He stood and walked over, waiting for the ancient machine to spew the one piece of paper he was waiting for. He slowly returned, placing the piece of paper on the desk. Dean and I stared at it.
“Shit!” I said.
It was a photograph of a man, Mr. Webster to be precise, lying on the floor of what looked like his office. The carpet around him was stained dark with his blood, the white shirt he wore completely red across the chest and stomach. What stopped my breath from leaving my lungs were the letters written in red across his forehead.
W R A T H
“Tim, remind me, interpretation of wrath,” I shouted.
“Violence, failure to forgive, love of justice perverted to revenge and spite, according to your friend.” He waved Dante’s book.
“Love of justice perverted to revenge and spite,” I said, looking at the image.
“Justice, because he was a lawyer, revenge because he got you off,” Dean whispered. It was all I could do to nod my head.
Four people, three of those were kids, had been brutally murdered because of something I did over twenty years ago. There was absolutely no doubt that was the key to all of this, that image confirmed it. No one would be able to convince me that was coincidence.
“But we’re out of sequence,” Tim said.
“Huh?” I looked over to him.
“Sloth should be next.”
“Or we just shouldn’t have discovered this yet,” Dean said, quietly.
I stood from the chair. “People, we have another murder,” I said.
Corey was back on the phone to whoever he’d obtained the image from; we needed the complete case file. It was going to prove difficult because, if our killer was Canadian, they’d want him back. If he was American, they’d want him for trial, if we can solve it at our end, of course.
Things were about to get messy.
As the day wore on we got more and more frustrated, our hourly updates produced no new information, other than the phones hadn’t stopped with callers claiming to be our killer. Hours were spent on the phone, trying to determine whether they were genuine or not. However, not one of them could answer the one question we asked, to verify their claims. What was the clue that I had spoken about?
The sun had begun to set and I checked my watch. I was hoping for a preliminary report from Eddie, but I didn’t hold out much luck that we’d find any DNA. I began to wonder if our killer had police or forensic knowledge.
“Mich! Pick up the phone,” I heard shouted from the corridor.
Dean ran into the room. “It’s our man, pick up the phone.”
“Fuck, we got a trace going?”
Dean nodded just as I picked up the handset and waited for the call to be connected. He would have been kept holding on the line long enough for our trace team to get started.
“Mich Curtis,” I said. I watched the chief run into the room and it silenced.
“That was an interesting article wasn’t it?” the voice said.
“What was on it?”
“Oh, Mich, don’t insult me with the same question I bet you’ve asked a hundred times already today,” he chuckled.
“You know I need to verify that you really are who you say you are,” I said.
“Was it satisfying? Did it feel good to pull that trigger and then walk away?”
I gave a thumbs up—our man was on the phone.
“Not really. Since you know my name, I don’t suppose you want to share yours.”
His laugh sounded distorted.
“I’ve got a good idea, when you’re actually ready to talk to me, why don’t you call back without distorting your voice,” I said, and then put the phone down.
“Curtis, what the fuck!” the chief said.
“He’ll be back on the phone, trust me.”
As the minutes turned into an hour, then another one after, my palms started to sweat. The chief paced, scowling at me periodically.
“Relax, Mich did the right thing. The more disrespected, the more riled, the more our guy will want to talk with him,” Corey said.
“You better be right,” the chief said.
Before he’d finished his sentence, the phone rang again. I looked up and over to the trace team, who had set up in the corner of the room. When I received a thumbs up, I picked it up.
“That wasn’t nice, Mich,” he said, his voice clear and concise.
“No, but I’m not interested in having a conversation with a machine.”
“Are we having a conversation? How exciting!”
“So, are you going to give me anything?”
“Like what, Mich? You want me to tell you who I am? Where I live, perhaps? Why would I do that?”
“I’ll tell you what, how about I call you Sam, does that suit you?”
He hummed for a little while. I was trying to ask as many questions as possible, hoping that his answers would distract him from the length of time I needed him on the phone.
“Sam will do. I like Sam, maybe that’ll be the name I use when I’m done here.”
“Why the kids, Sam? Can you give me something to justify that? Something I can console their parents with?”
“Ah, the kids. You got it though, didn’t you. Casey, the slut. What a wonderful punishment she had. I took away her ability to fuck, Mich, wasn’t that clever of me?”
“Not really, I’d say killing her probably did a more effective job. If you’d have left her alive, I’d have been more impressed.”
“You’re not mocking me are you? Anyway, Dale. Dale was a particular favorite. Ever run onto a scythe? No, I don’t suppose you have. He was a druggie, Mich, no need for those around.”
I frantically signaled for a pen and pad. One was slid in front of me. I wrote.
How did he know–druggie?
Corey took the pad and pen from me.
Ask if he got high with Dale, he wrote.
“I bet you had fun with Dale, though, didn’t you, Sam? I mean, getting high with a bunch of students is a bit lame.”
He chuckled again. “They’re the lame ones, they want, they get, they abuse, and they have no control, Mich.”
He sighed at the end of his sentence.
“Anyway, I really ought to be going now, work to do, Mich, work to do. We’re not finished yet. I mean, we’re all sinners, Mich, we all have to pay the penance.” With that, he disconnected the call.
“Did we get it?” I shouted across the room, slamming my fist on the desk at the shake of a head.
“Fuck! Why, what was wrong?” Dean asked.
I watched a guy take off his headset. “He had a cell that bounced over twenty fucking countries, that’s why. I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t his fault. It was extremely rare to get an immediate trace on the first call. At least the team could weed out the countries we knew he wasn’t in and hopefully speed up the tracking process.
“So we’re not only looking for a psycho but a technologically intelligent one, as well,” Dean said.
“You can learn how to avoid a trace on YouTube,” Corey said.
“He bounced his signal over different satellites and through different countries. He cut the call off before we got to him,” our trace guy said.
“But we do have a voice recording, so let’s start with that,” I said.
We replayed the message, listening for anything we could pick up, an accent, for example, or background noise. There was a very slight echo suggesting he was in an empty building. If I had the resources I did when I was in the FBI, I’d be able to identify the type of wall from that echo. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the budget, or the time.
“Right, he didn’t react at all to your use of the word ‘student’,” Corey said.
Something clicked in my mind. “Hold on,” I said, reaching for the case file. I flipped through it, noticing the details from the Sinners murders had been added. I put them to one side. I pulled out the notes from when I’d interviewed Louis.
“Louis said that he t
hought Dale bought his drugs from a teacher. Our guy knew Dale took drugs. Are we looking for a teacher?” I said.
Dean grabbed the list of teachers at Montford. He drew a line through the females and although we hadn’t made extensive notes, we racked our brains on who would fit the profile, deleting any men over thirty-five. We were left with ten.
“Get me all the details you can on these men,” I said, handing the piece of paper to Samantha.
“Is he going to call back?” Dean asked.
“He’s going to do something before he does. He’s not convinced you have enough respect for him. He wants to show off a little more,” Corey said.
“How do you come up with that?” Dean said.
“Mich told him he wasn’t impressed with him when he wanted appreciation for what he’d done to Casey. He’ll act soon, because he’s craving that respect. He wants Mich to be proud of him, congratulate him, even.”
“Then we need to triple protection at the Chapmans,” I said.
The trap had been set. Corey was absolutely right, because I hadn’t agreed with Sam, I hadn’t been impressed with his work, he would try again. When recognition and appreciation was what he was after, he would keep going until he got it. That was something that had been proven time and time again where serial killers were concerned.
“How close are we to this case being taken over?” I asked Corey.
He rocked his head from side to side, as if contemplating. “They know I’m here, albeit unofficially. Get your chief to make it official, and I can probably handle what needs to be done to stop them taking the case off you.”
I nodded.
“You can intervene to that level?” Dean said.
“In an investigation of this magnitude, we, or rather, the FBI, would have been called in. The case would have been referred to NCAVC, and their behavioral analysis unit. Corey ran that unit for a while,” I said.
“NCAVC?” Samantha, overhearing us, asked.
“National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime. Pretty interesting place,” I replied.
I picked up the phone and dialed Mr. Chapman’s cell.
“Mr. Chapman, we have made some developments in the case. I can’t disclose what, but I want to up the security at your property,” I said after introducing myself.
“Okay, I have to say, Detective, we’re going a little stir crazy here. We need to get to the store pretty soon as well.”
“How about I get a car to take you?”
“I’m not sure about all this. How long is this going to go on for? We can’t live like this indefinitely.”
“I appreciate that, but until the risk to your son and Kay, is lowered, I can’t recommend anything other than what I am. Stay put; you have armed patrols around the clock. I know it’s frustrating. If you want to get out of state, or the country even, I can organize transport for that.”
“I think we might have to consider that. Let me talk to the others and I’ll give you a call back.”
Maybe getting Louis, Kay, and their families out of state, across the country even, was a better idea than imprisoning them in the Chapman home.
It had been quite exciting but also very insulting speaking with Mich. I expected a little more from him. I expected him to be impressed with my ability to dodge his trace. Did he not realize I knew exactly what he was doing? He had disrespected, underestimated me. Maybe he needed another little gift, another death to have on his conscience. I grabbed my duffle, my bag of tricks, as I liked to call it, and headed for the truck. I’ll give them the truck when this one was done.
Louis Chapman. He had done exactly what I’d expected of him. The dumb shit couldn’t follow simple orders. Now he’d pay for that. He’d got in contact, emailed a fake account I owned, wanting a hit. He was bored, being confined to his house with armed police officers protecting him didn’t seem to stop him from wanting to meet me. Well, young Louis, you just made a big mistake.
I didn’t care how he’d get out of his house unnoticed. I’d given him the precise times each patrol performed their circuit, how long each one took, the few minutes in between the changeover that he’d need to use to climb from his bedroom window and cross his yard to the field behind, unnoticed. I’d be waiting for him. He used to send Dale to score for him, the lazy fuck. He didn’t really care for anyone other than himself.
One of the things that was to my benefit was the minute the townsfolk knew they had a serial killer in their midst, according to the press, they stayed off the streets at night. All I had to do was to ensure I wasn’t seen by any cruising patrol cars. I knew where every CCTV was. To drive out of town, I skirted around them using the farm roads as cover. I’d been doing it for a while without detection.
Louis was where I’d instructed him to be. The dumb fuck wasn’t even suspicious that he was walking to the passenger door of a blue Ford truck, probably the most wanted vehicle in the state. He climbed in, arrogantly demanded his cocaine, and waved a fistful of dollars in my face. He didn’t see the hypodermic needle that pierced his jeans, his flesh, and deposited a large dose of ketamine into his thigh. The shock that registered as the drug spread rapidly through his body, causing paralysis, made me laugh. I tutted as he pissed himself, the smell nearly had me gag.
I smiled at him; it was time to take him to meet Mother.
The voice on the other end of the phone was frantic; high-pitched wailing made it hard to understand Mrs. Chapman as she sobbed her way through telling me Louis was missing.
“Fuck!” I shouted. Dean, Corey, Pete, and the team members that were in the room looked over to me.
“Louis Chapman is missing,” I said, holding the cell away from my ear.
“Mrs. Chapman, we’re on our way,” I said.
I jumped from the chair and Dean, Corey and I ran to the parking lot. We were at the Chapman house within minutes. It was a large, gated property on the edge of town; farmland surrounded it. Outdoor lights blazed, the police presence had doubled as Dean had called in reinforcements. We pulled to a halt outside the electric gates, waiting for them to slowly open. Mr. Chapman was pacing the front yard as we pulled to a halt in front of his house.
“Tell me what you know,” I said, as I exited the car.
“His bedroom window is open. We thought he was in his room, watching the TV or something. He was moaning about being bored. Fuck, Mich, what if…”
“Don’t go there just yet, he may turn up,” I replied.
My initial thought was that our killer wouldn’t be sitting outside waiting in the hope Louis might sneak out of his house. I prayed Louis would return when he’d had his fix of freedom. Dean had already started to coordinate a search, firstly of the grounds and the farmland surrounding it. It was early evening; we would lose natural light in another couple of hours. It was imperative that we covered the immediate area as quickly as possible.
Kay was sitting on the couch; her mother had her arm around her shoulders. She cried, quietly, and I could see her body trying to hold back the panic and the sobs threatening to overwhelm her. I crouched in front of her.
“Kay, did Louis say anything to you?” I asked.
‘He’s bored, he wanted to get high,” she said.
“So, he’s gone for drugs?”
“I don’t know, I guess so.” She tried to catch the sobs before they left her lips.
“Kay, who supplies the drugs?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Louis organizes it; Dale collects…collected. Oh, God, I want to go home. Please, Mom, can we just go home?” She turned to her mother and let her anguish out.
“Have you checked his room for his phone, a laptop, anything? I need to know how he contacted his dealer,” I asked, turning back to Mr. Chapman.
“Of course,” he snapped back. I forgave him that; I would have hated to be in his position right then.
I watched as tears rolled gently down his cheeks. Mrs. Chapman had wrapped her arms around herself and was rocking gently on a chair. S
he moaned as if in physical pain.
“Can I see his room?” I asked. Mr. Chapman nodded; I followed him through the living room and up the stairs.
Louis had a room that was about the same square footage as my whole house. I stood, at first, in the middle and let my mind absorb the room. The window was open; a breeze blew dark blue, heavy drapes. The double bed to one side of the room had a duvet that was creased. I guessed Louis had been lying on top before deciding to act like a fucking idiot. Had Mr. Chapman not been in the same room, I think I would have cursed him out loud. If he returned, I was going to drag the prick to the station and have him put in a cell for wasting our time.
Somehow, I got the feeling that wasn’t going to happen, though.
I looked through the window, just below was a thin ledge where wood siding ended, meeting tiles. Louis was a big lad; I was surprised that ledge would take his weight, yet we were too high for him to have jumped. I saw Dean leave the house and stare back up to me.
Right at that moment, how Louis had left the house wasn’t important. Dean pointed to something just to the side of the window I was looking out of. For a moment my heart raced a little faster than it already was.
“You have CCTV,” I said, as I returned to the center of the room.
“Shit,” Mr. Chapman said. He turned from the room and ran down the stairs, through to the kitchen, and then a door into a garage.
I called for Corey and we sat with Mr. Chapman as he scrolled back through the past hour’s worth of recording. Louis made no attempt to conceal himself as he was filmed running across the lawn. He jumped, his hands catching the top of the boundary wall and he hauled himself over. At that point he was out of view. Although the image captured part of the field behind, I guessed Louis had kept close to the wall.
“Which way did you go?” I said, more to myself.
“Had to be left. There’s a farm road a quarter of a mile that way,” I heard Mr. Chapman say.
Within a few seconds, Corey was out of the room and instructing as many officers as he could find to get over that wall, and follow the route Louis had taken. We sent a patrol car to drive along the road and meet up with the foot patrol.
A Deadly Sin: An epic dark thriller that will have you wanting to leave the lights on. Page 12
