by Judith Price
A bright blue ball attached to a stretchy black strap. She began to cry hysterically. “Enough of the whimpering. Poor, poor, Doctor Swallows,” he coaxed. He stroked the left side of her forehead. An unrecognizable sound came from her as he stretched the gag with both hands and brought the ball to her mouth. She jerked and twisted her head. And then he did what anyone like Matthew would do. He punched her hard with his right fist to her temple. She yelped with pain. The rail jolted and little pieces of crystal fluttered from the ceiling. “Now, Doc, you are a smart woman, being a doctor and all. You know what I need. I am the one in control now. I am the one who will tell you what to do. I am the one who will let you go if you are a good girl,” he said with a wan smile. He spoke the last sentence with such pointedness, that she blinked at him and remained silent.
He grabbed her greasy hair with his left hand and forced the ball into her mouth before fastening it around the back of her head. Dr. Swallows gagged. She panicked. She was frantic now, until he picked up the next tool in line and held it up in front of her.
Her terror almost made Matthew tingle again. He giggled. The tool looked like pruning shears sold in any local hardware store. “See these?” He giggled again as he opened and closed them. “These work really well for cutting things. I know, I’ve tested them on myself.” His hand brushed against his left nipple. He smiled. The tip of the shears grazed her face, popped over her lips, and down her chin to her neck. She shivered when he scraped softly over her skin down her chest to her right nipple. “Tsk-tsk, Doc, you’ve let yourself go.” He held the shears beside her nipple, almost perpendicular to the right side of her chest. She winced again as she heard the scissors open. His groin ached now.
He was surprised that the doctor’s pain threshold was so low. He was almost relieved when the screaming stopped. The rail slowly swayed. The ice pick dripped blood on the tray. A hand squeezed Matthew’s shoulder. “Well done, Matthew,” a female voice said. “It’s my turn now.”
Seven
Jill
FBI Special Agent Eric Wallace walked into the dingy room and stood in silence. The remote viewers were in the middle of a viewing. Two men and two women sat at desks that faced the front of the room. Jill was frantically sketching—deep in her trance. Her long straight black hair swung from side to side, her head moving like a bobble-head doll. She was pretty—a distinctive Native American beauty. You couldn’t tell by watching her that someone had attacked her the night before. A look of concern painted Eric’s face. Jill was like a daughter to him, and more importantly, his protégé. The police had said her place had been burglarized and that Jill had caught him in the act. Yada, yada, yada. He didn’t believe them. But he couldn’t figure out why. Looking at Jill one wouldn’t think, even with her fitness model physique, that she could take down a grown man. But they said he was drunk—an easy match for a trained FBI agent. She seemed no worse for wear so Eric dismissed his suspicions and focused on the current assignment.
Next to Jill sat Mitch Meyers, the eldest of the group. He was gazing into the air, trance-like. He didn’t seem to be in the same room as the rest of them. His overly tanned and chiseled looks seemed out of place for a sci-fi geek. In front of him sat Jennifer Davies, a twenty-five-year-old goth girl with spiky black hair and bangs too short. She was texting on her iphone. Even for her age, the team was impressed with her ability to sketch detailed information in the viewings—things the others hadn’t viewed. But it was Malcolm Quinn, a thin thirty-something, who had the talent of filling in the blanks. Malcolm sat busily studying his notes. He was the methodical one and understood the use of rituals in remote viewing sessions. Together they were a solid team. Eric was pleased with them.
He looked back over to Jill, who was still sketching. By the expression on her face, he figured that she was in bi-location. This was an unpleasant part of remote viewing: the exact feeling of a previous experience. Jill’s brow furrowed intensely, which led Eric to believe it had not been a positive experience. Then without notice, Jill’s eyes popped down—her hand still scribbling on the page. She lifted up her pen and placed it in the center of the page waiting for another view. Nothing came.
“Whatcha got, Jill?” Eric interrupted. He walked over and looked down at the sketch in front of her. Jill’s table was full of strewn paper and clay numbers. Eric looked at the sketch she had just finished and snapped it up, taking a closer look. The team watched as he studied it. Then he placed it back down in front of her.
He walked over to Malcolm, picked up his neatly stacked pile of paper and flipped through to the last page.
Although his sketch showed a different angle, it looked like the same target. “Jen … Mitch, what did you get?
Jen flashed a page in the air, “I think it’s a picture of the Pentagon.”
Mitch looked at Jen’s sketch, then back down at his. His sketches were always a little skewed. Sometimes Jill wondered whether he took part in the legalize pot movement in the sixties. His sketch looked more like a water-color painting.
Mitch spoke first. “Was having a hard time believing what I had viewed, when I drew it. At first I thought it was the Pentagon, too, but it’s not. This looks like Fort Knox.” He held up his drawing and pointed to what looked like the jewel at the top of a crown. This was no crown though. Instead, there was a flagpole with the red, white, and blue flapping in the imagined breeze.
Jill looked back to her drawing. She had the same angle she always had. It was as if she hovered, floating five hundred feet above the target. “Why are we assigned to this target Eric?,” Jill asked. “I thought this was for Homeland Security? If Homeland Security wanted this intel it must be something important. Why would they want to know about Fort Knox?”
“Who would be dumb enough to target Fort Knox?” Jen mocked. Then everyone was silent, examining their own sketches.
“Actually, it’s not that dumb,” Malcolm responded. “If you wanted to take down the world’s super power, ya’d want to hit where it hurts … money.” Jen shrugged at this thought.
“Well, that’s not for us to determine. We found what they were looking for. I will need your viewing summary reports by the end of today. But first …” Eric paused. “We’ve been contacted by VCU, the FBI’s violent crime unit.” Jill shifted in her chair. “They need our help on the ‘Iceman’ case. You know the one in the media. They will brief us in detail at the meeting, but with three victims dead, they figure another one is imminent. They want us to meet with them in their briefing room at thirteen hundred.” Eric paused waiting for some backlash. He’d been working them hard on the Homeland Security assignments and knew this distraction was not what they needed right now.
Jen unwrapped a piece of gum, stuck the stick into her mouth, and sighed. “Looks like this is all the lunch I will get today.” She smacked the gum between her teeth hard.
Eight
The megatron screen hummed in the room, which was filled with black chairs surrounding a large black veneer boardroom table. There were no windows in the dimly lit room. Instead, mountains of photos, maps, and various documents were tacked haphazardly on bulletin boards that looked more like sloppy wallpaper on the four walls that enclosed the room.
Special Agent Jake Acker smiled at Jill as she walked in. He knew she would be there. After all, it was his idea to call in the remote viewers. He stood, his dark curly hair flipped up on the back of his neck, and watched Jill. Then without pause, he extended his hand towards her. “Agent Oliver, Jake Acker.” He nodded, and for a moment he thought she returned the extra squeeze. He wasn’t entirely sure. He was never entirely sure when it came to Jill Oliver. This intrigued him further.
So … they got drunk at O’Grady’s that night and ended up in the john together before that young goofy looking broad pulled Jill out of his grasp. It was Jill’s first time at O’Grady’s, the local hangout for agents. She was half in the bag when he got there and so were her geeky friends. He wondered whether she was normal. All that hocus-p
ocus crap. He didn’t believe it then and he surely didn’t believe it now.
Special Agent Tracy Olsen, on the other hand, felt differently. “Why not!” She sighed. “We’ve got nothing to loose at this point.”
The RV team assembled at the table. Jill sat down, almost dismissing Jake. Her head tilted forward and a wisp of hair fell over her eyes. She brushed it back as she read the brief. She felt his presence, he was looking at her. She felt him. He was handsome all right, in a Colin Farrell sort of way. She remembered it all the next day. Her face flushed thinking about their encounter now and she wondered whether he would notice, and know what she was thinking about. The right side of her mouth lifted with a smirk when she thought of his strong hands, groping her. It was only seconds, when she followed him into that john on a dare, before his hot mouth was on hers sucking her lips hard. Oh he was hard all right. What the heck was Jen thinking coming in after her? She was a grown woman. So, she was drunk. Who cares! Jill looked at Eric, her peripheral caught Jake, and she sighed.
Eric began. “As you know, we’ve been asked to assist the FBI’s violent crime unit headed by Agent Acker and Agent Olsen.” Eric nodded in their direction. We’re here to get an understanding of the investigation to date. The more you know, the easier it will be for your RV session.” Tracy walked over to the megatron bulletin board and tapped the screen. The large HD screen woke from its sleep. Jen shifted nervously in her chair, bracing herself. Although the viewers had assisted in defense intelligence for the FBI, this would be their first time assisting in anything like this.
“Okay kids, fasten your seatbelts. This is going to get ugly.” Agent Olsen stopped and pointed to the trash can in the corner. “If you can’t handle these photos, there’s the toilet.” She tapped the screen twice and up popped gruesome pictures of the three female victims. Although, their genders were hardly recognizable because of the way they had been bludgeoned.
Jen gasped and looked away. “Gross!”
“We have three victims, all women. All killed in pretty much the same manner.” She swiped the screen and three more photos appeared below each victim. “Seems our unsub has a fetish with ice picks. Each one of these picks was left in the vic’s vagina, postmortem. I won’t show you those photos.” Mitch stared at the photos as if he were intrigued. That thought disgusted Jill.
“All vics appear to have tie marks on wrists and ankles.” Another swipe, and photos of blood-splattered ankles and wrists rested below each of the ice pick photos. “The vics were bound tight enough to cause these lesions.” Tracy’s laser pointed and traced the first victim’s abrasions. “Substantial force would have had to cause this degree of cuts and bruising. The interesting part, we’ve been told by forensics, is that the bruises are all even—meaning not caused by struggling, more like pressure.”
Jake chipped in and Jill thought she saw him glance at her before looking towards Tracy. “The three victims are all women. If you look at your brief notes you will see that these woman were fairly ordinary. Victim number one.” Jill flipped the page and looked at a picture of what appeared to be a middle-aged woman in a white hospital smock. “Dr. Sabrina Swallows, PsyD. Dr. Swallows worked as a psychologist at a long-term care facility for delinquent, sometimes violent boys. Most kids there are between the ages of twelve and twenty. She was found in the woods on the backside of the Lucky Clover liquor store two days after she was reported missing.
Jake flipped a page in the file simultaneously with Tracy on the megatron. “Second victim was Kate Samson. Age twenty-five.” The team flipped their pages and Jill found herself staring at a pudgy black woman. She was smiling back at her with braces on her teeth. “She worked at the local church and her body was found just off of High Street in Luray.
The sounds of papers shuffled. “The third was Molly Hubbard, age thirty. This photo was one of an overly tanned fat lady with Dolly Parton hair. “She worked at the High Ball Pub, self-proclaimed expert of high balls. Their local Tom Cruise in … what was the name of that movie?” He didn’t wait for the answer and continued. “She was found behind a lilac brush at the back of the pub. Some guy was taking a leak and discovered her. The guy almost puked on the vic.”
Tracy interjected, looking towards the group. “The only connection between these girls is that they were all overweight. Not something out of the ordinary these days.” Jill met Jake’s eyes and she thought she saw a spark in them. She began to tingle. She looked back down to her brief, but not before the exchange caught Eric’s attention.
Jake continued. “Most serial killers have a particular MO. So the age differences from victim number one to the others is noteworthy. We believe the killer knew these women. Frankly, we believe the killer knew all these women. Normally serial killers do not know their victims, but by the sheer brutality of stabbing an ice pick to the face, it’s a form of shaming the victim. A paraphiliac is our first thought.
“Para … what?” asked Mitch.
Tracy interrupted. “A sex sadist. There were no signs of semen in the vagina. So the only signs of assault came from the ice pick itself,” Tracy said, matter-of-fact. “First the face, then postmortem, their vaginas. It appears our sick perp must know these women well. Some sort of revenge killing.”
Jake continued and looked over at Mitch. “Intimacy is a concern for most violent serial killings where the sexual anatomy is involved. The act of controlling something, dominating it or forcing it to submit is a typical MO of this type of killer. No way he would have sex with the vics, just a fantasy that the vics are aroused by restraint. Hence, the marks on their wrists and ankles. The absence of semen does not mean he was not pleasured. Most paraphiliacs have a feeling of sexual excitement resulting from administering pain, suffering, or humiliation of another person. They have sexual fantasies, which often begin in their childhood. The onset of active sexual sadism typically occurs during early adult life. This is how the violent serial offender achieves intimacy. That is how he understands it; through his violent sexual behavior. And most,” Jake paused and looked up at the megatron as Tracy swiped it pulling up a picture of Dr. Swallows. “Most have been in intense therapy.”
“We believe our unsub was a patient at the facility where this doctor worked. We’re running this lead now. But she worked there close to twenty-five years, so that’s a lot of patients to link to these other two victims. Typically a serial killer is between the ages of twenty and thirty-five, white, male …”
Jill interrupted him. “Why white?” Jake frowned, but she continued. “I mean, I had to write a paper on serial killers in the academy. It’s a myth you know, white males.” Jill trailed off. “Well just pointing out this fact.” The look on Jake’s face made her feel that she needed to defend herself further and she did. “Derrick Lee, African American, killed at least six women in Louisiana. Eugene Watt, another African American. He killed twelve in Texas.” Jill spoke faster now blurting out these stats. “And then there was Charles Ng, Chinese …”
Eric cleared his throat enough to break the tension. “Jill let’s let these good folks continue the briefing.”
Jake glared a half-smirk at Jill and continued. “You are right, Agent Oliver. We are using baseline profiling since the majority of serial killers in the US are white males. We’re sticking with the theory.” He gave her a flirty smile. “You can prove us wrong when you do whatever it is that you guys do over there.”
This made Malcolm stiffen. He knew what was coming next. Like just before the archer’s arrow pierced its target. “You don’t know what we do, but yet you need our help?” Malcolm mocked.
Tracy looked over at Jake. “I think what he meant to say,” she attempted to rephrase. “Is, ah … that we hope the insights we are giving you today will help your group find this unsub.” Tracy gave Jake the I’m-done-rescuing-your-ass look.
Jake attempted to take back control. “We need something from your team and we need it fast.” He spoke directly to Eric now. Jill, sensing his injured ego, kept quie
t. “He’s elevating the levels of mutilation. Vic number three was not only stabbed in the frontal portion of the face. It seems what killed her was a spike though the head from one temple to the other. You’d need a hammer to accomplish that.” Jen shifted in her seat and looked over to the makeshift toilet. Mitch, trance-like, stared through the megatron. If Jill didn’t know better, she’d think he was beginning his meditation. Already preparing.
Tracy spoke next. “Let me explain why this is important. Most serial killers have a cooling-off period and normally each cooling-off period is generally the same. Meaning kill one day, take a week off, kill another, take another week off. You get the picture. It’s very rare to have three victims in just over one week.” Tracy walked over and touched the giant screen.
An oversized graph appeared with the words TIMELINE. Below this was a horizontal line indicating the dates: Victim #1 – 9 Days, Victim #2 – 4 Days, Victim #3 – 2 Days. “You can see that he is shortening his kills. Less of a cooling-off period. Our killer is losing control.”
Jake added, “We believe he will be taking his next victim tomorrow at the latest. Hell, maybe he already has her.”
Tracy touched the screen again and a large map morphed in, filling it. “You can see that all three victims were found in the same general area, in close proximity to each other. A large Google map of the area depicted the streets of Luray, Virginia. The red digits were placed to show the proximity of the locations where the bodies were found.
There was a pause in the room as the screen blipped back to the pictures of the victims. “Any questions?” Eric asked his team.
He was about to thank the two agents when Jill chimed in. “Can you pull up the location map again?” It wasn’t a question. Tracy walked over to the megatron, made a couple of taps and a swipe and they watched the map fill the screen. Jill walked around the briefing table and over to the screen. She kept her back to Jake, yet she was sure she could feel his eyes on the back of her tight jeans as she studied the map. Silently, she cocked her head to one side. Everyone watched with interest.
