Snuff

by E. L. McKenzie

  The Doctor fumed as he read the same articles as Nick. “How can these morons not make the connections? How hard is this? I’m dealing with imbeciles.”

  He stomped through his beautiful home, smashing and breaking meaningless trinkets. He learned many years ago his temper could cost him, so he placed numerous easily accessible, inexpensive breakable items throughout his house to help with his rage. He was intent on breaking them all right now.

  He launched a three-dollar T.J. Maxx vase against the fireplace. He stomped a cheap sailboat replica with both feet. He pitched a second larger vase hard at the fireplace, but he threw wildly, and the vase smashed into the floor to ceiling window overlooking the Rocky Mountains. The ensuing crack was large and treacherous and would cost The Doctor at least $3,000. He went crazy from there, trashing most of the living room, cheap and otherwise.

  “How could they fail to connect the dots?” he yelled as he smashed things. “How many times will I have to wave this in front of them?” The Denver Police Department was trying his patience.

  As he calmed, he focused on the articles once again. He had not noticed the first time, but then his eyes twinkled. Detective Nicholas Lynch. Perfect. As he had hoped. The husband of the Dr. Phyllis Goodwin.

  All is not lost then, he mused, smiling menacingly to himself.

  (two years ago)

  With the push of a button, the new door opened as designed, revealing a much larger, more usable space. More a miner and engineer, The Doctor felt his construction skills were average at best. As such, he was pleased with his accomplishments. The facility was complete.

  He referred to this part of his home as the far interior. From the exterior, his home was nondescript by design. To the casual observer, it was simply a weekend getaway for one more affluent Denver family. The interior, on the other hand, was magnificent. The Doctor greatly underestimated his construction and design abilities. Built as a ranch-style home with a basement, the vaulted ceilings, stonework, slate roof, and native logs made this a true Colorado mountain home. The Doctor had secured forty acres in a remote part of western Colorado, only thirty miles from Montrose and less than an hour and a half from Grand Junction.

  Only half of the back of the house rose above ground level, with the basement well below, providing The Doctor the environment required for his work.

  This section began at the back of his basement with a secret entrance. Once he was in here, the secret entrance was imperceptible, and even if it were found, this space was secured from the other side, disallowing any potential interloper access.

  The Doctor had acquired this land many years earlier under an assumed name, before The Patriot Act, September 11th, or any of the other national security measures that made surreptitious activity more difficult. He began building this secret space first, in his spare time, long before his modest home was built to disguise this lair. Given the remote location, he had labored for years without detection.

  He soon discovered his design was simple in concept but difficult in execution. The notion was to build a series of rooms and compartments with doors and accesses allowing him to move captives from one room to another without threat of escape. Acoustics were critical to ensure his captives did not communicate or even realize there were others being held. The main room would be used for staging his productions. With ample lighting, cameras, and accesses, The Doctor could stage his productions as any good director would. He would need secure access off the main room to enter and exit the different players. He would need rooms for storing captives, and a few rooms for delivering different types of discipline, including isolation, depravation, and torture. Each room would need to provide the ability for him to film, feed, and otherwise care for his prey. Most essential, though, was that the rooms in the aggregate would have only one way out. The Doctor could not risk escape. Ever the contingency planner, he built secret exits for himself, knowing that one day he’d need them.

  Nick returned to speak to Jimmy Swindell, and it played out much like his prior visit. With him tucked comfortably in the passenger’s seat, Nick began again with him.

  “Mr. Swindell, I’m working a cold case. Do you remember a young woman named Melissa Sitton who was murdered back in 1977?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were interviewed by detectives after her murder. According to their notes, you and Ms. Sitton were dating. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes.”

  Nick noted Swindell’s energy level increasing. It was as if a light that had dimmed was now brightening.

  “Do you have any information that might help me solve that case? Anything you can remember from that time that might point me in the right direction?”

  “I do,” he replied simply.

  Nick nodded, encouraging Swindell to continue talking.

  “I loved Melissa. I really did. We had only dated for a few months. And we probably hadn’t gone out more than ten or twelve times. I was absolutely smitten by her.” Nick noted Swindell’s gaze was distant, not in the present time. “I would have done about anything for her.”

  “What happened, Jimmy?” He had done this enough times to know that Swindell was very close to confessing.

  “Detective, let me ask you a question.” Nick nodded for him to go ahead. “You have DNA, don’t you?”

  Nick pondered whether or not to tell him the truth. Swindell was close to confessing. This might help him make the right decision. “We do, Mr. Swindell.”

  “I suspected as much. After Melissa died, my life completely fell apart. I had a good job that I was good at and liked. Things were going pretty well for me. But after she died, I just couldn’t function anymore. I lost my business. I bounced from one dead-end thing to the next. I lost myself in alcohol. I lost my family and my friends. I just did not feel like living anymore. I probably should have just killed myself, but I couldn’t even do that.”

  “What happened that night, Jimmy?” Nick would let him talk.

  “We had gone out to dinner, and we got back to her place around nine. I was planning to stay over. But she had other plans. She pretty much told me to leave. We got into an argument. I honestly don’t know if she had another date, or was going to catch up with friends, or just wanted me to leave, or what. I knew she dated other guys. I was really mad. I did it, Detective. I choked her to death. I’m glad you’re here. I should have confessed forty years ago. I’m not the person that does this. I killed her and ruined my own life at the same time.”

  Nick had Swindell step out of the car. He handcuffed him, placed him in the back of his vehicle, drove him to police headquarters, booked him, Mirandized him, and had him go through his full confession on the record. Less than two hours after Nick Lynch pulled up to Jimmy Swindell’s trailer, he had a killer locked away and the remnants of a family finally finding a bit of peace.

  Thursday ⌁ day 4

  “She’s going to arrest!” the young resident screamed as they wheeled Sally Winfield into ER Critical Care Room One. “She’s going to arrest.” Max Braun was twenty-seven years old, in the second year of an ER Residency at the University of Oregon Medical Center and beginning to question what he was doing dealing with this madness.

  The emergency room techs offloaded Sally onto the table and quickly began attaching innumerable tubes and monitors to various parts of her body. Sally was white with death, seemingly comatose, not responding to any of the chaos transpiring around her.

  “She’s arresting,” Braun shouted. “Dammit.” He worked feverishly, intense and sweating but still the picture of control, confidence, and competence. “Let’s get ready to hit her.” The techs had already cut all Sally’s clothes off and draped a cotton sheet over the lower half of her body. As they prepared the electrical shock that might be required to bring Sally back to life, Max performed a lightning-fast examination to find the culprit. There. Needle marks on her left arm, the tell-tale signs of an opioid overdose, likely fentanyl.

  “Dammit, she’s OD’d,” Max continu
ed. “I’m going to try Narcan and CPR first.” The doctor, working with the techs, labored to revive Sally. In short order, Sally’s heart was beating again, and her breathing began to normalize.

  “I’ll get her intubated. We have to stabilize her before she arrests again.” Max ordered.

  Within minutes the poisons Sally Winfield had ingested were neutralized by the life-saving antidote.

  Bosworth looked up from his endless pile of paperwork as Nick entered his office after knocking on his door frame.

  “What’s up?” the Chief Detective asked.

  Nick laid a thin file in front of his boss with a summary memo attached to the outside.

  Bosworth looked at it briefly, smiled, and said, “Seriously?”

  “This was the easiest case I ever worked.”

  Bosworth shook his head. “You never cease to amaze me. Let me ask you a question. How many man-hours do you have in this case now?”

  “I don’t know, I just picked up the file last week. At most, fifty hours.”

  “Detective, I wish we could bottle you and pour you on some of your colleagues.” Nick acknowledged the compliment and left without further conversation.

  Nick got his first break on the Mayflower Case that same morning.

  “Hey, you got a minute?” It was Kelly Barela, one of the homicide department’s leading investigators.

  “For you, Kelly, the world,” Nick responded, swinging around in his chair.

  “I have some information on your John Doe from yesterday. C’mon into Conference Room three, and I’ll show you what I’ve put together,” Barela said as he turned and headed to the conference room.

  Nick followed Kelly into the conference room, one of several reserved for private meetings for the detectives as they worked different cases. He had laid out the entire sequence in advance of calling Nick—professional all the way. Kelly started the progression at one end of the table.

  “First of all, your guy’s name is Steven Blair. He’s from Seattle.”

  Nick looked at the seven pictures laid out. No doubt, John Doe was no longer; he was now Steven Blair of Seattle.

  “After we get through here, I’ll start figuring out what’s going on with this guy, depending on what you want me to do. All I’ve done so far is get his history from Seattle.” Barela looked at Nick, almost pleadingly.

  Nick studied the rest of what was laid out on the table. “Why don’t you walk me through the rest of this? It looks to me like you’ve been up all night putting this together.”

  Barela was clearly pleased with the response. “First, here’s this guy’s history. He definitely has some dirty laundry. He’s been arrested twice for solicitation, both within the last five years. He pled to lesser charges and walked. Of course, he has the normal traffic tickets and all of that.” Nick looked and nodded.

  “But here’s the piece I thought you would find interesting. Some years back, the Seattle PD ran a sting operation on child pornography, back when brick and mortar porn shops were still thriving. They ended up arresting several dozen people, including both sellers and purveyors of the media. Although he was not convicted, our Mr. Blair was charged with thirteen felony counts of distributing child pornography.”

  Nick remembered the case. The Seattle PD botched the whole investigation and had to dismiss all the charges. They ended up looking like the bad guys, and a bunch of pedophiles skated.

  “Yep, I remember all of that. Damn shame,” Nick replied.

  “If you want, I’ll get busy notifying his relatives and finding out more about him personally.”

  Nick slapped Kelly Barela on the shoulder, clearly sending the message he felt Kelly had performed well. “I’d like for you to do that. And please keep me up to speed on what you’re finding out, like you did here. Great job.”

  Nick experienced the glow of a full-blown homicide investigation, a feeling he had almost forgotten. As he began to organize his thoughts, the energy flowed through his body, fueling him adequately for the twenty-hour days he foresaw.

  “Hey Phil, you got a minute?” he asked as he stood at Chief Detective Bosworth’s office door, tapping on the door frame.

  Bosworth looked up, engrossed in his current work, his face moving from consternation to acceptance as he saw who his visitor was. “Sure, c’mon in.”

  “I had a meeting with Kelly. He briefed me on what he’s found so far on the Mayflower Case. I’d like to go through some of the findings if you have a few minutes.”

  Bosworth looked forlornly at the pile of papers piled in front of him on the desk, pushed them aside, and said, “Sure. I’m glad to see you kicking back into gear. Let’s see what you have.”

  Nick sat down and started arranging the evidence on Bosworth’s oversized desk in much the same manner Barela had laid it out in the conference room. As Bosworth’s desk was nothing short of a disaster, much of the Mayflower Case evidence found companionship atop other files.

  “The Mayflower Case, huh?” Bosworth questioned as he laughed. “I like that. It’s pretty funny.”

  “Looks like this guy Blair was a bad guy,” he started, pointing to the Seattle Police Department rap sheet. “Blair was pretty extensively involved in child pornography and who knows what else. I’m guessing whatever he was up to had something to do with why he was in Denver, and probably has a lot to do with why he ended up dead.”

  Bosworth studied the files, and then looked at Nick seriously. “I don’t know, it looks to me like you’re reaching here. I see how you’re getting there, but it seems to me there are too many stones required to cross that river.”

  “Phil, this guy’s a pedophile, and we both know it. The fact that Seattle PD booted that investigation doesn’t mean a thing. This guy’s worthless.” He was starting to get agitated.

  “What are our next steps?” Bosworth asked in a modulated tone.

  In his enthusiasm, Nick did not pick up the modulation. “First, of course, is notification of the family. Barela’s handling that with Seattle PD. Then he’s going to follow up with the family to find out exactly what was going on with this guy.”

  Bosworth nodded, indicating he should continue.

  “What I would like to do is get on the next plane to Seattle and dig further into this. I want to interview his family and friends, find out what was going on in this guy’s life. I want to spend some time with Seattle PD to find out the real story. How much did they have on this guy, and what all was he into? That accomplished, I’ll then know what next steps are.” He finished expectantly.

  Bosworth shook his head and looked down. “It looks to me like you’re getting ahead of yourself here. Why don’t you wait to see what Barela finds out, then we’ll go from there?”

  Nick remained silent and pensive. He looked over Bosworth’s shoulder and west to the Rocky Mountains. “Listen, Phil, we may see this differently, but I need to go to Seattle.”

  Bosworth, too, took a moment to reflect. “I don’t agree, Nick. As your boss, I’d probably say no if it weren’t for your situation. But I do want you to feel you have everything you need around here to get your job done, so if you think it’s that important, then go.”

  Nick stood to leave, rotating out of the chair and heading to the door, showing Phillip Bosworth his back.

  Bosworth continued, “Hang on a minute.” Nick turned. “My concern is that you are getting ahead of yourself here. While I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong, if you had a full caseload, I’m certain you would be more patient, let the chips fall, then go to Seattle if it was warranted. You’re a real professional, and one mistake you have made less than most is barking up the wrong tree. You’re risking that here, and you know how damaging that can be to a career. I really wouldn’t do this if I were you. I’m really happy you cleared that cold case this morning. There are plenty more out there that are important and could use your attention.”

  Nick modulated his tone, as Bosworth had done earlier. “Will you call Seattle PD and let them know I
’m coming?”

  Bosworth made a note. “I will, but they’re not going to be very happy about opening up an old wound here.” He shifted uncomfortably and then continued. “I’ve been thinking about this case. You know our policy of assigning two detectives to all but the simplest of cases.”

  Nick considered Bosworth, knowing what was coming.

  “I think it’s time to assign a partner for you on this one.”

  Nick remained silent.

  “Give it some thought, and we can talk about it when you get back from Seattle.”

  “Hey sailor, in town long?” Jenny whispered in Nick’s ear, placing her hand on his shoulder from behind.

  He turned, beaming. “Hey gorgeous, thanks for joining me for lunch.”

  Jenny sat next to Nick. “What’s up?”

  “I have to head to Seattle for this investigation I have going.”

  Jenny smiled.

  “What’s the story?” she asked, leaning forward on her elbows.

  “Jenny, can I get you something to drink?” Bill asked, interrupting the exchange.

  Jenny glanced at Nick’s coffee.

  “I’ll have coffee, too,” she replied.

  “And Bill, we’re going to have lunch, too, so we’ll order when you come back,” Nick said.

  “Okay.” Bill turned to get the coffee and was back in moments.

  After ordering, Jenny and Nick continued.

  “What’s the story with Seattle?” Jenny asked again.

  “The dead guy is from there. We’re not clear on what’s going on with him, so I need to get up to Seattle to find out.” He laid it out cautiously. As close as he and Jenny were, this was nevertheless extremely confidential, so he would only share generalities.