We sat at the conference table.
Agent Beck cleared his throat. “Before I begin, has there been any development since last night that I should be aware of?”
“We had a glimpse of him on video. Appeared to be around five foot nine and thin,” I said.
Beck wrote it down. “Caucasian?”
“Appeared so.”
“Thank you.” He clasped his hands together in front of him. “First, I cross-referenced everything from the case with the FBI’s database. We have no one in our system that is branding victims. With nothing similar, we are indeed looking for a new suspect. Now, to be labeled as a serial killer, we would need three or more victims. You have two, but I believe—one hundred percent—the man you are looking for is a serial killer and has been for some time.”
“What brings you to that conclusion?” I asked.
“His acts are planned. There is no evidence at all left with the bodies other than what he wants you to see, in these cases the lingerie, branding, and method of kill. This guy is a pro.”
“So we should expect more bodies?” Hank asked.
“It’s Sergeant, right? Rawlings?”
Hank nodded.
“Sergeant Rawlings, yes, I believe there will be more. Something made this guy come out of the shadows. This guy now wants to be recognized. The more victims, the more notoriety. Yet, there’s more to it than that.”
“More to it? Like what?” Hank asked.
“I was about to give you my thoughts on that.” He flashed Hank an annoyed look for interrupting him.
Hank looked at me. His face said he wasn’t sure what to make of the guy. I had a better handle on him. He was some kind of genius, and from my experience, people like that were a little strange.
I’d known a person in Milwaukee similar to that guy. Aside from being socially awkward, the guy didn’t shower, dressed like a bum, and lived in a rundown little shack outside a trailer park. He’d retired at forty from designing software for the military. The guy had millions stuffed away in the bank but took a bus from city to city for chess tournaments. He competed at the master level. I bet the two knew each other.
“Sorry, go on,” Hank said.
“It’s the way he is killing the women. Now, if I’m a serial killer and I want to make a name for myself, what has more flair, killing my victims in a regular way or something that pops? Lobotomizing my victims sure packs more media punch than any traditional method of killing.”
“So that’s this guy’s goal? Fame?” I asked.
“He definitely wants to stand out. All right, we ready to get into the profile?”
I nodded.
“I put our suspect in his late thirties or early forties. A self-employed taxi driver is consistent with the kind of occupation he would have. It’s solitary. He’d have a hard time holding down a normal job. Normal friends and family would not be present. He is holding these women for a time, so it wouldn’t allow for it. Even if he was doing it somewhere else, his frequent absences would be noted. I would say he is single, possibly divorced.”
The captain spoke up, “What about them both being blond in their thirties? Does that hold any significance?”
“It could, but I’m not sure it’s a deciding factor. I believe he is selecting the women out of opportunity more than anything else.”
“What about the lobotomies themselves? The medical examiner told me the second procedure was far more advanced than what was done to the first victim. Do you think there is any kind of medical background?” I asked.
“No. Your suspect is experimenting. He’s learning and evolving. Like you said, the second victim’s procedure was far more involved. The woman’s skin was removed to get at the skull. He used a different drill bit to get through the bone. He took his time, possibly following directions. As bad as it sounds, it was done pretty close to how the doctors used to do it. That is a point that is very troubling.”
“Troubling how?” the captain asked.
“Well, lobotomies aren’t meant to kill. I’ll let that thought sink in with you guys for a while.” He went quiet. “Are your heads filled with really bad images yet?”
He was right. Everything that came to mind was evil and worse.
“Where would he get the information on how to do it? Books? Internet?” the captain asked.
“I’m sure you can find enough information at either spot. I would say books though if I had to guess.”
“Hank, can you get into contact with libraries in the area and see if they had any lobotomy books checked out recently?”
Agent Beck interrupted, “I wouldn’t bother.”
Captain Bostok looked confused by Beck’s comment. “Why is that?”
“Same reason it would be a book and not the Internet. Our suspect is smart. Judging by the lack of evidence at the scenes, he wouldn’t let himself be caught by something so careless. Think about it. A few women show up dead with amateur lobotomies. It would only be a matter of days before the police look into that angle, just like we have here. A couple calls to webmasters of the sites with that kind of information would give away his IP address. A book checked out would give him up just as quick. The book, if that is in fact what he’s using, was either purchased at a book store, probably not in the area, or stolen. That brings up another point—I would venture to guess that he has a record.”
“What kind of crimes would we be looking for?” Hank asked.
“More than likely, petty crimes. Theft, identity theft, lewd acts in public, sexual harassment. I wouldn’t think there would be an arrest for anything too serious. I bet if he’s local, he’s already in your system for something minor.”
“Now, you said something was bringing this guy out of the shadows. What would we be looking for as a trigger? Divorce, death, fired from his job, something like that?” Hank asked.
Beck rocked his head back and forth. “There is something there, I believe. Something happened that spurred the escalation. What it is may not register to you and me, though.”
“Explain,” I said.
“Well, something like a cheating spouse or getting fired can set a person on a rampage. You know—a guy gets fired from his job and goes and shoots the place up, or a man finds his wife in bed with another man and kills the two. Yet, that’s a reaction for someone who has a mental breakdown. Serial killers are different. They already kill. These people don’t live within the boundaries of normal society, so a normal trigger may not fit.”
I nodded.
“You have to remember—the feelings we have of sadness, guilt, right and wrong, morality—none of these things apply to our suspect. Take, for instance, Ted Bundy. Everyone tried to find the answer to why he killed, the reason he took people’s lives. Do you know what his reason was?” He looked around the room for an answer but didn’t get one. “He said he liked doing it. That was it. He liked killing people.”
I was going through my notes, looking to see if he had covered everything I wanted to ask him.
“What about the brand? Did you find anything on it?”
Beck shook his head. “From everything I saw, it’s something original. It looked like a set of two triangles on top of each other facing left, a quartered circle in the center and two more triangles in the same orientation facing right. Sorry, I don’t have anything for you on it, but I have a feeling you’ll get the meaning to it when you find the perpetrator. I have copies of the profile I put together printed up for you guys.” Beck looked at each of us. “Anything else?”
I found the word drugs circled in my notepad. “One more thing, Agent. What is your take on the drugs being used, and how does that tie into the profile?”
He grinned. “Good question. Opportunity is the answer.”
“Can you explain that?” I asked.
“From my research, these aren’t the kind of drugs that are purchased on the street. When I say opportunity, I’m referring to these drugs being available to him in some area of his life. Obviously, a
taxi driver wouldn’t have access to these sorts of things, but perhaps he stole them when the opportunity presented itself in the past.”
“Thank you, Agent Beck. If we gather more information, you will add it to the profile?” the captain asked.
“Absolutely.”
Beck handed his copies of the profile to the captain and saw himself out.
Chapter 21
He started on her as soon as he got home. Unhappy with the results of his last procedure, he read up on something new. When he finished branding her, he began. The book he was working from referred to it as a transorbital lobotomy. It was much easier than his previous method and didn’t leave him covered in blood when he was through. He used a small spoon wedged between her upper eyelid and eyeball to give him the space needed. An ice pick with depth-gradation marks at two inches and two and three quarters was inserted at the top corner of her eye above her tear duct. With a medium-sized rubber mallet, he pounded the pick into the thin bone behind her eye. His ears caught an audible snap as the pick broke through. He continued tapping it into her brain until the depth was to the first etched mark. The book told him to sweep the pick horizontally through her brain toward her other eye. He did. At the pick’s original position, he tapped it in another three quarters of an inch to the next gradation mark. He repeated the procedure on the other side. Once he completed his procedure, he transferred the woman to his makeshift recovery room.
He’d been checking on her between naps. Ten hours passed since he’d completed the surgery. Three hours passed since he last checked on her. He rolled from the couch to go see how his girl was doing.
He walked through the house to the master bedroom. The woman lay strapped to the bed. Her driver’s license showed that her name was Anna Smith. She was twenty-seven and weighed a hundred twenty-four pounds. She was smiling ear to ear in her license photo. He hadn’t dosed her with any of the tranquilizer since the operation. He abandoned using the opiate. When the last woman had pulled out the IV, the solution emptied onto the carpet. The only thing she had received was a small dose of Alprazolam that he had just given her. She would wake up soon, and he wasn’t looking for a repeat of the last occurrence. The drug would keep her in a nice, docile fog.
He headed out to the living room and plopped down onto the couch. The room was dark, with the blinds shut and curtains closed. He tossed his feet up on the coffee table. A jolt of pain ran through his left leg. He swatted at a pesky fly that buzzed his ear as he powered on the TV and brought up the guide. Searching through, he found channel six and selected it from the menu.
“Let see what’s on the news.”
He tuned in just in time to catch the end of the replay of J.R. Steele’s report from the press release the police had given the day before. The daytime anchors, Joyce Meekins and Dan Rutton, came back on.
Meekins said, “And that was J.R. Steele reporting from the Tampa police station. It’s just tragic, Dan. A spokesman for the TPD has ensured us they are using everything at their disposal to pursue and apprehend the person or persons responsible for these attacks.”
Dan Rutton responded, “Here’s hoping they have someone in custody soon. Again, the TPD has asked for any support they can get from the public. If you or someone you know has any information about this case, we urge you to please call the Tampa police department. They have a tip hotline where you can remain anonymous, if desired.”
The news anchor rattled off the number.
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high about having someone soon.” He flipped the TV back to the guide. A fly landed on the end of the remote control. He shooed it away. He scrolled up and down, looking over his choices.
“Looks like talk shows or soaps. What do you think, babe?” he asked.
There was no response.
He flipped on one of the talk shows and took in a deep breath. The foul smell of decay filled his nose. He shook it off and lay back on the couch. Within a few minutes, he dozed off.
Chapter 22
“So what did you think of our profiler?” Hank asked.
We sat in Captain Bostok’s office, going over the suspect profile Agent Beck had handed out.
I browsed the sheet again. “He was a little different, but everything he said had merit. At the same time, we can’t take everything he said as gospel.”
“I agree.” Captain Bostok reached into the mini refrigerator under his desk and brought out a soda. “I’m going to put someone on checking into the libraries and website hits on lobotomies anyway.”
“Are we planning on sending this profile out to the press?” Hank asked.
The captain cracked open his soda and took a sip. “I think we should.”
“Still want to keep the branding thing under wraps?” I asked.
He nodded. “I don’t want to help give this story legs.”
Someone knocked on his office door.
“Yup,” the captain shouted.
Detective Jones took up most of the doorway as he walked in. “Got a little issue here.”
“I’m listening,” Bostok said.
“Well, tracking down these drugs might be a little much for one person to handle. Not that I don’t like a challenge, but this is beyond that. We have pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, clinics, hospitals, rehab centers, and more with the opiate. The tranquilizer is another story. They use the drug on deer farms, cattle ranches, horse ranches, you name it. The list just goes on and on.”
“Are they found together anywhere?” I asked.
“I didn’t find anything.”
“All right, let’s split it up. Jones, you take the tranquilizer by itself. Find every place that has Xylazine within a hundred-mile radius and see if they have any missing stock. Hank, I want you to stay on the opiate with the clinics and hospitals. I’ll see what I can do to place the two drugs together.”
“Okay,” Jones said.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Hank said.
“You guys get to it,” the captain said.
I walked back to my office and got on the Internet. I searched the drugs and every brand name they came in. After twenty minutes of different combinations of the names, I got a hit for the veterinary field. For the better part of the next four hours, I dialed one number after the other. My search results showed over sixty vets in the greater Tampa area. When you added the suburbs, the number ballooned. Most of the places carried the tranquilizer, yet all of it was accounted for in each circumstance. Only two places out of the group I had already called dealt with the opiate. The FDA hadn’t approved the drug for animal use, but vets could still legally prescribe it. They used it to treat severe pain in felines. Neither clinic had noticed any gone missing. My stomach growled. I took a break and headed for the lunch room with plans to raid the vending machines.
The food machine offered a selection of two sandwiches or a bruised apple. I plugged three fifty into the machine, and it kicked out a sandwich. I peeled open the cellophane bag and gave it a sniff. The label said ham and cheese. It looked like it could pass as such. I stuck another dollar fifty into the soda machine and punched a button. With a little banging, a twenty-ounce bottle of soda hit the bottom of the machine, shaken to perfection. I let it sit for a minute while I ate the sandwich at one of the lunch tables. It wasn’t half bad, but I was still hungry. A single sandwich remained in the entire machine. Unless I wanted a beat-up, two-dollar apple for dinner, I had to buy it. I dug through my wallet and found enough money.
On a whim, I hit the button on the coffee machine for a large Columbian roast, just to see what it would do. It started whirring and making noise, then I heard the water. I grabbed a cup from the rack and stuck it into place. Coffee flowed from the machine into my cup. Ding! The machine finished. I took the cup from the spot under the machine’s spout and raised it to my lips. The coffee was steaming. I took a sip through my teeth in case it was filled with grounds. Nothing—the coffee was perfect. I dumped in some creamer. With the bottle of soda and sandwich
in one hand and coffee in the other, I walked back out into the station. Hank sat at his desk.
I walked over and sat across from him. “Anything?” I set my coffee and soda down on his desk.
“That’s not from the lunch room, is it?”
I unwrapped the plastic covering the sandwich and started in. “The coffee? Yeah, the machine cooperated today.”
“I know the coffee machine works. They had a repair guy in here this morning. Where do you think the coffee people kept bringing you earlier came from?”
I shrugged and took another bite.
Hank pointed at my food. “I’m talking about the sandwich.”
“Yeah, bought it from the vending machine. Why?” I spoke through a mouthful of bread, meat, and processed cheese.
“There have been two sandwiches sitting in that machine for a week plus. The guy from the vending company must have been on vacation or something last week. He never came. I think someone had it unplugged for a day or two as well.”
I looked at the label on the sandwich’s plastic. It had expired six days prior. A closer inspection of the bread probably would have shown some green specks, but I wasn’t going to go down that road. I tossed the last bite in my mouth and chewed. The mayo did taste a little tangier than it should have.
“You’re going to get food poisoning.”
“Maybe I can sue the station,” I paused to swallow the blob of chewed old meat and cheese, “and retire early.”
“Good luck with that.”
“So, what did you come up with?” I asked.
“I got the main hospitals and bigger clinics checked off the list, for the most part. It’s not looking like we’re going to get anything there.”
“Why is that?”
“Injectable. None of the hospitals or clinics carry it in that form. Either way, nothing has come up missing at any of the places I talked with. I’m about to move on to the smaller places and see what we get. How about you?”
“It’s not very common, but it looks like they can be found together in the veterinary field. I’ve been calling every vet in town. Nothing so far.”
Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) Page 10
