by Jim Laughter
“Help! Help me!” Thomas screamed.
Preach only laughed. “Nobody can hear you hollerin’. You can yell till you’re blue in the face and it won’t do no good.”
Thomas laid his head back on the pillow he’d found in the overhead compartment along with the sheets and blanket. Why hadn’t he seen the ratchet straps? Then again, he doubted if Preach would have kept them in the same storage compartment. Why am I dizzy?
“But you said last night that you weren’t...”
“A pervert?” Preach finished Thomas’s sentence. “I have no intention of molesting you, son,” Preach assured him. “I have three boys of my own. I don’t know what I’d do if any of them were ever subjected to that sort of thing.”
“Then what are you doing?” Thomas asked, panic still in his voice. “What have I done for you to do this to me?”
“You haven’t done anything,” Preach answered the fear-filled young man. “It’s not your fault.”
“Not my fault? Then whose fault is it?”
“God demands a sacrifice so I guess it’s his fault,” Preach answered. “It’s his plan for your life. Or maybe it’s your parents’ fault. They’re the ones that named you Thomas.”
“My God, my God!” Thomas cried.
“See there?” Preach said, turning back around to face the open road. “It’s never too late to pray.”
Chapter Two
Dave Marshall from Wheatley, Arkansas steered his family Ford Expedition into a little out of the way rest area just across the Oklahoma border outside of Shamrock, Texas. He planned to stop for a half hour before pushing on to Amarillo for the night.
He and his wife, Judith, along with their two children, 5-year-old Daniel and 7-year-old Dori, had left home early that morning on their way to his family reunion in Phoenix, Arizona. After five-hundred and sixty miles and nine hours in the SUV, he cursed himself for deciding to drive instead of fly. But with the economy being the way it was, and with money tight and stretched thin, he refused to spring for the extra money for airline tickets for his family of four, then have to rent a car for the week they would be in Arizona. Now he was having second and even third thoughts about the error of his frugalness.
The rest area he’d pulled into wasn’t a comfort stop like the ones usually located just inside state borders and at strategic tourist areas. This one was simple. It had a restroom building but no visitor center. There wasn’t a vending machine alcove but there was a water fountain that spewed lukewarm water from a nozzle that sprayed in three different directions. A half-dozen covered picnic tables were scattered around the rest area which had a large grassy area where travelers could stretch their legs, walk their dogs, and where children could run off excess pent-up energy. The land sloped gently from the tables and disappeared over a low hill.
Marshall parked the Expedition in the shade of a Texas Oak that covered one of the picnic tables. At least whoever had designed the rest area had enough foresight to have parking spaces conveniently located next to the tables so people wouldn’t have to lug ice chests and picnic supplies thirty yards from their cars. He released the back hatch before stepping into the soft fall twilight. The kids were already jumping around, anxious to get outside and away from each other.
Judith Marshall told her husband that she could fix sandwiches at the back of the truck if he didn’t feel like carrying their Coleman ice chest to the picnic table. “That’s fine with me,” he told her. He raised his arms over his head and tried to stretch a kink out of his back. Lumbar support. Next vehicle I buy has got to have better lumbar support.
“You kids go play while I fix these sandwiches,” Judith said, shooing Daniel and Dori away from the open packages of potato and corn chips.
“Aw, Mom!” Dori protested. “I’m starved!”
“Me too!” Daniel echoed.
“You’re not that hungry,” Judith said. “Now go find something to do before I put you both to work.”
The Marshall children scampered away from the Ford, running first this way, then that. They played an impromptu game of tag but Dori was taller and ran faster than Daniel, so that game didn’t last long. After a few minutes, Judith saw Dori standing against a tree with her face in her hands counting to thirty, a game of hide-and-seek underway. She looked around and saw her son disappear over the top of the small rise of land.
“...27, 28, 29, 30. Ready or not, here I come!” Dori shouted. She looked around to see if she could spot her little brother hiding behind a trash can or tree, or even inside the Expedition. “Which way did he go?” she whispered to her mother.
“I’ll never tell,” Judith answered. She smiled and cast her gaze toward the hill where Daniel had run to hide. To her amazement, she saw his head top the hill. His face had a shocked expression on it, and his clothes and face were filthy and stained a dark color. “What has that boy gotten in to now?” she said to her husband who had returned to the SUV from stretching his legs with a brisk walk up the sidewalk.
“Can’t tell from here,” Dave said. “He must have slipped in a mud puddle or something.”
Daniel approached his parents with his arms outstretched from his body, his palms up. He was crying. The closer he got to his parents, the more they realized that he was covered in blood interspersed with smudges of some kind of pink liquid.
Chapter Three
FBI Special Agent Duncan Morris shuffled around the stack of case file folders strewn across his desk. He knew it would be easier to use the Dell Inspiron computer on his desk to sort through the files and collate information but there was something he liked about having his hands on the material.
Morris, a 52-year-old white man, married and divorced twice, with three children between the two marriages, had been with the bureau almost fifteen years. He’d spent eight years with the Dallas City Police Department, and another six with the Texas Highway Patrol before applying to the FBI. Most of his time with the state had been working robbery homicide where he honed his investigative skills chasing the dregs of society. He didn’t really understand why he loved this stuff so much, and why he’d let his job cost him both of his marriages and estrangement from all of his kids. He assumed it was just the thrill of the chase. But something deep inside of him said the reason he loved it so much was because he couldn’t stand the idea of monsters stalking innocent people. His practiced gruff demeanor hid his genuinely caring personality.
A series of unsolved murders had him baffled. Morris noted that the first two bodies had been found six months ago this month, followed by two more bodies exactly a month later. Based on the oddity of the murders, he was sure to a certain degree that they’d all been committed by the same killer. He just couldn’t find the common link that defined all serial killings. Then the killings stopped. Had the killer died? Perhaps he was in jail somewhere, or maybe he’d left the country. Now four months later, Morris could not piece it together.
Morris opened the case file of the earliest murder–a pair of brothers, Peter and Andrew Zewenski from Galilee, Rhode Island, a fishing town of no particular importance. Peter’s body had been found by a group of hikers in a wooded area just outside of Rome, New York, and Andrew’s in a field near Athens, Georgia. It wasn’t that the brothers had been killed, and it wasn’t even that the bodies had been found 960-miles apart in two different states. It was the way they’d died that had him puzzled. He was used to shootings and stabbings, even the occasional rampage at a high school or university. He’d just never been involved with a case of crucifixion, much less a double crucifixion.
The next case file detailed the murder of James Fisher, a traveling corporate rep for the General Electric appliance division whose decapitated body was discovered in Kentucky Lake Park just outside of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The oddity of Fisher’s death was that his body was found in a kneeling position beside the beheaded body of Air Force Captain Perry Dennis from Ft. Campbell. The two bodies had been found exactly one month after finding the bodies of Peter and And
rew Zewenski. The two men didn’t seem to have anything else in common.
Morris was about to examine Fisher’s folder again when his partner, Lynn Keller, a veteran agent with over 25-years experience dropped a case file folder in front of him. “We have another one,” she said. “Texas this time. Your neck of the woods.”
Keller was a hometown girl, born and raised right here in the nation’s capital. Her mother taught at George Washington University and her father was a retired member of the White House Press Corp. She’d spent over fifteen years with the Washington D.C. Police Department working everything from traffic, robbery, homicide, fraud, SWAT, and anti-terrorism. Keller’s acceptance into the FBI was spurred by her involvement in helping solve the Beltway Sniper case when two men shot and killed ten people and critically injured three others from the trunk of their car during the month of October 2002. John Allen Muhammad had died by lethal injection on November 10, 2009 at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, and his teenage accomplice, John Lee Malvo, was serving life in prison.
Keller handed Morris a 16-ounce cup of Starbucks dark roast coffee then sat down in a chair opposite him. She sipped from a second cup that she’d brought with her. Morris caught the scent of Keller’s mocha decaf and wrinkled his nose. “You still drinkin’ that weak ass crap?” he asked in his deep, South Texas drawl.
“Different strokes for different folks.”
“If you want chocolate, just buy a Hershey bar or somethin’ from the vendin’ machine.” Keller didn’t answer. Morris flipped open the new case file that Keller had dropped on his desk. “Damn!” he said when he saw the full color picture held in the folder by a 2-hole brad.
The picture showed the body of a 25-year-old white male lying on its back stripped to the waist. He still had his pants on but no shoes or socks. His arms were angled oddly, his left up over his shoulder and his right straight out away from his body. At first appearance it resembled a runway attendant at the airport giving directions to a taxiing plane.
The man’s legs were posed even weirder than his arms. Instead of laying spread-eagle like he’d seen so many times before, this one had both feet pulled up near his buttocks with a piece of rope tied around his ankles holding the soles of his feet together. A wooden stake was driven into the ground between the body’s feet and the rope, which served to keep the man’s legs from straightening out. Morris suspected the piece of rope would prove to be cut from the same coil of common twine used in the Andrew Zewenski murder.
“I guess the cause of death is obvious,” Morris said. Sticking out of the man’s chest, and apparently thrust through the victim’s heart, was some kind of weird spear. “Has forensics ID’d the murder weapon?”
“As far as they can tell, it’s an Indian lance.”
“Indian?” Morris asked. “American Native type Indian?”
“East Indian. From India.”
“Let me guess,” Morris said. “Someone found this body along an interstate or in a state park, right?”
“Bingo!” Keller said. “A family from Arkansas pulled in to eat at a rest area near Shamrock, Texas on I-40. One of their kids stumbled across the body. And I do mean stumbled. Kid fell right on top of it while playing hide-and-seek with his sister.”
“Damn,” Morris muttered. “Must’a scared the kid pretty good.” Morris looked back at the picture. “What’s that pink stuff smeared on the body?”
“According to forensics, it’s calamine lotion.”
“Calamine lotion? Poison ivy calamine lotion?”
“Guess so.” Keller pointed at the picture. “And see that discoloration around his nose and mouth?” Morris examined the picture a little closer. “Forensics says it was caused by chloroform.”
“Chloroform? Just like the others?”
“That’s what they said. The coroner says someone held a rag soaked in chloroform over this kid’s mouth and nose, rendering him unconscious.”
“Then that same person skewered him with an East Indian pig-sticker, posed him, and left the kid there to die?”
“Looks like.”
Morris turned the photograph sideways. “How long has he been dead?”
“Twenty-four to forty-eight hours at the time the body was found. So now it’s been roughly seventy-two hours.”
“This kid laid on the side of the road in a public rest area and no one saw him for two damn days?”
Keller sipped at her coffee, spilling a drop or two on the corner of Morris’ desk. “It isn’t a comfort stop,” she said. “Just a roadside pullover. Picnic tables, restrooms, that sort of thing. Used mostly by truckers who have to stop for rest but don’t get out to use the tables. They usually stay in their trucks and sleep.”
Morris flipped through the file. “Next of kin been notified?”
“Uh-huh.”
“File says the kid was from Boston. Any idea what he was doin’ in Texas?”
“You mean besides getting himself killed?”
“Smart ass,” Morris said. “Yes, besides gettin’ himself killed.”
Keller sat her coffee cup on the corner of Morris’ desk and reached for the file folder. “According to his parents, he was hitchhiking across country to join a new age colony in Los Angeles.”
“LA?”
“Uh-huh.”
Morris examined a large map on the wall behind his desk. “Shouldn’t he have gone this way?” He traced a line across country that started in Boston, running southwest through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and finally into California.
“He spent the last few weeks with an uncle in Charlotte, North Carolina.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
Morris opened the file folders of all the victims he’d associated with this string of murders and read their names out loud. “Peter and Andrew Zewenski from Galilee, Rhode Island, James Fisher and Captain Dennis, and now Thomas Waverly. It just don’t make no sense.”
Keller and Morris were distracted by someone across the room clearing his throat. They stopped their examination of the file folders and spotted a young man standing at a file cabinet twenty feet away. The man looked like he wanted to say something but was hesitant. They recognized him as a new agent recently assigned to the Washington bureau right out of the academy at Quantico, Virginia.
The agent, a young black man, 27-years-old, six-foot three inches tall with an athletic build, very dark skin, close-cropped hair, and quick flashing eyes watched the two veteran agents from his vantage point at the file cabinet.
“You got somethin’ to say, rookie?” Morris asked the new agent.
The agent laid a file he’d been working with on top of the file cabinet. His eyes shuffled back and forth between the two senior agents, unsure if he should voice an opinion or not. The woman was tall and thin, wearing a professionally cut business suit with matching shoes. She appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties. Her hair was well groomed, and she wore tasteful makeup, but not too much. The agent could tell she’d been raised in a genteel home environment and had probably received an ivy league education.
The man, on the other hand, looked tacky and out of sorts. His desk was cluttered with stacks of paper and other junk. His suit was wrinkled like he’d had it on for a week. The sleeves and lapels of his jacket were stained with coffee and Lord only knew what else. The man wore a bushy long-handled mustache that drooped at the ends, and he was completely bald headed. He reminded him of Keenan Wynn, the actor from old Disney movies he’d seen as a child. Even his voice was gruff and graveled like Keenan Wynn’s.
“Well sir,” he started to say but Morris cut him off.
“Spit it out, kid!” Morris snapped.
“Well sir,” the agent hesitated, “based on what I heard you say, there might be a pattern that you’re not seeing.”
Morris couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d been studying these files for six months and had conducted dozens of interviews with
family members, friends, and acquaintances of the victims and hadn’t developed a single viable lead. Now this shave-tail rookie eavesdrops on him for five minutes and he thinks he’s solved the case?
“Dumb-ass rookie thinks he’s Sherlock friggin’ Holmes,” Morris said to Keller. “Where the hell does the bureau dig up clowns like this, the United Negro College?”
The young agent bit his lip and nodded his head. Bigot. He finished filing the folder he’d laid on top of the file cabinet and turned to leave. Lynn Keller called out to him. “Just a minute,” she said. “Agent Bentley, isn’t it?”
“Benjamin, ma’am,” he responded. “George Benjamin.”
Keller crossed the room and introduced herself to the young agent. “Never mind Morris,” she said. “He’s been upset ever since he found out his parents were married and he’s not really the bastard he pretends to be.”
Benjamin looked across the room at Morris who was staring hard back at him. He wasn’t sure if he should get any further involved with these two agents.
“You say you see a possible connection in these killings?” Keller asked.
“Possibly,” Benjamin said. “But I couldn’t be sure without further study.”
Keller took Benjamin by his elbow and led him back to Morris’ desk. Morris didn’t appear at all happy that Keller had integrated this kid into his case. “Duncan Morris, George Benjamin,” she introduced the two men who reluctantly shook hands.
“You a hot shot, Benjamin?” Morris asked. “Fresh meat right out of the academy lookin’ to make your bones early without payin’ your dues?”
“No sir.”
“But you think you know more than me and Keller here. Is that it?”
“No sir.”
“We’ve been in law enforcement over fifty years between us. How long you been an agent?”
“I graduated six weeks ago, sir. This is my first assignment.”
“You’re a field agent, I take it.”
