Watching The Bodies: a Jake Boulder Thriller

by Graham Smith

  When he leans forward his eyes reflect troubled thoughts.

  ‘The dumping of the bodies in a way they’ll be found is important to him. It helps him select a new target. It also matters that they are found. Most people who kill try to hide the bodies. He’s doing the opposite, which tells me he wants attention. The pattern he’s using as a selection process is complex and requires either a lot of local knowledge or good research skills. It is very important to him otherwise he would have abandoned it.’ He scratches his beard and scribbles a note. ‘I think he started off with basic dumps, and as he’s escalated the killings, he’s tried to misdirect the investigation by changing the scenarios and locations.’

  A thought hits me and it isn’t one I care to have. As soon as I get out of here, I’ll have to rush home to verify the details before I pass the thought on to Alfonse and the chief.

  ‘If as I suspect he’s intelligent, doesn’t he realise that sooner or later someone will realise how he’s selecting his victims?’

  ‘Of course. It’s why he’s trying to mislead you with the various ways the bodies are arranged. The individual tableaus won’t hold any significance for him unless he’s replicating a hero’s actions. He may feel an element of smugness or self-satisfaction from his own cleverness, but I don’t believe there’s anything more to it. All he’s doing is buying time so he can claim more victims. He knows he will be caught or killed by the police but he won’t be worried about that. All he’ll care about is the next victim.’

  ‘You think he’s prepared to be caught or killed?’

  ‘Absolutely. He’ll keep going until he is stopped one way or the other. If there is an element of hero worship, he’ll be determined to match or surpass the number of kills his hero was credited with.’

  The doctor’s theory collides with my earlier thought and chills my blood.

  53

  The Watcher pulls into a parking bay at Stanforth Lake Nature Reserve. A call to his boss claiming a bad reaction to the dentist’s anaesthetic has bought him time to observe Angus Oberton. In his rucksack he carries the Tanto and a short-handled woodsman’s axe along with his usual equipment.

  He always enjoys stalking his prey, although he’s not sure of the best place to dump this body. It’s something he’s given a lot of thought to. The random choice of method has given him a glorious opportunity but also a problem as far as setting up a dump site.

  The murder won’t take long, but it may have more of a noise element than the others and he doesn’t want to move this one. Seppuku has many traditions and he wants to observe as many as possible.

  He enters the visitor centre and pays the admission fee. Seeing the newspaper headline in the gift shop, he buys a copy and scans the relevant pages.

  The news of the police’s breakthrough in identifying his pattern doesn’t surprise him, but he’d hoped it would be another few days before they made the connection.

  Scanning the page, he sees a special edition focusing on the serial killer is due to be published later in the day. Reading it will be fun. Educational even.

  He pushes the news to the back of his mind and concentrates his brain on the matter at hand. This will be the last of the easy ones.

  He waits for an opportunity as he walks around the public areas. When it comes he hops over a fence and hides in some of the bushes. After a short crawl through the underbrush he finds a well-worn trail.

  Turning right will return him to the visitor centre with its tacky gift shop and overpriced cafeteria. Left will take him further into the reserve.

  He turns left. The target is zealous about his work and had jabbered about the breeding pens hidden in a small cleft in one of the valleys. Knowing how involved Oberton is with the breeding programme, he’s sure he’ll either pass this way or visit the pens at some point during the day.

  After a few yards the bushes thin out, allowing him to see a half mile along the trail. Someone dressed in a ranger’s outfit is walking away from the visitor centre.

  A movement off to his right catches his eye. It’s human shaped so he locks onto the person with his eyes while fishing a pair of binoculars from his rucksack. As he does this, he takes a few steps to his right and several backwards until he is shrouded by a chokecherry bush.

  He adjusts the focus, finds the man and takes a proper look. The guy is dressed in store-bought camouflage. It’s a desert pattern, which doesn’t quite match the local terrain.

  Examining him in detail, he sees a pair of binoculars hanging from his neck and an unnatural bulge at the back of his waistband. When he wriggles into a more comfortable position the Watcher sees the glint of gunmetal.

  The man settles himself and puts the binoculars to his eyes. Provided the Watcher’s memory of Oberton’s enthusiastic spiel is correct, the breeding pens are just beyond the corner the binoculars are aimed towards.

  If the guy in the ranger’s uniform is Oberton, why is the guy on the hillside watching him?

  He remembers the newspaper. The guy must be a cop trying to protect Oberton.

  He smiles. The game just got interesting. Challenging. It’s what he’s been waiting for. Anticipating.

  Now it has become a real battle of wits and skill between him and the police. Every successful kill will be a victory for him. Capture or death are the only ways he can now be defeated.

  He packs away his binoculars and starts to move, his intended course a wide circle. The destination being the cop on the hillside.

  It takes him an hour to get within a hundred feet of the cop. Every step is taken with care. No branches are trodden on or bushes rustled. His feet placed with gentle steps so as not to send loose stones tumbling downhill.

  The one thing he has in his favour is the cop is an amateur at this kind of thing. He is observing Oberton from a position where the sun is in his face. Every look through the binoculars will send glints of sunlight flashing across the valley.

  When he gets within fifty feet of the cop, he drops to a crawl. Foot by foot he closes the gap on hands and knees.

  Now close enough to grab the prone cop’s boot, he wraps his fingers around a fist-sized rock.

  Bracing his toes against a large rock for purchase he launches himself forward, his right hand swinging a powerful arc towards the cop’s temple.

  He makes the perfect connection. The cop is out cold, his limp body easy to secure with the duct tape in his backpack. Binding the cop’s arms and legs takes less than a minute, gagging and blindfolding him seconds.

  His old Marine drill sergeant would have found a number of faults with the takedown, but he’d been a hardass for a reason and the Watcher is content with his actions.

  He steals the cop’s gun, binoculars and a knife shoved into the top of a boot. It’s tempting to kill him, but it doesn’t fit the pattern so he lets the man live.

  When he looks down the valley, he sees he has a good view of the breeding pens. He pulls out his binoculars with the anti-flash lenses and watches Oberton.

  The ranger works alone and is wrapped up in his task. Never once does he look around or bother with anything that isn’t part of his job.

  The Watcher tweaks his plan and decides on a course of action.

  He returns to the trail making regular checks on Oberton’s whereabouts as he goes.

  Ten minutes later he’s a few yards from the breeding pens.

  ‘Hey, Angus. How ya doin’?’

  ‘Hi, Norm.’ The Watcher sees the surprise on Angus’s face. ‘You said to drop by sometime, so here I am.’

  Angus recovers his composure. ‘Would you like to see round?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Norm follows him round the breeding pens, feigning interest in Angus’s litany on each animal.

  Once that part of the unofficial tour is complete, Angus leads him around some of the behind-the-scenes areas.

  Norm is keen to get on with the kill before someone joins them or they reach the more public areas. Being introduced or recognised will result i
n him having to abandon Overton as a target. He points at a small building. ‘What’s that, Angus?’

  ‘It’s our reptile house. We keep snakes and a variety of insects in there.’

  Norm catches glimpses of the public areas, so he decides it’s the perfect location for the kill.

  As Angus gazes towards the reptile house and recites a list of its inhabitants, Norm pulls on a pair of latex gloves.

  Next he removes the Tanto from his backpack, takes a silent pace until he’s behind Angus and crashes the sole of his boot into the tendons at the back of the older man’s knees.

  Angus drops to his knees. Norm reaches the same position a fraction of a second after him.

  Norm stretches his arm round Angus’s body and plunges the Tanto into the left side of his stomach. Pulling the Samurai knife to the right he opens the ranger’s belly, before drawing it three inches upwards.

  The wound is a total of eighteen inches in length as it traverses the bloated stomach. Angus’s hands clasp at it, trying to hold in the wriggling eels that are his intestines. His mouth hangs open but no sound comes out. Shock from the sudden pain has immobilised his body.

  Norm removes the woodsman’s axe from his rucksack as he rises to his feet.

  He glances around. Seeing nobody watching him, he lifts the blade above Angus’s exposed neck.

  The axe drops.

  Five minutes later, he’s a quarter of a mile away, wearing his ghillie suit, and has his binoculars to his eyes. Ready to meet the next link in the chain.

  54

  I rifle through the pages printed from Kira’s journal until I find the one I’m looking for. Scanning down the page, I locate her cousin’s name.

  The entry doesn’t name the dead person, but there’s enough information there to get me started, or rather sufficient for me to ask the right questions of Alfonse and the chief.

  It’s the chief I call first. He listens in silence. When I’m done talking, he lets out a string of inventive curses about the killer, before telling me he doesn’t have a spare body with enough live cells to follow the lead I’m suggesting.

  I put Alfonse’s name forward and he agrees. He also suggests Alfonse goes to the station and gets Darla to show him how to use the police computers so he can go through their records.

  After telling the chief what I learned from Dr Edwards, I hang up and call Alfonse.

  With twenty minutes to spare, I embrace the chance to do a spot of uninterrupted thinking.

  There’s a lot to consider. Such as what motivates the killer; who his possible hero might be, and whether there would be any point in me also staking out Kelly Oberton’s father.

  It’s not so much that I don’t trust any of the Casperton police, it’s just they are all way out of their depth. I can’t think of one who has the subtlety and intelligence to stay unseen by someone as cunning as the killer.

  The peace is shattered by my cell ringing. I look at the display and see ‘Mother’. Since first seeing the newspaper headline, I’ve been waiting for her to call.

  It’s a wonder it’s taken her this long to find out.

  My finger hovers over the cell. If I answer it, there will be another narcissistic tirade dressed up as motherly concern. If I don’t she’ll keep calling until I do. Worse, she might even come looking for me. I may be the wrong side of thirty, but that won’t stop her voicing her concerns in a public place.

  I decide it’ll be easier to take the call here in the privacy of my own home; I press the green area of the screen.

  She talks for ten minutes straight without giving me chance to try and answer even one of her rhetorical questions. Realising there’s nothing I can say to calm her, I let her say her piece and promise to go and see her later.

  It’s a promise I daren’t break, much as I’d love to.

  55

  I find Alfonse has been afforded a side office in the station. He is sitting with a heavy woman dressed in a blouse loud enough to require ear defenders.

  Even while she’s teaching him about the computer system, it’s obvious she has the kind of personality you can’t ignore.

  Her voice has a booming quality and her round face has more than its share of laughter lines. The earrings she wears could be used as lures for barracuda and her fingers have more garish rings than Saturn.

  ‘Thanks Darla. I think I’ve got it now.’

  Darla is old enough to be his mother’s elder sister but the difference in their ages doesn’t stop her flirting with him as she leaves the room.

  In other circumstances I’d be ripping him to shreds over his new admirer. This is neither the time nor place, though I do flash him a grin to warn him of what is to come.

  ‘I hope to God you’re wrong, Jake.’ There’s fear in both his face and voice.

  ‘So do I.’

  As he gets to work, I lean back in my seat and think about the information Farrage’s men have given me.

  I’d given them a series of questions to ask the families of Donny Prosser and Wendy Agnew. Most of the questions were the same for both families but I’d added some questions to only be asked of Prosser’s family.

  Neither family had the slightest cause to suspect the victims were having the affair suggested by the way they were found. A check of their credit card statements further disproved the theory as every item listed could be accounted for.

  Both parties were more accustomed to family activities than solo pursuits.

  The final clinchers for me are the answers to the questions I’d had asked of Prosser’s family.

  He was left handed.

  He didn’t own a gun.

  He had no interest in guns.

  This contradicted the suicide tableau which had him using his right hand to hold the gun to his temple.

  Before I’d driven away from the scene, I’d sat in my car and mimed out the sequence of events for the deaths to be the murder suicide the crime scene suggested.

  Even pretending the gun was kept in a door pocket, there was enough time for Wendy Agnew to turn away from him.

  When I’d recreated where the gun must have been fired from, I’d had to twist and contort my body into an uncomfortable position to get my right hand into the right area.

  There were easier ways to position myself so I could fire with my right hand, but none of these put the gun in the correct place.

  When I’d checked their bodies for marks or signs of a fight, I hadn’t seen any fresh scratches or bruising where Prosser had perhaps held Wendy against her will. His body was also free of injuries, which told me any fight between them must have remained verbal. That it hadn’t escalated to any kind of physical violence before a gun was introduced made the two shootings even less believable.

  When I add all these facts together, it becomes obvious the killer is trying to deflect the police investigation by staging the bodies in a way that indicates something other than murder.

  The chief has done a good job rounding up all of the Oberton family. For the sake of their comfort, he’s even managed to get them into a hotel on the east side of town.

  I don’t know what security arrangements he’s made, but it’s a fair guess a number of detectives and patrolmen will catch a shift or two on sentry duty.

  Hearing the gruff tone of his voice accompanied by rapid footsteps, I stick my head out of the office door. ‘We’re in here, Chief.’

  ‘I’ll be there in five.’

  Leaving him to do whatever he needs to, I throw a questioning glance towards Alfonse.

  He doesn’t see it despite looking right at me. Or to be more accurate, right through me.

  ‘What you got?’

  ‘Uh?’

  I repeat the question without ire, aware his attention is focused on the computer and the information he’s extracting from it.

  ‘I’m sorry to say you’re right. I’ve found three before Kira and there are a number of deaths that have been ruled as suicide or accidents which may also prove to have been his doi
ng.’

  I keep quiet as he reaches for the mouse again. Being right has never seemed so wrong.

  I feel the determination compelling me to catch this killer being replaced by a cold anger. I no longer want the killer to pay for his crimes. I want him to suffer for them.

  My fury isn’t the religious eye-for-an-eye type. It’s the rage of the aggrieved, the empathetic person who’s seen too much suffering and needs to nullify the cause.

  I’ve no doubt the chief feels a similar way. Yet if I’m confronted by the killer I would not want to end his life myself. I’d rather he receives his retribution at the hands of the state than stoop to his level myself.

  Barring an insanity plea, he’ll be an odds-on favourite to spend a few years on Death Row before being strapped down and given a lethal injection.

  The idea of him having years of false dawns as appeals fail is one which pleases me.

  I’ve read how studies have proven Death Row inmates suffer in a way no other prisoners can begin to comprehend. After preparing themselves for death, they are given a stay of execution for one reason or another. Full reprieves are rare, but there are many reasons why the carrying out of their sentence may be delayed.

  By the time they make the final walk to the execution chamber they are so mentally weary of the torturous process they are looking forward to the escape death brings.

  I recognise this is a cruel thought, but I believe it’s no less than this monster deserves.

  ‘Well?’ The chief strides into the room. ‘Was Kira his first victim or not?’

  ‘She wasn’t the first. Without looking at coroner’s reports I can’t be sure, but I’ve traced four other deaths before hers which have the same connection between the person who finds a body and the next victim.’

  Four? How many deaths is this guy responsible for?

  ‘The son of a goddamn bitch. Are you telling me there’s been a serial killer at large and we’ve only found out after he’s killed nine people?’

  Alfonse fails to meet the chief’s eye. ‘Like I say, I need to verify the details, but that’s what it’s looking like.’