The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset

by Ethan Cross

  A body contained all manner of things that were normally never cooked. Livestock were bled and butchered, their organs and blood removed. But that hadn’t been the case with Jessie Olague. Her iron-rich blood added a metallic component to the smell. The keratin in her hair contained large amounts of cysteine, a sulfur-containing amino acid, adding its distinctive odor. Burning skin created a charcoal-like stink. When exposed to flame, cerebrospinal fluid generated a musky, sweet perfume.

  The mixture of conflicting fragrant and putrid aromas wasn’t something that he would ever forget. And he knew from experience that it would cling to the inside of his nostrils for days.

  “My God,” Vasques said at his side, covering her mouth and looking away from the body. “How could someone do that to another human being?”

  Marcus didn’t answer. He understood the darkness inside necessary to take life in such a way, but it wasn’t something that could easily be explained or comprehended, even by those who had felt its power. Instead, in almost a whisper, he said, “What have you found out about the symbols?”

  “Not much. We’ve contacted some experts, but as far we can tell it’s a mixture of satanic symbology and gibberish.” Vasques referred to her notebook, flipping through several pages, but she had to pause for a moment and cover her nose. She looked pale, and Marcus wondered if she was going to be sick. He should have warned her about the smell. One of the techs or cops might have had some Vicks ointment that she could have rubbed on the skin beneath her nose.

  But, after a brief hesitation, she found the information and said, “The characters appear to be a mixture of Cypriot, a language used on the island of Cyprus from 1500 BCE to 300 BCE, and Glagolitic, used in Eastern Europe between the ninth and twelfth centuries CE.”

  He shook his head and breathed out harshly in frustration. What could possibly be the correlation between the murders and these strange symbols and writings? It was the only part of the crime scenes that didn’t make sense to him. This killer was smart and organized. Why use random symbols and strange scripts that didn’t have any meaning or connection? He wondered if the killer believed that the symbols had been given to him from some supernatural source.

  “The accelerant?” Andrew said.

  “Same as the others. Aliphatic petroleum solvent, commonly known as lighter fluid. Available at nearly any hardware, department, or grocery store.”

  Marcus squeezed his eyes shut. His head pounded and throbbed as though someone had buried a hatchet deep into the center of his brain. The migraines again. He needed painkillers and caffeine, and all he’d eaten that day was a Twinkie first thing in the morning.

  Entering the den through another door, Belacourt and Stupak approached them. Belacourt shot him a look of distaste and said, “Now that you’ve seen his handiwork, big shot, you still think this guy’s not a psychopath?”

  Marcus groaned. He didn’t like where this was heading, and there was something about Belacourt’s voice and derisive tone that made his head pound even harder. “Psychopathy is a personality disorder. One which he doesn’t have. If I thought you could read, I’d direct you to some books on the subject.”

  Belacourt laughed, but there was only anger in his eyes. “You think you’re so slick, don’t you? So much better and smarter than all of us simple-minded detectives. I’m going to save us all some time and energy and just be straight with you. We don’t need you here. We don’t want you here. If this guy sticks to his pattern, he’s going to take another girl tonight, and I need Agent Vasques, someone who actually knows what she’s doing, in the trenches working this case. Not babysitting you.”

  Vasques spoke up and said, “That’s way out of line. Agent Williams has—”

  “Has contributed nothing to this investigation. He used an old trick to get a useless piece of info out of a witness. What did that accomplish other than wasting our time and resources?”

  Belacourt stepped close and poked a finger into Marcus’s chest. Even through the smell of the dead body he could detect the stink of cigarettes and onions on the cop’s breath. “I’ll tell you something else. That fiasco today with you chasing after some guy that you claim was Francis Ackerman and shooting your gun all over the place, that kind of loose-cannon act is not going to fly in my town. I don’t know who you are or what you’re really into, but I am going to find out. What I do know, just from what I’ve seen and heard since this morning, is that you think you’re some kind of investigative genius. But you’re not. You’re just some stupid kid that a bureaucrat back east gave a badge to. You’re probably somebody’s nephew who wanted to play cops and robbers so they made up a position to stick you in.”

  Vasques started to come to his defense, but Marcus raised a hand to stop her. He preferred to fight his own battles. He glanced down at the finger stabbing into his chest and then met Belacourt’s eyes. “I have a lot of respect for cops. I’m third-generation myself. So out of consideration for that badge on your belt, I’m going to give you one warning. If you ever jab one of those fat sausages that you call fingers into my chest again, I will break it off and use my investigative genius to find a place to stick it.”

  Belacourt’s lip twitched in a snarl of contempt, and he looked as if he was ready to throw a punch. Marcus hoped that he would.

  Stupak put a hand on his superior’s shoulder and said, “Come on. Just let it go. Let’s worry about catching this guy.”

  Belacourt’s gaze drilled into Marcus. Through gritted teeth, the cop said, “Get out of my crime scene, boy, before I take off my belt and give you a spanking.”

  Marcus smiled. “I don’t know how it works around here, but where I’m from you have to buy a guy dinner first before you start trying the kinky stuff.”

  Belacourt just shook his head slowly from side to side. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. You’re not worth another second.” Then the cop turned and stormed from the room.

  Vasques said, “You’re not good at making friends, are you?”

  With a little chuckle, Andrew added, “Thank you. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him.”

  40

  Schofield stared out across the crowd assembled inside the Tinley Park middle-school gymnasium. The happy smiling faces etched with joy. The normal people. Children laughed. A dark-haired grandmother bounced an infant on her knee. The parents of one of the players jumped in the air after their son hit the second of two free throws. Such simple pleasures, yet they eluded him. None of them understood how lucky they were to have been given the gift of happiness.

  His son Ben sat on the end of the bench, rubbing his shoe against the red gym floor and staring at it intently. Concern overwhelmed Schofield’s thoughts. Something was wrong with the boy. There had been a change in him. Two years ago he had been a star player, but now he seemed so distracted. A good father would be able to get to the bottom of it and help the boy overcome whatever it was that distressed him. The dark cloud pushed down harder against Schofield as he thought of how many ways he had failed the people he loved. He felt the black hand of sadness pushing him down, crushing him, bleeding him dry.

  “Harrison? Are you okay?”

  He looked at his wife and put on his best smile of reassurance. He felt so lucky to have her. During college, he had sat in the back of all his classes and avoided the other students like the plague. But their math teacher had asked him to tutor Eleanor and, much to his surprise, she had actually shown an interest in him. And it wasn’t even that she chose to overlook his many flaws. She saw them and accepted them. He loved her for that.

  “I’m fine. But, Eleanor, you know how much I love you, right?”

  She gave him a strange look, her eyebrows arching and her neck cocking to the side. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not dying or anything?”

  He laughed, but it was all for show. “Can’t a man just tell his wife how much she means to him without any ulterior motive?”

  “I guess so,” she said, but there wasn’t much confidence beh
ind the words. “I love you, too. But you can talk to me if anything’s ever bothering you.”

  “I know, but I’m fine. Really. You know how I am about crowds and people. It just makes me uncomfortable. But speaking of things bothering people, do you know what’s going on with Ben? Is he having problems at school?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope he’s just going through a phase, but he won’t talk to me about it. He’s his father’s son,” she said, with a sideways glance.

  Schofield ignored the jibe and continued absently to watch the kids of his son’s team run up and down the court. Back and forth, back and forth. Going through the motions.

  But then, across the glistening floor of the gymnasium, sitting two rows up in the opposite team’s bleachers, he saw her. Melissa Lighthaus—the woman he had chosen to be the next sacrifice. But why was she there? He knew everything about this woman from the brand of shampoo she used to the last thing she did every night before she crawled into bed. She had no children. She had a sister with two kids, but they lived in Arkansas. There was no reason for her to be there.

  He felt his chest tightening as if the world was closing in on him. Yellow spots dripped across his vision, and he felt dizzy and nauseous.

  She shouldn’t be there. It didn’t make sense. The variables didn’t add up.

  He couldn’t breathe. He felt like someone was holding him underwater.

  Growing cold, drowning, his arms flailing, the blood-red water.

  He was no longer in the gym. A memory from his childhood had fought its way to the surface of his mind.

  It was an unusually cold day in August. He remembered because he’d only had shorts and a T-shirt to wear. They were staying in a hotel room with an orange bedspread. He remembered that, but he couldn’t remember his age. Memories were funny that way. His mother had called him into the bathroom with her. She lay naked in the tub, her hair flowing around her. She had sung a quiet lullaby to him or maybe to herself. Then she slit her wrists. He watched her do this and cringed away from the tub. Tears ran down his cheeks, but he didn’t truly understand the depth of what she was attempting.

  She had waited a moment for the blood to leak from her body and then called him closer. He leaned over the edge of the tub, and she grabbed him and held him against her chest under the water. He kicked and fought, but her grip and her resolve were like iron. The water streamed through his eyes and mouth, his mother’s blood flowing down his throat and filling his lungs, a metallic taste on his tongue. He remembered thrashing as he tried to push away and the softness of her skin beneath his fingers. He remembered her arms hugging him tightly around the chest. The warmth of the water covered him like a blanket, encasing him in a comforting cocoon, changing him, preparing him for the next world. Then things became blurry, but he remembered a distinct feeling of peace. This was what he had always wanted, for his mother to hold him and make him feel safe and loved. And in that moment, he somehow knew that she did love him, and she was trying to protect him. But then the Prophet had heard the noise and had burst into the bathroom, saving them both from the brink of death.

  Now back in the gym, years later, he wished that his mother had succeeded on that cold day in August.

  “I need some air,” Schofield said as he stumbled down the steps of the bleachers. He pushed his way through the door of the gym and found the bathroom. He threw up in the sink and then stared at his reflection in the mirror. He saw the demon inside staring back at him. If the Prophet was right and he truly was the son of Satan, the harbinger of the apocalypse, then he needed to be stopped. His children deserved to be free of him. His wife and kids were all that mattered, and there wouldn’t be room for them in the Prophet’s new world.

  As if in a daze, he made his way through the belly of the school building. The halls were empty and lit only by ambient light. The stuttering rhythm of his footfalls smacked against the tiles. The whole place reeked of pine-scented cleaning chemicals. Before he realized that he had a destination, he had searched and found access to the building’s roof.

  Schofield made his way across the blacktop surface, past vents and heating and cooling units spewing exhaust, to the building’s edge. The wind ruffled his hair. The air was freezing. The snow-shrouded ground called to him, ready to embrace him like his mother had on that cold day from his memories. He stepped up onto the raised lip of the roof. His arms stretched out at his sides, and one leg dangled over the edge. All he needed to do was take one step. One step, and the nightmare would be over. The demon would be dead, and the world would be a brighter place.

  But what if the fall didn’t kill him? How would he explain what had happened? There was no way for it to have been an accident.

  As he considered this, he realized that it didn’t really matter. Either way, the fall would stop the final ritual. The world would continue on even after the darkest night. It would stop him from hurting anyone else. One step and the Prophet’s plans would be vanquished.

  His thoughts turned to the Prophet, the rituals, the darkest night. Something didn’t add up. How had he not seen it before? Did he really follow the Prophet that blindly?

  The darkest night was three days away, but that evening he had planned to secure the first of the five sacrifices needed for the final ritual. Did the Prophet plan for him to take more than one girl a night? If so, the old man hadn’t shared his plans, and Schofield wasn’t prepared.

  Then, suddenly, things became clear.

  A terrible thought struck him and burned through his heart with the ferocity of a thousand suns. He stepped back from the edge and fell to his knees. His arms wrapped around his chest, and he rocked back and forth. His body trembled with fear and shame.

  He suspected he knew where the Prophet planned to acquire the final three sacrifices. And it changed everything.

  Day Four – December 18 Evening

  41

  Maggie pulled her luggage from the trunk of the bright green taxicab and paid the driver. It had been a long day. Her flight had been delayed, and her rental car had blown a tire on the way to the hotel. She had spent an hour waiting for the rental company to get her a cab. The representative had claimed that they would deliver her a new car directly to the hotel, but she suspected that wouldn’t get done without another hour on the phone. And now she would have to face Marcus.

  He would be furious that she had disobeyed his orders, but she didn’t care. She was going to assist on this case whether he wanted her help or not. She checked in at the front desk. The lobby was jammed with people and there was a long wait for assistance. Luckily, she had Stan in her corner, and he had already booked her a room just down the hall from Marcus and Andrew.

  She made her way upstairs, dropped off her luggage, and then knocked on Marcus’s door. After a short wait, Andrew answered. The top two buttons of his starched white shirt were undone, and his black tie hung loosely around his neck. He held a slice of pizza in his left hand. Judging from the lack of the typical warm pizza aroma, it was a leftover from a previous meal.

  “Maggie?” he said, an expression of genuine surprise on his face.

  She raised her eyebrows. “You going to invite me in?”

  “Umm, yeah. Come on in.”

  Maggie entered the outer room of the suite and looked at the display board showing all the evidence that they had gathered so far. The board was truly a marvel. She definitely didn’t miss Allen’s old corkboard, but she did miss his calm and thoughtful leadership.

  “What are you doing here, Mags?” Andrew said.

  She took a deep breath and ignored the question. “How are things going with the case?”

  He sighed. “I actually just got off talking with Stan. He’s dug up a couple new leads for us to follow.”

  “Good. Then what are we waiting for? Where’s Marcus?”

  Andrew’s gaze darted around the room as if he was searching for something. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Then, after another pause, he finally replied, “
He’s having dinner down in the hotel restaurant with an FBI agent who’s also consulting on the case.”

  Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you acting so funny?”

  He shrugged his shoulders almost as high as his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay. I think I’ll join them.”

  “Well, umm, I—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m just sure he’ll be thrilled to see you.”

  42

  Vasques took a sip of her wine and tried to stretch some of the tension from her shoulders. The day had been a roller coaster, and she needed a moment to unwind. She stared across the table at the man examining a cream and purple menu. His beautiful strangely colored eyes scanned each item, but she also noticed those same eyes gazing swiftly around the room, scanning the scene in micro-glances, taking it all in. He had rolled the sleeves of his gray silk shirt up to his elbows, exposing the tightly wrapped cords of muscle on his forearms. He must work out, Vasques thought, and she wondered if the rest of his body looked as good.

  It was strange how she had started her day passionately hating this man and ready to run him out of town, and now she was ready to …

  Easy, girl. One step at a time.

  The waiter took their orders and filled their glasses. The place wasn’t exactly five-star, but it was nice and quiet, a good place to enjoy a late dinner and go over the particulars of the case or whatever else might come up. Marcus leaned against the back of the booth and casually rested his right arm along the top of his seat. “So why the FBI?”

  “It seemed like the place where I could make the biggest impact, do the most good. Why the DOJ? It seems like you’d be a good candidate for the BAU. I didn’t even know there was a unit at Justice investigating serial murder.”