I ignored the comment. “The death event changed with the last kill. While the others were quick and kind, Gabe Kavin’s was not.”
Her smile dropped. “What do you mean?”
I leaned forward. “The first five—strangled. But Gabe Kavin, though he did die of asphyxiation, wasn’t strangled.”
“What? Drowned?”
“Waterboarded.”
She flinched. “Like, CIA-type waterboarding?”
“Yes. It’s an extremely painful way to die. Long. Probably slow. So? Why?” I looked across the room, studying the wall, his photo tacked beside Noah Watkins. “What made Gabe Kavin different?”
A loud rap sounded on my door, and we both jumped at the sound. It eased open, and Jacob stuck his head inside. “Meredith, your four o’clock is here.”
“I’ll be right out.” She rose to her feet and glanced over the stack of files. “At least I know what you’ve been doing for the last two days. When are you meeting with the attorney again?”
“Tonight.” I turned my watch so I could see the oyster face. “At five. His office is downtown, so I’ll need to leave soon if I’m going to beat traffic.”
“Uh-huh.” She gave me a not-so-subtle once-over. “Chanel suit, no pantyhose. My mother would be proud.”
Meredith’s mother had been one of Los Angeles’s most notorious madams, so I took the comment as it was intended. “It’s not that sort of meeting.”
She popped a red chocolate in her mouth. “Still, easy access up the skirt . . . Does that bra unclip in the front?”
I ignored the insinuation and picked up my empty teacup. “Remind me to never tell you about my sex life again.”
“Ha!” She laughed. “Honey, it’s not a life. It was a fart in a silent room. That’s why it made a big stink. Trust me, if you had my sex life, you wouldn’t still be thinking about this guy. You’d move on to another muscular pogo stick and be done.”
“Please don’t compare a night of passion to a fart. And I’m not still thinking about him. At least, not in the romantic sense.”
She gave me a knowing grin. “Oh, honey. You know killers, I know sexually deprived clients. You’re definitely thinking of him, and there isn’t anything wrong with that.” She pointed a stern finger at me. “Just don’t separate starvation from good food.”
Robert Kavin was good food. I may have been starved, but the man had been a master chef of pleasure. I swallowed a response and circled the end of my desk. “Will you tell Jacob I’m heading out soon? Just in case he needs me for anything.”
“Will do.” She crumpled the empty candy bag and surveyed my pile of files. “Good luck.”
I waited until she left, then opened up my side drawer and considered the extra pack of pantyhose I kept there, in case I got a run. I stared at the shrink-wrapped package for a long moment, then closed the drawer, leaving it there.
It had not been a loud fart. That was just ridiculous.
CHAPTER 22
While my office looked like the inside of a psych ward, Robert’s was perfectly in order. I set my purse down on his private conference table and surveyed the room. Very masculine. Dark wood accents, powerful and rich colors in the art. All it was missing was a stuffed animal head on the wall. I fought not to psychoanalyze it, but the decor was a dog pissing on the walls, marking the territory and asserting Robert’s dominance.
He was on the phone, his voice low, his chair swiveled toward the window, and I took the opportunity to wander around the space. It was huge, a clear status play, big enough for the conference table, a seating cluster, and his massive desk. There was a bookshelf, and I paused beside it, surprised to find novels instead of legal journals. On the second shelf was a small fishbowl with a bubbler. A goldfish stared at me blankly as a treasure chest slowly opened behind him.
A goldfish. That was interesting.
“Dr. Moore.”
I turned. Robert had ended the call and was facing me.
“How is the good doctor today?”
“I’m okay.” I looked back at the aquarium. “You have a fish.”
“That I do. A beautiful woman told me that I should have a pet, so . . . there you go.”
He was smooth, I’d give him that. How many women had he delivered similar lines to? Dozens? Hundreds?
I turned back to him. “You always do what ‘beautiful’ women tell you to?”
“Depends on the woman.” The words were light, but I could see the fatigue in his features. He stood and came around the desk. “Take a seat. Those heels have to be killing you.” He settled into one of the big leather club chairs, and I followed suit. “How’s your profile going so far?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I did a quick sweep of the kills and am now going through each in detail, chronologically. I’m about halfway through. I’m on the third victim now.”
“Noah.”
“Yes.” I watched his features, reading the rigid tension in them. He didn’t need a psychological profile. He needed a grief counselor. That and a vacation a million miles away from blood and gore and photos of dead teenage boys. “Have you been through all the files?”
“Yes.”
“You know, you can’t desensitize yourself to it. Looking at photos of the other boys doesn’t make Gabe’s death any easier.”
“It helps me.” He sighed. “I wasn’t the only parent who failed.”
“None of you failed. You know that.”
“Yeah, well. So many small decisions might have changed it. If he had never seen Gabe, he wouldn’t have taken him.”
I shook my head. “You can’t go down that rabbit hole. For every action and decision that you beat yourself up over, look at your intentions. You did and continue to—even now—do the best you can to protect him.”
He forced a smile. “I don’t need a counselor, Gwen. I need to know what you’ve learned.”
He didn’t know what he needed, but it wasn’t my place to force treatment on him. I switched to business mode. “Well, I’ve reviewed the files enough to give a rough sketch of the killer, but it’s likely to change as I finish reviewing things.”
He relaxed slightly at the change in topic. “Go ahead.”
“Are you familiar with grounded theory methodology?”
“No.”
“It’s the discovery of emerging patterns in data and the generation of theories from that data. With each victim, I create a list of factors. Factors about the victim, the circumstances, the kill, and the treatment of the victim from the moment of capture to the moment of death. Also, the disposal of the body.” I watched him carefully, wondering if I needed to be more sensitive with my language.
He nodded, his brows pinching together in interest, and I continued on.
“Once I have exhaustive lists on each crime, I can find the commonalities among them and establish patterns. Both in the killer’s consistencies, but also his inconsistencies. Is he changing his MO of victims? Growing older or younger in age, more innocent or less in experience . . .” I shrugged. “So far, these victims are eerily similar. That’s the pattern, and it points strongly to the killer personifying either himself at a younger age or someone in his past.”