by Hill, Casey
‘You and Julie make any headway with the film festival people?’ Bradley stood and cracked his back. He’d been hunched over his microscope.
Reed sank into his chair and tossed a nearby empty Chinese food box into his trash. ‘Complete dead end from what I can see. As is what happened to that screenwriter.’
‘Actually . . . I may have something on that,’ Emilie’s voice was soft.
Todd started. He’d almost completely forgotten about the redhead in the corner.
While she was always quiet, the last few days – especially that Wizard of Oz scene – had really taken a toll. Her smile was a shadow of its former self and, like the rest of the investigative team, lines of weariness showed at the corners of her eyes. She dutifully put in her time, staying over whenever she was asked, but the joy that had been on her face the first time Todd had met her was gone. Was it this sense of shared horror, he wondered, that had recently brought her and Bradley together?
‘That strange splinter that you found in the alley,’ she said to Todd as all eyes turned toward her, ‘it’s amber.’
‘Amber?’ he echoed. What was amber doing in the alley outside a Florida hotel?
‘Actually, a really rare form of amber,’ Emilie clarified. ‘Only available from a handful of places in the country.’ She held a piece of paper out to the detective. ‘I made a list. The closest one to here is in Miami.’
‘Thanks. I’ll go call Julie.’ Reed ran his hand through his hair as the technician went back to her station. ‘The DA’s all over the department for not having found this psycho yet. But at least the media outcry about the murders is forcing the department to split resources more evenly between that and the Sheldon thing now.’
‘No ransom demand for Sheldon yet?’ Todd had been concentrating so much on the murders that he hadn’t paid any attention to the missing screenwriter case since returning from the crime scene a few days earlier.
‘Nothing.’ The detective shook his head. ‘As much for the daughter as for the negative publicity, they’re telling the public that Sheldon’s still considered a missing person, but word is the department is looking for a body, not a survivor.’ He headed for the door. ‘Thanks again for this. Keep me updated if you find anything else.’
As the detective exited the lab, Todd spoke up, giving voice to the theory that had started to bounce around in his head. ‘There was nothing in that alley that indicated a murder. Not really even any signs of a struggle. A small amount of blood. No bone fragments, evidence of a shooting. Nothing to suggest a body had fallen. Sheldon wasn’t killed in the alley,’ he said.
‘But why would a kidnapper take someone like Drew Sheldon only to kill him somewhere else?’ Bradley asked. ‘It’s not a matter of money because there’s been no ransom. And it’s not like middle-aged men are targeted for sex crimes, at least not in the kidnapping sense.’
‘Then why snatch Sheldon in the first place?’
A curse from the other side of the lab drew everyone’s attention, effectively ending the conversation about the missing writer.
‘Sorry,’ Peni apologized. She’d been putting in almost as many hours as the investigators, running traces on five different computers. ‘I thought I had the slippery little weasel, but he bounced his signal again. There’s no way that he saw me coming because two others changed . . .’ She stopped.
‘What?’ Bradley asked, sitting up straighter.
‘Three of them changed even though I was only getting close on one.’ Peni frowned. ‘Why didn’t I see it before?’
‘See what?’ Todd glanced at Bradley but he looked just as confused.
‘He’s using a routing program to change the origin points on each feed. I didn’t catch it because they weren’t using any distinguishing pattern that I could see. Too many variables.’ Peni turned to Todd and Bradley. ‘The program alternates when it bounces the signal to another server. Maybe three minutes the first time, nine the second, fifteen the third. Another may be set up to switch every four, eight and sixteen minutes.’
‘So each feed has its own set of instructions as to when it changes the signal.’ Todd frowned, not sure if he was understanding correctly. He was good at research and understood the machines he used on the job, but any sort of intricate computer work was beyond him.
Peni nodded. ‘Because the amount of time between each shift change is based on that feed’s particular algorithm, it looked like they were all changing randomly – as if a person were doing it rather than a program.’ Her voice took on an admiring note. ‘Pretty smart.’
‘Does this mean you can’t trace it?’ Bradley asked.
‘Please,’ Peni scoffed. ‘I said it was pretty smart, not up to par with me. All I need to do is pick apart the signals, and search for the commonalities between the different feeds.’
‘Well, you’re soon going to have another feed to add to your trace,’ Detective Reed announced as he re-entered the lab, his tone jaded. ‘A jogger in River Park just found a decapitated female.’
‘Another decapitation?’ Todd couldn’t believe what he was hearing. First Braveheart, now . . . what?
Bradley nodded at Todd to go, who dutifully grabbed his things.
‘Am I the only one,’ Emilie asked, as he headed for the door, ‘mentally going through other movies featuring decapitations and wondering what the hell you’re going to find now?’
‘Same here.’ Todd exhaled heavily. ‘I’m starting to wish I hadn’t watched so many violent movies growing up. Or,’ he frowned as he recalled the Wicked Witch’s horrible demise, ‘any movies at all.’
CHAPTER 28
‘This guy’s really starting to piss me off,’ Detective Sampson greeted Daniel and Reilly as they ducked under the crime scene tape. ‘This is a weird one.’
‘How can it get any weirder than what we’ve already seen?’ Daniel asked.
Reilly wasn’t sure she wanted to know, and the female detective didn’t answer, just stepped aside so she and Daniel could see the body.
Well, that was new . . .
The victim had been a tall redhead, but that wasn’t what made this so strange. The opulent dress of red velvet not only didn’t belong in a city park, it didn’t belong in this century. The way the body had fallen into the grass had prevented the majority of the dress from becoming too . . . messy.
The same, however, couldn’t be said for the head. Half of the woman’s auburn hair was caked with blood and her fair skin, chalk-white in death, was in startling contrast to the dried blood on her face.
‘What in the world?’ Daniel stopped short.
Reilly kept walking, trying to stay out the way of Todd, who was already on site and processing the scene. He nodded a terse greeting as she skirted the pool of blood, approaching from the victim’s feet. A pair of ugly, old-fashioned shoes peeked out from beneath the full skirt. Reilly’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the costume. Something about this looked familiar.
When it clicked, she swore under her breath and straightened. She knew why she recognized the dress. ‘It’s Mary, Queen of Scots.’
‘What?’ Todd paused from photographing the victim’s head. Seeing an antiquated costume on a decapitated victim may have been a bit strange, but it was hardly on the level of the other things they’d seen from this killer.
‘I try not to watch too many horror movies,’ Reilly took a step to the side to allow him a clearer shot of the torso. ‘But I’ve always liked historical films and books. Particularly those about English royalty.’ She motioned back to Daniel.
‘What is it?’
Reilly pointed to the head. ‘Tall with auburn hair and beheaded. Queen Mary.’
Daniel’s forehead wrinkled. ‘But I thought our killer did fiction. I know Braveheart is based on a real person, but it’s far from historically accurate.’
‘There is a movie though,’ Reilly replied. ‘Most people consider it the first, quote, horror film, unquote, even though it’s about a historical figure. In 1895, an e
ighteen-second, black-and-white film called The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots showed an actress dressed as Mary kneeling in front of an executioner. The executioner lifts the head for the crowd and the screen goes to black. That’s the same style of dress worn by the actress who played Mary.’
‘How in the world do you know that?’ Todd looked and sounded so impressed that, despite herself, Reilly gave a small smile.
‘Like I said, I know some English history. But while I was researching horror movies, this one popped up too; that’s why it’s so familiar to me now.’
Todd crouched down again and used a pair of tweezers to pluck a few hairs from the back of the dress. Judging by their length and color, Reilly guessed they surely belonged to the victim, but better safe than sorry.
Daniel looked thoughtful. ‘Until now, our killer has picked well-known, relatively recent movies or ones with a cult following. Using something like this is his way of bragging, showing off his knowledge of classical work.’
‘So he’s a real film buff – we kinda guessed that,’ Todd said darkly. ‘Not just some guy who goes down to the multiplex every now and again.’ He looked at his father. ‘Makes the festival connection even stronger.’
Daniel nodded. ‘I’ll talk to Sampson, ask the detectives to rework this angle. Good information, Reilly, thank you.’
‘The dress,’ she said to Todd, indicating the costume. ‘It’s distinctive individuated evidence. You should definitely be able to get something from it; trace where it came from. This isn’t some cheap knockoff.’ Her face was grim. ‘Whoever made that costume knew what they were doing.’
At Todd’s request, Reilly agreed to update Bradley at the lab while he talked with the assistant ME about the best way to transport the victim’s head.
She scrolled through his phone contacts, accidentally going too far and having to backtrack. She raised an eyebrow at the sheer number of female names and then shook her head, feeling stupid. Who Todd had in his phone wasn’t any of her business. She tapped Bradley’s name.
The senior investigator answered on the first ring. ‘Todd, what’ve you got?’
‘It’s Reilly Steel,’ she began, taking a few steps away from the crime scene. ‘Todd asked me to call you.’
‘What’s up?’ The informality spoke volumes as to how tired Bradley was.
‘He’s just finishing up at the scene,’ she said, before giving him a quick overview of the crime scene and the implications of this particular theme. ‘The costume looks like it’s going to be your best bet to find this guy.’
‘Costume?’
‘The victim was dressed like Mary, Queen of Scots. Looks like the killer went pretty far back in his movie catalog to find this particular sequence. You might want to have your computer expert looking for The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots as the next clip.’
‘What’d you say?’ Bradley’s tone sharpened, suddenly alert.
Reilly gave a further explanation, puzzled by the abrupt change in tone. ‘When I was researching, I found a really old movie about the execution of Queen Mary. He might be trying to re-enact something else, but I’m pretty confident that’s the one.’
‘OK, thanks.’ The rustle of papers nearly drowned out Bradley’s words.
‘No problem.’ Reilly hesitated, then asked, ‘Is everything all right?’ Granted, she didn’t know the investigator very well, but on the couple of times she’d met Bradley, he’d come across calm and unruffled, not at all like the distracted, frazzled person she was talking to now.
‘Fine.’ Bradley seemed decidedly preoccupied. ‘I just need to check on something. Tell Todd I’ll talk to him later.’
Silence.
Reilly looked down at the phone in her hand. Seriously, he had hung up without a goodbye? She turned toward the approaching footsteps, unsettled by the abrupt end to the call.
‘You OK?’ Todd wore an expression of concern when she rejoined him and Daniel. He yanked off his gloves and tossed them into a nearby biohazard bucket.
‘I think Bradley has a lead,’ Reilly said absently. She handed Todd his phone, her forehead still furrowed with confusion.
Todd’s eyes lit up. ‘Great. What is it?’
‘He didn’t say.’ She shrugged, trying to shake her feeling of unease. ‘Just said he had to go and check something out and he’d talk to you later.’
By the time Todd returned to the lab, the sun was past its peak, the temperature was in the high nineties and Bradley wasn’t there. Both Peni and Emilie were hard at work, only looking up when Todd announced that he’d brought lunch.
Emilie took a bag but didn’t open it, the expression on her face slightly sick. The redhead looked even more pale than usual and Todd couldn’t really say that he blamed her. This was a lot of grisly deaths for anyone to take in, much less someone who’d been on the job less than a year.
Peni’s appetite apparently hadn’t been affected. She grabbed the bag Todd offered, tucked her feet up underneath her and began to eat. Around a mouthful of turkey on rye sub, she announced that she’d narrowed down the area where the killer was sending his video footage.
‘Once I separated all of the feeds and analyzed their change pattern, I was able to start the process of backtracking.’ She pulled up a map and indicated an area of almost fifty square miles. ‘I know it’s still not close enough, but we’re getting there.’
‘Very good.’ Todd nodded his approval.
‘While I was waiting,’ Peni said, ‘you know how Sampson and Reed are looking into that list of film festival people? I found an article published about a year ago where one of the actors on the list bashed the movie industry for the recent outpouring of, as he put it, “slasher gore porn” that had no true artistic merit.’
‘Which actor?’ Todd asked, curious.
‘That nut-job Reynolds.’ Peni took another bite of her sandwich and spoke around it. ‘He even went on to say that if Hollywood didn’t start producing more quality films, it was going to be up to him and people like him to take up the slack.’
‘Doesn’t that imply that he’d be the last one to commit these murders?’ Emilie asked. She took a tentative sip of the tea Todd had brought her. ‘I mean, if he thinks horror movies are trash, why would he want to add to them?’
Todd was helpless to understand what it meant, if anything. Behavioral analysis wasn’t really his forte. He’d run it by his dad later, see what he thought, as he knew that Reynolds was one of the people Daniel and Reilly had interviewed before.
Still, he had a theory of his own. ‘Whoever our killer is, I don’t think he’s carrying out re-enactments because he likes horror,’ he said. ‘I think he’s actually more like a child reacting to being told that he has to do something he doesn’t want to do. Kind of the, “Well fine, if that’s what you like, that’s what I’ll do and I’ll do it better than anyone else” approach.’
‘Shouldn’t we tell Bradley to let the detectives know that they should be looking into Reynolds then?’ Emilie asked.
‘It’s certainly an angle.’ Todd nodded and took another gulp of his sweet tea. ‘Speaking of Bradley, what do you know about this lead of his?’
‘What lead?’ Emilie looked at Peni who shook her head, just as puzzled as the other woman. ‘He didn’t mention anything.’
‘Where did he go then?’ Todd asked as he opened his salad. He’d never been a fan of greens, but he didn’t think his stomach could handle anything solid at the moment.
Peni answered this time. ‘We figured you’d know,’ she said. ‘About an hour ago, he rushed out of his office and went out. Looked like he was in a hurry. Didn’t stop to tell us anything.’
‘He didn’t say anything about following up on some movie called The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots?’
‘Nope.’
Todd was curious. What could’ve been so urgent that Bradley would have run out without talking to his team? Whatever it had been, it had to have been important enough for the senior investigator to
behave completely out of character. Well, for whatever reason, at least it sounded like his partner had a decent lead.
Something they all badly needed at this point.
CHAPTER 29
The Maestro couldn’t believe his luck. He’d been pondering over his casting options for his first truly original scene when the perfect leading man had just happened by.
He’d been around long enough to have heard stories of things like this happening. Kismet. Fate. Whatever you wanted to call it. Didn’t matter.
All he knew was that he’d still been making blocking decisions and waiting for inspiration about who to cast when the perfect specimen had simply presented itself.
At first, he’d been concerned that his lead of choice would prove to be too strong, but like everyone else, the man had underestimated him and the cattle prod had once again proved to be a worthy investment. Now, the man was bound and gagged in the trunk of the car. He supposed he would need to get rid of the car soon enough, but for now it would serve his purpose.
The docks appeared deserted, but he looked around anyway. It wouldn’t do to get caught now. Not when he was so close. Not when he’d spent so much time today setting everything up. He’d used an assumed identity to rent a slip that afternoon and purchased a run-down speedboat under a totally different name – Fred Krueger – which the young man who’d set everything up had found amusing. Clearly a kindred spirit.
The box in his back seat, however, had been a bit more difficult to obtain. Fortunately, his contacts had let him get what he needed. He knew it had been a risk, but what was life without a little risk?
He carried the box to the boat first, walking gingerly down the rickety pier. If he dropped it, things would not end well for him. Fortune was with him, however, and he reached his antiquated little boat without incident.
