Touching Evil

by Kylie Brant

  Only silence greeted him. He’d expected no less. The wall at his back, he took the stairs sideways, weapon leveled.

  The area was all one space, with a furnace in the center and a water heater tucked into the corner. It was empty save for plastic footlockers stacked neatly in one corner. That was another thing that struck Cam about the entire house. Neat. Tidy. With one exception.

  He holstered his weapon. “He’s not here. Let’s get a look at the garage.” He and Samuels headed back up the stairs.

  When they re-entered the kitchen, the other agent said, “You want me to have Dr. Channing come in and look at…this?” He gestured at the next room.

  “I think she’ll find it very interesting.” With a sense of déjà vu Cam pulled out his phone and called the lab.

  They were going to need another crime scene team.

  * * * *

  Sophia moved slowly through the UNSUB’s living room taking in every detail. She’d suspected the offender might have a mental illness. This place all but shouted it.

  The walls were covered with writings in black marker. Sometimes the words were in print, others in big loopy cursive letters. Most was legible. In some places, though, the words were scrawled with large angry letters that all but dripped venom. And the messages varied very little.

  Fuck you mommy your dead your dead now you see can you see?

  Fascinated, Sophia brought out her phone. Snapped a picture. Then several more.

  The noise its loud too loud very loud too much noise I need quiet more quiet.

  See what I do for you what you make me do its never enough theres always more and more and more.

  “Jesus.” So engrossed in the scrawls, she’d hardly been aware of Cam coming up beside her. “It’s like being trapped in this guy’s mind. Freaky.”

  “More like watching it unravel,” she murmured, her gaze shifting to another wall. The writings stretched almost to the ceiling behind the couch. Lower in other spots, but none below waist high. It was so textbook that she initially questioned whether the scene had been staged to throw them off track.

  But in some places the marker was fresh and black against the pale wall. In others it grew fainter, as if it were running out of ink. There were spots that looked as if someone had tried painting over the words before writing over them. If this had been staged, the offender had taken a long time to do it.

  You should have stayed dead why arent you dead you should never came back Ill kill you again and again and bury you this time deep very deep.

  Silently she walked by Cam to turn toward the short hallway.

  “Where you going?”

  “To check the medicine cabinet.”

  The bathroom was barely large enough to turn around in. It was spotless. Even the door to the shower that, she knew from experience was almost impossible to keep clear of water spots. Taking a Kleenex from her purse she used it to open the metal-framed cabinet above the sink. Stared at the crammed shelves. If the offender had fled, he hadn’t taken his medication with him.

  One by one Sophia used the Kleenex to carefully turn the pill bottles so she could read the prescriptions. Haldol. Trilafon. Mellaril. Clozaril. The number of labels was dizzying. She sensed Cam’s presence before he spoke.

  “What’s the name on the bottles?”

  “Sonny Baxter.” She looked at him. “The guy next door got the initials right at least.”

  He snorted. “Probably as right as he’s been in a couple decades. Is Baxter a hypochondriac or really sick?”

  “These meds are all prescribed for heavy duty psychosis. Schizophrenia, possibly, although the diagnosis may be unspecified. There are half full bottles here dated eight years ago. None are more recent than three years ago.” She brought one container up for Cam to read. She wasn’t familiar with the doctor on the label, but the prescription had been filled at the nearby Pinter’s.

  Cam was matter-of-fact. “Three years is a long time. What with staff turnover and the number of people they see in a day…not that surprising they didn’t recognize him as a past customer. So.” He peered closer to read some of the markings. “Is this guy crazy?”

  She grimaced. “You know I hate that word.” His grin told her that was why he had used it.

  “Certainly these medications indicate he has a significant mental illness.”

  “Which you guessed early on,” he interjected.

  “Several of these drugs are used to treat hallucinations and delusions. It’s common for patients to feel there’s no need for them to take medication, or to quit when they’re feeling better. Or because of the side effects. They can be rather intense.” She felt a flare of impatience. The medications indicated a vast trove of information on the offender that would offer a great deal of insight into his needs and motivations. “We have to get a warrant for his medical records. Now.”

  “We’ll get them.”

  “The ClyZol zinc tablets might be significant as well,” she said slowly. She felt Cam’s gaze drilling into her, but couldn’t look away from the row of boxes on the top shelf. Four of them. All nearly empty.

  “How so?”

  “FDA issued a warning about them last year. Long term use of them as cold remedies has been linked to permanent loss of smell.”

  Cam blew out a breath, his hands on his hips. “I’ll be damned. You ever get tired of being right?”

  She shook her head. Not in answer to his question, but in silent wonder. The UNSUB’s medicine cabinet alone was a wealth of information about the offender. The wall of his living room was like a peek into the frenzied state of his mind.

  “Prescott! You’re going to want to see this!”

  Cam responded immediately. Sophia was right behind him. The basement door was standing open and John was calling from a cramped cellar that had a strong odor of mildew. They descended the stairs to join the two agents and Sophia was struck by how clean the area was. As tidy as the upstairs. There were no cobwebs, no dust on the floor. A broom was propped in one corner, as if waiting to be utilized again.

  John Samuels was kneeling in front of the plastic footlockers. Beachum stood next to him with a camera.

  “Got the photos before we opened them,” Beachum assured Cam. “Take a look.”

  Sophia leaned closer to peer into each container. All held neatly folded women’s clothes. Shoes in one. Tops and bottoms in another. Undergarments in the third. Her stomach clutched.

  “At first I thought maybe the guy was a trannie. But they’re all different sizes.”

  “How many sets?” Cam’s voice seemed to come from a distance.

  The agent flipped through the middle container with a gloved hand. “Fourteen bottoms.”

  The floor lurched a bit beneath her feet. Sophia grasped Cam’s arm to right herself. Fourteen. It didn’t match the number on the back of the corpse Baxter was assaulting. But it represented a sickening loss of life. How many had died at the hands of Vance and how many to Baxter?

  She had to look away. Had to, to keep the nausea circling in her stomach from worsening. It wasn’t all that unusual for serial killers to take trophies. An article of clothing or an item of jewelry. A finger from the victim. She’d consulted on a case last fall where the killer had carefully cut off all his victims’ hair and braided it into an intricate scarf, which he’d then dyed and worn out in public.

  There was absolutely no reason for the sight of those clothes to hit so hard. Not when she’d seen far worse.

  “You okay?” Cam asked her in an undertone.

  “These aren’t souvenirs.” She hugged herself, suddenly chilled. “He was just tidying up.”

  Arrested, Cam stared at her. “How do you know that? Why didn’t he get rid of them?”

  “In case they come back.”

  “What…?”

  But Sophia was already walking away. Back up the creaking narrow stairs. Through the kitchen. To stop in the front room. The scrawling on the walls pressed in on her, the chaotic thoughts they rep
resented a silent psychotic episode.

  I taught her to be quiet so quiet so sweet and quiet my darling my sweet one goodbye my darling.

  She spied a black marker on the floor along the baseboard. Crossing to it, Sophia crouched down in front of it. Then lifted her gaze.

  The words jumped off the wall.

  Get out of my head out of my head out of my head get out get out get out get out.

  “There’s takeout in the garbage with a receipt stamped yesterday.” She heard Cam in the kitchen. “He hasn’t been gone long.”

  Then he walked into the room and to Sophia’s side. “Where would he go?” He asked quietly. His face was damp with perspiration. The heavy armored vest he wore had to be like an oven. “He’s a creature of routine, you said. Uncomfortable outside his familiar surroundings.”

  She forced herself to focus. “Somewhere else he knows well. Where he feels safe. Now that we have a name how difficult would it be to get his Department of Human Services file unsealed? A list of his foster homes might be helpful.”

  Cam nodded. “That’s a good thought. You think he might go back to one of them?”

  “Maybe.” Her gaze returned to the wall in front of her again. “One of them might have meant something to him.”

  He stood there for a moment, reading more of the graffiti. “This time you’ll die you’ll die you wont come back not this time not again dead is dead your dead stay dead Mommy stay dead stay dead.” He glanced at Sophia. “You think he’s fantasizing about killing his mother? Is that what this is all about?”

  A wave of exhaustion hit her then. “I think he has killed her. At least fourteen times. With every victim he kills her over and over again.”

  * * * *

  “You hiding dead fish in here?” Seth Dietz walked in outfitted in Tyvek and a wiseass attitude. “Or is that Prescott I smell, fresh from his stint at the river?”

  “Bite me,” Cam invited mildly. He was pulling out kitchen drawers and opening cupboards, while the other two agents were pawing through the rest of the trash they’d dumped on a towel they’d found in the bathroom. “I haven’t had the luxury of eight hours to enjoy a full night’s sleep and a bubble bath.”

  Dietz set his hard-cased wheeled suitcase on the floor and knelt to open it. “Can’t beat Mr. Bubble. Maybe you ought to pick some up. Although the smell isn’t as bad in here. But in the driveway…”

  Cam turned, his interest sharpening. “The driveway?”

  “Yeah, between the houses. But maybe it’s coming from the house next door…”

  The agents were out the kitchen door before he finished his statement.

  “You knock at that house?” Cam asked.

  Alex Beachum nodded. “Hit all the houses on the street, both sides. Went to the front door. No answer.”

  Cam pulled out his phone. Texted Samuels to join them. Then stared at the door on the next house again. It was almost directly across from Baxter’s and standing partially open. Cam didn’t get more than four feet toward it before the smell hit him.

  When the third agent arrived they crossed to the house. Cam and Beachum went to the door and Samuels stood to the side, his weapon leveled. Reaching out to pound on the door, Cam shouted, “DCI. We need to talk to the occupant.” He stopped, listened. There was no sound from the interior of the house.

  The odor was stronger this close to the house. Alex Beachum took an exaggerated sniff. “Know what that smells like?”

  “Like probable cause.” Cam tried the knob of the screen door. Found it open.

  He and Alex drew their weapons. They crept into the kitchen, fanned out. Cam was first into the small living room. An easy chair with a heavily creased cushion sat empty. Next to it was a cluttered TV stand with several pill bottles lying on their sides. A few had dropped to the floor.

  The two other agents checked the tiny coat closet and found it stuffed with clothes. Cam’s gaze was fixed on the drawn slatted blinds on the front window. One slat was wedged downward, leaving an opening. As if someone had been peering out at the street. Maybe an inquisitive old woman.

  Or perhaps someone else was watching the agents’ progress as they canvassed the area.

  Cam gestured to the others and they walked down a hallway that was eerily similar to Baxter’s. Like the house next door there were two bedrooms and a bath. Each of them took one of the rooms to clear.

  They, too, were empty. But at least one of them hadn’t been for long.

  “Someone went out the window.” The lone window in the second bedroom had been opened and the screen was lying on the ground below. “I’ll check the garage out back,” he said over his shoulder as he climbed through the window. “Clear the cellar.”

  “On it.”

  Cam jumped lightly to the ground and ran toward the leaning garage on the alley. Rounding the corner, he saw the old wooden door raised and the stall empty. He jogged to the black and white blocking the entrance of Baxter’s garage. “Has anyone left from the garage next door since you’ve been here?”

  “About ten minutes ago.” A fresh faced patrolmen who looked all of sixteen pointed north. “Before your agent came back here. Old woman with a walker got in the car and headed that north.”

  Lead sank in his gut. “An old woman? You sure?”

  “Pretty sure. Couldn’t really see her face, but she was wearing a dress and scarf on her head. Had on those heavy support hose like my grandma wears, with orthopedic shoes. Carrying a big handbag.”

  Cam radioed Beachum. “Any chance the old woman took her car out a few minutes ago?”

  “Not likely,” came the agent’s voice. “Found her on the cellar steps a minute ago. She’s in no shape to go for a drive. She’s been strangled.”

  Chapter 12

  “You can’t possibly know all that yet.” Lucy checked the clock on her office wall. “You haven’t had enough time to conduct a thorough investigation.”

  “What part of preliminary findings didn’t you understand?” Gavin Connerly covered a yawn as he ambled through her office doorway and leaned his narrow hips against her desk. He made up for the minor annoyance by offering his Mountain Dew, which Lucy accepted guiltily. Caffeine was a vice of hers. She’d given it up because it made her jittery. But sometimes, she thought as she took a deep drink, it helped calm nerves, too. And she’d had plenty to get jittery over the last few days. Not the least of which was the reappearance of the man standing next to her.

  She screwed the lid back on the bottle and handed it back to him. “I’ve never been big on preliminary. We can’t afford to get any of the details wrong. This case is too important for any snap judg—” The rest of her warning was lost when his lips covered hers. The man was sneaky that way. His mouth moved on hers for a moment. Tempting and warmly seductive.

  He straightened again. Folded his arms over his chest. “Believe it or not, at Berkley I’m something of a big deal.” His wry tone stripped the words of ego. “I actually get called on fairly regularly to consult on high profile investigations nationally. My goal before I leave is to get you to admit that I might—just might, mind you—know what I’m talking about.”

  “I wasn’t second-guessing…”

  He threw his head back and laughed with real amusement. “That’s exactly what you were doing, and the fact that you don’t even realize it is actually sort of adorable.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Adorable had never been a word easily applied to her. “Fine. Tell me again.” She pushed away from her laptop to give him her undivided attention.

  It didn’t seem to faze him. He paused to take a drink from the soda before answering. “It was pretty easy to reassemble the skeleton. Most of it was intact. I’m guessing the beating it took while in the river jarred some of the bones loose. That river flooded five years ago. Regardless of when the body was dumped, the bag could have moved quite a way from its original dumpsite, and come into contact with logs and all sort of debris.”

  He paused to reach over and push a stra
nd of hair away from her face. The intimacy of the act had her jerking away, an involuntary reaction.

  His eyes glinting, he continued. “Preliminary examination indicates that the skeleton found today is female. The measurements of the pelvis and examination of the skull made that an easy call. Almost certainly Caucasian. She was likely between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five at death, because her collarbone is completely fused, but the sagittal suture on the cranium isn’t. I did the measurements and x-rays necessary to submit the dental findings to an odontologist. Is there one the DCI uses?”

  Lucy nodded. “Dr. Harvey Lind at the U of I College of Dentistry.”

  “He’d be able to verify my estimate of age when I send him the information I put together. And the submission of the data for matching dental records might make this victim a relatively simple ID.”

  “If she was from in-state,” murmured Lucy. Some of the six victims that had been found in fresh graves atop burial vaults had been kidnapped from outside Iowa.

  He reached into his back jeans pocket and withdrew a badly mangled bag of M&M’s. “I examined the auricular surface of the ilium, the sternal ends of the right ribs three through five and pubic symphysis and did a comparison against a database of standard markers.”

  Ripping open the bag, he poured some into his palm as he spoke. “Hyoid bone was fractured, indicating a possibility the victim had been strangled. Can’t rule out the possibility that the damage occurred from the impact of the bag coming in contact with something in the river. But the spiral fracture of the ulna was definitely perimortem.”

  Lucy eyed him as he popped the candy into his mouth. Chewed. She had an ongoing feud with the office vending machine. Working late as often as she did, she didn’t always get regular meals. The machine inhaled her money but steadfastly refused to return the items she selected. It had a particularly suspicious habit of providing stale peanuts whenever she desperately craved chocolate.

  It went to figure that Connerly could coax the recalcitrant machine to part with the sweets when she couldn’t. He seemed to have the touch, with women and machines alike. Discomfited by the thought, she belatedly tuned into his words again.