by Mike Omer
She reached the pond and cycled alongside it for a minute. Then she stopped and gazed at the water. The pond was completely calm, mirroring the view on the opposite shore: a line of trees, a clear sky. Many of their leaves had dropped onto the water, dotting the green surface with brown and yellow. A group of ducks swam in the center of the pond. The entire setting was tranquil.
Both bodies had been found in shallow water. Was that significant somehow? Did the killer stalk near water sources? She got off her bicycle and walked until her shoes sank in the muddy shore. She imagined this place at night, the search party walking along the trail, their flashlights illuminating the ground, and someone suddenly noticing a pale, lifeless form floating in the water. A dead body, her hands tied behind her back.
Heather had said she heard her brother crying behind his closed door every night. Her parents were seeking therapy for him.
The silence around her was disconcerting. She had expected to see a jogger or two, maybe a mother taking a baby for a stroll. There was no one.
Why would anyone walk in a park where a girl was murdered less than a week ago?
She didn’t want to be there anymore. She regretted not going to the café. She quickly walked back to the bicycle. She began cycling back, but then she spotted a figure between the trees. A man. He stood with his back to the trail, and she couldn’t see his face or his hands. Was he just taking a leak? She didn’t want to find out. Was it her imagination, or was he breathing heavily?
She began cycling away when she ran over a dry branch. It snapped noisily. Panicking, she glanced back.
“Zoe?”
She stopped her bicycle, exhaling. It was Rod Glover, their neighbor, and suddenly she realized how relieved she was that she wasn’t there alone anymore, that a responsible grown-up was there with her.
“Hey,” she said, smiling.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, walking toward her, hands in his pockets.
She shrugged. “I had some time off at school, so I thought I’d go for a ride.” She frowned. “Don’t tell my parents. My mom would have a fit.”
He reached her and grinned. “Your secret is safe with me.”
She nodded, feeling that she could trust him. He didn’t strike her as someone who’d blab. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Crazy thing,” he said. “There was a fire in the office today. Some sort of electricity malfunction.”
“Really? Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Our secretary almost got caught in the flames, but I got her out in time. I had to carry her because she inhaled a lot of smoke and couldn’t stand.”
“Holy crap. Did they put the fire out?” A pang of worry flashed in her mind. Her dad’s office was two buildings down from the telemarketing office where Rod worked.
“Yeah, totally, but they sent us all home. The boss made sure to clarify that tomorrow is just as any other day.” He furrowed his brow and stuck out his lower lip, a face he always made when imitating his boss. “Eight thirty, all of you—we have phone calls to make and people to bother.”
Zoe grinned at him. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
He smiled back. “You shouldn’t really be walking around here alone. I’ll walk you out.”
The idea bothered her. When she was a few years younger, she’d enjoyed Rod’s company and even hung out with him a couple of times. It was thrilling, talking and spending time with an adult who spoke to her at eye level. But now it suddenly felt strange. The idea of him walking with her in this park made her squirm uncomfortably. Their ten-year age difference seemed a bit creepy instead of cool.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just leaving. My bike will get me out in three minutes.”
He frowned. “Okay,” he said. “See ya.”
As she cycled away, she began to feel sorry for blowing him off like that. He’d only been looking out for her. They were neighbors, after all, and he was a nice guy. She’d have to remember to thank him next time they met and explain that she had been late to school.
What was Rod doing there, anyway? Did he want to see the pond where Jackie had died, like her? The thought reassured her. Maybe she wasn’t such a weirdo after all. People got curious. It was only natural.
CHAPTER 17
Chicago, Illinois, Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Abramson Funeral Home was just a few blocks away from the police station. Zoe patiently sat in the waiting room, its decoration equal parts expensive and tasteless. A large chandelier lit the room in a somber yellow light that gave the gray wall-to-wall carpet a sickly hue. The couch she sat on had rose-patterned upholstery that probably cost much more than it deserved. Several other leather chairs and couches lined the wall, but she was the only one waiting. Were there days when the seats filled up? Was there a good season for funeral homes?
She rubbed her eyes tiredly. She had slept terribly the night before, as she usually did when sleeping away from home. It was the fifth night she hadn’t slept much, and she could feel the agitation and irritability that always followed sleep deprivation. She wasn’t even sure what she was still doing in Chicago. Agent Gray clearly didn’t want her there anymore, and she mostly wanted to get back to the highway murders she had been working on. But instead of getting on the first plane to Washington, she’d told the girl at the motel’s reception desk she would probably be staying there for a few more days.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” a man said as he approached her. He had thick-rimmed glasses and a soft smile that seemed to radiate sadness. It looked like a smile cultivated to project reassurance and sympathy. Here was a person who understood your pain and was ready to take charge.
“It’s quite all right,” Zoe said, standing up and shaking his hand. “I didn’t schedule beforehand.”
“Very understandable,” he said. “I could hardly expect that in your moment of grief—”
“I’m not grieving,” she quickly interrupted him. Then, realizing that might sound a bit cold, she clarified, “No one in my family has died.”
She flipped her employee badge quickly. It had the initials FBI on it, which she hoped would be enough. “I’m with the FBI. I was hoping for a moment of your time.”
“Oh.” He seemed taken aback. “I don’t quite know how I can help the FBI.”
“I’m actually more interested in talking to your embalmer,” Zoe said. “This is about the murderer the press is calling the Strangling Undertaker.”
“Oh, right,” he said and twisted his mouth in distaste. “I find that name quite offensive.”
“I’m sure you do. So do I. It’s very clear the murderer is not an undertaker and doesn’t work in a funeral home.”
The man’s face softened as she said that. That was an aspect of these killings she hadn’t yet considered, the hurt feelings of funeral directors.
She pressed on. “I wanted a bit of help understanding the killer’s embalming techniques. I found your funeral home online, and there was a lot of praise, specifically about your preservation service.” She didn’t add that there was also a litany of complaints about the cost of coffins at the Abramson Funeral Home. That was hardly relevant.
“I see.” He smiled, an authentic smile this time, full of pride. “Well, I’m Vernon Abramson, and I’m both the owner of this funeral home and the main embalmer. I have two other embalmers working for me, but I tend to take the difficult jobs. I’d be happy to help in any way I can.”
“Good.” Zoe nodded, satisfied. “Is now a good time?”
He took her down a clean, sterile staircase, lit with a single bulb. The transformation from the fancy waiting room to the sparse staircase was strange but not surprising. She assumed most customers would never see the downstairs. A door opened to a small room, its floor white linoleum, the walls cream colored. A counter stood in front of them, holding various containers, with a line of white cupboards above it, all closed. There was a closed roller shutter oppo
site the entrance, probably used when bodies were delivered for embalming. In the center of the room stood a flat metal bed. Zoe entered the room and looked at the bed in fascination.
“How long does it take to embalm a body?”
“It really depends on the body. Some are more decayed than others. On average, it takes about two hours.”
Zoe nodded thoughtfully.
“I assume you have specific questions? About the killings?”
“Right. Can I show you some pictures? Of the victims?”
“Of course.”
She took the folder from her shoulder bag, opened it, and pulled out the photos. Hesitating, she almost spread them on the metal bed, where the room’s light was focused, but it felt completely wrong. She spread them on the counter instead. Vernon approached and looked at the pictures with interest. Zoe examined his face. It was strange, showing the pictures to a civilian who wasn’t shocked or disgusted. Vernon moved his eyes from one picture to the next, his stare completely cold and emotionless. This was a man very familiar with death.
“I agree with your assessment,” he finally said. “Whoever did the embalming wasn’t a professional. At least not in the first two cases.”
“What makes you say that?” Zoe asked. She had some basic ideas, but she was sure the funeral home director would have a lot more to say.
“Well, for one, no self-respecting professional would mess up the embalming process in the leg like that. The body must have stunk to high heaven when it got to this point.”
“Why would the leg decompose? Didn’t he get the embalming fluid in?”
“When you insert the embalming fluid into the body, you have to massage the limbs to get the fluid to flow in and replace the blood,” the director said. “I assume he didn’t do that, or he did but was impatient. Either way, something, maybe a clot, prevented the embalming fluid from flowing freely into the left leg. And your killer didn’t notice.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Also,” Vernon said, “the mouth is a dead giveaway.”
“The mouth?”
“See the way the mouth is closed with those two victims? It’s been sewn shut. But with the first victim, it wasn’t, and it’s open.”
“Right,” Zoe said. “I figured the killer was making a statement. Like he was shutting them up, or—”
“You don’t understand,” Vernon said. “You’re supposed to sew the mouth shut. Otherwise it remains open, and it doesn’t look good. You can see the first body’s face. She doesn’t look peaceful. She looks surprised—or horrified.”
Zoe looked at the photos, seeing it for the first time. He was right. The sewn mouths made the latest victims look serene.
“I see. So you think he figured it out later on?”
“Oh, I’m certain. You can see how he did those two. He clearly learned how to do it right. I mean, I’ve seen better. But for an amateur, this is very good work.”
“How would he learn to do it? Would he have to get someone to teach him?”
“I think you can find stuff online, if you try. Of course, if you learn that way, you make mistakes. Like the mouth on this victim.” He gestured at a picture of Monique Silva, the second victim. It was a close-up of her face. “See the side of her mouth? This blackening here?” he pointed at a discolored spot. “That’s decay. He didn’t disinfect the mouth. The nose, mouth, and eyes have to be disinfected before anything else.”
“The third body doesn’t have decay,” Zoe said, examining the image of Krista. The sunlit face of the dead woman seemed unblemished, though the skin was a bit gray.
“Could be that he’s learning,” Vernon said, looking at it. “She’s definitely embalmed better, though he used less dye than the first victim, which gives the body the gray appearance.”
“Why would he use less dye?” Zoe asked.
“No idea. Maybe he’s experimenting? Trying to achieve a better solution? Or maybe he just ran out?”
A better solution? Zoe considered the bodies. The first one had been found lying on the grass, straight as a plank; the second one, standing on a bridge, her hands on the rail. The third had been found sitting on the beach, face buried in her hands, her knees bent—just like a living person would do.
“An embalmed body,” she said. “How flexible is it?”
“It isn’t, at least not the ones embalmed in the standard method,” Vernon said. “They’re completely rigid.”
“What if you change the concentration of the . . . whatever it is you put in it?”
“The formaldehyde?” Vernon asked, his tone amused. “Then the body could be more flexible. But it would decay faster.”
“How much faster?”
“In weeks or months, instead of years. Could even take days. Depends on the concentration.”
“Could he be fiddling with the concentrations? To get the bodies more flexible?”
“Sure, but what for?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Zoe said, half to herself. “I’m not sure at all.”
CHAPTER 18
Dr. Bernstein didn’t show up that day and didn’t answer his phone. Martinez temporarily gave Bernstein’s spot in the special task force room to Zoe. The desk was a flimsy old thing that kept wobbling, even with the endless pieces of paper Zoe stuck under its legs. Despite the constant wobbling and the fact that the desk’s surface was scratched and spotted, there was something reassuring in knowing she had somewhere to sit, at least for now. She sat at the desk and stared at the page of her notebook in front of her. She used pen and paper to jot down her initial thoughts when profiling. So far she had written down, The killer is a man; the murder is premeditated, with indications that he is a lust serial killer. She frowned, frustrated. Maybe a bubble diagram was in order. She drew a bubble and wrote Fantasy inside.
The fantasy was always the foundation stone of lust serial killers. Lust serial killers typically daydreamed and fantasized about sexual assault. This fantasy became more intricate and violent as time progressed. As the fantasy became more detailed, the man was more likely to act upon it, trying to fulfill it.
She drew a line from the bubble, creating another bubble, and then wrote in it, Power or Anger?
Old-school profilers often stated that lust serial murderers were split into two typologies. Power killer fantasies revolved around the sexual assault, and the murder was a byproduct of the assault. Anger killers were motivated by hatred and sadism.
She stared at the two typologies. Neither really applied. The murder was obviously a very integral part of the fantasy, which seemed to indicate anger typology, but the motivation clearly had to do with power. She crossed both of them off, obliterating both words with multiple angry strokes. This was much more complex.
She drew a different line from the central bubble and tried to think of something different. Then she added a couple more lines. It looked like a sun. She drew a cloud and two birds.
She was supposed to be profiling a killer, and instead, she was doodling inane scribbles.
She stood up and looked around. Behind her, Agent Gray sat at his own desk, reading the autopsy report for Krista Barker.
“Agent Gray,” she said, her voice as formal as she could make it. “Would you mind sitting down with me for a bit? I need to talk about the killer.”
He whirled his chair around and frowned at her. Finally, he said, “Okay. I’ll ask Martinez if he wants to join us.”
She already regretted approaching Tatum instead of Martinez. She didn’t need the agent to listen to her theories and then detail all the ways she could be wrong. It wouldn’t do any good. But it was too late to change her mind.
Martinez said he had half an hour before he had a meeting with his captain. The three of them walked to the task force’s meeting room and sat down. Someone had filled one of the several whiteboards in the room with the crime scene pictures of Krista Barker’s body, and a timeline was drawn underneath. She hoped they wouldn’t find themselves running out of whit
eboards. A red circle on the map now marked Ohio Street Beach, and there was a red X in the Brighton Park neighborhood where Krista Barker had worked the street the last night she had been seen. The marks on the map made it very clear that the killer wasn’t focusing on a certain area of Chicago.
“I think we can start narrowing the suspect pool down,” she said, looking at Martinez. The lieutenant and Agent Gray sat next to each other on one side of the table. She sat on the other side.
Martinez nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“We know the subject is a male. I talked to an embalmer this morning, and he verified what I already assumed. The killer is not someone who works in a funeral home, or if he is, he’s started very recently.”
She bit her lip. Now for the tricky part. Every detail she added to the profile would narrow down the suspect pool, but if she added the wrong detail, the police might completely overlook the killer, searching for someone who fit the profile better.
“The killer is very intelligent,” she said. “He seems to have learned the embalming process very quickly, but he almost certainly did so by himself, by learning from his own mistakes. The first victim shows a lot of amateur mistakes, the second victim a bit less, and the third was embalmed well enough to meet the approval of the embalmer I talked to this morning. That indicates he has high technical skills. He also has unusual self-discipline.”
“Why self-discipline?” Martinez asked.
“Learning such a complex skill alone and persevering requires a level of self-discipline most people don’t have.”
Martinez was leaning forward, jotting in his notebook. Tatum sat back, his face a mask of boredom, arms folded.
“Stating something that’s probably obvious, he has both an apartment or house and a car. He would need the car to pick up the prostitutes and drop off their bodies, and the victims were found in wide-ranging areas. Both Monique and Krista were embalmed outside their homes, which means he did it somewhere he felt safe. This also indicates he’s living alone.”
