Violet Darger (Book 2): Killing Season

by L. T. Vargus

  Rodney sat off to one side of the group, and bright pink splotches formed on his cheeks at the sudden attention. He unfolded his long, bony frame and stalked to the front of the room, reminding Darger of a stork.

  He cleared his throat nervously and began.

  “Hi, my name is Rodney, uh, Malenchuck. Which I guess Mister, I mean, Agent Loshak already said, so… Anyway, I’ll get to it. The program I designed is called Autological, and what it essentially does is combine voice-to-text software with call logging and recording.”

  Darger thought he was fairly young, maybe only 22 or 23, but a large part of that assessment was his childlike nature. He was soft-spoken, fidgety, and had a habit of blinking rapidly when he talked. His eyes had a sort of perpetual wetness that gave him the appearance of being just on the brink of an emotional outburst.

  “How Autological works, without getting too technical,” Rodney said, and his moist eyes glanced over at Loshak, who gave an encouraging nod, “is that as a call comes in through the tip line, the program grabs it and logs the basic information — time, location, etcetera. The next step is that Autological determines whether or not there is a human operator available. If so, the call is routed to one of them. If all lines are busy, the program has an automated voicemail backup.”

  Rodney seemed to grow more comfortable once he was talking about his program.

  “Both the live calls and the automated backup systems are set to record the calls in audio and voice-to-text, similar to the way a 911 call center works. What that allows us to do is add the calls to a searchable database. As the case progresses, we’ll be able to organize calls by common keyword, location, and so on. Each live call will also be given priority rankings by the operators, which should allow for a more effective workflow for the analysts.”

  By the time Rodney was through giving a demonstration of how to use the program, Darger had completed her work at the whiteboard. Loshak resumed control of the meeting and directed the attention of everyone in the room to the matrix of words scrawled on the shiny surface.

  “There is a real chance the shooter will call into the tip line. Agent Darger and I put together a list of things to listen for. For example, calls that sound rehearsed, recorded, or utilize voice modification. Because he’s likely been in the armed forces, use of military or law enforcement jargon should raise a red flag. Also religious terms, racial slurs, or mention of negotiating or demands. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you have questions, or you get a call that gives you any kind of gut feeling, anything that sets your Spidey Sense a-tingling, please don’t hesitate to call me or Agent Darger over.”

  They broke then, the operators moving off to private cubicles where they would start getting acquainted with the Autological interface. Rodney approached, giving an anxious flap of his elbows, and again Darger was reminded of a tall, spindly bird.

  “I should remind you, Agent Loshak. The system is still in beta testing.”

  “I know, I know. You told me on the phone.” Loshak gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid. This is light years ahead of the pencil-and-carbon-paper method. It’s worth a few bugs.”

  Loshak chuckled to himself as Rodney wandered off to help the trainees, and then his gaze turned to Darger.

  “You heading out to the crime scene now?”

  “As long as you’re sure you’ve got everything covered here,” she said, feeling a little guilty leaving him here alone.

  “Go on. I know you’re chomping at the bit to get out there.”

  Chapter 16

  The latest crime scene was still crawling with investigators and representatives from the various media outlets when Darger arrived. An officer from the Atlanta Police Department stopped her at the entrance of Pheasant Brook. She recognized the green and gold sign from the TV footage that morning. Across the street, a dozen news vans loitered in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

  Darger rolled down her window.

  “Morning, ma’am,” the policeman said.

  She wondered if he was this polite to every car that rolled up, or if he possibly recognized her.

  Flashing her badge, she said, “FBI.”

  He nodded once, resting his hands on his duty belt.

  “Go on ahead.”

  She thanked him and guided her car around his cruiser, which blocked the entrance from any unauthorized traffic.

  She parked behind a Chevy Impala marked with the emblem of the local sheriff’s office and got out. Judging from the activity and crime scene tape, the real action had taken place a block further up the street.

  The neighborhood was quiet and clean. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, and faint traffic noise filtered through a stand of pines off to the west. But for the most part, it was a serene little nook hidden in the midst of the bustling city.

  Most of the homes were two stories tall. They weren’t identical, but it was clear it was a planned community by the similar tones and textures used on the exteriors: creamy beige, sage green, or slate gray for the paint, limestone brick or mixed river rock for the stone accents. Each lot looked to be about half an acre. Many were landscaped in front with palms and azaleas nestled into curved beds lined with wood chips. Swaths of green lawn in back left plenty of room for pools, sandboxes, swing sets. It was a picture-perfect example of the upper middle class suburban American dream.

  Which was why he’d chosen it, of course. He was an overgrown child, stomping through someone else’s carefully erected sandcastle. If he couldn’t have it, no one could. The “it” in this case being: Happiness. Peace. Life.

  She pivoted on her heel at the foot of Carol Jones’ sidewalk and passed through a pair of screens set up in front of the house. Darger sucked in a breath when the porch came into view. The body had been bagged and moved to the morgue by now, but evidence of the savagery remained aplenty. The telltale spatters on the door and the siding. The dark red-brown stains on the deck boards.

  A fly buzzed past Darger’s face, and she swatted it away. It landed in the congealing puddle just inside the Jones residence, rubbing its legs together as if sitting down for a picnic lunch. A sickly heat crept over Darger’s face, and she turned her back on the carnage.

  Agent Baxter stood beneath a cluster of palms, the fronds overhead casting shadows over him. He had his phone pressed to his ear and wore the same humorless expression as always. Darger wondered if he ever smiled.

  As Darger moved closer, he ended the call and stepped from beneath the canopy. The sun shone on his face, hitting him like a spotlight. He looked like hell. Rumpled suit. Bags under his red-rimmed eyes. His hair was dark and thick enough that not shaving for even a day meant that a good crop of stubble had already taken root. He pawed at his jawline, producing a grating noise she associated with sandpaper.

  She closed the gap between them, and her feet left wet prints on the dew-covered grass.

  “I had a feeling you’d still be here,” she said and held out a cardboard cup like an olive branch. “I took a wild guess that you drink it black. No sugar.”

  He frowned at her like he didn’t know if she was poking fun at him or not. But he accepted the cup and took a sip.

  “Appreciate it,” he said.

  She noted that he did not use the words thank you.

  “So was I right?”

  “About what?”

  “How you take your coffee?”

  “You want a prize or something?”

  He really is Agent Bastard, she thought. It occurred to her that she was probably not the first one to think it.

  “There it is again. That effervescent personality of yours.”

  He didn’t answer, only further illustrating her point. Not a fan of small talk? Fine. Back to business.

  “So take me through it. What happened here last night?”

  Without needing to consult his notes, Baxter began a recap of the prior night’s events.

  “Carol Jones, 31. Running theory is she wa
s already out here on the porch when he arrived.”

  “He didn’t knock on her door first?”

  Agent Baxter shook his head.

  “We think not. Judging by the position of the body, she was standing outside the door. Do you live alone, Agent Darger?”

  The question struck her as an abrupt change of subject, and she stuttered out an awkward, “Yes… why?”

  “If a strange man came knocking at your door at night, would you step out onto the front porch with him?”

  Not without my gun, she thought.

  “What if she knew him?”

  “We’re looking into that possibility, of course. But there’s more that suggests it might have been a case of wrong place, wrong time. From the trajectory reconstruction, he didn’t even get all the way up onto the porch. He was standing on the bottom step when he fired the first round.”

  He jerked his head toward the street.

  “There’s outgoing mail in the box down there. My personal theory is that she takes the mail down, flips up the little red flag, heads back up the walk, and she’s almost back inside when he comes up behind her. He says something, or maybe she hears his footsteps, but whatever it is, she turns around and…” He gestured to the darkening smears and speckles in the entryway.

  And boom, Darger thought.

  “If you want to see inside, it’s better to come around back to avoid stepping in the… mess.”

  He led the way to a rear entrance. The interior of the home matched the generic suburban exterior. Polished stone countertops, white cabinetry, a contemporary chandelier over the dining room table.

  “Victim’s husband is a corporate attorney for Turner Broadcasting. He’s been in L.A. all week. Apparently, it’s not unusual for him to be out of town several times a month.”

  “He’s been notified, I assume?”

  “Yeah, he’s on the first flight back. We’ve got an interview scheduled for this evening.”

  “And what about her?” Darger asked and pointed at a portrait of the victim in her wedding gown. “Did she work?”

  “She did hospitality design up until about a year ago.”

  Darger raised an eyebrow.

  “I have been informed that it’s a fancy term for interior decorating for hotels.”

  “Ah,” Darger said with a nod.

  “According to her sister, she left her job when they decided to start a family.”

  At that moment, Darger’s eyes came to rest on another frame on the wall. It was a series of seven black and white images. Each one had a date written in looping, feminine handwriting, followed by an inscription. The first read, “One month!” The second, “Two months!” One sonogram for each month of the pregnancy, all the way through the seventh month. Months eight and nine were blank spaces, never to be filled.

  Violet’s gaze remained glued to the ultrasound images for a long time.

  Two kills in one.

  What kind of person got off on that?

  She considered the prospects of the rest of the day ahead. Hours spent poring over the phone calls that were surely flooding in by now. Most of them would be useless. A waste of time. Bored housewives glued to the daytime news circuits who wanted nothing more than to be part of it all — from a safe distance, of course. And so they would convince themselves they’d seen the gunman. Knew it was their downstairs neighbor or the brother-in-law they hated.

  Then there were the cranks. Mostly adolescents who didn’t understand the gravity of the situation and thought it was funny to call in with bogus stories and obscene jokes.

  After that, the drunks and the mentally ill. They would blame their sons, their fathers, their bosses. Some of them would confess that they were the gunman.

  Finally, Violet tore her eyes from the grainy black and white pictures. She swiveled around. Agent Baxter had moved farther down the hall, conversing with one of the detectives. When he finished, she called him over.

  “Baxter,” she said.

  His response came as a series of lines running across his forehead.

  “This biker gang…”

  “The Nameless Brotherhood,” he said.

  “Right. Do you know why Fitzgerald was so intent on quashing that? Surely the bureau has a few CIs that might have some intel. And if not us, then ATF or even the local vice cops. I don’t understand why we’re not at least putting out some feelers.”

  He watched her for a time, pondering perhaps whether he should share his thoughts on the subject or not. Whether he could trust her.

  “I have my suspicions,” he said finally.

  “Like?”

  “Like I think someone higher up the chain might be running some kind of undercover operation. This is 100% speculation and obviously doesn’t leave this room. But I think whoever it is might be worried that we’ll blow whatever they’re working on.”

  “And that’s worth more innocent civilian deaths?”

  He shrugged.

  “Fucking bullshit FBI politics,” she muttered, more to herself than to him.

  He scratched at the stubble on his chin as if its presence irritated him. The words that came out of his mouth next were not what she’d expected.

  “You hungry?”

  Chapter 17

  Stifling heat swelled in the Jeep. Levi cracked the door, leaned his head into the opening. It was a little better, maybe, but the mugginess had descended upon the day. The kind of sticky air that wrapped itself around him and squeezed gently at all times.

  The grass to his left sheared off into a steep hill. It flattened out at a sharp angle far below, and cars rushed past on the freeway there.

  The endless stream of traffic flowed on and on, the teeming masses of humanity, loaded into metal boxes and hurtling from place to place as fast as legally possible. Apart from the background noise, however, these vehicles concerned him not at all.

  He kept his eyes on the flat grassy area atop the hill in the distance. The hill. The one with the latticed steel of the transmission tower protruding from it. The one where he’d hunkered down with his sniper rifle and started all of this.

  It felt like that had taken place weeks ago, maybe longer, but no. It had only been a couple of days and nights. So much had happened since then. So much had changed. And it was irreversible. Time he couldn’t have back. Violence and death he could never undo.

  A trickle of sweat sluiced down from the corner of his brow, and he mopped at it with his knuckles. The moving liquid brought him back to the moment, made him realize that sweat slicked the surface of his being, every inch.

  It was too hot for all of this. Too hot for Luke’s plan. Too hot to run through these memories. Too hot to think.

  And the heat only enhanced the tension he felt about being here. On one hand, he wanted this wait to be over. On the other, it wouldn’t be over until more people died, and that notion filled him with a different kind of dread.

  He blinked a few times and refocused on the scene on that distant hill. Nothing stirred there, but he told himself that was OK. He’d wait. Wait and sweat. That’s what he’d do. If someone showed up? Well, he’d burn that bridge when he came to it.

  Black clouds roiled to the west. A storm was heading this way, would be here in a few hours. And somehow he knew it would offer no relief. Not from the heat. Not from the pressure.

  He looked at the rifle resting on a diagonal in the passenger seat. The instrument of death just waiting to go off once more.

  Luke probably had it worse, he figured. His older brother was likewise waiting around, except he was camped out near the Publix parking lot. All of that concrete and asphalt reflecting the heat everywhere? At least Levi was on grass. There were even patches of woods and lesser-foliaged areas sporting brush and thickly leaved undergrowth close by. Did any of that diminish the humidity? Fuck no. But it was better than sitting on blacktop. After thinking about it a while, he decided to take advantage of the setting.

  He got out of the vehicle, noting the streaks of
vomit trailing down the driver’s side door. He hadn’t quite gotten his head out the window in time for that first heave last night. Last night? Was it really so recent? Even the episode of nausea seemed like forever ago, seemed distant and somehow indistinct like the fading memory of a dream.

  The mugginess relented when he stepped away from the car, if only a little. The air moved some out here at least, rippling against his soggy t-shirt and the moisture on the back of his neck.

  He walked along the edge of the hill where the land had been cut to make room for the freeway. It made him a little lightheaded to stare down that steep slope. When he’d gotten a few paces on, he turned to look at the Jeep.

  Leafy branches lay over the hood of it. Just enough camouflage to keep the vehicle from sticking out, at least from a distance. If someone on the opposite hill wasn’t looking for it, they wouldn’t see it. Or so Levi hoped. It was hard to be sure from this vantage point, but he thought it possible.

  Something about gathering and setting out the sticks had reminded him of his dad. They ultimately hadn’t spent much time together, but he remembered playing in the yard when he was three or four. They each had sticks which became the hilts of imaginary light sabers, the duels always ending with Levi force-choking his father who played along by buckling at the knees and pantomiming some gagging. It was, for no reason he could think of, his second most prominent memory of his father.

  The most prominent, of course, was the fight.

  When Levi was six, his dad knocked his mom’s two front teeth out. He’d never forget the image of that overhand right catching her clean in the mouth. And the sound. The clatter of her teeth on the linoleum, bouncing and skittering along. He didn’t know something could sound so wrong as the enamel of her incisors tapping the floor like that. And it took a few seconds to fully register what he was seeing and hearing. Those trembling white chunks on the floor couldn’t be her teeth, could they? It seemed too disgusting to be true. Too permanent.

  He saw his dad just three times after that. Brief episodes of strife, heated exchanges that he had a hard time recalling context for. Fever smeared vignettes that didn’t connect to the rest of his life in any way. Interludes.