by Jenn Vakey
“Why would it have been a challenge directly for you?” Nicole asked as she shoved another chocolate bar in her mouth. She was peering over the binder, examining Rilynne’s face.
Rilynne was afraid to say it out loud. If she was right, it meant Derek Hartley was only taken because of his proximity to her. In a way, that would make her responsible for his fate. Although she did not know him, he had a life and people who loved him. She almost couldn’t bear the thought of him losing his life because of her.
“I found the last body, and much quicker than any of the other ones were found. He would have seen it not only as an accomplishment to get away with it right above me, but it’s his way for saying that no matter how close I am to it, I will never catch him. That was his big mistake, though,” Rilynne said, taking the binder back from Nicole.
Nicole seemed shocked by Rilynne’s cold tone. “What do you mean? How was it a mistake?”
“Because, now nothing will stop me from catching this guy.” If the killer had expected to rattle Rilynne’s nerves, it worked. But it was not going to lead to the outcome he was likely hoping for. She would not let anything stand in her way of finding Derek Hartley before he was killed, even if she had to allow her secret to be exposed.
Chapter Seven
Rilynne’s run to work seemed to take no time at all. It was just after seven when she walked out of the locker room and headed for the conference room.
Detective Wilcome was the only one to arrive before she did. He appeared to have just opened the boxes when she stepped through the door.
“What are these?” he asked, looking at the piles of binders. He picked the top one up and opened it to the middle.
“Ben Davis put them together for us. They have all of the photos from the scene, the reports from the crime scene investigators, a map of the victim’s route the abduction night, and…” she trailed off as she stared at the map over Wilcome’s shoulder. His gaze jumped from the page to her, and then followed her eyes back to the map in his hand.
He waited for a few moments for her to start talking again, before he finally spoke up. “What is it Evans?” He did not look back at her, but instead scanned the map trying to see what she had found.
“The grocery store-” she pointed to the store on the map that was directly across the street from her building, “-has an ATM. It is not against the wall like most are; it has a clear view of the street through the front window,” she stated looking up at Wilcome.
Wilcome dropped the binder in front of him and reached for the phone in the middle of the table. “Good work Evans,” he said as he started dialing.
Rilynne took a seat at the far end of the table, and closed her eyes. She could not help but feel a twinge of excitement. The location of the ATM in the grocery store placed it directly across from the front door of her building. The perpetrator may have been able to disable the cameras in the building, but it was not possible for him to have tampered with the ATM camera.
She let a grin sneak across her face before clearing her mind. She concentrated on the photograph of Derek and Emily she had been staring at all morning. Derek was not looking at the camera, but instead he was focused on Emily. There was a look of pure love and desire in his eyes. They had been dating for two years, and judging by his search history on his home computer, he had been shopping around for a ring.
Rilynne focused on that degree of love; the strong feeling that you cannot live without the other person. There was truly no feeling like it, which gave Rilynne something strong to concentrate on.
It did not take more than a few seconds for her to start seeing flashes.
The room was still dark. While Derek still looked a little groggy, he seemed to be more alert than he was the day before. He appeared to be in a great deal of pain, but he was fighting through it, trying to get out of the bed he was laying in. A sheet was pulled up to his waist, but judging by the shadows, it was clear something was not quite right. Rilynne’s heart sank. She knew the leg was always removed the first day, but the fact it had indeed already happened was upsetting.
Through the darkness, she could just make out the room. It was small, couldn’t have been more than eight-by-eight. The bed, a worn looking single, was pushed into the corner. The bedside table had something shiny sitting on it. It was a bedpan. Other than a chair pushed in the opposite corner, there was no other furniture in the room. The only light in the room was coming from a small window at the top of the wall above the chair.
Derek had just managed to pull himself up and swing his remaining leg off the edge of the bed when more light entered the room; a thin line of light flooded in from under the door at the foot of the bed. An expression of pure panic crossed Derek’s face as he began to search around the room for anything he could use. He grabbed the bedpan and hid it behind his back as the lock clicked in the door.
“I’m amazed you can sleep at a time like this, Evans?” The room vanished from sight just as the door swung open, revealing a dark figure, and the conference room came into focus. As a wave of frustration swept over her, she looked up to see Detective Butcher glaring down at her in a disapproving manner.
“Sleeping is the last thing on my mind right now, Brenda,” she said as nicely as she could, despite the building resentment for being disturbed right before seeing the perpetrator’s face. She withdrew her gaze from Butcher’s face and saw nearly everyone had arrived. Unlike Detective Butcher, the other detectives were occupying themselves with the binders on the table.
“When I get stuck, it’s easier for me to get back on track when I shut everything else out and run through all of the details in my head.”
Rilynne did not wait for Detective Butcher to respond before crossing the room to the map tacked to the wall. The placement of the window in the room struck her as odd. There was only one reason for a window to be so high on a wall; it was a basement.
“Basements are not standard in homes built in the city are they?” she asked Detective Matthews.
“No, they would have to be special built. Why, what are you thinking?” he asked while examining the map also, trying to see it through her eyes.
“The bodies are not showing any sign of physical restraint, so either they are being chemically restrained for the whole week, or they are being held in a place where they can be easily contained. I don’t see the point of keeping the men for a week if they were going to be incapacitated the whole time.” She paused for a moment to contemplate the best way to get her point across. “The easiest way to contain them would be to keep them in a place with limited points of entry. A basement would be a good place; they have one way in, and the windows are high and would be almost impossible for someone who had just had a leg amputated to get out of. They would also provide a kind of built in soundproofing to prevent the neighbors from hearing any cries for help.”
Matthews shifted his gaze from the map to Rilynne looking both confused and impressed. “Brilliant, Evans,” he said as he turned abruptly and ran out the door, almost knocking Detective Wilcome over, who had just walked back in.
“Okay everyone, I see you all found the binders our crime scene investigator Ben Davis put together for us. The bank that owns the ATM in the grocery store across the street from the apartment building is sending over the camera footage for us to go through. The camera points right at the front of the building, so hopefully we will catch the perpetrator leaving with our victim. I know I don’t have to tell you, but assuming the pattern is consistent, we only have five days to find Mr. Hartley alive. Okay, so does anyone have any leads or ideas of where we should look next?” Wilcome looked almost desperate for someone to provide anything new that might help them get ahead of this guy.
The looks around the table were all pretty consistent, exhaustion and desperation. Rilynne was the only one who seemed to have anything to say.
“Matthews is looking into which houses within our search area have basements. The perpetrator would need a place to hold the victims
that would provide a good deal of control and containment, which a basement would provide.”
The idea they had a new place to start looking seemed to arouse a bit of hope amongst the detectives.
“I’m going to go back to the victims’ families,” said LaShad. “The key to catching this guy is finding out how he’s picking his victims.”
“Good. Skinner, Johnson, and Steele will work with you. Start at the beginning. I want every detail of their lives starting with their first words. Evans and Davidson, find Matthews and get working on the list of houses with basements. Butcher and Jerkins, check on the ATM tapes. As soon as they get in, I want every frame examined. I want a picture of everyone entering during the time the cameras in the building were off. The first thing I want you to focus on is the abduction time, though. If Hartley was lured out, we should be able to see who he walked out of the building with.
“Also, pay close attention to anyone carrying anything out of the building big enough to hold an unconscious man. We have only a thirty-minute window from the time we know he arrived home and the call came in. That gives us a small area to concentrate on.” Wilcome took a deep breath and glanced around. He looked like he wanted to add something else, but couldn’t find the words. “You know what you need to do,” he stated simply, then turned and exited the room.
Detective Matthews had been right; there was a short list of homes within their search area that had basements. “There are thirty-eight homes within the city that have built in basements. It will take a little longer to get the list of homes in the woods. Even then, we are not guaranteed that if the killer built a house with a basement, he would have put it in the building plans. But it gives us a place to start.” Matthews divided the list between the three of them, and they got to work.
Rilynne had just finished getting the owner information on the houses on her list when a brown lunch bag dropped down on her desk beside her. “Tuna with sliced tomatoes on white. Your favorite, right?”
She spun around in her chair to see Ben holding what appeared at first glance to be an evidence box. Upon closer inspection, she saw it was filled with the paper to-go bags from the diner across the street. “How did you know?” she asked as he handed her a bottled water from the box.
“Noticing details is my job,” his knuckles dragged mindlessly across his chin as he quickly changed the conversation. “So, are you making any progress?”
Rilynne stood up to help Ben distribute the lunch bags to the rest of the detective unit. “Yea, we have some new leads. We got lucky with the placement of the ATM across the street.”
“What ATM?” he asked quickly, dropping the bag that was in his hand.
“There’s an ATM in the grocery store that faces the front of our building,” she responded as she reached down to grab it. “Hopefully we will get a picture of who Hartley left with. I… what happened to you?” She had not noticed until she stood back up that there was something off. Just below his hair line there was a fresh cut, with a bruise reaching all the way down to his left eye.
His ears burned red as he quickly smoothed his hair down, trying to cover the marks. “I, uh… it’s a long story. Well, I have to get back to work. Just wanted to bring y’all some lunch. I’ll see you around.” He hastily placed the box on the desk behind Rilynne’s, and left the office.
“Huh,” she said under her breath to herself, then brushed it off and reached for her sandwich.
* * *
“Okay, so where do we stand?” Wilcome called from his desk across the room. If the darkness had not been sneaking in from the office windows, Rilynne would not have known it was as late as it was.
“We have the owner records on the houses within the city limits that have basements. Three are owned by older couples that have been ruled out. One is a state foster home, and according the family services office there was a surprise inspection performed yesterday, and the basement is set up as a family entertainment area. Two of the houses are currently vacant, one is condemned and the other is in the process of being sold. Tylers and Rodriguez are looking into them now.” Matthews, who had pinned the locations of the homes on the map, was removing the ones they had already ruled out.
“We are running background checks on the owners of the remaining ones,” Rilynne jumped in. “We are also still waiting for the list of homes in the woods with basements.”
“Good,” Wilcome answered. “Where are we on the footage from the ATM?”
“Butcher is working on getting us a copy of it right now,” Jerkins answered. “We have the equipment set up for it as soon as it gets here. We also have the images of the known people, so we can put names to faces as quickly as we can.”
Wilcome nodded slowly, “Good, good. It’s a little after nine now, the rest of you head home. I want you well rested for tomorrow.”
Rilynne grabbed the stack of papers off of her desk, and walked with the rest towards the elevators.
She seemed to be on autopilot for the walk home, and reached her building without remembering how she had gotten there. She glanced up and down the street before walking in the door, and was relieved to see Nicole’s car was not there. All she wanted tonight was a large glass of wine and as much quiet at possible to concentrate. She moved her coffee table against the wall, and laid out the papers she had left the office with across the living room floor.
She has just finished pouring herself a glass of wine when there was a knock at the door. For a brief moment, she considered pretending she wasn’t home, but decided against it. She placed the glass on the table, and pulled the door open.
“You really should find out who’s at your door before you just open it.” Despite the smile on his face, there was an obvious note of frustration in his voice.
“You are beginning to sound like my mother. Besides, I have this beauty to protect me,” she said, tapping the sidearm still attached to her hip. “So, did you come over just to harass me?”
“No,” Ben replied as his ears quickly burned red. “I was actually wondering if Nicole was over here? She has some files I really need, and she isn’t home or answering her phone.”
“No, I haven’t seen her. Her car wasn’t here when I got home. Would you like to come in? I was just about to order a pizza and look over the case.”
“Um… yeah, sure. I can stay for a bit. What are you looking at?” he walked in the living room and sat on the pillow Rilynne threw on the floor for him.
“Do you want a beer?” she asked as she walked back into the kitchen to grab her wine and her case files. “Or I have some wine if you prefer.”
“A beer would be great, thanks.”
She handed him the amber bottle and took a seat next to him on the floor. “You worked all of the scenes right? Well, except for the latest one.”
“All but the first abduction scene. Nicole did that one herself, I believe. Why do you ask?”
“I’m just trying to get inside of this guys head. He put a lot of thought into the reactions he wanted to receive from the way he set the scenes. Maybe if I understood the reactions better, it could help me understand him a little more. It sounds silly, I know.”
“No, not at all. It’s impressive, actually. You seem to be able to get in these creeps heads better than anyone else.” Ben stared at the papers on the floor, and would not meet Rilynne’s eyes.
“Yeah, I have always had a knack for profiling people. From what I hear, you are one of the top crime scene investigators in the country. Now that’s an extraordinary accomplishment.”
Ben just shrugged and took a large swig of his beer. “I just have a knack for noticing the details.”
Rilynne chuckled and picked up a stack of crime scene pictures and handed them to Ben. “Well, details are exactly what I’m looking for right now. Let’s start with the first dumpsite. What did you first notice about it?”
Ben flipped through the pictures. It was a site similar to the one where Rilynne had found the last victim. The body had been fou
nd by a group of college kids on a camping trip. The pieces had been spread around the clearing, and no real effort was made to hide them. The area was a popular spot for campers and hikers, and anyone from the area would have known the body would have been found relatively quickly.
“We have had our share of murders, but I had never seen anything so brutal before,” he stated, staring at the picture of the victim’s head, which had been placed atop a pile of rocks. “It was almost contradictory in itself. He obviously wanted the body found, or he would have disposed of it more carefully. But at the same time, he made some attempt at covering the pieces.” He handed the picture to Rilynne. “Like the head; he placed it on a pile of rocks, but put a few branches on top of it to conceal it. He didn’t just want the body found. He wanted it to be a shock when it was. You go to grab a small pile of brush to set a fire and find that you have grabbed a human head.”
“Yeah, that would be one hell of a shock. You want another beer?” she asked as she got up to refill her glass.
“Sure, I could go for another.”
Rilynne plopped back down on her pillow, and picked the picture of the head back up. “Why do you think he changes their appearance?”
“He lost someone important to him and he’s trying to replace them in a way. Or maybe the press is right, and he has a major thing for pirates.” He leaned back against the couch, grinning at Rilynne.
“It’s got to be the pirates,” Rilynne chortled. She spun around to face Ben, and sat her glass of wine on the floor in front of her. She was not used to seeing Ben so at ease. Where he usually seemed closed in and shy, he was now relaxed and outgoing.
“Maybe you could help me with these also,” she grabbed the stack of owner records for the houses with basements, and handed half to Ben. “We think the men are being held in a basement, and these are the homes in the city within our search area that have one.”
“Not many are there?” he flipped through the stack before looking over the one on top. “I guess we don’t really have a need for basements much here. We always had one when I was growing up. Even my brother had one when I moved in with him. What makes you think a basement is being used?”
