[Special Agent Tess Winnett 01.0] Dawn Girl

by Leslie Wolfe

  “Let’s go back to the precinct. We got work to do.”

  35

  Serum

  A small, hotel-size fridge took a section of the counter, humming quietly at times. He approached it and opened the door, but then hesitated. What should he take? What would be the perfect mix for the night? What was he in a mood for?

  Small boxes with vials lined the refrigerator’s shelves, and a larger box with IV glucose bags took the bottom. He had a separate drawer for powders and pills, but it was the vials that needed refrigeration to stay potent for longer. They weren’t easy to come by, some of those vials. He had to plan ahead and order the precise formulations from smugglers who then brought them from Mexico, or the Dominican Republic, or the Bahamas, using fake medical certificates when accompanying elderly tourists. It was an ingenious method to get the rare stuff he was after, but even with his ingenuity put to work, it took time and lots of money. Even in Mexico or the Bahamas, some of those drugs weren’t readily available. They had to be made to order. Sure, 5 percent glucose was an easy job; he could get it from his favorite dealer in about 10 minutes for about 50 bucks. Druggies everywhere needed that to rehydrate after long nights of partying, and that demand put the offer right there, at the local street corner.

  Rohypnol was easy too, and so banal he didn’t want to use it anymore. What was the challenge, the charm in using the same date rape drug idiots everywhere used to get laid? No, he’d used it in the past, when he was just learning ways to enhance his experience, but not anymore. That particular bottle stood at the back of the shelf, almost half empty, and abandoned, forgotten in favor of new, wonderful applications of modern pharmacology.

  He’d been a dedicated student, teaching himself anatomy, physiology, and chemistry. It had taken him effort and commitment, but it was well worth it. He understood how all those formulations worked, and what they could do to the human body, by themselves or in carefully dosed combinations.

  He was a fan of natural products; fascinated with nature’s endless ability to formulate venoms and poisons with the most spectacular results, he stocked a shelf with such hard-to-come-by, expensive extracts. Among other natural concoctions, there was a powerful, South American frog extract that acted as a potent pain reliever, completely removing the ability to feel pain. A few drops of that, combined with an opioid injected in the thigh muscle, and he could do to her whatever he pleased, and she wouldn’t fight him much. Wouldn’t scream, wouldn’t struggle. Later on, when he’d be done with her, and the drugs would wear off, she’d feel pain again, all of it, coming at her like a freight train. Sometimes he liked to make her feel the pain even more—enhance the pain with a different drug, but he’d save that for later.

  He hesitated, staring at the shelves, unsure of what he wanted. Should he try the new serum, fresh out of Australia, or should he stick to known recipes? Did he want feisty? Struggling against his body, begging, pleading, and screaming? Or was he in a mood for endless shrieks of pain only he could hear?

  36

  Midnight Oil

  Few lights were still on at Palm Beach County Police Office; most of the county’s finest had left for the day. The basement had its light on, where the coroner’s office was located, and there was still some activity going on in several offices, on the first and second floors of the main building.

  Julie had been gone 23 hours, and Tess wondered how was she preparing for her second night of captivity. How does anyone get ready for endless pain? There was no getting ready for something like that… she knew it better than most. For the helpless victim, terrified of death just as much as of life in the hands of a sadist, there can be no getting ready. Only a faint shred of hope, fragile like the wisp of a cloud on a sunny morning, that someone might come soon and rescue her. That someone might hear her screams and break down the door to set her free.

  Tess parked the Suburban right in front of the entrance, and Fradella pulled in alongside. She hopped out and trotted into the building, stopping at the front desk. The night officer, flustered, hopped to his feet, dropped the magazine he was reading, and tugged at the stubborn earbuds that wouldn’t leave his ears.

  “We’ll need pizza, order us some, will you?” she ordered him with an impatient tone. “Pepperoni, double cheese, olives, mushrooms. No onion, and nothing else that stinks. Get sodas too, some soda water.”

  “Um, for how many?”

  Fradella and Michowsky watched her with amazement.

  “For eight people. If you want to partake, you’ll have to do more than read junk and listen to music. You’ll need to actually work. Think you could handle that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the officer said quickly, then shot Michowsky and Fradella an inquisitive glance. Michowsky couldn’t contain a grin.

  “Who else is invited to this party?” he asked, scratching the roots of his buzz-cut hair.

  “I don’t know, you tell me,” she replied, and turned to face them. “You tell me who’s fast, smart, and has decent computer skills in this office. Any names come to mind?”

  “Yeah, sure. There’s Brad and Harvey, but they’ve gone home for the night,” he replied, his eyebrows raised a little.

  “Watch how I don’t give a fuck,” Tess said, grabbing the front-desk phone and offering him the receiver. “Call them. Dinner’s on us, but then they have to hit the streets, pronto. It’s rush hour for drug dealers out there. The best of the best of Miami’s scum are waiting for us.”

  Michowsky nodded once, visibly swallowing his frustration, and started dialing.

  “What’s your name?” Tess asked the front-desk officer.

  “Garth, Garth Brooks,” he said, smiling shyly.

  “Really?” Tess asked, and heard Fradella chuckle.

  “Really, and it’s just a coincidence,” he added, turning a couple of shades redder in the face.

  “Are you good with a computer, Officer Brooks?”

  “Sure, I’m a computer science major from Florida State.”

  “So what the hell are you doing at the front desk?”

  He shrugged. He probably didn’t have an answer to that question, and he most likely wasn’t too happy about it.

  “Call the detention center and have them send a replacement to read junk and listen to music at the front desk while you work with us upstairs.”

  “On whose authority?”

  “Special Agent Winnett, FBI. Tell them they can bitch about it in the morning, when everyone else will.”

  Michowsky nodded encouragement in Garth’s direction, and the young officer picked up the other phone.

  Within minutes, they were set to work upstairs in the conference room. They’d turned the space into a war room of sorts. Brooks and Fradella moved a couple of computers and fumbled with their wiring and Internet access for a few more minutes, while Tess powered up her laptop and logged into her FBI systems. She started by bringing up DIVS, because she had a burning, unanswered question she’d been dying to research.

  “Can we project?” she asked.

  “Yeah, here you go,” Fradella replied from under the table, extending an HDMI cable for her laptop. She plugged it in, and the TV on the wall fired up automatically.

  Then a young officer wearing detention center insignia came in, carrying three boxes of pizza and a bag full of soda cans. He put them on the table, firing Tess a disappointed, frustrated glare.

  “Thanks, mate,” she said, unperturbed. “Grab a slice, if you’d like.”

  She watched with amusement how his frustration melted away, leaving room for a more relaxed demeanor, and a glint of craving anticipation in his eyes. What was it about food that made people instantly collaborative? More human? Probably the millennia of sharing meals as a sign of trust and closeness had left an imprint in the modern man’s DNA.

  She grabbed a steaming slice and started wolfing it down. She couldn’t even remember if she’d had anything to eat that day. Most likely not, and neither had Fradella or Michowsky. Holding the pizza slice
with one hand, she slowly typed DIVS search parameters with the other, until Fradella grabbed the laptop from her.

  “Enjoy your pie, I’ll do this,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled with her mouth full.

  “What are we looking for?”

  She swallowed her pizza half chewed, and washed it with a couple of gulps of soda water.

  “We’re looking for all missing persons, female, under 30, cases still open, who were last seen at Club Exhale.”

  “Hmm… interesting,” Michowsky said, between pizza mouthfuls. “What’s your theory?”

  “Your theory is he never strikes twice in the same place,” Tess replied. “I’m thinking no one put it together before, that’s all. If the creep is our unsub, his home base is Miami, and I promise you he didn’t start his killing career in Chicago with May Lin, or in any other state. He started killing right here, in Miami.”

  “Going back how long?” Fradella asked. “The search.”

  “Since the club opened for business,” she replied. “By the way, when was that?”

  “Eight years ago.” Fradella hit enter and the TV screen showed 11 results. That was a lot.

  Michowsky whistled, blowing pizza crumbs over the table’s shiny finish.

  “Yep, that’s a lot,” Tess voiced her thoughts. “How come no one’s put it together until now?”

  No one ventured an answer for a long, loaded minute. Then Tess spoke in a voice tainted with bitterness.

  “I’ll tell you why. Because a female missing person last seen in a club is considered, inherently, as high risk. Sleazy, cheap, even if the club is high-end. No one normally even files the report into the system for at least 24 hours, per procedure, because we care more about our stats than we do about human lives. The idea is to give these girls enough time to return from their drunken spells or their one-night stands, or whatever law enforcement considers these women to be doing after they vanish. After 24 hours, though, the report is finally being filed, but no one really works it, right?”

  No one replied.

  “Right?” she insisted, raising her voice, mercilessly. “Eleven women, for Chrissake! I’m not saying our unsub killed them all, but what happened to them? Do you even care? When we’re done with this, after we find Julie and nail this son of a bitch, I’ll open an investigation into how these cases were worked. Four of these cases were filed right here in this office.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair,” Michowsky said, throwing his half-eaten slice of pizza back in the box. “You have no idea how busy we get, how overworked, and how much we wished we could do something, but we can’t!”

  “I’m not buying it!” Tess replied in a low, threatening tone. “As long as a single goddamn speeding ticket was issued by this office, you have no excuse! None.”

  “You really don’t know how things work around here, do you?” Fradella asked sarcastically.

  “I don’t, and I don’t want to know. So save it. We got work to do.”

  “Don’t piss on our work, Winnett. Don’t.” Michowsky said. His face was contorted in anger and frustration, and he breathed heavily.

  “Tell me that deep in your heart you don’t feel the same, Michowsky. Tell me I’m wrong. Look me in the eye, and tell me these 11 girls won’t haunt you for years to come.”

  He lowered his head and sat back on his chair, without a word.

  “We’ll work together, and we’ll save Julie. I promise you that,” Tess said, “then we’ll see. Let’s get to work.” She took another slice of pizza and took a big bite. She swallowed it quickly, and gulped some more soda. She’d long lost her appetite, but she knew she needed the energy. She wiped her mouth with a paper tissue, as two men came through the door.

  “These are Detectives Brad Spaulding and Harvey Bateman,” Michowsky introduced the two.

  “Help yourselves,” Tess offered, but only Spaulding took a slice. Bateman stood, leaning against the wall, frowning. He was definitely not happy to be pulled back into duty so late at night. Tough shit.

  “What do we know?” she said, bringing everyone up to speed. “Four women have been abducted, raped, tortured, and killed over the past two years. Their bodies have been posed on east-facing beaches and discovered at dawn or soon thereafter. Autopsy results indicate that the killer used a complex array of drugs, mostly hard-to-come-by at the street corner. Unusual, hospital-only stuff. This is where you come in,” she gestured toward Spaulding and Bateman. “We have identified a suspect, a man who had met the first victim, and who the fourth victim had referred to as ‘the creep.’ This man, Matthew Feldman Dahler, fits the profile delivered by Quantico. Yeah, yeah, I heard it all before,” she replied to the murmurs exchanged by the three officers. “He’s rich and powerful, but that was also in the profile. And we’re all terribly afraid of the rich and powerful, aren’t we?” she scoffed.

  They were still commenting in low voice, shooting her angry, frustrated glares.

  “I’ll take the heat if it comes to that, all right? Now, can we please focus?” Her tone didn’t leave room for discussion. “A fifth young woman was abducted 24 hours ago, Julie Reynolds. We need to find her fast. We don’t have enough for a warrant, and we need to tie this suspect to the exotic drugs Doc Rizza found in the victims. Drug lists are here, sending them and his mugshot to your phones. Get out there, talk to dealers, to confidential informers, whatever you can do. As soon as you have anything, let me—let us know. Questions?”

  Neither of the two spoke; both had deep frowns and clenched jaws.

  “That’s it, then,” she dismissed them. “Let me know what you find.”

  The two detectives left the conference room without saying anything else.

  “Let’s work the girlfriend angle,” Fradella offered. “He must have had some issues with girlfriends; I think it’s worth a shot.”

  “Yeah, you take the girlfriends. Find anyone who we can talk to. Officer Brooks, do you know how to run property searches?”

  “Um, yeah,” he answered.

  “Nationwide?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Good. Grab a computer and let’s find out what this man owns, everything that’s in his name. Cars, boats, businesses, anything and everything.”

  “You got it,” he replied, typing fast. Judging only by his keyboarding skills, the man was totally underutilized in his job at the front desk.

  “Michowsky, you and I will look at financials together. Let’s see if any transactions get our attention.”

  “You’ve subpoenaed his bank accounts?”

  “No. In kidnapping cases, there’s a way our analysts can circumvent that process and get the unsub’s financials without delay. We have everything in my inbox already, going back six months.”

  Michowsky frowned, squinting a little at the documents she displayed on the wall TV. It was going too slow like that. The moment she scrolled down he wanted to go back; it was simply not working out.

  “Let’s print them out, it will be better. We can divide and conquer.” She sent the documents to the printer, and took another slice of pizza, now cold.

  Doc Rizza appeared in the doorway. He was visibly tired, grayish pale and drawn.

  “I heard you guys were up here,” he said. “I got something you might find interesting.”

  “Shoot,” Tess replied, chewing fast.

  “Sonya’s most recent superficial cuts shows signs of inflammation and had traces of a substance, like the scalpel had been doused in something before cutting her. The lab came back with the result.”

  “And?”

  He pressed his lips together before responding, in the universal gesture of revulsion.

  “It was wasp venom,” he said eventually. “Undiluted. It must have cost him a fortune.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, suddenly feeling too sick to eat anymore. She put her unfinished slice of pizza back in the box and took a few gulps of water to settle her nauseated stomach.

  “I guess this confirms the b
ehaviorist’s theory. He’s a pure sadist, looking to inflict as much pain as possible, and keeping his victims alive for as long as they can endure.”

  She put her hands on her face, hiding the wave of sickening emotion she felt. A familiar feeling rose up inside her, as her heart rate accelerated abruptly and sweat beads formed at the roots of her hair. She made an effort to control the approaching panic attack and breathed slowly, deeply, focusing on the time it took her to breathe in, hold the air in, then breathe out.

  “There’s a silver lining to it,” she heard Doc Rizza say. “The damn thing is so rare, that if we establish a connection, that’s enough grounds for whatever warrants you’ll need.”

  “Yeah…” she replied, “there’s that. Doc, forgot to ask, is there even the remotest of possibilities that Sonya’s bite could have happened on February 28? Three weeks before her death, not two?”

  He frowned and stared at his feet, while rubbing his forehead.

  “Um, with bite marks it’s always hard to say. I’d venture to say yes, but it’s a stretch. Why?”

  “I’m thinking that’s what happened to make Sonya dub him the creep, and dump him in the parking lot. I’m thinking it’s all related.”

  “Hey,” Brooks intervened, “this guy’s permanent address is at his parents’ house. That’s funny, considering.”

  “That’s more than funny,” Tess replied, invigorated. “That’s smart. That’s an intrinsic alibi, a smoke screen meant to discourage us. Keep digging.”

  “Where’s that address?”

  “Some oceanfront acreage home in Key Biscayne.”

  “Maybe it’s time to visit,” Tess replied.

  “You’re committing career suicide,” Michowsky replied, “you know that.”

  She scoffed in his direction, but frowned a little. She was risking a lot if she went to interview the family before the crack of dawn. She cringed, imagining SAC Pearson’s reaction. Yet she couldn’t stop thinking about Julie, and what she must have been going through. Wasp venom. God…