by Dave Dykema
*2*
Laura Danvers walked down the hall and woke her daughters for school. Lately they didn’t even want to go outside anymore. Last night the twins had again asked to sleep with her. Though she hated to do it, feeling like an ice maiden, she refused. But what hurt her more was when one of them said, “Daddy would’ve let us.”
Laura wished that her husband had been around to offer support to his frightened children. They needed that kind of strength right now. She had tried to balance the roles of mother and father equally since the divorce became final, but it was difficult. And though it pained her to admit it, she was thinking of sending the girls to his apartment for a while, knowing full well that he would barely acknowledge them at all. He could be a cold bastard, but the girls would be safe.
While they got ready, she did too, paying special attention to her appearance. Today was a very important day. The Police Department had announced a press conference for eleven that morning. They would have to hustle to get some soundbites for the noon news, but what Laura really wanted was to get Sergeant Cameron to do a live interview. She applied some perfume to her bosom to ensure it—a dirty trick, for sure, but sometimes that sort of thing was necessary in the ratings game. Laura picked Lynnette Connor, her most experienced crime reporter, to accompany her. On a day-to-day basis she would never consider going on a story with a reporter, but this was such a potboiler that she felt she had to go to oversee everything, from setting up interviews to making sure that the microwave signal back to the station remained intact. It was in times like these that she most annoyed people, but it was also in times like these that she earned her pay. She was a hands-on manager.
Police Headquarters didn’t have big enough facilities for the coming media circus so Government Center was selected. All the local stations would be there, along with radio and print journalists, and some crews from stations in adjacent markets eager to cash-in on the blood fever. Nothing sold papers or increased ratings like a good bloodbath.
The police had been tight-lipped so far, “No Comment” being the reply of choice. Obviously they were under tremendous pressure. Laura hoped they would share new information. Their silence made her newscasts much more difficult to put together.
Dan went with them since Melissa was off doing research for her upcoming series, and other photographers were spread thin. Their drive to the conference in the news van was as silent as the police had been.
“God, we’re a quiet group,” Laura mused.
“I guess it’s the subject matter,” Lynnette suggested, waving her folder of notes on the case. “This stuff would give Stephen King the creeps.”
“I noticed the goose bumps on your arms while you were reading it,” Laura said.
“I haven’t felt safe in weeks. Who wouldn’t be scared?”
The killer, Dan thought.
*3*
It looked like a squid had been upended and set upside down on the podium, its tentacles branching out in all directions. In truth, the tentacles were a mass of cables and microphones pointed toward where Sergeant Cameron would be speaking. Government Center was a zoo.
Off to one side was a legion of photographers, both television and print. In the front rows were the reporters. Behind them sat concerned citizens and the curious. Rows of folding chairs were put out, but they were still not enough. That left some folks standing in the back of the room.
Sergeant Cameron stood waiting in the wings, nervously adjusting his collar. This kind of case was a career maker, one that could put him that much closer to a captaincy, and he was proud to have been put in charge of the task force. He knew that he had been promoted to a life of high media visibility as long as the case was hot news, and though he accepted that fact, it didn’t mean he had to like it. Sweat already formed on his forehead from the tight uniform and collar. Under the lights, he could imagine the torrential flood of perspiration cascading down. The city’s PR man had warned him to anticipate this, and advised him to use a powder on his bald spot to avoid shining. Cameron scoffed at him. He wouldn’t use makeup of any sort, no matter what the situation.
“It’s eleven o’clock, sir,” one of his aides informed him.
Cameron nodded, and adjusted his collar one last time. Punctuality was something very important to him. Clearing his throat, he emerged from the wings and walked toward the podium, carrying his robust body.
The room hushed as Cameron approached the bank of mics, tapping them apprehensively. A sound like a giant explosion echoed throughout the room, setting off a chain of feedback. Cameron’s eyes opened wide, clearly not expecting the squealing noise, and he stepped back from the podium, intimidated, as if the “squid” were alive.
After the echo died down, he dared to step forward again. “You’ll have to excuse me for that,” he apologized, offering a faint smile. “I’m a little new at this sort of thing.”
The gathered crowd nodded knowingly, forgiving him. They would give this man a little leeway to speak before they chewed him for dinner.
“I’d like to read a short statement before opening the floor to questions,” Cameron said, producing a few wrinkled sheets of paper from his jacket pocket. He coughed, and then began.
“I regret to inform you that at this time, we have no suspects in the Dumpster Killings. Over the—”
An uproar from the back filled the room. Dan quickly panned his camera around to shoot the screaming throng. People were standing up, waving their fists, demanding justice. They began to press forward. Dan saw that it was a mob mentality, and was fearful for Cameron’s safety.
He shouldn’t have worried. Cameron calmly raised his hands, imploring the crowd for silence. His serenity amidst the chaos soothed. He didn’t say anything, didn’t beg for quiet; he just stood there, gazing out, disapproving in a grandfatherly sort of way. He understood that the audience was angry—he expected this. After they got it out of their collective system, they would calm down.
And he was right. When the explosive confrontation didn’t occur, people slowly began to sit back down. Some were even a little ashamed.
That didn’t stop some of the reporters from shouting questions once the format broke down.
“What do you mean you’ve got no suspects?” asked a reporter from a rival station. “Are you telling us that after all this time, no progress has been made?”
“Quite the opposite,” Cameron replied. “We’ve been able to rule out several possible scenarios.”
“Such as?” the reporter followed-up.
Cameron breathed out heavily. In that moment he decided to throw out the established format and let it turn into a question and answer period. Ruling the proceedings with an iron hand was not the image he wanted to project right now. The people wanted, needed, a police force they could trust.
“In the beginning, these were treated as separate murders. At one point, we thought we had a fairly reasonable suspect in the slaying of Jennifer Cook—a man who treated her roughly at The Norseman’s Bar only about a half hour before she died. He admitted to following her in his car afterwards, angry and a little drunk. Why did he follow her? He says he was humiliated, and wanted to get even. What did he plan? He says he doesn’t know, only that once he started driving around, he started to come to his senses, and dropped the pursuit once she left the highway.
“The approximate time he gave when she exited coincides with statements Jennifer’s roommate gave us after the body was found. Lisa Brooks said that she awoke that night to use the bathroom. As she went by Jennifer’s bedroom, she saw that she wasn’t in yet. She remembered quite clearly looking at the clock and seeing that it was a little after two-thirty. She decided to sit in the living room and wait for Jennifer to come home. She knew it would only be a matter of minutes, unless Jennifer left with somebody.”
Lynnette leaned over to Laura. “Next he’ll imply that she somehow asked for it.”
“I don’t think so,” Laura whispered. “Cameron’s coming across as being sincere.
I think he truly cares about the people in this case.”
“After she went down the hall,” he continued, “she realized she didn’t turn the outside staircase light on, which she usually did when Jennifer went out. She turned it on and waited. She thought she heard Jennifer’s car approaching in the distance—it had a distinct sound—but then it went away. Ms. Brooks thought she’d imagined it after Jennifer didn’t come in a few minutes later.”
Then Cameron shocked everyone by breaking character for an instant. “The poor girl now feels guilty about the outside light, like having it off was some sort of bad omen.”
“Tell us more about this man at the bar,” another voice demanded.
“I’ll not give you his name, if that’s what you want. He might be a jerk, but he didn’t kill her, and he didn’t kill the others.”
“You said that originally all the murders were treated as separate cases,” Lynnette queried. Cameron nodded. “When did you realize they were connected?”
“It didn’t take long, but we kept it quiet,” Cameron said, sending a murmur through the crowd. “The bodies were found in very similar conditions, conditions that haven’t been released in full to the media. We held back things that only the killer would know, so we’ll have more ammunition to nail him with when the time comes to prosecute.” He thought of the strange pockmarks on the victims, little indentations into the skin that suggested the victims were killed or tortured amidst stones and gravel. He had his people combing quarries and aggregate companies for leads. “Also, we didn’t want a citywide panic.”
“What about the public’s right to know?” someone shouted.
“Well, I guess that’s a moot point now, isn’t it? Now everyone’s aware that he’s running around carving up young ladies like Halloween pumpkins,” Cameron spouted back, losing his control for an instant. He hated the type of journalists who felt they had the right to know absolutely everything. Some things just weren’t meant for mass consumption.
“Do you think it’s one man?”
“A serial killer? At this point, we think that’s a strong possibility. Our psychologists have come up with a tentative profile, a character sketch if you will, of what he might be like. Keep in mind, this is largely speculation based on past cases of this sort.
“The killer is probably a white male between twenty and forty. Any older would make it difficult to do some of the things we suspect. He probably suffers from an unresolved Oedipus conflict. Something, a recent trauma perhaps, has triggered an untapped murderous tendency to rise to the surface. In cahoots with his Oedipal feelings, he is striking out at women.”
“What about the kids that found that body in McAlester Park? Any new leads there?”
“It was dark, they were children. There’s no proof that the load the man was carrying was the body of Amy Whittenberg. He might have tossed his garbage in without ever looking inside and seeing Ms. Whittenberg.” Cameron said this with an air of authority, though he himself had a hard time believing the sincerity of his words. Dan zoomed in tightly to his face, searching for clues he was lying.
In fact, the boys’ words were taken very seriously. Every effort was made to extract a set of tire tracks from the site, but it was futile. Hundreds of cars drove through there each day. Neighbors were questioned, but no one heard anything, and the one man that did didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to have to answer to the possible outcry as to why he didn’t go help the children when he heard them scream. The bottom line was that there wasn’t any evidence to pursue from the park, so Cameron played it down as much as he could.
Lynnette piped in with another question. “Two bodies were found that night. Do you think there might be more than one killer?”
“Serial killers? That’s unlikely.”
“What about some of the missing persons? Might any of them be victims?”
“There’s always an outside chance a body might have been ground up in a waste disposal vehicle before it was found. There have been cases of homeless people who have crawled inside a Dumpster to stay out of the cold or rain, falling asleep, and being crushed to death when the garbage truck came the next morning.”
A silent grimace passed through the audience as stomachs rolled, playing out the scene in uncounted variations of imaginations.
“But since the two bodies were found, all city sanitation workers must check all Dumpsters before emptying their contents,” he was quick to add.
*4*
The Q & A continued for another fifteen minutes, but with nothing else significant being revealed. The general consensus was that Cameron was straightforward, but that his time was running out.
Backstage, Cameron wiped his brow, feeling good about himself. He was mad for allowing himself to blow up at that one point, but other than that he thought he carried himself well. Even the PR man with all his talk of powder makeup and correct posturing was congratulating him. When he saw Officer McKay approaching, he assumed another pat on the back was coming.
McKay quickly grabbed him by the arm and hauled him off, away from the others. Cameron became alarmed.
“We’ve got a problem,” McKay said in his ear.
What little was left of Cameron’s cheerful disposition quickly vanished. “What is it?”
McKay looked around before answering, making sure they couldn’t be heard.
“Two garbage men on the East Side just found another one about a half hour ago.”
Cameron’s heart sank. It had been three weeks since any girls had been found. He had even allowed himself to think that maybe it was over, maybe the killer had moved on, died, or simply stopped doing it. He was living a fantasy. Now another girl’s life was cut short. That’s why he found it hard to believe McKay’s next words.
“And this one,” McKay said, “is a man.”
Melissa Finds Religion
*1*
The water felt smooth against her body as she cut through it, stroking gracefully and powerfully. Melissa had been a swimmer in high school, so the art of gliding across the pool came naturally to her now, decked out in her lycra blue Speedo. Swimming is a solitary sport, where the participant can’t talk to others. The solitude involved invites introspection.
She recalled what brought her here in the late afternoon. She and Dan were taping an environmental story about how pollutants were ruining a local river. Dan suggested they go early so he could use some beautiful sunrise shots as a striking contrast to the blighting of the water. Coming in early allowed her to get off work sooner than usual.
It had been a fun shoot. Dan was right—the conditions were perfect for making the statement she wanted. At one point she stumbled back climbing up the muddy bank and fell right into Dan. He caught her and held her tight in his firm grip against his body, not dropping his camera. They were awkwardly off-balance, and she thought for sure they were both getting a face full of mud.
“Watch where you’re going, Mel!” Dan teased.
He hadn’t called her Mel before. She took it as a sign they were really beginning to bond as a team.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you handle me?”
She saw Dan smirk and caught him contemplating tossing her playfully into the mud. Her on camera shots were done, so theoretically he could do it.
“I don’t know…what’s more important: your appearance, or the camera staying in good working order?” he taunted.
“No, Dan! Don’t do it!” She clung to him.
He laughed, and the two of them swayed precariously to the edge, clinging to each other. For a brief moment it seemed as if they were the only two people in the world, hidden beneath the trees in the river gully. She enjoyed the moment. Dan did too. With Janet a dimming memory, he felt free to play the field. With a pounce, he decided to act upon his wishes.
“Mel, are you doing anything tonight?”
They were still hugging each other, and she knew he wasn’t asking out of curiosity—he was asking her for a date.
“No. Not
hing in particular. I had thought about renting a movie.”
She did a flip turn and cursed herself for saying that. The thought had never crossed her mind. She said it as an out, to see how serious he was in his pursuit. She knew there used to be a girl in Dan’s life from conversations as they drove from story to story. Dating someone from work just didn’t seem like a good idea either, especially someone she was paired so closely with. But she had been attracted to him since they first met, and now it didn’t seem that implausible.
Looking at him, she inwardly grimaced, wishing she had simply said she was free. He looked confused, unsure as to whether he should press on. His grip on her loosened and he repositioned his hold on the camera. Undoubtedly, there was still some guilt left in his closet.
“You can join me if you’d like?” she said, her last word lifting upward in pitch, making it sound more like a hopeful question than a flat invitation.
He smiled, the pressure off. “Sure. I’d like that.”
Melissa stopped and took a breather. Over in the hot tub she spied a young couple cuddling. It was probably against spa policy, but it sure looked harmless enough. And pleasant, too.
She put her goggles back on and started swimming again. Not wanting to think about the young lovers and her jealousy of them, she picked another topic to pursue. This time she thought about matters on a more spiritual plane.
Ever since the woman at the health club had brought up the subject of the group, Melissa had been intrigued as to what belonging to the group entailed. Deep into the research for her proposed series, she found a wealth of exciting material, but was disappointed that she was no closer to discovering the practices of the religion that was the catalyst to the whole project. She would feel a little foolish if she marched into Laura’s office to sell the series for November sweeps without anything to reveal about the woman’s group.
