Her African-American features were devoid of any emotion. Alice was Rita Sloan's daughter — Marcus’ FBI partner and rumored fling.
Rita had died at the hands of her crazed husband, a fate Frances would never wish on even her worst enemy let alone a young mother.
She had long forgiven her husband for his indiscretions. It wasn't until Rita's daughter joined the FBI that emotions buried deep inside her broke through the surface again, unsettling her.
She would be a fool not to notice that he cared a bit too much for the young woman as if she were his own. "What is she up to now?"
"She has this unsatiated appetite for adventure."
"Like Rita," said Frances. Something passed between them at the mention of that name. Marcus looked away feeling a surge of guilt while Frances remained unmoved, her face impassive.
An awkward silence stretched between them for a moment too long. Finally, she smiled empathetically and touched his hand with tenderness. “I’m just saying, if she is anything like Rita then there isn’t much you can do.”
Marcus knew she was right. Rita had been just as strong-willed. He touched her hand and smiled nervously. Something told him his reprimand would not keep Alice from jumping headfirst into danger.
CHAPTER 2
Tall blades of grass swayed in the wind. Alice stood with both hands on her waist, gazing over the endless green field before her. An old and broken wooden fence separated the field from the road. They were back on Historic U.S.Route 66 connecting Arizona and California. Tyler leaned against the fence behind her.
The field was just a few miles away from the restaurant where they had stopped yesterday and made the chilling discovery. Alice had an idea Marcus and Bill Whitfield wouldn’t appreciate her impromptu area search. She saw something flapping in the wind out of the corner of her eye and turned, narrowing her gaze at the trash bags dumped by the side of the road.
Tyler's eyes followed her as she began marching toward them. She felt a tingle of anticipation as she neared the pile of trash. Five bags, bulging with garbage and knotted shut, lay in a haphazard heap giving off a foul smell of rotting food. Big fat flies buzzed all over them, flitting from one bag to the other.
Stepping forward, she bent down and began feeling the contents underneath the plastic with her hands. She guessed a human head or torso would give off an entirely different sensation when she touched it through the plastic. Tyler jumped down from the fence and strolled over toward her.
“Nothing better than going through other people’s trash on a fine day like this, huh?”
Alice shoved a bag to the side and grabbed another. “I would appreciate a little help,” she grunted.
He scrunched his nose as one of the bags ripped open spilling soiled diapers and giving off a putrid smell. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”
Kneeling on the ground, groping one trash bag after another with strands of red hair spilling out of her ponytail over her mousy face, she looked almost feral like a coyote. He could not think of anything to make her change her mind and looked heavenward praying for divine intervention to bring an end to his misery.
The sound of a vehicle rumbling down the road made him look up. A police car came rolling toward them, pulling to a stop near the garbage pile. Alice pulled herself to her feet, shaking a banana peel off her shoe. Sergeant Bill Whitfield stepped out of the car and looked them over suspiciously.
“Good day, Sergeant,” said Tyler.
“Good day,” he replied, frowning. He eyed a patch of dirt on Alice’s cheek. “Say, is the FBI up to some kind of covert operation where you folks have to go looking through everyone’s trash?”
Tyler looked back at Alice and noticed the patch on her face. "Maybe," he said, turning back toward him.
The sergeant considered his response for a moment. He turned his head to look on either side of the empty road. "Where's your ride?"
"We took a cab from the hotel."
"Where's your hotel?"
Tyler glanced at Alice before answering, "Malibu."
"Right," said the Sergeant, amazed that they had made a four-hour trip back to the town.
He squinted down the deserted road again. "If you're done going through the garbage, I could give you a ride back to the hotel."
Tyler and Alice looked at each other as they considered his offer. Alice could not find anything in the trash but she wasn't done looking. She wanted to search the surrounding areas just to be sure.
"You're in the middle of nowhere. You'd be waiting a long while if you're thinking of hitchhiking your way back," the Sergeant insisted.
She gave a forlorn look at the bags lying at her feet before turning to the Sergeant and nodding her head.
Alice dusted off her clothes and got inside the car behind Tyler. Sergeant Whitfield got into the driver's seat and the car thrummed to a start.
The Sergeant turned on the radio and switched through channels. He settled on a local news report, his face changing color as the news anchor recapped the recent murder. They listened to the news in somber silence. He turned down the volume as the news cut to commercials and sucked the air between his teeth.
"I've been in service for twenty years and never seen anything like it before," he said, shaking his head with disbelief. "What kind of monster does something like that?"
"Must have rattled the townspeople," said Tyler.
"They're beyond rattled. Needles is a quiet old Western town; folks down here ain't prepared for marauding maniacs. All of a sudden they're bolting doors and locking windows, afraid some crazed killer with a knife is going to come rampaging inside."He let out an exasperated breath.
"You've got no leads?" asked Alice.
"The bastard was clever enough to destroy all evidence. We're checking the victim's fingerprints in our missing persons and criminal databases. Anything that may help us identify the individual and his whereabouts on the day he was supposedly kidnapped and murdered."
A woman's voice crackled on the police radio. "Car Mike Bravo 156, are you receiving?"
Sergeant Whitfield grabbed the receiver, bringing it close to his mouth as he pressed a button. "Mike Bravo 156, receiving loud and clear, Dispatch."
"We just received a 911 call. A couple of teenagers appear to have discovered a body in a deserted area."
The car swerved to the right as he swung the steering wheel in shock as a truck came barreling toward them blaring its horn. He held the receiver to his mouth again once they were driving steadily, the truck hurtling past them.
"Could I get an exact location?" The car cruised to the side, coming to a halt.
He listened carefully to the directions. Just as he was about start the engine and drive off, the woman called out.
"Hold on, I've just received an update . . ."
Alice and Tyler moved an inch closer to the radio, holding their breath as they waited for further details.
"Let me correct myself, Sergeant. It seems it's not a body but just a head and a torso."
They all collectively sucked in their breath. There was a moment of stunned silence.
Sergeant Whitfield raised the receiver to his lips. "I'm on my way."
He looked over his shoulder at Tyler and Alice sitting in the back. "Would you folks mind a little detour?"
"Not at all," Alice replied quickly.
Sergeant Whitfield turned on the ignition and gunned the car over the road, navigating through sparse traffic, jerking over potholes, and rattling on toward their destination.
The town whizzed by outside their window. From what little Alice could see of it, it seemed like something out of a wild western movie — cheap motels, saloons, dirt roads, and prickly stubs of bushes amid vast plains of nothing flitted past them.
Modern buildings jutting out here and there clashed with the antediluvian feel of the place.
The fascinating architecture thinned out on either side and the car jolted over a dilapidated road. Alice clung to the door handle to anchor her
self and avoid banging her head as the car hurtled toward what seemed like the desert.
Sergeant Whitfield slammed his foot on the brakes and the car screeched to a stop near a wooden fence kicking up a cloud of dust.
Alice stepped out of the vehicle. She stood momentarily stunned by the awe-inspiring scenery spread out before her. Thick shrubbery lined the shore of a deep blue river. Her eyes trailed upward at the long row of purple mountains in the back with jagged peaks and the clear blue sky above. Her gaze fixed over two eagles flying in circles high up in the sky.
Two lanky teenagers came shuffling toward them. Sergeant Whitfield nodded at them and asked, "Could you two tell us what happened?"
The red-haired kid with a smattering of freckles across his nose shifted on his feet uncomfortably glancing at the brown-haired boy next to him.
"We were just hanging out when a black car drove by, tossing this garbage bag out. Thought we'd go see what was inside and . . . and . . ." he trailed off, glancing frightfully at the garbage bag lying in the distance on the side of the road.
Alice began walking down the road toward the bag, the plastic rustling in the wind. Her skin prickled with anticipation as she kneeled and reached out a hand to pull back the plastic and peer inside.
Sergeant Whitfield and Tyler watched her, the tension mounting in the air as she looked inside. Alice peeled back the plastic and stared at the contents for a long moment. Calmly, she stood up and walked back toward them.
The two teenagers exchanged confused looks at her calm demeanor.
Tyler and the Sergeant looked at her questioningly when she returned. Alice glanced at Tyler and then the Sergeant. "It's a woman this time."
The two stared back at her in shock, dumbfounded by the discovery. Severed at the joints, the body parts stuffed inside the bag were thoroughly cleaned to remove all traces of evidence.
Alice had opened the bag expecting to find the missing parts of the first victim. Her stomach somersaulted when she saw the delicate features of a woman's face — her eyes closed as if lost in a beautiful dream, blonde hair cascading around her angelic face.
More police vehicles came rolling down the road over the next few moments. A medical examiner was brought in to examine the body parts and take it in for a complete autopsy.
Alice felt a rising sense of frustration inside her as she silently witnessed the crime scene investigation take place. It almost seemed as if the killer was mocking them by putting up a gruesome puzzle for them to solve, confounding them each time by giving them the wrong pieces.
She felt sick to her stomach thinking about the macabre sense of humor the killer must possess to use his victims' bodies to play games in such a way.
"Not what we came here looking for," said Tyler, jolting her out of her thoughts. "But it might help us get a step closer to finding him."
"How?" Alice asked. "He was meticulous enough to wash the bodies clean to remove evidence. How does finding another victim help us in any way?"
Tyler was taken aback by her acerbic response. "Why do you think he left a body lying out in the open? By the looks of it, he's been at this sort of thing for quite some time so why is he being sloppy all of a sudden, leaving traces of his crime for random strangers to stumble upon?"
Alice chewed her bottom lip. Several things were bothering her: Marcus' blatant refusal to have her assigned to the case, his insistence to wait until more victims turned up, the severely under-budgeted and under-staffed local authorities, the lost look on their faces and, finally, the killer himself.
"He's not getting sloppy," she said, her eyes following the medics taking away the bag into an ambulance. He was too smart for that. "He's taunting us."
Sergeant Whitfield got into the driver's seat when they were ready to leave and turned on the ignition. "Well, I sure as hell didn't see that coming," he said as the car revved to a start.
"You can drive us to the nearest bus stop," said Tyler. "I bet you have a lot of work waiting for you at the office."
"You got that right." He sighed as the car cruised down the empty road. "With most young folks moving out of Needles to bigger cities, it won't be long before this place turns into a ghost town. This serial killer thing is just going to speed up the process by making more people want to get the hell out of here."
He droned on about the town and its many problems. Alice stopped listening after a few minutes and stared out the window instead, lost in her thoughts.
She glimpsed a crowd of townspeople with rugged, stern faces, milling toward a church. The pristine white building stood tall and proud overlooking the town with its gable roof and tall steeple, bearing a giant golden cross atop its ridged rooftop that glinted in the sunlight. A man in a cassock stood at the door welcoming the influx of worshippers with a warm smile.
"Father Thomas' responsibility has doubled during such testing times," said Bill as he watched Alice in the rearview mirror observing the churchgoers. "He has been the sole person keeping up the hopes of the locals."
“That’s very noble of him,” Alice replied.
“He’s a good man. Helped many lost souls find their way. To be honest, I think he is the last one standing to keep this town alive.”
Alice was not interested in hearing about the virtues of a priest. She had never been religious even though she had grown up living with many devout foster families. Somehow their religious fervor did not rub off on her and she found the conformity stifling and restrictive.
Sergeant Whitfield dropped them off at the Greyhound bus station and drove off. A vast plain of the desert spread out before them on the other side of the road. Alice stared at the tufts of yellow grass, prickly bushes, and the eerie silhouette of the Joshua trees with their short stubby branches and spiky leaves. A gust of wind tossed a bucket full of sand in the air. She could feel the grainy particles cling to the layer of sweat on her face and fill her nostrils, scraping against her throat as she breathed.
Tyler was lounging on the metal seating in the waiting area. A glossy, streamlined bus coasted over the road coming to a stop before them. The doors folded open with a mechanical hiss and the two of them jumped aboard.
Alice rested her forehead against the glass window as the doors closed and the bus began moving forward. She watched the town flit by and felt an undertow of sadness. Once more she was leaving the place with the mystery unsolved and a cold-blooded murderer on the loose.
The bus whisked them away from the desert and to the beach city. Alice plodded the stairs to the loggia at the hotel a few hours later. She took out the keycard from her pocket and inserted it into the slot, twisting the doorknob and swinging the door wide open.
Her sudden appearance in the hotel room startled Naomi who had just walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her chest. She jumped, colliding with the dresser, and clutching her towel, as Alice sauntered inside.
“Good God! You scared the living daylights out of me!” she gasped.
Unaffected by her reaction, Alice walked in and flopped on the bed. Naomi had been jumpy ever since her abduction, getting startled by the slightest sounds and sudden movements— it wasn’t anything new to Alice.
She studied Alice, lying on the bed staring at the ceiling in the same way she had been that morning when Tyler barged in on her. “Where have you been?” she asked, staring at her dusty clothes and muddy face and hands.
A strange smell filled the room and she sniffed the air, taking a step closer towhere Alice lay on the bed. Naomi scrunched up her nose and grimaced at the foul smell emanating from Alice’s clothes — a mixture of baby poo and rotting food.
"Good grief!" she said, grabbing her nose and cowering. "What were you doing?"
Alice lifted her head to sniff her clothes. She was surprised by the fetid smell and wondered why she had not noticed it earlier.
"Could you do me a favor?" Naomi asked, removing the hand covering her nose and mouth and waving it in front of her face to dissipate the odor and keep herse
lf from gagging. "If you plan on staying the night, please take a shower and burn those clothes?"
Alice looked down at her hands, a thick layer of dirt wedged between the nails and the skin underneath. She checked her clothes and noticed the patches of dirt.
Standing in a corner, Naomi waited for her to dispose of the hazardous clothing and get into the shower.
Alice was in no mood to get up. The trip alone had drained her of every last drop of energy. She looked at Naomi, crouching in the corner with just a towel wrapped around her body, and realized she would probably stay in that spot all night if she did not get up and do as she asked. With a loud groan, she hefted herself up and stomped to the bathroom.
Alice stripped her clothes off, turned on the shower, and stepped underneath the water. She stood with her head hanging low, watching the dirt and grime wash off, the water turning a murky brown against the white tiles as it slid down her legs and toes to get sucked down the drain.
She found herself getting swept away by thoughts of the body she had found that morning. Images of white flesh, severed limbs, and head flashed in her mind and her legs began to tremble.
Appearing unaffected and putting up a brave front when people were watching came naturally to her. She always came off as calm and poised in the face of danger. It was only when she was alone that the horror of what she had witnessed came crashing down over her, crippling her.
She placed a palm on the wall to steady herself while trying hard to focus on the body that she had seen. She concentrated her attention over the joints, cut cleanly with immaculate precision. The killer was not clumsy with the knife. A medical degree or some kind of experience working in the meat industry made sense.
She could feel her mind slipping into the past, getting sucked into the vortex of old memories and she tried desperately to resist it. The water splashing on the tiles and the diffused white light from the light fixture above melted away and she found herself enveloped by darkness as she crouched inside a closet.
Scheme Of Sin (Wayne Falls Book 3) Page 3