The Killing Collective

by Gary Starta

  Montgomery believed in Blake’s dream. He was a Proposal Manager for the Meese Corporation, a non-profit organization that contracted with the Department of Defense, the overseer of D.A.R.P.A. Located within the walls of Meese was a government think tank of top theoretical physicists and professors that were once known as the JASONS, named for the Greek hero who sailed to the end of the world to search for the magical golden fleece of good fortune.

  The JASONS were founded in 1960, two years after D.A.R.P.A. began deciding which projects would receive further funding and development for government utilization. The JASONS would take over that process – at least, that was their original purpose. Naturally, the group was top secret, so top secret that no president was ever informed of their separate identities. Just in case the shit ever hit the fan.

  The group had access to limitless funds. After the first few years, they realized accountability was a non-issue since no one knew who they were, where they were housed, or how they operated. All except a chosen few, like Monty Clayton. Since money was no object, the JASONS based their decisions on the ideas that appealed to them rather than cost/benefit or risk analyses. Once they tasted ultimate power like that, there was no going back.

  Blake was a rising star for Meese. Her synthetic version of scopolamine was sheer genius. If she delivered a weak presentation now, at the start of a promising career, it could ruin her chances of ever having a project considered again.

  Montgomery rubbed his hands together. “Think of Hyzopran as your baby. Would you hesitate to bring a beautiful and gifted child into the world?”

  Blake allowed herself to smile. It softened her face and warmed up her eyes. A blush painted her skin baby-pink. She turned to watch the video on a 72-inch screen. “It’s the example we’re using to sell the idea that I have a problem with. It shows the very type of brutality we are trying to stop. And if I have a problem with it…”

  “Ah, I see, the JASONS will too. Well, they won’t. Unfortunately. The moment you started working for Meese, your project became their intellectual property. You know that. You knew that. These old codgers are no boy scouts, Katherine. They might have been, back in the 60’s, but with the money and power they have now, they’re nothing short of demi-gods. If they like an idea and they decide to fund it, research it, and use it, well, they can do any Goddamn thing they want to with it. It’s top secret, so you have no recourse whatsoever. And if you get in their way, I guarantee you’ll end up in a federal prison wearing a number for a name. You have to decide right now if you think this drug is important enough to humanity to fight for. If you do, stow your scruples. The JASONS are only a means to an end, Katherine. Once the drug is developed and eventually mainstreamed, they won’t care what you do with it. So what do you say, Katherine? Hyzopran for humanity?”

  She shook his hand. “Hyzopran for humanity.”

  “Let’s knock the ball out of the park, kiddo.”

  Montgomery cared for his protégés as if they were his own children. They might not be perfect or behave the way he wanted them to all the time, but he did his best to influence and guide them. Their purity of intention and altruism kept him on his toes and on the straight and narrow when he might easily have become a self-serving elitist.

  When he was a young man, Monty inherited a fortune of 8.7 million dollars from an uncle who’d been an art collector and who’d once told him that money was like fertilizer; you had to spread it around to make things grow. He could have spent the rest of his life doing nothing, but instead, he chose to do everything. He became a philanthropist and a humanitarian.

  There was a special place in Monty’s heart for the Impressionists. The artist painted things the way he saw them - not necessarily the way they really were. A million dots and dabs of light and shadow looked messy and grainy up close but became perfectly smooth and clearly defined from a distance. One of his favorites was Cezanne’s Still Life with Fruit Basket. The basket overflows slightly to showcase abundance, good fortune and largesse. That was how Monty felt about life and his waistline.

  ***

  Arleen and Monty liked to read in bed.

  “Scientific American? I thought you had the audible version.”

  “Dr. Blake gave it to me before I left. There’s an article I want to read on South American insects that use venom to daze…” He sighed. “Never mind; it’s just bug stuff. Nothing.”

  “Yugh.”

  Monty tossed the magazine in the direction of a chair. Turning slowly toward her, he growled. She giggled uncontrollably. Then he pounced.

  Montgomery turned out the light. “Ahhhh…”

  “What is it, baby?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Umm, hmm. C’mon, give.”

  “How do you know something’s on my mind?”

  “The same way I know everything that goes on in your mind, dear. I’m clairvoyant. Now come on, really, what is it?”

  “Well, it’s Dr. Blake. She made a proposal to some folks at the office today who can approve funding to test and develop a compound she discovered and copied synthetically. It could be a miracle drug, Arleen, but it has to be studied on a much wider scale and for a much longer period of time. You know that if they approve it, they own it.”

  “Yes. Everyone knows that. You mean to say she’s balking now?”

  “Well, a little. Just worried about what it could do if it was misused, but she made the pitch today, so it’s out of her hands, now. Do you think I did the right thing by convincing her to make her presentation to those twelve lunatics?”

  “Who made the final decision, Monty?”

  “She did, of course.”

  “Monty, you remember that Cezanne painting you always loved so much?”

  He nodded.

  “Haven’t you said a thousand times that when you see the picture from further away it comes into perspective? You’re standing too close. Take a few steps back.”

  “You mean you actually listen to all the crap that comes out of my mouth?”

  “Not all the time, dear. Now listen to me; she’s a big girl! You made her aware of all the arguments for and against the approval, you told her what the negative aspects were if she moved forward with its testing and development, and she made the choice. It’s not yours to make, and that’s the long and the short of it. At least she has you to look out for her, and you have a degree of oversight. If you can’t live with that, Monty, then quit. So now that you’re standing far enough back to see the big picture, you blockhead, go to sleep.”

  “Yes, dear.” He hugged her tight, kissed her good night and rolled onto his stomach, but he didn’t fall asleep for a long time.

  Arleen’s right, but she doesn’t know the whole story either. And I can’t tell her. If she knew what these geezers were capable of, she’d think I was out of my mind. If she ever finds out what this compound is for and that I helped it along the pipeline, she’ll leave me, and I won’t blame her.

  I want to quit, but I have to stay. I need to document everything I know so far and make them understand that I’ll be documenting the rest of it, too.

  Chapter Eight

  Alison grabbed the blanket with a balled fist and screamed. She thought about the weird dream she’d had last night. What was the name of that guy? Oh, right – David something…David…Florio! That was the name.

  I must know the name from school or something. He must have been a real monster if I wanted to kill him so much. It seemed so real!

  A loud ring sent a jolt of electricity through her.

  Crap, it’s the phone! I must be late for work!

  It was Jeannie. “What do you want? I don’t feel good, and I want to go back to bed.”

  “You don’t have to rip my head off, Alison. I don’t care whether you go to work or not. Look, a strange phone number keeps showing up on my caller I.D. It’s the same number you used last night to call me for a ride home. I figured you accidentally brought home the wrong phone, but when I tried calling it back, n
o one answered. No phone mail. Nothing. No listing. So I called your regular number, and you answered. What’s going on?”

  “Going on?” Alison asked with creeping apprehension.

  “Allie, come back. Try again. I called you back several times this morning on a number that turns out to be foreign, like overseas foreign.”

  “I must have dropped my phone at the Collective and picked up someone else’s. I haven’t been out since then.”

  “Huh? Then what do you call last night’s adventure?”

  Alison thought she might faint. “Jeannie…we went to this guy’s place last night?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Allie, quit fooling around! You said he was so hot he practically burst into flames.”

  “Flames?”

  “Yes, flames! What about the cell phone, Allie? Do you think it came from his place? Geez, what was his name again?”

  “I have to hang up.”

  “But what about the -“

  Alison hit the off button and threw the phone on the bed. She ran to the computer to check the headlines. If anything in her dream really happened last night, she’d see it there.

  ***

  From a window left open on David Florio’s desktop computer, Carter read Deborah Decker’s dating profile a dozen times or more. From the message thread, it seemed likely David and Deborah had met. Had she visited him last night? She left a phone number for Florio to call in her last text. Carter called, hoping she’d agree to talk to him. No person named Deborah Decker lived within 500 miles of the victim. He dialed the number she left but it was repeatedly forwarded to voicemail that did not identify its owner.

  Later. The local Jersey P.D. had turned the laptop over to their computer lab who traced the address to Switzerland. They discovered quite easily that the I.P. address used to create Deborah’s dating profile also originated overseas. Too easily, in fact. The true owner of the I.P. address was counting on that. He was right under their nose hiding in plain sight. It was really very simple, so simple a child could have done it. He used the V.P.N. browser on his cell phone to send the lab team off on a wild goose chase while he used another one, and voila!

  ***

  Carter met Deeprose in a local hole-in-the-wall café for a cup of coffee and an update meeting.

  Deeprose shook her head. “This Deborah Decker mighta been an overseas scammer lookin’ to steal our victim’s I.D. It could be unrelated to the crime, Agent Carter.”

  “Maybe, but we don’t want to make the mistake of overlooking something that might be important. No assumptions, remember? In any case, we know Florio was murdered and that’s something.” Carter looked grim this morning. There wasn’t much to go on.

  “You mean the lab has determined the home’s occupant was the man burned to death?”

  “I can’t begin to give the kind of detail Agent Seacrest could, but in a word, ‘yes’.”

  “How’d she pull that off? Most of the victim was bacon.”

  “She pulled a blood sample from the man’s foot, which was, surprisingly, still intact. She was able to match it to the blood type on file from his physician. It’s David Florio.”

  “But it woulda matched a lot of people’s blood type. How’d she get proof positive?”

  Carter grinned. “My wife has a way with people, Agent. Namely, Florio’s doctor. She got a positive I.D.”

  “Did she find anything else from the scene that would help us, Agent Carter?”

  “She most certainly did. There was no murder weapon, of course, but from a forensic standpoint, we have reason to believe Florio’s death was suspicious. Jill discovered some pretty interesting organic compounds at the scene using chromatography.”

  “What’s chromatography? How does it work?”

  “It’s a method of separating and analyzing mixtures of chemicals by flowing them over or through paper, glass, or gas. First, the mixture has to be dissolved in a liquid. We’d found the remnants of a liquid that dried on the victim’s pants. The lab crew placed the particles in airtight containers and got them back to the lab so Jill could use a process called gas-liquid chromatography to separate the gas from the original liquid. The compounds in the liquid form turned out to be lighter fluid.”

  Deeprose eyed her cold coffee with disgust. “Still, it coulda been a suicide.”

  “That is a possibility, of course, but would you kill yourself by setting yourself on fire? I can think of a half dozen better ways to go. Besides, the other liquid found at the scene was red wine, also spilled on the victim’s pant legs, as well as on the dining room floor.”

  Deeprose stared absently out of the shop’s window, mulling over this new information. “Red wine and lighter fluid. Hmm. If he did have a dinner guest, she mighta doused him with lighter fluid to ignite the fire and with wine to feed it. Ah suppose he would have let a stranger in if he thought he was gonna get lucky. Ah don’t think this is suicide, sir, but Ah don’t see any evidence pointin’ towards a thrill kill or a copycat, either.”

  Carter pursed his lips. “Not so fast, agent. Have you considered any other possibility besides murder, like an accident?”

  “An accident, sir, with lighter fluid and red wine poured all over the victim?”

  “O.K., so you’re pretty convinced it is a murder. Let’s think about that, Agent. If it’s just another murder, why are we here? After all, we have our own murder to investigate at the Cloisters. The only reason for us to be here would be to confirm whether or not it connects to the museum murder. By the way, you might want to start taking notes.”

  Carter cleared his throat and dove into the conundrum. “Now. Fischetti more than suggests both are thrill kills; a thrill kill has a high possibility of tying together two seemingly unrelated murders. One doer could have committed two completely unrelated crimes for no other reason than the high of having done it. The victims could have been randomly chosen.

  “However. If there are multiple and unrelated doers, which we now think there are, why are we here? Fischetti knew the possibility was strong that we would conclude they were separate and unrelated. We’ve done that. The possibility that both murders are thrill kills is extremely low- not impossible- but it would be a million-to-one shot. That leaves one remaining possibility.”

  “And that is, sir?”

  “He wanted to be certain he could rule out thrill kills but he thinks the two murders are still somehow connected, maybe by one entity – like the mob or some other group or individual. What’s your take on it now, Agent?”

  “We’re pretty sure there are two separate killers from the differences in victims, crime scenes, and the method of murder. One was planned much better than the other. Mob hits or organized crime? Ah don’t buy that. Not flamboyant enough. Would you mind tellin’ me a little more about thrill kills, sir?”

  Carter was in his element and loving it. “Thrill kills are not fad murders committed by people out for kicks on a Saturday night; they are committed by disturbed individuals looking for the self-gratification they can only get from taking a life. If he does it again and again, he’s a serial killer, but there’s one major difference between this type of serial killer and the ones we usually see; he chooses the victim at random, and there is no relation to or any feeling toward the victim, whatsoever. It’s rare, but it happens.”

  “Can you give me a concrete example of thrill murders, sir? Actual cases?”

  “In 2003, there were a string of thrill kills in New York. There were also several sniper shootings in Washington, D.C. the same year. There are three basic profiles of thrill killers. First, if the doer is a deeply disturbed individual, like a returning war veteran or a student who opens fire in a classroom full of kids, this type is usually prepared to die or commit suicide once it’s all over.

  “Second, the doer might be a highly intellectual, even brilliant person who kills to show his superiority over the victim and the authorities. This person has delusions of grandeur, a super inflated ego, and seeks only to prove he is
smart enough to pull off the perfect crime.

  “Third, and this is by far the most likely, the doer has a constant feeling of inadequacy, and what drives him to kill is a need to wield power so that he can feel powerful. This killer also has serial potential.

  “So what do you think our next move should be, Agent?”

  Deeprose frowned as she leafed through her notes and tried to figure out what to look for next. “Well…we can still try to find the person whose photo appeared on the dating site. And we have that dark, grainy camera shot of the museum perp. Maybe the lab has some answers by now.”

  The teacher in Carter was having a bang-up time. Deeprose was fully engaged and her brain was humming. Slogging through all the facts to come up with a suggestion for the next step of the investigation was a good habit for her to get into on her first case. It had always helped Carter see the issues, the possibilities and next steps.

  “Both the name and profile are phony. Deborah Decker doesn’t exist. What makes you think the person in the photo is real?”

  “Agent Seacrest’s discovery of the accelerant, sir. Ah found no container in the home or in the garbage cans which might have contained the lighter fluid.”

  Carter looked at her with pride. “Aha! You think someone took the evidence away. Good job! But why a woman?”

  Deeprose raised her cup of cold coffee and grimaced before taking a swig. “Because we have no other suspects except her, so we have to hope against hope that the photo matches a real person and that the video of the museum murder reveals a face.”