Girl, Alone (An Ella Dark FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1)

by Blake Pierce

  Ripley flashed her credentials at a waiting officer. He lifted the tape up for her and nodded her through with Ella close behind. Two masked forensic technicians walked out the front door of the victim’s home, took off their masks, and breathed in the fresh air. One of them gave Ripley a thumbs-up, then pointed to the back entrance. Ella and Ripley followed the path around where they found Sheriff Harris waiting with a cigarette held tightly between his lips. His skin was flushed of all color. He blew out a plume of smoke toward the ground and flicked his cigarette over the backyard fence.

  “Never in my thirty years,” he said without looking at the agents. “I’m starting to wonder if it’s me or if the world is getting crazier by the day.”

  “What do we have?” asked Ripley.

  “Wish I could describe it. Follow me. Don’t forget your masks. You’re gonna need ’em.”

  They stepped into a long kitchen area. It was designed in a modern, rustic style with wooden surfaces and brown stools perched up against a small dining table. On the work surface to their right, forensics had left masks and gloves for newcomers. Ella and Ripley put them on for the second time in as many hours.

  Ella surveyed the kitchen area, her eyes landing on an empty cat food bowl, then moving to a gloss white fridge-freezer that was dotted with selfies and photographs of parties and club nights. In every picture, she saw a young, good-looking African American man, usually with his arm wrapped around another similarly attractive young gent. All of the pictures had been placed artistically around the fridge handle. Whoever this owner was, he had good taste, and he was certainly a popular fellow, Ella thought.

  It only lasted a few fleeting seconds, but there was the spark again. The connections were made, and Ella already knew exactly what was about to reveal itself as she ventured further into the house. As the three made their way inside, Ella felt like she’d entered a crime scene photo she’d seen a hundred times before. It was all oddly familiar in some way.

  But even so, nothing prepared her for what appeared in front of her. A man sat on a brown sofa, leaning slightly to one side as though he was merely sleeping. A mask of blood decorated his face, running down his neck and not stopping until it collected in a pool on his thighs. It had dried a dark, mahogany color.

  From now on, I’ll keep things to myself, Ella thought. She wasn’t going to say anything unless she absolutely had to, out of fear of another scolding or worse. However, she was sure of it. The scene in front of her confirmed her theory with almost absolute clarity. The victim type, the modus operandi, the cause of death. This was another copycat crime.

  “Shawn Kelly, twenty-five-year-old male,” said Harris. “We only got here thirty minutes ago so we’re still figuring things out, but it looks to me like he’s been shot and left for dead.”

  Ripley approached the body and inspected it more closely. Ella stood back, struggling to take everything in. This was the second crime scene she’d attended in her seventy-two-hour career as a special agent, and the first with a dead body present. At least, one which was still fully whole. The psychological pressure seemed to mount day by day. Setting eyes on the corpses in the coroner’s office was difficult enough, but seeing a fresh victim still in the very spot they were killed wasn’t something she could easily brush aside. She knew this was an image which would stick with her forever.

  Keep it together, she told herself. If you want to do this job, you have to learn how to handle these kinds of things. Ella thought back to a disassociation technique she’d learned in her early days at the FBI, but applying it was harder than she thought. The fact she was standing on the same carpet that a real-life murderer stood on only hours before brought up a feeling of nausea. Despite the low temperature, she felt a river of sweat collect on her brow. Her breathing intensified. It was a hard visual to consume.

  “Who called it in?” Ripley asked, resting her knee on the sofa and peering into the hole left in the victim’s temple.

  “Anonymous caller, about an hour ago,” Harris said.

  “Of course he was anonymous. Aren’t they always? Have forensics taken a preliminary swab yet?”

  “Just finished. Should take a couple of minutes.”

  “Good. Did they find a bullet? And what the hell is that smell?”

  “What do you think that smell is?” Harris asked. “It’s a dead body, ma’am.”

  I know exactly what that smell is, Ella said to herself, but after her scolding, she decided now wasn’t the time to interject. She didn’t want to push Ripley’s buttons any further by offering her apparently unfounded theories. The thought of being reprimanded once again, this time in front of others, scared her into silence. She thought back to her high school days, when she’d solved the problem on the whiteboard immediately but had to wait for the rest of the class to figure it out before she could raise her hand. It was frustrating, but she reassured herself that her chance to speak up would come in time. She could see Ripley had already come to some conclusions about the dead body in front of them, judging by the look of disbelief on her face. Ella thought back to how Ripley had blown apart her previous theories and didn’t want the same to happen here.

  “It’s not that, it’s something else.”

  “I’m sure it’ll crop up in the forensic report. What do you think so far, Agents?” Harris asked.

  Ripley stood up and pulled out her notepad. “This whole scene is one huge middle finger to us. This guy knows we’re onto him, and he’s showing us exactly how capable he is.”

  “How do you figure?” Harris asked.

  “Given the lack of blood anywhere else in the room, the victim was killed right here on this sofa. That means one of two things. Either the killer broke in undetected and blitz-attacked the victim, subduing him and killing him without ever letting him leave the sofa. Or he gained the victim’s trust enough to execute his plan while he sat right next to him. Both scenarios show organization, interpersonal skills, and manipulation. He also notified the police himself, something he didn’t do last time. He wants us to be here. He wants us to admire his handiwork.”

  One of the forensic officers walked into the room and handed Harris a clipboard. Ella couldn’t tell if it was man or woman behind the mask. “Swab is complete, sir. There were high levels of alcohol in his system, along with a significant trace of hydroxybutyrate from his cheek lining.”

  Harris scanned the notes up and down, lifting up a few pages. “Right. And what’s that mean in English?” Harris asked.

  “Date rape,” Ripley interrupted. “The victim was drugged.”

  “Drugged?”

  “Spiked, more likely. The killer likely slipped a pill in his drink, that’s the most effective and efficient way to get hydroxybutyrate into the system.”

  “Well, I’ve got the officers searching for people who knew this guy. Wife, girlfriend, friends, family.”

  “He won’t have a girlfriend,” Ripley said. “He’s gay, and single. He might have met our killer in a bar and they ended up back here together. Start there.” Ripley turned to Ella. “Rookie? You’re quiet. What do you make of this?”

  “Just taking it all in.”

  “Look, I said you could share your thoughts with me and Harris. We’re the only ones here, so out with it.”

  It was time to fit another piece to the puzzle. But she didn’t expect Ripley to take it on board. “First of all, I don’t think the victim was shot.” Ella moved and ran a gloved hand near the wound in the victim’s temple.

  “No?”

  “Definitely not. I think he used a power drill to make this hole.”

  Harris muttered an unidentifiable sound. “I hate to say it, but it could be. Nothing this guy does can surprise me anymore. Not to mention that this report says there’s no exit wound anywhere on this fellow’s head. Unless he blasted from a mile away, there’d be two holes in his head at the least.”

  Ripley considered it. “Interesting. The hole is certainly thin, but it’s hard to see with the bloo
d clotting.”

  “And that smell you mentioned?” Ella continued. “I think that’s acid, or bleach. Our killer drilled a hole in the victim’s skull and filled it with a fluid of some kind.”

  Harris scrunched up his face. He shook his head. “Why in God’s name?”

  “Because that’s exactly what Jeffrey Dahmer did to two of his victims back in the eighties.”

  “Dahmer? The Wisconsin nut? That’s a name I haven’t heard in years.”

  “Dahmer was obsessed with the idea of creating a human zombie. He thought he could do it by pumping hydrochloric acid into their skulls, but obviously it didn’t work.”

  “Another copycat theory?” Ripley said.

  “The M.O. is identical. Our killer meets a black, gay man in a bar and goes home with him. Then he plies him with alcohol, drugs him, and drills into his head while he’s still alive. Then he fills him with whatever liquid he can get his hands on. It’s all right here, down to the last detail.”

  Ripley rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. Ella anticipated a rebuttal.

  “That’s it,” Ripley said. “I’ve got it. The smell. It’s antifreeze.”

  It took Ella and Harris a few seconds to connect the dots. A wave of realization washed over them both.

  “Jesus,” Harris said. “The same antifreeze he grabbed from the hardware store.”

  “It’s highly likely, but I couldn’t say for sure.”

  Then Ella thought of something. It was another pattern which her subconscious pieced together from various snapshots taken over her short life. She thought of Dahmer’s crimes, the mutilations, the cannibalism, the photographs he took.

  “So, we can safely say the guy who did this is the same guy who murdered Miss Hartwell?” Harris asked. “I hate to put a positive spin on something like this, but that’s a good thing.”

  “Again, I can’t say with absolute certainty, but I’d say it was probable.” Ripley took photos of Shawn Kelly’s body with her phone. She dialed a number in her phone, but Ella interrupted.

  “Sheriff, have forensics combed this place top to bottom?”

  “Not yet. That comes next. Why?”

  “I think I know a way we can confirm this is the work of a sole perp.”

  Ripley and Harris turned to her. “We’re all ears,” said Ripley.

  “The other murders really hit on each serial killer’s most famous elements. Dahmer only injected acid into two of his victims. He’s much more known for a few other things.”

  “Like?”

  “Keeping body parts as trophies.”

  Ripley eyed up the victim again. “We’re not missing any body parts, Rookie.”

  Ella prayed that she’d made the right connection. Ripley seemed to be coming around to her theory and she didn’t want her enthusiasm to wane. “Yes, we are. Maybe not from this victim, but we’re still missing something from before.”

  She rushed back into the kitchen, past the lavish rustic furniture, and stood in front of the fridge. Ripley and Harris followed.

  “See those photos?” Ella said, pointing to the pictures around the door handle. “I thought they were just stylized like that, but they’re not.”

  Ripley took a step back to see clearer. “Well, they’re arranged like a question mark.”

  “Exactly. He’s drawing us here. Dahmer kept some body parts in his fridge.”

  “You gotta be joking me,” Harris said. “Get forensics in here now,” he shouted out the back door. He moved back toward the fridge and opened it up. The usual suspects were all present; two bottles of milk, canned cat food, vegetables, butter. Harris gradually pulled out produce before uncovering a large plastic box jammed in the fridge’s bottom left corner. Its sides were blurry so its contents were obscured from the outside.

  But Ella knew exactly what was in there, and Ripley and Harris quickly realized the same.

  Harris pulled open the lid and a sickly odor filled the air. It was the scent of stale death, having been left to rot and stir for days before being lodged into its new resting place.

  Ella saw it in Ripley’s eyes. Her theory was right, and Ripley looked like she was all but convinced of it too.

  Harris’s mouth dropped open. “Sweet mother of God. What the hell is this thing?”

  ***

  Ella, Ripley, and Harris stared at their new discovery as two forensic officers rushed to their side. Harris’s hands quivered as he passed the object to them. The forensic team took it and gently placed it on the work surface beside them.

  It was the skinned head of Christine Hartwell, faceless and hairless, with two crystallized brown eyes locked in an eternal death stare. There were remnants of eyebrows and a full set of teeth still in place. All of the tendons running from the scalp to the cheek were visible. The whole thing made Ella retch. While Ripley and Harris looked it over, Ella ran out of the house to get some air.

  Her theory now had substantial weight, but it was still the grimmest of mornings. Overcast skies up above and muddied grass at her feet. She felt the moisture from the lawn soak into her shoes. Uncomfortable at first, but then she felt grounded back in reality. All of the death and decay she’d been subjected to the past few days made her feel like she was in some kind of surreal dreamland.

  The past few days had taught her a lot, including the important lesson that textbooks and crime scene photos couldn’t prepare a person for the real thing. Ella always thought she’d be able to leave her emotions at the door if she was ever in a situation like this, but the reality was much different than she could have ever imagined. Each crime scene left an imprint, diluting down all of the pleasant memories with images of brutality and human suffering.

  Maybe this wasn’t the role for her, she thought, but the idea of letting down the people who’d given her this chance made her anxiety levels shoot up.

  Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “It never gets any easier, Rookie, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Ella took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t turn to face Ripley. “I wasn’t. I was thinking maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

  Ripley laughed. “Are you kidding? Your theory is suddenly looking pretty good. Don’t let a couple of gory details dissuade you.”

  Ella felt the anxiety levels drop. The relief came slowly and gradually as she realized she was being complimented by the mythical Agent Mia Ripley. “Well, thank you. It’s just… seeing all these fresh dead bodies is a tough lesson. When I see them in textbooks, it’s like I’m just consuming facts. I’m just reading history, you know? There’s nothing I can do to change what happened to them.”

  “But now it feels like you’re responsible for them,” Ripley said.

  Ella breathed heavily and nodded. “I guess so. It’s tough to explain. It feels like if we’d have tried harder, theorized more, talked it through, then maybe there wouldn’t be a dead body in that house.”

  “Yeah, I remember when I used to think like that. But believe me when I tell you that nothing short of being psychic would have stopped this. You can’t blame yourself for the actions of a psychopath.”

  “I know. It’s just hard.”

  “It sure is, but you should be proud. You pretty much called this theory right from the start, based on one crime scene and a few brief details. That’s some impressive shit. Even with today’s findings I wouldn’t have made that connection myself. I’d have assumed it was some disorganized schizophrenic experimenting with different killing techniques. But your theory spins it in completely the other direction. Even I might be out of my depth on this one.”

  Ella put her glasses back on and turned to Ripley. An icy breeze collided with them. It chilled Ella to the core. The whole morning had felt surreal, but even more surreal was that Ripley was complimenting her. Ella had to replay her words in her mind to make sure she’d heard her correctly. For forty-eight hours, Ripley had debunked Ella’s theory with haste. Now, she was coming around to them. It was a s
uccess, no matter how bittersweet. A sense of gratification overcame her.

  “Really? Even you?” Ella asked.

  “Even me. If I’d have drawn up a psychological profile and sent it out to the cops, imagine how bad I’d look when it came out he knew exactly what he was doing with each murder.”

  “Pretty bad,” Ella agreed. “But you know the truth now.”

  “There are still things I might not see clearly. You notice the little things, like the burlap bag at the Hartwell scene, the lipstick mark at the Barker scene. Those are the things that make the connections and allow for a more thorough psychological profile. That’s why I want you to write one up.”

  Ella looked at her, shocked. “What? Me?”

  “Yes, you. Have you written one before?”

  This was it. The crowning achievement. The highest honor that could befall her. She’d dreamt of being the one to provide an official psychological profile to the FBI since she was in high school, when she used to give class presentations and imagine that was exactly what she was doing. Everything she’d worked for, all those years spent working until midnight to stand out from the crowd, all those hours of research she did in her spare time, every time she’d felt invisible despite working herself to exhaustion. The validation she secretly yearned for had arrived in this one tsunami of responsibility.

  This was the apex; a moment she’d remember for the rest of her days, regardless of how her career panned out.

  “No. Nothing official, anyway.”

  “Unofficial ones are good enough. Let’s give this scene one last look-over and then get going. Do you think you can handle it?”

  It was an honor to say the least, and an honor she never expected to receive. It came with incredible responsibility, but there was every chance she could predict this unsub’s next moves. There was every chance that her abilities could help catch a real-life serial killer.