Cancer: Murders of the Zodiac

by Alathia Paris Morgan

  I know that cops are the worst when calling for backup or letting other divisions do their job, it’s just that we’re trained to run into a situation and it’s hard to back down long enough for someone else to take over.

  There wasn’t a label on the box from a delivery service which meant that it had been hand delivered to my porch. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any cameras around my house or on my street.

  Not wanting to harm any evidence in case it was connected to one of the killers, I got the tongs and knife to slice through the tape.

  When nothing jumped out at me, I used the tongs to lift the lid revealing a sealed bag with a puzzle in it.

  Deciding that the contents weren’t going to harm me, I picked them up and shook the box to make sure that was everything. A note fluttered to the floor,

  Dear Leslie,

  We haven’t really gotten the opportunity to meet each other yet, but I’m looking forward to you putting the pieces back together again for a happy outcome.

  Each month brings us a little closer and I know that you are wondering why I brought you into this adventure. You are the kind of woman that I would love to spend my life with because you challenge my mind and make me want to be better. While I know that can realistically never happen, I do hope that you think of me while you are putting this puzzle together.

  Ciao, your admirer.

  “Holy Crap!” I shouted to the empty house.

  This was a new twist, the Zodiac Master wanted to spend his life with me. Was that what all these deaths and recruits were about? A chance to woo me in the vain hope that I’d come to the evil side and live happily ever after with him? Surely, he wasn’t that stupid.

  I had the phone in my hand when it dawned on me that I could wait until the next morning to call Ryan. He needed to have one night where his sleep wasn’t interrupted with murders and puzzles from the Zodiac Master.

  --------

  Gresham, Oregon

  The body of Brian O’Leary showed up on the front steps of the police department in a large package the morning after he’d been reported missing.

  A patrol officer happen to notice the package propped up against the flag pole. Upon investigation, he saw the blood seeping from the ends of the package and called the crime scene units.

  The package was addressed to the police department of Gresham Oregon.

  “Heard something went missing yesterday and thought you might like to know where it is. Hope this helps you find what you’re looking for.—Signed A concerned friend.”

  “Have someone get a DNA sample from the missing man’s room to compare it with this package.” The officer in charge commanded, “It sounds like we have a problem and we need to keep this under control. Someone needs to pick up the second place winner of that stupid competition and get her alibi.”

  Shannon Downs took a seat in the interrogation room waiting for her lawyer to arrive.

  “We need to know where you were from the time the competition ended until today.” Detective Logan pushed the legal pad across the table to her.

  “You do this and we’ll check verify it. If you have an alibi, then you’ll be free to go.”

  “I’m not saying anything without my lawyer.”

  “That’s perfectly fine, Ms. Downs. We’ll be back in when he arrives.”

  It didn’t take long for a lawyer to arrive, but he took longer than necessary to speak with his client.

  As they returned to the interrogation room, a lab tech caught them.

  “While it’s early yet, they blood types are a match for our missing guy.”

  “Thanks we can use that against her.”

  Detective Logan took his time sitting down in front of Ms. Downs and her lawyer.

  “We aren’t accusing your client of murder yet, but it would be much easier if we could have a list of your whereabouts for the past thirty-six hours.”

  “I’ve advised her to cooperate with you and five you the alibi you need. She’s innocent and the sooner you clear her, the sooner you can get back to catching whoever did this horrible thing.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” The detective nodded to the legal pad still sitting on the table. Shannon glanced between him and her lawyer.

  As she wrote the last time down, he snatched it from her and went out to hand it to the waiting officers.

  “Let’s get this verified and narrow down a time window for when this atrocity took place.”

  An hour later, her alibi placed her with a group of friends celebrating half the night.

  Detective Logan walked back inside, “You’re free to go, but we’ll be keeping an eye on you. In the meantime, don’t leave the city until we have this matter cleared up.”

  “Whatever. I can’t believe I have to defend myself simply because I almost won a competition. This is such blatant discrimination based because I’m a female.” Shannon yelled over her shoulder as she pushed past the reporters standing outside the crime scene tape.

  It was based off of who had the best motive, but there wasn’t anything else to work on considering she had been the only suspect.

  Detective Logan wrote up the report, but knew Brian O’Leary’s killer was going to get away with murder because they had no way to find them.

  ------

  Chapter 3

  Ryan

  The bomb squad had cleared my package, but the note inside disturbed me. I’d spend most of the night pacing the kitchen hoping that I didn’t wake Shea from her much needed sleep.

  When dawn finally rolled around, I drove straight to FBI headquarters knowing that having them analysis the package wouldn’t produce prints.

  His note had left me wondering what he could possibly want with me next.

  “Don’t forget that I’m watching you and Shea. How is the baby doing? What are you going to name it? Something after your friend Jesse’s memory? Here is a little puzzle to keep you busy during all of your spare time. It might even help you in the future. Just remember that I’m always watching and you’ll make an amazing dad if you live long enough. -- The Zodiac Master”

  He was keeping watch on us and knew more about what we were doing on a regular basis then he should have. I’d had one of the officers bring me a sweeper to check for bugs, but I’d found nothing. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one, but I just hadn’t uncovered.

  “Detective, you’re here early. Making up for taking the day off yesterday?” Agent Watson joked.

  The smile slid from his face when Leslie opened the door right behind me.

  “What happened?” He looked anxiously from face to face.

  “A package was delivered to my home last night while I was out at dinner. It held a puzzle and a note.” Leslie threw down the box containing both on the table in front of us.

  “That’s why I’m here early as well. I also got a package, but I had the bomb squad clear it before I opened it.” I placed mine next to hers.

  “Crap, it sounds like he doesn’t want you to get to comfortable waiting on the next case. What kind of puzzles are they?”

  “I spent most of the night working mine hoping for some hint or clue. It’s a landscape of a farm, but there aren’t any identifying marks on either the front or back. I think it was a picture that was made into a puzzle. There wasn’t a box or anything to go with it.”

  “Did you leave it together?” Agent Watson inquired knowing Leslie would have used the proper procedures.

  “Yeah, but I already sent an email to the tech team to have them run it through the recognition software. There’s a huge possibility that he is giving us a clue.”

  “Actually working the puzzle never dawned on me.” I admitted, “From the notes he’s sent us, I believe that he has someone close to us feeding him information or he’s bugged our homes. I did a sweep last night because there was no way I could sleep and I didn’t find anything.”

  “You know that unless they are transmitting right then, you won’t find anything, right?” Leslie helped hersel
f to my package to read the note.

  “I did, but desperately wanted something to blame all of this on. I don’t want to start suspecting my co-workers.”

  “At this point it’s safe to assume that the zodiac master has people spread out in a network working for him. Kevin is supposed to meet us this evening when he gets off, but I’m not sure that he’s going to have much more information than we do at the moment.” Agent Watson shrugged, “There’s no way to find out who he might have near us so be extremely careful.”

  “With all of this, I only trust two or three people in the building to back me up. Do we have any word on what might be this month’s killer’s motive?” I looked around the room checking for anyone who seemed to be listening closer to our conversation then they should have.

  “I’ll have these notes analyzed, I would go ahead and get that puzzle worked to see if anything pops out. I know it seems stupid, but it might be the only thing to yield some answers out of all the stuff we’ve tried so far. He sent it for a reason so let’s use it.”

  Leslie had already taken charge by dumping the pieces out onto the table busy putting the edges together.

  “It doesn’t bother you that we’re stuck here working a puzzle when others could be dying?”

  She looked up, her eyes were ringed with dark circles from lack of sleep. “Of course it does. He knows what he’s doing. It’s a multi-level game to him, this is just the psychological portion meant to prove that he has the upper hand.”

  “When did you become an expert in psychological theory?” I started sifting through the pieces trying to find a theme hidden somewhere.

  “It’s the logical next step. He’s had us on the run for months and he has to let us rest or we won’t be ready for the next portion of his plan. It’s meant to lull us into a restful state so that he can work without us knowing what he’s doing. I don’t intend to let him get the upper hand.”

  “Ugh, I hate working puzzles anyway and this one is impossible because there’s nothing to base it against.” I groaned tossing the piece I’d been trying to match back into the pile.

  “There just part of the larger image, I look at it as more of a challenge without the cheat sheet. Give me two hours and then if I we haven’t made progress, we can work on something else.”

  The t.v. in the background was always left on the news channels in case there was something that was breaking news, the agents would be able to quickly catch up.

  I felt like a little kid sitting there with my arms crossed not working on the puzzle watching the news flash across the screen without really paying attention until something about Oregon caught my attention.

  Quickly scrambling for the remote to turn it up, I listened in horror to the report.

  “Two days ago, the runner up in the logger’s annual competition, Brian O’Leary went missing. This morning in a strange turn of events, his body was delivered to the front of the steps Gresham’s police department. At this point it is unconfirmed that it is his body, but since there have been no other events of a violent or mysterious nature, we are placing conjecture toward that being the result.”

  “The police have taken Shannon Downs in for questioning in regards to his disappearance since he was the winner and if he is dead, the title will be hers by default.”

  Disappointed, I turned the volume back down. “I thought for a minute our killer had struck, but it was just someone out for revenge.”

  “It does make you wonder though, where does he come up with the weapons for the each month. It’s not like there’s a list of weapons used by killers with zodiac signs. I know I looked.” Leslie didn’t even lose her concentration as put another piece in the correct place.

  “Did he just sit down one day and decide, hey I’m going to gather a bunch of killers with a random weapon that fits their zodiac profiles?” I started pacing up and down the length of the conference room.

  “What did the doctor say?”

  Pausing in my steps, I tried to decide how I was going to tell Leslie. There was a legal pad sitting on the table so I ripped the top page off and wrote, “It’s a girl.” Making sure to keep it covered so only she could see it.

  “Awe, yeah. Was Shea excited?” She continued to sort and piece the puzzle together.

  “We went to the baby store and bought all of the important things, like a crib, and car seat etc. It took me all afternoon to put that stupid crib together. It’s like they want to test your skills as a parent to see if your worthy by seeing how much patience you have.”

  “Oh, I believe it. I always heard never to pray for patience because your life will go to crap while the higher being doles out problems to help you level up to the patience of a saint.”

  I stopped pacing and leaned in closer to the puzzle and Leslie, “Right now I think you’re gaining lots of experience points for being able to put those pieces in the right places.”

  She blushed, “Nah, it’s just how my brain works. I always loved playing Tetris as a kid. A good challenge is what motivates me most days. Maybe that’s what he’s trying to do,” She looked over at me, “He’s trying to bring out the best of our skills to help catch him.”

  Nodding, I went back to pacing which wasn’t help to her or me, but I did find it soothing.

  “I had a date last night.” Leslie announced now that I was out of her space.

  “Really with someone new?” I took a seat on the couch thing at the back of the room.

  “Yes, I met him on another dating site and before you say that it was a bad idea. I plan to go much slower with Chris who is a lawyer with the D.A. We have more of the same passions, but only time will tell if it’s a good match. There were two others that stood out to me, but I want to see where it goes with Chris first.”

  “That’s interesting.” I mumbled closing my eyes for just a second to get rid of the picture of Leslie on a date with some guy in a suit.

  Laughter woke me up to find a group of people standing around me.

  “What’s going on?” I jumped up and caught my reflection in the mirror where someone had drawn a mustache on with permanent marker. “Are we still in junior high?” I grumbled knowing there was almost nothing that would take it off.

  The crowd dispersed when I growled at them making them scatter back to whatever assignment they’d been working on before my little mishaps with the marker.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this would you?” I gave Leslie a pointed glance.

  Her eyes widened innocently, “Why would I know anything? I’ve been working on this puzzle and almost have it finished then we can go get some lunch because I’m starved.”

  I glared at her before heading to the men’s restroom to see I could wash some of it off.

  Agent Watson appeared in the mirror beside me.

  “Did you have a good nap?” He chuckled at my appearance.

  “It was lovely since I didn’t sleep last night.” I glanced at my watch, it was almost noon. I’d been asleep for over five hours.

  “Here you might need this to help take that off.” From his pocket he produced a small bottle of makeup remover, “It works wonders.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  “We have to stick together in these times of great need.” Agent Watson winked and walked out leaving me holding the bottle.

  “Couldn’t hurt? Right?” I asked myself not feeling confident as I stared at the black streaks under my nose.

  A few drops of remover with wet paper towels helped to make it fade to a lighter black, but it was still recognizable. I rinsed and repeated until my red skin almost covered up the fact that I had black marker on my face. There wasn’t any other way to do it, but to go back out there and face the music.

  To my surprise, no one was outside the bathroom and I crept back down the hall to the conference room.

  “There take that.” Leslie stood up doing a dance as I opened the door.

  “You finished it?”

  “I did. It took abou
t three hours longer than I’d planned. Does anything look familiar to you?”

  It was another rural setting with a field and cows. There was a barn in the far distance that might have been the one from Leslie’s puzzle.

  “Nothing is jogging my memory. You?”

  “Nope. Martha is doing the analysis on the other one, but I doubt anything will pop with this one either. It has less identifiers than the other one did.”

  “Is he just getting lonely and wanting company?”

  “I think he just wants to keep us connected to the case. It’s his way of pulling us in and making sure that we have a vested interest.” Leslie frowned as she took a few pictures to send to Martha.

  “Look at this tag on the cow. Could that be an identifier?” She pointed to the white thing in the cow’s ear.

  “He might have left us a clue or simply didn’t think that we’d be able to pull it up.”

  “I’ve got a close up. I’m going to grab a bite and then hit Martha’s cubicle on the way back. You coming?” Leslie hopped up to head for the door.

  “Any chance you could bring me something back?” I pointed to my still present mustache self-consciously.

  She snickered before answering, “I’ll bring something back for you. On the bright side, you already knocked Shea up so she can’t send you packing because of your looks. FYI, I already sent her a picture so you can’t deny it happened.”

  Feeling incredibly patient, I didn’t say anything letting her leave without a retort.

  -------

  (another scene?)

  Chapter 4

  Leslie

  Martha hadn’t found anything yet, but she was going to continue to run things through the system and let me know if she found anything. I’d taken pity on Ryan and brought him a sandwich from the cafeteria.

  While I could be semi-patient for somethings, waiting for someone to die wasn’t really my style. Ryan had volunteered to stay and work with Kevin when he came in, but looking at data hoping for something to jump out at me wasn’t really my thing.

  I’d made it out of the downtown area before the rush hour traffic started. Flora had promised to help me work on somethings, but I hadn’t had much luck lately.