by Jen J. Danna
“Put your hormones in neutral and focus, Tucker. Although … I do want to know if he was into porn, and if so, what kinds. An acceptance or an approval of degrading women may play into how he acted out his fantasies and how these women were killed. But first, gaming …”
“Gotcha.” Tucker opened Hershey’s default browser and started searching through his bookmarks and history, keeping up a running monologue as he did. “Here we go … Okay, we’re into the gaming right from his homepage. This is one of those social network sites that compiles lists of games for easy searching. Your game is listed here near the top. It rates very high in popularity in the online gaming community, but it carries the top age appropriateness rating—AO or Adults Only. AO games contain extremely graphic depictions of sex, violence, or worse, sexual violence.”
Leigh stomach clenched at the thought. “They portray rape in these games?”
“Nothing is sacred. If it sells, someone will code it. There’s some pretty horrible stuff out there, some even based on real life. Programmers will take their inspiration for new ideas where they can find it.” He reorganized the history in order of sites visited, scrolled down the list for several seconds, and then stopped, sitting back in the chair. “And there’s your proof. He not only played that game, he played it a lot. I’ll bet he felt secure enough that he wasn’t going to be caught to have the browser save his log-in information. Care to log in and see what the game’s all about?”
Leigh’s eyes went cold. “Show me.”
“You’re sure? This is probably going to be pretty nasty stuff.”
“I need to know what interested the man who would do this to these women. There may be some relation between what’s portrayed in these games and what was done in real life. Maybe this was how he honed his skills. Maybe this was where he got his ideas. Maybe this was where his aggression was stoked to the extent that he had to take it out on living, breathing women. Maybe it was none of those things, but I have to know what he knew, and see what he saw.” She squared her shoulders, preparing to face the worst. “Show me,” she repeated.
Then, bracing her hand on the desk, she leaned over his shoulder and let him take her into hell.
Sunday, 3:24 P.M.
Hershey residence
Middleton, Massachusetts
Stepping out into bright afternoon sunlight, Leigh took a deep breath of fresh air. After the darkness and the rancid odors in the house, the outside air was fresh and crisp with the scent of the last of summer’s flowers and the earthy smell of oncoming fall.
Two children rode by on bicycles, shouting to each other. One of them rang the bell on her handlebar as she coasted past, smiling and laughing. It was a picture of life proceeding as it should, innocence and youth distanced from the horrific world of murder and cruelty just feet from where they played.
She and Tucker had entered into the hellish world of multi-player gaming, ill-prepared for the brutality of what they would see. “Torture porn” was certainly a good name for it. Violent torture, brutal death, and an overt and careless disdain for women, children, animals, and the sacredness of life. Nothing but blood, pain, despair, and the glorying joy of those who enjoyed death.
They had only been in the game for a few minutes, when other players started to talk to them, using Hershey’s screen name.
Thanatos, where you been? It’s been days since you were here.
We’ve been challenged to a match by Team Scourge next Wednesday. We need to grind them into the ground. They don’t stand a chance against us.
Where is Orcus? Has he contacted you? He missed the last game too.
They stayed in the realm of the game for just over half an hour, but in that time they had seen more than enough. Finally, blessedly, Tucker had exited the game and shut down the computer.
He said he would be able to trace the IP addresses of the other players, both those online today and the missing Orcus. There were no more complaints about missed football games. Leigh knew she had his attention now, and he would get the information to her as fast as humanly possible. Even if that meant dragging in the staff of Internet service providers on a Sunday and serving them with warrants to gain access to their records.
Tucker had left with the computer only minutes before, muttering under his breath about the depths sick minds could sink to.
Leigh understood what he was feeling. The concept that human beings could derive enjoyment and pleasure from such a pastime was beyond her understanding.
She wanted to talk to Matt and his students, to move forward with all the possibilities their investigation could produce. To close this case.
She re-engaged the secondary police lock on the porch door and walked quickly toward her car. Away from death and toward hope. Toward the answers that might identify those who existed now only as skeletons, ravaged by wind, weather, and scavengers. Toward the men and the woman who had taken on her cause as their own.
Toward Boston.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: PRODUCTIVE NATURAL SYSTEMS
Productive Natural Systems: the salt marsh is one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth; it produces more food per acre than the average Midwestern farmland.
Sunday, 4:16 P.M.
Boston University, School of Medicine
Boston, Massachusetts
“How did it go?” Matt asked.
“We found all the connections we could want to Hershey’s life inside ‘Death Orgy,’ ” Leigh answered as she strode into the lab. “Tucker took us into the game and it was …” Her mouth tightened as she searched for the correct word. “… enlightening.”
Matt caught her arm when she would have kept walking. “It upset you.”
“It certainly disturbed and disgusted me. The thought that other human beings play realistic games like this for sport makes me lose a little faith in the purity of the human spirit.”
“It was that bad?”
“It was an absolute horror. Chainsaw beheadings, crushed skulls, disembowelments, burning victims alive, complete with screams of agony in full surround sound …” She shook her head as if to clear it. “I just can’t wrap my mind around it. This wasn’t going after ‘Dawn of the Dead’ zombies or alien creatures—something that’s clearly not based in reality. This was killing innocent human beings in the most realistic and violent ways possible for fun.”
“Can you ever wrap your head around violent death like that?”
“Actually, some of it I can. Some of it I have to. It’s all part of understanding who I’m looking for. I understand some murders, even if I can’t condone them for any reason. As a person, you understand the concept of killing for money or love or out of revenge even if you don’t agree with it. But this …”
Matt’s lips formed a grim line. “This is simply causing pain for the joy of seeing someone else suffer.”
“Maybe I’m blowing this way out of proportion.” Leigh pushed her hands into the pockets of her blazer, hunching her shoulders defensively. “I know no one actually dies in the game. It’s a virtual world, and yet what kind of person could take pleasure in that? I came out of it feeling … dirty.”
“I’m no psychologist, but to me it says something about the kind of people who’d get involved in that kind of gaming”
“I’m no expert either, but I agree.” She glanced over at the remains, spread over the tables in the lab. “It really makes me want to kick some serious ass in this case. Tucker felt the same way. He hauled away all the equipment with promises of finding out the IP addresses of the other players in the game.”
“Can he do that?”
“He says he can. An interesting thing though—when we were in the game, other players from the team started talking to us. Hershey was apparently someone called ‘Thanatos’ and the other players were asking where ‘Orcus’ was, because they had both been missing in action for some unknown period of time. Orcus might be our missing suspect.”
“Thanatos and Orcus?”
“Yes. Those
names aren’t familiar to me.” The expression on Matt’s face made her pause. “Are they to you?”
“Sure. Thanatos is from Greek mythology. He was the supernatural personification of Death. He was a daemon, a being somewhere between the frailty of man and the omnipotence of the gods. Orcus is from Roman mythology. He’s the god of the Roman underworld and was known to torment souls in the afterlife. He’s also the punisher of broken oaths.”
Leigh stared at him incredulously. “How could you possibly know all that?”
“My mother loved literature and cultural mythology and shared that with me. See—I told you’d I’d come in handy.”
She shrugged. “I’m not going to look that gift horse in the mouth. So, they both had names that personified those who ruled over death or represented it in the game. Lovely.”
“Not so much.” He gave her arm a tug, leading her toward the gurneys and the remains they held. “Let me give you an overview. Want to take notes?”
Leigh pulled her notepad and pen from her blazer pocket and waved them at him. “Yes. I know the formal report is coming, but this helps me keep it in my head.”
“Good enough for me. Guys, just leave that for now so Leigh can see everything.”
They waited patiently as the students laid down the bones they were examining and stepped back from the table.
“We have the remains laid out in pairs as found in two of the three double graves.” Matt moved over to his desk and picked up a photo and his notebook before returning to hand the photo to Leigh. It showed the clearing on the island in the salt marsh on the Essex coast, just as Leigh remembered it, but this photo had grave markers written on it in black ink. Matt pointed to the furthest table to the left, sitting slightly apart from the others. “We set up a labeling system to keep things straightforward in court. We’re calling the burial sites ‘A’ and ‘B.’ ‘A’ was the first site we found, the one we excavated last Tuesday.” He walked to the foot of the gurney. “This is ‘A1-1,’ the single set of remains that was found there, the bones that didn’t match the beaver dam radius.”
“Site ‘B’ then is the mass grave site?”
“Yes.” Matt moved to the next pair of gurneys. “The photo you’re holding shows the grave designations: ‘B1,’ ‘B2,’ and ‘B3.’ The remains closest to the surface are labeled as ‘-1’; the lower remains are designated ‘-2.’ ”
“Sounds straightforward.”
“I know you wanted time since death, but we took the time to run the basics on these remains because this information is also crucial for victim identification. As you recall, I told you the ‘A1’ remains were that of a woman between forty and forty-five years of age. Now, we have some consistencies within the ‘B’ graves, but we also have some inconsistencies.”
“Such as?”
“Do you want the long explanation or the short and to the point explanation?”
“You know I’m going to want the long explanation, but I have a feeling there’s so much information I might get lost. Maybe we can circle back?”
“Sure. Okay, short and to the point. Ask questions as they come to you.” He opened his notebook for reference. “In each of the ‘B’ graves were two sets of remains. In each of those graves, one set of remains is female and one set is male. With the exception of ‘B2-2’ who was African American, all the victims were North American white.”
“What about sex?”
“ ‘A1-1,’ ‘B1-2,’ ‘B2-1,’ and ‘B3-2’ were female. ‘B1-1,’ ‘B22,’ and ‘B3-1’ were male.” He caught her eye. “By the way, we know now that the radius found in the beaver dam that started this whole case matches the ‘B1-1’ remains.” He glanced back at his notes. “The approximate ages of the female victims in the graves were quite varied, even with the estimate range figured in: ‘B1-2’ was twenty to twenty-seven years of age and ‘B2-1’ was forty-five to fifty years of age. ‘B3-2’ is still unknown, but we’ll hopefully be looking at her tomorrow. But from a rough estimate of the bone structure that I could see—the visible cranial sutures, for example—I’d place her at older than thirty-five years of age.”
“Damn,” Leigh murmured under her breath. “That makes MO kind of hard to work out. No consistent pattern.”
“We do have one consistency within the females from both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ graves and Tracy Kingston.”
“The signature,” Leigh breathed.
“Yes. We were very careful to examine the ribs of all of the victims, especially the first to fourth ribs on the left side. Of special note is the fact that only the female victims bore this mark. To confirm the pattern we were looking for, Kiko took pictures of the anterior surface of the ribs and arranged them in anatomical order, compensating for physiological spacing.”
Leigh’s gaze shot to Kiko. “And?”
“All four of the women carried the ‘Death’ mark in the same approximate location. Some of the kerf marks were clearer than others, indicating the force used in carving them, but each defect was carved using the same smooth, single-edged blade.”
“Excellent. That speaks to an organized and consistent method of death, even if victim selection was inconsistent.”
“Victim selection for the male remains was a more consistent process,” Matt said. “We noted at the site that one victim in each grave had a gunshot wound to the head; each of those victims was male.”
Leigh’s eyes narrowed speculatively at that information.
“By the way, we found a hollow point bullet in each of those two skulls. You can take those back with you for ballistics.”
“Thanks. Any other consistencies with the males?”
“Yeah. Each of the victims was between fifteen and twenty-five years of age, although, honestly, I’d put them toward the lower end of that range.”
Surprise lit Leigh’s eyes. “That young?”
“Yes. Juka and Paul did a lot of this work, but I double checked their results and I’m one hundred percent in agreement with their analysis.”
“That’s going to narrow down the search parameters nicely.” She met Matt’s gaze, and his eyebrow cocked, almost in challenge. “Where are we on time since death?”
Matt smirked. “I knew that would be your next question.”
“Then apparently I’m getting too predictable and need to start changing things up.”
A strangled laugh escaped him. “No, that’s okay. This whole case has us on our toes enough. I have some timeline estimates for you.”
“You do? I didn’t actually think you’d have anything this fast.”
“I do.” When his eyes met hers, there was no irritation or anger. “I can give you an initial range now, as long as you understand that given more time I can give you a more exact window.”
“I’ll take it.” Leigh spoke so quickly she nearly cut him off, making his lips twitch in response.
“If you remember, I estimated the most recent set of remains at fourteen to sixteen months old, taking us back as far as late spring or early summer of last year,” Matt stated. “Now the other two ‘B’ graves are both older burials than that. Over the last day, we’ve tried to move as quickly as we could to get you anything that would help narrow the range. We’ve done some macroscopic and microscopic testing and I’ve got some preliminary findings.”
Leigh crooked her fingers in a “give it to me” gesture.
“I’d estimate that ‘B1’ is thirty-six to forty-eight months old and that ‘B2’ is eighteen to twenty-four months old, but I’m leaning closer to twenty-four than eighteen. The ‘A1’ grave I’d estimate at five years, give or take six months on either side. I can do better than—”
“Wait.”
Matt stiffened at her tone, his expression wary. “What?”
“You said eighteen to twenty-four months?”
Matt closed the notebook with a soft snap. “For ‘B2,’ yes. I have somewhat more confidence in that estimate because …” His voice trailed off as her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?�
��
“Do you remember I said that John Hershey was convicted of a B&E? Well, he did one year in the Connelly Youth Detention Center in Roslindale. Matt, he was essentially behind bars during the killing of the two victims in ‘B2.’ It’s a youth detention center, but those kids are locked down. He didn’t get out at any time or it would be in his record.”
“But then he couldn’t have participated in the killings,” Paul stated. He glanced from Leigh to Matt and back again. “Are you suggesting that up until this killing the other suspect worked alone?”
“That’s hard to believe,” Leigh said. “Killers don’t usually change up their MO that much. There can be subtle differences or escalation, but taking on a partner in crime at that point would be very unusual.” She looked over to find Matt standing motionless by the gurney. “The pairs in the graves … does the method of death seem consistent?”
“Across the ‘B’ graves, yes. Extensive trauma for the female victims. Single gunshot to the head for the males.”
“What about the ‘A1’ grave?”
“Similar trauma to the skeletal structure as the ‘B’ female victims. And if we recall the interment we interrupted at the ‘C’ burial site, we have another woman who died of traumatic injuries.”
Paul pulled out a rolling lab chair to straddle it backwards, resting his arms along the top of the seat back. “So isn’t the question really what are the differences between the graves? ‘A1,’ the oldest grave, is a single burial. Then we’re roughly looking at one new grave a year, and all of those are double burials. Then this year’s burial is a single victim again.”
“So he murders once a year? Like it’s some kind of annual ritual?” suggested Kiko.
“Why does it necessarily have to be something so formalized?” asked Juka. “Perhaps he picks his time to kill based on something as practical as knowing when the ground is soft enough to bury a body. He doesn’t kill during the winter because then he would have to find a location to store the body.”
