Ashes To Ashes.

By: Tami Hoag.

AUTHOR'S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

MY THANKS AND HEARTFELT GRAt.i.tUDE first and foremost to Special Agent Larry Brubaker, FBI, for so generouslysharing his time and expertise. I state unequivocally he was not thepattern for Vince Walsh! (Sorry about that, Bru.) I will also note herethat between beginning this book and finishing it, a number of changes havetaken place in the FBI units formerly-and within this story-known asInvestigative Support and CASKU (Child Abduction Serial Killer Unit). Now under the blanket heading of the National Center for the a.n.a.lysis ofViolent Crime, the agents in this unit no longer work sixty feet belowground at the FBI Academy in Quantico. Literally moving up in the world,they get to have windows in their new place. Not as interesting forwriters, but the agents appreciate it.

My sincere grat.i.tude also to the following law enforcement and legalservices professionals for graciously giving their time to answer my manyquestions. As always, I've done my best to bring a feeling of authenticityto the jobs depicted within this book. Any mistakes made or libertiestaken in the name of fiction are my own.

Frances James, Hennepin County Victim/Witness Program Donna Dunn, OlmstedCounty Victim Services Sergeant Bernie Martinson, Minneapolis PD SpecialAgent in Charge Roger Wheeler, FBI Lieutenant Dale Barsness, Minneapolis PDDetective John Reed, Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Andi Sisco: A millionthanks for making connections for me! You're a star.

Diva Karyn, aka Elizabeth Grayson: Special thanks for some inspiredsuggestions regarding a particularly gruesome fetish used herein. Who sayssuspense writers have cornered the market on disgusting knowledge?

Brain Dead author Eileen Dreyer: Thanks for the usual support, technicaland otherwise.

Diva Bush, aka Kim Cotes: For more of the same.

And special thanks, Rocket, for your support, empathy, encouragement, andthe occasional necessary kick in the a.s.s. Misery loves company.

Chapter 1.

Some killers are born. Some killers are made. And sometimes the originof desire for homicide is lost in the tangle of roots that make an uglychildhood and a dangerous youth, so that no one may ever know if theurge was inbred or induced.

He lifts the body from the back of the Blazer like a roll of old carpetto be discarded. The soles of his boots scuff against the blacktop ofthe parking area, then fall nearly silent on the dead gra.s.s and hardground.

The night is balmy for November in Minneapolis. A swirling wind tossesfallen leaves. The bare branches of the trees rattle together like bagsof bones.

He knows he falls into the last category of killers. He has spent manyhours, days, months, years studying his compulsion and its point oforigin.

He knows what he is, and he embraces that truth. He has never knownguilt or remorse. He believes conscience, rules, laws, serve theindividual no practical purpose, and only limit human possibilities.

"Man enters into the ethical world through fear and not through love.

-Paul Ricoeur, Symbolism of Evil.

His True Self adheres only to his own code: domination, manipulation,control.

A broken shard of moon glares down on the scene, its light faint beneaththe web of limbs. He arranges the body to his satisfaction and tracestwo intersecting X's over the left upper chest. With a sense ofceremony, he pours the accelerant. Anointing the dead. Symbolism ofevil. His True Self embraces the concept of evil as power. Fuel for theinternal fire.

"Ashes to ashes."

The sounds are ordered and specific, magnified by his excitement.

The sc.r.a.pe of the match against the friction strip, the pop as it burstswith flame, the whoosh of the fire as it comes alive and consumes. Asthe fire burns, his memory replays the earlier sounds of pain and fear.

He recalls the tremor in her voice as she pleaded for her life, theunique pitch and quality of each cry as he tortured her. The exquisitemusic of life and death.

For one fine moment he allows himself to admire the drama of the tableau.

He allows himself to feel the heat of the flames caress his face like tongues of desire. He closes his eyes and listens to the sizzle andhiss, breathes deep the smell of roasting flesh.

Elated, excited, aroused, he takes his erection out of his pants andstrokes himself hard. He brings himself nearly to climax, but is carefulnot to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. Save it for later, when he can celebrate fully.

His goal is in sight. He has a plan, meticulously thought out, to beexecuted with perfection. His name will live in infamy with all thegreat ones-Bundy, Kemper, the Boston Strangler, the Green River Killer.The press here has already given him a name: the Cremator.

It makes him smile. It makes him proud. He lights another match andholds it just in front of him, studying the flame, loving the sinuous,sensuous undulation of it. He brings it closer to his face, opens hismouth, and eats it.

Then he turns and walks away. Already thinking of next time.

MURDER.

The sight burned its impression into the depths of her memory, into thebacks of her eyeb.a.l.l.s so that she could see it when she blinked againstthe tears. The body twisting in slow agony against its horrible fate.Orange flame a backdrop for the nightmare image.

Burning.

She ran, her lungs burning, her legs burning, her eyes burning, herthroat burning. In one abstract corner of her mind, she was the corpse.

Maybe this was what death was like. Maybe it was her body roasting, andthis consciousness was her soul trying to escape the fires of h.e.l.l.

She had been told repeatedly that was where she would end up.

In the near distance she could hear a siren and see the weird flash of blue and red lights against the night. She ran for the street, sobbing,stumbling. Her right knee hit the frozen ground, but she forced her feetto keep moving.

Run run run run run run freeze! Police!"

The cruiser still rocked at the curb. The door was open. The cop was onthe boulevard, gun drawn and pointed straight at her.

"Help me!" The words rasped in her throat.

"Help me!" she gasped, tears blurring her vision.

Her legs buckled beneath the weight of her body and the weight of herfear and the weight of her heart that was pounding like some hugeswollen thing in her chest.

The cop was beside her in an instant, holstering his weapon and droppingto his knees to help. Must be a rookie, she thought dimly.

She knew fourteen-year-old kids with better street instincts. She couldhave gotten his weapon. If she'd had a knife, she could have raised herself up and stabbed him.

He pulled her up into a sitting position with a hand on either shoulder.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

"What happened? Are you all right?" he demanded. He had a face like anangel.

"I saw him," she said, breathless, shaking, bile pushing up the back ofher throat. "I was there. Oh-Jesus. Oh-s.h.i.t. I saw him!"

"Saw who?"

"The Cremator."

CHAPTER 2.

"Why am I always the one in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

Kate Conlan muttered to herself.

First day back from what had technically been a vacation-a guilt forcedtrip to visit her parents in h.e.l.l's amus.e.m.e.nt park (Las Vegas)she waslate for work, had a headache, wanted to strangle a certain s.e.x crimessergeant for spooking one of her clients-a screw-up she would pay forwith the prosecuting attorney. All that and the fashionably chunky heelon a brand new pair of suede pumps was coming loose, thanks to thestairs in the Fourth Avenue parking ramp.

Now this. A twitcher.

No one else seemed to notice him prowling the edge of the s.p.a.ciousatrium of the Hennepin County Government Center like a nervous cat. Katemade the guy for late thirties, no more than a couple of inches past herown five-nine, medium-to-slender build. Wound way too tight. He'd likelysuffered some kind of personal or emotional setback recently-lost hisjob or his girlfriend. He was either divorced or separated; living onhis own, but not homeless. His clothes were rumpled, but not castoffs,and his shoes were too good for homeless.

He was sweating like a fat man in a sauna, but he kept his coat on as hepaced around and around the new piece of sculpture littering the hall-asymbolic piece of pretension fashioned from melted-down handguns. He was.m.u.ttering to himself, one hand hanging on to the open front of his heavycanvas jacket. A hunter's coat. His inner emotional strain tightened themuscles of his face.

Kate slipped off her loose-heeled shoe and stepped out of the other one,never taking her eyes off the guy. She dug a hand into her purse andcame out with her cell phone. At the same instant, the twitcher caughtthe interest of the woman working the information booth twenty feet away.

d.a.m.n.

Kate straightened slowly, punching the speed-dial b.u.t.ton. She couldn'tdial security from an outside phone. The nearest guard was across thebroad expanse of the atrium, smiling, laughing, engaged in conversationwith a mailman. The information lady came toward the twitcher with her head to one side, as if her cotton-candy cone of blond hair were tooheavy.

Dammit.

The office phone rang once .. . twice. Kate started moving slowlyforward, phone in one hand, shoe in the other.

"Can I help you, sir?" the information woman said, still ten feet away.

Blood was going to wreck the h.e.l.l out of her ivory silk blouse.

The twitcher jerked around.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked again.

. * . fourth ring .. .

A Latino woman with a toddler in tow cut through the distance betweenKate and the twitcher. Kate thought she could see the tremors begin-hisbody fighting to contain the rage or the desperation or whatever wasdriving him or eating him alive.

, * . fifth ring. "Hennepin County Attorney's Office-" "Dammit!"

The movement was unmistakable-planting the feet, reaching into thejacket, eyes going wider.

"Get down!" Kate shouted, dropping the phone.

The information woman froze.

"Someone f.u.c.king pays!" the twitcher cried, lunging toward the woman,grabbing hold of her arm with his free hand. He jerked her toward him,thrusting his gun out ahead of her. The explosion of the shot wasmagnified in the towering atrium, deafening all ears to the shrieks ofpanic it elicited. Everyone noticed him now.

Kate barreled into him from behind, swinging the heel end of her shoeagainst his temple like a hammer. He expelled a cry of startled shock,then came back hard with his right elbow, catching Kate in the ribs.

The information woman screamed and screamed. Then lost her feet or lost consciousness, and the weight of her falling body jerked down on hera.s.sailant. He dropped to one knee, shouting obscenities, firing anotherround, this one skipping off the hard floor and going G.o.d knew where.

Kate fell with him, her left hand clutching the collar of his coat. Shecouldn't lose him. Whatever beast he'd had trapped inside was free now.

If he got away from her, there'd be a h.e.l.l of a lot more to worry aboutthan stray bullets.

Her nylons giving her no purchase on the slick floor, she scrambled toget her feet under her, to hang on to him as he fought to stand. Sheswung the shoe again and smacked him in the ear. He twisted around,trying to backhand her with the gun. Kate grabbed his arm and forced itup, too aware as the gun went off again that there were more than twentystories of offices and courtrooms above.

As they struggled for control of the gun, she hooked a leg around one ofhis and threw her weight against him, and suddenly they were falling,down and down, tumbling over each other down the biting metal treads ofthe escalator to the street level-where they were met by half a dozenshouts of "Freeze! Police!"

Kate looked up at the grim faces through the haze of pain and muttered,"Well, it's about d.a.m.n time."

"HEY, LOOK," one of the a.s.sistant prosecutors called from his office."It's Dirty Harriet!"

"Very funny, Logan," Kate said, making her way down the hall to thecounty attorney's office. "You read that in a book, didn't you?"

"They have to get Rene Russo to play you in the movie."

"I'll tell them you said so."

Aches bit into her back and hip. She had refused a ride to the emergencyroom. Instead, she had limped into the ladies' room, combed her mane ofred-gold hair into a ponytail, washed off the blood, ditched her ruinedblack tights, and gone back to her office.

She didn't have any wounds worth an X ray or st.i.tches, and half themorning was gone. The price of being a tough: She would have to make dotonight with ', cold gin, and a hot bath, instead of realpainkillers. She could already tell she was going to be sorry.

The thought occurred to her that she was too old to be tackling lunaticsand riding them down escalators, but she stubbornly resisted the ideathat forty-two was too old for anything. Besides, she was only fiveyears into what she termed her "second adulthood." The second career,the second stab at stability and routine.

The only thing she had wished for all the way home from the weirdness ofLas Vegas was a return to the nice, normal, relatively sane life she hadmade for herself. Peace and quiet. The familiar entanglements of her jobas a victim/witness advocate. The cooking cla.s.s she was determined notto fail.

But no, she had to be the one to spot the twitcher. She was always theone who had to spot the twitcher.

Alerted by his secretary, the county attorney opened his office door forher himself. A tall, good-looking man, Ted Sabin had a commandingpresence and a shock of gray hair, which he swept back from a prominentwidow's peak. A pair of round steel-rimmed gla.s.ses perched on hishawkish nose gave him a studious look and helped camouflage the factthat his blue eyes were set too deep and too close together.

While he had once been a crack prosecutor himself, he now took on onlythe occasional high-profile case. His job as head honcho was largelyadministrative and political. He oversaw a bustling office of attorneystrying to juggle the ever-increasing workload of the Hennepin Countycourt system. Lunch hours and evenings found him moving among theMinneapolis power elite, currying connections and favor. It was commonknowledge he had his eye on a seat in the U.S. Senate.