The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(9)
If not unnerved. Or at least she would be when Vail shared with her the contents of the “blank” letter.
Marcks shrugged his shoulders again. “So what do you want to know?”
Wow. Can it be this easy?
“I’ve got a lot of questions.”
“I’ll give you three. How ’bout that? We’ll start with those and go from there.”
All about control. He’ll dole out the answers, leave me asking permission for more.
“Fine,” Vail said. “We’ll start with three. You slice thin lines on the abdomens of your victims using an odd-shaped knife. A karambit. Why do you do that? What does it mean to you?”
“I count two questions there, Agent Vail. You sure you want to burn two at once, so quickly? And can I call you Karen?”
“Karen’s fine. And the two questions are basically the same thing, just worded differently. So how about, “What’s the meaning behind the thin lines you carve in your victims’ abdomens?”
Marcks sucked his top teeth a moment, rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I don’t like that question. Ask another. Not about the lines. And not about the murders.”
Guess that’s my answer. Not gonna be so easy.
“How about we talk about your daughter. Jasmine.”
Marcks frowned. “Was there a question there?”
“You two had a unique relationship and I’d like to explore—”
“She had a normal childhood. She was loved. End of story.”
“Except that she grew up—in her formative teen years—without a mother. It happens, but it’s not entirely normal.”
“I did the best I could. She had no female influence, you know? That was hard.”
“You developed a strong bond with her.”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“Why did you have to think about that?”
“We had a special relationship. A unique relationship.”
“How so?”
Marcks laughed, then he raised his handcuffed wrists and pointed an index finger at her. “You’re a sneaky little devil, you know that, Karen? Get me talkin’ and not noticin’ you’ve asked about a dozen questions when I only agreed to three. That’s not really building trust, is it?”
How does he know about building trust? Has he read Douglas’s or Underwood’s books? He couldn’t have—unless he read them before he was caught. Maybe it was just a good guess. “I thought we were having a conversation.”
He yawned, making a show of it. “You know what? I didn’t sleep too good last night. There’s some shit going on in here and I have to watch my back. I’m really f*ckin’ exhausted. Can we do this next time? Promise we’ll talk about my daughter.” He looked past her, as if about to call for the guard.
But Vail was not ready for the interview to end. “How do you feel about Jasmine?”
Roscoe slowly settled his gaze on Vail. It was a threatening move, eerie in its deliberateness. “How do I feel about her?”
“She turned you in. You were caught because of her. You’re behind bars. No chance of ever getting out. Because of her.”
Marcks held her eyes a moment, then shrugged. “Wasn’t a highlight of our relationship. How am I supposed to feel?”
“Did you read her book?”
“A news station sent me a copy hoping I’d give them an interview. Yeah, I read it.”
“Did it make you angry?”
His right fist curled into a white-knuckled mace. “You have no idea.”
“You want to get even?”
“How do you mean?”
Vail let the left side of her mouth drop sardonically. “You know.” She leaned forward, as if sharing a secret. “Revenge.”
“Against my own daughter? Because of some bullshit book?”
“Yeah. Like hurt her. Kill her. Cut off her limbs.”
Marcks leaned back, narrowed his gaze, measured his response. “Now let’s say I could do harm to my own daughter. My own flesh and blood. How would I do that?”
“You tell me.”
He looked at her, long and hard. “Do something for me, Karen. Tell my little darlin’ to be careful.” He looked past her and banged his large fists on the table. “Guard!”
7
As Vail drove back toward Jasmine’s house, she phoned Tim Meadows. After the disturbing end to her visit with Marcks, she wanted to know if they had supporting evidence that he had sent his daughter the letter.
“You get the handwriting sample Del Monaco sent over?”
“I did,” Meadows said, “and I’ve got some good news. There’s one characteristic in particular that’s a bit unusual. A hitch in the uppercase S.”
“But.”
“How’d you know I was gonna say ‘but’?”
“There’s always a but with you.”
“Well, here’s the thing: both the known exemplar and the indented writing are small samples. It’s a little tough to say conclusively based on only a few words.”
“So … it’s a probable match.”
“Well, that’s part of the but. In Questioned Documents examinations, the identification is either conclusive or inconclusive. There’s some individuality and similarities in these writing samples, but …”