by Jen J. Danna
Matt gave a snort of laughter. “You’re welcome.”
“Which reminds me, I haven’t actually thanked you for your help in the fallout shelter. You saved my life.”
“Nah … You were already fighting him off. You can take care of yourself.”
“But I was still restrained. There were no guarantees that I would have been able to fend him off. You took him down.”
“I couldn’t see what was going on from the floor, but from what I saw later, you pretty effectively took out his right arm. He would have had a lot more trouble doing damage to you just from that single strike, and you still had a hold of that knife so the fight wasn’t over yet.” When she remained silent, he capitulated. “Okay, let’s say we did it together. And no thanks are required.”
“Deal.” Leigh opened her eyes to check her computer’s progress. “Finally.”
“Finally … what?” Matt sounded confused.
“I was waiting for my laptop to boot up. Tucker just called me. Apparently Bradford kept an online blog about his activities.”
“No way.” Suddenly Matt’s relaxed voice was full of tension. “That’s insane. What if someone read it and reported him?”
“That was my first thought too. But Tucker said that it was password-protected and no one had visited the site but Bradford because no one else knew that it was there.”
“He certainly wasn’t going to tell his partners,” Matt reasoned. “They’d have run for the hills or turned him in for sure if they thought their lives were in danger.”
“You’d think so. Well, I’ll let you go. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ve got to take a look at this site and—”
“Don’t even think about it,” Matt growled. “You think you’re going to hang up and read that blog on your own?”
“Yes, I—”
“Well, you thought wrong. Don’t cut me out now. This is my case too.”
“Did you join the force when I wasn’t looking?” she asked dryly.
“You’re funny. Look, Leigh, if that blog is the key, I want to know what’s in it.”
Leigh didn’t need to think it over for long. “You’re sure? This could be some pretty awful stuff.”
“I’m sure. Let’s do it.”
“Okay. Give me a second. I have to log in first.” She followed Tucker’s detailed instructions, navigating to the site and then using the user ID and password that he provided. “Okay, I’m there. The latest entry is a week ago Saturday.”
“The day after Tracy Kingston was kidnapped,” Matt said, “and before it all went to hell. He hasn’t had time to blog since then, I’d bet.”
“No doubt.” She started to scan through the post, then gave a sharp gasp.
“What? What’s he saying?”
Her lip curling in distaste, Leigh leaned forward to more carefully study the screen. “It’s not what he’s saying. I’m not even to that part yet. He posted photos.”
There was a moment of silence. Then, cautiously, “Photos?”
“Yes, exactly the kind of photos you’re imagining. They’re of Tracy being tortured.” She made a sound that was a mixture of anger and pity. “There are several pictures of her, restrained on the table. Some of the tools they used are clearly visible and some of the shots include John Hershey.”
“Guess you’d be able to recognize him after this past week,” Matt muttered.
“Bradford also writes about everything they did to her. Hershey is named specifically.” She swore quietly. “I think Tucker might be right. He’s putting so much detail into it so that he could come back and experience the rush again through both words and pictures.”
“That’s sick. Okay, how about we do this in logical order. What’s the oldest entry? It would make more sense to start at the beginning and work forward.”
“Hold on.” She scrolled down the page. “There’s an archive calendar here. Dates with entries are bolded. Let’s see how far back this goes …” She quickly flipped through consecutive months.
“So …” Matt pressed when she had been silent for a full thirty seconds.
“Sorry, hang on, still looking. Okay, I think this is it. He started it about three years ago. The entries are kind of spotty in places and then they come in bunches.”
“Probably clustered around the killings.” Matt’s voice was harsh. “So, going back three years, we’re looking at the ‘B1’ grave then.”
“Yes.” Leigh scanned the entry. “He’s hunting.”
“For a partner or a victim?”
“In this entry he’s discussing possible partners.” She gave a low whistle. “He wrote it.”
“Wait. Wrote what? The blog?”
“No, ‘Death Orgy.’ He wrote the game. Based on … no way …”
“What? What? Damn it, what’s the address of this site? I need to see this too.”
“You’ve got your laptop handy?”
“On my dresser. When I got home I emailed my students to update them on what was going on. It was faster than individual calls and they’re all connected all the time anyway.” Leigh heard him shift position, and then give a short hiss of pain.
“Are you okay?”
“Just moved too fast. The ache became a chorus of hammers.”
“You shouldn’t—”
“I’m fine.” Leigh couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine the stubborn set to his mouth. “Can you email me the link?” She heard a soft groan as he resettled himself, followed by the musical tones of his computer booting up.
She sighed. There was no point in fighting with him. He’d hear about it soon enough anyway and she’d like his opinion. “Tucker doesn’t want this to go out electronically. Boot up and I’ll walk you through it verbally.”
“Thanks. While I’m waiting, go back to what you were saying. The game is based on …”
“Seven years ago, I was just finishing my undergrad degree before joining the force. The department encourages postsecondary education for its officers, either before joining the force or part-time afterwards, so I got my degree before applying to the Academy. I haven’t told you about my father, but he was the sergeant for the Detective Unit until he died in the line of duty four years ago.”
“Leigh … I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible for you.”
“It was. Dad was all I had left because we lost Mom to cancer when I was just a little girl.” She cleared her throat when she heard emotion start to creep into her voice. “Anyway, back then, Dad would discuss current cases with me as teaching material because we both knew that I was heading for the Academy. One of the department cases involved a man named Ray Nesbitt who was convicted for the brutal torture and murder of his wife. Bradford writes about the Nesbitt case and the way he talks about it here, so full of admiration and envy, it’s clear this was his inspiration for ‘Death Orgy.’ ”
“He used a real-life torture scenario as a jumping off point for coding a video game? That’s horrible. Okay, I’m ready. Where’s the blog?”
Leigh took him through the steps to gain access to the site.
“I’m in,” he finally said.
“Start by checking out this blog post.” Leigh specified a date. “He’s talking about selecting his partner.”
There was a pause. Then, “Son of a bitch, do you see that?”
“What? What are you reading?”
“That same post, but I’m scanning and may be further along than you. He used his position at the Riverdale Community Health Center to pick his targets.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Leigh said. “He wouldn’t have access to patients. He worked three to eleven P.M. cleaning offices and patient rooms after hours. He wasn’t part of the medical staff.”
“He didn’t need access to patients, just their records. According to this, he had the run of the place at night and full keycard access to every office so he could rifle through the unlocked desks of the medical staff. One worker had her password on a Post-it note in her desk drawer. On
ce into her account, Bradford had access to the system that includes every mental health clinic that Massachusetts Health oversees. He reviewed patient records at his leisure and chose his partners from there. He could find exactly the type of person that he was looking for—someone who was young and immature, with a trend toward violence and anger-based tendencies.”
“And Hershey was in the system for behavior modification,” Leigh said. “That’s how Bradford cherry-picked his partners. Hershey’s file likely would have noted his love of violent gaming.”
“That’s really low—picking on the young and mentally vulnerable.”
“Look at the next entry. He’s made a list of potential targets and he’s sent them invitations to play ‘Death Orgy.’ He must have been casting the net wide and then picking the weakest of the pack.”
“Pretentious bastard. I’m skipping forward a few entries. He’s got comments on all the potentials. He’s outlining all the weak points of these kids and zeroing in on the one who will be the most easily swayed. That’s what he was doing—he wanted to see how he could take an unstable mind and twist it. He was essentially brainwashing these kids.” Matt blew out a long puff of air. “This is really pissing me off.”
“I know how you feel. It’s a mixture of anger and disgust with some pity thrown in for these kids.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for these kids. They may have been weak, but they were brutal to their victims. Mental health issues might be an explanation, but they’re not an excuse. Now the question is how did Bradford and his partners go from online gaming to real-life murder?”
Leaning back against her pillows, Leigh started scanning through entries more quickly. “He’s included a lot of information here. I’m going to have to come back to this and make detailed notes before I talk to Bradford tomorrow, but …”
Matt waited a few beats before speaking. “Got something?”
“Yes. Check out the post dated August sixth. The partner this time around was a boy named Lawrence. Not sure if that’s a first or last name. They’d just had their first face-to-face meeting.”
“So he was wooing them in the game and them meeting them in person? I mean, we knew that had to happen at some point because they kill together, but what prompted the change from virtual interactions to a real-life meeting?”
“Look at the entry. He’s mocking these boys. Says that this one, Lawrence, is mentally defective and he had to lead him along every step of the way. It sounds like he wanted the boys to think they’re coming up with the idea to kill the women on their own, and then he played the role of cheerleader by saying ‘Wow, that’s cool. We should try that together.’ ”
“He thought it gave the boys ownership in killing and made them less likely to bolt. He was stroking their egos and counting on that to keep them in the game. And they might have been flattered to have an older man interested in them. I’ll bet a lot of these boys didn’t have a dependable father figure growing up, so Bradford may have felt like he was filling that role for them.”
Suddenly chilled, Leigh leaned back against the pillows and picked up her mug to take a long sip. The brandy burned a trail down to her stomach, warming her. Her hands cradled the mug, the heat a comforting balm against her injured fingers. “You realize how smart this whole plan is though, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Because of his partner selection, victim selection had no common factor. If he was using the medical system to pick the boys, then he was likely choosing from multiple clinics all over Essex County. So there was never any localized pattern of victim disappearance.”
“Ahh …” Matt’s voice was a quiet whisper across the line. “I see what you mean. And if he was smart, he let the partners contribute to the victim selection so he was never a common denominator in either location or victim type.”
“So law enforcement never put two and two together because there was no commonality between any of the disappearances and they occurred so rarely.” Leigh set the glass down again. “It was damned smart.”
“He was a careful planner,” Matt agreed. “Right down to the location of the house. It’s isolated from the neighbors, but convenient to the river for easy transport of the bodies. It has a soundproof, hidden structure right on the property. And because Bradford owned a motorcycle and not a car, he must have picked partners that had a car to use for the kidnappings. If they were spotted, like they were at the Cummings Center, then the vehicle couldn’t be traced back to him personally.” He made an odd humming noise. “Now, look at this.”
“What?”
“Look at the entry for January twenty-third. He must have been biding his time between killings as he was grooming a new partner over the winter while the ground was frozen. He did an actual comparison between the two partners he’d had so far. So, ‘Lawrence’ is Tyler Lawrence. The other partner was Luke Simons.”
“Hold on.” Leigh quickly scrolled up to the post. “Two partners? He had a partner for the ‘A1’ grave? Then why is there only one body? I assumed he did that one solo and then picked up a partner the second time round.”
“Apparently not.” Matt let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “This is immensely cocky. He did a comparison chart, right down to a ‘lessons learned’ column.”
“Do you see how he refers to the boys? As ‘subjects’?” Leigh couldn’t keep the outrage out of her voice.
“And now we see what happened to Luke Simons. Keep scrolling down. You’ll find it.” He waited a moment for her to catch up to him. “It was never in his initial plan to kill him. But they were in the boat on their way back from burying their first victim when the kid started to mouth off about taking a second victim, this time someone that he knew. Bradford panicked. It was one thing to take an anonymous woman who had no connection to them. It was something else entirely to kill someone who could be traced back to either of them. Bradford had his gun with him just in case anyone caught them burying the body, so he shot Simons in the head and the force of the gunshot toppled his body overboard. Then he went to Simons’ apartment and broke in to steal his computer so Simons couldn’t be traced back to him. He took the TV and some other items so that it would look like a run-of-the-mill burglary.”
“I’ll check the Missing Persons database, but depending on how far out they were, there’s a good chance that the body was simply washed out to sea and never found.” Leigh suddenly stifled a huge yawn.
Matt chuckled. “Ready to call it a night?”
Leigh stared at the entry on her screen. She had hours of reading still to do, but felt completely drained. “I think so. I need to go over all of this information before talking to Bradford tomorrow, but I’m really tired.”
“You had a tough day too, you know. Give yourself a break. Go to bed now and start fresh in the morning. You did a great job today.”
“We did a great job,” she corrected. “But you’re right. It’s time to quit for the night.”
“Can you come by the lab tomorrow after your interview with Bradford and let us know how it went?”
“Yeah, I’d like that. I want to thank your students again. They were really fantastic through this whole case.”
“Yeah, they really were.” Leigh could hear the pride in Matt’s voice.
“You’re packing it in too?”
“Oh yeah. I think the only thing that is going to make this pounding go away is unconsciousness.”
“Have a good night then. Sleep well.”
“You too. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He ended the call.
Leigh stared thoughtfully at her monitor for a few seconds. Then she shut down her computer, putting the case away for the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: KILLIFISH
Killifish: Fundulus majalis; an omnivorous fish, commonly found in the salt marsh; an important food source for wading birds.
Tuesday, 3:40 P.M.
Boston University, School of Medicine
Boston, Massachusetts
Matt ended the call and laid his phone down on top of the haphazard stack of journal articles on his desk. “Leigh’s on her way up,” he told his students. “She managed to get free for a few hours to come down to let us know how her interview with Bradford went.” He reached up with one hand to rub his head carefully just below the stitches where the skin felt tight and itchy.
“How’s your head?” Kiko asked.
“The headache’s mostly gone at this point. But the skin pulls a bit.”
“You really didn’t do very well at coming through this case in one piece.” Kiko set down her sketching pencil to pin him with a level stare. “If we ever do this again, you need to try harder not to be a target.” She laughed at the shock that flashed over Matt’s expression at her suggestion. “Do you honestly think after the job we did this time Leigh wouldn’t want us to help out again if they ever needed our particular skills?”
Matt moved to one of the sets of remains, leaning over to examine one of the kerf marks in an attempt to hide his sudden wave of uncertainty. “Maybe … I don’t know. Anyway, we’ll be busy with this case for a while yet. They may have the perp essentially behind bars, but we need to build a court case and that’s going to take us weeks to complete.”
“Would you be willing to do it again?” Juka asked from his workstation.
“Willing to do what? Work another case?” At Juka’s nod, Matt shrugged. “Two weeks ago the answer would have been ‘Hell, no!’ Now … I’m not sure. It didn’t turn out at all like I expected. It wasn’t anything like the last time I worked with the police.”
At the sound of a quiet knock on the door, Matt turned away, grateful for the interruption. He opened the door to find Leigh holding a takeout tray with five coffees precariously balanced over two brown paper bags. “How are—Whoa … let me take some of that.” He reached out, easily lifting the tray of coffees from her hands.
Paul’s head shot up. “Do I smell coffee?”
Matt laughed at Leigh’s startled expression. “It’s his special talent—Paul can smell coffee from miles away.”
“I hit the bakery around the corner on my way here and got coffee and cookies for my team,” Leigh explained, her smile including the whole group.
