Victim 14
Page 1
Victim 14
A Detective Emily Tizzano Vigilante Justice Thriller
KJ Kalis
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 KJ Kalis
eISBN 978-1-7352192-8-8
ISBN 978-1-7352192-9-5
All rights reserved
* * *
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved, no part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise including technology to be yet released), without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.
* * *
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.
* * *
Published by:
* * *
BDM, LLC
Also by K.J. Kalis:
The Kat Beckman Thriller Series:
The Cure
Fourteen Days
Burned
The Blackout
The Bloody Canvas
Sauk Valley Killer
* * *
The Emily Tizzano Vigilante Justice Series:
Twelve Years Gone
Lakeview Vendetta
Victim 14
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
1
A dampness hung in the air over the trees and scrub around Little Bayou Pond. There’d been rain on and off for weeks, enough so that Ollie parked farther away from the edge of the water than he was used to, otherwise the wheels from the van might get stuck. On a normal day, it wouldn’t have mattered.
But today was a special day…
Along with the darkness and damp, the sound of toads calling out to each other, the night birds awakening, and rustling of small unseen creatures in the brush, filled Ollie’s ears. With each step, he could feel his boots sinking into the muddy ground, the wet soil squishing up around the tread. More rain was predicted in the next few hours, probably enough to wash away any tire tracks or footprints. At least, that’s what Ollie hoped.
Ollie’s breath came in waves, his lungs sucking in as much oxygen as they could absorb with each step. He wasn’t used to carrying such a heavy load this far from the van. Parking farther away meant he had to lug the body a longer distance than usual.
“At least it’s not a whole body,” he muttered, getting close to the water’s edge. Ollie stopped, setting it down near the water’s edge. It was a tradition of sorts, taking a moment to think about what he’d done. He realized if someone asked him if he felt bad about killing, he’d say no. The weight of that realization laid heavy on him, knowing that he felt worse about not feeling bad than he did about what he’d done.
Ollie straightened up, pain shooting through his body. His lower back was aching, the weight of the torso he’d been carrying having stretched and pushed his muscles past what they were used to. Each one of them weighted at least a hundred pounds, he figured. Ollie stood at the edge of the pond. There was only one last step. It was his favorite part of the entire process, the part that gave him freedom, a release. He lifted his arm, using his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his brow. Summers in Louisiana were hot and humid no matter what time of day it was. The thick air hung over the pond like a cloud, the dampness almost enough to create rain.
As he glanced down at the body at his feet, or at least what was left of the body, Ollie flashed back to just a few hours before, when the man he’d captured tried to beg for his life. What the man didn’t know was that begging would do him no good. But Ollie wasn’t someone that got joy out of watching people suffer. He just wasn’t that way, but his memories had to be appeased. There was no choice about that.
On the ground, Ollie saw a rock near the edge of the water that reminded him of the brick he’d picked up and smashed into the man’s face, rendering him unconscious. There was mercy in that, Ollie thought, bending over to pick up the torso for the final time. As he did, his fingers nearly slipped into the bloody edge of the cut where one of the man’s legs had been severed. Taking two steps forward, Ollie knelt, allowing the edge of the man’s dead skin to caress the water before letting it go. Heaving with his arms, Ollie pushed the torso away from him, watching it as it disappeared under the surface of the water, noticing the color of the skin pale and gray in what moonlight could get through the passing clouds overhead. The surface of the skin was sleek and smooth, hairless, all features removed. It didn’t look much different from one of the sides of beef that Ollie’s father used to bring home from the butcher when he was a child.
As Ollie stood up, he wiped his hands on his pants, leaving reddish stains on the front of his jeans. He bent over again, rinsing his hands in the pond water, red droplets releasing from the tips of his fingers as he stared at the pond for another moment.
It was time to go home…
2
Miner barked, a high-pitched yelp that let Emily know someone was at the back door. It was followed by a click and then Mike’s lanky frame making his way into the kitchen. “Good morning,” Mike said, slinging his backpack down on the floor, ruffling Miner’s fur and then pushing a few long hairs out of his own eyes. “What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing new here,” Emily said. “I wasn’t expecting you this morning. Everything okay?” After the last case Mike and Emily worked on together, their relationship had changed. When Mike abandoned her in the middle of a case and took Miner with him, there was a pause in their relationship. That lasted for a month or so, and then Mike started coming around more again. Emily hadn’t pushed it, but somehow Mike seemed different now. As Emily stirred creamer into her coffee, she realized she never asked Mike why he started coming around more. The metal from the spoon clinked against the edge of the mug as she set it down. Mike was probably coming around more because he was lonely. Mike lived by himself and didn’t have much family. He had a loose group of a few friends and now his girlfriend, Alice, the molecular geneticist who had helped them analyze some tricky DNA information in a previous case. That was it.
/> “Yeah, everything’s fine. Just wanted to come and check in on you and my favorite dog.” Mike rifled through his backpack and pulled out something wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. Miner trotted over, his ears pricked and his gray tail wagging behind him.
“Another toy for Miner?” Emily smiled.
Mike grinned, “Yeah, just a little something.” From out of the bag, Mike pulled a blue stuffed T-Rex. Miner grabbed it and trotted off. From behind her, Emily could hear the toy squeaking as Miner figured out where the small plastic bubble was sewn into the fabric. She knew Miner would spend the next several hours pulling and tugging on the cloth until he could get the squeaker out. Why, she wasn’t sure. It just seemed that if the toy had a squeaker, Miner wanted it out.
After watching Miner trot away, protecting his new toy, Mike sat down at the table. Emily looked at him. His lips were pressed together. There was something on his mind. “Want a cup of coffee before you tell me what’s going on?”
Mike nodded, “Sure.”
From her years with the Chicago Police Department, Emily could tell when someone had something to say. Emily walked over to the kitchen cabinet, pulled out a mug that said “Eat More Cookies” on it and filled it, watching the steam curl in white tendrils above the cup. She set the cup in front of him, waiting, wrapping her fingers around the edge of the mug. Not that she was cold. It had been one of the hottest summers on record in Chicago. Emily crossed her legs and pulled the hem of her running shorts down as she waited for Mike to start speaking, the scar from where she’d gotten stabbed during one of the cases they worked showing underneath. There was no need for anyone to look at it.
Saying nothing, Mike got up and pulled his laptop out of his backpack, setting it on the table. Emily could hear the fans start to whirr as it opened. “New laptop?”
Mike nodded but didn’t look up. “Yeah, the last one I had didn’t have enough memory to run all the encryption and firewall stuff I need.”
Emily nodded, not surprised.
For about two minutes, there was no other noise in the kitchen other than Mike typing on his keyboard. After another minute passed, Mike sighed and leaned back in his chair, turning the laptop toward Emily. “See this guy?”
“Yep. What’s his story?” Emily leaned forward to stare at the image of what looked to be a middle-aged man with a short mustache, a round face and even rounder eyes. From the resolution of the picture, Emily wondered how old it was. Her experience in the cold case division made her sensitive to the advances in digital resolution. The picture looked to be close to ten years old.
“This guy’s name is Corey Hawkins. Or it was…” Mike said, turning the laptop back towards him and punching a few keys. He spun it back around toward Emily. “He died almost exactly seven years ago.”
Emily leaned forward, staring at the image Mike had pulled up on his screen. “Is that Louisiana?” she asked.
Mike nodded. “Sure is. Glad you have your geography straight.”
Smiling, Emily picked up her mug and took another sip of coffee. “Glad you packed your sarcasm this morning. What’s his story?”
“Well,” Mike said, his tone changing to sound much more like a college professor than a tech geek, “Seven years ago, Cory Hawkins disappeared. A few days later, his body was found.”
Emily frowned, “And why do I care about this particular case?” Mike knew about the volume of requests Emily got for her help — families and friends and husbands and wives whose loved ones had disappeared or been killed, and they got no satisfaction from their local law enforcement, or for some reason, local law enforcement was unable to prosecute the perpetrator successfully. That was Emily's specialty — dealing with cold cases off the books, getting justice for family and friends who would otherwise be left with the haunting memories of the person they knew without any closure.
“It’s a weird one, that’s for sure.” Mike spun the laptop screen back towards Emily.
Her breath caught in her throat. “Is that…”
“A torso? Yes, that’s exactly what it is. That’s all they ever found of Cory. No head, no arms, no legs. Seven years ago, DNA was in its infancy. While most labs can now process DNA evidence in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, unless you know someone, back then, it took weeks to do the sequencing.”
Emily knew what Mike was talking about. Mike’s girlfriend, Alice Chang, had done some off-the-books DNA work for them and managed to find a link to their suspect in the short span of two hours, not even two days. Emily chewed her lip. Mike was right, DNA testing had come a long way. “So, the only way they figured out this was Cory Hawkins was through DNA?”
Mike nodded.
Emily got up and walked over to the coffee maker, her bare feet padding on the wood floor. As she refilled her cup, she looked over her shoulder, “Why show me this?”
“Turns out, there’s been a string of these in the same city for the last seven years. Every six months, somebody goes missing and a few days later, a torso is found. That’s all, nothing else.”
“When was the last body discovered?” Emily knew Mike was leading up to something, but she wasn’t exactly clear where he was going. Was it just an interesting case he wanted her to see? She wasn’t sure.
“Almost six months ago.” Mike leaned back in his chair. “Can you imagine living there? I mean, think about it, you’re going about your daily business, but in the back of your head, all you can hear is tick-tock, tick-tock. You know the six-month mark is coming up and you’re just wondering if you or someone you love is the one that’s going to get nabbed. Crazy, right?”
Emily sat back down at the table, setting her coffee aside. She leaned her elbows on the edge and looked at Mike. “Yeah, that would be crazy, but why are you telling me this?” It was time to stop dancing around. She knew Mike had a purpose in telling her all of this information.
“I was just thinking since it’s been a while since you’ve taken a case, maybe this is one to look at.”
The words hung in the air.
“Yeah, it’s been a while. What was the last one?”
“Marlowe Burgess. Heard anything about her?”
The name caused the hair on the back of Emily’s neck to rise a little, “Last I heard, Marlowe got the twenty million in funding returned to her from the man that stole it, finished the original project, and is now working on another one in downtown Chicago. You know Vince’s body showed up a couple of days later, right? The Mob took care of the problem so I didn’t have to.”
Mike nodded.
The last two cases had taken a toll on Emily. Every time she agreed to help someone, it was at her own risk. She no longer had a badge. If she got caught, she’d be prosecuted like any other criminal. Her desire to help others outside of the law get justice had created a strange tension in her life. She was now avoiding the very people who’d taught her to do the job she used to love. A tingle ran up her spine. “I’m not sure I want to do any more cases, Mike. I told you that.”
Before Mike could answer, Miner came trotting into the kitchen, carrying the T-Rex in his mouth. The white stuffing was jutting out of the back of the toy. Emily reached down and felt around to find the plastic squeaker, pulled it out of a tuft of stuffing, and then handed the toy back to Miner. Looking a little dejected, the dog grabbed the toy and trotted off again. The last thing Emily needed was her dog swallowing it. That would be a problem.
“I know that’s what you’ve been thinking,” Mike said. “But I found this case on a forum. You should take a look at it when you get a minute. The cases on there are more brutal than any I’ve ever seen. And most of them have gone unsolved. It’s like the criminals have managed to outsmart law enforcement again and again.”
“I’m not law enforcement anymore. You know that.”
“Yes, I do,” Mike nodded. “But what we’ve been able to do for families, that’s important. Alice and I were talking about that. It might not be the traditional way to make a positive impact, but it sure does
help people like Vicki Schmidt, right?”
The minute Mike mentioned Vicki’s name, Emily thought of Sarah Schmidt’s mom, sitting in her yellow kitchen, drinking pot after pot of coffee, waiting for news about her daughter that took twelve long years to come. After Emily had taken care of Benny Walters, the man that abducted and killed Vicki Schmidt’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Vicki had finally moved on. Last Emily had heard, Vicki had gotten remarried and relocated from Stockton closer to her younger daughter.
Emily got up and walked to the window, staring out toward the garage. Even though it was summer, and the weather was nice, Emily kept the garage door closed. The little house she and Luca had bought when they got married was all hers now, after their divorce and then Luca’s overdose. There were no traces of him left in the house.
At the back of the yard, Emily could see the tomato plants at the edge of the fence, growing tall. She’d need to get outside and check them for suckers and any ripe fruit at some point during the day, a day that Mike seemingly wanted to upset like apples rolling off of a pile neatly stacked at the local grocery store. It might look like only one would fall, but when one went, they all went.