by Rick Murcer
His heart broke a little, and he silently thanked God for that part. It meant he still had a heart that worked.
On one of the recliners, near the right arm, were two numbered yellow markers tented up near three streaks of blood.
He followed Dean as he stepped over to the sofa, where four more markers, two near what looked to be characters burned into the leather. The other two gave attention to small piles of what appeared to be ash.
“Shit. I do this why?” asked Sophie, covering her nose with one hand, crossing her breasts with the other.
She glanced at Manny. “I know, I know. One of us says that every time we get to a new scene, but I mean it today. I’m getting tired of this junk. Not to mention, whatever’s in the back of this house is going to make me want to do heavy-duty drugs again, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, and we’ll all probably want to join you. But there’s only one way to find out for sure,” said Manny.
With that, he walked past Marie, who had no qualms about letting him take the lead, and entered through the wide hallway leading out of the living room to the rear of the house. The stench of charred human flesh grew stronger, almost blotting out his ability to concentrate.
He held his nose as he passed the lighted bathroom to his right and another bedroom on the same side, then came to semi-closed French doors ten feet to the left.
With gloved hands, he gently pushed the two doors the rest of the way open. He took one step inside, something he immediately regretted.
At first, he thought he heard himself catch his breath, but it wasn’t him. He was still holding his air in.
It had been Sophie. She had followed him directly into the room, and this time, his usually loquacious partner said nothing, the sight before them guaranteeing a horrific silence for the immediate future.
For one of the few times in his professional life, he seriously considered walking out, turning in his credentials, and calling it a career. The total revulsion and ambiance of this room demanded it. No one should be a part of this perversion, cops or otherwise. But he wouldn’t leave, not today. They had to stop this version of pure evil that even Hollywood hadn’t yet dreamed up.
Leaning provocatively against the post of the king-sized bed, hands taped to the rear left bedpost, lay what was left of a naked Peter Blanks. Sections of his body were burnt so badly that he looked like a piece of meat that had fallen into the flames of a barbeque.
The killer had been careful not to burn every part of his body. He’d left patterned sections of his arms, legs, and torso free from fire. The body resembled a huge, winding chessboard.
The contrasting squares of burnt flesh and unmarred flesh ended just below his chest where “VALENTINO” had been burnt in perfect letters, matching exactly, in Manny’s eyes, the lettering they’d seen at Everglades Park.
Between the chest and the forehead were smaller checkered squares running up to the bridge of Peter’s nose. They stopped, but only to allow for another rendition of “VALENTINO” printed across his forehead.
Peter’s eyes caught Manny’s attention—because they were missing, looking for all the world as if they’d been burnt from their sockets.
Resting between his splayed legs were three neatly aligned items. None of them particularly dangerous in themselves, but all were disturbingly ominous in this environment.
A blow torch, what appeared to be a commercial wood-burning tool, and a large plastic container of lighter fluid.
No genius was required to know what Valentino had done with those items.
As unnerving and revolting as Gladys’ son’s body was to look at, Peter wasn’t the crème de la crème in this room.
Gladys Blanks hung from the room fan, almost directly over her son, her body also void of clothing and charred in similar fashion to Peter’s, only the squares were more difficult to see against her darker frame. She possessed both signature VALENTINOs lettered in the usual places on her chest and forehead.
The old woman’s arms were spread wide, like Jesus addressing His children in several popular paintings, each arm forced into that position by what looked like small pieces of wood, attached, somehow, at her thin sides and just under her biceps.
The appearance of hovering over her son was horrible enough, but there was an added element to this setup from the first scene in the Everglades, other than the fact that half of the room had been torched and singed to varying degrees.
Valentino hadn’t removed her eyes, rather had placed a pair of exotic, Elton John-like glasses over them, minus the lenses. The angle of her head and the placement of the glasses gave the appearance of a painting with eyes that followed one around the room.
Was there anything beyond the appalling imagination of a killer such as this?
Manny, unfortunately, knew the answer to that.
He released his pent-up breath. “God in heaven,” he whispered.
“I think I’d equate this more with Satan in hell, if he exists,” said Dean.
Marie and Dean had moved near to the opened doors of the room and stood just behind Sophie.
“How can you see this and think he doesn’t?” said Marie, turning away.
“Is the devil even this perverted?” asked Sophie, joining her.
Doing everything within his power to get his head away from the emotion and back into cop mode, Manny moved closer to the bodies.
“I think that’s a topic for another discussion. We have to get to work and stop this lunatic before he takes another step into his world.”
“Just like that? You turn off this nightmare shit and say get to work?” asked Marie.
“If you don’t, you’ll be in rehab and knitting scarfs for the poor,” said Sophie.
“She’s right,” said Dean. “You have to realize that they’re gone, and these bodies are not who they are or were. Our job is to find who checked them out.”
“I get that, but . . . but . . . never mind. What do you want me to do, Manny?” Marie asked, her voice gradually becoming steadier.
“Thanks for asking. We’ll need more time to get ready for the meeting this afternoon, and we’ll have more information and more requests as we process this room, but for now, we need all of the usual bases covered.”
“I don’t even know what the usual is in this situation,” said Marie.
“Let’s start with cell phone and landline records of these two and see if they have any connection with the first two vics. Who knows? Maybe there’s a common number that links all of them.”
He ran his hands through his hair, then continued,
“We need credit card and bank records. Job information. Charity giving, social club affiliations, and any social media associations. Vacations and travel. We need to talk to relatives and neighbors, again,” said Manny.
Looking around the room, it came to him to look for something else, but he had a question first.
“Dean. What do you think the time of death was?”
Dean raised his bushy eyebrows and then stroked his beard. “That’s tough to say. I mean we can use the thermometer-to-the-liver gig, but these bodies were exposed to heat and extreme temps. That will mess with accuracy.”
Walking over to Peter’s body, Dean kneeled and got close to his legs. He then stood and carefully eyeballed the suspended Gladys Blanks, then came back to Manny.
“There’s some discoloration showing, even with the state of the bodies, due to rigor mortis. The ME will have a better idea than I do, but I suspect just a couple of hours before it was called in. Maybe eight a.m. or so. Why?”
He turned toward Marie. “We’ve established time of death with the other couple as around eleven p.m. About thirty-six hours ago, right?”
“Yes. So?”
“So,” said Sophie, interrupting, “we need to know when they came up missing, right?”
“Right. I want to know the last time anyone had contact with them.”
“You’re seeing some symmetry here?” asked Marie.
&nbs
p; “Maybe. If he killed these folks at or around eight this morning and the other victims came up missing about eight p.m., then it could give us insight to his timeline for the next victims.”
“Thirty-six hours, then?” asked Sophie.
“If we’re right, yes. He’ll pull the trigger again in about thirty-two hours.”
CHAPTER-16
“Is there anything else you want me to do?” Josh asked.
Belle shook her head. “No. Thanks for loading up all of those samples for me. Most of it will amount to busy work for the local lab, I suspect, but sometimes . . .”
“The little things lead to big things, yeah I know, thank God.”
Belle nodded and then turned back to what she was doing and away from him.
His new hire had been avoiding eye contact almost the whole time since the others had left for the house in Miami. He understood working quirks. Max Tucker had had a few. Dean and Alex worked better when they were in each other’s company. Sophie . . . well, Sophie was enigmatic, but effective. Then there was Manny, who had a process all his own, including spending time alone with the scene, if he felt it mandated that. Manny’s intuition and insight were all about his feelings and a certain logic that supported those feelings. He at least understood what made these killers tick, if not how.
Yet, Josh wasn’t at all sure about Belle and her methods, not entirely. She’d been a great help in Cozumel running down the Mayan copycat killer, showing a much lighter approach there than here in South Florida.
She’d displayed excellent profiling and forensic skills, just as advertised when he’d hired her. But something was bothering her here. No doubt Manny had already seen it—he always did—but for some reason, she hadn’t talked to him, at least he didn’t think so. If she had, and it was important, Manny would have told him.
It was time for big brother to take over.
He helped Belle as she rose from her knees after scrutinizing a blood-covered blade of grass stuffed in a polyurethane bag. She thanked him, then placed it on her thigh and wrote the date, the time, and the location on the tab, eventually placing it with another batch of bags.
She must have felt his stare because she met him eye to eye.
“What is it, Josh? You’ve been side-glancing me for two hours.”
“I’m not sure. You’ll have to tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine.”
But the quick glance to her hands said otherwise.
“Belle, listen. I’m no profiler. Hell, Sophie does a better job of that kind of thing when she focuses. I’m pretty much the administrative guy who doubles as your special-agent boss, but a few things have rubbed off hanging around with you folks. For example, my bullshit meter swung way to the right after you answered me just now.”
She didn’t want to, but Belle couldn’t help but laugh, a deep belly laugh, her eyes dancing impishly as she did.
“You have a bullshit meter?” she asked, that mischievous twinkle still there.
“Oh yeah. I have two young boys with active imaginations. It’s a built-in requirement for dads . . . and bosses, I might add.”
Belle sighed, removed her gloves, and stuffed them in her back pocket, reaching down to rub her knee. When she stood straight up again, she folded her arms over her ample breasts.
“So Manny would tell me that excessive motion is a subconscious avoidance mechanism,” said Josh. “And you’ve just run the full gamut from butt to knee to folding your arms. All after a sigh.”
“He’d be right, on all accounts. You know, you keep saying you can’t read people, profile or whatever term you want to use, but from the second we met, you’ve had a good idea about me. If I were you, I’d think a bit higher of my ability along that line,” said Belle.
“Yeah well, that’s where interviews, resumes, and psych exams come in handy too,” said Josh.
“I suppose they do.”
The brief silence, in Josh’s estimation, readied them both for some revelation as to what had been bothering her.
“Belle, I want you to tell me what’s going on with you.”
After gazing out toward the edge of the Everglade’s landscape for a full minute, she turned to Josh, rubbing the back of her neck.
“I can’t be sure. It’s been a long time since that day, but I may have seen this killer before.”
CHAPTER-17
Little Ian had just stopped the latest round of bouncing on his granny’s lap, the joy of his laughter unmatched and as whimsical as any music God offered to the planet. Laughing children could be the elixir that cured the world. At least that’s what Chloe thought.
“The wee one can laugh, can’t he?” said Haley Rose, then she engaged in another rousing round of pony express with Ian as the rider on her knee, the object of her full attention. He howled with glee, his mother and granny helpless not to join him.
“That he can. That he can. I think he gets it from his dad,” she said.
“Ya might be right with that. He sounds like Manny, and that’s not all the lad got from his father. He’s got your hair, but those blue eyes and that face . . . well, no trouble guessing if the milkman came to visit or not.”
“Mum! Besides, no milkman needed with a man like that sleeping in my bed.”
Haley Rose laughed. It sounded almost as good to hear as Ian’s own joy.
It was one of the few times she’d heard Haley Rose laugh since the incident when her mum’s long-ago lover came from Ireland to the states to give them all a special taste of evil, ending with Jen shooting the psychotic man.
She didn’t say so, she wouldn’t, but Chloe knew her mum blamed herself for the ride the crazy man had taken them on, for forcing Jen’s hand and ending an innocence that could never be recaptured.
But what could Haley Rose have done? Chloe knew as well as anyone that one person had no control over the actions of another. That kind of influence was reserved for God, and He was far too much a gentleman to force His will on others. Evil was always a choice. Thus the great battle of good versus evil.
Good Lord. Her thoughts were more Manny-like every day.
Haley Rose got out of the kitchen chair and handed Ian to Chloe, after one more kiss on his chubby cheek. Her mum sat back down and stole a long draw from her vanilla latte.
“I need to finish my coffee and get ready for Jen when she gets home.”
Chloe smiled. The two of them were headed for another shopping trip to the mall, something that had helped to bond step-grandmother and stepdaughter in a true and loving relationship. “They are thick as thieves,” Manny had said.
There were times in everyone’s life—adult, adolescence, and especially childhood—that dictated a need for another individual, no matter the gender or age group, to help guide one through a rough time.
Over the last eighteen months, Haley Rose had lost two men with whom she’d built a special relationship, even though Doctor Argyle was far removed from a true man in Chloe’s eyes. But Gavin Crosby had been a good man and that relationship could have gone somewhere, but for his untimely death in Las Vegas. Two daggers to the heart were obviously far worse than one.
Jen, so much like her dad, had lost her mother two and a half years ago. Louise had been a wonderful mother; and the two of them, mother and daughter, had been extremely close.
Chloe held no illusions that she alone could replace the irreplaceable, although she was giving all she had to that end. But the almost immediate bond between step-granny and stepdaughter had been impossible to ignore, and was certainly unexpected.
After all, what did an American teenager have in common with an Irish woman over fifty who’d traveled a tough, rocky road of her own?
Only God knew, and that should be enough.
“What are ya thinkin’, girl?”
“Just how much I love seeing you and Jen spending time together. I know Ian’s your first grandbaby by blood, and it does a girl’s heart good to see the two of you together,
don’t you know. Jen and you . . . well, that’s a great one.”
“Aye, it is.”
Chloe watched as her mum choked back a sudden attack of heart-twisting emotion, something Chloe was familiar with these days herself.
“The girl is so strong, so determined to not let life kick her young arse and tear out her heart. It makes me want to be better for her. That makes me better for me. She’s a special one, she is. I didn’t meet her mother, but Manny lives in that one.”
“You have that right, Mum, all of it.”
“I’d also be a liar if I told you she didn’t want to make me fight for what I want too, even at my age.”
Mother and daughter remained silent, even as Ian fidgeted on his mom’s lap before finally giving in to the warmth and heartbeat of his mother. As he drifted to sleep, Chloe reached out and touched her mother’s hand.
“Mum. Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” her mother asked, as if she had no idea. Her green eyes gave her away, however.
“About Ennis Preston and what he did,” she said softly.
This time, there was no dodging the issue that was playing with both of their hearts. No side-stepping the prodigious elephant sitting on the round oak table or trying to ignore its ever-present odor. There was a certain, psychological stench associated with traumatic ordeals unresolved. Chloe knew how those situations worked. The scar on her calf from a terrorist’s bullet was a not-so-subtle reminder of an unexpected encounter with her own mortality.
Her mum’s eyes had turned to fire. “What would I talk about, child? Would I state the obvious, girl? That I hate that my past came back to bite young Jenny’s mind and soul? That Ennis, crazy-ass Ennis Preston, almost killed my wee ones because of his twisted affection for me? That it would have given me sorrow without end to finally see you happy with a child and a family of your own and have it all destroyed if my grandgirl hadn’t been her father’s child and possessed the strength to shoot the bastard? That their deaths would have been all my damned fault?”
