by Elle Gray
“How did you ID these ones?”
“I ran a search,” I shrug. “Given that the vics we knew of were all traffickers or dealers or predators, I narrowed it down to those types of cases or anything our perp might think of as ‘sinful’. Ran checks for tattoos of flaming crosses or the presence of graffiti at the site. Had to filter out a bunch by hand. Why do you think I slept in the office?”
Blake chuckles and shakes her head. “Christ,” she mutters. “Why aren’t you working for the Bureau again?”
“I have a soul.”
“Shut up, Arrington.”
The databases themselves are basically just giant warehouses of digital information that store all the facts and figures of any given crime scene across the country. You can plug in keywords that allow you to view the reports and photos of a wide range of crimes. It’s a useful tool if you know what you’re looking for. But if you don’t know, then you might as well be beating your head against the wall.
The database is only as good as the information a user has. Like the old saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. For instance, if you don’t know you should be combing the database for crime scenes where a flaming cross was found, guess what? You’re not going to find crime scenes with flaming cross graffiti or tattoos. But knowing what we were looking for changed everything.
“This is why it’s good that we’re pooling our resources,” I tell her. “I think of things you don’t, and you sit there and look pretty.”
“I’ve got a gun, you know.”
I laugh. “The thing that’s bothering me, though, is that we wouldn’t be here right now without Hayes,” I tell her. “He gave us the first breadcrumb we needed to find the trail.”
“Which makes me wonder why,” Blake adds.
“Yeah, that’s something I’ve been wrestling with.”
“He wants you to play his game for some reason,” she tells me. “Which I find more than a little troubling.”
“I think it’s because we both share a fascination with Sherlock Holmes.”
Blake rolls her eyes. “Great. Bonding with a serial killer over ancient literature.”
“Well, at least you know it’s literature,” I say. “Good for you.”
“Shut it, Arrington.”
I brush her off. “It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. I mean, he seemed to really perk up when I figured his alias out.”
“Wonderful.”
“It’s not much, but it’s something we might be able to use later.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I scrub my face with my hands and roll my head around, trying to work out a kink in my neck. I can’t get it out, and it’s irritating me.
“What does your boss say?” I ask.
“I have a feeling they’re going to say a lot more once they get a load of this,” she tells me. “Listen, this changes things—”
“It changes nothing, Blake. It just means he’s killed more people than we thought,” I insist. “And it certainly doesn’t change what I’m doing. Or what I’m going to do.”
Blake sits up and puts her feet on the floor then starts picking imaginary lint off her slacks. She frowns.
“Figured you’d say that,” she says.
“You know me well.”
She stands up and looks at me, her expression sober. “Watch your six, Arrington. I’m not screwing around. This is as serious as you’re going to get.”
“Consider it watched.”
Thirteen
Downtown Seattle
I stand in the alley looking up one way and down the other. There are half a dozen dumpsters; three against one wall, three against the other. Trash is piled up against the wall like snowdrifts, and the pervasive smell of decay, rotting meat, and something even more pungent that I can’t identify underneath it all saturates the air. Overhead, the sky is slate gray. A fine mist drifts down from above. The cool breeze blowing down the alley carries the whispered promise of rain along with it.
The fact that the Bureau hasn’t officially given Blake the green light to investigate this case is baffling. It’s pissing Blake off to no end. I have to think that somebody realized they screwed up somewhere along the line and have allowed this guy to kill with impunity for decades, and now they’re trying to avoid all responsibility and the scandal that will come along with it. If they don’t acknowledge it, they don’t have to take the blame for it.
I guess the Bureau has taken so many body blows lately, they want to step back and take a minute to catch their breath. Given what they’re dealing with on their end, I suppose I can’t really blame them; they really are eating crow right now and taking fire from all directions.
I check the address from the police report and double-check my location. I’m in the right spot. This is where Teresa Reyes’ body was found. It’s an alleyway between a Chinese restaurant and a dive bar, though I have no idea what these two businesses were ten years ago.
I don’t even know what I’m doing here, honestly. It’s been so long; I know there isn’t going to be anything in the way of evidence to be found here. Not even the flaming cross that had been spray painted on the wall near the body remains. I guess I just want to be in the spot Blake found the body. I thought soaking in the atmosphere might give me an idea of where to go and what do to next because, at the moment, I’m coming up empty.
I’m not a trained investigator, so I’m flying by the seat of my pants right now. I’m moving by instinct. They say that if you don’t get a lead within the first forty-eight hours of a murder, your chances of actually catching the suspect diminish with every passing hour. Which means that, given the fact that Teresa’s murder happened a decade ago, my odds of catching the killer should be somewhere around zero.
But the killer, Hayes, put us on this path himself. He gave me the first three names and had to know that eventually, we’d make the connection to his other victims. So was this all part of his plan? Did he want us to find these other six? Did he expect us to find that Teresa Reyes was one of his? Did he expect that I would find the link to his dozens of other victims? If Blake is right and he sees himself as my Moriarty, is this all part of a test? Part of his ‘Great Game’?
I hate to say it because I know how perverse and morbid it sounds, but being on the hunt for Hayes, for this most prolific of serial killers, sends a rush of adrenaline through me I haven’t felt in a very long time. The man is intelligent, articulate, calculating— and ruthless. Crossing swords with him is an unexpected treat that has me vibrating with excitement.
I turn in a circle, taking in my surroundings— while doing my best to not gag on the stench— and try to visualize what it had been like that night. The ME’s report said Teresa had been butchered. Thirty-one stab wounds to her chest and stomach, but the fatal blow was an ear to ear slice across the neck that severed her carotid. The savagery of the attack tells me it was personal.
Given that Teresa was a prostitute, the lazy conclusion to draw is that an angry john carved her up, which is, in fact, the conclusion the SPD came to. Given the laziness and arrogance, I now know is at all levels of the SPD, that isn’t all that surprising. I don’t see this man soliciting prostitutes in dark alleys though. I can’t explain it, but I think he would consider it… dirty. He’d see it as being beneath him. As a ruse? Yeah, absolutely. As a means of actual sexual gratification? Probably not.
There’s obviously much more to this case than that, but the detective assigned to the case— a Detective Garvin— didn’t dig much deeper than the surface. Granted, the painted cross looks like graffiti in the crime scene photos, but he should have been diligent and tried to run it through the federal database just in case. But like I said, garbage in, garbage out.
I pull the crime scene photo out of the folder and walk over to the spot where Teresa’s body was found. I try to picture it. I close my eyes and see the man bringing Teresa into the alley under the guise of being a client. He turns her around, makes her put her hands against the wall, and
then, instead of using her, he grabs her by the hair, pulls her head back, and cuts her throat. Then, while she’s gasping as her life’s blood flows from the wound in her neck, the killer turns her around and stabs her over and over again.
He’d probably cut her throat first to keep her quiet. And as I look around the alley and see how much my vision is obscured by the dumpsters, fire escapes, and other assorted refuse, I see that this is an ideal spot. In the dark, it would be hard to see somebody down here, and if somebody did see him, it would be in silhouette only. And given the reputation of the neighborhood, they would probably assume he was back here being serviced by one of the prostitutes that work the area. It’s just about the most perfect place to commit an evil act like what had been done to Teresa.
I slip the photo back into the file as my phone rings. I slip the file into my satchel and pull my phone out. I’m still studying the area and don’t check the caller ID before I connect the call and press the phone to my ear.
“Arrington,” I say.
“Mr. Arrington,” he says. “It’s nice to hear your voice again.”
I feel like my veins have been filled with ice. My gut churns wildly with trepidation and excitement. A hot shot of adrenaline courses straight through me. It’s morbid, I know, but I can’t keep the small smile off my face.
“Mr. Hayes,” I reply. “How did you get this number?”
“Please. You of all people know how easy it is to obtain information others don’t want you to have.”
His comment takes me off guard. He’s clearly alluding to something, but I don’t know what it is offhand. It’s curious, but a nugget of information I’ll store away, for now, to study later when I’ve got time and I’m not distracted.
“I have to admit that I’m surprised you’d contact me,” I state.
“Oh? And why is that?” he asks. “I thought our last conversation went well enough, and we ended it on a positive note. You did get the girl home, after all.”
“I did,” I say. “You are a man of your word.”
“I am at that.”
I walk out of the alley just to get out of the stink and lean against the wall of the Chinese restaurant. I glance through the window and see that it’s half-filled with happy patrons all stuffing their faces with noodles, rice, and a hundred other dishes I can see. If it weren’t for me still feeling nauseous after being in the fetid stink of that alley for so long, I might be hungry. But at the moment, I think crackers and water is all I’ll be able to tolerate.
I turn away from the window, lean my head back against the brick wall, and look up at the sky. The mist has all but stopped, but it feels like a storm is coming. I expect it to get a whole lot colder and a whole lot wetter by morning. But for the moment, I’m content to stand here and suck in lungful after lungful of clean, fresh air.
That’s when it hits me that Hayes isn’t using his voice modulator. He’s allowing me to hear his actual, unaltered voice. It is slightly higher pitched and has a pleasing timbre. He speaks with an easy cadence that has a smooth, almost hypnotic quality to it. And I was right; he sounds refined and cultured. It could be an affectation, but I get a charge out of knowing that my initial instincts and impressions were correct.
“So what occasions this call, Mr. Hayes?” I ask.
“I wanted to know if you had checked out those names I provided you?”
“I did, actually,” I reply. “And those three were just the tip of the iceberg, as it turned out.”
He laughs softly on the other end of the line. “So, you’ve learned my secret.”
“I have.”
“And what is that secret?” he asks. “Not that I do not believe you of course.”
“Trust but verify, right?”
“Something like that,” he says. “So? What have you found?”
“That you have been killing for a very long time,” I say. “At least twenty-two years, by my count.”
There’s a soft chuckle on the other end of the line. “A little bit longer than that, actually.”
I was right. Those three from 1998 weren’t his first kills. The confirmation sends a charge through me that I know I shouldn’t be feeling but can’t help feeling anyway. Blake would kick me in the balls and probably call me a sociopath for being excited but being on the trail of a serial killer lights me up.
“How many bodies have you discovered, Paxton?” he asks. “May I call you Paxton? I feel as if we are close enough already to be on a first name basis.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” I reply. “And to answer your question, I’ve found thirty-six so far.”
He chuckles again. “I am impressed.”
I shift on my feet and move the phone to my other ear, keeping an eye on the street around me. Maybe it’s my paranoia getting the best of me, but I suddenly get the feeling that I’m being watched. I cut my eyes one way, then the other, but foot traffic is light, and I don’t see anybody that stands out, so I allow myself to relax slightly.
“Are there more?” I ask.
“I suppose you will have to figure that out on your own,” he says. “I can’t do all of your work for you.”
“The three you gave me… they weren’t your first, were they?”
I already know the answer, but I want confirmation, and I’m also hoping he’ll let something slip. It’s a longshot. A man this controlled usually won’t let things slip. A man like this will only tell me what he wants me to know. But everybody has an off day, right?
“They were not my first,” he confirms. “You are right about that.”
“So what year did you first kill?”
“I can’t give away all my secrets, Paxton. We barely know each other.”
I chuckle. “So this is just foreplay.”
“Something like that.”
“Then let me ask you this,” I start, “why me?”
“What do you mean?”
I watch a young couple stroll by, hand in hand, looking at each other like they’re over the moon in love and feel a sharp needle of pain lance my heart. Veronica and I used to look at each other like that. I clear my throat and stuff it all down, locking those emotions back inside their box.
“You were invisible for over twenty years. You killed with impunity and could have gone on for another twenty,” I say. “So why did you give me the first three vics? Why did you put me on your trail? Nobody was looking for you, so why did you give yourself away? To me, of all people?”
In the background, I hear the sound of a horn. It’s loud, long, and low. Almost like a foghorn. As I listen, it hits me. It’s a ferry. That tells me he’s somewhere near water. But the Sound is a large place; he could be anywhere along the shore. It makes the area to search smaller, but it’s still a haystack, and he is just one needle somewhere in the middle of it.
“Why do you think I told you?” he answers my question with a question.
I look up at the clouds again as I hear a rumble of thunder in the distance. It won’t be long before the storm breaks.
“It’s not for publicity. You could have gone to the media a long time ago,” I muse. “I have to think it’s because you believe this is a game you’re drawing me into. A battle of wits.”
“And why would I do that?” he responds. “Why would I risk capture just for a game?”
“Because you don’t believe you’ll lose. You think you’ll outwit and outsmart me,” I reply. “But you think it will be fun and will give you a rush of excitement you haven’t felt in a long time.”
His laughter is low and rueful sounding, and I bristle. It’s not because he’s laughing, it’s because what I just described, the attributes I just ascribed to him can be turned back onto me. His motives for revealing himself to me are the same as my motives for hunting him. The understanding that I am a lot like this man, that we have more in common than I would have ever guessed, let alone acknowledged, leaves me breathless. For a moment, speechless.
“I sense in you a kindred spirit, Pax
ton,” he says.
“I don’t kill people.”
“You could,” he replies.
“Anybody could.”
“Cold. Emotionless. Aloof. You do know how many sociopathic tendencies you exhibit, don’t you?” he says. “You’re far more likely to kill somebody than your average man on the street.”
“Sociopaths aren’t capable of compassion. Or empathy,” I say. “I am.”
“Are you?” he replies. “Or do you just fake it to get by?”
I cringe inwardly, hearing the ring of truth in his words. How often have I faked an emotional response I didn’t feel because it was expected of me in whatever social situation I happened to be in? Too often. More often than I can count. Not that I’ll ever admit that out loud. Or to him.
That feeling of being observed creeps over me again. I cut a glance around the street. I look up at the darkened windows of the buildings around me, wondering if he’s behind one of them. I push the thought away though as ridiculous. And impossible. He cannot be in two places at once, and I distinctly heard the ferry in the background, which I cannot hear from where I am.
“None of that means I’m predisposed to murder,” I tell him.
“No, but I know that darkness resides in your soul.”
“You seem to know me well,” I remark.
“Better than you think. I must admit to a certain level of fascination with you.”
“That’s sweet. Are you going to ask me to go steady next?”
He chuckles. “Perhaps next time,” he says. “I just wanted to call to speak to you for a few minutes. I thought it would be nice if we got to know each other a bit better.”
“Then let’s sit down over coffee. Talk things out. Bond,” I offer. “I can definitely feel a bromance building between us.”
“Phone calls will suffice for now,” he says. “Have to leave a little something to look forward to, don’t we?”
“I suppose so.”
“I have a splendid feeling about this, Paxton,” he says. “I think it will be quite enjoyable playing this game with you. There has never been a soul I’ve wanted to play with more.”