PATRICIA CORNWELL. Unnatural Exposure

‘I was rather dismayed by the information the press somehow got access to,’ I said as we got out.

‘I know what you mean,’ Ring said with a sincere face.

He held open the door leading into a labyrinth of hallways that comprised what once had begun as Behavioral Science, then changed to Investigative Support, and now was CASKU. Names changed, but the cases did not. Men and women often came to work in the dark and left after it was dark again, spending days and years studying the minutiae of monsters, their every tooth mark and track in mud, the way they think and smell and hate.

‘The more information that gets out the worse it is,’ Ring went on as we approached another door, leading into a conference room where I spent at least several days a month. ‘It’s one thing to give details that might help the public help us . . .’

He talked on, but I wasn’t listening. Inside, Wesley was already sitting at the head of a polished table, his reading glasses on. He was going through large photographs stamped on the back with the name of the Sussex County Sheriff’s Department. Detective Grigg was several chairs away, a lot of paperwork in front of him as he studied a sketch of some sort. Across from him was Frankel from the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, and at the other end of the table, my niece. She was tapping on a laptop computer, and glanced up at me but did not say hello.

I took my usual chair to the right of Wesley, opened my briefcase and began arranging files. Ring sat on the other side of me and continued our conversation.

‘We got to accept as a fact that this guy is following everything in the news,’ he said. ‘That’s part of the fun for him.’

He had everyone’s attention, all eyes on him, the room silent except for his own sound. He was reasonable and quiet, as if his only mission was to convey the truth without drawing undue attention to himself. Ring was a superb con man, and what he said next in front of my colleagues incensed me beyond belief.

‘For example, and I have to be honest about this,’ he said to me, ‘I just don’t think it was a good idea to give out the race, age and all about the victim. Now maybe I’m wrong.’ He looked around the room. ‘But it seems like the less said, the better right now.’

‘I had no choice,’ I said, and I could not keep the edge out of my voice. ‘Since someone had already leaked misinformation.’

‘But that’s always going to happen, and I don’t think it should force us to give out details before we’re ready,’ he said in his same earnest tone.

‘It is not going to help us if the public is focused on a missing prepubescent Asian female.’ I stared at him, eye to eye, while everyone else looked on.

‘I agree.’ Frankel, from VICAP, spoke. ‘We’d be getting missing person files from all over the country. An error like that has to be straightened out.’

‘An error like that never should have happened to begin with,’ Wesley said, peering around the room over the top of his glasses, the way he did when he was in a humorless mood. ‘With us this morning is Detective Grigg of Sussex, and Special Agent Farinelli.’ He looked at Lucy. ‘She’s the technical analyst for HRT, manages the Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network all of us know as CAIN, and is here to help us with a computer situation.’

My niece did not look up as she hit more keys, her face intense. Ring had her in his sights, staring as if he wanted to eat her flesh.

‘What computer situation?’ he asked, as his eyes continued to devour her.

‘We’ll get to that,’ Wesley said, and briskly moved on. ‘Let me summarize, then we’ll move on to specifics. The victimology in this most recent landfill case is so different from the previous four — or nine, if we include Ireland — as for me to conclude that we are dealing with a different killer. Dr Scarpetta is going to review her medical findings which I think will make it abundantly clear that this M.O. is profoundly atypical.’

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