by Hadena James
If I thought about it in terms of a serial killer, our bomber had a day job. Something that forced him to work during the day and scout at night. This gave us a lead. We could now geographically plot the bombings and find a likely living area for him.
This didn’t help us with our serial killer. Two kills might not technically make a serial killer, but somehow I just knew it was. Also, two victims in Northern Missouri wasn’t enough to create a geographic profile.
Michael was working on that, in his room, with his leg propped up on a table. I was in my room, adjusting the air conditioning. I didn’t need it quite as cool as the staff had left it. My clothing bag sat on one of the double beds, unzipped, but not unpacked. The shirt I had worn earlier in the day was tossed into the corner. The second bag was still zipped and tucked away in the fake closet. My return to the case had not warranted a visit from Adams. I was thankful for this. Spending time with Homeland Security excited me as much as spending time in a bathtub full of leeches.
We were all tucked into our rooms for the night. Dinner had been pizza, delivered to us in Michael and Gabriel’s room. The case had been discussed and my idea had meet with a chorus of groans, indicating that everyone agreed that we’d had a moment.
Without thinking, I flipped on CNN. News of the Plague outbreak was currently only scrolling along the bottom, a much bigger story was unfolding that required their attention. A volcanic eruption in the south Pacific. Watching natural disasters unfold weren’t my thing, I saw enough death and destruction at the hands of humans without adding the fury of nature. My fingers found the buttons, even in the dark, and flipped the channel. Given the late hour, I was surprised to find an episode of UFO Hunters on. Usually History played reruns of Pawn Stars or Swamp People or Counting Cars after eleven.
I turned the TV off. Listening to Bill Birnes spout theories about aliens and conspiracies was entertaining, but not tonight. Instead, I hooked up headphones to my iPhone and hit the play button on my music.
Quiet time is an integral part of anyone’s life, this was true for me as well. However, turning my brain off required something special. No matter how much I loved music, it wasn’t enough. As I sang along in my head to Nine Inch Nails, my thoughts wandered.
Adams was the first thing to come to mind. He labored under the delusion that he was in charge and that we, the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit, answered to him since he was an agent for Homeland Security and the supervising officer for said agency on the current case. To me, he was a small fish swimming with predators and not realizing it.
The Serial Crimes Tracking Unit didn’t really answer to anyone, the US Marshals included. Sure our badges and creds said US Marshals. We all had T-shirts, ball caps, jackets and Kevlar vests that proclaimed we were US Marshals. However, we didn’t have a US Marshals office, we had a warehouse with a security guard, crappy offices and a shooting range. We didn’t even keep weapons at our offices, we kept them on our persons. Gabriel didn’t have a middle management US Marshal that he answered to, he had a supervisory board that included a few heads from the Marshals Service and people that worked for agencies where names were more recognizable by acronyms, including someone from the Department of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General. Gabriel filed reports, the rest of us didn’t. As a matter of fact, we were silently encouraged not to do paperwork.
Interagency cooperation wasn’t on our list of strong points. It was generally accepted that we didn’t work well with others, including the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit, led by Malachi Blake. However, when the circumstance required us to play nice, VCU was the unit we preferred. Hell, we didn’t even work well with US Marshals. They didn’t invite us to their parties; we weren’t called in for manhunts unless it was a serial killer and we didn’t transport prisoners unless they were headed to or from the Fortress.
That was just our perception of ourselves. That didn’t include the perception of other agents, Marshals, agencies or the press. Most agents and agencies treated us like executioners; necessary, but seedy. The press treated us like deranged rock stars. At the end of each of our cases, there was a guarantee that our faces would be splashed on the front page of the World Today or some other national newspaper and if they could get a shot of us bleeding, it sold more papers. It gave our killers their fifteen minutes of fame, but it made us immortally infamous.
Which begged the question, what the hell was Adams doing pretending to hold our reins? Was he looking for a promotion or was this punishment for some screw up? He wouldn’t be the first agent who got stuck working with us for messing something up. He’d just be the first from Homeland Security. And was it better for Adams to have two killers or was he currently beating his head against the wall wishing he’d drawn an assignment anywhere else in the world?
Two killers. My mind latched onto the thought. Two very different killers, hunting in the same territory. Our serial had joined the party late. There had been several bombings before the sniper routine started. The fact that it started at the exact same fair our bomber had struck raised a few eyebrows, but weirder coincidences had happened. We’d caught a serial killer in Vegas because Lucas had wanted to buy artwork for Trevor.
Personally, I detested fairs. The lights, the noise, the crowds, it was all torture for me. However, I was the exception, not the rule. Fairs were happy. The rides were meant to bring joy. The grandstand brought entertainment. It was more than just a night out because it was a rare occurrence. Fair season was June through August. There might be a few stragglers in September, but for the most part, it was all about hot summer nights filled with funnel cake, cold lemonade, thrill rides, and exhibitions.
Destroying a county fair was like destroying a symbol of joy. Worse, there were aspects of teen freedom, childish innocence and parental lenience. Parents didn’t keep their eagle eyes on their child at the fair. They put them on rides and talked with companions. Teenagers roamed in packs, trying to find the scariest ride possible and conquering it to prove themselves. Children found only happiness in the fried foods, sweet drinks and rides that gave them a safe taste of danger.
Even in my darkest places, certain things were sacred and joy was one of them. It was an emotion I had never experienced, only seen. Joy lit up the faces of those closest to me from time to time. It made them look younger, fresher, livelier. Like love, I thought it was one of the few moments in time, when all human safeguards were dropped. There were no reservations or hesitations in joy. The emotion spread on the face of my mother or Nyleena touched something in me, something I equated with happiness. And happiness was a rare emotion for me, so destroying something that could make me happy, seemed extremely vile.
All the Nine Inch Nails songs on my playlist ended and were replaced by U2. The change in music didn’t disrupt my thoughts or change my mood. I was finding more and more that my “mood” wasn’t really a mood, but a state of being. It wasn’t exactly the calm I associated with being a sociopath, but it was akin to it. To me, it was contentment. I had found a spot in the world where I could function. This didn’t make me happy, but it didn’t make me unhappy. It just was. However, in this state of contentment, my mind worked better; my thoughts were more fluid and came faster. They were also more detached. My tenuous grasp on my own humanity faded away completely, like losing a mask. The thoughts of my niece and the missing face of the fair queen were no longer connected. The resemblance I had imagined before was gone.
This shooting was a little different. She had been giving a speech, not fleeing in terror. Spectators had watched as the bullet had exited, removing most of her face. Our sniper hadn’t just killed the fair queen here, an entire group of people had been traumatized. This didn’t change the fact that the queen was the target, it just raised the psychological damage factor. If she hadn’t been on a raised platform with a seated audience, the bullet would have probably claimed two victims. The post had been a speaker pole, temporarily set up so that she could be heard over the noise of the carnival.
I checked the time, realized it was late and pulled off the headphones. The jack slid out of the phone easily and I dialed Nyleena. She was used to late night calls from me.
“What?” Her voice sounded tired.
“Sleeping?”
“Most people sleep at one in the morning.”
“Malachi doesn’t.”
“Malachi isn’t most people, he isn’t even in the majority of the minority of those who aren’t most people.”
“Confusing, but I get it.”
“Having trouble sleeping?”
“I have a question for you. I need the opinion of a human being.”
“Go wake Lucas,” Nyleena told me.
“Ok, go back to sleep.” I hung up and called Lucas.
“Ace, what’s wrong?” He asked, instantly awake.
“I’ve been thinking and I have a question for a human being. I called Nyleena, but she gets really paranoid about conflicts of interest.”
“What is it?”
“Being an attendee at a fair where there’s a bomb and you survive would be pretty traumatic, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, so, let’s say you are in the first couple rows of the spot where our most recent serial killer victim was giving her speech. Would that be traumatic?”
“Seeing someone die is always traumatic. The event is usually less important than the person’s reaction and ability to cope.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that, but our queen had her face blown off, literally. The first couple of rows of spectators are going to be covered in gore. Her gore. Right?”
“Yes,” he said this very slowly.
“That’s pretty frucking intense. Add to it that a lucky chance stopped a second victim from dying and well, on a trauma scale, where does that rank?”
“Like the survivors of the bombings, there is always going to be survivor’s guilt. Along with the horror of the event, the thoughts that you might have been able to do something or that if one thing had been different, it wouldn’t have happened. Most psychologists lump those with survivor’s guilt, but I find it to be more pronounced in people who have watched victims of a serial killer die. The trauma is different when a mass murderer is involved, the thoughts that they could have done something to stop it or that a single event could have changed the outcome are less.”
“Essentially, the horror factor increased with this particular queen because she was executed in front of a crowd and they had to wear her for a while, right?”
“What horror factor?”
“Well the first queen was running away and killed rather unceremoniously in a crowd of people also fleeing from a bigger problem. This queen was giving a speech when her face exploded onto the spectators. I think there’s a difference in horror factors there.”
“I would agree.” Lucas paused, “what are you getting at?”
“Our serial killer went for a wow factor this time that he didn’t have the first time.”
“Are you suspecting escalation?”
“I am not even real sure I understand that term. I am going to say no, he did not escalate his kill, he just made sure it had more impact.”
“It could have been a fluke.”
“Or he could be battling for headlines. Sniper kills fair queen and covers crowd in blood and brains is far more interesting than sniper kills fair queen as she flees from mad bomber.”
“You think he was intentionally more horrific this time.”
“Vanity thy name is psychopath.” I paused. “Or sociopath. I relate to the world only through a ‘me factor.’ My first thought is always ‘me.’”
“I would refute that. Your first thought isn’t always about you, but I see your point.”
“Is that escalation?”
“No.”
“Then I was right,” I liked being right. See, ninety percent of the time, possibly a little higher, it was all about me.
Chapter Fourteen
Most of the night had been spent in thought. Pointing my powers of perception on my own psyche was always problematic. Sociopaths are not good at introspection. We are impulsive, vain, self-centered and emotionally stunted. Introspection was dangerous, because we tended not to notice our faults, only our good qualities. Too much reflection inflated the ego and gave us grandiose ideas about ourselves.
For me, these were usually rapidly ruptured by a reality check from my coworkers. This morning was no different. I’d had several strokes of genius and felt like King Kong conquering the Empire State Building right up to the moment when Lucas opened his mouth.
“Do you think he will be staking out the fair tonight or tomorrow?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. That was a question I didn’t have an answer for, land blow number one.
“The geographic profile has him living in Northern Missouri, there are a few other fairs going on. Do you think it will be Quincy, Illinois?” Lucas pressed.
“I don’t know,” I answered as blow number two cut into my self-inflated ego.
“What about the serial killer?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t know,” I continued with the same answer, feeling my ego finally fall back into the range of normal for me.
“If it were you?” Lucas asked.
“If it were me as the bomber or the sniper?” I asked.
“Both,” Lucas said.
“I’d strike at Quincy if I was the bomber. Lots of things going on, larger population, larger attendance. If I was the serial killer, probably not Quincy. The things that work in favor of the bomber would work against the sniper. The larger crowd is going to mean killing the queen will have less of an impact. She’ll be less known for starters. And even if he uses the same dramatic flair that he used here, it will have less of an impact and more of a chance for a stray shot. Missing his target or killing two with one shot is not in this guy’s agenda. He wants the queen and he wants her death to be awe-inspiringly gruesome.”
That was all Gabriel was waiting to hear. I was told I had thirty minutes to pack and get my behind in the SUV. It took me less than ten.
We were heading north east along Highway 36. Whistle stop hamlets passed the windows of the SUV with names like Hunnewell. We stopped in Monroe City and grabbed lunch, they had a Subway Sandwich shop. Gabriel got a wrap and ate as the rest of us got our sandwiches, sodas, cookies and visited the attached gas station for road trip food. I grabbed two bags of beef jerky, one for me and one for Gabriel. The two of us agreed that no matter how bad it was for me, it was a travelling staple and we were unable to share a single bag. The fact that we were maybe an hour from Quincy, Illinois didn’t stop us from needing several bags to carry out all of our snack foods. There was just something about travelling by car that required snacky things.
Instead of continuing on 36, we turned and took a different highway. I recognized it. It took us through the town of Palmyra. In ten years, this community would still be struggling with their visits by mad bombers, a serial killing sniper and the US Marshals Serial Crimes Tracking Unit. A large, temporary memorial shrine had been placed near the highway for all travelers to see. My face wrinkled and the corners of my mouth turned down automatically. It wasn’t the shrine, it was the fact that devastation and death brought lookie-loos. There would be swarms of people that would drive this highway just to see the shrine and probably, visit the town to drive past the ruined fairgrounds. It wasn’t a secret that I had issues with both the press and lookie-loos. Deciding which was worse was the hard part; I considered them both parasitic insects sucking every last drop of sorrow from the grieving. I knew from experience and not just as a Marshal, my past had made sure to give me some up close and personal time with both.
The Mississippi River was busy as we crossed into Illinois. Barges full of cargo moved down the river. A few pleasure boats, their occupants damaging their skin in the midday sun, were anchored near the shores. Then it was gone, replaced by city.
Quincy isn’t a small town,
it’s a bustling, thriving city of medium size. It is smaller than my hometown of Columbia, Missouri, but at times it seemed larger. I had visited the place once before, as a child, before my father had died. Even before I had been abducted by a child predator. I didn’t remember much about the trip except that I was a girl who thought purple shorts and pink T-shirt with a puppy dog printed on it was a matching outfit.
My parents had spread a picnic out in some park, overlooking the river and we had enjoyed a pleasant lunch watching the barges move up and down the river. After the picnic, my parents had taken me to a few historical sites in Quincy before returning to Missouri. We stayed the night in Hannibal and spent the following day enjoying the sights and sounds of a busy summer day in Hannibal. We’d returned home without a care in the world, I was due to start school in a few days. That was the last family trip I had taken with both my parents. Two months later, I had been abducted and while, my father had lived for several years after that event, it changed him.
We didn’t travel after that. My father started a neighborhood watch and used the police force to run background checks on all potential neighbors. Almost overnight, the neighborhood became like a prison camp with my father as warden and all the adult neighbors as guards patrolling the streets and watching after the children like thunderbirds were going to swoop down from the sky and kidnap all of us.
Gabriel stopped on the outskirts of town. He’d parked in a large parking area that struggled to grow grass. I shook off the memories of my childhood as I stepped into the sunshine. For a moment, I let it shine on my face, enjoying the warmth it spread through my cheeks and the dazzling lights it produced even through my sunglasses and closed eyelids.
“Ready?” Lucas asked, his voice was soft. I looked at him. He was eyeing me with intensity.
“Yes,” I told him.
