by C. A. Shives
Johnson stood by his car, his arms crossed and his body stiff. As Herne walked toward the trailer, he spoke.
“The chief says you're not investigating the murders. But you show up at all the crime scenes,” the officer said.
Herne said nothing.
Johnson shuddered. “I thought being a cop would be about law and order. I never thought I'd have to handle something like this.”
Herne patted the young man's broad shoulder. “It gets easier,” he said. “You get used to it.”
Johnson shook his head. “I'm not sure I want to get used to it.”
Tucker opened the door of the trailer and stepped outside. “Get in here, Art. I want you to see this.”
The inside of the trailer smelled of cigarettes and blood. Herne paused and inhaled deeply. It was as if his entire life could be reduced to that one scent. The one mix of dying and death.
“I want to keep this quiet,” Tucker said. “I don't need the fucking state boys in here walking all over my investigation. No one breathes a word about this to the press, got it? We're playing this tight.”
“I’m sure the news has already spread across the neighborhood,” Herne said.
“Just keep quiet about the details,” Tucker said. “The whole damn town doesn't need to know that our victims are getting their guts cut open. Hell, I don’t even have my whole team here tonight. I figure the more cops there are milling around, the more attention it’ll attract.”
Herne glanced at Saxon and Lee, who stood by the body in the room. The body everyone was carefully trying not to look at directly. “You don’t think you should call Miller in?” Herne asked. “Not even for crowd control? We already have some gawkers out there. And it’s likely the news crew will be here soon.”
Tucker shook his head. “Miller’s off tonight, doing some night fishing at Paver’s Creek. His presence there will help keep away the drunk teenagers anyway, and the last thing I need tonight is to deal with a half-drowned kid who’s puking his guts up from alcohol poisoning. Johnson can handle anyone who shows up outside.”
Herne nodded and turned his attention to the scene in the main room of the trailer. Blood—dark, thick, congealed—pooled on the floor beneath the body of Jason Hayes. Splatters of it splotched the cheap, thin carpet. His eyes had been cut, yet they stared at the ceiling, wide with terror and pain even in death. The man's arms had been spread, as if he'd been crucified by invisible nails. The gaping line of flesh on his torso revealed glistening, gray entrails. Fluid—green and brown—spilled from his midsection and soaked through the denim of his jeans. Hayes' mouth hung open, his jaw a hinge of horror and disbelief. Herne could hear the man's silent screams reverberating in his head.
“What's that green stuff on his pants?” Tucker asked.
Lee glanced at the body and shrugged. “Fecal matter, most likely.”
“Are you telling me that he's got shit all over him? Did the killer take a dump in this guy's guts?”
“I doubt it,” Lee said, “given the consistency and color of the fluid. The killer's knife must have thoroughly sliced through the small bowel. The matter within that organ typically contains liver bile and pancreatic enzymes, which have a greenish appearance. And, at that point in human digestion, the material lacks the, uh, solid substance of typical human waste.”
“Jesus,” Tucker said. “No wonder it smells like shit in here.”
“Anything else unusual about the body?” Herne asked.
“Well,” Lee said, “after the lieutenant finished with her photographs, I lifted the victim to check the buttocks.”
“There was an X carved on the guy's ass,” Tucker said. “Our killer is leaving a signature.”
“Any injection sites?” Herne asked.
Lee nodded. “On the neck, the same as before. I did get a toxicology report back from the lab. They found sodium thiopental in the first victim's blood.”
“Give it to us in terms we can understand, Doc,” Tucker said.
“Well, it's more commonly known by the trade name Sodium Pentothal,” Lee said.
“Truth serum?” Herne asked.
Lee grinned. “Well, it may be employed in that manner on occasion. Although probably less than Hollywood would lead us to believe. But it has some fairly common uses. Anesthesia is one, both in human and veterinary medicine. Some psychiatrists will use it to treat phobias. And it's also one of the first drugs given to an inmate during a lethal injection procedure.”
“How fast does the drug act?” Herne asked.
“Very quickly if you hit a vein,” Lee said. “Intravenous injection can cause unconsciousness in a matter of seconds.”
“Will it knock you out for a long time?”
“As with everything, that's dependent on a variety of factors. Usually—such as in cases of anesthesia, euthanasia, and the lethal injection—thiopental is the first in a line of drugs used. The thiopental creates the initial, quick transition to unconsciousness. But because of its mechanism of operation, another method is then employed to sustain that unconsciousness for a longer period of time. Obviously, in this case, it would depend on how much of the drug was injected into the victim's bloodstream and the victim’s size and metabolism. However, based on the evidence provided by the toxicology lab, I'd guess that our X killer is using just enough to knock out his victims for only a few minutes.”
“So X jabs his victims with a syringe, knocks them out temporarily, slices them open, signs their ass, and walks away,” Tucker said.
Herne closed his eyes and relaxed his mind, imagining the victim’s death. Like the killer, he could feel the knife as it sliced through the flesh like a hunter disemboweling a deer. He felt the softness of the tender tissue and the sinewy resistance of muscles. He smelled the blood and shit and bile that spilled from the wound. And he tasted the victim’s shrieks as they filled the air.
“No,” Herne said. “He wouldn't do that. He wants to watch them suffer. The drug immobilizes them. Maybe makes them still. Definitely makes them easier to handle. These were big men. Strong men. He wants them motionless, at least for a little while. But he's not a surgeon. He doesn't want them under while he's finishing his job. He wants them awake and feeling the pain.”
“Well,” Lee said, “if the victims do regain consciousness, the first few minutes would be a time of disorientation. They'd be dizzy. Weak. Disoriented. Some may have had a splitting headache or felt nauseated.”
“So he waits,” Herne said. “X waits until the victims start to wake up. They're groggy. They're confused. And before they have a chance to react, he slices open their bellies and watches their guts spill out onto the floor.”
“How long would it take to die from something like that, Doc?” Tucker asked.
“A matter of moments if he hits an artery,” Lee said. “If he doesn't, it's going to take much longer. Minutes. Maybe as many as ten or fifteen minutes.”
Too quickly for the killer, Herne thought. But too long for the victim. An eternity. Plenty of time to hear the screaming in your head. Plenty of time to see the grim reaper hovering near your body. Plenty of time to know that your next stop is death.
“Look at all the blood splashed around the body,” Tucker said. “It's almost like X gave Hayes a shake after he cut him open.”
Herne shook his head. “The victim struggled,” he said.
Herne could see it as if it were a movie playing on a screen in his mind. Jason Hayes just beginning to awaken from his drugged sleep. X, a large, shadowy figure, looming above him. And before Hayes could react—before he realized what was happening—the feel of a knife piercing his abdomen and slicing up his body. He would have twisted. Bucked. Thrashed. So X knelt on Haye's shoulders and placed a hand over his victim's mouth to silence the screams. Hayes' upper body would have been stilled, but he would have been free to twist his legs and hips. And he would have. He would have writhed in pain and fear and horror. And blood would have splattered like a toddler’s fingerpainting project.
“X immobilized the victim's upper body. Probably to keep him silent. Maybe to prevent him from reaching a telephone or the door. But all those splashes of blood are a result of Hayes thrashing his lower body.”
Lee nodded. “Very possible,” he said.
“It's how it happened,” Herne said.
No one questioned the certainty in his voice.
“So what does it all mean?” Tucker asked.
“I think it's a safe bet that X is a little upset with the people of Hayes Construction,” Herne answered.
“A little upset?” Tucker asked, incredulous. “You, my friend, are a master of the fucking understatement. Our killer is one extremely pissed off man.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Herne sat at his kitchen table with a yellow legal pad and a black ballpoint pen. His illegible scrawl filled the pages. Names. Places. Dates. Times.
He stared at his writing. He knew the connection between the victims: Hayes Construction. But he didn't understand the motivation of the killer.
The eviscerating of the victims—the gutting—spoke of something personal. The intimacy of the killings revealed the depth of X's feelings. These weren’t murders for kicks and thrills. These deaths served a purpose for the killer.
Herne drew a large X over his writing on the paper. It was a jumbled mess with Hayes Construction as the focal point.
The sound of his doorbell, harsh and shrill in the quiet night, startled him. He reached for the .45 Ruger ACP on his hip and held it in his hand as he walked to the door.
Elizabeth stood on the porch.
Holstering his weapon, he stepped aside so she could enter the house. She'd braided her dark hair and it hung down her back, swinging as she walked into the living room and perched on the edge of his tweed sofa.
“Rex is at the station,” Elizabeth said, clasping her hands in her lap.
“I know,” Herne answered.
“He said you were at the crime scene tonight.”
Herne remained silent.
She met his gaze, her brown eyes sparking with anger. “I asked you to find Charlotte. And now you abandon me. You can't resist the lure of a murder case, can you? Not even to help me.”
“All three victims—Charlotte, Gabe, and Jason—are tied to Hayes Construction. I'm working the homicide because I think there's a connection.”
Elizabeth shook her head violently, her long braid swatting at her face. “That's not true,” she said. “I know you, Art. You salivate at murder like one of Pavlov's dogs. This isn't about Charlotte. This is about you.”
Herne's tone sharpened. “Don't play psychologist with me, Elizabeth. That may work on the teens you counsel at the Health Department, but it doesn't work on me.”
She closed her eyes and buried her head in her hands. Silence filled the room. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and pleading. “Is she alive, Art? Do you think Charlotte is still alive?”
He considered lying. Then he thought about telling the truth. He did neither. “I don't know,” he replied. “But if she is, I think our best hope of finding her is to find the killer of Gabe Vanderbilt and Jason Hayes.”
Elizabeth swallowed hard and nodded. “I'm afraid we're running out of time,” she said. “I'm afraid Charlotte is running out of time.”
Herne was afraid that Charlotte’s time had already run out, but he said nothing.
“Can I help you?” Elizabeth asked. “Charlotte and I grew apart some as the years passed, but we still kept in touch. We still talked. Is there anything I can tell you that might help?”
“How did Charlotte get her job with Hayes Construction?” Herne asked.
“Well, she and Jason were friends in high school,” Elizabeth said. “They didn't date, but they sort of ran with the same crowd. I think her best friend, Faith, told Charlotte about the job opening at Hayes Construction. You know how word travels in a small town. Charlotte applied and got the job.”
“Did she like her employer?”
“As much as anyone likes their boss, I guess,” Elizabeth said. “I don't remember her talking about her job much. She seemed content, even though it was a small company with little opportunity for advancement. I encouraged her a few times to seek better work. Something that paid better. Something that offered promotions. Maybe something in Carlisle. But I think she liked working for a hometown company with people from her past. She took pride in her rural roots.”
“What about her marriage? Was it happy?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“Dammit, Beth,” Herne said. “If you want me to find Charlotte, then I need to hear the truth.”
A sad, crooked smile crossed Elizabeth's face. “You're the only one who calls me Beth,” she said. “Everyone else calls me Elizabeth. I guess I seem too cold for a nickname.”
Herne looked at her flushed face, her warm eyes, and the sloping curve of her neck. To him, she seemed anything but cold.
She continued speaking. “I know I closed myself off after the miscarriage. Kept people at arm's length. Even my own husband.”
“Elizabeth,” Herne said gently. “Charlotte was having an affair.”
She sighed and looked at her fingers. “That doesn't really surprise me,” she said. “I knew something was different about Charlotte the last few times we talked. She had stopped mentioning Thad. Even in passing. It was like he wasn’t on her radar any longer.”
“You're a trained psychologist,” Herne said. “It's natural you'd notice that type of thing.”
“Yes,” she said. “I see a lot.”
Silence stretched between them. For a brief moment Herne wondered how much Elizabeth saw. Did she see the way he had to force himself to look away from her? The way he wanted to reach out and touch her? The way guilt racked his soul every time he felt a need for her?
But he pushed those thoughts aside and returned his attention to the case. “So Charlotte never revealed her affair to you?”
“No,” Elizabeth replied. “But she wouldn't. I know that Charlotte valued marriage as an institution. If she was having an affair, she would have been ashamed of it. She wouldn’t have bragged about it or talked about it. Can I ask who her lover is?”
“Jeffery McNeil,” Herne said.
Elizabeth recoiled. “Really? That's odd.”
“Do you know him?” Herne asked.
“A little. He and Charlotte went to high school together, and I kind of remember his name being mentioned a time or two. I see him around town sometimes with his wife. He's not much to look at. I wonder why she had an affair with him.”
“Maybe she fell in love with him,” Herne said.
Elizabeth nodded, but Herne sensed sadness behind the slight motion of her head. “We don't really have any control over who we love, do we?”
Herne watched her brown eyes fill with tears, and he clenched his hands to stop himself from reaching for her. No, he thought. We don't.
CHAPTER 14
NOVEMBER 8 – THURSDAY MORNING
Tucker's hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white with tension. “This case is fucking killing me,” he said. “I've been trying to keep it quiet, but I know it's about to explode in my face. Lori Sims is already starting to ask if the two murders are connected. Lee’s kept mum about the grisly details, but how much longer can we keep a lid on this? Sims may be stupid, but she’s not a total dumbass.” Tucker heaved a deep sigh. “Have you found anything new?”
Herne stared through the windshield, watching the landscape as the car passed the outskirts of Hurricane. Horses grazed in rolling pastures. A deer and her fawns stood on a hill. The idyllic scenery contrasted with the horrific deaths that haunted Herne's dreams.
“I talked to the guy Gabe fought at the tavern,” Herne said. “He and Gabe had a public fight about a pool game a few days before Gabe's murder.”
"Anything there?"
"I don't think so," Herne said. "Seemed like a typical scrap that two temperamental guys have over a pool game."
/>
"So then he's a bust."
"Probably. There was one unusual thing about him, though. He had this dog with him. A Doberman Pinscher. It was… odd. I would’ve sworn that dog was watching me and waiting to pounce, but it didn’t move. In fact, it didn’t make a damn sound.”
“Must have been from Seth Greenwood's pack,” Tucker said. “A few years back Seth was training attack dogs. Specifically Doberman Pinschers. Nothing really illegal about that, although it was dangerous. But then we get a call that Seth is operating on these dogs, too.”
“Operating?”
“Performing actual surgery. He didn't have a veterinary license, so Saxon and I went out to investigate. You know what that fucker was doing?”
Herne shook his head.
“He was removing these dogs’ vocal cords. Somehow he got his hands on a book of veterinary medicine, drugs, and surgical instruments. And he'd buy these puppies and then cut out their larynx so they couldn't bark or make any sound at all. And then he'd train them to be mean and vicious, and he'd sell them to people in the city who wanted a quiet attack dog to guard their stashes or whatever. He sold those poor dogs for thousands of dollars. On the books, illegally operating on a dog isn’t really a major crime. But we confiscated everything anyway—the drugs, the vet supplies, the animals. Seth got nailed with a misdemeanor, and he packed up shop and headed out. I don't know where the hell he went, but I was glad to see his sorry ass leave my town. Anyway, a couple of dogs got sent to the shelter, and there were probably a few that got adopted by locals.”
Tucker pulled into the gravel parking lot of Hayes Construction. Sunlight glinted on the windows of the small brick building. Four pickup trucks—all with the Hayes Construction insignia—sat in the lot.
“Hayes Construction was a small operation. Most of their work was outsourced to subcontractors who weren’t actual employees. If you include the owner, Jason Hayes, the company only had five real employees. One has been kidnapped. Two of them are dead. There are two left. I had Johnson ask them to meet us here,” Tucker said as they walked to the door. “I wanted to get them someplace where they were comfortable. Someplace where we can just chat like men. In my experience, a couple of men can gossip worse than a bunch of women at a PTA meeting. If we can get them talking, they might spill something.”
