Taker of Lives: A Gripping Crime Thriller

by Leslie Wolfe

  “Are we sure it’s the same guy?” Fradella asked. “We know Christina wouldn’t pose nude, but we don’t know that much about Estelle.”

  “That’s true,” Tess replied, “but we have this,” she added, then displayed a press release on the screen. It was written in the modern style, aptly named clickbait, and it reeked of undisguised contempt. “It doesn’t take an expert to see it’s the same guy. He posted it only a few hours after the photos were taken.”

  They fell silent, gathered in front of the TV to read the press release.

  What Do We Really Know about Estelle Kennedy?

  Two years ago, the young Miami resident was just as anonymous as millions of other people, until one day when we all learned to say her name and whistle her tune. Since then, her career has skyrocketed. Apparently, not even Ms. Kennedy’s lackluster performance since can keep it from taking off. Was hers the best voice carried on radio waves that year? Not really. Was she backed by one of the notable record labels? Nope. Was she the most talented American Idol contestant? Not even close.

  However, we could venture a guess or two as to what drives her unlikely success.

  She doesn’t take chances with her music. She borrows her sound from established performers like Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson, sound we’re already used to liking and voting for.

  She looks just right. Yeah, you heard me. The beautiful, slender, seemingly intangible blonde with long, wavy strands of silky hair, yadda, yadda. You know what I mean. The same type we’ve been falling over ourselves to fall in love with for generations. If you look the right way, you can’t lose. We won’t let you.

  She puts out. Don’t let her innocent looks deceive you; Google her name and be shocked at the extent of her depravity. All her secrets will be revealed, and we mean that literally, in high resolution and with amazing detail.

  “Whoa,” Michowsky reacted. “This is vicious. Are you telling me the media outlets published this poison?”

  “Some did,” Tess replied. “Mostly online outlets, the shady ones who operate in the tabloid sphere and aren’t overly concerned with lawsuits or with telling the truth. Donovan found this exact release already picked up by 145 different media outlets, verbatim. It’s out there.”

  “But there isn’t anything untrue in this release,” Fradella said. “You mentioned the concern with the truth, or lack thereof. As far as anyone can tell, all of it is true. I know her music; she does sound a little like Taylor Swift.”

  “Correct,” Tess replied. “However, any respectable publication would hesitate before releasing this story, in the form it was submitted. That’s expecting too much from a disappearing breed of journalism. The emerging breed only cares about ratings, and this release is prone to go viral sooner or later.”

  “What bothers me is the timeline,” Michowsky insisted. “He took a new victim before he finished with the first one. We’ve seen this before in a serial killer case, but it was different. What do you make of it, Winnett?”

  “The release is searing and reeks of injured narcissism. These girls make him feel insignificant somehow; I wonder why. Maybe they reject his advances.” She stood and paced the room slowly, thinking, visualizing the timeline in her mind, the unsub’s actions, his potential triggers, his routine. “The timeline shows he’s able to stalk two victims at the same time, which is rare. It takes an organized, methodical, highly intelligent person to pull that off.”

  “Could it be that he’s waiting for them to find out about the photos on their own, and intervenes only when that doesn’t happen?” Fradella asked.

  “It’s a good theory,” she said, tilting her head slightly, as she let her mind explore the validity of the idea. It made sense, and, if true, brought some clarification to the unsub’s desired outcome: pain. Tremendous psychological suffering, destroyed lives, pain he witnessed and enjoyed, pain from which there was no coming back.

  “But how does that happen,” Michowsky asked, gesturing toward the TV screen where the press release was still displayed, “and Estelle hasn’t heard about it yet, after two weeks?”

  “Informational overload,” Fradella replied. “There’s so much stuff online these days that things could go unnoticed for the longest time.”

  “Correct,” Tess replied. “Until someone close to the victim finds out and lets her know. This time we might be ahead of him. Estelle is still alive, as far as we know. Maybe she remembers something from that night.” She grabbed her keys. “Are you guys coming?”

  15

  Another Life

  Tess usually delivered bad news to families in the form of next-of-kin death notifications, followed by routine questioning. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d talked to a live victim, one who didn’t know she’d been victimized.

  Her colleagues at Cybercrime encountered, with increased frequency, cases involving the release of explicit imagery with the purpose of harassment or retribution; it was a sad mark of the times. This horrendous, digital crime had its own name; it was called revenge porn. That normally involved one of two possible scenarios: a disgruntled ex who had received an explicit selfie, possibly even recorded a sexual encounter; that was a personal type of revenge. The other scenario involved leaked explicit selfies and sex vids from unsecured mobile devices that fell prey to hackers. In Christina’s case, they’d eliminated both scenarios, and they probably would in Estelle’s case too. This unsub was different.

  She climbed the three wide steps to the front door of the two-story building, but her finger hovered near the doorbell for a moment, undecided. She wasn’t prepared to deliver the message; in her rush to catch Estelle before the girl could do anything desperate, she hadn’t allowed herself the time to prepare.

  Tess heard a young woman’s laughter from inside the home. She clenched her jaws and rang the bell, then held her badge in front of an unfrosted section of the front door glass.

  Estelle opened the door widely, traces of her earlier laughter waning from her lips, as she studied the three of them with increasing concern. In person, she was even more beautiful. She wore denim shorts with frayed edges, and a yellow T-shirt that fell off her right shoulder.

  “May we come in?” Tess asked, after briefly introducing the three of them.

  Estelle nodded and led them into the living room. “What is this about?” she asked, her voice trembling a little. She fidgeted with her hands for a moment, then clasped them together in front of her stomach to hide her anxiety.

  Tess hesitated a moment, then remembered the Volvo parked in the driveway. That didn’t seem the obvious choice for a girl her age; the Volvo more likely belonged to her father or her mother.

  “Are Mr. or Mrs. Kennedy home?” she asked.

  Estelle didn’t reply; she scampered to the bottom of the staircase and shouted, “Dad! The police are here.” Then she turned toward them with a nervous smile. “He’ll be down in a second.”

  It actually didn’t take more than a second for Mr. Kennedy to show up and rush downstairs with heavy steps, panting slightly from the effort. Following closely right behind him, Mrs. Kennedy, slack-jawed and pale, still dressed in a bathrobe, grasped his arm right above the elbow.

  “Can I help you?” Mr. Kennedy asked, moving his scrutinizing glance from Tess to Fradella and then to Michowsky.

  “Let’s all take a seat, please,” she replied, then sat on the sofa, waiting for them to follow suit. “We have reasons to believe someone was in your house on May 10, after midnight.”

  Mr. Kennedy shook his head vigorously. “That’s impossible,” he said. “We would’ve known. Are you sure you have the right address?”

  “Unfortunately, we’re quite sure,” she replied somberly, and her ominous tone brought a visible degree of pallor to Estelle’s cheeks. Her pupils dilated, and her hands started trembling.

  “Do you remember anything about that night?” Tess asked, looking straight at Estelle. “Anything at all?”

  “My parents went to bed early,” she
said, her voice trembling and weak, “at about ten. I stayed up late, wrote some music, but then I felt weird, nauseated, dizzy. I just… went to bed.”

  “That’s all you remember?” Tess asked.

  Estelle fidgeted in place and veered her eyes away for a moment. “Yes, that’s it.”

  She was lying and wasn’t very good at it.

  “What do you think happened here, Agent Winnett?” Mr. Kennedy asked.

  “Where’s your bedroom, Miss Kennedy?” Tess asked, dodging her father’s question. She wanted to get as much information as possible before all hell broke loose.

  “I sleep downstairs,” she replied in a choked voice. “I sometimes play music at night or watch MTV.”

  “Are you going to tell us what this is about?” Mr. Kennedy demanded, standing and approaching Tess, as if to give more weight to his request. “Whatever it is, just say it already.”

  He tugged spasmodically at the collar of his shirt, then undid the top button. His face had gained a dark red complexion, not unlike Doc Rizza during one of his hypertensive episodes.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Kennedy,” she said firmly, and he obeyed. “There’s no easy way to say this, but your daughter was assaulted on May 10, here, inside your home.”

  He stared at her for a short moment, in shock, but then shook his head again. “No, you must be mistaken. We have an alarm system, with monitoring and all that.” He pointed toward a control panel affixed to the wall next to the door leading to the garage. “There, see for yourself.”

  “Please, Mr. Kennedy, let me finish,” Tess insisted.

  He fell instantly silent, gasping, as if a cold bucket of ice had been poured on his head. Blotches of purple spread on his cheeks and his neck.

  “During this assault, the perpetrator drugged your daughter and took pictures of her, then posted them online,” she continued, as calmly as she could.

  “We were here,” he reacted vehemently, almost shouting. “There’s no way.”

  “Let me see them,” Estelle said calmly, standing next to Tess with her hand extended. “Please.”

  Tess felt tempted to postpone the moment when she’d have to share those horrible images, but there was no point. The sooner Estelle came to terms with what happened, the sooner they could focus on catching the unsub.

  She unlocked her phone and handed it to Estelle. The girl looked at a few images, thumbing through them quickly, and handed her back her phone. Then she let out a heart-wrenching wail, letting herself drop to the floor and hugging her knees, shattered by uncontrollable sobs. Her mother rushed to her, while her father extended a demanding hand for Tess’s phone.

  “Who would’ve done this, Mr. Kennedy?” Tess asked, while he looked at the pictures.

  He didn’t reply; he grabbed at his shirt with his right hand, as if wanting to tear it off, gasping for air in short, pained breaths.

  “They have my name,” Estelle cried between sobs. “They have my name. Oh, God… I’m finished.”

  Mr. Kennedy took two steps toward his daughter, his hand still grasping at his collar, but his knees buckled, and he fell to the floor with a loud thump. He convulsed several times, heaving, then fell silently still. For a moment, Estelle’s sobs ceased, silenced by unspeakable fear.

  “We need a bus at my location right away,” she heard Fradella say into his phone. “Possible heart attack. Step on it, already!”

  Tess rushed to Mr. Kennedy and felt for a pulse. It was too late.

  The killer had taken another life.

  16

  Arguments

  “He died right there, in front of his family, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do!” she shouted, angrily pacing SAC Pearson’s office, while he looked at her disapprovingly, a deep frown trenched across his brow. “Jim Kennedy was murdered, and you know that just as well as I do,” she stated once more.

  “Palm Beach County still hasn’t requested our engagement, Winnett,” he said, the moment she stopped shouting. “Officially, there’s nothing we can do. Jurisdiction is very clear—”

  “Argh… screw jurisdiction!”

  She stopped in front of his desk with her hands propped firmly on her thighs, leaning over almost menacingly. In passing, she’d noticed the same green folder under her supervisor’s clutched hands but dismissed any thought of that and refocused on the issue at hand.

  “Sir, they’re not equipped to handle this unsub at Palm Beach. They’re an inch away from letting the case grow cold and fall through, because this man leaves no evidence behind. None whatsoever. Technically, he doesn’t kill.”

  SAC Pearson stared at her with critical eyes, but she didn’t lower her gaze. He sighed, visibly frustrated, and gestured with his hand, pointing at one of the chairs in front of his desk.

  “Sit down, Winnett,” he ordered, and she obliged after a second’s hesitation. She was tense, angry, impatient, and sitting made it worse.

  “Sir, this investigation needs a profiler, or the closest thing we have to one: me. That’s the only way we’ll catch this unsub.”

  Pearson unscrewed the cap of a bottle of Dasani and took a few swigs, unnervingly slowly. “Argue your case, Winnett. I’m listening.”

  She took a long breath of air, willing herself to be calm and articulate before opening her mouth. She’d already overstepped her boundaries, and last time she’d shouted at Pearson, it didn’t end well. At least this time he was willing to listen. When she spoke, she sounded professional, albeit still a little loud.

  “He’s a new kind of unsub, bred by these modern times we’re living in, by social media turning everyone into instant gratification addicts, by the explosion of malignant narcissism on a wide scale as a direct consequence.” She stopped talking and took another deep breath, aware she was still coming across as aggressive, argumentative. “He stalks his prey thoroughly, not shying away from secure properties, even a rumored cartel enforcer’s household. He gains access to these properties and subdues the victim while other people sleep in the house. He’s incredibly bold; I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Do you think he’s escalating?” Pearson asked, leaning forward. Something had piqued his interest.

  “Definitely escalating. He’s a sexual predator getting ready to kill.”

  “He hasn’t raped anyone yet, has he?”

  “No, but there’s sexual viciousness in his crimes. He exposes his victims naked and powerless for the entire world to see. Rape is about power, you know that.” She swallowed, aware of how dry her throat suddenly felt. Discreetly, she extracted a mint from a tin of Altoids in her pocket and put it in her mouth. “Although there’s no physical penetration during the assault, this unsub does something worse. He takes their lives. He…”

  She hesitated, unsure how to best explain what she was thinking. How can anyone describe such atrocity?

  “In the typical sexual assault situation, the victim at least has her privacy,” she continued, “and that privacy is paramount. It allows victims to heal, to put the assault behind them. That’s why many attacks go unreported, because victims value their privacy more than they care for closure or even justice. This unsub makes the assault public, robbing his victims of any chance of living a normal life.”

  “He tags the photos with their names, right?” Pearson said, and as he spoke, a dark cloud washed over his features, as if he’d remembered something troublesome, something urgent.

  “Yes. Can you imagine? Whenever anyone looks them up online, those horrible, explicit photos are the first images that come up, for the rest of those girls’ lives and beyond. He takes their lives, takes control of their existence, then squashes them in a public display of power. He reduces their existence to a reprehensible pile of internet smut. He leaves them no way out other than death, or a life worse than death.” She watched him closely, expecting a reaction that didn’t come. “I promise you he’s escalating, and he’s going to kill with his own hands.”

  “Why do you think he hasn’t done i
t already?”

  She gave the question a bit more thought, although it had been on her mind for a while. “It’s the typical progression, from lust rapist to lust killer, only he doesn’t violate their bodies; he pillages their lives. I believe he’s trying to figure out how to kill to make an even stronger statement.”

  “Jeez, Winnett… Statement of what?”

  “Of his immense power over any creature that somehow, intentionally or not, takes away from his ego, his self-worth. The assaults are remediation for the narcissistic injury he’s experiencing, but there’s no blind rage. He’s highly intelligent, organized, and knows that revenge is a meal best served cold.”

  “He’s never hurt anyone, has he?” Pearson asked, running his hand over his shiny scalp.

  “Physically, no. We believe he has chemically restrained them, but by the time we learned of the assaults we were too late to find any forensic evidence at the crime scenes or in the first victim’s blood. Doc Rizza is working with Estelle, his second victim that we know of, to see if he can find any traces of chemicals in her bloodstream, but it’s been two weeks,” she added, making a gesture of despair with her hands.

  “You have no evidence, no crime scene you can work, no leads, nothing but a tentative profile,” Pearson said. “How are you planning to catch this man?”

  “I know he’s escalating, and I know we’ll find more victims. We’ll work backgrounds, and we’ll find out how he chose them. The more information we have, the better we can define the profile and set a trap,” she answered, aware she sounded unconvinced that this was the best approach. What she didn’t want to say is that she didn’t want to wait until more victims showed up. She wanted to lure the unsub, challenge him in his display of power and superiority, and get him to make a mistake, but Pearson didn’t like taking such risks, and most definitely didn’t endorse what he called, “cat-and-mouse games with serial killers.”