Profile of Evil

by Alexa Grace

  "I came bearing gifts," Cameron said as he pointed to the bag.

  "Please tell me these are chocolate chip muffins from Mollie's Cafe."

  "They are. Thus, the need for hot coffee."

  Bryan punched a couple of numbers on his phone, "Mary Beth, would you please bring in a couple of mugs and a pot of hot coffee. I'm in a meeting with Detective Chase."

  A minute later, both men were sipping coffee and devouring muffins.

  "I may ask Mollie Adams to marry me just for her baking abilities," said Bryan.

  "She'd be smart to say no to that proposal," teased Cameron.

  "Yeah, well one of these days, I plan on dating that gorgeous female. I’ve just got to get her to say yes, and I'm very persistent."

  "Keep dreaming, Bryan."

  "Your brother was an idiot for breaking up with her."

  "Seriously? That was only a million years ago. Brody was eighteen and she was sixteen. Ancient history, don't you think?"

  "Just sayin'." After another bite of his muffin, Bryan said, "So what's up, Cameron?"

  "I'm checking on the dental records I emailed you yesterday. Are they a match for one of the girls?"

  Bryan straightened in his chair, flipped on his computer, and searched his email until he found the one from Cameron with an attachment. "Sorry, I didn't see your email until now. Let's check it out." He opened the attachment to reveal dental x-rays, and then pulled two files out of a drawer. From the first file folder, he pulled out the dental x-ray he'd made during the autopsy and held it next to the computer screen.

  "This x-ray was taken of the teeth of the girl found in the trunk."

  Cameron circled Bryan's desk so he could better see the comparison of the dental x-ray he was holding and the x-ray on his computer screen.

  "As you can see, the teeth are different. The front teeth are a little crooked and there is a cavity in the lower molar. Doesn't match this girl. Let's check the other one." Bryan slid the x-ray back into the file folder, put it aside, pulled out the second x-ray and held it up to the screen.

  "Perfect match."

  "At least one of our victims has a name. Sophia Bradford, age 13, formerly of Gary, Indiana."

  Bryan's office phone rang, and Cameron prepared to leave.

  "Just a second," Bryan said to Cameron. He finished his conversation, jotting a couple of notes on a pad as he did. Finally, he placed the receiver down and turned to Cameron.

  "That was Cheryl in the lab. We just got a hit on one of the victims in the Missing Persons DNA database. Our second victim is Amanda Jenkins, a thirteen-year-old runaway from Terre Haute. Her grandmother gave detectives there Amanda's hairbrush for a DNA sample." He handed Cameron a small yellow post-it note. "Here's the number for the detective in charge of her case."

  <><><>

  Alison Brown stared at the text on her iPhone in disbelief. He loved her? Anthony Burns, the sixteen-year-old, beyond handsome, and popular football player, said he loved her. She'd been searching her whole life for someone to love her, and finding him on Teen Chat was the most amazing thing of all.

  Alison re-read the text one more time, and then sat on a bench outside her school. Pulling up the photo of Anthony in his football jersey, she kissed the phone display. He loved her.

  Watching the yellow school buses roll away, Alison started the trek home. As she walked, she periodically pulled out her iPhone and read Anthony's text and smiled. A warmth spread through her body as she held her phone against her small breast. This must be what it feels like when you're in love, she thought. The feeling was just like all her teen romance novels had described—all warm and fuzzy. Alison wanted to laugh out loud and tell the world that she had a boyfriend. Not just an ordinary boyfriend, but one that was popular, handsome and athletic. Her heartbeat raced as Alison imagined what it would be like to be kissed by Anthony. She wondered how it would feel to have his strong arms wrapped around her.

  Alison was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she didn't realize anyone was behind her until she was shoved so hard, she fell to the sidewalk. She scraped her arms and knees so bad they were bleeding. She looked up into the scowling face of Jody Emmit.

  "Alison, you are such a klutz," Jody taunted, as her cheerleader friends giggled.

  "Leave me alone, Jody," Alison said, as she pulled herself up.

  Jody bent to pick something up from the grass. To Alison's horror, it was her iPhone. "Oh, looky here. Who's this hot guy?"

  "None of your business. Give me my phone," Alison demanded, holding out her hand and ignoring Jody's three friends, who had formed a circle around them.

  "Where'd you get this picture? Did you copy it from some magazine?"

  Alison ignored Jody's questions and reached for her phone again, but Jody slapped her hand.

  "I asked you a question, Alison. Are you hard of hearing, plus fat and ugly? Where did you get the photo of the hot guy?"

  One of Jody's friends pushed her. "She asked you a question. Answer it, stupid."

  In a whisper, Alison answered, "He's my boyfriend."

  Jody glanced at the photo on the iPhone, and then back at Alison. "There is no way this smoking hot guy would have anything to do with you. Not unless he has something seriously wrong with his eyesight."

  At that, Jody's friends laughed uncontrollably and called Alison names.

  Gritting her teeth and trembling with fear, Alison looked at her iPhone, still in Jody's hand. Without her phone, she and Anthony wouldn't be able to exchange texts. She wouldn't be able to tell him that she loved him back. She couldn't lose communication with him. She couldn't. Alison jerked her phone out of Jody's hand and stuck it deep in her jeans pocket.

  "You scratched me! I'm bleeding!" screamed Jody, as she punched Alison in the nose.

  The blow nearly knocked Alison down, and blood streamed from her nose; she wiped it on her shirt sleeve. She turned and ran as fast as her legs would move, knowing the group of girls was close behind. Although Alison's immediate thought was that they would tire of chasing her, after three blocks she discovered she was wrong.

  The group caught up with her near a weedy, vacant lot. One of them knocked her to the ground, and then they were dragging her through a thicket of weeds and broken glass, deeper into the vacant lot. Once the girls stopped, the kicking and hitting began. Lying on the ground Alison brought her knees to her breasts, her arms covering her head in an attempt to protect herself. The beating continued, until an old man standing on his porch saw what was happening and screamed at the girls to stop.

  By the time the old man reached her, Alison was too weak to stand up. Every part of her body exploded with pain, and blood oozed from her face, arms and legs. He pulled her to her feet and said, "Are you okay? I'm calling the police."

  Crying hysterically, Alison begged him not to call the police. Didn't he know that would only make things worse for her? The next time she might not be so lucky.

  <><><>

  Once Alison reached her house, she hobbled up the stairs, threw her backpack on her bed, and got into a hot shower. Examining her wounds, she discovered a deep cut on her leg and bits of broken glass sticking out of cuts on her arms. Nearly howling with pain when the water hit her face, she looked down and saw streaks of red in the water going down the drain.

  Shutting off the water, she wrapped herself in a towel and used a washcloth to wipe the steam from the mirror. Looking at her reflection, she started to cry. One of her eyes had swollen shut and her nose looked broken. Opening the medicine cabinet, she found some tweezers and began pulling out the bits of glass from her arm. Using a cotton swab and antibacterial salve, she gently wiped each wound and bandaged the deeper cuts.

  In her bedroom, she slipped on a pair of sweats and a soft, knit shirt. Alison went downstairs to the kitchen to find something to eat. She was pulling out a casserole to heat up when she heard the front door slam, letting her know her jerk stepfather was home from work. Her mother was at the hospital, so she was alone wit
h him, and no time to get upstairs to lock herself in her room. She froze and prayed he'd go upstairs and take a shower as he sometimes did after work. Instead, with metal lunch box in hand, he walked into the kitchen and sat at the table.

  "What the hell happened to you, Alison? You look like something the cat dragged in," he said, as his eyes scanned her body from the top of her head to her feet.

  "Nothing much. I tripped on a sidewalk crack and fell on the way home," Alison answered. She shoved the casserole dish into the microwave and set the timer.

  Her stepfather was still staring at her suspiciously. "Looks like you had more than a fall. Let me see."

  He was a large man, and it wasn't hard for him to pin her small body against the kitchen counter. With a finger under her chin, he examined her face. "Your right eye looks bad. You're going to have quite a shiner tomorrow. You say you fell? What'd you do, fall flat on your face?"

  "Yes," Alison responded. "I fell flat on the sidewalk."

  "That's too bad, baby," he groaned as he pressed against her, rubbing her shoulders with his large hands.

  Alison pushed at his chest and was able to move as far as the refrigerator, but he was too fast for her. Before she knew it, he'd pinned her up against the refrigerator, massaging her small breasts with his hands and rubbing his erection against her. His mouth slammed on hers as he slipped his tongue inside her mouth so deep she nearly choked.

  Alison was so scared and sickened she nearly threw up. A Britney Spears song sounded, and she jerked her iPhone out of her sweats pocket and had it to her ear before he could stop her.

  "Hi, Mom. You must be on your break. Yeah, school was fine."

  Hearing his wife's voice through the phone made her stepfather step away. He moved to the table, opened his lunch box, and began going through it. Alison used the opportunity to keep her mom talking so she could get up the stairs and behind the locked doors of her bedroom.

  Later, she pushed the dresser against the door. Pulling out her iPhone, she texted Anthony: I want to hear more about how you think I could run away to be with you.

  <><><>

  Chapter Two

  On Friday, still pissed at his sister, Erin, over her monumental fuck-up, he watched Sheriff Brody Chase climb into his SUV and head down U.S. Route 41 toward Terre Haute. That could only mean one thing. They'd identified one of the slaves as Amanda Jenkins, from Terre Haute. He wasn't as concerned about her identification as he was about what other trace evidence Brody and his team may have found at the burning car scene that could lead them to Erin and him. The sheriff was playing detective today. So what? He didn't care who Brody Bigshot interviewed in Terre Haute, there was nothing to find. Did the sheriff really think he was a stupid amateur? He'd covered his tracks and Shawnee County Sheriff Brody Chase would find nothing.

  On his lunch break, he parked outside the public library, which had free WiFi. Opening his laptop, he began trolling Facebook, MySpace, and then the teen chat rooms, looking for what he affectionately called an "O.H." — online hookup.

  It wasn't that he hooked up online with any teenage girl who would communicate with him. Hell, no. He had his standards and criteria very specific to his needs. In order to qualify, his O.H. had to be a lonely, preteen girl who posted her personal information like name, age, photos, even cell number and address on more than one site. For example, she might have age, name and relationship status on Facebook, but she may also have even more information he could use on MySpace. And happy day if she was also frequenting the teen chat rooms. Game on.

  The teen chat rooms were a goldmine. It was truly mind-boggling how many preteen girls, ages twelve to fifteen, would tell him the most personal and useful information in the teen chat rooms. The suckers actually believed they were talking with another teen. And when he lured them into an offline meeting, things heated up in a big way—especially when he was able to persuade his targets to send racy photos and videos. He looked down and noted he'd gotten an erection just thinking about it.

  All that personal information was so easy for him to get, it was laughable. God bless the World Wide Web, where he could be anyone he wanted to be. Better yet, he could be the person his O.H. wanted him to be. To date, his most successful persona was a good-looking, muscular sixteen- year-old football player with a sympathetic ear for preteen drama.

  When it came to preteen drama, the more angst the girl was experiencing, the better. Bring it on. Girls with problems with parents, school, and loneliness were by far the most gullible and compliant. If he groomed or manipulated them with enough sympathy, flattery, affection and attention, he could talk these girls into anything. Best of all, these girls were the best potential sex slaves he could persuade to join him in Morel. What preteen girl could resist a sixteen-year-old stud who claimed he loved her and would die if he couldn't touch her and be near her? Teen romance. Gotta love it.

  <><><>

  Although he could have had Cameron assign the task to one of his detectives, Brody wanted to interview Ellen Jenkins, the grandmother of murder victim, Amanda Jenkins. Thus he drove to Terre Haute, while Cameron headed to Gary, Indiana, in the opposite direction to interview Sophia Bradford's mother, Tillie.

  The drive to Terre Haute took Brody a full ninety minutes that he filled with Justin Timberlake music and thoughts of the murders. What kind of a monster snuffed out the lives of two preadolescent girls with a bullet to each of their brains? Amanda Jenkins had been missing a year and a half, and Sophia Bradford had run away nine months ago. Where did the killer have them all that time? Did he hide them somewhere in Shawnee County? Or did Shawnee County contain his favorite dump sites? Why did he kill them? What had they done to get his death sentence?

  When Brody knocked on Ellen Jenkins' door, she answered it quickly, as if she'd been waiting for his arrival.

  "Good morning, I'm Sheriff Brody Chase from Shawnee County," Brody said. "Are you Mrs. Jenkins?"

  The older woman scanned his face with bright blue eyes that didn't seem to miss a thing. "Call me Ellen. Please come in, Sheriff Chase."

  She led him into a small living room, where he sat on a worn brown sofa. Ellen Jenkins sat near him in a rocking chair by the front picture window.

  "I want you to know how sorry I am about Amanda," Brody began.

  "You're not nearly as sorry as I am," Ellen replied as her eyes filled with tears. She clutched a lacy handkerchief in her hand and asked, "Did she suffer?"

  "No, Amanda didn't suffer," Brody assured her. "May I ask you some questions, Mrs. Jenkins?"

  "Yes, of course you can. Ask me anything you want. I'll do anything to help you find the monster who killed my Amanda."

  "Where are Amanda's parents? Will I be able to speak with them?"

  "Amanda's mom and dad died two years ago in a car accident. That's when Amanda moved in with me," Ellen Jenkins began. "She never quite adjusted to her parents' death or her new school."

  "I imagine it's not easy for a preteen to change schools," Brody offered.

  "Amanda loved school. She made good grades and liked her teachers. Things were fine until a group of boys decided to pick on her. They wouldn't leave her alone, especially that boy, Troy Woods, in her English class. He seemed to make it his purpose in life to make Amanda miserable. Troy would follow her home from school, teasing her, pulling her hair and shoving her. He pushed her so hard she fell, bloodying her mouth and scraping her elbows and knees."

  "I see," Brody said as he jotted down the boy's name in his notepad.

  "I visited the school principal, who didn't sound like she could help much because the bullying took place outside school grounds. So I filed a harassment complaint against Troy with the police," Ellen confided.

  "Did it help?"

  "Troy stopped trying to hurt her physically, but his verbal attacks hurt just as much. There were only few days when Amanda returned home from school and she wasn't crying."

  "Who were her friends? I'd like to talk to them."

  "That w
as another reason why Amanda was unhappy here. She hadn't made any friends."

  "I understand," Brody said. "May I see Amanda's room?"

  Mrs. Jenkins nodded, and led Brody to a small bedroom at the back of the house. The walls were covered with a faded wall covering, and crisp white ruffled curtains crisscrossed the single window. On a square corkboard was a photo of singer Justin Bieber that had been clipped from a magazine. Otherwise, the walls were bare. A white twin bed with a matching dresser and desk completed the room. A photo with a smiling man and woman who were probably Amanda's parents graced the desk, along with some school tablets and textbooks. Brody picked up a photo of Amanda. She was a cute freckled-faced girl with braces on her teeth. Looking put out that she had to be photographed, her smile was forced.

  "May I have a copy of this photograph?" Brody asked.

  "Yes, take that one. I have another."

  "I don't see a computer. I know Amanda had a phone, but no computer?" Brody asked.

  "Oh, she had one. I just bought her a laptop, and she'd gotten an iPhone for Christmas. I haven't been able to find the laptop anywhere, so I imagine she took it with her when she ran away."

  Brody made a mental note to try tracking Amanda's phone through GPS again when he returned to Morel. The last time he tried, he met a dead end when he discovered the last ping was to a cell tower not far from Amanda's home in Terre Haute, then nothing. The cell phone had been turned off or the battery had been removed. It wouldn't hurt to try again.

  "Did Amanda receive many phone calls?" asked Brody.

  "Now that you mention it, she didn't receive a lot of calls, but she started getting what she called "instant messages" a month or so before she left. Typical teen, I guess, she never read the message in my presence. Always went to her room and closed the door."