A Deadly Sin: An epic dark thriller that will have you wanting to leave the lights on.

by Tracie Podger

  I avoided the smug look I was sure I would get if I looked at her and watched as she forced her fingers into the small gap that had formed and pried a hinged panel open. At the same time, I heard the snap of his holster being released as Dean reached his gun. I placed my hand on Eddie, encouraging her to move out of the way. Once we’d exchanged places, I slowly ran my flashlight around the opening.

  I ducked through and found myself in a very narrow hallway, high enough for me to stand and with a wooden staircase in front of me. I waved for the others to follow me as I tested my weight on the first step. It creaked and I hesitated, reaching inside my jacket for my gun as I did. I prayed there was no way out of the attic, because the noise our steps made would, no doubt, alert anyone up there we were on our way to join them.

  At the top of the stairs was a door. I pulled my jacket down to cover my hand as I turned the handle, while trying to hold the flashlight at the same time. I raised my other hand, holding the gun steady as the door swung quickly open. I stepped into a room and swung the light left to right. At the same time, Dean was beside me. The room was empty of any living person, but our flashlights ended up on a wall of photographs.

  We ignored the wall for the moment, focusing our search on the corners of the room. It was devoid of furniture, save for one wooden chair in the middle of the room, facing the wall. Satisfied we were not about to be ambushed, I lowered my gun.

  “This isn’t the whole attic,” Eddie whispered, standing beside me.

  “I know.” The room wasn’t large enough to cover the size of the house, but I guessed it to be about half.

  Dean and I walked to the dividing wall. We repeated the process we’d done downstairs and felt every inch of what appeared to be a solid brick wall. It was cold to the touch, a little damp, the mortar between the bricks crumbled as I brushed my fingers over it.

  “Mich,” I heard. Eddie was standing in front of the wall of photographs. “Someone has the hots for you,” she added.

  The wall consisted of photographs taken from a distance, newspaper cuttings, and drawings. Mostly of me.

  “What the…?”

  I took a step closer and studied them. Most were recent but there were one or two older. One that I focused on was an old photograph when I’d been in the FBI. Corey stood beside me. If I remembered, that was about the time we’d been called in to a small town to handle the murder of cult members. The photograph was of us leaving the local sheriff’s office.

  The image that had my breath catch in my throat, that had my heart pound in my chest, was a very old newspaper clipping. I reached out for it, not wanting to alert Eddie or Dean to it and snatched it off the wall. I folded it quickly, not quick enough by all accounts. Eddie was staring at me, open-mouthed.

  “Mich?” I shook my head, pleading with her to not say anymore.

  Before she could, lights blazed above us. I spun on my heels. Dean stood by the doorway; he’d found a light switch.

  “I thought the power was off,” Eddie said.

  “So did we. This is obviously hooked up to something separate from the house,” he said.

  The single overhead bulb highlighted the extent of the wall, and the amount of images. I took a step closer but was halted by a sharp intake of breath. Eddie pointed to a photograph partially hidden.

  Casey Long sat on a wooden chair, not dissimilar to the one in the room. Her arms were bound behind her and her ankles to the front legs. She was naked with a rag stuffed into her mouth. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks stained with her tears.

  “Call it in,” I said to Dean.

  “Don’t touch anything else,” she said, I raised my eyebrows at her.

  Dean climbed down the stairs to get a better signal, Eddie slowly pivoted to face me.

  “What did it say, Mich?” she asked.

  “Not now.”

  “I saw the headline, what did it mean?”

  “Eddie, please, not now.”

  “You’re a cop.”

  “Yeah, I sort of know that. Later, okay? I promise, I’ll tell you later.”

  I doubted very much that I’d tell her what that newspaper article was about. It was something from my very distant past, something I’d kept hidden, successfully, for many years. How the fuck did that newspaper article, from a local newspaper, from another fucking country, end up here?

  I clamped my teeth together to stop the flurry of expletives that wanted to explode from me. This wall was about me, those photographs, images, fucking drawings even, spanned a few years. Yet interspersed we found more images of Casey and a couple of Dale.

  “Look for Vicky,” I said.

  “I don’t know what she looks like.”

  “You know that’s Casey so any other female, okay? Look!”

  I didn’t want to snap at her, I wanted to take some deep breaths, slow my heart rate and get my focus back on track. But I’d been blindsided by that one piece of paper. My world was thrown off it’s perfectly built, fake, axis. I breathed in deep through my nose, walking from one end of the wall to the other. Not wanting Eddie to see how stressed I felt.

  “Team’s on their way,” Dean said, heading back up the staircase.

  “Let’s see if there’s a way into the other side.”

  We didn’t bother to conceal our voices. If there was someone behind that brick wall, we’d hear them trying to leave. We left the attic, descended the stairs, and crossed the room. We headed straight to the room on the opposite side of the hall and to the back wall. I hoped we’d find another false wall, another hidden panel, and access to the second half of the attic.

  It was a scratch on the wooden floor, at the base of a sideboard that had my blood pumping. I dragged it away and a very obvious door was revealed. The fact the sideboard was there confirmed we were not likely to encounter anyone. Like before, I covered my hand with the sleeve of my jacket and pried the door open. A matching staircase took us straight to the attic room, no door on that one. It was a similar space and this time, not empty.

  In one corner was an iron bedstead; a bare mattress that looked filthy, lay on top. Rope was coiled around the metal headboard. I didn’t need forensics to confirm, I’d lay my salary that was the same rope used to bind Casey to the cross.

  Shelves lined one wall. Each shelf contained books, neatly standing side by side, spines out, and without a speck of dust on them. Someone loved those books. I scanned the spines. Some were classics, there was certainly not much that I recognized, and all looked old with leather covers.

  “Mich?” I heard Eddie calling from the hallway.

  I left Dean to scout the room while I made my way back out. The cavalry had arrived. The road outside was lit up like a fucking parade. Blue and red flashing lights shone through the windows. Thankfully, the house was isolated, so we didn’t have to contend with neighbors wanting to know what was going on.

  “There’s a bed up there, with rope. I bet it’s the same rope used for Casey,” I said, when I’d gotten to her.

  The forensic team started to do their thing, we’d decided the whole property needed to be fingerprinted and we’d need the kids to be processed for elimination purposes. Eddie, Dean, and I were in the way, yet we didn’t want to leave either. My heart raced with the anticipation that we’d find DNA on the mattress. It was heavily stained, clearly used, and even with the naked eye I could see hair. I watched as one of the guys pulled a few hairs, placing each one in small plastic bags. They then bagged up the mattress itself.

  “I need you out of here,” I heard. I knew we’d pushed our luck by being in the middle of the room for as long as we had and retreated to the downstairs.

  A van was parked out front; it’s rear doors open in preparation for the items that were being removed. Pieces of furniture were wrapped in plastic, similar to shrink-wrap, in the hope it would protect any evidence. Adrenalin and excitement began to course through my body. Not enough to quell the nausea that formed when the realization hit that we should have investigated t
he house a little more thoroughly before now, though.

  That adrenalin spiked higher when an officer came running up the path, waving his radio.

  “Mich, there’s another one,” he said, wheezing as he handed me the radio.

  “What and where?” I said, into it.

  Dispatch told me that a burglary had been reported, they thought a car had driven through the glass frontage of a small jeweler’s. Turns out, it wasn’t a car. The poor fucker who had gone to investigate had found a naked body on a gurney instead.

  I shouted for Dean and Eddie before racing to the car. I wanted its engine running and ready to go as they piled in.

  Eddie made a call, instructing her on-call team to meet us at the store. The area had already been taped off, but that was risen and we were waved through. Officers stood outside the shattered entrance waiting for us, and trying not to wince at the high-pitched wail of the alarm. They knew not to start until we’d arrived. Although nearly midnight, a small group of onlookers had formed. I asked for them to be pushed further back before we stepped through the smashed frontage.

  In the center of the store was a grey metal gurney; similar to something we’d see used in a hospital. Strapped on top was a young woman, naked yet her genitalia was painted gold. I walked as close to her as Eddie would allow, bearing in mind I had no protective clothing on. Her breasts were covered with the same paint. But it was her face that nearly forced vomit to spew from my mouth. Her mouth was open in what would have been a scream, but full of…?

  The small cabinet display lights that had been turned on picked out the shimmer of something gold. I took a slight step closer. Her mouth was full of a substance. I wanted to reach out and feel it; it was clearly a metal of some kind.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered.

  “Jesus,” Dean said, as he stepped beside me, ignoring the wrath of Eddie for possibly contaminating her scene.

  “Look at her eyes,” I said.

  Two gold orbs stared back at us. Gold streaked down the side of her temples, the skin around them was melted back to bone.

  One hand was bloodied and palm face up. Letters were carved into each fingertip.

  G R E E D

  “Oh my God. I need…” Dean turned and walked out; I soon followed him.

  I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the pain Vicky, and it clearly was Vicky, would have suffered. I silently prayed that she had been dead before being subjected to those horrors.

  Eddie had donned her ‘work clothes’ and ushered everyone away from the body. Dan, her assistant, was busy erecting a tent; to not only shield the scene from onlookers, but to protect it.

  At first we stood in silence, not sure what to actually say. The image of Vicky’s face, the grotesque distortion of her mouth, the lack of lips, and bared teeth, was seared into my brain. And her eyes. What the fuck was that all about?

  “Can someone shut that fucking alarm off?” Dean said.

  One of the sheriff’s deputies entered the store, within a couple of minutes there was silence and he returned holding a fuse.

  A woman’s scream echoed down the street, I looked over to see Vicky’s mother running in nightwear toward us. She was held back by a couple of officers before she’d even gotten to the tape. I looked at Dean, I wasn’t sure I could be the one to speak with her. And by his face, I was pretty sure Dean couldn’t either. I cursed the onlookers for alerting her that quickly. I took a deep breath and strode over.

  “Mrs. Bell, we need you to go home. Someone will escort you and keep you company.”

  “Is it Vicky? Please, tell me that,” she said, sobbing and being visibly supported by an officer before she collapsed.

  “Please, Mrs. Bell. Let us deal with the scene…”

  “Is it my baby?” She reached out to grab my jacket in desperation.

  I gently nodded my head. Before I could speak more, she’d passed out. In one way, I was grateful for that. Not to save myself from any further disclosure but to ease her pain for a little while. One officer gently lowered her to the ground; he removed his jacket, placing it under her head and pulling down the nightdress that had risen to her thighs. I heard him on the radio calling for paramedics.

  “I’ve got this,” he said, looking up at me. I simply nodded my thanks.

  It was the immeasurable pain I believed Vicky would have gone through that set her murder apart from the others. Her lips had literally melted from her face. There was no doubt in my mind that molten metal was poured into her mouth and over her eyes.

  Vicky was removed from the store and the forensic team got to work. I had officers walk the street, like I had every other time, seeking out any CCTV, evidence, not that I expected to find any. The town’s main street was a busy place during the day, although there were a couple of bars at one end, it was often pretty desolate at midnight. The late drinkers would be frequenting the bars on the outskirts of town.

  “Dispatch said a call was made, do we have those details?” I asked Dean, as I joined him.

  “Anonymous caller. It was a report of a suspected burglary. He hung up before giving any more details.”

  “Mmm, you thinking what I am?” I asked.

  “Yep. Our killer called it in,” Dean replied.

  The townsfolk, in general, were law-abiding. I didn’t think anyone other than our killer wouldn’t want to leave details. It was possible, of course, they were up to no good themselves, but then why call in something that might just have been a break-in.

  “He’s making contact,” I heard. Turning, I saw the smiling face of Corey. He’d arrived a day earlier that I had expected.

  I stepped forward and shook his hand, introduced him to Dean, and my head of forensics, Joe.

  “Good to have you here. So, he’s making contact then?”

  “If it can be confirmed that he was the one to call in the incident, then I’d say so.”

  “We have the call being analyzed, traced, but this guy is like a fucking ghost.”

  “He’ll present himself soon, he’ll get frustrated that you aren’t close. No matter what the motive, all serial killers like recognition.”

  “Are we at serial killer status, then?” Dean asked.

  “More than two murders by the same person, according to the FBI, is a serial killer,” Corey replied.

  We were given the nod that we could enter the store. The forensic team would be there for a while longer, but I guessed they had processed the main area. One of the officers was tracking down the owner of the store, but until we obtained a set of keys, we would have to step through the broken window.

  “What do we have here?” Corey asked.

  I explained about the house, what was found in the two attics and the call dispatch had received. I struggled through the details of what we then found when we arrived at the store.

  “So we’re looking for a blacksmith or someone with access to a smelting pot,” he said.

  “We’ve gone through every barn and agricultural building in this town and on the outskirts. Who are we looking for, Corey?”

  “Having gone through what you sent me, I suspect we’re looking for someone with the worst trait we want in a serial killer, Mr. Average Joe. Although these murders are gruesome, there’s no showmanship involved. He’s not displaying for praise. He’s following a very rigid set of rules, in his mind—these seven sins thing.”

  “So are we looking at seven murders?” Dean asked.

  “I’d say so, unless you catch him first. The thing is, I don’t think these murders are his ultimate goal. He has a bigger plan.”

  “Cunts. You fucking cunts,” I shouted, as I watched a group of men in white cotton overalls remove items from my house. Tears streamed down my cheeks at the loss of my prized possession, my wall of art.

  “Not now, Mother!” I said, hearing her fucking voice chastising me in my head.

  She had been right, of course, the house was not the place to ‘work’ but I’d ignored her. I didn’t attempt to brush t
he tears from my cheeks as I watched plastic bags of my photographs, my drawings, and newspaper clippings being loaded onto a white van. Why white? White overalls, white van—was that significant?

  I didn’t care for the furniture, that was years old and didn’t belong to me. I cared only for my collection of images of Mich. It had taken me two years to build that up. Two fucking years: of stalking, of research, revelations, and heartache. All gone in the space of a couple of hours.

  I slipped away, keeping to the boundary of the field alongside the house until I reached my truck. I was far enough away to not alert anyone to the sound of the engine starting, and I bumped along the field road until I hit the main road. It was time to go and see how Vicky had fared.

  I parked some distance from the main street, opting to walk to where a small crowd of pajama-clad onlookers stood. There he was, something akin to grief etched into his face, my mood lifted somewhat. He’d been repulsed, I imagined, at the sight of Vicky. His sidekick seemed to be making endless notes on a pad and Mich was talking to a suited man, a man I knew well.

  Corey Lowe, FBI agent and old partner of Mich’s, stood close to him. I couldn’t hear what was being said, of course, but Mich was certainly rattled to have called upon his friend. I had yet to decide if having Corey around was a good or bad thing. At least there’d be another person to mourn Mich’s death, I guessed.

  I watched for just a little while before slipping away. I placed a pre-paid cell in front of the wheel of my truck, climbed in, and rolled down the window. The cell I used to call in the suspected ‘burglary’ made a satisfying crunch as I slowly drove over it; then reversed before getting out and collecting all the pieces. No point leaving evidence, now, was there?

  We had been informed that Mrs. Bell was in the local hospital; her sister had arrived to sit with her. I sent an officer to confirm the news, not because I didn’t want to, but I needed to be back at the station. Eddie would, I hoped, have emailed me over photographs. She wouldn’t autopsy Vicky that evening, or rather, that morning, but would wait until later in the day. I suspected she would have completed some initial paperwork then headed home.