I wanted to call her, or text at least, but after a quick glance at my watch and seeing it was just past three a.m., I decided against it. Corey, Dean, and I headed back to the station; there’d be no sleep for us.
Corey walked to the whiteboard, he spent a while reading all the notes that had been written up.
“I don't believe our guy is religious, but he is a member of the community. He fits in here, doesn’t stand out. Non-descript, if you want. He will likely be a white male, intelligent, comes from a dysfunctional family, and I’d bet there is a history of abuse. He’s rigid in his thinking, if you couple that with high intelligence, it’s likely our guy will be on the autistism spectrum. Because of that, it’s also likely he’s a loner. How many single white guys, perhaps in their early thirties, fit, and maybe no family known, do you have?”
“Fuck knows,” was my honest answer. However it gave us the opportunity to narrow down the ‘volunteers’ we needed for the DNA testing.
“Is he likely to come forward to offer up a DNA test?” Dean asked.
“I’d say it’s likely. He hasn’t left any evidence, and he’s confident you’re not going to catch him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t make contact, not because he wants to showboat, or throw himself into the limelight, more because he wants to get close to you, Mich.”
“Does he view me as a target?” I asked.
“He’s clearly fixated on you. It might make life a lot easier if you could figure out why.”
“I think I might know,” I said, quietly.
Dean and Corey turned to look at me. I sighed as I sat on the edge of a desk. No one spoke for a moment.
“This was pinned to the wall,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the newspaper clipping.
I unfolded it before handing it to Corey first. I watched as he read the article, his lips moving silently, and his eyes widening as he absorbed the information.
“This is you?” he asked, handing the paper back to me.
I nodded my head before sliding it over to Dean. I wasn’t sure of the implication of my ‘confession,’ but the fact that this article was pinned to the wall meant one thing. The killer knew I was a killer, too.
“Fuck, Mich,” Dean said.
“It was a long time ago.”
“It doesn't matter how long ago it was, what was the outcome?” I knew where he was leading.
“I was arrested for murder in the second degree. It never got to trial.”
“Because you were innocent?” Dean asked.
“Because I had a shit hot lawyer.” It was neither an admission of guilt nor confirmation of my innocence.
“Who knows about this?” Corey asked.
“No one. This happened in Canada. I’ve never had to disclose this.”
“Our killer knows.”
“Appears so.”
“Then we need to find a link between you and him, and this might be the key.”
“Why is he killing these kids if he has an issue with me?” I asked.
“Because he can. Because he wants to. Because, somewhere in his mind, he’s close to you. You’re seeking him out, whereas for years he’s been looking for you,” Corey said.
“Why?” Dean asked.
“Because I really did kill that man,” I said, quietly.
The incident room quickly became a hive of activity as those that had taken some time to head home for sleep were called back in. I stood at the front and fired off instructions. Was there a hospital missing a gurney? How was metal liquefied? Did we have a blacksmith in town? The list went on for a good twenty minutes as my brain whirled. I asked Samantha to isolate the DNA results we already had of white males, up to mid-thirties, in a separate document. We needed to work through those first. My cell vibrated in my pocket, I pulled it out and noticed that I’d received an email from Eddie. All it contained were two photographs that she’d copied over to me.
“This is what we’re dealing with,” I said, as I grabbed a laptop, logged in and projected the images to the second whiteboard.
Gasps could be heard as the first shot appeared. It was a close up of Vicky’s face. The gold over her eyes reflected the flash of a camera. The closeness of the shot picked out every burnt and exposed charred bone as the gold had run down the sides of her face. What had previously been lips now appeared to be a mass of dried, cracked, discolored wax. There were no other words to describe it. Her teeth, or the stubs that were left, were gold, the same substance filled her mouth.
I heard a sob. Samantha rushed from the room; her hand covered her mouth. The image moved on. The second one was a full body shot showing the paint covering Vicky’s breasts and vagina. It resembled an exotic bikini. Straps crossed over her chest, her stomach and her legs. Her wrists were bound to the sides of the gurney.
“Sick fuck!” Pete said, his voice cracking on each word.
“Before we continue, I’d like to introduce Corey Lowe. We worked together at the FBI and I’ve asked him to help with profiling. Listen to him, write it down, remember it, whatever, but this is the man we’re after.”
Corey gave his thoughts, describing the killer, as he believed he’d be. Although I hadn’t worked that long with Corey, I’d never known him to be wrong. I trusted him and was grateful for any help he could give us.
My eyes stung with tiredness, my throat felt scratchy from talking so much, my stomach grumbled with hunger. No matter how shitty I was starting to feel, I took my place back at the front of the room and we began to formulate a new plan.
Somehow, I was the key. I knew I’d have to come clean at some point. Right then, I wanted to be the one to bring the sick fuck to justice—or did I? Jail time was actually a luxury I didn’t want our killer to be afforded.
“We may also have riled our killer now,” I heard Corey say. I focused my attention back on him.
“As you know, a wall of photographs, predominantly of Mich, was found. He would have treasured those photographs, maybe even masturbated over them. His fixation on Mich may manifest itself in a sexual way, but I don’t believe he’s gay, or bisexual, even. It’s more a case of his attraction to Mich being misconstrued. He can’t distinguish between love, lust, and hate, so, like primitive man, or an animal, the sexual aspect is more of a conquering thing. As we know, although Casey was raped with an object, there is no evidence of physical penetration from our killer.”
“I wonder if I can add something,” Tim said, from the back of the room.
“By all means,” Corey replied.
Tim made his way to the front. “I’ve been thinking about this sins things. We assume, with Casey, lust was because either she wanted him, or he wanted her, right? We know she slept around so the rape thing…” he swallowed hard, uncomfortable with the thoughts that I imagined were running through his head. “Was that to destroy the very equipment that allows her to…you know?” he finished.
“I imagine so,” I said.
“So, Vicky. She’s wearing gold earrings, a necklace, and bracelet. Her clothes are designer. Greed of material things, and perhaps the reason for carving the letters onto her fingertips is because we use our hands to grab things.”
“What’s next on the list?” I asked. Tim frowned at me.
“What is the next deadly sin?”
“Sloth.”
“Do we know exactly what that means?” Dean asked.
“Most people will assume it means laziness, but according to our friend, Dante, it's an absence or inadequacy of love,” I said, picking up the book James had given me.
“Who fits that profile?” he asked, as he studied the board.
“Louis Chapman,” I replied.
He looked at me. “Think about it. When we interviewed him he showed no sadness for the loss of his friends. Yeah, he shed some tears but that was mainly because he was scared for himself. He loves himself, for sure, but he joked about fucking Casey, showed no respect for her at all. Is that an inadequacy to love?” I said, looking toward C
orey.
“Mmm, possibly,” he said, nodding his head.
“But we still need to know where you come in,” Dean said.
“Our killer has an ultimate goal. All these…” Corey waved his arm toward the whiteboard, “…are a lead up. Maybe there’s a connection between Mich and these kids, maybe he’s using these murders to draw you out, get close to you, or maybe he’s just having some fun at your expense.”
“I can’t think of any connection between me and them. I didn’t know them, never arrested any of them, or their parents,” I said.
Although neither Corey nor Dean spoke, I knew what was running through their heads. They wanted a more detailed explanation of what that newspaper article was about, why it was on his wall, and how it connected me to the killer—trouble was, I had no immediate answer to those questions.
The sun was beginning to rise when my cell bleeped to let me know I had a text message.
I’ve pushed Vicky to the top of my list today, starting in an hour. Eddie
I’d long since ignored the lack of affection in any of Eddie’s messages and, fair enough, in this circumstance, it didn’t warrant any. I replied.
I appreciate that. We think we know the next target and we have a profile of our killer. I’ll come on over later.
“Dean, Corey, let’s go make some coffee,” I said.
It was time for me to relive a part of my past that I’d hidden for the longest of times. A time that I didn’t want to revisit but knew I had to.
I shut the kitchen door, leaning against it to stop any unwanted intruders. As Dean grabbed some mugs from a cupboard, I spoke.
“I killed a man. A man that had killed my father in front of my mom and me. I was just sixteen at the time. I was arrested, as you know. That photograph in the newspaper was me leaving the station with my lawyer. Some of the locals were not happy that the case against me was dropped.
“This happened when we were in a small town, north of Toronto. My dad was a logger; we stayed there, with his mother, so he could work. I don’t know why my dad was killed, just that some guy came, late at night, and dragged him from his bed. He forced him to his knees in the yard and shot him in the back of the head.”
“Fuck, Mich. You’ve never mentioned this,” Dean said.
“It’s not a conversation I ever wanted to have. It’s not a memory I want to recall. Anyway, I’d heard my mother’s screams, I went to my window and I witnessed it. We moved back home, and then, over time, I watched my mother fall apart afterwards. She killed herself, I took revenge.” I wanted to shrug my shoulders.
At the time, taking revenge was the natural thing to do. It was all I could focus on for a long while.
“I knew the man, my dad worked for him so, one day, I hitchhiked back to my grandma’s. I took my dad’s hunting rifle that was kept there, I found him in the forest, and I shot him. I panicked, dropped the gun and ran. Leaving the gun was, obviously, my biggest mistake.”
“Were there any witnesses?” Corey asked.
“No, and that was one reason the case fell apart. My fingerprints were all over the gun, I had motive, but no one saw me.”
“But if your fingerprints were on the gun, and it’s found at the murder scene, how?”
“Because I often used it. I was photographed holding it many times. Not only were my fingerprints found on it, so were the man’s that I’d killed. I wrapped his hands around it. My lawyer argued that he could have taken the gun when he came for my dad. And I had an alibi, a false one.”
“A false one?” Corey said.
“My grandma told the police I had been asleep at her house that evening.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Dean said.
“There’s nothing to say. I did wrong; I know that. When I was interviewed about my dad’s murder, I should have told them who it was. I should have let the law deal with him, but he was an influential man. For some reason, my grandma didn’t want us to, we had to deny we saw anything. Then when my mom died, I guess, for a little while, I lost it.”
“What was his name?” Dean asked.
“I knew him as Tommy, Tommy Jameson.”
“Well, it won’t be hard to find out more and that’s something we need to make a priority,” Corey said.
I scrubbed my hands over my face; two-day-old stubble scratched my palms.
“Why don’t you head on over to my place and grab some sleep,” I said to Corey.
“Sleep? Who needs it? Let’s get to work. Find that connection, we find your killer.”
I paced, I cried, I shouted, and punched the sides of my head, knowing I’d be bruised. My photographs, my pictures, my drawings!
“Shut the fuck up, Mother!” I screamed, hearing her mocking me.
I walked toward her, she was upright in her chair, and wearing the clothes she should have been buried in. A real Miss Havisham! I punched her face, some of her bones shattered under the force, crumbling, creating dust and a mess. The force of my punch had dislodged her skull. I cursed.
“Now look, I have to clean this mess up!” I shouted.
Her headless body sat mocking me. I heard her laugh, as if losing her head meant nothing to her. I cried. I picked up what remained of her decomposed head and tried to fix it back to her spine. I’d repinned her bones many times over the years. I smoothed down her dress, noting that it needed a cleaning; the ejaculate had stiffened part of the material. I grabbed a comb from the sideboard. Her hair had come lose from the bun I’d fixed for her.
“I’m sorry, Mother, so sorry,” I said. “I have a pretty gift for you, do you want to see?” I held out the bloodied cardboard box to show her.
“We’ll sort those out later for you.”
I straightened her up, hating that my punch had caused her to sag. She was a proud woman, not that I’d known her. That cunt had taken all of her time: I’d only had her once she was dead.
Corey and I sat at a desk with two laptops. I Googled the shooting, bringing up as many old articles as I could find. It hadn’t been national news but was certainly covered in the local press. Corey used his login to the FBI’s database to see if Tommy’s murder had been recorded anywhere, other than on the local police computer system. In theory, it should be a cold case, a file still held somewhere as an unsolved crime.
The second thing I did was to fire off an email to the lawyer that had represented me. I could remember that he’d been the duty lawyer on call that day and I Googled his name. His company was operational but whether he still practiced was another matter. I’d have to wait and see if he replied. I needed to be reminded of all the details of the case.
“I’m heading over to the doc’s, want to come?” I said, looking toward Corey and Dean.
We arrived at the medical examiner’s office and instead of joining Eddie in her examination room; we opted to enter the viewing gallery. Corey wasn’t particularly great at watching the dead being examined. I was never entirely sure why there had to be a viewing gallery, other than to guess it was so a witness could be present in a high profile case. Not that our town had ever had any, until now. The murders had become national news, with CNN and Fox running endless reports and calling in so-called experts to give opinions on how the case should be handled.
Eddie looked over, having been alerted to our presence. She picked up a small earpiece with a microphone attached and placed it around her ear. She pointed toward us, gently waving her finger to the left. On the wall inside the room was a small panel of buttons, next to the glass window. I flicked a switch so we could communicate.
“Good morning,” she said.
We listened to her as she circled the body. She confirmed Vicky’s name, date of birth, and her initial observations. All of which would have been recorded. Dan was laying out trays and instruments on a table beside Vicky. Eddie continued with her external examination, scanning every inch of the body for evidence while Dan photographed her.
When she was done, Dan washed and weighed Vicky ready f
or Eddie to perform her Y shaped incision and start the removal of organs. The whole procedure took a couple of hours.
The very last thing that they worked on, and the one thing that we wanted to witness, was the removal of the gold substance.
In normal circumstances, Eddie would have to ensure the body would be suitable for an open casket funeral, in Vicky’s case that was not going to be possible. We watched as Eddie gently chipped away at the gold that had hardened on the side of Vicky’s face beside one eye. Small pieces were weighed and bagged.
She studied the substance and then turned to look at us.
“I’d need to have it confirmed, but I think this is real gold,” she said.
“Real gold? Fuck!” Corey said.
It was about five or so minutes later when I heard Eddie whisper, “Her eye is missing.”
“Her what?” I said.
Eddie ignored me and moved to the other side of Vicky. She chipped away at the other eye socket.
“Her eyes are missing,” she said, looking up at us.
“Like, her eyeballs?” Dean asked.
“Yes, this gold was poured into empty eye sockets.”
“Fucking hell! He took her eyes!” Corey said, his face screwed with disgust.
We watched some more, opting to leave at the point Eddie started to remove the larynx for investigation.
“Why the fuck would someone use real gold and not some other metal, colored to look like gold? And where the fuck are her eyes?” Dean asked.
“Because he’s a perfectionist. He wanted the gold to symbolize the greed, he wouldn’t use anything less. As for why he took her eyes, I can only assume as a trophy,” Corey answered.
“How much gold would be needed?” I asked.
“I have no idea. He poured it into her mouth, I guess that would have cooked her from the inside out,” Corey said.
I shuddered at the thought. Bile rose to my throat and the slight burn gave me a fraction of whatever Vicky would have felt at that moment.
“Who’s on patrol at the Chapmans,” I asked. Dean consulted his watch.
A Deadly Sin: An epic dark thriller that will have you wanting to leave the lights on. Page 10
