The Broken

by Shelley Coriell

  Air rushed over Lottie’s lips. “Damn. We got us a monster right here in Colorado Springs.”

  Monsters. That had been Marissa’s term for the violent criminals he spent most of his career chasing.

  I’m always sharing you with monsters! Marissa had screamed at him. You never let go. Those killers you hunt are in our home, at our dinner table, in our bed.

  He winced at the flash of memory and blamed it on Tucson.

  Lottie poked her foot into her shoe. “Okay, Mr. FBI Profiler, get out that crystal ball of yours. Where the hell do we go now?”

  In his line of work there was a proper order of things, a clear course of observation, analysis, and application. The process fortified him and drew him further away from that Tucson grave. Hayden motioned with his hand to the door. “The beginning.”

  In the foyer they found Detective Scott Traynor. If Sergeant King was the head of the operation, Traynor was her hands and feet. The lead investigator was tall and lanky with straw-colored hair and freckles across his nose. Hayden pictured him sitting on a tractor in the eastern Colorado hayfields, but he wasn’t fooled by the easygoing farm-boy appearance. Lottie’s right-hand man carried a cell phone in his shirt pocket, a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, and a small tablet in his hand. He wore a ring of sweat around his collar and dusty loafers. Scott Traynor was plugged in and running hard.

  “Offender’s point of entry?” Hayden asked.

  “No signs of force,” the detective said. “At this point we’re speculating he came in through the front door.”

  Speculation did not solve murder investigations bathed in blood. That’s why he was here. Time to do his job. Time to become the monster.

  Hayden walked to the front porch, where cool air crowded the charcoal night. “I’m Thomas’s attacker.” Hayden positioned himself in front of the door. “It’s after ten and dark, but the porch lights illuminate me. Thomas has a peephole. What do I do?”

  “Is the door locked?” Detective Traynor asked.

  Criminal investigative analysis started with studying the victims and their behaviors, and in the past five months, he’d spent hundreds of hours learning about the five murdered broadcasters. “Smart, successful women like Shayna Thomas don’t take safety risks. The door is locked. How do I get in?”

  “You have a key,” the detective said.

  Hayden reached into his pocket and took out his own set of keys, which jingled in the pre-dawn stillness. “How do I get the key?”

  “You steal it.”

  Lottie caught the detective’s attention. “Find out if Thomas had a recent issue with lost or stolen keys, and find out who had access to her purse both at work and home.”

  “Good.” Hayden stuffed the keys in his pocket. Now from another angle, always a second angle, sometimes a third, sometimes a fourth or fifth or sixth. “I have no key. How do I get in?”

  The detective frowned. “You knock on the door, and she lets you in?”

  “Why would she do a dumb-ass thing like that?” Lottie asked.

  Hayden asked himself that same question at the other five crime scenes, and now, like then, he faced the same chilling answer. “She knows me or has reason to trust me.”

  Sergeant King opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the radio at her waist squawked. “Hey, Sarge, we need you out back. You aren’t going to believe what we found at Thomas’s bedroom window.”

  * * *

  Tuesday, June 9, 5:34 a.m.

  Mancos, Colorado

  A pair of ratty, old slippers padded into the kitchen.

  “Coffee’s on,” Kate said, her voice as soft as the early morning light slipping through the muslin curtains on the window over the sink.

  Smokey Joe shuffled to the table and sniffed. “Tuesday.”

  Yes, it was Tuesday, her baking day, and she was in Smokey’s kitchen, where swirling scents of cinnamon and yeasty bread warmed the air. A golden loaf, speckled with raisins, sat on the counter.

  She poured a mug of coffee from the steaming pot and set it on Smokey’s placemat in the number three spot, right where he liked it. She pulled a serrated knifed out of the drawer, her hand tightening on the hilt as the sun glinted off the jagged metal blade. The flash of silver blinded her, but she blinked and cut two thick slices of bread, which she dropped in the toaster. “You have a doctor’s appointment this morning at nine, so we’ll need to leave here by eight.”

  If Smokey was surprised she was still in the cabin, he didn’t show it. He sat and grunted. “Doctor Collins?”

  “Yes.”

  He took a long draw from his coffee. “Don’t like him. Pain in the ass.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “You’re going anyway.”

  “Hell of a day,” Smokey said into the rim of his mug. “You riding my ass and Doctor Collins poking up it.”

  A laugh joined her smile.

  Smokey Joe took another swig. “You gonna tell me about it?”

  The toast popped. So he wasn’t going to pretend last night never happened. She placed the toast on two plates. Nor could she.

  When she had tried to leave, her bike wouldn’t start. Grounded until the parts store opened this morning, she’d tried to get some rest for the road trip ahead, but the anger coursing through her veins left her wide-eyed and wired. She ended up using Smokey’s computer to go online and learn about the Broadcaster Butcher murders. She’d discovered each attack mirrored hers except for one thing: She survived.

  “Do we need to call the coppers?” Smokey continued in his worn, scratchy voice.

  “No.” She’d gone that route in the beginning, and look where it got her. “Not yet.” But she would. She had to. She took the butter from the refrigerator, hacked off a chunk, and dropped it onto Smokey’s toast. But who to contact? The Colorado Springs Police would be the logical choice, but she’d relied on the local police after her own attack. Not only had they failed to capture her attacker, but also they hadn’t taken her story seriously. They all but called her a liar. More importantly, they failed to protect her when she needed them most.

  “Why didn’t you take off last night?” Smokey asked when she set his plate in the number seven position.

  She’d never been good at hiding her emotions, and right now, if Smokey weren’t blind, he’d see a massive dose of what was under her anger: fear mixed with guilt and shame. “Honestly?”

  “Shoot straight or ditch the rifle.”

  “My bike needs repair work. Ignition’s shot.” Shameful, to think she’d be taking off again if the mechanical gods hadn’t conspired against her. She’d be running from her past, from her responsibilities with Smokey, and from the fact that her attack was not the private nightmare she’d believed for three years.

  Six women had died. Her stomach twisted.

  Smokey Joe poked at the toast but didn’t eat. With a grumble he reached for the small glass dish that sat in the middle of the kitchen table. The little dish had an illustrated donkey and read LOST MY ASS IN LAS VEGAS.

  He picked up the set of car keys that always rested there. “Here,” he said, his voice gruffer than normal.

  “I can’t take your car, Smokey.” And I can’t involve you any more than you already are.

  “I don’t plan on doing no driving this week.”

  She couldn’t chuckle this time.

  “You don’t got to keep it,” he said. “Just go into town, buy what you need at the parts store, then git.”

  She started pacing. If only it were that easy. She’d stopped in Mancos because she’d run out of money and out of steam, but even with a wad of cash in her saddlebags and six months to rest her legs, she had things she needed to take care of, things that couldn’t be handled from the seat of her bike on a scenic road to nowhere.

  Smokey picked up his toast. “You staying?”

  She stopped behind his chair, noticing his hand shook. “For a while.” At least until she got Smokey a new aide and figured out who to talk to about her
attack.

  Smokey shoved back his plate of uneaten toast. “Then I got something for you.” Suddenly spry, he darted to the dented file cabinet in the corner of the kitchen and pulled out a small plastic case. Inside was a gleaming hunk of metal. “Ever shoot before?”

  “No.”

  “Wanna learn?”

  Kate stared at the gun in the old soldier’s hand. After her attack, she’d thought about getting a gun, but that meant background checks, paperwork, lessons, all trails leading to her. Plus it meant fighting, something she’d been doing most of her life. For once she’d opted to run, and, in the end, that wrong choice had led to the horrific deaths of six broadcasters.

  “Yes, I need to know how to handle a gun.”

  Smokey’s fingers, steady and strong, reached for the box of ammunition in the case. “Good. I’ll teach you how to load, and we’ll head out back for target practice.” He took out five rounds and laid them in a straight line next to his coffee mug. “Then we’ll get the place ready.”

  “Ready?”

  “For war.”

  * * *

  Tuesday, June 9, 5:35 a.m.

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  The Crime Scene Division tech pushed aside a sun-crisped shrub, giving Hayden a clear view of the silty ground below Shayna Thomas’s bedroom window.

  “By the size and shape, I’d say the print’s from a man’s running shoe,” the tech said. “Fresh. Hasn’t been disturbed by insects or wind.”

  “Get a cast made.” Hayden raised both eyebrows. “You said there’s more?”

  The tech directed his gaze to the windowpane above the shoeprint. “Picked up a bunch of good prints. Looks like he may have been rubbing the dirt off the glass, trying to get a better look.”

  Lottie pressed her lips together. “Did some Peeping Tom work before he went in and hacked the hell out of her.”

  Hayden had seen these types of guys in action, knew what was going on in their heads. Brushing back branches, he peered through twigs and studied the underside of leaves. At last he found it. “He did more than peep.” Hayden pointed to a thick, white substance on a bush to the right of the windowsill. “Ejaculate.”

  “Pervert,” Lottie said with a growl.

  Hayden slipped his hand in his pocket. “But one who isn’t too bright.”

  Lottie nodded. “So let’s call him Mr. Stupid. He leaves behind a fucking trifecta of evidence. Shoe impression as he stands at the window. Fingerprints as he wipes the dust for a better view. And ejaculate after he gets his rocks off watching Shayna Thomas in her bedroom. Why the hell didn’t he just leave us a business card?”

  Hayden’s hand curled into a fist. “Something’s not right.” Like the mirrors.

  “Not right?” Lottie aimed her right hand pistol-style at the window. “Pretty Boy, we just got a helluva lot closer to finding us a butcher.”

  “Have we?” Those shiny, intact mirrors winked at him. Mocked him. “No one has ever found trace or contact evidence at any of the Butcher crime scenes.”

  “Maybe he’s getting sloppy.”

  Hayden wanted to believe they had something on the Butcher, but he knew too much about the sick art of serial killing. “With each victim, serial killers refine their methods. They don’t suddenly get sloppy.”

  “I’m assuming you already worked up a profile of Mr. Stupid,” Lottie said.

  Hayden nodded. He had created the initial profile after the second murder, when the FBI had been brought on board because they were dealing with a serial killer working across state lines. Over the past five months, he added to and refined the profile. He knew this man inside and out. “We’re looking for a male between the ages of twenty and forty. Thin or small in stature. A social misfit who may live alone or with his parents or an older relative. High school education. Few if any physical relationships with women. Not gainfully employed or has a job with a good deal of flextime. Has some kind of disfigurement or handicap, possibly unseen, such as a stutter, or visible, such as acne scars or a limp. Home and person are meticulous, and he thrives on clear, written instruction. Carries around a small spiral notebook everywhere he goes. He’s methodic and craves order. There’s nothing sloppy about him.” Hayden pointed to the prints and ejaculate. “These should not be here. Something went wrong.”

  * * *

  Tuesday, June 9, 6:00 p.m.

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  The El Paso County morgue smelled of rotting flesh and vanilla air freshener. Hayden had smelled worse, but as he looked at the shredded body on the steel autopsy table, he could honestly say he’d never seen worse.

  He and Lottie stood across from Dr. Maryanne Markoff, the thirty-something medical examiner who’d spent all day with Shayna Thomas’s corpse.

  “Sixty-two distinct puncture wounds made by an eight-inch, double-edged knife,” Dr. Markoff said with a slight shudder. Overkill like this was hard to witness, even for the seasoned ME who daily stared death in the face. “Twenty-two lacerations to the face and head, seven to the neck, and the remainder to the arms and torso. Also noteworthy are the areas free of puncture wounds. Breasts unmarred.”

  “Same as the others?” Lottie asked.

  Hayden nodded. All bodies were free of puncture wounds on both breasts, another fact they’d withheld from the public, another reason to doubt this was a copycat.

  “What do you make of that, Pretty Boy?”

  Just like in a good piece of art, negative spaces were as important as splashes of color. They told a story all their own, and there was story behind those unmarred areas. “Two schools of thought,” he said. “The offender could revere female sexual organs, wanting to kill the victims but preserve what makes them female, shades of a Madonna complex. Or he could despise the female species and those organs that make them women, too filthy or unworthy of his knife.”

  “This is one fucked-up prick.” Lottie rubbed at the furrows deepening across her forehead.

  The ME held up her hand. “But a smart one. Single stab wound to the base of the neck severed the spinal cord and caused instant immobilization but not immediate death. Two subsequent stab wounds to the carotid and radial arteries led to death by exsanguination.”

  “So the son of a bitch paralyzed her and bled her to death?”

  “Yes,” Hayden said, “with only three thrusts of his knife. The remainder of the puncture wounds are postmortem.”

  “That true?” Lottie asked the ME, who nodded. The sergeant let out a long hiss. “So he’s a smart butcher. Rape?”

  The ME turned to Hayden. “I have a feeling you already know, Agent Reed.”

  “Rape kit came back negative,” Hayden said. “No defensive wounds, either. No traces of blood or skin fragments under the nails. No bruising indicative of struggle.”

  “Give the man a gold star,” Markoff said with her first smile of the meeting. “You know your stuff.”

  Yes, he already knew what the ME’s report would say. He knew the scenario, or at least part of it. Shayna Thomas’s murder went according to the Butcher’s proper order of things. He gained easy entry into the domicile. A single immobilizing stab wound, delivered unexpectedly from behind, felled Shayna Thomas. The two subsequent stab wounds drained her of blood and life. Then the knife frenzy began, more than fifty stab wounds to a body that couldn’t fight back. Blood flew. Rage soared. After stabbing Thomas’s lifeless body, the Butcher, a meticulous sort, put his blood-soaked clothes in a plastic bag, maybe two for containment, and changed into fresh clothes. Then came act two, a purposeful trip through the house to break every mirror. But in the Shayna Thomas murder, something went wrong in that second act. He failed to break all the mirrors.

  A sharp itch clawed between his shoulder blades. The killer should have destroyed all the mirrors. Something—or more likely someone—stopped the Butcher and sent him running. Was it the man walking his dog or the patrol officer at the door? Or was it someone else, someone in the picture but still unknown at this point in th
e investigation? The key right now was to step back and study as much of the picture as he could.

  Lottie’s red toe tapped against the gray speckled linoleum of the morgue floor. “I don’t get it. The Butcher entered Shayna Thomas’s home without apparent struggle. Then he gets close enough for a quick, almost effortless kill. Think she knew him?”

  “It’s possible,” he said. “Trauma to the head and neck is common in attacks where the offender knows the victim.”

  He’d been contemplating this possibility for months. The Butcher murders were not random assaults on high-risk victims but rather highly organized attacks on carefully sought-out women. They occurred like clockwork every four weeks with no variation in means or mode. The key: finding out why these women. Why were they important to the Butcher?

  It was after eight by the time he and Lottie left the morgue and climbed into her stifling car. She cranked the air conditioner, and as they waited for the car interior to cool, Lottie turned to him. “You want this Butcher’s ass in the worst way. On most days, he’s all you think about.”

  The seatbelt Hayden stretched across his chest stilled. How could she tell? Few had ever been able to read him.

  Do you ever feel anything, Hayden? Do you know what it’s like to hate? To love? To hurt so bad you will do anything to end the pain? I can never tell what you’re feeling, and it’s killing me. Marissa. She’d crept into his head again.

  He clicked the seatbelt in place. “So you moonlight as a profiler?”

  “Nope. But I know how to make peanut brittle.” Lottie smacked her lips.

  Hayden turned to the police sergeant. “Excuse me?”

  “Peanut brittle candy. My oldest grandson loves it. We make it every Christmas, with peanuts, mind you, none of them pansy-ass macadamia nuts. You’re like peanut brittle, all shiny and polished, hard as hell, too, so hard no one can read you. In order to get to that stage, you got to boil the shit out of it. So I figure you’ve done some boiling in your life, including some serious simmering over this jerk-off.”