by David Beers
"What else?" Christian said.
Tommy smiled slightly. The kid wanted to know more about him, could actually sense that wasn't the only thing Tommy wanted to express by bringing him here. "Do you call what you have a sixth sense?"
"I don't call it anything. Other people do."
Now Tommy nodded. "You’re different because you can't communicate well with others. I was different because I couldn't stop working. Even as a kid, whatever goal I set, I worked all day—and sometimes all night—to hit that goal. I didn't have friends. My mother encouraged me, but I think it bothered her some. Sometimes I got picked on, until I set a goal of learning self-defense. This is the first home I've ever owned, and I won't sell it, because it's the first place I've been able to feel truly safe ... Does that make sense?"
No tears were in Christian's eyes, but Tommy still thought he saw something there—perhaps identification with a kindred spirit.
"It does."
Tommy didn't say anything for a few seconds, just looked at the kid. "You want to sit down?" he asked finally.
"Sure."
Christian went to the love seat catty-corner from the couch. He stayed quiet as he sat.
"You want to talk about today? We can fill Luke in tomorrow."
"Okay," Christian said, and Tommy would have sworn on a Bible he saw a switch flip on inside him. One moment he was contemplative, perhaps feeling emotion that he couldn't quite express, and the next ... It was like a machine took over.
"Go on," Tommy said. "Clearly you have thoughts."
No smile. "Both parents didn't die, I don't think. There's still a few places we need to check, but one of them lived, and that kept him out of state care. He lived on a farm, though; I'm fairly certain of it."
"There aren't any farms around these parts, in case you didn't know."
"Yeah, but in case you didn't know, people move," Christian said, the smallest grin pricking his mouth. "So, they moved here at some point, but why would they do that? The only reason I can think of is they lost the farm. So, we need to look at bankruptcies."
"How many farms went bankrupt in the past twenty years, Christian?"
"A lot. I haven't looked at the exact number, but we can probably narrow it down to a five year window."
"That's still a hell of a lot of bankruptcies."
Christian shook his head. "I don't think he has a heavy accent, so we can throw out the deep south."
"Would that be racism? Classism?"
"It's elimination. Don't start with me on the politically correct police. I could go for years complaining about them."
Tommy laughed. "Okay, okay. So, we'll focus on small farms in southern Georgia. How will we know when we find him, though?"
"I can't figure that out yet. I'm hoping when I see it, I'll know."
"That's not going to work with the Director. We need something more solid."
Christian leaned back on the love-seat and closed his eyes. "I need more time around him, or around what he does. I need more connections."
Tommy stood and walked into the kitchen. "You drink?"
"No."
"Ever tried it?"
"No."
"Well, I won't start someone's alcoholism. I'm going to have a beer. You want to stay the night? I can drive you home, if you want, but it's really not a problem."
Tommy listened to the silence as Christian wrestled with how to answer the question. Tommy knew he wouldn't want to spend the night, that asking him to do that was akin to asking a normal person if they'd like to ride a bucking bronco—the fear alone would keep him away.
"Hey, just thought I'd ask. Come on, let me finish this beer and I'll drive you home."
"You're going to drink and drive?" Christian called from the love-seat.
"There's a lot I need to teach you."
Tommy dropped Christian off. He watched him walk up the stairs to his condominium, and once he was inside, pulled away from the curb.
Like you're bringing home a date or something, he thought as the car rolled onto the freeway. Tommy felt a certain duty to the kid, though he couldn't quite pinpoint why. Or rather, he knew why, and if it was anyone else, this wouldn't make sense. The kid was a duly appointed FBI Agent, had two doctorates, and clearly was capable of doing anything he wanted in this world. Yet, Tommy hadn't pulled off immediately. He made sure Christian got inside.
Because, as smart as he is, he needs help in this world. Hell, you needed help too, and you ended up getting it.
Not from his own father, but yes, he got help at a time in his life when he needed it. Maybe that's what he was trying to do with Christian.
Tommy didn't get off at his exit, but went straight, heading back to the office. It was late, but he wasn't tired, and there was a pretty big snag in Christian's theory—even if he thought he'd be able to see around it eventually. They couldn't comb through farm bankruptcies hoping to somehow magically land on the name of the man doing all these killings.
They needed more than that.
He pulled into an empty parking lot and exited the car. It took him another five minutes to make it up to his office. The place was empty, the lights turning on as he walked through the silence.
Tommy wasn't lying when he told Christian he worked so hard because he had to if he wanted to keep up, but that wasn't the only reason. He enjoyed the work. People were dying and he could make them stop.
He fired up the computer and started working. They would need more than Christian's sixth sense if they wanted to catch this guy.
Chapter 17
Luke sat in his car and looked at the house in front of him. A nice house. A respectable one. Something someone worked a long time to pay off. A place that could keep them safe because the neighbors were friendly and the police patrolled the area.
John Presley had done well for himself by American standards.
It was unfortunate he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
Luke’s last conversation with Veronica Lopez had been quick. She called him with some follow-up questions, telling him she was expanding his role in the book given the importance she thought he deserved. Luke agreed, although he didn't say so.
Yet, John Presley came up in one of those follow-up questions.
"So, on the record, you didn't poison John Presley?" she had asked.
"I don't even feel that justifies a response," Luke said.
It didn't. Of course he had poisoned John Presley. There were many ways Luke tried to go about his business. They didn't all work. John Presley's hadn't, and so Luke abandoned it. He was, though, working swimmingly with Tommy, and now Christian.
But John hadn't been able to stay quiet. Veronica went over the gist of what he said, and Luke might have underestimated the man. It seemed he did a hell of a lot of research after he blasted that credit thief.
It wasn't that Luke needed to do anything to the man, only that ... he wanted to. No one was going to listen to John Presley, not before and not now. Still, Luke was going to pay him a visit at his nice house. He'd see his nice wife, his nice life. All of it predicated on a man who kept his nose to the grindstone and worked hard. That might have been true, but what the American Dream didn't account for was the role of chance.
Luke was chance, if nothing else. A slight tremor on an otherwise still craps table, something no one would notice but moved the dice just enough. Snake eyes. No payout.
Luke stepped from his car. He pressed the button on his keys, locked it, and gave it a look over. It really was a nice car. Elon Musk knew what he was doing with Tesla.
Luke dropped the keys in his pocket and walked across the street. He didn't cut through the lawn, but walked up the driveway, then took the little concrete path to the doorstep.
He rang the doorbell, the glue he'd applied to his fingers earlier in the morning ensuring that he wouldn't leave a fingerprint.
The street was still dark; some people might be waking, but no one was heading to work yet.
It took a few minute
s, but Luke didn't mind waiting. He enjoyed the cool morning air and the silence around him. Finally, John Presley spoke through the door.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was hoping we could talk a bit about what you told Ms. Lopez."
Luke wore one of his suits, ready for work when this nasty business was over.
"What do you have to say?"
"Well, if you let me in, I'll be able to tell you. I think it might be best to clear the air between us."
"Give me a minute," John said.
Luke waited in the stillness. He felt serene as a breeze blew through his hair.
The door opened and John stood in front of him, wearing a robe and holding a piece. A 9mm.
"Well, that might not be the best way to start the conversation," Luke said.
"Fuck you. What do you want to say?"
"I wanted to talk to you about your conclusions, and see if there's any way I can convince you that yes, I did poison you, but it's best if you stay quiet about it."
John's mouth opened slightly, his lips parting.
Luke moved smoother than a striking serpent. One hand grabbed the man's mouth, brandishing a handkerchief soaked in chloroform. The other grabbed John's right thumb, the one holding the weapon, and pulled back. He tried to scream, but Luke already had control of the situation.
The gun fell to the floor and John Presley went limp in his arms.
Luke wore a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. He had put them on under his suit for this specific purpose. He had put on gloves too, latex ones—he wasn't worried about fingerprints, but you could never be too careful about hair follicles. Over his head, he wore a swimmers cap, pulling it down so that it covered everything but his face.
He had scrubbed his face earlier this morning, ensuring that any possible skin or loose hair wouldn't fall out. If they did, though, Luke's eyes were extremely perceptive.
John Presley sat on his couch, his hands were bound to his ankles, all of if tied so tightly that he couldn't move at all. He had fallen on his side during his temper-tantrum, and now he lay there with red, blurry eyes, and a rag shoved deep into his mouth.
His wife was on the floor in front of Luke. Had her eyes not been blue, Luke would have needed to figure out another way to take care of John, but sometimes Luck smiled down from her cloud.
Mrs. Presley's eyes sat in a little plastic bag which rested next to the television.
He'd made John watch, of course. Luke took his time with the woman, having already planned out what he would do before showing up. Of course, it needed to look like his friend had been here, and so Luke contemplated what drove the man. It hadn't been difficult; his friend's psychology wasn't that much different from other psychopaths.
Luke cut the woman's tongue out while she was awake. He then took each of her fingers off with a pair of bolt cutters, blood spurting all over the white living room carpet. The blood, of course, soaked Luke's clothes as well, but that wouldn't be a problem.
Finally he sliced the woman's throat deep, nearly severing her head while John watched from the couch, trying to scream but unable to make much noise.
It all took about an hour.
People were finally starting to move around outside, heading to their jobs.
"Now," Luke said, "I won't take as much time with you. I do have somewhere to be after all; we're really busy trying to catch 'The Surgeon', as the media has branded him. Do you know why they call him that?"
John didn't even look over, just stared at his dead wife, unable to pull himself away.
"You're in shock, John, but that doesn't mean you can't continue learning. They call him The Surgeon because of how precise he is with his removal. It truly looks like something a doctor might do. Anyway, we've got a lot of work ahead of us, so I'll need to be moving along."
Luke stepped over Mrs. Presley and stood in front of the silent Mr. Presley. A single tear dripped from the man’s eye, rolling down the side of his face, before it swelled and then fell to the couch.
"You should have kept quiet, John, and I wouldn't have called on you. I've always wanted to hurt you, but when you left the FBI, I thought my opportunity had passed. You did this. I want you to know that. You killed her. You brought me here, and you didn't have to."
Luke reached forward with the knife and slit the man's throat.
He moved back, making sure none of John's blood touched him. He didn't want any more filth on him than necessary.
Chapter 18
"Four murders in two weeks is a big fucking deal, guys. In case you weren't aware."
Director Alan Waverly stood in the former FBI agent's house, right alongside Luke, Tommy, and Christian.
"I don't need to tell you that I don't have time to be here, looking at this, right?"
Christian didn't know if the other two needed to be told, but he certainly didn't. "I don't ever want to be around you."
The other three men looked at him, all of their eyes wide with surprise.
"I mean, I mean," Christian stammered, "that you being here isn't a good thing for us. It means we're not doing our jobs. I meant that I don't want to be around you because I want to be doing a good job."
Waverly blinked twice, his eyes slowly returning to their normal size. He turned back to the crime in front of them all.
From his peripheral, Christian saw Tommy fighting a smile.
Glad someone finds my issues humorous.
"I need some answers, gentleman, and I need them fast. What can preliminary forensics tell us?"
"Not much," Luke said, standing on the other side of Waverly. "No prints, no loose hair. Nothing that could link anyone besides the two of them being here, at least not directly in this area. There were other hair samples and prints that don't match Mr. And Mrs. Presley, but we imagine that will show up as friends and family."
"You're running them, though?" Waverly asked.
"Yes, sir."
"This was your former partner, correct?" the Director said.
"Yes, sir."
"You don't seem too broken up about it."
Christian watched Luke. He wasn't looking at Waverly, only staring at the bodies.
"We weren't too close, after everything that happened."
Christian blinked, much like Waverly had moments before.
What is it? he asked himself, his brain firing so hard that it almost physically itched. What's bothering you?
Stay focused, Christian, his mother said. She was only in his head this time, thank God, not standing over these disgusting bodies. You know how you can be sometimes, allowing your mind to take you off the task at hand. Now's not the time to do it, especially with your boss's boss standing here.
She was right. He blinked one more time, hard, and cleared his mind.
"Do you think he's after you?" Waverly said.
"Would be an interesting way to go after me, given what this man accused me of."
Silence fell over the room, and Christian wasn't about to break it.
"He killed one of ours," Waverly said. "Even if Presley did leave under difficult circumstances. If it isn't personal for all of you yet, it better be now."
More silence. Christian didn't know how to act, at all—whether this was normal, for the Director to say something and everyone around him keep quiet? Or was this different because of the person murdered?
Honey, focus, his mother reminded him.
"Do the normal protocols with this. Look at everyone around these people and see who they might have known, who might have talked to them recently, et cetera. If we find nothing, then we have to believe one of two things: either he stumbled across this woman because of the blue eyes or he's targeting people that each of you know."
"I don't have much family," Tommy said.
"Mine isn't even in the country," Luke said.
"Windsor?" the Director asked.
"My mom." Fear struck his spine, nearly paralyzing him. She wouldn't be harmed. Couldn't be. No matter what.
"Can I get back to you?" Tommy said.
"Of course. Now, what leads do we have?" Waverly asked. "Tell me that you've got someone you're looking at."
Christian was about to speak, to let Waverly know the theory, but Tommy started talking immediately, giving him a sidelong glance as he did.
"Yes, sir. Windsor did some work and we're targeting people that have had farm foreclosures between ten and fifteen years ago."
"Why?" Waverly asked.
"Evidence left at the last crime scene," Tommy said. He didn't look over as he lied, but kept his eyes on the Director. "We've kept it out of the press, and it should have been in the report we sent a few days ago."
"And the evidence was ...?"
"Not really evidence, per se," Luke spoke up, "but it gave us a direction to go in. The brutality shown on the last victim made Windsor start digging through criminal profiles, and we think the killer was abused as a child. Now, in horse rearing, when they breed ... well, the stallion has a very large male organ. The bedpost had been whittled down, carved to make it resemble a—"
"A horse’s cock? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No, sir." Luke didn't look away from the bodies. "He took his time in that house while the woman was tied up."
"Jesus Christ. I still need more, guys. How are you going to know it's your man when you find him?"
"Last night I started combing through farm foreclosures and cross referencing them with victims of child abuse. So far, I haven't found anything. I'll be looking again tonight," Tommy said.
"I'll have some of our interns do it for you. Listen, don't hesitate to ask me for resources on this, okay? Whatever you need, call me directly. No reason you should be doing that. Just look at the reports the interns give you."
"Yes, sir."
"Call me tonight, both you and Luke. Christian, since you dislike me so much, no need for you to be on that call."
Christian could barely hold his eyes up, but he managed to see a small smile cross the Director's face. Perhaps other people would have been miffed that they weren't required to be on a call—Christian felt only relief.
