by Hadena James
“Conference at my house,” he said, also giving me a strange look.
“Okay,” I stood up. “Be back in a bit.”
My front door shut a little harder than I intended. The dark was blissfully hot without any humidity. A few very daring stars could be seen in the night sky, brave enough to burn brighter than the light pollution associated with large cities. I had expected everyone and was surprised to find just Gabriel.
He whistled and motioned me forward. I crossed my desolate yard and onto his nicely manicured lawn. I was sure that if this place had property values, mine was much lower than his. My lawn care extended to hiring the local kids to mow it when it needed it and water it when it was turning brown. Gabriel had raised flower beds and his yard was much greener than mine. Even in the semi-darkness, his lawn looked healthier than mine.
He let me in the front door of his house. Like Gabriel, it was understated and manly. There were no dead animals on the walls, but they wouldn’t have looked out of place. Trevor had done a wonderful job with the place. It always smelled like musky manliness as well. I could definitely see why Nyleena was slowly developing a thing for Gabriel. He didn’t have to be an alpha to be dominate or male. It was one of his best traits in my opinion.
“What’s up, Boss?” I asked.
“Keeping up on current events?” Gabriel asked.
“I don’t have cable hooked up and I don’t know how to use the TV without some sort of contraption. My sister-in-law has banned newspapers because it might stress me out. My internet is being monitored by Michael and I know because every time I attempt to log in to work or surf the internet for serial killer information, my browser crashes. So, no, I’m a little out of the loop.”
“You were told to recover,” Gabriel grinned. Obviously, he had put Michael on the monitoring duty. “Besides, Michael had a run in with a dog and needs a hobby at the moment. Monitoring your internet usage entertains him.”
“A dog?”
“Well, sort of a dog, more like a hairless rat, but he ended up falling backwards down a flight of stairs at our hotel in Shelbina and breaking his leg.”
“I guess it’s a good thing his job mostly requires his fingers.”
“Something like that,” Gabriel grinned again. “You really missed it.”
“Well then tell me,” I groaned.
“We were headed up a flight of stairs, because the elevator was packed. We are only on the second floor, not a big deal. So this woman comes down the stairs carrying a Chinese Crested dog in a handbag. Lucas freaks out, thinking it’s a rat. He runs into Michael and they both plummet down the stairs, with Michael ending up on the bottom.”
“Damn,” I shook my head. “I miss all the good stuff.”
“It was pretty funny,” Gabriel laughed quietly. “Well, the good news, there wasn’t an explosion over the weekend. No county fairs or carnivals were bombed at all. The bad news is that the Fair Queen of Shelby County got to be a guest of Xavier.”
“Same killer?” I asked.
“One to the skull, in the back, out the front, while she was giving a speech on the grandstand. Police had the place locked down in a matter of minutes, but the killer escaped.”
“And you came to me because Lucas thinks it is weird.”
“Yep.”
“I agree,” I said. “Why go from explosions to sniping the fair queen?”
“Those weren’t quite his words, but close.” Gabriel said.
“Ok, Cassie said something to me earlier today. She was asking about her dad. I may not get mass murderers, but they have a mission. Killing a fair queen is more serial killer than mass murderer.”
“Michael’s searched the database, there’s never been a mass murderer/serial killer coupling.”
“The two are incompatible.” I told him. “If I am making a point by blowing up county fairs, I do not want some serial killer with a happy trigger finger getting the attention that I deserve. And honestly, vice versa. If I get my rocks off by shooting fair queens in the head, I certainly do not want some bomb toting looney getting all the headlines just because he blew up a fair and killed a bunch of people. Both require skills, but different skills and my vanity would not like my skill set being ignored because someone else was involved.”
“But there are serial killers that work in teams and mass murderers that work in teams,” Gabriel said.
“You have already had this conversation with Lucas?” I asked.
“Yes, but he isn’t you,” Gabriel answered. “I want to hear your opinion, as a sociopath.”
“Serial killing teams are like voyeurs and get pleasure from watching the other work. Mass murdering teams are working towards the same goal. The two would be like pairing up Malachi and me and expecting that we will not slit each other’s throats. We have very different goals, we would not work well together.”
The two hunting on the same ground was trouble. Not just for us, but for them. One was going to discover the other and it would be a fight to the death. The two really were incompatible. Considering our mass murderer liked bombs and our serial killer liked guns, my money was on the serial killer.
“What’re your thoughts there?”
“What?” I looked at him blankly.
“You went sort of dark and creepy, not your usual dark and creepy either.”
“Well,” I sighed and told him my theory.
“That’s new,” Gabriel said. “Lucas didn’t think they’d cross paths.”
“Oh, I think they will. Apex predators hunting in the same territory is always a recipe for disaster. It might be why there was not an explosion this weekend. Our serial killer may have already found our mass murderer.”
“Or?” He asked.
“Or our mass murderer may have figured out that there is a serial killer at work too. He knows he did not put a bullet in the skull of the queen in Marion County. Maybe this weekend was a set-up. He did not blow anything up because he was waiting to see if there would be another queen killing.”
“And there was.”
“Yep,” I agreed.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged.
“You know everything,” Gabriel smirked.
“Not everything,” I corrected. “For example, I know that when a lion fights a bear, the bear wins 99% of the time because the lion has a very fragile skull in comparison to other predators. A good hard whack with a big enough stick will kill a lion, he has almost no chance against a grizzly bear or a polar bear or even a black bear. However, I have no idea what happens when a tiger and a bear fight. The tiger does not have the weaknesses that the bear can exploit.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“Bear versus lion used to be a popular past time in California during the Gold Rush era. I have never heard of the lion winning,” I shrugged. “In my mind, this is Clash of the Titans. There could be fall-out. However, we can take over the case now.”
“How do you figure?” Gabriel asked.
“Homeland Security has no jurisdiction over serial killers.”
“We still have a bomber.”
“Maybe, maybe not, it depends on how the report gets filed. With the right wording, our mass murderer becomes a conspiracy case. The bombings were just to cover his tracks killing fair queens, which makes him a serial killer.”
“You just don’t like Adams.”
“I do not like anybody, Gabriel, let’s be honest.”
“I don’t think I can kick Homeland out without several weeks of no bombs.”
“Great, then we are stuck with Adams, because I would guess that our mass murderer will go back to work this weekend, with a watchful eye and a surprise in case he encounters an unwanted guest.”
“Who wins?” Gabriel asked.
“We do,” I said. “If our serial killer kills our mass murderer, we catch the serial killer. If it goes the other way, we catch a mass murderer.”
“That’s disturbing.”
/> “I almost agree with you.” I said.
“That is even more disturbing,” Gabriel said.
“To me, it is neither here nor there which one wins. As long as one dies and one gets caught, the killings end.”
“You have a point.”
Chapter Twelve
Despite the hairline skull fracture, I was back at work. This meant a morgue in Shelbina with a nude and mostly dissected corpse that used to be a living teen girl. It also meant Xavier’s company and his catching me up on everything he’d learned from the autopsy. It wasn’t much. Same caliber bullet, different wound pattern only because the shot was cleaner. Her face had mostly disappeared in front of the crowd.
This image was burned into my brain. Blood, guts and gore didn’t bother me as a general rule, but there was something about this one that did. Perhaps it had been the days spent with my teenage niece that was influencing me in some way, but I had made Xavier put a cloth over the ruined face.
Our presence in the morgue seemed a formality. Xavier had done the autopsy on Sunday. He was now double checking his findings by reading them off to me. Unfortunately, if he was trying to glean new evidence that magical revealed the killer, he was out of luck. The gunshot wound to the head was self-evident and the obvious cause of death. The long range of the weapon didn’t offer much up in the way of clues, except to say that our killer could fire a rifle and hit a target from a distance.
The queen had revealed all she was going to reveal. I decided to point this out to Xavier by getting up and walking out of the room in the middle of his sentence.
Morgues are generally dreary. They are cold. The ceramic tiles and stainless steel accessories didn’t add any warmth. Only big cities get their own buildings for such things. In smaller towns the morgue tended to be attached to the funeral homes. This one was attached to the funeral home. Opening the doors and exiting immediately brought the scent of flowers and hushed tones.
The funeral home in question was nice enough. Muted color schemes prevailed covering the walls, floors, and ceiling. Large pieces of wooden furniture dominated the halls. Nothing appeared to be white or grey, something I appreciated.
Heavy wooden doors lead to the outside. I knew I smelled of death, but the funeral home was empty except for the morticians and funeral director. They were all used to the smell by now. I skirted past a man in a suit that I guessed to be the director as I exited into shimmering summer heat.
The humidity was back with a vengeance. Sweat instantly broke out on my skin, making me shiver slightly. I closed my eyes against the glaring sun and took a deep breath. The heat didn’t really bother me and I preferred it to cold, windy winters.
My sunglasses were on top of my head. I pulled them down before opening my eyes. The sun reflected off the asphalt parking lot, not as light, but as radiating heat waves. It made the air dance and sway. With the humidity, it had to be over 100 degrees. Standing on the asphalt probably added another ten degrees.
Shelbina was a small town. The population sign declared that 1700 people lived there. It did have a collection of restaurants and fast food places, as well as a couple of hotels and motels. As a person that lived out of hotel and motel rooms, these were my hallmarks for civilization. Special events probably doubled or tripled the population.
My wish from May had been fulfilled, we had a serial killer that was just shooting people and not doing weird things with them. Shooters weren’t exactly easier to catch, but they were more likely to taunt the police. This wasn’t the case with our shooter, yet, but there was still a glimmer of hope. However, as a general rule, shooters left less gruesome bodies in their wake. One could argue that having a victim lose a face was pretty gruesome, but it beat the hell of bodies that were skinned or tortured or mutilated.
My phone squawked at me, indicating I had new email. My fingers touched the screen, bringing up the new message from Nyleena. It was titled WTF!!!!! and contained only a single link. Harsh language for an email, but after I had been directed to the news article, I understood. The Redwood National Forest had been temporarily closed to the public due to an outbreak of Bubonic Plague. It was now affecting wildlife beyond squirrels.
This left my mind in a predicament. It really wanted to concentrate on the Plague outbreak in California, but it really needed to concentrate on the two killers currently double-teaming carnivals in Missouri. It wasn’t that my killers weren’t interesting, it was that Plague outbreaks didn’t happen in cooler climates very often and when they did, there were a lot of factors involved. Add to it that I had received a dead prairie dog a week or so earlier and I was thinking it wasn’t a coincidence. However, spreading Plague is difficult. Nor is it an effective murder weapon.
Xavier tore me away from my thoughts of Plague outbreak. His body radiated heat next to me. His mouth was shut, quite a feat for Xavier who seemed to talk, a lot. He stared in the same direction I stared.
“Fair queens represent beauty and popularity,” I said after several minutes of soaking in the heat. “Fairs themselves are about happiness and a break from the daily grind. I guess you could make a case for a fairy tale theme between the two, but you’d have to really argue for it.”
“Two killers is the theory we are running with,” Xavier said.
“I know,” I said.
“So her face really bothered you,” Xavier said.
“That wasn’t why I left. Like most snipers, we aren’t going to find much on the body. Did we recover the bullet?”
“Yeah, it was useless,” Xavier said. “It went through her and embedded itself into a wooden post. It was too damaged to do anything more than determine the caliber.”
“Plague, snipers and bombers,” I said. “Just another day in Oz.”
“Despite the fact that they touch, Missouri isn’t Kansas.”
“That’s true, but Oz, even with the Wicked Witch, was a nicer place than this, so I figured it worked. You should release the body and let the family bury her.”
“I would have done that Monday, if I had that authority. However, Homeland Security is still involved and Adams says we can’t.”
“Force him into a replay autopsy,” I suggested.
“I invited him to the first, he declined. What happens when a serial killer and a mass murderer cross paths? Do they team up?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “Like I told Gabriel, I wouldn’t want to share the spotlight, regardless of which one I was.”
“Lucas thought Marion County might have been a fluke,” Xavier told me.
“That’s possible. If I was a bomber, I wouldn’t have targeted this fair. Too small, too many others going on with much more death available.”
“Thoughts on this weekend?”
“How many large fairs are going on next weekend?” I asked.
“Not many, the Boone County Fair is good sized. Quincy is hosting some sort of fair event along with Des Moines.”
“He hasn’t traveled as far as Columbia or Des Moines. The fairs have been located in Northeastern Missouri, Southern Illinois and Southern Iowa.”
“Quincy it is then,” Xavier turned to walk away. “You know this means we’ll be on stakeout again, think you can behave?”
“I didn’t start it last time. Gabriel and I both warned them.”
“If it makes you feel any better, she had a long rap sheet, including assault of a police officer before she met you.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
Xavier began walking away. My black T-shirt was absorbing sweat at an alarming rate. My scalp was sweating, soaking into my brown hair, making it look darker. I had hoped the fresh air would help me think. It hadn’t. Instead, it made me feel even more confused. Lots of people hated beautiful, popular people, especially girls, they could be terribly vicious. However, blowing up fairs, destroying happiness, that was a totally different thing. Bombs tended to be a guy thing. Especially with the level of destruction seen at these fairs.
This thought c
aused the cogs in my brain to click. If light bulbs went off over people’s heads in real life and not just cartoons, mine would have rivaled the sun. I turned to chase after Xavier.
“What?” He asked, as I crashed into the funeral parlor.
“We are such idiots,” I told him.
“I would disagree.”
“Really? Something huge has been staring us in the face all this time and I haven’t heard anyone vocalize it.”
“What?” Xavier asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I remembered I hadn’t actually told him my thought yet. “So, the bombs have been doing amazing destruction. They are being set in locations that most people would consider a lynchpin site.” I paused to breath.
“Well?” Xavier motioned me forward.
“It wasn’t a dramatic pause, it was too catch my breath,” I snarked. “Anyway, how does he know where that will be? He can’t, unless he scopes out the fair ahead of time.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t walk into a fair and figure out where to set a bomb for maximum damage. Could you?”
“No, but I’m not an engineer.”
“Neither am I, even if I was though, there are factors to be considered. Not just the biggest, most dangerous ride, but all the ride placements, the location of the grandstand, the volume of people attending the fair...”
“I get it,” Xavier said. “We are idiots.”
“Yep,” I smiled.
Chapter Thirteen
For the first time since Gabriel had taken over, my room was not bookended by the rooms of the guys. This was because it couldn’t be. Gabriel and Michael were sharing a room right next to Lucas and Xavier. I was given the room at the end of the hall, next to the stairs. Despite rumors that this was probably the least safe room in the hotel, I wasn’t all the worried.
We had a clue. Whoever was doing this had to be scouting the location first. This meant two visits to each fair. However, since the bombs were being set off on both Fridays and Saturdays, this meant he was using another day of the week.
