Sauk Valley Killer

by KJ Kalis

  From behind her, Kat heard the wail of the ambulance sirens and saw two police cars peel off to follow. No one was taking any chances. Dr. Murphy walked over to them, “I don’t know what happened to that young man, but it’s a miracle he’s still alive.”

  “Do you think he’ll make it, Doc?” Van said, his arms hanging at his sides.

  Dr. Murphy licked his lips and shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know. His lungs are pretty badly compromised. I heard a lot of gurgling when I listened to his chest. It’s going to be a long day for the docs that work on him. He’s going to need a miracle.”

  Kat turned away, trying to gather herself. The scene was awful enough when they got there, but the noise and commotion over the last few minutes when Dr. Murphy discovered Evan was alive had frayed her nerves. She took a deep breath and looked down for a moment, closing her eyes. It’s time to be strong, Kat, she thought. If Evan could hang on, so can you.

  When she turned back, she blinked and looked straight at Dawson, “Did you guys pull property records on Joseph Schreiber?”

  He nodded. “Just waiting for a judge to sign the warrant. He’s got a house not far from here.”

  “Let’s go…”

  38

  After dropping off the bodies, Joseph drove straight back to his shop, pulling in and abandoning the van in front of the garage doors. He flipped on the lights, smelling the disinfectant that he’d sprayed in each cage before he left. The harsh overhead bulbs cast sharp shadows over his equipment. He put his hands on his hips looking left and right, surveying the work to do. It wasn’t much. The organizational skills his parents taught him worked to his advantage.

  With a grunt, he pushed the cages against the back wall. It was time to set up the next experiment. From the farthest corner of the garage, he found the frames he had built and the Plexiglas he needed. Setting them up didn’t take long, one sheet of Plexiglas laid over a wooden frame on the ground, three sheets around the outside, sealed with silicone, one side left open. He needed an access point for his next subjects. The smell of the sealant, sharp and sour, filled the garage. He had tested it. He knew it would hold and was waterproof. Sitting down for a moment, he reached for his left ankle. It screamed with pain. He pulled up his pant leg, the first time he had done so since he slipped on the trail earlier that night. Without even removing his sock, he could see the red swollen skin and black and blue bruises. There was no point in taking off his shoe. The minute he did, he would never get it back on again. He walked over to his workbench, opened a cabinet door and found a bottle of Ibuprofen, taking four pills, hoping that would be enough to dull the pain.

  The last thing he needed to do was drag the hoses out from the back corner. He wanted to be completely prepared when his next subjects arrived. There was no time to waste. He felt an urgency inside of him like he had never felt before. He knew at some point he would need to stop and ponder his research, but for now, he was focused on getting as much data on as many conditions as he could, as quickly as he could. There was something inside of him, something that he couldn’t identify, that had been turned on. Something had flipped a switch in him.

  Ignoring the fresh surge of pain in his ankle, he pulled two long hoses out of their boxes and hooked them up to a spigot installed near his workbench. He didn’t need to do anything with them now, but he would soon. Joseph checked the time on his cell phone. It was nearly six o’clock in the morning. It was time to go.

  39

  It didn’t take long for the judge to sign a warrant. Apparently, someone had decided the situation was dire enough that it justified waking a judge up from his sleep. Just as Dr. Murphy was lifting Layne Clark’s body into his van, Dawson got a chirp on his phone. “Warrant just came in. The team is assembling. We will meet them there.”

  Kat stared at Dawson for a minute, still surprised about his change in tone. “You want us to come?” she said, just to be sure.

  Dawson nodded. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  Kat smiled, “My grandma used to say that.”

  Dawson nodded, “Mine, too.”

  As they pulled out of the scene, leaving one officer behind to make sure Dr. Murphy had everything he needed, Dawson told Van to position his truck between the lead cruiser and Dawson’s detective unit. “Like a sandwich. You’ll have lights ahead of you and lights behind you. That way we don’t have to worry that you got lost on the way over there.”

  Van smiled, “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Dawson slapped him on the arm, “No, I don’t think I do.”

  Kat and Van piled in his truck, slamming the doors just as the sirens from the lead car blared. Dawson had sent her the address just in case they got separated somehow. How that was possible when they were driving between two vehicles with their lights flashing, Kat didn’t know, but she appreciated Dawson’s transparency. She sent the information to TJ, just in case. “Following the detective to this address for a warrant search.”

  TJ texted back immediately, “Gotcha. Be safe.”

  Kat plugged the GPS information into Van’s truck console. The automated voice let them know that they were eight minutes out. “Geez, this guy sure didn’t choose a place very far away to dump the bodies, did he?”

  Van shook his head left and right. Kat could see the tension on his face, both of his hands gripping the wheel, his knuckles white. “No, he didn’t.”

  As soon as they got to the street where Joseph Schreiber lived, Crescent Lane, they stopped at the top of the street. The cruiser they were following had turned off its sirens, only the lights flashing. Even those were turned off as they came to a stop. Ahead of them, Kat could see a black van marked SWAT on the side and two large SUVs, also black. She saw officers gearing up, putting on tactical vests and helmets. As Dawson walked past them, he tapped on Van’s window with his knuckles, motioning them to follow. Kat opened her door before Van did, landing on some loose gravel at the side of the road. She walked forward toward the group of people.

  A man, nearly shorter than the rest of them by at least a foot, told everyone to be quiet. “Listen up. This is the execution of a search warrant on one Dr. Joseph Schreiber, 423 Crescent Lane.” The man, who hadn’t introduced himself, but whose nameplate on his tactical vest read Bentley, pointed towards the mailbox where the address had been neatly painted in flowery script. “The subject is considered a suspect in the serial killings that all of you have been hearing about. We already discussed this in the pre-mission briefing. Please approach anyone you find on the property with a high level of caution. We can well assume the subject to be armed and dangerous. You know your assignments. Mount up. We leave in sixty seconds.”

  Bentley, the officer in charge, had left little time for questions or concerns. All Kat and Van could do was get back in their truck, turn it on and wait. Exactly sixty seconds after Bentley had started the countdown, the lead vehicle flipped its lights on, no siren, and made a sharp turn down the driveway. The other vehicles followed, six in all, Kat and Van in the second to last vehicle, Dawson behind them.

  Gravel rumbled underneath the truck tires, trees and plants whipping by them as Van matched the quick clip of the cars ahead of him. The vehicles had barely stopped before the officers piled out, weapons at the ready. They charged to the front door in formation, “Search warrant!” one of them bellowed before another used a ram to breach the front door.

  As Kat went to the front of the truck, she felt Van catch her arm. He looked at her and shook his head. “Let’s stay here for a minute. Let them clear the house first before we go in.”

  Kat felt a little shaken by his words, shaken because she hadn’t thought that maybe she should stay back. She closed her eyes for a second. She was tired. So very tired. The last few days, ever since she got the news of Chelsea’s death had drained her like not much else ever had. She slumped down, sitting on the bumper of Van’s truck. Dawson came up behind them. “It won’t take long for them to clear the house,” he said. “This
team is efficient. The commander sent his best guys.”

  Kat stared at the front door, wondering what was happening inside. She heard some scuffling and shouts of “Clear!” but not much else. All they could do was wait.

  About two minutes later, Bentley appeared at the front door, removing his helmet. He glanced towards Dawson, “You can go in. No one home. Something creepy in the bedroom you might want to take a look at, though.” He squinted, as the sun was just starting to come up over the horizon, “Any other buildings on the property? Anything else you want us to look at before we go?”

  Dawson glanced down at his phone. “I don’t think there are any other buildings on the property. Maybe he ran?”

  Bentley shrugged, “I don’t know. That’s your job. Give us a call if you need us to clear anything else.” He walked off without saying anything else.

  Kat could tell by the look on Dawson’s face that he was disappointed. “Let’s go take a look inside while we're here,” he said.

  Kat followed Dawson and Van into the house, trailing behind. It was small and old, the smell inside that of mold and cleaning solution and wet wool. From the looks of it, the people that had moved into the house hadn’t done anything with it since the time they bought it. Kat walked through the entrance. To her left, there was a small formal living room, a floral couch and two wing chairs with a coffee table between them. Paintings of landscapes hung on the wall, a narrow liquor cabinet in the corner with a carafe half-filled with amber liquid and two old-fashioned glasses sitting nearby. They didn’t look like they had been used for a long time.

  Before Kat got any further, she heard Van yell at her, “Kat? You might want to come take a look at this.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Back bedroom.”

  Kat tried to follow Van’s voice, walking through the entry, passing a small kitchen and turning right down a hallway with several doors. He was standing just outside the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall. He didn’t say anything as she approached, just giving her a little head nod to go inside. Dawson was already in there, on his phone, pacing back and forth. Nothing looked out of place until she looked at the bed. “Oh my God!” she whispered. In front of her were two skeletons, perfectly laid out on top of a burgundy and green floral bedspread. “What is this?” she said, looking back at Van, who had moved in to stand behind her.

  “I have no idea.” Van shook his head.

  Kat walked around the bed, trying not to bump into Dawson as he paced. She went closer, clasping her hands behind her back, being careful not to disturb what had been left there. She didn’t know much about skeletal anatomy, but there were definitely two bodies on the bed, arranged symmetrically, as though they were laying next to each other. Pointing, she said to Van, “It looks like they’re holding hands.”

  Dawson shoved his phone back in his pocket. “I’ve got a forensics team on their way out here and a few more officers keep this place secured.” He shook his head, “I don’t know what the hell this is. I’ve never seen anything like this before.” He stomped out of the room.

  Kat couldn’t help thinking they had stumbled across the central point for whatever was going on with Joseph Schreiber, whether he was their serial killer or not, although her gut told her that anyone who had two skeletons laying in a bedroom had some serious issues. She noticed a small desk in the corner of the room. She went over and started opening some drawers. The ones on the left had what looked to be insurance papers and bank information in them. She moved to the drawers on the right. The top drawer had old family pictures, probably from the 1800’s. She moved to the next drawer down, hearing it creak as she pulled it forward. Inside, there was a stack of yellowed letters held together by a rubber band. The return address of the one on the top read Yale School of Medicine. “Van, look at this,” she said, pulling the stack out of the drawer.

  Kat gently pulled the first letter off of the pile and immediately saw the next one read USC School of Medicine. She set the stack aside, pulling the letter from Yale out of the envelope. It had been sliced open, not torn, as if someone had used a proper letter opener or a knife. Kat unfolded the letter, reading the first few lines, “Dear Mr. Schreiber, we wanted to offer our sincere gratitude for your application to the Yale School of Medicine. We regret to inform you that your application has not been accepted. Though you offer exceptional credentials, we have a limited number of student spots for this year. We encourage you to reapply for admission at a future date.”

  Kat read through a few more of the letters, realizing they all said the same thing. All of them were dated more than two decades before. “If this guy couldn’t get accepted to medical school, that explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

  Van nodded. “He’s probably been frustrated his whole life.” Van glanced back at the two skeletons in the bedroom just behind them, “By the looks of it, I’ll bet his parents put a lot of pressure on him. He probably never felt like he could satisfy them.”

  As Kat thought about what Van said, a way of nausea passed over her, not only because of what they were seeing, but because of the long-term impact that a parent could have on a child. She immediately thought of Jack and wondered if she put too much pressure on him, or maybe not enough. Kat shook off the thought. She had to do what was in front of her. There would be time to think about parenting techniques later.

  She took the pack of letters and walked towards the kitchen where Dawson was going through some other papers. “You might want to take a look at this,” she said, setting down the stack in front of him, “I think I might’ve found a motive. Turns out this guy was rejected from medical school over and over again. We found the letters in his parents’ bedroom.”

  “That could make someone crack, I suppose,” Dawson said. He nodded down the hallway. “I just opened the closet door and found dozens of boxes filled with more letters.”

  “What kind of letters?” Van asked.

  “Like the ones Dr. Rose gave you. It looks like he sent ideas for his experiments to hundreds of medical journals. They all rejected him, at least the letters I looked at.”

  Kat glanced down the hallway, the idea that rejection surrounded Joseph Schreiber at every turn settling in. The specter of his parents’ bodies lurking in the house, the medical school rejection letters, the medical journal rejections, it was hard to understand how anyone could overcome that level of negativity and dismissiveness. “He’s trying to prove himself,” she said to Van and Dawson.

  “What do you mean?” Dawson said, turning away from the stack of papers on the counter. “He’s got a good job. He’s got a Ph.D. in history. The house could use some redecorating, but he’s proven himself, just not in the medical field.”

  Kat started to pace, the thoughts coming quickly. “I think the real story is the skeletons in the bedroom.”

  Dawson snickered, “Too bad they weren’t in the closet. That would make for a good laugh.”

  “Come on, Dawson, I’m being serious,” Kat said. “Think about it. I’m assuming those bodies are his parents. He has them meticulously laid out on top of the bedspread. Can you imagine the amount of time and work it took to clean the bones and lay them out? Seems like he was trying to keep them around, don’t you think?” A flash went through Kat’s mind, “It’s strange that they’re both laid out there, right?”

  Dawson looked at Van, “Are you as lost as I am?”

  Van shook his head, “Give her a second. She’s getting there. This is what makes her good at what she does.”

  Kat didn’t stop pacing. For some reason, the movement helped her to sort her thoughts. “So, follow me for a second. Let’s say the father died first. Wouldn’t Joseph’s mother object to him cleaning her husband’s flesh off his skeleton and displaying it on their bed? I mean, she’d still be sleeping there, after all, I would guess.” Kat walked into the kitchen and looked around, every item perfectly displayed and cleaned. “This is a guy who is detail-oriented to an obsessive level. I would think it wou
ld’ve made him crazy if he had a plan to display his parents’ bodies and then only one of them died, wouldn’t you think?”

  Dawson squinted, “What are you saying? Are you saying that he killed his parents?

  Kat tilted her head and chewed her lip, “I’m saying that I think it’s a possibility. If they kept all of his rejection letters, then they never approved of him. I don’t know if he killed both of them at the same time or killed the second one right after the first one died so he could complete his display, but whatever he decided to do, I think he killed at least one of them.”

  “Dr. Murphy is going to be busy today, I think,” Dawson said, picking up his phone.

  As Dawson walked away, Kat could hear him talking, calling for additional officers and the coroner’s van. The forensics team was already on its way. She heard him go outside, bark some orders to the officer that was left on the scene and then come back in, “Okay, I think we’d better go outside. If your theory’s correct, this house has just become a murder scene.”

  40

  Joseph knew he should be tired, but he wasn’t. The Ibuprofen had taken the pain out of his left ankle, at least enough that he could walk with barely a limp. He would need to be able to move for his next experiment. Parking about three blocks away from Lakewood Middle School, he checked his phone. It was about twenty after six in the morning. Stream of kids were on their way to school, some of them talking and laughing, some of them staring at their phones and wearing earbuds. Others walked forward with a look of determination on their faces, as though they were braced for a tough day ahead. He knew how those children felt. He had been one of them.