Murders of the Zodiac Boxed Set

by Paris Morgan

  “Someone made it look like he tried to kill himself. The neighbors heard something because it was early this morning, and rushed out to cut him down. He’d been without oxygen for a short while, but hasn’t regained consciousness,” I explained quickly.

  She looked between us as she asked, “Could he have been trying to kill himself? Maybe no one else is responsible?”

  “We honestly don’t think so, ma’am.” Chief Montier was keeping things formal. “He’s been working on some suspicious suicides, and there have been a large number lately. It’s not something we just have pop up in large groups. One or two on occasion, but we’ve got at least eight in the past week and a half.”

  “Okay. He’s been doing better since the divorce, but I’ve worried about him.”

  “Completely understandable. Do you need to let anyone know before we go?” I asked, ready to be on to the next hard notification.

  “I’ll tell the secretary on the way out. She can reschedule everything for next week.”

  “I’m going to go back to the station, but I’m very sorry, ma’am. If you need anything, please let Ryan or I know immediately.” Chief Montier held out his hand to her while nodding to me.

  “Thank you. We’ll be fine once we get over the shock.”

  “Ready?” I asked when she picked up her purse and keys.

  “Yep.”

  She took the driver’s seat, and I didn’t know what to say in the sudden silence.

  “I’m glad you’re the one looking into this. Jesse trusted you so much. He’ll be at peace knowing you’ve got his back.”

  “Thanks. I just hope we can catch the person. It took a while on the last case I was on, and I hope this one isn’t like that.”

  ***

  Notifications are never easy, and I was glad when I could get away to head over to Jesse’s house. The crime scene techs were still processing the scene, but only one officer was there to make sure that everything was going smoothly.

  “I’m Ryan Fox. Chief Montier sent me to have a look around.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been expecting you. Go ahead.” He held out a set of gloves for me.

  “Thank you. Was the door forced open?”

  “No, sir. It was unlocked, but latched. All the other doors were locked, and things appear to be shut down like he’d gone to bed beforehand.”

  “Ah. And which neighbors heard something and got him down?”

  “Those doors right there, next to the railing, sir.”

  “I’ll look around and see if anything sticks out.”

  While the apartment was fairly clean, it was obvious that a man lived here. A few items that had always been Jesse’s favorites were around the room, like his portrait with a local celebrity fisherman who now had his own show. Nothing really stood out until I reached the kitchen where a calendar was attached to the refrigerator.

  The magnet holding it was identical to the cards left at the crime scenes in Texas by the Aquarius killer, only these were for this month— Pisces. I’d forgotten that Jesse’s birthday was just yesterday, and given the information that we’d had about our other killer, they’d tried to take him out on the day he’d been born.

  We were dealing with another serial killer, but I still wasn’t certain that this was the same one. All the suicides were men, and the choice of death was so different than those that had been done during Aquarius.

  I was going to do some checking, and might even have to go to Madison since the paper pointed in that direction.

  Chapter 6

  Leslie

  I’d gone home after a long day. One call was an unattended death that had to be checked in to. But in the end, the family didn’t want to do an autopsy. The woman was old with health problems, and had recently stopped taking her meds. The second was the death of man whose wife had been poisoning him slowly. When we showed up and asked a few questions, she’d confessed. The amount of stupid people in the world no longer surprised me, but occasionally, they did things that at least made me raise my eyebrows with questions about their levels of brain activity.

  After Ryan’s call this morning, I didn’t feel like being around Jerome when he called back with details. Not that he would mind me being on the phone, but I didn’t feel comfortable talking about an active case’s details, and he did have connections to a newspaper.

  Waiting on Ryan to get back to me was the hardest part, so I went ahead and started doing a little research of my own, hoping to help if it did connect to our case down here in Texas.

  I pulled up all the information that was available in the obituaries from Madison, Wisconsin, about the ‘suicides.’ Each death had a connection in that they worked in some capacity for the same company that we’d come across here—Urban Energy. It was a large corporation that spanned throughout several states, and each office was in charge of different aspects of the business.

  Noah Prescott, our previous suspect, couldn’t be responsible for deaths across the country. He hadn’t shown any signs that he had a vendetta against men, or how killing these men would have helped him to move up the corporate ladder.

  This was the complete opposite of what we’d had last month with a man killing women. Could a woman be responsible for killing these men?

  More knowledge was always useful, so I pulled up the statistics for suicides in the state of Wisconsin. Overall, some of the attempts were stopped before they could happen due to someone finding them before they could complete the act. Yet, the numbers indicated that it was more common in those who were younger and under twenty-five. It didn’t mean that others who were older didn’t commit suicide, they were just not as likely.

  Which made sense if you thought about it. The older someone got, the more common sense about life’s problems they acquired, and a realization that most things weren’t world-ending situations. An example: a boy or girl breaks up with you, you can probably live through it until you find someone else. Emotional control and outside influences changed the older someone got, and the less likely they were to give into the voices telling them they were worthless.

  The national hotline for suicide prevention was certainly eye-opening, and showed that mental health, financial loss, or relationships were some of the leading causes.

  One of the hardest things about finding answers as to why people committed suicide was that they didn’t normally leave a lot of information behind about why. As police officers and detectives, we could assume from talking to family or friends, but there weren’t any clear answers.

  Loss of life was one of the worst things that a homicide detective had to learn to deal with. Could we have prevented it somehow? There was just no way of knowing, but if this was somehow connected, then we had at least fifteen to twenty people we could save.

  My phone rang, and Ryan’s name popped up.

  “Hey, how is your friend?”

  “He still hasn’t woken up, but he’s getting all the help they can give him. His body needs to heal, but the doctors aren’t very hopeful.”

  “I’m sorry.” Expressing sympathy was more difficult for me because I worked with death all the time. “Did you find anything at his house?” Work was an easy way to escape sounding insincere.

  “Um, sort of. His apartment had no visible signs of a break in, but on his refrigerator, there was a calling card from our killer—a magnet with Pisces on it. I had it checked for prints, but the crime scene techs didn’t find any.”

  “So the attempted attack was the fifth in Madison?” I pulled up the map and the city’s information.

  “Madison? Oh, no. Jesse lives in Green Bay. There have been eight deaths here, and then the four deaths the paper mentioned in Madison. I think our killer is moving between the two places so that no one gets suspicious like they did with our case.”

  “If the map is correct, then it’s about a two- and half-hour drive between the two cities. While it’s not ideal for a killer to be moving between the two, it’s possible. What do you think?”

 
; “Well, from what I’ve seen at Jesse’s, and looking at his files, these are all men, all close with their mothers. The ones here in Green Bay were all supposed to meet someone, or a neighbor got worried because they weren’t out and about. These guys were helping around the area because their mothers guilted them into it.”

  “Ryan, this sounds so much like our profiles here, and if the cards or magnets were at each of these scenes, then we’ll know that it’s all one killer. The question we need to be asking is, could this be the same one, and they changed things to throw us off?”

  “I don’t see how they could be trying to keep us from finding them since they left papers for both of us about Madison. I’m curious as to why they wanted us to look there, but didn’t leave any clues about Green Bay?”

  “What if they knew Jesse was on the list, and that you would be looking into that? Otherwise, we might not have made the connection between there and Madison since they aren’t right next door like Dallas and Ft. Worth are here.”

  “It’s possible.” He paused. “Can you setup a series of events and find out what kind of similarities we have? Jesse had an entire set of notes that I’m going to go through tonight. He might be able to shed some light on it with something that points to the killer.”

  “Yeah, I can get a timeline setup. I’m gonna have to work on this in the evenings, unless you want me to come up there to help?” It wasn’t a clear offer, but if he needed me, I would do whatever I could to make it happen.

  “Nah, not yet. They’ve given me visiting duties, and the Madison police will probably be helpful since Jesse is involved, but I doubt they’d like a new detective joining in on this kind of thing. If they keep having more bodies, then we may get to that point.”

  “All right. I’m going to go visit Flora tomorrow night and see if she can give me any cosmic readings that could help us.”

  “Whatever.” His disbelief came through the phone. “I still don’t trust her. Psychics just aren’t normal in police work.”

  “Hey, now. I may have just dealt with my first serial killer, but it’s not my first rodeo with suspects. I’ve got this, and my instinct is that Flora just got caught up last time. She’s really nice.” I wasn’t about to tell him that she was the first real friend that I’d had since college.

  No, you’re right. I’m just tired and worried. I’ve got a hotel room, and I’m about to go over there to look through Jesse’s computer and files.”

  “Just remember to watch your back. There’s a killer out there watching what we do. We don’t want to end up on their list. Speaking of that, just for information’s sake, when is your birthday?”

  “December thirtieth. When’s yours?”

  “September thirteenth.” I waited for a retort.

  “You’re serious? How does that work for you with superstitions?”

  “I’m used to it. I get a Friday the thirteenth every few years, but I don’t have that many unusual things happen. One of my friends had the same day of the month, and all of her Friday birthdays were horrible. So I guess I’ve been lucky so far.” I cringed at the amount of things that could have gone wrong over the years.

  “With the way things are going at the moment, I’m hoping that means we don’t have to worry about being a target for a few months, and maybe we can catch this killer before then.”

  “Agreed. It’s something to work toward, that’s for sure. I’ll check in tomorrow and see what we’ve come up with.”

  “Certainly. I’ll message if anything urgent comes up.”

  “K. Bye.”

  A sense of loneliness came over me. I really needed to find a way to connect with people so I wasn’t so alone. Jerome was nice, but at least Ryan understood how my cop brain worked. They couldn’t be more opposite, and yet, I was afraid that I needed something different from each of them.

  That didn’t stop me from putting Ryan’s birthday into the computer and discovering that he was a Capricorn. I felt extremely silly. I was doing what all girls did when they were interested in a boy—stalk him to learn as much as possible about him. Thankfully, I’d only done the zodiac sign search and hadn’t gone to his social media pages for information.

  Wanting to call Jerome out of guilt made me stop with my finger on the dial button. Running to one because I couldn’t get closer to the other wasn’t going to work either.

  I needed to clear my head. With that, I grabbed my workout bag and keys. The gym was open twenty-four hours, and the only way to work something out was to push my body to the limits.

  The names Ryan or Jerome continued bouncing around in my head as one mile turned to two, then five. Exhaustion should have kicked in, but even taking a shower had brought back the reminders of the weekend I’d just spent with Jerome. Maybe Flora could do a reading and point me in the right direction. I needed to keep things between Ryan and I on a professional level. The last thing he needed was someone with a crush, and that was all it could be. He was married. End of subject.

  ***

  Flora met me for dinner with a smile and a hug.

  “It’s so great to see you again. I hope this place is okay?”

  She gestured to the quiet atmosphere of the small restaurant that focused on healthy food.

  “It’s not my normal fare, but I’m sure there’s something that I can manage to eat.” I winked at her, and felt a little bit lighter. I was glad that I’d made the call this afternoon to see if she was free.

  “You look less burdened than you did when you slept on my couch. Have things gotten better?” Flora asked, adding some sort of infusion to her water, turning it a green color.

  “To some extent, since we closed that case we were working on, but something else has come up that I’d like your opinion on if you don’t mind.” I opted for the peach flavored tea instead of something that I hadn’t tried before.

  “Sure. I’d be glad to help however I can. I’ve thought about taking a few criminal justice classes since we last met. I have a few months before I have to add my fall schedule, but it might give me some insight into the things we discuss. What’s bothering you the most?” She chose a seat out on the porch, away from most of the people sitting around eating.

  “Have you had any more visions or signs lately?”

  “Nothing specific. The darkness that was attached to you has lessened, but it’s still there, and doesn’t show any signs of leaving in the immediate future. Has he come back?” she asked, referring to the killer we’d thought was dead.

  “No, but there’s someone else staging murders to look like suicides.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible. If the killer isn’t discovered, then those poor families are left wondering if their loved ones really did that to themselves, and if they could have stopped them.”

  “Yes. The amount of suicides seem to indicate that they might not have done it to themselves, but we don’t have any evidence right now.”

  “Here in the metroplex?” she questioned, taking a drink without grimacing.

  I shivered as I thought about the taste of that green drink. “No, it’s up north. They tried to kill one of Ryan’s friends. He’s there now, trying to find out what happened.”

  “Were you not able to go with him?” She looked at me. “Ah, he didn’t ask, did he?”

  I ducked my head, embarrassed that she’d figured it out so quickly. “No, he didn’t. I can’t be his partner if I’m trying to be that kind of partner. It’s counterproductive. I need help not being hurt, but at the same time, focusing on my current interests. It’s not fair to Jerome if I can’t keep my attention on him.”

  “You’re much wiser than many other women. Most wouldn’t even be worried about either of those things, and you want to know the best way to keep your focus on the things that matter. I can help you out a little bit if you want.”

  Eager to put myself at ease, I nodded.

  “It’s conditioning. Whenever you think of Ryan as more than a partner, simply think of something wonderful that Jerom
e did for you. Eventually, you’ll only think of Jerome in those ways, and Ryan will be a good friend and partner, nothing more.”

  “See? That’s the exact opposite of what I’ve been doing. I didn’t want to replace one with the other, and I don’t want to be unfair to Jerome. I’ve just never had two guys that weren’t jerks around me at the same time. I promise, I don’t normally think of guys in this way. I think I let my guard down with Jerome and forgot to put it back up with Ryan because he’s married.”

  “Ah, that’s it exactly. Concentrate on working the case, and there won’t be as much room for personal feelings to enter. If this case is connected as you fear, then you’ll have no time for anything other than work,” Flora advised.

  “Thanks.” I patted her arm as they called our name for the food.

  “Back to what you came to ask before we got sidetracked. I’ve found out a few more things about my family. My mom was part of a Romani family, but she was thrown out when they found out she’d slept with my dad. They’ve been happy for years, and she’s made a new life for herself. She didn’t want to drag me into the family drama until I was old enough to understand it all for myself.”

  “Wow, talk about guy problems. It would be hard not to have contact with your family, and not share your past with your kid.”

  “Yeah. None of us showed signs of having the ‘gift’ as they call it. My brothers and sister don’t have sensitivities, but Mom was always worried that one of us would start seeing ghosts or talking to spirits.”

  “How would she have known the difference between a kid just having a vivid imagination or really communicating?”

  “Most of the time, a kid wouldn’t have the kind of details that a ghost would be able to tell you about. Mom was also slightly clairvoyant herself. She didn’t actually speak to anyone, but she could tell if someone was around that wasn’t in the real world. She would have known if we were seeing something.”

  “That’s just mind-boggling. She kept that from you all these years?”