Page 82 of The Accomplice
‘Then why maintain the BAU unit ?’
‘It’s good for publicity, and of course they changed it all about fifteen years ago. Now profiles are written on the basis of statistical analysis of the crimes of ninety-two serial killers. It’s a numbers game, and even more useless.’
‘How does that work ?’
‘One of the big dichotomies for analysis now is whether the killer moved the body. For example, if the body has been moved, according to the Bureau’s analysis there’s a forty per cent chance either the killer or his father was in the military.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Pretty much. This approach has lots of problems, not least that this metric is published by the Bureau. If I was a serial killer, I would look at how they categorize and extrapolate personal characteristics for their profile and change my MO to make sure it didn’t come close to my personal history or demographic.’
Bloch said nothing.
‘The other problem,’ continued Lake, ‘is that this analysis is based on a small study of the ninety-two serial killers that have been stupid enough to get arrested. General consensus among experts outside the FBI is that there could be between five hundred and two thousand serial killers operating in the United States right now. I don’t want to use a statistical analysis method based on the guys we caught. I want to figure out how to find the men we haven’t caught.’
Lake approached the freezer, took up the crowbar and hammered the ice with five quick strokes, scooped out more water.
‘You know Seong talked to Eddie about what happened in that stash house incident. He said at one point you stopped defending yourself, and you went after every man in that house,’ said Bloch.
He was breathing hard now. He put down the crowbar, rubbed his hands together to get some warmth into them.
‘A lot of people have theories about what went on in that house,’ he said. ‘I was there because I was hunting a serial killer and I got a tip from one of the federally registered snitches. Turns out that about four hours after he gave me that tip the same snitch was found on a patch of waste ground under the Manhattan Bridge. He’d eaten the wrong end of a shotgun. His arms and legs were hogtied with cable loops. Kind of like how law enforcement secure a suspect –federallaw enforcement, that is.’
‘Jesus,’ said Bloch.
‘Somebody in the Bureau wanted me to walk blindly into that stash house, knowing the odds of me walking out again were slightly higher than the Milwaukee Brewers winning the World Series. Tell you the truth, I don’t know how I survived. I got shot four times and almost bled out. Some part of me … I don’t know how to describe it. At one point it felt like I wasn’t there. I was just watching it happen.’
‘Do you know who set you up ?’ asked Bloch as she rose to her feet.
Lake shook his head, said, ‘Someday I’ll find out. When I told my superiors why I’d walked into that building, and what had happened to the snitch, they got me pensioned out of the FBI straight away. They don’t want scandal. They don’t want trouble. They protect their own.’
She picked up the tire iron, hit the ice with three hard jabs.
‘Butyouwere one of them,’ she said.
‘Not really. I didn’t play by their rules. I was an outsider even though I was the one putting results on the board. The brass don’t really care about results if you’re not playing their game.’
He swung the crowbar hard into the center of the packed ice. Bloch heard a loud crack.
She shone her flashlight inside.
Using the crowbar, Lake levered clear a chunk of ice that must’ve weighed forty pounds.
Now they could get access to the zipper around the center of the body bag. From her boot, Bloch pulled a switchblade and carefully cut open the portion of bag, about ten inches, that they could access through the hole in the ice.
With Bloch holding the flashlight, Lake prized the bag apart.
Bloch dropped the flashlight in the freezer. She felt dizzy. Grabbing the sides of the freezer to steady herself, she leaned over.
Tried to catch her breath.
Bloch had not cried in a long time. She felt that familiar wave of endorphins, the heave in her stomach, the sticky feeling in the back of her throat.
She shut her eyes tight, fighting every instinct to break down and cry.
Bloch stood up straight, took out her cell phone, hit the call button for Eddie Flynn.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
