Fifteen Times a Killer

by Alan McDermott

  Henry “Hank” Willard was at his desk, one of twenty in an open-plan office. His fingers danced over the keyboard as he worked on his computer, and his head bobbed in time to the music stream in his earphones.

  Corrina tapped the big African-American on the shoulder. Hank pulled out one bud and looked up at her, the faint sound of an eighties classic lingering in the air.

  “What’s up?”

  “What are you working on?”

  “Drive-by shooting, gang related.”

  “Hand it off,” Corrina told him. “Something came in.”

  “Am I gonna like it?” he asked, his face suggesting he wouldn’t.

  “Serial killer. One victim so far, but it looks like there could be up to fifteen.”

  Hank lifted his large frame out of the chair. He stood at the same height as Corrina, but where she was trim and toned, he carried a lot more weight, especially around the waist. He scratched his long, dark beard. “Give me five minutes, then I’m all yours.”

  “Great. See you in the conference room.”

  Hank trundled off, and Corrina went in search of Josh Lane. He was new to the FBI, fresh out of the training academy at Quantico. He’d graduated near the top of his class and had a calmness about him that bordered on arrogance. Corrina hoped it was just the self-confidence of a good-looking kid. If he came into the job thinking he knew everything, there were plenty of people willing to give him a reality check. She found Josh standing by the water cooler, engaged in conversation with a young woman from Human Resources. The girl was clutching a file to her chest as she gazed up at Josh with big doe eyes.

  “…but it didn’t have the intensity I was looking for.”

  “Not interrupting anything, am I?” Corrina asked.

  “Of course not,” Josh smiled with a mouth full of gleaming white teeth. “I was just telling Beth about the gym I joined recently.”

  “Maybe you can finish that up later,” Corrina suggested.

  Beth got the picture and excused herself.

  “Come with me,” Corrina said to Josh. “I’ve got a job for you.”

  She led him to the conference room and put the file she’d been carrying on the big table. “In there you’ll find details of a missing person. I already contacted the Scranton and Vegas offices and they’re going to send over everything the local police have on the case. What I want you to do is look into the background of the relatives. The parents’ names are in there, but there may be siblings.”

  “What makes a missing person a federal case?” Josh asked. “Is she connected?”

  “I’ll explain when I get back,” Corrina told him. She went back to her office and printed off two more copies of the photos containing the prologue and first chapter of the killer’s novel. She returned to the conference room to find Hank Willard had joined the party.

  Corrina gave each man a copy of the manuscript. “Yesterday evening, I received information that a body was buried up in Tuna Canyon. I went up there with McCrae Loney from LAPD homicide, and we discovered this stuck in a bush. We also found a body that appears to be Kerry Swanson.”

  “Fifteen times a killer,” Hank said, leafing through the pages. “Catchy title. Does it reveal anything?”

  “Only that whoever wrote this more than likely killed Kerry. It says she was cut up into eight pieces, and that’s what was found in the grave.”

  “Professionally butchered or just hacked to bits?” Josh asked.

  Corrina thought it an astute question. Clinical dismemberment might suggest a physician of some kind, or maybe a hunter with a grasp of animal anatomy.

  “Unknown at this time. We’re still waiting for the autopsy report.”

  Corrina was sure it wouldn’t make pleasant reading. Just the killer’s description of the murder was enough to turn her stomach.

  “I want you guys to read through that and let me know your thoughts. Obviously, BAU will have their own take on it, but I want to know if anything strikes you as strange.”

  “You mean apart from the fact that this bozo killed fifteen people and wrote a book about it?”

  That kind of attitude would have brought out the worst in Corrina had it come from anyone else, but Hank was one of the best agents she knew. He’d joined the Bureau soon after leaving college two decades earlier, had multiple commendations under his belt, and he’d been destined for the top until fate dealt him a cruel hand.

  Five years earlier, while a member of the hostage rescue team, he’d been about to storm a residence to rescue a kidnapped child when someone matching the suspect’s description had walked out of an alleyway. In the pitch darkness it was hard to make out any details, but the figure appeared to be carrying. Hank saw the right arm come up in a shooting stance and someone cried, “Gun!” Hank had been the first to react, putting two bullets in the target’s chest. The order to storm the house came seconds later, and it was only after the operation was over that they discovered the first casualty was a local boy with learning disabilities. He died two days after his fourteenth birthday, all because of the toy pistol he’d been given as a present by his uncle.

  The incident sent Hank into meltdown. He was placed on administrative leave while the shooting was investigated, and though he was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, the personal toll had been too much. He’d hit the bottle hard, and when the time came to return to work, he was in no condition to do so. The Bureau didn’t give up on him, however, and after a year of therapy, he returned to duty.

  Minus his sidearm.

  Hank refused to carry a weapon, choosing instead to take a desk role.

  Corrina learned all this when she queried her supervisor about Hank’s excess weight and unkempt appearance. Since then, she’d worked alongside him on many projects and came to realize that he had a keen analytical mind, if a brusque personality. He might never work the field again, but retaining him in his current role had been a shrewd move. She was certainly grateful to have him working this case with her.

  “Yes, Hank, apart from that.”

  Hank grunted and continued to flip through the document.

  Josh studied the note that had been sent to Corrina the day before. “This is addressed to you personally, not the Bureau.”

  “I noticed that,” Corrina said. “Looks like the killer wants me involved for some reason. I’m going to check through my old cases to see if any of them have a bearing on this.”

  “Someone you’ve locked up?” Hank asked.

  “I doubt it. Kerry died in 2011. That’s a year before I joined the LAPD. If it’s related to one of my cases, we must have crossed paths recently.”

  “Or he might know you personally,” Josh suggested.

  “I think I’d know if there was a serial killer in my social circle,” Corrina countered.

  “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a friend. Could be someone you interact with on a regular basis, like a guy who works at the gym, or a bank teller, or your mailman.”

  Corrina thought it unlikely. She didn’t advertise the fact that she was with the FBI, so it would have to be someone she was close to, and few could be counted in that number.

  “No, there has to be another reason.”

  It could wait, though. She knew that if she focused too much on the problem, it would evade her, but the answer would eventually manifest itself at some point. That was the way her mind worked. She could get a song stuck in her head and struggle to think of the name of the artist, only for it to hit her hours later.

  “Have a read,” Corrina said, “and let me know your thoughts. McCrae Loney at LAPD is leading the investigation. I’m going to see him now. Let’s meet up after lunch to compare notes.”

  Chapter 5

  “…though the repercussions will be felt throughout the community for some time to come.”

  Jess Duffey jumped as a large envelope slapped noisily onto her desk.

  “Benny, you asshole!”

  The mail boy, headphones on, was unaware of her outbu
rst. He wandered off to the next desk and tossed a couple of envelopes onto the senior crime reporter’s keyboard, earning yet another unheard rebuke.

  Jess finished writing the story she was working on, then picked up the mail and checked for the sender’s address. That was a pretty good indication of whether it was worth her time opening it. Most of the stuff she received at the office was junk mail.

  This one, though, had nothing on the envelope apart from her name and the address of the LA Telegraph. Hoping it was at least interesting, Jess ripped it open and pulled out a bunch of letter-size pages.

  The typewritten note on the first page got her immediate attention:

  Hello, Jess. You hold in your hands the scoop of the decade. This is just the beginning, but there will be more to come. Much more. I want you to tell my story, because they have to know. They have to feel it, too.

  You’ll find the body in chapter two at ///await.sugar.groom.

  She immediately recognized the code, having done a piece on the What3Words app when she first joined the newspaper. A woman had gotten lost while camping in the Mojave Desert. Her motorcycle wouldn’t start and she had no idea how to guide her rescuers to her, until one of them told her to download the app. She was found a couple of hours later.

  It was when she read the word “body,” that Jess’s hands started to shake. Not with fright, but anticipation.

  For two years, she’d been the junior reporter with the Telegraph, LA’s eighth most-read newspaper. In that time, she’d covered everything from burglary to grand theft auto, muggings to rape, but she’d never been given a murder to report. Those jobs always went to Sam Harkness or Claire McMillan, the two senior crime reporters who were constantly vying for top billing. To have a story like this handed to her on a plate was beyond belief, but the initial elation soon passed. If she went to the editor with it, he would take it off her hands and give it to one of his golden pair.

  Jess wasn’t going to let that happen.

  She hadn’t become a journalist to cover fistfights at bake sales or local charity fraud. She wanted a real story, and now that one had presented itself to her, she wasn’t going to give it to anyone.

  It was almost midday, so Jess decided to take an early lunch. She stuffed the papers back in the envelope and put them in her large purse, then took the elevator down to the ground floor. She usually ate in the deli next door to the office, but she wanted some privacy. She wouldn’t get that when half the Telegraph staff ate at the same place. Instead, she walked two blocks to a burger joint, got a meal to go and took it to Pershing Square. She found a space on the steps facing the pool, and after eating half of her sandwich, began to read.

  Forty minutes later, Jess felt sick. Her sandwich remained half-eaten, her coffee and fries untouched.

  Jess knew that if this was real, it was the story that could make her career.

  And she immediately felt guilty.

  Guilty, because it would come on the back of at least two deaths. Two gruesome deaths.

  Never get emotionally involved.

  The words came unbidden to her mind, something her father had told her many times. He’d built his own business from the ground up, and he’d done it by approaching each transaction objectively, refusing to see the other party—be they supplier or customer—as a human being, but rather a challenge to be overcome at the lowest possible cost to himself. It was that selfish attitude that caused Jess to turn down his offer of a role in the business.

  She’d also heard something similar from her journalism professor, who would often remind his class that their job was to deal in cold, hard facts, not to editorialize the story. He was old-school, from the days when the media told you what happened, and you had to decide what you thought of it.

  These days, you’re told what to think, and have to decide whether it’s real or not.

  Jess had always approached her job the way she’d been taught at college, and she believed that was why she’d been passed over for promotion so many times.

  She wasn’t about to change now.

  For Jess, journalism had been a calling. Or as she liked to call it, a crusade. A battle against partisan media conglomerates that existed purely to further the goals of one political party or another. They would adhere to their left- or right-wing agendas with a stoic inflexibility, casting aside their duty to inform in favor of brainwashing the masses with their poisonous rhetoric.

  Jess would never become like that. She planned to rise to the top through pure journalistic talent, not abandoning her principles in return for a paycheck.

  Gathering the papers together, she put them back in her purse and dumped her lunch in a nearby trash can, her hunger long forgotten.

  As she walked back to the office, she considered how she should approach Kieron Lehane, editor-in-chief of the Telegraph. When she reached the building, Jess still hadn’t made up her mind. In every scenario she came up with, Lehane would hand the story to either Harkness or McMillan, claiming they could do a better job of it. As Jess hit the button for the elevator, she made up her mind.

  The doors pinged open and she got in alongside half a dozen others, taking a corner spot at the back. She asked someone to press the button for her floor, then turned and faced the mirrored wall.

  You can do this, she told herself.

  Her reflection didn’t appear so confident. Jess smoothed down her ginger hair, brushing it off her shoulder, then adjusted her thin jacket to cover her growing belly. She was out of shape and knew it, but in the daily battle between exercise and junk food, the latter won hands down. She was by no means obese, but admitted to herself that she could afford to lose at least twenty pounds.

  Maybe then Lehane would pay more attention to her, like he did Claire McMillan. The editor was forever fawning over Claire, with her flowing blonde hair, luscious lips and sculpted figure, even though she’d made it clear that the Telegraph was just a stepping-stone. Her goal was TV anchor with one of the major networks. She certainly had the looks for it, and if a shallow personality was a prerequisite for the job, she’d be a shoo-in.

  The elevator glided to a halt and Jess squeezed her way out through the crowd. She went to her desk and logged into her computer, then took out her phone and opened the What3Words app.

  When Jess entered await.sugar.groom it settled on a point just south of East Topanga Fire Road in Topanga State Park. Jess fired off a quick email to Lehane to tell him that she had a lead on a story in that rough area, something to do with kids off-roading on illegal bikes, then locked her computer once more, grabbed her coat and headed for the underground parking lot.

  Chapter 6

  Corrina had managed to acquire an office to lead the task force from. She assembled her small team, eager to get going. A notice board had been hastily mounted on the wall, and the central area was dominated by a table with four chairs. Josh and Hank sat while Corrina stood by a window overlooking the sprawling parking lot.

  “I spoke to Alistair Birch over at LAPD’s field investigation unit this morning,” Corrina said. “Vegas police took DNA samples from Kerry Swanson’s room the day after she went missing, plus we have DNA from her home in Scranton. It’ll be a couple of days before we know if we have a positive match with our victim. Until we get that, we work on the assumption that it’s her.” She looked at Josh. “To answer your question, she was butchered. No sign that he had any knowledge of anatomy. Have you got anything on her immediate family?”

  “No sisters or brothers. Got a couple of cousins on her father’s side, but they were in high school at the time. Father is Anthony Leopold Swanson, owns a company that manufactures lawn furniture. Mother Elizabeth Swanson, formerly Elizabeth Morton, died two years before Kerry was abducted. Father and cousins were interviewed about her disappearance, but all had solid alibis.”

  “Tell me more about the father,” Corrina said.

  “As I said, he owns his own business. Finances around the time Kerry went missing were good, according to
his filings with the IRS. That was with a different company, though. He used to manufacture car seats for kids, but sold the business nine years ago. There was a lawsuit, something to do with inadequate testing. The judge found in Swanson’s favor as he hadn’t broken any laws, but soon after, he flipped it and started the lawn product line.”

  “Any convictions?” Corrina asked. “Known associates with criminal records?”

  “Nothing,” Josh told her. “Clean as a whistle, apart from that lawsuit, which he won. I also checked to see if Kerry was insured, but she wasn’t. Doesn’t appear to have any reason to kill her.”

  “That ties in with witness statements taken by Scranton police,” Corrina said, handing them both printouts of the original investigation into the Swanson case. “Apparently, he doted on her. Spoiled her to the extreme.”

  Corrina gave them a few moments to browse through the new information.

  “No witnesses, no suspects,” Hank noted.

  “No. He obviously thought it through and planned it meticulously. He was probably watching her for weeks.”

  “You’re assuming it’s a male,” Josh said.

  “I am,” Corrina told him. “For the sake of brevity, and because the vast majority of serial killers are men. If I have to say ‘he or she’ every time, it’ll take us twice as long to catch this guy. Let’s presume it’s a male until the evidence suggests otherwise.”

  Josh gestured his understanding.

  “Which brings me to this book of his.” Hank said. “I think he’s a lot smarter than he wants us to believe.”

  “What makes you think that?” Josh asked.

  “Well, he’s thrown in a run-on sentence. ‘Billy-Bob was two years older than Kevin he was almost twice his size, too.’ That’s a mistake that you’ll see in eighth-grade composition, but then we have this.” Hank referred to the manuscript. “‘He was sitting by the stream, watching birds flit across the top of the water, hoping to catch the flies that danced above the surface. He was so engrossed in their performance that he didn’t hear Billy-Bob and his three hangers-on approach.’ It’s like the two sentences were written by different people. And if you look at chapter one, he’s trying too hard to sound like he has low intelligence. ‘I took off her toes first. One at a time, singing “this little piggy” til there was no more piggies left. Kerry didn’t like that game one little bit, specially as I used a rusty old saw blade to do it, not nice and quick like tin snips. She wasn’t happy when I used an iron to stop the bleeding, neither. After she calmed down a little—that took a while, I can tell you—I went to work on her legs. You ever see that film about that Hannibal guy who took a man’s skin off? That ain’t easy, let me tell you, specially when they’s struggling and hollering. Took me a mighty long time to peel them thighs.’