How many of these photos will end up on social media sites?
At the request of law enforcement, the major social media players were attempting to take down the pictures already hitting the internet, but it was a tough task. The kid who reported the body had only done so after posting it to every site he could think of. He was no doubt trying to cash in on the momentary fame.
Sam’s blood pressure spiked as he remembered the selfie picture the idiot had taken with the card he’d found on the body. If Sam had his way, the fool would spend half the day in the police station waiting for someone to take his statement. That would serve him right for tampering with evidence. Nevertheless, the notecard was the reason Sam had been diverted here before he could step foot in his office today.
He spotted a young man climbing a nearby tree to get a better vantage point.
“Sergeant!” Sam called.
A short, dark-haired woman appeared at Sam’s side almost instantly.
“Yes, Agent Kerman?”
“Get these people out of here,” Sam ordered.
Sergeant Kristal Bannister quirked a neat eyebrow at him and frowned.
“That’s not going to be easy, sir.”
“Do the best you can. Do any of your people have a roll of caution tape? The whole area should be cordoned off if possible. I want to give the forensics people some room to work when they get here.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” The woman nodded in lieu of saluting and hurried away to bolster the crowd control efforts.
“Thank you,” Sam murmured, even though the woman was already ten paces away. He caught the tree climber’s eye and shook his head. The kid got the point and slunk away, looking dejected.
After pulling on gloves, Sam went to the body and picked up the notecard which had fallen to the ground. He slipped it into a plastic bag to preserve anything that the selfie fool hadn’t destroyed already.
A long, soft curse sounded from behind him.
Turning, Sam watched a tall African American officer approach.
“Do you know her?” Sam inquired. Something in the man’s tone told him he did.
“Name’s Martha,” drawled the man. “She a regular sight in these parts. Homeless last few years. Tried to help her a few times, but she wouldn’t accept much aside from a spare sandwich or loose change now an’ then. Kept to herself. Moved on when told. Taught some of the younger ones which corners were good for panhandling. She gonna be missed. Guess that explains her absence these last few weeks. I was beginning to wonder.”
“How come nobody reported her missing?” Sam felt foolish raising the question because he suspected he knew the answer.
“Homeless folks don’t keep to normal schedules,” replied the man. His nameplate read T. Johnson. “Ain’t nobody keepin’ track of ’em. They move on to warmer street corners an’ alleys in the winter months. Lucky ones find a bed in a shelter from time to time.” The officer removed his hat a moment out of respect for the dead woman. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Sam started to shake his head and thought better of it.
“See if you can find some of the local homeless people. Ask them when they last saw Martha. Maybe we can work up a timeline with their help.” Handing over a business card, Sam added, “Maybe somebody even saw something that will help us catch this guy.”
“I hope so,” said Officer Johnson. He took the card and settled his cap back onto his head. “I’ll get on that right now.”
As he watched Officer Johnson leave, Sam knew it would be a late night. Pulling out his cell phone, he sent a quick text message to Mel telling her he might not make it for their dinner date. This was the fourth canceled dinner date, though one of the cancellations had been due to her job rather than his. Still, he wondered how long this could go on. They enjoyed regular phone conversations and exchanged lengthy emails, but eventually, they’d have to meet in person if their relationship was to have any chance of moving forward. Calling her would have been preferable, but he remembered she had wall-to-wall appointments scheduled today.
Pulling out his work phone, Sam updated his boss and told him how he would be spending the morning. Hatcher informed him that he was calling a press conference for 3 o’clock this afternoon to announce the official formation of a task force to investigate these murders. Sam started to protest until assured he would have a prominent role on that task force. The media had taken to calling the slayings works of the Parkside Killer, but Sam knew that was a misnomer. The bodies might show up in parks, but they weren’t killed there. In fact, a good chance existed that at least two of the murders had taken place at the same location. He would have to discuss the possibility with Dr. Stratham and Jenn when they arrived.
Sam wasn’t sure how he felt about Jenn being seen around this third body dump, but he couldn’t bar her from helping her new boss. The college internship had ended around the New Year, but Dr. Stratham had extended an invitation to continue on for a small stipend. It meant at least another six months of sleeping on his couch, but Sam didn’t mind. That switch had happened a week into her stay. He could sleep anywhere. Besides, he liked being able to keep an eye on her. The killer’s question during that press conference a few weeks back still made him queasy.
He frowned up at the sky and hoped Jenn and Dr. Stratham arrived soon. The weather reports were predicting snow showers on and off throughout the day. So far, the skies had been content to look gray and menacing, but Sam wanted the evidence collected and the body secured before Mother Nature could interfere.
“Hey, Space Cadet,” Jenn greeted softly. It was her standard greeting when she found Sam lost in thought. The traces of amusement dropped out of her tone as she absorbed the sight of a middle-aged woman curled up on a park bench. “Is it him?”
“Probably, but I haven’t seen any gray dust on her clothes,” Sam admitted.
“Her hands are unusually clean,” said Dr. Mira Stratham, already leaning over the body. “There’s a lingering scent of bleach too.”
“What happened?” asked Jenn. “She looks perfect from here.”
“Strangulation,” Sam said. “You can see some of the bruising on her neck if you look close enough. I’m betting there’s more under the scarf.”
Dr. Stratham nodded confirmation and continued her examination. Camera in hand, she documented every inch of the body.
“I want to bag the scarf and the hat,” said Dr. Stratham. “The killer likely handled them last.”
Jenn dug around in the giant satchel she’d taken to hauling about with her. Coming up with two brown paper bags, she held them open while Dr. Stratham gingerly dropped first the hat and then the scarf into the bags. The scientist’s camera clicked a few more times.
Sam watched her work without comment until he noticed her entire body freeze.
“What are you seeing?” he demanded, noting that the scientist was fiddling with the focus on her camera.
“Jenn, I need tweezers and a small plastic bag,” said Dr. Stratham.
Two seconds later, Jenn handed over the requested items. Working swiftly and surely, Dr. Stratham maneuvered the tweezers in between the stubby remains of the dead woman’s white hair.
“Looks like he gave her a haircut,” Jenn commented, “and a bad one at that. I wonder why.”
Sam waved her to silence, and she rolled her eyes at him. Together, they watched Dr. Stratham work. Soon, the scientist zipped the plastic bag closed and held it up so they could see.
“It’s definitely him,” she said.
Tiny, clumpy gray specks clung to the plastic.
“What is that?” called an excited female voice. “Is it important?”
“Hide that,” Sam ordered. He shifted to place his body between Dr. Stratham and the reporter.
“Agent Kerman! Is this the work of the Parkside Killer?” shouted the woman.
Sergeant Bannister went to quiet the reporter and move her back from the police line.
Although he really
wanted to ignore the reporter, Sam understood a day might come when he needed to be on the media’s good side.
Turning to shield his lips from prying cameras, Sam said, “I’ll handle the media. Keep the gray dust thing under wraps. We may want to release the information someday, but I’m not convinced he’s leaving it on purpose. If we tip our hand, he could stop, and we’ll have a harder time linking future cases to him.”
Jenn and Dr. Stratham agreed. The key evidence disappeared into the depths of Jenn’s satchel.
Wandering over to the largest gathering of media people, Sam politely informed them he had no comment yet and invited them to the press conference at the federal building at 3 o’clock. When he disentangled himself from the media hounds, Sam checked in with Officer Johnson. The man managed to get a local soup kitchen to allow him to run interviews with people on behalf of Martha.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of interviews. The nearly endless stream of homeless people regaled Sam and Officer Johnson with tales of Martha’s kindness. Most of them didn’t know her last name, but one old woman said she thought it might be Reed. Around 12:30 the soup kitchen’s director, Mrs. Bailey, insisted they take a short break for lunch. Sam felt guilty for taking food that could go to homeless people, but a warning look from Officer Johnson convinced him to accept the offer.
Martha Reed’s life story slowly unfolded like a puzzle whose pieces first needed to be gathered through a scavenger hunt. Nobody knew where she came from. She just showed up on a bus one day. After about a year of moving from one dumpy, overpriced apartment to the next, she moved to the streets. The remaining details covered how she treated others, which was generally well, and which street corners she frequented at various points of the year. Sam’s mind had started to get mushy with information overload, but he refocused himself when a nervous, mousy teenage girl plunked down in the chair opposite him.
“I think I saw him take her.”
Sam sat up like a dog on alert.
“What did you see, when did you see it, and where did you see it? Do you remember the day?”
The girl shrugged.
“A guy and a van. I can’t remember where exactly, but I think it was near Walnut Street over by U Penn. A week ago, maybe two. I can’t remember, but it was a Thursday or a Friday. I remember because I’d scored a bed at a shelter and came to see if Martha wanted to share. She’d done me a few good turns in the past, and I wanted to return the favor. But when I was still a block away, a van pulled up, and Martha got in. At least I think it was her. It looked like her.”
“Tall guy, short guy, fat, thin, muscular?” Sam fired the descriptors in rapid succession. He nearly groaned when the only answer he got was an additional shrug. “How did you see him anyway? Did he get out of the van?”
“What color was the van?” asked Officer Johnson.
The girl’s eyes brightened.
“I remember that!” she exclaimed. “White. It was white.”
Dutifully, Sam made a note about the van’s color. The chances of it being useful in the long run were slim. Sam had seen at least four white vans this morning and he hadn’t even been looking for them. He imagined that in a city this size, there would be thousands of white vans moving through.
“Did you notice anything about the van?” Sam wondered. “Were there any dents? Did you see the license plate?”
“The plate was covered in mud. Sorry.”
Sam nodded and thanked the girl for her time. Any information was good information at this point. This was the first time they knew of a definite hunting ground. Sam mentally adjusted his map of the killer’s activity, adding a pin for the city of Philadelphia. He’d have to ask Officer Johnson to pull the cameras from the area for Wednesday through Friday, just to be safe.
Is this guy from Philly or was he passing through?
Chapter 16:
Deadly Disenchantment
The Killer’s Lair
Undisclosed Location
Andrew Novak frowned at the wall of six large monitors. Each screen showed part of the same image. A peaceful little village sprang up in rolling green hills with fenced in sections for sheep, cows, and goats. The sheep pen was empty except for two lonely, bleating sheep. In the center, a popup box informed him that his city had been breached and his sheep had been carried off. Anger flared up in him, but he pushed it back so he could think. He knew who the culprit was without reading to the end of the message.
KingCool45. Couldn’t take a hint, could ya?
He did it every day. Andrew could deal with him. When a nice “please stop plundering my sheep herds” message failed to get the desired response, he’d looked into the matter more closely. Turns out KingCool45 played every day at the same time from the same IP address, which traced back to Belcose Technical Charter School in Lansing, Michigan. That explained why Andrew’s sheep herds did fine on weekends and holidays. This was probably the only game a novice hacker could slip past his school’s ridiculously random filters. Empire of Destiny contained no blood or gore, but it did allow players to attack each other for the resources needed to strengthen their fledgling empires.
Switching over to a new computer, Andrew signed in under the false account he’d created. According to the game rules, this was considered cheating, but he didn’t sweat the details. Hacking the system to create a character that had made it to the Space Expansion Age would probably put the game makers in more of a dither. It took some finagling, but Andrew managed to get the system to place his new character in the same neighborhood as his virtual bully. A few more strings of code conjured an army of clones with plasma weapons, which he promptly turned loose on the neighbors. The AI was so bad that even with grossly overpowered soldiers, he managed to lose a few battles, but Andrew made certain to handle the KingCool45 smackdown personally.
Once the king’s knights had officially surrendered, Andrew plundered the gold mine. He wanted to steal back the sheep, but that would have tipped the kid off. He could use the gold to trade for sheep anyway. At least his honor had been defended. The plundering problem was a nuisance to blame on the game designers. Whose brilliant idea allowed players more than three ages apart to dwell in the same neighborhood anyway? It was a bully breeding ground. It made more sense to keep the competition close so the rewards would be useful. Somebody in the Colonial Expansion Age had relatively few uses for sheep.
Having nothing better to do on this snowy winter morning, Andrew decided to flex his hacking muscles. One needed to practice to keep skills sharp. A few quick, legal searches led him to the website for Wild Imagination Games. Andrew had heard of most of their games, but he’d only tried a few. Empire of Destiny was the only one that appealed to him. Princesses and Ponies obviously had a different target audience than him. Pirates vs. Zombies had been interesting for a day before boring him due to lousy graphics.
A banner along the top announced that a new game, Cops vs. Killers, would launch next week. After reading the description, Andrew wasn’t sure what to think. The rated R game had “viewer discretion” warnings everywhere. It promised a unique experience for gamers. As the title suggested, players could create characters that were cops or killers. As a cop, they needed to gather evidence to lock up the killer, but as the killer, they could design ways to kill people. Cops earned medals and money for captures, while killers earned trophies and medals for successful kills. To be considered a “success,” the killer needed to fool three cops into falsely accusing other characters of their kills.
Since the launch date loomed close, Andrew knew the game had been finished. He found the beta version and broke into the code to see how the game ticked. Killers chose the weapon, the time, the place, the victim, and the tools of the trade. Tools included everything from shovels to plastic garbage bags to gloves to duct tape. More tools meant a greater chance of getting away with the murder, but tools cost money. Rudimentary graphics would act out the kill before a text box would describe what evidence would be left behind
. Then, the killer needed to wait up to three days or three accusations until they could move on to a new kill. If three people were falsely accused, the killer reaped the money and medal rewards along with a trophy for their private collection. Certain targets had greater value and risk factors.
Andrew’s anger flared. The game made a mockery of murder. It cheapened the time, effort, and real-life risks he was taking to right the world. He took a break to eat a frozen lasagna. Never work angry. It was one of psycho67’s rules. Andrew didn’t hold to every one of his friend’s rules, but that one struck him as wise.
When he returned a half-hour later, Andrew had formulated a plan. The game had to go, and the game maker had to go too. Dismantling the whole company would take more effort than Andrew wanted to expend, but if he put his mind to it, he could remove the company’s founder and most of the game files. He’d kept a few toys in his virtual chest for such an occasion.
Putting off the decision on which program to unleash, Andrew spent a couple of hours researching his target: Anton Polzin. The founder and CEO of Wild Imagination Games was a Russian expatriate residing in California. Since Andrew didn’t fancy a cross-country trip to exact his brand of justice, he considered other ways to hurt the man. A guy like that, whose whole life revolved around computers, would be relatively easy to reach.
After setting some of his more invasive programs to work, Andrew checked on his sister through the hospital’s cameras. Mel sat alone in the cafeteria eating a sandwich. The number of times she checked her watch told Andrew it must be one of her busier days. The angle of her head suggested she was reading something. Since he didn’t see a paper or a book, Andrew assumed it must be her phone. Cell phones were getting harder to hack, but the backup files kept by the phone companies were still guarded by Swiss cheese security.
Scratched Off Page 11
