Serial Intent

by Steve Bradshaw

  “Cause of death is crushed cranium, same as the others,” Provost said.

  “He seems to be an odd participant.”

  “Good instincts, detective. He is an odd one. John Doe #2 died twenty-four hours before the others—their times of death were within minutes of each other. It appears the white male was dragged, stowed, and transported after death. He was killed somewhere else and brought to the site where the others met their demise. He was on the bottom of the pile of bodies transported.”

  “I’m not sure what that tells me,” Crowley said.

  Provost smiled and lifted the dead man’s hand. “This man is different from the others. His finger and toe nails are manicured. His hair is cropped. His teeth are implants. His eyebrows are plucked. His legs, arms, chest, and genitals are shaved.”

  “That is peculiar, but what does it mean?”

  “He has no fingerprints, Detective Crowley. They have been surgically removed. This man is stealth from a DNA, fingerprint, and dental record perspective. He does not exist and his movements would be difficult to monitor.”

  “Another sniper,” Crowley muttered.

  “I would say so. The physical condition and alterations I see here exist with our first sniper from Washington Avenue. Didn’t Detective Wolfe share the information with you?”

  No he did not. And I think I’m beginning to know why. “No. But that’s not unusual. We are handling full caseloads and can’t possibly talk about everything.”

  Provost looked over his glasses at the detective. He did not buy it, but it was not his problem. “Detective Wolfe told me he suspected the snipers were contracted by an unidentified group operating in Chicago—their mission unclear then. He said there are people in Detroit who provide discrete sniper termination services.”

  “Yes there are,” Crowley sizzled. “Up until this year we’ve rarely seen them in our city. I’m speaking of shootings of the long distance .50 caliber variety.”

  Provost concurred. He had checked the history of large caliber ballistics in the city back on the day when Pender came through his doors from the South Side. “Where are we now?” he asked changing gears knowing he had his next cadaver waiting on his table.

  “I would value your input, Doc. You’re good with bizarre puzzles.”

  “Very well. I suspect the two elderly white gentlemen had contracted sniper services. The four black gentlemen were here from the Detroit Bloods, the group providing those services. They were in Chicago unhappy about something—possibly the loss of two valuable assets—two snipers—or a failure to pay monies due. I can only imagine the fee would be substantial. I believe the Bloods killed these two elderly white men. I think a third entity entered the picture for reasons unknown. This person killed the two snipers and three Bloods, crushing their skulls unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my forensic career.” Provost pinched the bridge of his nose. “For the life of me, I do not know how Frank Peters fits in all of this, except the way he died.”

  “You said the third entity killed three Bloods. Who killed the fourth Blood?”

  “I suppose that is the most baffling mystery of them all,” Provost said as he turned from the corpse. “If I were you and Wolfe, I’d be looking for a brain surgeon.”

  Thirty

  “I have read the patient file, Mrs. Sorensen. I know about Dario.” Lindsey Fetter stood in the shadows of the long narrow entry. This front door had been left unlocked for a reason.

  Nobody had answered her knocks at the other house on Birch, the one where they held all the Dario Group meetings. Maybe if Lindsey had seen the demolished dining room, or the blood and chunks of brain frozen onto the window panes in the den, or the blood-soaked sofa where Robert Mason died, she would have turned around, gotten into her car, and driven away. But she didn’t see any of it.

  That night nothing felt right to her. The dead end on Birch Street seemed darker than usual. The surrounding woods were black stick trees in a black sky. The moon hid behind thick snow clouds, and the bone-chilling temperatures stopped everything—except Lindsey Fetter.

  She had to find Margaret Sorensen before more people died. When Lindsey turned to leave the only house on Birch she knew, she saw the light across the road. They said the property was condemned. Dr. Sorensen said they purchased it for the land. He always intended to bulldoze the house, but that was more than twenty years ago. Curious, Lindsey crossed Birch and peered into the window through a sliver opening in the lace curtains. Margaret Sorensen was sitting alone knitting by the fire.

  “Please come in, Lindsey,” Sorensen said, her eyes locked on her hands and the precision gyrations of her needles. “I’m sorry. I did not hear you knock.”

  You said Lindsey. You never looked up. “I saw the light in the window,” she said as she scanned the room. “There was no answer at your other house. I didn’t know—”

  “—that we used this old place for anything, right dear?” Sorensen said with an eerie tone.

  “Yes. Anything,” Lindsey mumbled as she eased into the room cradling her purse and a file to her bosom like a wounded rabbit she had just found outside.

  The fireplace was much bigger than the other house. And the fire was popping and sizzling with a new log on top of the old. It had to be put there recently. Who put the log on your fire? Lindsey wondered. There were a dozen flickering candles scattered around. They and the fire provided the only light in the room of shadows. Lindsey eased up to the stuffed chair across from the old lady knitting.

  Am I crazy? Lindsey thought. She looks harmless.

  “Please sit down, young lady. You drove all the way out here in this terrible weather. There must be something very important to you.”

  “How long has Dario been a problem for you, Mrs. Sorensen?”

  “Ah, you know more about Dario.”

  “I have his patient file. It was given to me by Detective Aaron Wolfe. Remember, he knows about my unfettered desires to fix a broken criminal justice system. He felt it was important for me to know about the man you call Dario. I have your husband’s notes over three years. Dr. Sorensen was worried about this sick man. He did not turn Dario over to the authorities because you forbid him. He did not euthanize Dario like the others because you forbid him.”

  Margaret stopped knitting as if she heard the kettle whistling in the next room. She set her work in her lap and looked up at Lindsey for the first time. Margaret’s eyes were dark and puffy as if she had been in a fight. Her age lines were deeper and more pronounced. Her skin sagged as if she had aged another ten years in the few days since Lindsey had seen her last. When she attempted a smile, her face hung empty. Her eyes were barren. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “The man your husband feared the most finally killed him, Mrs. Sorensen. The entity, who called himself Dario, born out of another man, a weaker and troubled man, should have been stopped. This Dario entity not only took over a sick man’s mind, he took over his body.

  “My God, I saw the pictures. It is science fiction. It is unbelievable. This man is grotesque. He looks evil. He is a monster. How could you justify protecting this killer? You had to know one day he would kill your husband. This Dario cannot be controlled. He is like a wild Bengal tiger walking the streets of Chicago. Dario should be in a cage or euthanized.”

  “I don’t know what you think you know,” Margaret said. “The medical records in my husband’s files are woefully incomplete and impossible to understand unless you are a trained psychiatric physician. I think your comments are naïve at best, my dear.”

  Is what you say possible? Am I overreacting to something I am not trained to understand? No. This monster was protected by you against your husband’s wishes. You were the founder of the Dario Group. You believed one day this Dario monster could be used to achieve your goals—the alternative to hired snipers. But something went terribly wrong. The monster turned on you. He had his own agenda, although it made no sense. He killed the man who gave him life—Dr. Sorensen.

/>   “I know you are a doctor,” Lindsey said with an accusing tone. “I know after receiving your medical degree you pursued a specialty in brain surgery. I also know you continued to study psychiatric medicine on your own to this day. You are a very smart woman, Dr. Margaret Sorensen. But why did you take a backseat to your husband’s career. Why did you forgo your own promising career in medicine? Or did you choose a career in medicine and Dario was your only patient?”

  “Very good, Lindsey Fetter. You have finally said something that merits my time and attention. Please sit. Let us talk this through. I am certain once you have all the facts you will be far less suspicious of me and far less concerned about Dario. If after we talk you still feel at risk, violated or compromised, you are certainly free to take your case to the police. I’m sure Mr. Aaron Wolfe will be more than willing to help you.”

  Still clutching her purse and Dario file to her chest, Lindsey sat on the edge of the stuffed armchair by the fire and across from the puzzling lady. You are smarter than me, and you are up to something I cannot leave alone. “I need to know.”

  “Jacques wanted to believe the story, the one that he came across a tortured stranger in an alley and decided to help.” She closed her eyes. “I think he told that story so many times that he finally believed it himself.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lindsey said.

  Margaret Sorensen stared at the fire. “He denied it most of his life. He refused to accept—”

  “—accept what?” Lindsey demanded.

  “—accept that the man in the alley was our son.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Yes. It is true.”

  “But the medical records say he is—”

  Mrs. Sorensen held up her hand. “Please. Don’t be fooled by written words in a dusty file. I am telling you the truth. The man Jacques found in the alley three years ago is our son.”

  “Please continue,” Lindsey said sitting on the edge of her chair.

  “Joseph left when he was twelve—he ran away. He was a troubled child. We knew. We were both psychiatrists. But even then we tried to explain it away—not our child.

  “Twenty years passed. Our son grew up. He changed. We didn’t know what he looked like anymore. We thought he was dead. But somehow he survived on his own. He had created a new identity. His old life had been lost to him like it had never happened.”

  “When did he return to Chicago?” Lindsey asked.

  “When he joined the police department,” she said. “You did not see those pictures. I have them tucked away. Jacques refused to accept it. Our son had grown to be a handsome man, and a quiet, patient person.”

  “You say handsome. The pictures I saw of your son are frightening. His face is grotesque, demonic. The muscles on his neck and shoulders are enormous. He looks deformed, monstrous. I cannot imagine that man as a Chicago police officer.”

  “You are looking at Dario, not Joseph,” she said.

  “Your son had multiple personalities?”

  Mrs. Sorensen’s face tightened. “He had moments when others inside him wanted to come out. He fought them but was not strong enough to stop them all. Our son suffers from dissociative identity disorder. It is a mental condition characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities that alternately show in one’s behavior.”

  “You said behavior, not physicality.”

  “Our son’s situation is unique—never seen before. His change into Dario is both a mental and physical event. The metamorphic nature of change needs study. We do not understand how it is possible, but the physical changes are medically feasible.”

  “And Dario’s strength your husband wrote about, he compares him to ten men. How is that humanly possible?” Lindsey asked.

  “Temporary muscle tissue enhancements, unexplained endocrine secretions, changes in nervous system priorities, soft tissue manipulations, all contribute to the physical phenomena. It is not science fiction. It is unknown science. Dario has a rare condition that requires research and treatment.”

  “I don’t know about this, Mrs. Sorensen. I must admit I am more frightened now than when I sat down. Dario—your son—is killing people with his bare hands. Detective Wolfe shared confidential information. Dario killed your sniper and Frank Peters. He is not working for the benefit of the Dario Group. He is killing people associated with the Dario Group. This puts your mission in jeopardy and the city of Chicago in danger. There is a monster loose that is capable of killing anybody at any time.”

  On Lindsey’s last word, Mrs. Sorensen removed a knitting needle from her work and stuffed all but the needle into the bag next to her chair. Running her fingers up and down the long needle, she smiled in a new way. Her eyes widened, and for the first time she seemed younger and more alive.

  “I’m afraid you do not understand the long term for the Dario Group, dear. You see we cannot continue to count on victims to participate in the removal of the monsters our criminal justice system cannot stop.”

  “I understand that reality. Remember, I was a victim. I failed to stop mine.”

  “We too cannot continue to work with lawless groups like the Detroit Bloods,” Mrs. Sorensen said. “And we cannot continue to use snipers and other serial felons who will eventually expose our enterprise and jeopardize our mission. For us to reach our long term goals, we must put in place our own failsafe process to kill all the monsters.”

  Lindsey watched Mrs. Sorensen fondle her knitting needle more than seemed natural. Lindsey shifted her weight to the edge of her chair in preparation for a quick departure. “You want Dario to kill all the monsters?” She had an odd feeling they were no longer alone.

  “Follow the logic, my dear. It takes a bigger monster to kill a monster.”

  Lindsey shuttered when she heard the labored breathing and smelled the hot tainted breath pouring over the back of her chair. From the corner of her eye she saw the fat white fingers and dirty nails. But it was not dirt. It was dried blood.

  Thirty-One

  “I think Wolfe could be the guy crushing skulls,” Crowley floated.

  Landers set down his cup of ice and rubbed his three-day old beard. “You would think they could have shaved my face when they shaved my head.” He reached for his bandage.

  Crowley slapped his hand. “You are not to touch, sir. It was the only order the doc gave you. If you mess with the head bandage, they’re gonna tie you down again.”

  Landers squinted at the window and worked his mouth like he had taken one in the jaw. “Did the doc say I was gonna live?”

  “Yes—again. He said you were too mean to die from a bullet in the head.”

  “That’s right, I remember. I like him.”

  “Seriously, I can’t tell you how lucky you were that bullet took the route it did. The doc showed me x-rays. Said it was a miracle.”

  “Doesn’t feel like a miracle,” Landers complained.

  “He said if you woke up in a few days, you would live. If you stayed in a coma much longer, pneumonia would probably kill you if you didn’t throw a blood clot.”

  “Wonderful,” Landers sighed. “Okay, let’s do some work. You said you think Detective Wolfe is crushing skulls in Chicago.”

  “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think it’s a real possibility. A lot’s happened while you were in your coma. Things seem to point to Wolfe as a suspect.”

  “Where are Wolfe and Hutson now?”

  “Hutson’s still on sick leave with his bogus head injury.”

  “Bogus?” Landers asked.

  “I think Hutson’s milking the assault at the brownstone. His head wound looks like a small bump on the noggin. Last three days his phone goes to messages. Says he’s on sick leave and can’t be disturbed. Reroutes his calls to the precinct.”

  Landers ignored the editorial. “Fine, what about Wolfe?”

  “He’s running around Detroit looking into the snipers.”

  “We have more than one?” Landers asked.

&n
bsp; “Got two dead now. Got the second this morning,” Crowley said. “He was delivered to the county morgue with six other naked bodies.”

  “I’ll be damned, delivered?”

  “Yeah. We got a total-service criminal element in our city now, Commander.” Crowley chuckled at his own joke alone. Landers just glared at him.

  “Ah, they were lined up on the dock at the county morgue this mornin’. Had been there a while, covered in an inch of powdered snow. There were four black males with tattoos—DETROIT BLOODS—and two old white guys, and one white guy in his thirties.”

  “The second sniper?” Landers asked.

  “Yes,” Crowley said.

  “And that’s why Wolfe’s in Detroit—makes sense,” Landers said.

  “Wolfe did not know about the Detroit Bloods on the dock when he went. He left last night,” Crowley said. “That’s one of the things bugging me. How did he know to go to Detroit before we had these guys and another sniper?”

  “Not enough, Crowley. He could have a good reason. He didn’t need the bodies.”

  “There’s more. I have been over the POD video covering all angles of the parking garage on Washington Avenue after the shooting at the Burnham Hotel. I watched six hours on both sides of that shooting. Everyone going in came out except two, the sniper and Wolfe. CPD blocked off the area minutes after the shooting at the Hotel. I can’t explain it any other way. Wolfe had to be the one who killed the sniper.

  “Before you were shot, you remember Frank Peters was found dead in his Tahoe. We later learned through his DNA he was a serial killer wanted in three states. Provost said his cause of death was a crushed skull. Three of the four Detroit Bloods had crushed skulls. The second dead sniper had a crushed skull. In all cases Wolfe was the only one in the area or nowhere to be found—unaccounted for. I find the extremes suspicious and troubling.”

  “It’s still not enough, Crowley. You’re taking a giant leap.”