by Leslie Wolfe
He opened his arms wide and took in the force of the rain, welcoming it, wishing his body was large enough to shield Mother from it. Cleansing and at the same time murderous, rain didn’t care… just kept coming down, accompanied by roars and rumbles of thunder, some near, some distant, far away, where the woods met the sky on the horizon.
His mind drifted, his heart clasped in the iron fist of worry.
This time, two little girls were left behind. Two little girls who were now with the police, telling them everything they’d seen, putting him and his work at risk. Was it fated for him to die in shame, locked in a cage like an animal? Or would his work outlive him, glorifying his existence and the many sacrifices he’d endured for Mother’s sake, his name forever remembered and spoken in awe?
“Dear Mother, hear your child,” he shouted as loudly as he could, because only she could hear him now. Rain washed over him in bursts, pasting his hair across his face, filling his mouth when he spoke. “Protect me as I will protect you. Defend me and hold me in your arms, as I deliver the ultimate sacrifice to you, my own blood.” He laughed and danced, spinning with his arms raised high in the air like a dervish, carried into near hysteria by frenzied elation.
When he stood like that—feeling her support under his feet, receiving her protection in the wind wrapping around his body—he knew she and her earthly child were one, joined as it was forever intended to be, and no sacrifice would be unworthy.
No matter how agonizing.
33
Monster
When Kay rushed in through the precinct door, she was still barefoot, carrying her shoes in one hand and her laptop in the other tightly shielded at her chest, her wet feet stamping footprints on the carpet. She’d given Elliot his hat back, putting it on his head herself, and still recalled the loaded smile he’d accepted it with and the spark between them when their eyes met under the wide brim.
The precinct smelled musty and acrid, as if the rain outside had seeped through the walls or the floor somehow. Deputies had come and gone all day long wearing soaked jackets and boots that dripped water on the carpet, the air too humid to let it evaporate. The place would probably stink for a while, maybe until the air would dry again, after the first snowfall.
There was an unexpected welcoming committee waiting for them. Sheriff Logan, seemingly fuming, had emerged from his office the moment Elliot had pulled up in front of the building. Rushing from the back, Deputy Farrell carried several flipchart sheets filled with Erin’s doodles. Without a real choice in the matter, she turned to the sheriff, but didn’t get the opportunity to open her mouth.
“Glad you have email, Detective, so you can drop a bomb on me without the courtesy of looking me in the eye.” He stood with his hands propped on his hips, a stance he favored since he’d packed a few pounds around his waistline. His bulging abdomen threatened the integrity of several of his shirt buttons, one barely hanging by a couple of threads. “Do you have any idea how forty-three unsolved serial kidnappings, possibly homicides, are going to reflect on this unit? How do we contain this?”
Of course, he was taking it personally, mostly because he cared deeply about the people he was sworn to protect. He was a good man, almost always making solid decisions, but in an election year he had every right to be concerned with voters’ perceptions.
“I’d say it will reflect positively,” she replied calmly. “After all, this has been going on for fifty-seven years, and only under your leadership was it discovered.”
“Damn right it was,” he replied quickly, grabbing the lifesaver and running with it. “Now, what are we doing about it?”
“I’ll review these cases, even the old ones, and work them by the book. Discover patterns, study victimology, interview the families of recent victims. We’ll generate a profile, and we’ll catch him,” she promised, hoping she’d be able to deliver. It was the unsub’s longevity that worried her. It was unprecedented.
Doubt flashed in his eyes, quickly replaced by the same defensive indignation she’d managed to defeat only for a brief moment. “What, you’re saying we didn’t do our jobs? That’s what everyone will think. Forty-three victims, my goodness…” He cupped his mouth in the palm of his hand, visibly distraught. “The people will freak out, and they have every right.”
“Investigating a kidnapping is entirely different from catching a serial killer.” Her voice was reassuring, instilled with a confidence she was only partly feeling. Yes, she’d hunted serial killers for eight years after she joined the FBI and had a perfect case record to show for it, but this one was different. This unsub had managed not to get caught all those years, but there was something else about him just as unlikely: he’d never escalated. The vast majority of serial killers escalated, accelerating the time between victims, once hooked on the thrill of the kill always seeking more, blood junkies looking for their next fix.
Except this one.
She fired up her laptop and set it on a nearby desk, so eager to dig through the data she didn’t take the time to slip on her socks and shoes. Pulling up the missing persons reports, she sorted them by date, from the most recent.
“I worked that one,” Elliot said, his voice somber. “I still talk with the parents; they never gave up hope. Lauren Costin, she was fifteen when she vanished on her way back from school.” He paused for a beat, staring at her name on the screen, listed second, just under Julie’s. “I had nothing to go on. One moment she was there, the next one she was gone, and no one had seen a thing. It was as if the earth had swallowed her whole. It was two years ago.”
“I worked her case,” Logan tapped on the screen next to the third name on the list, Stephanie Guerrero. He shook his head, his earlier anguish replaced with frustrated powerlessness. “Catch this son of a bitch, Kay. We have a lot of families waiting for closure, and one girl who might still be alive.”
She raised her eyes from the screen and looked at the sheriff sternly. “We’ll get the bastard.”
“Detective—” Farrell pushed through between Logan and Elliot, still holding her sheets of paper. “Take a look at this.” She laid a piece of paper on the desk, keeping it flat with her hands where the corners rolled up.
The drawing had improved a little in terms of detail, but it still depicted the same thing. An open mouth, drawn in black, simplistically represented by a rounded, down-pointing triangular shape with zig-zagging lines that looked like teeth. From the center of the teeth-flanked triangle, blood dripped green.
“I tried everything I could think of,” Farrell, said. “I took her green pen, I only let her have the blue and the red, she didn’t draw anything. I gave her the black, she only drew the mouth with the teeth. Whatever she’s drawing, it must’ve been green.” She sighed. “Not sure how much good this will—”
“Let me see this,” Elliot said, stepping closer to the desk. He frowned as he studied the drawing, then muttered, “I wonder if that’s not—” He took out his phone and started typing quickly in his browser window. Moments later, he showed Kay the screen of his phone, where a stylized snake head was displayed.
Her blood turned to icicles.
“It’s green because it’s not blood, it’s a snake’s tongue,” he said. “It’s an Austin, Texas, sports team logo, Vipers Lacrosse.”
“What are the chances that it’s for real?” Logan asked in disbelief. “She’s four years old, for goodness’ sake. Last thing we need is another wild goose chase.”
Head slightly tilted, Kay compared the two images. The resemblance was clear, if she took the artist’s age into account. She turned to ask Farrell to bring Erin, but the deputy was already returning from the interview with the girl in tow. She seemed a little scared, her round eyes darting from person to person as she trailed behind her a soft blanket, which must have been another item on loan from Deputy Farrell.
Elliot crouched in front of her and took his hat off. “Hello, young lady,” he said with a smile Erin found hard to resist. She reached for his tousle
d blond hair, dropping the blanket. “Mind if you looked at something for me?”
Erin smiled with her mouth open, the most relaxed Kay had seen her since she was found sleeping by her mother’s cold body. The man had skills that seriously competed with Farrell’s when it came to making children feel at ease, quite an unexpected feature for a young cop from Austin, Texas.
He took the phone from Kay but held it face down for a moment. “I’m going to show you a picture. Can you tell me if you recognize the animal in the picture? It won’t hurt you; I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
The little girl nodded, the tip of her thumb finding its way into her mouth while her eyes were fixed on Elliot’s hand as he positioned the phone screen for her to see.
Her face transformed as she studied the image, the smile replaced by a grimace of fear and agony. Her finger pointing at the screen, in a brittle voice she said, “Monster.”
34
Plan
“Who kidnaps girls and potentially kills them, for more than fifty years in a row?” Kay asked, without really expecting an answer. The question was addressed mostly to herself, although Elliot’s input was always welcome.
They’d returned to her desk, where he’d pulled out a chair and was looking at the screen, offering bits and pieces of information about recent cases that sounded familiar. He’d moved to Mount Chester six years ago, long after Kay had relocated to San Francisco, but had only worked one of the kidnappings himself.
There was one thing bugging her, annoying her like a mosquito buzzing in the dark. She’d grown up in that town, and she was a first daughter. Yet she’d never heard about these kidnappings, nor did her mother ever warn her to watch her back—not any more than what a typical mother would. She’d never mentioned the spirits of the valley or any related folklore. Was any of it real?
Kay had grown up in her own brand of hell; before her mother would’ve had the time to worry about surreal beings and the local folklore, she’d had to deal with an abusive, chronically intoxicated husband, and two children she routinely had to shield from his rages. The folklore—even if her mother had heard it—had been too remote, while Kay’s father’s rage had been close, raw, undiluted.
“Denise, got a moment?” she called, seeing Deputy Farrell walk by with the girls’ oatmeal in two small microwaveable bowls. Like Kay, she’d grown up locally, in a large family with ancient roots in the region.
Farrell stopped by Kay’s desk, still holding the bowls in her hands. “What’s up?” A hint of worry tainted her voice.
“I was wondering if you’d heard about this first-daughter-folklore bit. You grew up here, right?”
“Yeah,” Farrell smiled nostalgically. Her eyes softened. She must’ve had a pleasant childhood filled with fond memories. “My mother used to say that the fairies cried by the birthing mother’s bed if the firstborn child was a daughter. I was one, but no one ever snatched me. But I remember feeling sad every time my mother used to say that. I thought maybe she didn’t want me or something.” She chuckled lightly. “That’s until I grew older and knew better. She was awesome, my mom.” She waited patiently for a moment, but Kay didn’t reply. “Anything else? I left the girls alone.”
“No, that’s it, thank you,” Kay replied, and Farrell rushed to the kitchen to warm up the oatmeal.
It wasn’t just Betty Livingston’s Alzheimer’s mind populated with such incredible stories; the legend was rooted somewhere in the past of Mount Chester’s small-town community. It had probably emerged when devastated parents had tried to make sense of their tragedy after their daughters had gone missing without a trace. Fifty years ago—without the constant distractions brought by the internet and television and social media—people had more time to think, to talk, to put things together and notice patterns such as the first-daughter commonality in the victimology.
“He’d have to be, what, eighty years old now?” Elliot asked, staring intently at the screen. While she’d been chatting with Deputy Farrell, he reviewed the victim list, reading the details of the most recent few cases.
“Or more,” she replied dryly. “He’d be eighty if he started taking these girls at twenty-three, which is relatively young. But that’s not even the biggest problem I’m seeing with this profile.” She took a sip of hot, bitter coffee from the paper cup by her side, after holding it for a while between her frozen hands to warm them up. For a moment, she thought of Avery Montgomery, his distinguished poise and white hair and club dinners with the mayor. But no… he didn’t fit, even if he didn’t have the ironclad alibi. He was too calm, too composed, and Julie was his great-grandchild. She’d looked straight into his watery eyes and had not seen a trace of guilt or fear, or the tiniest flicker of worry. Other than being eighty-three years old, she had no reason to think of him as the unsub. Even so, he was weak and frail, unable to load someone like Julie in his truck. “What bugs me is he didn’t devolve,” she said. “From what I could tell, his MO stayed the same for decades. He didn’t accelerate the timeline either.”
“Why is that an issue?” Elliot asked.
“The majority of serial killers are sexually motivated, although lust isn’t the only driver behind the urge to kill. But we could safely eliminate that motivation from the profile. Sexually motivated sadists accelerate the timeline, as their search for the ultimate thrill always leaves them wanting more, and they almost always unravel. They also lose interest in killing once they age and their sex drive diminishes.” She stared at the screen filled with names, seeing how it was always a year or more between abductions. “Well, not this unsub. We have no choice but to consider this unsub a mission-driven killer.”
“If we haven’t found any bodies, how can you be sure there was no sexual component in the killings?”
“I can’t be sure, but I’m willing to bet there isn’t,” she replied, while her thoughts probed into her reasoning. As always, Elliot’s question, spot on, triggered another round of analysis. Was she taking a leap here, assuming the unsub didn’t rape his victims? But, for a lust killer, how does a steady cooling-off period of over a year make sense? “Not unless this killer has always had the libido of an eighty-year-old.” She took another sip of coffee, still thinking. “Nah, I guess we have to consider he’s mission-driven.”
She paused for a while, weighing the theory in her mind. Did it fit? Not entirely. Most mission-oriented serial killers wanted to eliminate some perceived evil from the world, or at least their corner of it. Some wanted their cities rid of homeless people, prostitutes, or drug users. Any social group that the killer’s twisted mind would perceive as undesirable could potentially become a target. But what could possibly make young girls from low-risk, suburban families become undesirable? That was the part that didn’t fit. She had to look into the victimology before she could be sure. The only alternative left was power- and control-seeking sadists, but most of them used sex as the means to control the victims, and sex just didn’t jibe well with the unsub’s longevity and meticulousness in executing perfectly organized kidnappings for almost six decades.
With a tinge of regret, she abandoned the warm coffee cup on the desk and flipped through some screens, landing on the map view of the cases.
“See how they’re all centered here, in Mount Chester?” The red dots were scattered on the map all the way to the Pacific Coast, and inland a good twenty-five miles away from the town. Yet the pattern was clear. “He’s local; he has to be.”
“What about these other cases, in LA and San Francisco, and the one in Bakersfield?”
“They might be related, just as some of the forty-three here might be unrelated. It just makes more sense to focus here, and find out what these cases have in common. We should divide and conquer.”
Elliot stood and pushed the chair away from the desk. “How do you explain his longevity?”
For a moment, she let her mind wander freely, while she looked out the window at the falling rain bashed against the glass by angry gusts of wind. �
��I don’t,” she eventually answered. “The most prolific serial killer on record is Samuel Little, with ninety-three victims over thirty-five years in twelve states. The FBI investigation is ongoing, and will probably not end very soon.” She rubbed her hands together slowly, the gesture helping her think. “Thirty-five years, Elliot, the most prolific ever. Fifty-seven is unheard of. We’re in record-breaking territory.” She stood, closed the lid on her laptop and put on her jacket. It still felt moist and cold against her heated skin, enough to make her shiver. “It’s not impossible, I guess. Or it could be more than one unsub.”
“Like what, partners? A team?”
She nodded. “They are extremely rare and always devolve. They’re never as neat, as precise as this one, nor as enduring.” She grabbed two sheets of paper from the printer. “It makes sense, if you stop and think about it. Whatever motivates the first killer—whatever trauma, genetics, hormonal imbalance, or psychosis is at the root of his urges—will be genetically and environmentally different in his partner. The urges to kill and torture aren’t identical. Before long, the fabric that holds the serial-killing team together starts tearing at the seams.”
“Sheesh,” he muttered. “Can you imagine, going out there and finding another killer just like you, and forging a partnership? How does one do that?” His face showed so much revulsion she decided not to tell him what she knew about some of those cases. “But if the girls were killed, like you seem to believe, where are they now? How come no one found their bodies in almost six decades?”
“All great questions,” Kay replied, unable to shake the feeling that she was missing something.
“Why do you think he kills them, anyway?”
His question saddened her. “Statistically, it’s what happens, with very few exceptions. Holding people captive is a treacherous and expensive business. As disheartening as this might sound, those exceptions are not the desirable outcome, not even close, not for the girls held in endless captivity with no hope of ever being found.” She felt a chill down her spine at the thought of forty-three girls held in captivity for so long. Were they killed? Did they wish they would die, to escape who knows what horrible fate? “I have faith we’ll find Julie alive. Let’s hope this unsub doesn’t rush to kill her.”