Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  Reed lost what she was saying for a few seconds. Mushrooms? That cast things in a whole new light. You didn’t hear about mushrooms or acid much in a drug-crime situation because, as far as Reed understood it, they were nonaddictive. You didn’t hold up a liquor store for money to get more shrooms. A “trip” was twelve to fifteen hours of your life – maybe a full day or two before you were fully back to normal again. And it didn’t make you homicidal – at least, there weren’t any cases he knew about with people killing each other on mushrooms. You were supposed to hug the Earth and giggle.

  Shepard had stopped talking.

  “Sorry,” Reed said. “I, ah…” Before the moment stretched into awkwardness, he said, “Okay, I guess I don’t know how that works in, yet. But I’d like to know about those contusions. What are they telling you? A lot of force, a strong perpetrator?”

  “Not especially. She died from a lack of blood flow to the brain – that’s the simplest way to put it. You don’t have to provide an incredible amount of force to achieve that, just sustained pressure, and the brain starves of oxygen.”

  He thought about that game again, the one from his youth – kids squeezing one another’s necks until they passed out. He thought about the victim, a young girl, possibly hallucinating as she died. “What I’m asking is–”

  “I know what you’re asking, Mr. Raleigh. I can’t tell you that, from a forensic point of view, this looks like a crime of passion. It doesn’t. This looks deliberate. That the girl willingly took the drugs, maybe knew her killer, too. And I’ve determined that the assailant was wearing gloves. Most likely the polypropylene kind. Medical gloves.”

  Reed put that together in his mind with the scalpel used to carve the victim’s abdomen.

  Gloves. The use of a scalpel in a precise, almost expert way – to render a symbol.

  This looks deliberate.

  A girl on hallucinogenic substances. Willingly? The background on Kasey Stevens revealed a good student, a responsible employee. Her big problem seemed to be her living situation and her mother. She had to lie to her mother about what she was doing and where she was doing it. Her other problem, like most girls her age, was a boy. Tyson Wheeler had gone crazy when confronted, fired on police, torched his home – and whatever was in it he might’ve wanted destroyed – and took his own life.

  Then again, maybe Tyson had been on mushrooms, too.

  Reed tried out a certain hypothetical sequence of events: Tyson eats some mushrooms sold to him by Daryl Snow. Kasey eats hers, and they plan to meet up at Mandalay Park. But she gets jumped by a couple of sadistic young men with daddy issues who strangle her and carve her up. Tyson, meanwhile, waits for a call from Kasey saying that they’re clear to meet, but the call never comes. He stays home – his alibi holds – and only later finds out what happened. In a fit of tremendous guilt, he goes out in spectacular fashion. Then, for providing his would-be stepdaughter with the hard psychedelic drugs that contributed to her death, Daryl Snow takes his own life.

  Not bad.

  Logan Terrio, working for Snow, could’ve told Mosier about her, and that’s how Mosier had gotten involved.

  Or, with the babysitting thing, maybe Terrio was telling the truth and Mosier was really the sicker one of the two.

  Aaron Mosier, who, when he wasn’t thinking about the apocalypse, was designing symbols to carve into girls and sharpening his number 10 surgical lancet…

  “Mr. Raleigh?”

  “Hey, Doctor, thank you – I’ve got to run.”

  “Good luck.”

  He left the office and walked back through the bullpen, picking up speed.

  Easy…

  The closer he got to the room, the more fury he felt. These young men could’ve drugged a girl, killed her, and carved her up. In fact, it was looking that way.

  Take it easy, Rally…

  He burst into interview room 4 and slammed the door behind him and saw the fear in the kid’s eyes.

  Reed grabbed Aaron Mosier by his shirt and lifted him up out of the chair and shoved him up against the wall in one move.

  “Whoa! Raleigh! Raleigh!” Kruse was there, pulling him off. The kid’s eyes were still bugging out, like he’d glimpsed the end of his life, as Reed let go.

  He stepped away. He moved to his chair and sat down.

  Okay. Easy.

  Let the system work.

  Aaron stayed against the wall. His black shirt was still wadded up where Reed had taken fistfuls.

  “All right,” Reed said, breathing hard. “All right, back to your seat.”

  Aaron did as told.

  Kruse stared at Reed, and Reed just breathed a minute, let his pulse come down. “Aaron, let’s talk about where you were Sunday night. The night before last.”

  The kid blinked, but didn’t miss a beat. “Home. With my family.”

  “And they can confirm that?”

  “My sister can. My brother and my mother can. My father was at the funeral home.” Aaron was back on the trembling edge again, volatile. Reed felt the regret creeping in; even if this kid was as twisted as they came, it wasn’t an excuse for assaulting him.

  Shit.

  “Did you know Kasey Stevens, Aaron?”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really…”

  “No. Or her boyfriend. They were just kids when I graduated.”

  “But she babysat for your younger brother and sister.”

  “Yes. A couple of times.”

  “You ever around?”

  “Once. Yeah. Christmas last year. My parents went out to a dinner, and the kids stayed home. I hung out with some friends, hardly saw her.”

  “Okay. So you were home all Sunday night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Reed opened the file and pulled the picture. “What’s this mean to you, Aaron?”

  Aaron leaned forward. Reed studied the kid as the kid studied the photo. He seemed to sink to a new depth of nervousness. Strands of hair quivered above his forehead. And then he said, “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. So you recognize that?”

  Kruse stepped closer. “Is that your brand, Aaron? Is that, uh, is that part of the plan? The survival plan? How does that fit in?”

  Aaron looked from Kruse to Reed. “I think I need a lawyer, please. Maybe Mr. Terrio, can, um…”

  Reed closed the file. “If you want, sure.” He shared a knowing look with Kruse. The kid was entitled to a lawyer, but Dodge Terrio would make sure he didn’t say another word. Whatever Aaron said now would be golden. Reed would never coerce a confession, but letting the guilty unburden themselves? It was the compassionate thing to do.

  Kruse said, “Before we get your lawyer, I just really want to know. Does all of this, the symbol, your plan – how does it go together?”

  Aaron’s mouth opened and closed. He knew it was a loaded question.

  “I mean, you said it – you’ve got to survive. All the wealth and power in the world is getting consolidated. More every day. And we’re going to wind up the serfs of some mega-king. Some Bezos or Gates or Musk who owns everything, right down to police like me. Private police working for the highest bidder,” Kruse said.

  Aaron was silent. He kept looking at Reed.

  Kruse said, “We’re in the middle of a mass extinction event, and all we do is fight wars over more oil and fight each other about our cultural identity. Right?” He glanced at Reed with a look on his face like he might’ve gone too far with the fighting-over-oil remark.

  Reed lifted his hands in peace. “I spent eighteen months floating between Iran and Saudi Arabia, mostly concerned with Kuwaiti pirates.”

  Kruse looked relieved, then said to Aaron, “This whole thing – go to college, get a job, get a house – all that’s over. This planet is about to buck us off like a wild horse. The wealthy lords will rule all that’s left. That’s why you dropped out, right? Why you were depressed? What did killing Kasey Stevens mean? Was she a sacrifice? Was it some kind of ritual
?”

  Tears formed in Aaron’s eyes.

  Kruse moved closer, put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Hey. I get it. You felt trapped. Pushed into a system that just doesn’t apply any more. Felt like… like you might kill yourself. So you came home. You came home and started up with your plan. You and your buddy Logan Terrio.”

  They all sat for a minute, the air heavy the way it is after a big fight, nobody saying anything. Then Aaron Mosier looked at the file on the table.

  “That picture,” he said.

  Kruse: “Yeah? You want to see it again? Tell us about it.”

  Aaron sniffed back emotion, the tip of his nose red. “Is it exactly the same as the other one?”

  Kruse frowned and said, “What?”

  Reed felt everything slow down. That sense of the rolling sea returned, lifting him a little. Followed quickly by the drop in his stomach.

  Kruse: “What are you talking about, Aaron?”

  Aaron appeared confused. He relayed looks between the investigators. “I thought… You showed me the picture because of the other one. The girl from… back whenever that was. Didn’t she have something like that drawn on her? Or carved into her, I mean?”

  Kruse’s voice was rising. “What are you talking about? What other one?”

  Aaron was bewildered. “The other one. I thought that was the whole…”

  “You mean another girl?” Kruse asked. “Another victim? You do something to someone else, Aaron?”

  The kid surprised them both by slapping his hands on the table. “No! I’m talking about the girl who was found in the ’90s – the girl who had the thing carved into her.” His eyes flicked back and forth.

  Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Reed was very aware of the sound of their breathing.

  And then, just maybe, there was a twitch of a smile in the corner of Aaron Mosier’s mouth. Vindication. “You guys didn’t know,” he said.

  “All right…” Kruse said.

  “You have no idea…” A righteous anger grew in Aaron’s eyes. “You’re in here pushing me around, trying to get me to…”

  “All right!” Kruse yelled.

  Reed just sat there.

  “And you didn’t even know,” Aaron said. “Oh, shit. You didn’t even know.”

  13

  blindside

  “How did we not see this?” Kruse paced in the office.

  Reed worked on his laptop. “Here it is.”

  Kruse came over and read the screen over Reed’s shoulder. “‘Teen Girl Found Murdered.’ Jesus. September 14, 1998. In Hume. That’s forty minutes away.” He read a little more and then sat down heavily, leaning back in his chair. Reed waited for him to pull it together.

  “It’s not in our database,” Reed said. “It had to have been handled locally.” Hume was a small hamlet one toe over the county line in Warren. If the Warren County Sheriff’s Department had digitized and uploaded the files, they could get a look at everything after a quick exchange of access codes.

  Kruse was breathing loudly through his nose. His eyes flitted to Reed a moment and then away. “Have to call down there, see if they have the file uploaded, get an access code for it…”

  Reed waited for Kruse to finish catching up, then dialed the number.

  The file was not uploaded. Warren County would scan and email the photo documentation, but the main report would get to him quickest if faxed.

  The autopsy report alone was fifteen pages. Like Kasey Stevens, the previous victim had been strangled. Also like Stevens, she’d been found outdoors, but in a ditch by the side of the road; the report concluded she’d been thrown from a moving vehicle, already dead. Other differences: she was slightly older – sixteen – and abrasions around her vagina and anus showed she’d been abused by at least three men.

  Her name was Melanie Hollander.

  It had been hot, midsummer, the body hidden in the thick brush, decomposing. Stomach contents had long been digested, and some tissue depletion made further analysis difficult – like obtaining any DNA. It had also been the mid-’90s, before DNA extraction had come such a long way.

  But, carved into her left buttock was a strange symbol, almost like a brand. It looked the same – like an image used to represent a virus.

  “My God,” Kruse muttered, still reeling from the oversight.

  The investigating officer had been Sean Gilchrist, with the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. A quick search on Gilchrist: he was dead. Which explained, at least in part, why Reed hadn’t heard about it yet. A living Gilchrist might’ve reached out from professional courtesy, called in with information, something.

  Reed returned to the interview room where Aaron Mosier remained. “How do you know about this?”

  Aaron made no reply.

  “Twenty-five years ago,” Reed said. “Same symbol on a murder victim. How – why – do you know about it?”

  If Aaron was feeling smug before, he wasn’t any longer. Maybe it was the vibes he felt coming off Reed; the kid looked ready to puke. “I thought everybody knew about it.”

  “Everybody?”

  “Okay, I mean, people around here,” Aaron said. “Locals. Older people.”

  “How did you – you – first hear about it?”

  “Um, online.”

  Reed sat down. “Keep talking.”

  Aaron said there was a website dedicated to solving the mystery of Melanie Hollander.

  Reed left and came back with his laptop. The existence of the website proved to be true. It linked to an episode of a TV news show that carried the story in 1999. According to the show, Detective Gilchrist never had any serious suspects, and although half a dozen area men were questioned, the Warren County Sheriff’s Department had arrested no one.

  Neighbors in Hume, eager to get their faces on TV, thought the murder was linked to a gang or cult.

  And then there was the fifty-something woman with a kink in her back who ran Hume’s tiny grocery store. She told the reporter from Inside Edition: “We have two types of people who live in Hume. Year-round people, and the money people who come up for a couple of weeks in the summer and stay at their lake houses and in the townhouses…”

  The glint in her eye suggested that the latter group were not to be trusted.

  “When were you first reminded of it?” Reed asked Aaron.

  “When you showed me that image.”

  “And that’s it. You’re not tattooing this image on people?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I mean your customers.”

  “No. I never have.”

  “You don’t know what it means?”

  Aaron failed to respond.

  “Aaron? Do you know what this symbol means?”

  The kid swallowed hard. “I asked about a lawyer. I don’t want to talk anymore without a lawyer.”

  “Fine.”

  Reed left him there.

  First, he watched the entire Inside Edition episode on the Hollander killing. Then he called Virginia from Kruse and Pyle’s office, drumming his fingers on the desk.

  Virginia answered promptly. “I’ve been trying to get you all morning. Everything okay?”

  He brought her up to speed and asked her to help him compare the two cases. It would take hours, they guessed, maybe days.

  “Sure,” she said. “Just have to figure out something with my girls.”

  “There’s a similar symbol carved into the body. Similar age and type of victim. This one was raped, though.”

  “Was the cutting done postmortem?”

  He paged through the online autopsy report until he found it. “Yeah. That’s what it says. But it’s not saying surgical instrument, like with Stevens. The report says it was done with a razor.” He added, “Still, twenty-two years is a long time for a serial.”

  “People always think it’s got to be some guy bringing girls into his basement over a few hot months. A serial is a serial.”

  Reed agreed. He wanted to say something about t
he real horrors in life being surprisingly domestic, stuff you never saw coming, but that wasn’t the important thing. He said, “Yeah, which means we’ve got two new angles – a serial… or a possible copycat.”

  “I should’ve been looking for this since yesterday.” She sounded discouraged, down on herself. “If there were any other cases, anything like this symbol in the news… So you said the website linked to a TV show.”

  “Inside Edition.”

  “That’s – what? ABC? Primetime television?”

  “Over twenty years ago. But listen – don’t beat yourself up. I didn’t know about the Hollander case either.”

  She was silent. He kept looking through the autopsy. After a few seconds she said, “I’m on it. First thing is, I’ll look at who runs that website.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And I’ll get coverage for the girls – they’ll be happy to see me go anyway,” she joked.

  “Thank you, Virginia. And let’s look around for anything else like this.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I think one of our suspects knows what that symbol is and isn’t saying. You get something?”

  “Yes! Sorry, in all the hubbub, I almost forgot to mention.” Virginia cleared her throat. “Okay – you ever heard of wetiko? As in the wetiko virus?”

  “Wetiko virus? So it really is a medical thing?” His mind started galloping ahead – viruses and scalpels… end-of-the-world scenarios…

  “It’s not actually any real virus. It’s figurative, more like mythology. You see the wetiko idea show up as different things. Ever heard of Wendigo?”

  “Is it like a laxative? When-to-go?”

  She laughed a surprised laugh. “You’re not always serious and grim – that’s good. A Wendigo is like… a possessed man. But that’s just one version. With this kind of concept, it’s fairly generic, and it shows up in different regions of the world at different times with similar features, but different details.”

  “But the basic underlying thing is about some kind of virus? An infection?”

  “As I understand it, the basic underlying idea is selfishness. Self-pursuit, self-interest. It’s considered the root cause of human tragedy.”