I took the damp cloth and cleaned the bloody backside of the face. I looked outside the window and saw the long shadows across the yard. It had taken me all day to do the deed. I looked out the window again to see if there was anyone around. There was no one, so I took the face outside and breathed in deep gulps of cool air.
I held the face up to the sky and the sunlight shown through the thin skin.
“Put it on,” the voice said.
I pressed the skin against my own face and looked through the holes where her eyes used to be. The flesh was still wet against mine. I felt like I could feel her blood still course through the veins of the skin. I calmed my mind and tried to search for her thoughts. Could I hear them? Could I feel what she felt? Was she a person of the light or did she dwell in the darkness like I did?
“Will he talk to me?” I asked.
“You must wait,” the voice said.
“How long?”
“You must be patient. I have waited a millennium to hear his voice again.”
“But I can’t wait that long. I don’t have that long.”
“Then get us more faces. Make him listen to you.”
I turned and walked back to the house. Then I saw my reflection in the glass in the window. The skin had started to sag and pull away from my own face. I looked like a monster. This woman wasn’t of the light. I could see that now. I would have to kill again.
CHAPTER 21
A Creature Like Me
Present Day.
Marcus entered the hospital room. The shades were open and bright morning sunlight streamed into the room. Father Moore was awake in bed. His forearms were wrapped in tight bandages. His face was slashed with long cuts that crisscrossed his cheeks, chin, and nose.
Marcus stopped several feet from the bed after seeing the damage to the priest’s face. Father Moore looked at him and saw the pity in his eyes.
“They won’t give me a mirror,” Father Moore said. “But judging by your reaction, I don’t want to see one.”
Marcus walked up to the side of the bed. He did his best not to look dismayed.
“I spoke to the doctor. He said you’re going to be all right.”
Marcus immediately regretted what he said. How could Moore be all right after what had been done to him? The cuts would heal. The scars would fade somewhat. But the man would never be right in the head.
Father Moore turned from him and stared out the window. The room was on the top floor of the hospital, so he couldn’t see the ground outside. But he could make out the bare limbs of a nearby tree. The winter wind blew hard, and the limbs stretched towards the windowpane. At least the sky wasn’t gray anymore. It was good to finally see blue.
“I’m sorry for getting you involved.” Marcus said.
“How did you get me involved?”
“He’s targeting people I know.”
“The women too?”
Marcus nodded. He had finally admitted the truth. But he didn’t feel a sense of relief. He only felt shame and regret.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Father Moore said.
Marcus hesitated. He didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t let the chance to learn something valuable pass.
“Did you see his face?” he asked.
Father Moore closed his eyes, but Marcus couldn’t tell whether he was visualizing the scene or trying to forget.
After almost a minute of silence, Father Moore opened his eyes and turned to Marcus.
“It was deformed, like he had been burned.”
“Was he taller or shorter than you?”
“Taller. By a few inches.”
Tears began to form in Father Moore’s eyes.
“I prayed you would catch him last night. I prayed you would kill him. How could I wish for another man’s death?”
“It’s only natural after how he hurt you.”
Moore closed his eyes again. Marcus didn’t know if this was the priest’s way of asking him to leave. Then Father Moore opened his eyes and looked right at Marcus.
“He said he had a message for you.”
He waited for Marcus to show some reaction. But there was none.
“He said, ‘Why would God make a creature like me?’”
Marcus looked past Father Moore to the window. The killer was somewhere out there. It couldn’t be Bob Ingalls who attacked the priest. He was a small man, and Father Moore clearly remembered his attacker being taller than him. But was Ingalls working with the killer? Or was the killer following Ingalls and choosing his victims based on the girls Ingalls hired for his videos? Maybe he picked women who had been with Marcus and also in Bob’s home productions.
“There’s something else,” Father Moore said.
Marcus looked down at the priest.
“He did this to me.”
Father Moore lifted his shirt. There were several deep lines cut across the soft skin. They were the letters MAI.
Marcus walked outside the hospital. He was tired. He had lost an entire night of sleep after Ingalls was arrested. Then he had driven directly to the hospital. He thought about going home to sleep for an hour or two but he suspected he might even feel worse after that. Besides, he wanted to get back to the station and see if they had made any more progress with Bob Ingalls.
Then Marcus thought of Professor Hutchins. He wondered if the professor had made any headway with the translation. He told Marcus it would take him a few weeks to translate the journal, but maybe there was some valuable information in the first pages.
Marcus dug into his wallet and removed a slip of paper with the professor’s phone number. He dialed the number and after several rings the professor’s voicemail picked up. Marcus left a short message, than he ended the call.
He turned and looked back at the hospital. How long would Father Moore have to stay there? Could he go back to his work in the church, or would his congregation be frightened of him? Maybe some would think of him as a monster now. The man’s life would never be the same.
His cell phone rang.
Marcus reached into his coat pocket and removed his phone. He hoped it was Professor Hutchins calling him back already, but it was Angela.
“Hello.”
“A call came in this morning. A faceless woman was found in a local junk yard.”
CHAPTER 22
Unbearable Grief
The junkyard was a massive graveyard of dead cars, trucks, and huge blocks of crushed, tightly packed metal. A large chain-link fence surrounded the entire property. Marcus and Angela were grateful for it because it was doing a good job of keeping the media out. It was probably some jackass who worked at the junkyard who had called a local TV station. Now they were all here, swarming all over the place, begging for a look at the dead, butchered woman.
They drove past the media vans and entered the property. They had no trouble finding the crime scene. Several police officers and forensics investigators could be seen in the back. Marcus and Angela exited the car and walked towards the mass of forensics investigators. Marcus wondered how in the world they expected to find anything in a place like this.
They slowed to let a forklift carrying a smashed car pass by them.
Angela walked up to a young officer blocking the access to the crime scene.
“Why isn’t this place shut down?” Angela asked, pointing to the forklift driver. “A damn murder scene and this asshole is moving shit around.”
“Yes, mamm,” the young officer said, running off to stop the driver.
Angela shook her head in disbelief as they made their way through the tall rows of stacked metal shapes. Marcus looked up at the dozens of cars towering above them, praying they wouldn’t come tumbling down. He then looked past the cars and gazed at the sky beyond. It had gotten even clearer since his trip to visit Father Moore. The temperature was still low, but the sun on his face felt good, and for the first time in weeks he wasn’t freezing.
“Hell of a place to leave her,” Angela said.
Sh
e looked at Marcus, expecting a response. But he wasn’t even paying attention. He was looking up at the sky.
“Marcus.”
He turned to her.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Yeah, just noticing how blue the sky is today.”
They cleared the last pile of crushed debris and saw the group of police officers and forensics investigators. They all surrounded a junked car that sat in a small clearing.
Sergeant Ramsey was there as well. He was talking to the medical examiner, Dr. Greene.
A group of the police officers nodded to Marcus and Angela and stepped out of the way, giving them a view of the naked body. She was lying face down on the rusty and jagged hood of the car. The victim had a dead snake wrapped around her neck. The letters MAI were carved into her back. Her head was turned towards them, and they could see the skin had been removed.
Sergeant Ramsey broke off his conversation with Dr. Greene and approached them.
“Doc says she’s been dead less than eight hours,” Sergeant Ramsey said.
More evidence Bob Ingalls wasn’t their man, Marcus thought.
“Does the yard have security cameras?” Angela asked.
“There’s only one camera and the owner told me it hasn’t been working for several months.”
Marcus walked away from the conversation and approached Dr. Greene, who had gone back to examining the victim. He stood beside her and looked down at the bloody MAI letters in the flesh of the victim’s back. Dr. Greene turned to Marcus.
“This is one sick bastard,” she said.
Marcus leaned over and looked at the snake wrapped around the neck.
“Cause of death is the same, I assume.”
“Won’t know for sure till I do the autopsy. But I found a bite mark on her upper arm.”
“If there’s a God, this guy’s got a serious judgment heading his way. Have you had a chance to search the snake for any incisions?”
“No, not yet. He may not have left one. He didn’t with Carrie Dempsey.”
Marcus thought of the victim hanging on the wall of Father Moore’s bedroom. She had a snake around her neck like the others. He felt certain there would be another hidden message inside the body of the snake, but there hadn’t been. Why? MAI seemed to want to communicate with them now. So why stop as suddenly as he had started? Marcus heard someone gasp behind him. He turned and saw Angela’s face turn white before his eyes. She took a step backwards.
“Angela, what’s wrong?” he asked.
But she couldn’t answer him. Despite all her strength, she began to cry. Then she lifted her arm and pointed to the victim.
At first, Marcus didn’t understand. The scene was brutal, but they had seen ones just like it several times before. She had never responded this way, not even close. Then he saw what had caught her eye. The victim had a tattoo on her lower leg. It said “Christie.”
Sergeant Ramsey sat behind his desk and stared at the wall above Marcus’s head. The man looked beyond tired, Marcus thought, and he certainly had every right to be. Marcus was exhausted himself and right now the only thing keeping him on his feet was pure adrenaline.
Although Marcus thought he and Angela were the ones most responsible for failing to turn up anything concrete on the case, it was Ramsey who would ultimately pay the price for the investigation’s frustrating lack of progress. The media was already screaming for him to be replaced. He thought Ramsey himself was starting to agree with them. He acted defeated and ready to walk away.
Marcus leaned forward in his chair and looked at the floor. Just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, there was always another surprise the world had in store.
“They’ve confirmed it?” Sergeant Ramsey asked.
“She had her daughter’s name tattooed on her ankle. Angela and the husband confirmed it.”
“Jesus.”
Ramsey smacked a stack of papers from his desk. They scattered all over the floor. They both sat in silence for several long moments.
“How’s Angela?” Ramsey asked.
“Not good. She blames herself.”
“What about Angela’s brother? Did he report his wife missing?”
“She was supposed to have been on a business trip.”
“Tell Angela to take some time off,” Ramsey said.
“You know she won’t.”
“Convince her.”
Marcus looked past Ramsey and stared at the family photo on the wall behind Ramsey’s desk. The photo was several years old and Marcus knew the young Ramsey children in the photo were now in college. Ramsey and his wife were standing on the outside, surrounding their two kids, a boy and a girl. Marcus thought about Angela’s brother. His wife was now lying on an autopsy table, getting ready to be sliced open and examined by Dr. Greene.
“The change in the pattern, what do you think it means?” Marcus asked.
Sergeant Ramsey looked up at him.
“I have no idea.”
Marcus stood. They both felt utterly defeated.
“All hell is going to break loose when word gets out he killed a middle-class mother.” Marcus said.
Sergeant Ramsey didn’t bother to acknowledge the truth behind those words. He just watched Marcus exit the room, knowing full well the burden on everyone’s shoulders.
Angela parked on the curb down the street from her brother’s house. The street was already lined with cars, and she assumed they all belonged to her relatives and friends of her brother’. She climbed out of the car and took a deep breath. She had not spoken with Charlie today and had intentionally not been there when he conducted the identification of the body. She deeply regretted doing that and it made her feel like a coward, but she didn’t have the strength to face him then.
She walked towards the house, having no idea what she was going to say. She turned up the driveway and headed to the front door. There were several lights on inside, but she couldn’t see anyone through the windows. She rang the doorbell and several seconds later heard the clicking of shoes on the wooden floor.
The door opened, and she saw her Aunt Lisa standing across the threshold from her.
“Hello, Angela.”
There was no warmth in her greeting. But there wasn’t coldness either. It seemed completely informal, like a disinterested secretary greeting you as you entered the lobby of a business.
“How’s Charlie doing?” Angela asked.
“Like you’d expect.”
It was a dumb question. Did she actually think Charlie would be anything other than a complete wreck? Lisa was still standing in the doorway and had made no move to step aside or invite her into the house. It was upsetting to Angela, and she struggled to keep control of her chaotic emotions.
“May I come in?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I need to see my brother.”
“Maybe another time would be better.”
“Now would be best.”
Angela pushed the door opened further and brushed past her aunt. She hated doing that, but it was obvious that Lisa had no intention of letting her inside. How had her relationship with her family become so strained?
Angela headed down the hallway, and she heard Lisa softly close the front door behind her.
Angela immediately noticed all of the framed family photographs on the wall. They had been there for as long as she could remember, but she had never given them much thought. Now she seemed to take in every photograph, every smile, every situation, every location that represented the highlights of their lives together. Things would never be the same, and she felt responsible for it. That was the center of her pain. She felt horrified that her sister-in-law was dead, and she felt even more horror when she contemplated the pain her brother must be going through. But her deepest agony was reserved for herself. They would never have been exposed to the MAI killer if it were not for her involvement. Her sister-in-law didn’t fit the killer’s pattern of victims. All of the ot
her victims before had been prostitutes. They had all been in their twenties and early thirties. There was no mistaking this latest murder was personal. Therefore, it had to be her fault. There was no other explanation. The guilt was overwhelming, suffocating, even, and she doubted it would ever go away.
Angela walked past the rows of photographs, trying her best not to look at them, and entered the kitchen in the back of the house. She immediately saw several family members gathered around her brother Charlie, who sat at the kitchen table. He was a big man, but tonight he looked broken and small, and his eyes were red from sobbing. He looked up at Angela. There was unbearable pain and loss and grief in his eyes. Angela stood in the doorway. She was actually scared to enter the kitchen.
“Charlie, I’m so sorry,” she said.
She knew she should have said more, much more, but no words came to her after that. Nothing seemed to adequately express how she felt.
Charlie didn’t respond at first. He looked back down to his hands, which were clasped and resting on the table in front of him.
“I went and saw her today,” he finally said.
“The medical examiner told me. You didn’t have to go.”
“I didn’t have to see my wife?” Charlie asked.
There was anger growing in his voice and in the expression on his face.
“Not like that. I didn’t want you to remember her like that,” she said.
“Those letters, carved into her back. What do they mean?”
“We don’t know.”
“Is this the same person who has been killing the other women?” Charlie asked.
Angela nodded.
“And you’re on this case?”
“With Marcus,” she said.
“This thing, the man who butchered my wife, do you think he knows you’re trying to catch him?”
Angela held his gaze. Every muscle in her neck wanted to turn her head away from her brother’s eyes.
“Yes,” she uttered. Her voice didn’t crack, but it was just above a whisper.
“Do you think he killed my wife because of that?” Charlie asked.
Angela didn’t answer. She thought back to the pattern. She thought of every single crime scene she had walked through and every mug shot of the victims she had pulled up on her work computer. Those eyes. The eyes of the victims. It was always the eyes that stayed with you. Even when the killer had skinned their faces, the eyes still remained. He would not remove them. They were the windows to the soul. Was he afraid to destroy their souls too? When she went to bed and closed her own eyes, she could see the victims staring back at her. Their eyes haunted her, called out to her, screamed for her to save them.
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