A small, thin face, with eyes set fairly close together. Not too clear, but I was struck by a resemblance to the dormouse in Alice in Wonderland.
He let the tape run for a couple of minutes.
“The reason it’s all so hard to understand,” he said, “is that our Mr. Traer is reciting the Roman Catholic mass backward. In Latin. The most important thing to notice is that book on the altar. You’ll hardly ever see him look down at it, but he turns the pages automatically.”
We watched. The quality was about that of a normal home video—poor. But you could see what he meant.
“He’s got it memorized, just like a priest has the mass memorized.”
“Now, that’s dedication,” said Art.
A few moments later, a naked woman appeared from offstage left and approached the altar. Traer said something, she knelt and then lay down on the table before it.
“The naked woman is Phyllis Herkaman. She is playing the role of the so-called living altar. The rest of the ceremony will be conducted on her, as it were.”
It was. She was difficult to recognize most of the time. Her face was just a little too far from the camera to be truly recognizable.
Saperstein fast-forwarded all of a sudden, wrenching me back from the mass and into the crowded room.
“Most of it is like that, with the people in the background sometimes coming forward to do some little chore … and, okay, here,” he said, resuming normal speed. “Here we have the members of the cult having sexual relations with Phyllis … the formal end to the ceremony.”
Despite our better impulses, we were riveted.
“You’ll notice that Traer gets first shot—rank has its privileges.”
Traer seemed to be devoting as much energy to this part of the program as he had all the rest.
“Now,” said Saperstein, “this is interesting. Watch who’s next.”
A woman approached Phyllis.
“This is unusual, the women normally come last.” Saperstein chuckled. “No pun. This woman’s different. This one is our guest, Elizabeth Mills.”
Elizabeth placed her head between Phyllis’s legs.
“Now, watch Phyllis here,” said Saperstein. “She was pretty properly religious with Traer …”
Phyllis, who had been lying quietly, suddenly jerked, and almost fell off the table.
“Lost her concentration, there.”
Elizabeth stood, and backed off-camera.
“Now, this is Sirken … and from here on out, it’s all pretty much perfunctory … Just a second …” and he fast-forwarded it again.
“Here,” he said, “this is Kenneth Mills. He’s the next man, and watch this.”
There appeared to be much fumbling on-screen, lasting for almost a minute. Then Kenneth Mills turned his back to the camera and moved off into the darkness.
Saperstein chuckled. “Old Kenny apparently couldn’t get it up.”
“After my wife had done such a good job,” said Hal, “I’m not sure I could, either.”
“Hard act to follow,” I said.
“The rest of it is just normal stuff,” said Saperstein quickly. “Whoever was responsible for the camera forgot it at the end, because we have three or four minutes of the empty altar.”
He began rewinding the tape, and the lights came back on.
“Now,” said Saperstein, “this tape tells us a lot about the group. For instance, it’s plain that Traer is the high priest. It’s also apparent that Elizabeth Mills is rather high in the organization, and I would think she would fall just behind Phyllis, or maybe just ahead of her. Kenneth Mills seems to lack commitment.”
There was some appreciative laughter.
“Sirken,” he continued, “seems to rank just behind Elizabeth and was probably the number two male. In their order, then came McGuire, then Todd Glutzman, or at least, we think it’s Glutzman. Hard to tell. Then the other women, with Rachel being last. You can’t tell because of the robe, but the note on the tape says that it was made on October 14th. A Saturday. If that is the correct approximate date, Rachel was about eight months along, and may have been last because of that.
“I think,” said Saperstein, “that Kenneth Mills is our weak link in the group. I think that he can be ‘approached.’ ”
“We wanted to show you this tape,” said Hester, “just so that you realize what we’re dealing with. These people are serious. They’re fanatic. They probably ‘sacrificed’ a baby in a ceremony similar to the one you just saw. We’d like you to think about that.”
We were thinking.
“These people,” said Saperstein, “are at the upper level of Satanic activities. Philosophically, morally, politically. They’re totally committed, and will do anything they have to, to protect the group.”
“If you think of the term ‘fanatic,’ ” said Hal, “you’re just scratching the surface. And they will obey Traer to the bitter end. Literally.”
“Kind of like Charlie Manson?” I asked.
“Exactly,” said Saperstein.
“Great.”
“Whoever killed the four,” he said, “is also that committed, and that fanatic. For what reason, we don’t know yet. But I don’t think he’ll be satisfied with just four of them. I would, think that whoever it is, is going to want Traer. At least.”
26
Sunday, April 28
19:44 hours
Hester stood up, and looked around the group.
“Now I’ve got some bad news.” She picked up a copy of the Des Moines paper. “We have some interesting reporting going on here.”
She tossed the paper to Quint, who caught it.
“Anybody who wants to read it can,” she said. “But basically it’s a case where there aren’t many facts for them to go on, so they interview the ‘man in the street.’ Who, in this case, appears terrified.”
“Is made to appear terrified,” said Hal.
“You got it right,” said Hester. She sat on Lamar’s desk, swinging her feet back and forth. We knew it was important now. Nobody sits on Lamar’s desk.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been spending a lot of time in this town lately, and I haven’t talked to a ‘terrified’ resident yet.” She glanced at the rest of us.
There was a chorus of nope’s and not me’s.
“Well, the AG’s office reads the paper. The governor reads the paper. And they don’t spend much time up here talking to the people. So that’s what they have to go by, I guess.” She stood abruptly, tossing her hair like she was really aggravated.
“Anyway, the AG’s office has given us sort of an ultimatum. We don’t make an arrest in the next few days, they’re gonna task-force the investigation.”
Silence.
“Now, when they do that, two things happen. Number one, they assign thirty or so people from DCI and the AG to work the case. I’ve been in on two of those. Once as a member comin’ in, once as the original case officer. You get almost unlimited resources, and almost unlimited fuckups. People stumbling all over each other, going over all the previous case data, reviewing all the information you’ve already got. Driving you crazy, and doing the second thing that they do.”
She sipped some coffee. “The second thing is that they effectively take you off the case. They break the chain of events and ruin your concentration. They talk to your witnesses so often that they never want to hear a cop again. They burn out the whole bunch. They confuse everything.”
She had some more coffee.
“And then, typically, they leave. Because they’ve ‘exhausted the resources’ in the case. And there you sit, two or three weeks later, with a fucked-up case and all the responsibility for it.” She sat back down. “And, while they’re active, you’re effectively taken off the case.”
“So,” said Hal, “we’ve got to get moving. Just a little added pressure. We don’t want a task force. Period. So we’ve pulled a couple of strings. And we’ve got one advantage.” He gestured toward Hester
and grinned. “Hester here used to be an undercover narc officer for us, for those who didn’t know. She also was sent to the FBI Criminal Profiling school and worked for our Criminal Assessment Unit for a year and a half, before being put back in General Crim.”
Hester stood up and bowed.
“Anyway,” said Hal, “Hester has profiled the four homicides. Cross-referenced the material from the …” He looked at a slip of paper on Lamar’s desk. “From the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.” He grinned. “That’s all I know about it. Hester … don’t let all this go to your head.”
“At my age, Hal, I can’t afford to let it go anywhere else.” She looked around the room. “This is gonna get a little esoteric for a few minutes, so if you feel sleepy, just raise your hand and I’ll excuse you.”
Silence.
“Okay, here we go. By the way, if they task-force this, everything I’m going to tell you will be done again, by another agent. That’s what Hal’s talking about.”
She opened her valise and brought out a stack of paper.
“This, gentlemen,” she said, holding it up for us to see, “is a profile of the four offenses. MO information; victimology, as far as I could take it; physical evidence; and suspect behavior, again as far as I could take it. No surprises. As far as I can tell, the four were done by the same person or persons. I have done a personality profile on the offender—slim, let me tell you. But there is one major indicator we can tell for sure, and that is that he is a criminal psychopath. Possibly a schizophrenic, possibly a paranoiac one …”
“No shit?” From Mike.
We laughed.
“Yeah,” said Hester, “no shit. Mike, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“The main value here, Mike, is that we are now dealing with a scientifically designated psychopath, not just our uninformed opinions. There’s a difference.”
“Okay,” said Mike, relatively unabashed. Lamar threw him a hard glance. “I mean,” said Mike, “I see the difference.”
“Good,” said Hester.
She leafed through her papers for a second. “Now, he’s approximately six feet tall, plus or minus two inches. Left-handed. Strong. Size 11 shoes. Stride of approximately thirty-three inches, on average. Medium brown hair, we think. Probably over 180 pounds, maybe as high as 210. We found a little blood on Peggy Keller’s jeans, by the way, that wasn’t hers and doesn’t match any of the other four victims. Blood was AO, 1–2–, B. Scrapings from under her nails gave insufficient in the ABO and EAP, but also were 1–2–. Nail scrapings from Phyllis Herkaman were similar, with no ABO but with a 1–2– and an EAP of B. There was also an AO stain on the gag that was used on her. So we feel, based on that, that his injury was on his hand, probably the left, and we feel that he’s an AO, 1–2–, B, and a secretor.”
She shifted her papers again. “We ran him through our own computer and came up with nothing.” She held up her hand. “Not at all surprising, gentlemen, since we are a new program, and we only have eleven people in our system at this time.” She smiled. “We got to start somewhere, don’t we?
“Anyway,” she went on, “I interfaced with NCAVC and have a partial match on the MO and on the physicals.”
Well, well, well.
“Our matchup is from a multiple homicide which took place in Cleveland, Ohio, a number of years ago. It is partially solved, which is a surprise.”
Hester picked up a different sheet. “The incident was a homicide involving three individuals, two men and a woman. It is believed they were members of a cult, with at least overtones of Satanism. One male was castrated. Mutilations in all three victims. Originally it was felt that it was a murder-suicide, because a male suicide was discovered two days later, with notes and a Polaroid photo of the crime scene in his possession. He left a note, saying how he had accomplished his purpose and had gone to be with the devil. That his life was complete. Open and shut, except that the forensic team had evidence of two perpetrators. Our boy was the second. He was never identified.” She looked back at her notes. “Oh, before I forget … If you’re having trouble, emotionally, with this stuff, don’t feel bad. One of the cops investigating this case in Ohio actually got off on a psychiatric disability.”
She looked up. “Now, the physical evidence is good. The general Satanic overtones are good. But there’s a problem here. The first murders were apparently committed by Satanists. We feel, however, that our perp isn’t necessarily one himself. What he does doesn’t jibe with the activities of the group. I mean, it’s almost like he’s read up on this stuff. The victim group wasn’t nearly as ‘formal’ about their practices as our perp is. We feel that the Satanic-related evidence at the scene was set up. To make it look Satanic, or at least, more Satanic. Anybody disagree?”
Nobody did. Nobody had the information to have an opinion.
“Yeah. Well, our guy pretty well qualifies as a serial murderer, by definition. Little problem with the textbook classification, due to the time gap between incidents. Quite a long while. Which indicates to me that there is a strong possibility that our man has been sidetracked. Possibly by psychiatric treatment, or even being institutionalized. In the interim period.” She paused. “Am I ringing any bells yet? With anybody?”
No.
“Kind of hoped I would.”
“Hester,” I said, “if I heard any bells ringing, I’d sure as hell never tell you.”
She smiled. Waited. Still nothing.
“The MO in ours indicates somebody either in a sustained rage or with sustained purposefulness. I go for purposefulness, because of the general lack of collateral damage. Take McGuire’s place, for example. Most of the mess in the house, if not all of it, was created for effect. ‘Signs of a struggle.’ Yet McGuire was murdered elsewhere and brought to the house. No struggle likely there. Unless he was kidnapped, and the struggle happened then, and I doubt that, given his known association with Herkaman.
“The valid assumption is that all four were killed at Herkaman’s place. There are no signs of a major struggle there. At least nothing to indicate what they call a killing rage. So we have somebody who is methodical. Somebody who is extremely determined. Somebody who can sustain that mind-set for several hours. Somebody very patient, who can torture a victim for a considerable time period. Somebody who, for a period of time in excess of five hours, gives us the emotions of a reptile.”
She paused again. “Any bells ringing yet?”
None.
“What we have here is a fanatic, and I believe one with strong religious motivations. Maybe not from an organized religion. But a man with a ‘mission from God,’ so to speak.”
“A Blues Brother?” I asked.
She grinned. “You would make that connection.”
“Well, it’s the only bell that’s rung so far.”
“Anyhow, and you’re not gonna like this, Lamar, I feel that our boy is going to go for more members of our little cult. Especially Traer. Especially. And the security here is like Swiss cheese. From six P.M. until six A.M., ninety percent of the time the only person in this building, except for prisoners, is a female dispatcher. Who has the keys to the cells. Anybody can walk in here, and I know that for sure, because I did. I came in the back door, and nobody knew I was here.”
Silence.
“And we now have three of the best potential targets for our perp locked in one small area of an isolated building.” She looked at Lamar. “I know you have a budget problem, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to have a minimum of two officers in this building at all times. A minimum.”
“Yeah,” said Lamar reluctantly, “you’re right. I just don’t know where I’m gonna get the people.”
“I don’t know, either,” said Hester. “But they’re going to have to be officers, they’re going to have to be well armed, and they’re going to have to be alert as hell. And you’re going to have to secure all the doors in this place. Well secured.”
“Yeah.”
&
nbsp; “You’d better start tonight,” said Hester. “I’m convinced this guy is still around. He probably had as much trouble finding the other members as we did. We’ve done most of his heavy work for him, at this point. And the media have told the whole world where they are.”
The intercom buzzed. Lamar took the call. It was Mary Quentin, duty dispatcher. “Helen Bockman is here, to listen to a tape?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll be right out.”
“I’ll take it,” said Art. He left the room.
“Perfect case in point,” said Hester. “Here we have a dozen officers in a room less than fifty feet from the dispatch center. Did anybody know that Helen was even in the building?”
Of course not.
The dispatcher had probably let her in through the electrically locked front door, which was equipped with a two-way speaker system. No security there. I doubted if a killer would announce himself as such. We’d been trying to get approval for a closed-circuit TV system, but hadn’t had any luck at all with that. And the dispatchers were accustomed to letting members of the public in at all hours, when they reported accidents, fights, etc. Besides, there were four other doors in the building, none of which would stop a determined man. Or a talented one. Not good.
“Well,” said Lamar, “none of our reserve officers has to go to work tomorrow. I’ll get a couple of them to sit in the building tonight.” He shook his head. “But I don’t know what I’m gonna do tomorrow. Or the rest of the week.”
Hal stood up. “Okay, people, I have a sheet here that’s based on Hester’s workup. General description, one suspect.” He began handing them out. “We’re gonna have to move on this.”
The intercom buzzed again. Mary. “We have a two-car 10–50, with injuries, three west on 55. Ambulance has been notified. Bodies reported on the road.”
Mike, Eddie, and I stood up. Sunday night was beginning.
27
Sunday, April 28
20:42 hours
Blasting through Maitland with lights and sirens going, it only took us a few minutes to get to the accident scene. It was a bad one, one dead for sure at the scene, four injured, with one of them pinned. We called back to comm for the Jaws and a fire department unit. We tried to keep one of them alive, but I think we lost her at the scene. The ambulance took her, anyway. We had called for a backup ambulance, too, and that took a little while. All volunteer, and it’s hard to get two crews right away, especially on a Sunday night.
Eleven Days Page 20
