some ways,” Dr. Winter agreed. “But when you are undercover, you may be playing a role totally opposite your personal nature. You are acting something that you are not. In real life, all the roles are projected through your own personality – they become simply separate facets of your total personality. You are still true to your own values only you support them in different manners.”

  Fey shook her head, a bit bewildered by it all. “Is that all there is to it?”

  “Of course not.” Dr. Winters again leaned forward and put a hand on Fey’s shoulders. “You’re not going to get off that easy. What we are talking about here barely scratches the surface. Both of us know that the emotional storms causing you so much pain go far deeper.” Dr. Winters tried her best to gentle Fey into the next step.

  “When you first came to see me, Fey, you told me a little about the abuses you had suffered at the hands of your father. You were rather blunt about the whole situation, as if wanting to address it and move immediately on. You wanted me to believe that you have dealt with your angers toward your father, and that he doesn’t affect you anymore.”

  Fey was silent – more than a bit afraid.

  “We both know you still have many unresolved issues lying in the great morass of childhood abuses. We need to talk more about them, to bring them into the light.”

  “What’s to talk about? My father was a sexually and physically abusive, alcoholic who liked to get drunk and then hit me and screw me. How much more into the light do we need to bring things?”

  “Listen to your anger, Fey. Hear not your words, but what lies beneath them.”

  “Oh, very Zen. Snatch these pebbles from my hand, grasshopper. When you can do that, it will be time for you to leave.”

  Dr. Winters responded in kind. “Snatch these emotions from your mind, grasshopper. When you can do that, it will be time for you to leave.”

  As if on cue two alarms sounded. One was on the small coffee table – a soft bonging indicating the end of the session. The second was Fey’s beeper. She turned it off and checked the number. It was Lieutenant Cahill’s private line.

  “Can I use your phone, Doc? It’s time for me to slip back into character.”

  Dr. Winters waved a hand toward a small library table with a phone on it that stood against one wall. Fey strode over, picked up the receiver, and punched in the familiar numbers.

  “This is Croaker,” she said, when the Lieutenant’s secretary answered the line.

  “Hold on a second.”

  Fey waited.

  “Fey?” Mike Cahill said, picking up the line.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but it’s about your brother.”

  “What now?”

  “He’s had an overdose.”

  Chapter 18

  It took Fey less than ten minutes to reach Santa Monica Hospital on the corner of 16th and Wilshire. She slid the detective car neatly into an ambulance only parking space in front of the emergency entrance. Brisk strides took her through the automatic door. She flashed her badge at the nurse on the desk and was buzzed through into the working side of the ER.

  Even though it was located just outside of her jurisdiction, Fey was familiar with the operations of Santa Monica Hospital. SMH had one of the best rape counseling programs in the city. As a contract hospital, it was also top of the list when it came to providing emergency medical treatment for rape victims and for the preparation of evidentiary rape kits.

  A voice called out, “Detective Croaker,” and Fey looked up to see Anson Brewbeck, a black ER doctor she knew slightly. Hospital greens stretched tightly across an impressive expanse of muscle that had almost earned Brewbeck a Heisman trophy and an NFL career. A blown knee in a Rose Bowl game, however, had brought about a change of focus from pigskin to sheepskin. There were far more grateful patients than disappointed fans.

  “Is he dead?” Fey asked bluntly. Her tone was flat, icy cold.

  “Whoa, slow down,” Brewbeck said.

  “Just give it to me straight,” Fey said, catc
hing and interpreting Brewbeck’s puzzled expression. “There’s a lot of history here that you don’t know about. I don’t need hearts and flowers.”

  Brewbeck checked the chart he was carrying in one meaty hand. “Tommy Croaker is your brother?”

  “Much as I hate to admit it.”

  “Well, he’s going to be okay –”

  “More’s the pity,” Fey said. “What did he stick in his arm this time?”

  Brewbeck reached out and placed his hand on Fey’s shoulder. It was a professional investigation, not a personal gesture. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the iron tension running through her trapezoid muscles. “Good grief,” he said. “Get into the doctor’s lounge and sit down.”

  Fey opened her mouth to argue, but Brewbeck cut her off. “Do as I tell you. Now.” With the fingers that were on her shoulder, Brewbeck turned Fey and gave her a push in the direction he wanted her to proceed. He turned to an ER nurses who had been watching the exchange. “Stay with her,” he said, in a half whisper.

  A few minutes later, Brewbeck entered the doctor’s lounge carrying a small paper cup with two small, light blue, single scored tablets residing in the bottom. Fey was sitting on a hard chair next to a small Formica table. The hands clasped in her lap showed white at the knuckles.

  The nurse, a butterball blond in white polyester and thick-soled shoes, leaned with one shoulder against a fat refrigerator. When she saw the pill cup in Brewbeck’s hand, she immediately turned to a water cooler and filled a Dixie Cup from the contents.

  “Take these,” Brewbeck said. He placed the pill cup on the table by Fey. The nurse place the water next to it.

  “What are they?” Fey asked.

  “Valium.”

  “I don’t need –”

  Brewbeck sighed. “You’re wired up so tight, I’d be surprised if you could pass gas. You either take the pills, or I call your boss and tell him that in my professional opinion you’re not fit for duty.”

  “You’re not a city doctor. You can’t do that.”