“When did they go missing?” Beth asked.
“All four within the last three weeks, and all from the Louisville area. None of the women were taken from the same locations, though,” Ball said.
“The locations and the way they were taken?” I asked. “What do we know there?”
“Seemed they were all alone, at night. Opportunity, I guess. Two women…” Ball looked through his file, “Kelly Paige and Trisha Floyd, were last seen at bars—vehicles found nearby, where they’d parked, we assume. Jennifer Pasco was last seen leaving a party and walking back to her residence. The last and most recent, April Backer, we don’t know. She lived alone and disappeared sometime between when she got off of work at a restaurant and when she was to report to work the next day. Her vehicle was found on the side of the road with a flat. No other information there.”
“Tell me about the flat,” I said. “A legit flat tire or punctured?”
“That’s as much as I know,” Ball said. “There are some files from the missing-persons divisions that were handling these girls when they went missing—the papers are in the backs of your file folders there,” Ball said. “You might want to touch with them on that.”
I nodded and flipped the page in the file. The letter from the killer came next—as Ball had said, it was typed. I took a minute and read it over. The gist of it was that he’d killed four women and planned to continue killing women until he perfected his method—a few a week, he said. The reasoning behind him sending the photos to the newspaper was to let their families know that the women were dead and that they shouldn’t waste any more time searching or hoping for their return. He said he’d send another package when he was ready. The bottom of the letter was signed The Sportsman.
“The Sportsman?” I asked.
Ball shrugged. “He named himself, apparently.”
“Any record of the name in anything we have?” Beth asked.
“No. The closest thing we had was some nut back in the eighties that the media had dubbed The Trapper, on account of his occupation as a fur trapper,” Ball said. “The guy is still alive, albeit in prison with another hundred years or so remaining on his sentence. The guy operated out of the St. Louis area. He kidnapped a couple of young women and then killed them after hanging onto them for a month or so. He dumped their bodies in the river a few miles from his house. There isn’t anything to tie this guy to what we’re looking at here.”
“No kids, family—nothing on this Trapper guy?” Beth asked.
Ball shook his head. “Nope. No children or siblings. He was only in his twenties when he was apprehended. The guy has spent more years in prison than he ever had out in the world. Aside from the name the press gave him being remotely close, nothing else ties the two.”
“Okay,” I said. “Any leads with anything that was sent? The film, packaging, letter?”
“No prints, but there were signs that everything was handled with latex gloves. The film roll was expired by a few years, meaning it was a few years older than the expiration date. I don’t think we’ll have much luck with that. The package used regular postage, enough to cover the charges, and looks like it was dropped in a random mailbox.”
“How do we know that?” I asked.
“The package was tracked back to the post office that it was scanned in at. Obviously, no return label, but the mailman—or woman in this case—remembered where she picked it up from. Local agents went to the house. Seems no one was home, and the post office had a ‘stop delivery’ listed at the address for a week. They got in touch with the family that resides at the home, who are out of the state on vacation, which checked out.”
“So our killer knew that this family was out of town?” I asked. “Suggests he knows who they are or is local enough to know when someone isn’t around.”
“Or just got lucky in that regard, but it needs to be looked into,” Ball said, “which the local office is already doing.”
“Did they try to print the mailbox?” I asked.
“They found nothing,” Ball said.
“The numbering of the women?” I asked. “What are the thoughts there?”
“I was kicking that around last night. I’d have to think the numbers represent which victim came first.”
“He says in the letter that he’s trying to perfect his method. Maybe the numbering goes along with that,” Beth said. “I mean if you’re experimenting with something, you keep a log of your results, change methods, see what works and what doesn’t, that kind of thing. The numbers could be so he can track his progress.”
“What’s the goal, though?” I asked. “Trying to make a perfect mount?”
“Could be,” Ball said.
“What are we thinking here?” Beth asked. “Taxidermist? I mean…” She paused and brought the photos of the mounted heads near her face. “The facial features are a little off, like they’ve been monkeyed with, and the eyes are reflecting back. They look like glass. Hold on.” Beth shuffled back through the file to the women’s driver’s license photos. “Says here we have brown eyes on the DLs for three of these women.” She flipped back to the photo of the mounted heads. “Each of these women now has green eyes to go along with the changed hair, and it looks kind of like higher cheekbones.”
“I saw that,” Ball said. “Like I said, he’s trying to make them all look like someone.”
“Him trying to make everyone look the same strikes me that he may be trying to perfect the method to do this to a certain someone, you know,” I said.
“Could very well be,” Ball said. “But then there’s the question of who he is practicing this for.”
“Okay, so we find taxidermists in the local area that we can connect either geographically or another way to the home that the package was mailed from, and we have our guy.” I slapped my hands together. “Easy as it gets. Which leads me to wonder why we’re being sent out.”
“Well, it’s not that easy. There’s only fifteen or so taxidermists located within the area we believe our killer resides. The local office has been on anyone in that line of work since the paper received the package. Aside from everyone checking out, it seems that none of them believe whoever did this was a skilled taxidermist.”
“Why is that?” Beth asked.
“Aside from the general unprofessional look of the mounts, human skin being removed and mounted doesn’t work very well, we were told. One of the taxidermists had a look at the photos. Skin discolors when tanned, which the skin on these photos is not. He went on to say that human skin would stretch too much and is far too thin to be suitable. The taxidermist seemed to think that, within a week or two, the skins from these women’s faces would be decomposing, rotting, and falling off of the mounts. Which, thinking about it, is even more horrible than if they didn’t.”
“Yeah, there’s a nice visual image that I probably didn’t need,” I said.
“Jim is going to come in after a bit and get you guys all set for your travel. He’ll e-mail you guys the details later this afternoon.”
I flipped my folder closed and stood. Beth did the same with hers.
“Give me a ring tomorrow when you get out there,” Ball said.
“Will do.” I started for the door when a thought bubbled up in my head. I stopped and looked back at Ball pushing himself away from the table and standing. “Have there been any other women reported missing since the last known victim?” I asked.
Ball shook his head. “Not yet, but that doesn’t mean that our killer doesn’t already have someone or more than one.”
I scratched at my cheek, nodded, and walked from the room.
CHAPTER THREE
Beth and I touched down at the Louisville airport a few minutes after one o’clock. Though we sat business class, my flight was filled with a constant machine-gunning back massage from the five-year-old girl seated behind me kicking my seat. I looked back at her once or twice, at which she smiled, stopped kicking, and then resumed shortly after. Her mother, seated beside h
er, didn’t seem to be too concerned with her daughter’s airplane behavior—only administering a brief scolding once when the little girl let out a bloodcurdling shriek.
Beth and I trekked through the concourse and made our way down to the baggage claim. She stood at my shoulder, tapping away at the screen of her phone. I glanced over, saw she was sending a text message with a number of exclamation marks at the end, and took my eyes from what she was doing.
Beth dropped her phone into the pocket of her black blazer. “Done.”
“Done, what?”
“With Scott. That’s enough.”
“Did you just break up with him through a text message?” I asked.
“It was more of a finalization. We had it out pretty good yesterday. I told him I was heading out of town on an investigation, and he threw a little-kid fit, like normal. As soon as he started in, I grabbed my things and left his condo. So he calls and calls and calls. When I finally answered, he started right back up. We argued on the phone for a bit, and I told him that I was done trying and that it was over.”
“How did that go?” I asked.
“Well, he reverted to his usual offense of trying to make me feel guilty, but I stuck to my guns. I’m not happy with him, so enough is enough. The text I just sent was in response to him asking if I’d come to my senses. My response was, ‘Yes, I have, finally; we’re through; and I’d like you to get your things out of my place while I’m out of town.’”
“If not being together is going to make you happier in the long run than being together, it was the right move,” I said.
Beth nodded. “So how was your brunch yesterday?”
“Huh?”
“Yesterday, brunch? Before we left the office, you said that you and Karen were going to have brunch out in Fairfax.”
“Oh, yeah, it was good. We went to a little place in the downtown strip of Fairfax—sat and ate. Karen told me that we’d been approved for adoption. I guess the home studies went well enough.”
Beth swatted my shoulder. “That’s awesome news, Hank. Why didn’t you tell me that right away this morning?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just kind of another step. Karen was pretty happy about it, though. Apparently the parties involved believe that we’re an acceptable family for a child, so I guess that’s something.”
“Yeah, that’s something. Congrats. So now what?”
“We wait.”
“How long?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know. There’s some things that Karen and I have to discuss there. We’ll see. Longer wait if we go one route, shorter wait on another. We’ve kicked around a couple of options, but we really need to get into it. I guess I’d like to adopt a child in need of a good family, anywhere from about five to ten years old. Karen wants an infant, which would make the wait years, and by then, an infant when we’re well into our forties doesn’t seem like the best idea, I guess. Like I said, we need to continue the discussion.”
“Either way,” Beth said. “I’m sure you guys will be great parents. I’m happy for you. Tell Karen I said congratulations.”
“Appreciate the vote of confidence. And I’ll make sure I tell the missus.”
“Any new news on the house hunting?”
“A bit,” I said. “Apparently, a place that we looked at a few weeks ago and actually liked came back on the market. So now, Karen is all hot on that again. We’ll see. I told her we’d talk about it when I got back.”
“When is your lease up on the townhouse?”
“A couple months. I’m not against staying there, but Karen has this vision of us being settled into a nice house and welcoming in a child. If I know my wife, which I do, I’m guessing she’ll really start pushing the house thing any time now. Which makes me think that I should call our finance guy for preparation.”
Beth smiled.
After a couple of thumps and squeaks, the track on the baggage carousel started spinning.
“So, Agent Duffield is who we’ll be looking for when we get over there?” Beth asked.
“Yup.” I pulled back my suit-jacket sleeve and took a look at my watch. “When I talked to him on my way to the airport this morning, I said we’d be over around three. Figure we should have enough time to get checked into our hotel and get over there.”
“And the hotel is downtown?” Beth asked.
“Yeah, didn’t you get everything from Jim?” I asked.
“I did, but I just glanced at it. Like I said, I had a pretty full day and night of dealing with Scott,” Beth said.
“Okay. Hotel is north from here—downtown about ten minutes. Bureau office is east about twenty.”
“Got it.”
The luggage carousel started kicking bags out a moment later. Beth and I grabbed our suitcases and picked up our cars from the rental counter. After a quick drive, I pulled up to our big, brown fifteen-or-so-story hotel, smack in the middle of downtown Louisville. Red awnings hung over the shop windows of the businesses to the sides of the main entrance—a larger red awning hung out from the front of the hotel over the valet area. The sides and front of the awning at the front entrance read The Brown. The navigation running on my phone told me to round the building for the parking structure behind it, which I did.
As I waited to pull into the building’s parking structure, I caught a view of Beth in her rental car behind me in the rearview mirror. She was waving her hands and looked as though she was yelling into the mouthpiece of her phone. I pulled into the parking area and found a couple of free spots a few levels up. I stepped from the car and went to the trunk. Beth parked beside me, opened her car door, barked a few profanities into the phone, and jabbed her finger at the screen.
She looked over at me but said nothing. We wheeled our bags toward the bridge connecting the hotel and the parking structure.
Beth’s phone chirped in her pocket. She didn’t answer it or bother to look to see who was calling. We crossed the bridge, entered the hotel, and walked down a flight of stairs to the lobby. I glanced at the ceiling of the place and took everything in.
“Some place,” I said. “Looks kind of like the Drake Hotel we stayed in while we were in Chicago.” I regretted mentioning it the second the words left my mouth—Beth and her now-ex-husband had been married in that hotel, and I was sure a few thoughts were stirring in her head. “Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. Here, hold on. I need to take care of something quick.” Beth wheeled her suitcase up to the back of a black leather love seat, one of about ten sitting in the lobby, and pulled her phone from her pocket. She clicked a few buttons on the screen, let out a breath, and put her phone away. “There. He’s on the autoreject list until further notice. I don’t need him bothering me while I’m trying to work.”
I didn’t respond, choosing instead to stare up at the giant gold-and-crystal chandeliers, three stories above—the ceiling the chandeliers hung from was ornate, painted plaster. I looked up and to the left. A long hallway behind an iron railing looked down onto the lobby from inside painted decorative archways.
“This place is gorgeous, hey?” Beth asked.
“Fancy. Jim is trying to suck up to us again. I actually kind of wonder what his reasoning is as to where he gets us rooms.”
“You don’t know?” Beth asked.
I looked at her. “No. Does he actually have some kind of method?”
Beth smiled. “Sure. Ball says either ‘put them somewhere nice,’ or ‘just get them a hotel.’ Then Jim goes into his office and pulls up a search for hotels. He’ll literally search the words nice hotel and the city and pretty much just book whatever comes up if it’s within a certain area.”
“So Ball is the key?” I asked.
“Yup,” she said.
“Good to know. When is his birthday?”
Beth snapped her fingers. “You just missed it.”
“Damn.”
“Come on, let’s go check in.” Beth pointed across the lobby at the front desk. We stopped at
the desk, checked in, and got the keys for our rooms on the seventh floor. Then we headed to the elevators and rode up.
“We probably have a half hour or so until we should head out,” I said.
“I really only need to drop my things and splash a little water on my face. I’ll be ready in five. Maybe we can hit a drive-through or something on the way over there. I’m starving.”
“Yeah, that will work,” I said.
The elevator let us off, and we walked toward our rooms. I stopped at my door, and Beth’s room was directly across the hall.
“I’m going to give Ball a ring quick,” I said. “Just pop over when you’re ready, and we can take off.”
“Okay.” Beth disappeared into her room.
I slid the card in the door and pushed it open. The room, not unlike the Drake hotel, where Beth and I had stayed months prior, was classically designed. The wallpaper in the room was a pattern of gold, which matched the bed and had a striking resemblance to the carpet. A wingback chair, also matching in color and with walnut-stained legs, stood next to a big wooden armoire that held the television. I wheeled my suitcase between the bed and armoire to the office chair and desk near the windows. I set my things down and pulled open the curtains. My view consisted mostly of an old stone-colored high-rise directly across the street. I looked down at the street below and saw the red awning over the valet area at the front of the hotel.
I scooted the office chair out, sat, and dialed Ball.
He picked up at his desk right away. “Ball.”
“Hey, it’s Hank. We’re here. We’re going to head over to the local field office in a few minutes.”
“Sure. Did you make contact with Agent Duffield yet?”
“Just briefly this morning. Basically, an introduction and I’d see him this afternoon.”
“Did he say that they had anything new?” Ball asked.
“No. I don’t think he was even in the office yet. It was fairly early when I called.”
“Okay. Why don’t you or Beth give me a ring tonight when you’re through for the day? Let me know what, if anything, you come up with.”
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