“How did it get in?” Dean asked.
“I don’t know, might have got in downstairs and has been trying to find a way out.”
I walked the perimeter of the small room, not entirely sure what I was looking for. It didn’t appear that anyone had been in the room for a long time.
I shook my head. “Come on, there’s nothing here.”
After checking all the rooms, we left the house the same way we’d entered, and I made a call to a local contractor to board up the door. Whoever owned the house needed to be contacted and informed their property was being used as a party venue.
I stood in front of my colleagues in the incident room, after dispatching an officer to break the news to Mr. and Mrs. Stewart.
“Two teens, both friends, same school, what else do we have?” I asked.
“Both in the Philosophy Club,” someone added.
“Philosophy Club?” Without being disrespectful to the dead, neither Casey nor Dale seemed the type to be interested in philosophy.
“Okay, who else is in that club?”
Their entire circle seemed to be budding philosophers. I circled the word philosophy after I’d added it to the whiteboard, simply because I found it a strange choice of subject for them.
“Anything else?”
“Doc won’t have a report for a few days, but Dale’s parents said when he left their house it was for a run. He wasn’t wearing running gear in the back of the truck,” Dean added.
“So he’d gotten changed somewhere, and that somewhere has a selection of his clothes perhaps. The diner? Do they have lockers?”
“There wasn’t a staffroom, just an area outside, under an awning, where they could smoke or take a break,” Pete added.
“Okay, but I still want you to check. Do we have anything from you guys?” I focused my attention on the civilian data techs.
“I’ve found a couple of unsolved murders in a small place called Millbrook, Texas. There are enough similarities for me to think you might want to take a look.”
I was handed a green cardboard file. “How far away is Millbrook?”
“Only three hours away. It’s a really, really small place, mainly rural.”
“Give me an overview of what’s in here,” I said, as I placed the folder on a desk. I turned toward the whiteboard and drew a vertical line, sectioning off one area.
“It was a teenage couple that were murdered, found in a field, post-sex session, according to the medical examiner. They were positioned with arms outstretched, legs together, as if on a cross. That part stood out to me.”
“You say post-sex, why?” I asked, while writing up what had been said.
“Well, they were naked and he still had a condom on.”
“How did they die and when?”
“Five stab wounds across the chest and down the stomach. A little over a year ago.”
“Not easy to kill two people by stabbing,” Dean added. I agreed. Maybe there was more in the medical examiner’s report.
“But the clincher was, the word sinners was scraped into the ground above their heads.”
My pen paused on the whiteboard. “I need to speak to the lead investigator on the phone,” I said.
It was mention of a phone that reminded me I hadn’t heard back from my old colleague in the FBI. I’d chase him up at the same time.
“Please, someone give me something on the truck or the tattoo. Pete, anything more on the CCTV at the school?”
“Nothing more than I’ve already reported. The image of the tattoo that we circulated didn’t raise anything; one artist said he thought it looked more like a prison tat or certainly a backstreet job. It wasn’t done professionally, he felt.”
“Great! That leads us nowhere. Samantha, you checked out the blind spots at the school?”
“I did, as Pete can testify, their CCTV is shit. Mainly there for decoration, since it really has no function other than to focus on the front door, and in return that covers a part of the parking lot.”
I wanted to punch the whiteboard; we had nothing other than two murders. Two teenagers who should be planning their lives were sitting on ice in the morgue.
“Let’s go back to this religious element. These deadly sins, is there an order to them? Let’s try to pre-empt him.”
“Greed should be next.” It was a quiet voice that offered that opinion. I looked to the back of the room.
“Greed? Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes.” A young man cleared his throat as he spoke.
“Can you expand on that?”
He stood, a slight man who had recently been recruited to deal with administrative duties, initially. If memory served me well, he had some exceptional computer skills and often helped Pete.
“Lust is the first sin, it’s the excessive thoughts or desires of a sexual nature. Then there is gluttony, usually referred to overeating, but it really means overindulgence of anything. Greed comes next. Most believe its greed of money or material things. Sloth is the fourth, most people assume it means laziness, which it does in some Bibles, but it also means failure to love, God, especially.”
“How do you know this?” Dean asked, interrupting him.
“I studied theology.” The man came forward and I noticed his nervousness. I racked my brain for his name.
“I’m sorry, I’m Tim, I’m not sure I was supposed to be in your meeting, but I wanted to help,” he said, holding out his hand to me. He saved me the embarrassment of not knowing him.
“Tim, I’m glad you’re here.” I shook his hand. “So what comes after sloth?”
“Wrath, which is the desire to seek revenge, then we have envy, I guess that’s self-explanatory. Last we have the worst sin, the sin of pride. It’s considered to be Lucifer’s downfall.”
“How can pride be a sin?” Samantha asked.
“The Catholic Encyclopaedia says it’s the ultimate sin from which all the others arise. I don’t claim to understand it, I just remember it,” he said, with a smile.
“If our killer isn’t finished, and he’s following this pattern, we need to look at who fits the profile for greed then?” Dean asked.
“That’s assuming he’s targeting this group of friends and it’s not coincidence, of course,” I replied. I studied the list of names. “I have no fucking idea who would be next.”
“Are we still rounding up the rest of the friends?” Pete asked.
“I think we have to. I’ll have to run it past the chief though, it’s not like we have a safe house or anything here. I need to make a couple of calls.”
I headed to the chief’s office first. I tapped on his door, noticing he was on the phone and didn’t want to just barge through. He waved me in.
I sat at his desk while he finished his call, it was clear that I wasn’t supposed to know what was being discussed; his answers were clipped and cryptic.
“What do we have?” he asked, once he’d replaced the receiver.
“Dale Stewart, friend of Casey Long. I think there is a pattern, following the seven deadly sins. I don’t think Dale is the last one.”
“Seven what?”
“Deadly sins, it’s biblical. Casey was lust, Dale was gluttony, next up is greed. There are seven sins, six friends. I want to have them put in protection.”
“Wait up! We don’t have the facility for four friends, and their families, I imagine. This isn’t the fucking city, Curtis.”
“It’s Mich, and we don’t have a choice. The risk to them is too large.”
“Give me something to connect the murders, other than coincidence. This is a small town, Mich; it’s very probable that it is coincidence. We don’t have the manpower, or the budget, to do that.”
“Call the mayor, anyone. We must have some fucking senators or politicians running for something soon. Get them on the case, get the budget and the manpower.”
I tried not to show the level of frustration that was building inside me.
“This isn’t the FBI,
things don’t work that way here. You want them protected, take some of your team and have them patrol, park outside their homes.”
“I’ve got every qualified man on the job. I’ve got eight civilians doing the job I need professionals doing. I can’t spare my men.”
“We have a mayoral election coming up, I’ll see if I can get some support, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Get me something concrete, something that proves that this particular group of friends is being targeted.”
“Isn’t two deaths, two friends, concrete enough?”
“No, Curtis. No, it isn’t.”
I couldn’t blame him; we were stretched normally, without having a potential serial killer on the loose.
Maybe it was time to do something outside the realm of the small town police force; something not strictly legal.
Oh, Mich. Don’t go, Mich. How exciting! He’d been so close that I could smell his aftershave. He walked so tall, so confidently. I envied his walk. Was that strange? To envy how someone walked? It won’t be long, Mich, and you won’t be so confident.
The silly girl tied and gagged to the chair struggled again. I slapped her face, then soothed her when I saw the redness creep over her skin. Her eyes were puffy; one was partially closed. I told her again how greed was going to be her downfall; maybe she’d listen now. It was time to give her another high, time to move her to a more suitable location; I chuckled at the thought.
The police had made their announcement, identified garbage man. I watched the press start to congregate outside the police station, demanding answers. I watched the streets become a little quieter, Harry at the diner complained about a drop in customers. People didn’t want to be on the streets, how strange? Didn’t they realize, it was safer now that the sinners were nearly gone?
“Arrest them,” I said.
“Arrest them? For what?” Dean replied.
“Anything, traffic violations, I don’t care. Arrest them; we’ll have them in custody where we can keep an eye on them. The chief won’t sanction moving them to a safe house just yet.”
Dean and I stood just outside the station door. I’d hardly had any sleep in the past three days, I was running on adrenalin and caffeine, but it was when I had my best, or worst, ideas. If we arrested the remaining kids, we could keep them at the station. It wasn’t ideal and it couldn’t be long-term. Hopefully, for a few days, it would give us some breathing room to concentrate on finding the killer.
“Okay. Why not just invite them to come and stay for a while?” he said, shaking his head a little.
“Because then we’d have to tell them why and fuck knows what would happen then.”
“Mich, we can’t bring them in on a traffic violation. It’s a ticketed offence, nothing more.”
“So what can we bring them in for? Louis, for withholding evidence?”
“That’s a fucking long shot, and you know it. I vote we get them together, with their parents, and give them the truth.”
“What is the truth? Some lunatic is running around killing high school kids who may or may not be the same group of friends?” I sighed.
He was right of course, but we had to do something to ensure those kids were safe. “Call them in all together, at least,” I said.
I ran my hand through my hair, closed my eyes, and raised my face to the sun. I was waiting on a call back from the detective in charge of the previous murders and while I did, I pulled my cell from my jeans pocket.
I dialed, for the second time, my old FBI friend.
“Mich, sorry, I was meaning to get back to you. How’s things back in the good old police force?” Corey asked.
“Good, except I need some help on profiling,” I said.
“What do you have?”
I ran through the details of the two murders, and my fears for the safety of the other kids.
“Shit, you guys don’t do things halfway down there. I’ve got some leave coming up, need a hand?”
“Fuck yeah! I can’t get my head around this one to be honest.”
“I can be with you late tomorrow. Want to fax over what you have so far?”
“That would be fantastic, and sure, I’ll get on to that now.”
We said our goodbyes and I headed back into the station. Corey and I had worked together on several cases, but mainly one to bring down a nasty cult. That hadn’t ended the way we’d expected it to, many died and the cult up and disappeared overnight. Tracking down the elders of that cult was one of my ‘after hours’ activities.
“Want the bad news or the bad news?” Dean said, as I made my back into the incident room.
“The bad news.”
“Vicky Bell may be missing.”
“What the fuck do you mean, may be missing?”
“She was supposed to be in school, according to her parents, she never arrived.”
“Jesus. Fucking hell.” I slammed my fist down on the desk.
If, and it was a big if, Vicky was the next victim, the speed at which our killer was operating at was unheard of. He had to have been planning them for a long time. It also left a seriously uneasy feeling in my gut. Were the killings a build up to something else?
“Her parents are on their way, as is Louis Chapman, Kay Davis, and their parents. And that’s the other bad news, the chief knows his station is about to be invaded by all these people, and he’s freaking about it,” Dean added. I shrugged my shoulders.
“What about the other girl, Alison?”
“Parents are out of town, she’s with them on an extended break, according to Mr. Turner.”
“Okay, track them down, and I want every fucking building in this town searched. I want an immediate call out for help on the radio station, the newspaper, everywhere. Walk every street, look in every corner until we find her.”
I could feel panic welling up inside me. I took some deep breaths to calm my pounding heart. I stared at Vicky’s photograph, it was separated from Casey and Dale’s and I prayed I wouldn’t have to move it across to join them.
“What the fuck is going on?” I whispered.
“You have a call,” I was told. I walked toward a desk and picked up the phone waiting for the caller to be transferred.
“Mich Curtis,” I said, when I heard the click of a call connecting.
“Hi, Mich, I’m Detective Martin, from Millbrook County. I understand you wanted to speak about a case?”
“I did, thank you for returning our call. We have a couple of cases here that may have a religious element. I understand you were involved in a case with two teenagers some time ago”. I fumbled around to find the file.
“The ‘Sinners’ case?”
“That may be what you called it. Two kids, naked, positioned in the shape of a cross?”
“Yeah. Sad one, that. Two great kids, high school sweethearts, prom king and queen, if I remember.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Not much, to be honest. They had been at a party; parents weren’t expecting them back that night. A dog walker stumbled across them the following morning. I can have the medical examiner’s and our reports faxed over, if you like.”
“That would be great. Were there any suspects?”
“Not officially. However, we kept a list of three residents that up and left in suspicious circumstances.”
“What do you mean, suspicious circumstances?”
“Left without telling anyone. One was a bit of a transient anyway, a truck driver who would leave for periods of time, so whether he should be on the list, I don’t know.”
“Care to share their details?”
“I shouldn’t in an official capacity but…”
The fact he left his sentence unfinished had me believing he would.
“If there is anything you can do to help, I don’t believe our killer is finished and right now he’s targeting a group of friends. Two are dead and one is missing. I really could do with anything you have, officially or not.”
“I’ll see what I
can do.”
We said our goodbyes after I gave him my personal email address. It may not be connected. It may be a total waste of time, which should be better spent elsewhere, but if Vicky Bell didn’t show up alive, we were going to be getting pretty desperate.
“Mich, there’s someone to see you,” I heard. One of the admin staff had caught my attention.
“Who and where?”
“A priest, apparently you needed one? And in the interview room.”
I nodded and popped my head through the doorway to the incident room and called for Dean. I checked in with Pete, to make sure this was the priest he had contacted; the last thing we needed was an imposter trying to gain information. Together we headed for the interview room.
As we entered, a man in slacks and a white polo shirt stood. I hesitated at the doorway, not expecting him to be dressed the way he was.
“I’m sorry, I guess you were expecting me in full uniform,” he said with a smile. I imagined he’d seen the confusion cross my face.
“I was, sorry,” I replied.
He chuckled before taking a step toward us and holding out his hand.
“David,” he said.
I introduced Dean and myself, and we took our seats to one side of the small metal table, I gestured for him to sit.
“I was asked if I could shed some light on an investigation,” he said.
I nodded as I flicked through the file I held in my hand. I retrieved just two photographs, the ones that showed the words scraped into the wall and on the back of the dumpster.
“It’s kind of you to come in. I guess I don’t have to tell you that what I’m about to share has to stay between us, Father…”
“Just call me David,” he said, interrupting me.
“David. What can you tell me about the seven deadly sins?” I asked.
“Well, there are actually no real details of these sins, as we know them, in the Bible. However, there are precursors that reference them. The list has changed over time, of course. The sins that are the more recognized, the current sins for want of a better word were clarified by Pope Gregory, 590 AD, I believe.”
A Deadly Sin: An epic dark thriller that will have you wanting to leave the lights on. Page 6
