by Leslie Wolfe
The same happened with Tess, you know. I already know she lives alone, in a high-rise apartment. Yes, even if the object of my desires lives in an apartment on the umpteenth floor, I can still see, from the building across the street, using binoculars, even infrared imaging if I need to. All it takes is uncovered windows.
I know she comes home late at night, and sometimes she skips dinner altogether. I know she rarely leaves her gun out of her reach, and that’s what changed my plans, from savoring her to just eliminating her. I know she likes things simple, and her apartment doesn’t have a lot of furniture, which will make my mission even more difficult, if I plan on surprising her. Finally, I know I must be patient. I’ll be there, waiting for her to come home tonight, but it could be hours before she arrives.
However, after she’s left this world, I can immerse myself in the wonderful Monica.
50
At the Morgue
Tess waited impatiently, propped up on a three-legged stool next to Doc Rizza’s lab table. Not saying a word, she watched him turn the knobs on his microscope, while he mumbled something only he could hear.
She’d pulled him away from his home at that late hour and felt guilty about it, seeing the deep, dark circles under his eyes and his tired gait, but she couldn’t bear to wait until the following morning. If she was right, despite all evidence and all logic, and Bradley Welsh was a serial killer, she wanted him arrested immediately, not a moment later. Maybe there was still hope for Monica.
“I’m sorry, Tess,” Doc Rizza said, then took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, where the frames had left reddish indents from prolonged wear. “There’s no follicle attached to this hair. We can’t pull DNA.”
“You can’t be serious, Doc. Please don’t tell me that.”
“Unfortunately, I got nothing else I can tell. I even compared the hair you took today, with the ones we had on file from the old crime scene.”
“And?” she pressed on impatiently and hopped off her stool. It was easier to maintain her calm if she paced the floor in the quiet, dimly lit morgue.
“It’s not definitive, either way. The new strand is thinner than the old one. Could that mean it’s not the same person? Yes, but it could also mean his hair thinned with age. It happens; it’s quite common actually. I ran a mineral analysis, and it’s not a match with the old hairs. Again, that’s not definitive either way. Environmental factors, toxins, nutrients, even drug prescriptions vary over such lengths of time.”
“We got nothing, that’s what you’re saying, Doc?”
“To begin with, hair analysis is only admissible in court to exclude someone; never to include. We couldn’t do that either. The new hair isn’t so different from the old ones to exclude Bradley Welsh. But it doesn’t include him either. In fifteen years, the man’s hair could have changed enough to warrant the differences we see today, but I can’t be sure; not even off the record.” He sighed and flipped off the switch to his electronic microscope. “I guess you could say we have nothing more than we had before you went to visit the Welshes.”
She bit her lip and swallowed a curse. Doc didn’t deserve to hear her outburst, so she clammed up. After a few seconds, she felt her calm slowly return, bringing clarity of thinking with it.
“All I wanted was to be 100 percent sure, Doc, one way or another,” she said sadly, staring at the floor’s cement mosaic pattern.
“Life isn’t precise, you know,” Doc said. “We try our best, but we don’t always succeed.”
“You’re right, Doc,” she replied with a faint smile. “You’re a wise man.” She paused, but Doc didn’t interrupt her chain of thought. “I struggle with this one, Doc,” she eventually said. “You should see the pictures on their walls. You should see how Laura looked into his eyes, holding his hand, when she was seven or eight years old. No way in hell she did that if he’d killed her parents, right?”
“You’d think so, yes.”
“And yet, when I looked into his eyes, I froze. There was something in there that… I couldn’t explain,” she said, avoiding specifics that could have led to countless questions about her personal history.
Doc sighed again and shifted on his lab stool.
“Sometimes rich and powerful men are fierce like that. They’re used to everyone obeying, and whenever something or someone is in their paths, they can turn aggressive. That doesn’t make them killers though.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she admitted, but the uneasy feeling clung to her like a drenched coat.
“Who else have you got on your suspect list?”
“No one yet, but Laura’s car was sabotaged, you know that.”
“Uh-huh, I know the details.”
“We caught a break there. The device they used is traceable. The FBI has a database of all known dealers of such devices, because they’re normally used by terrorists. It’s our only break. Gary and Todd are closing that one.”
“Good,” Doc said, and slapped his palms on his knees. “That’s something. Once you find the device maker you’ll get him to talk; you’ll find a way.”
“Yeah…” she said, almost distracted. “I checked Bradley Welsh’s finances. Donovan helped me. He didn’t move cash, and he was away on business travel when Monica disappeared.”
“Oh, so you got a warrant after all?” Doc asked, seemingly surprised.
“You had to ask,” Tess sighed with a crooked smile. “You really had to ask.”
“I didn’t ask anything, my dear,” Doc replied with a smile. “It must have been the wind outside. It’s quite nasty out there.”
They both laughed.
“Now, get some rest, young lady. Welsh doesn’t seem to be your guy. Maybe tomorrow you’ll start fresh.”
She gave the Doc a quick hug, then started toward the elevator. She stopped next to the three evidence tables, still lined up with the Watson, Meyer, and Townsend case evidence, her eyes fixated on a stab wound mold in a clear, sealed evidence bag. The more she stared at that mold, the more her gut churned, and she felt the grip of fear twisting her insides. But why? It didn’t make sense.
“What’s up?” Doc Rizza asked.
“Um, nothing. Just trying to figure out where I’ve seen this before.”
“Probably in here,” Doc said, and started shutting down the many pieces of equipment that furnished his lab.
Her face scrunched up, and she shook her head, as if she rejected Doc’s explanation with all her being.
“Nowhere else you see these, except in a morgue or a forensics lab.”
“I’ll figure it out,” she finally said. “Can I hold on to this?” she asked, picking up the small bag.
“Oh, no, not that one. You’d break the chain of evidence on an active case. I’ll find you another one, from the autopsies I do with students, when they come in for practice.”
Minutes later, she walked out of the morgue with a yellow-white piece of flexible silicone in her pocket.
51
At Home
It was late when Tess got home, but she didn’t plan on going to bed; not yet. She still had a good portion of Laura’s videos to watch, and she wanted to watch them all, unsure what she was going to find, but unwilling to give up the tiniest shred of hope.
She unlocked the front door and turned on the light, then locked it back up. She kicked her shoes off, and wiggled her toes against the soft carpet, feeling her soles relax after a long day, spent mostly on her feet. She took off her jacket, inspected it briefly, then scoffed with disgust feeling the faint smell of sweat and dust. She rolled it into a bunch and threw it in the laundry hamper, then pulled her shirt loose and undid a couple of buttons.
She opened the fridge and took out a can of tomato juice, then grabbed her laptop bag and put both items on the table. She fired up the laptop, then removed her holstered gun and dropped it on the table, next to the can of juice. One pop, then she gulped half the juice can thirstily. It felt good, the salty-sweet taste of fresh tomatoes, the soothin
g feeling of a no longer empty and growling stomach.
She let herself drop onto the couch, and promptly put her feet up on the table. With the computer on her lap, she opened the memory drive with Laura’s videos. She searched a little, trying to figure out where she left off, but finally found the one she wanted to watch next.
It was a video shot on Laura’s fourth birthday, because people not only asked her what her name was, but also her age. She kept giggling, and telling everyone her name was Lau’a and she was fou’. Everyone laughed warmly, ruffled her hair, or pinched her cheeks, and she only giggled more.
The two families were celebrating together. Carol Welsh and Rachel Watson were getting ready to serve the cake. Tess knew that Rachel had been a medieval history teacher, on faculty with Florida International University, had a kindness in her eyes that lit up whenever she looked at the kids. She arranged paper plates and plastic forks and didn’t stop smiling. Carol Welsh carefully put four little candles on top of a big chocolate cake, with a message written in white icing, “Happy 4th Birthday, Laura!”
On the patio, the Watsons’s other two kids played with oversized Legos, and, at times threw the Legos onto the lawn, competing over who threw the farthest. Rachel admonished them, then the little boy, Casey, reluctantly got to his feet and wobbled over, collecting the scattered Lego blocks and bringing them back.
To the side, the Welshes’s only daughter, Amanda, who must have been about eight or nine years old at the time, sat on a patio chair a little stiff and indignant, as if offended to find herself at a party for small children. She was the only one who didn’t smile; she kept her eyes stubbornly fixed on the horizon line, ignoring everyone as if she were a captive princess.
It must have been Allen Watson holding the camera, because at some point, Bradley Welsh appeared on the screen; he popped the cap off a Bud Light and, after gesturing “cheers,” gulped down a good portion of the cold liquid. He then wiped his mouth with his hand, unceremoniously, then leaned back in his chair, smiling, relaxed. His half-closed eyes expressed contentment; everything was going well for Mr. Welsh that day.
Rachel summoned the kids to gather around the cake, and they all squealed as they came; of course, Amanda didn’t even budge from her remote seat. Rachel patiently instructed Laura what to do, then watched over her daughter as she took a deep breath and blew out the candles. They clapped, cheered, and then sang the birthday song for her, a little out of tune and dragging.
The video cut abruptly to where Laura carried paper plates with slices of cake to everyone present. She took a paper plate out to her sister, then wobbled back to the table to get another plate. Her mother handed one to her, and she turned and started to walk unsteadily around the table.
That was the exact point where Tess had to stop watching the video the day before. She propped herself a little straighter on the couch and frowned as she concentrated on the screen.
Little Laura walked around the table, a little shy and hesitant, heading toward someone who was off camera. Then the camera followed her, and Tess watched as she headed toward Bradley Welsh. “Fo’ you, Uncle B’ad,” she said, and Brad tousled her hair while accepting the plate.
Tess felt a tug of uneasiness in her gut. Frowning, she paused the video and rewound a few seconds. She played the scene again. Little Laura, handing Brad the paper plate. “Fo’ you, Uncle, B’ad.” Brad tousling her hair, smiling, and accepting the offering. All mundane stuff.
Tess took another mouthful of tomato juice and watched the scene yet again. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, not at first. But then she realized.
“I’ll be damned,” she muttered under her breath. “I’ll be completely damned. Illogical like hell, but what if?”
She minimized the video player window, then went to the memory card folder and sifted through the regression session videos, until she found the one she was looking for. She fast-forwarded through the sections she didn’t care about, then played the scene right before Laura broke apart, time after time.
The video showed Laura lying down on Dr. Jacobs’s sofa, her eyes squeezed shut, while tears ran freely down her cheeks. In her childish voice, Laura kept saying, while shaking violently, “No, no, bad; no, no bad.”
What if the “bad” in Laura’s regression sessions, was, in fact, “Brad”? The name she couldn’t pronounce correctly as a child, just like she couldn’t pronounce her own? What if, instead of remembering what she, herself had said, back then, during that terrifying night, Laura remembered what her mother had screamed? It could have been Rachel Watson shouting, “No, no, Brad,” as her attacker plunged his knife into her abdomen.
Paper thin, illogical, not even close to the concept of evidence. Michowsky, Fradella, and most likely everyone else would say she was grasping at straws, and that she was fueling her overactive imagination with information that was irrelevant, coincidental at best.
Yet, the only question she still had in her mind was how could someone be the loving father she’d seen Bradley Welsh to be and also be the serial killer she believed he was? How can the two personas coexist within the same man?
She let her mind wander for a second or two and remembered a lecture Bill McKenzie had given some years before at Quantico. He’d said, “There’s a common misconception that all psychopaths are lower intelligence, poorly integrated rejects and savages. While some of them are, the most gruesome of serial killers can appear perfectly normal on the outside. They can be loving fathers and devoted husbands. They can have successful businesses or significant professional achievement. They can lead perfectly healthy and prosperous lives on the surface, while deep within, just as the shark is circling under the gleaming, serene surface of the summer ocean, the predator lurks and waits for the opportunity to strike. These predators are extremely rare; we call them perfect psychopaths, people who easily switch between the two aspects of their lives, making them both seem incredibly real, showing no hint of their other reality. These rare psychopaths score at least thirty-six points out of forty on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. As a frame of reference, the average individual scores four points, while the average death-row inmate scores about twenty-nine. The perfect psychopath doesn’t have a diminished conscience; he or she doesn’t have one at all. Thankfully though, most of you will live your entire professional lives without encountering a single one of these killers.”
Huh… so much for that prediction, Tess thought, then grabbed her phone and dialed Michowsky’s number. She got voicemail, but she left a message in an excited voice.
“Hey, Gary, there’s something you need to see in the old Laura Watson videos. Call me when you get this, all right?” Then she ended the call and dropped the phone on the coffee table.
Suddenly feeling refreshed and optimistic, she hopped off the couch and scampered into the bedroom. She wanted to put on a fresh set of clothes and be ready to meet with Gary and decide what to do with the new information she’d uncovered.
But was it really new information, or was it her imagination? She wondered if maybe Dr. Jacobs might be able to offer some insight.
She opened her closet and reached inside to get a fresh shirt, when something ripped into her back, and she collapsed, gasping. As she fell, she saw the attacker’s feet right next to her. She grabbed the man’s ankle and held on as tightly as she could, ignoring the burning pain in her back.
The man kicked himself free without much effort and disappeared. A second later, she heard the front door latch shut. She tried to crawl back into the living room, where she’d left her phone, on the coffee table next to her gun, but a wave of darkness clouded her vision and wiped all her strength away.
52
Emergency Calls
The coolness of the bathroom floor tiles helped Tess regain consciousness, or at least that’s what she thought. The first sensation she became aware of was how cold the tile seemed against her cheek. Then she felt the soaking of blood on her back, and, with a pained groan, she felt around with
her hand, trying to assess the damage.
She reached the wound and almost screamed when she touched it. It was a deep gash in her lower left back, bleeding heavily. She reached above her head to grab the edge of the counter and lift herself up. Her hand, covered in blood, slipped a couple of times, but she wiped it against her shirt and managed to pull herself standing, using the counter for support. She looked in the mirror, turned halfway right, to examine her stab wound.
It was big and gushing blood at an alarming rate. If that kind of blood loss continued, she’d be dead soon. No time for an ambulance to get there. She reached into a drawer with a trembling hand, and, after rummaging through the many items in there, she extracted an emergency medical kit. She opened it and found what she was looking for, a sealed XStat syringe, filled with little sponges.
She tried to unseal the wrapping, but her fingers trembled too much and couldn’t pull hard enough. She used her teeth instead and ripped through the foil, exposing the syringe. Then she took a small towel and bit on it, while positioning herself to see the wound in the mirror. After a second of hesitation, she shoved the tip of the syringe deep into her wound and pushed the plunger.
Then she screamed, a long, agonizing scream only partly muffled by the towel she bit on, as the sponges filled the wound and expanded, absorbing the blood and putting hemostatic pressure on the sliced blood vessels inside. When she was finally able, she threw some cold water on her face and drank some too, trying to remain alert and not go into shock.
She unwrapped an H-Bandage and applied the dressing to the wound, tightening it as much as she could. When she finished, she splashed cold water on her face again, feeling the queasiness of a fainting spell approaching.
There was a painkiller syringe in the emergency kit, and she took that next. She unsealed it and injected the contents directly into her thigh, through the fabric of her blood-soaked pants.
