Victim 14

by KJ Kalis

  Flynn nodded, “Yeah, not much to bury. By the way, they’ve never found any of the limbs or heads of any of the bodies in Tifton. Only the torsos.”

  Emily’s skin began to crawl. The fact that the torso killer had gotten away with more than a dozen murders they knew about and that law enforcement had no leads and was never able to find the remaining body parts wasn’t a good sign. This man was dangerous, that was for sure. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “I made an appointment for you to meet with Bradley Barker tomorrow morning at eight,” Mike said. For a moment his face dipped down as he looked at his keyboard. Emily’s phone chirped in the background. “I just sent the address to your phone. It’s already programmed into the truck, so you’ll be ready to go in the morning. It’s a twenty-two-minute drive from the bed-and-breakfast.”

  Emily raised her eyebrows, “Okay, thanks. Not sure how you hacked into my truck’s GPS, but…”

  “Now, I can’t share all my secrets,” Mike said, smiling. The smile washed off his face as his next words came out, “Be careful, Emily. This guy is no joke.”

  Emily nodded, “I will.”

  7

  Emily woke up in a sour mood. She’d spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, her mind processing all of the information Mike and Flynn passed to her the night before. “Probably talking about hacked-up bodies before bed wasn’t a good plan,” she muttered to herself as she went into the bathroom and flipped on the light.

  A half-hour later, after taking a hot shower and putting on a clean set of clothes, Emily felt better. She checked the temperature on her phone. It was already eighty degrees out. Although she would have liked to wear shorts, chasing down a case with her legs exposed wasn’t a good plan, especially if it involved running around the woods and getting a raging case of poison ivy. Emily pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, going back into the bathroom to braid her long dark hair. There was no point in drying it, not that she did very often anyway, but in the heat and humidity, she’d probably sweat through it in no time fast. She had to stay focused. Hard to do that with sweat running down my face, she thought.

  Getting ready to leave the room for the day, Emily slid the holster of her pistol on her hip, clipping it to her belt. She checked to make sure it was still loaded — she knew it was, but she checked again, a habit she developed in the police academy. “Better to check your equipment than be surprised,” one of her instructors had said. She pulled her T-shirt over top of it. The rear grip was still a little visible, but she didn’t care. With a serial killer on the loose, she wanted to make sure she was safe, or at least as safe as she could be.

  It was six forty-five. She knew it was too early to leave for Bradley Barker’s house. Emily grabbed the key card to her room and stuffed it in her back pocket, deciding to go downstairs and see what breakfast looked like.

  As soon as she got halfway down the steps, the sweet scent of maple syrup hit her. Turning the corner, there were two other tables of people sitting in the small dining room. Emily took a table in the corner, facing the doorway. A minute later, a young man greeted her, his name badge reading Matthew. “Morning,” he said, with a deep southern drawl. “Coffee?”

  Emily nodded.

  “Is this your first morning here?”

  “Yes.”

  Matthew nodded, “Let me get your coffee, and then I’ll bring you a menu.”

  A minute later, Matthew came back with an oversized mug of coffee, a glass of water, and a laminated menu under his arm. “The special this morning is French toast, but we have eggs and cereal as well. Pretty much anything you could want.”

  Emily didn’t want to take the time to look at the menu. “I’ll take the French toast. That sounds good. Thank you.”

  Matthew nodded and walked away. While she was waiting, Emily looked at the other people that were sitting and enjoying their breakfast. There was a couple with a young girl with them, probably not more than three or four years old. They’d cut up a sausage for her and she was picking at it with her fingers, the parents discussing something Emily couldn’t hear. On the other side of the room, there was a couple, eating in silence, their heads down, faces buried in their food. Emily tried to guess why the other people were there. She had a moment where she imagined walking up to the tables and introducing herself, “Hi, I’m Emily. I’m here to track down the torso killer. You?” The thought of how preposterous it was almost made her laugh out loud.

  A few minutes later, Matthew was back at Emily’s table, a couple of plates balanced on his arm. Before he even set the food down, Emily could smell the cinnamon and the bacon and sausage. “Here you go,” Matthew said, setting the plates in front of her. Emily took a bite of the French toast, mopping it up with syrup. “I’m going to have to remember to thank Mike later,” she whispered to herself. Although her appetite hadn’t been all that good in the last few days, the food was so delicious at the Tifton Center B & B it was hard to turn it away.

  About halfway through her meal, Emily realized she was full. If she ate anymore, the only thing she’d be able to do would be to go upstairs and head back to bed. Wiping her lips on the napkin, she checked the time on her cell phone. It was seven-thirty. If she hoped to get to Bradley Barker’s house on time, she’d need to get moving. Lifting her hand, she caught Matthew’s attention. “I need to head out for a meeting. You’ll add this to my tab?”

  “Is included in your stay, ma’am,” Matthew said.

  “Okay. Thanks,” Emily said, surprised. She wondered how much she was paying per night for the bed-and-breakfast, but then realized it didn’t matter. There was nowhere else to stay in Tifton. After the case was over, she’d have to remind Mike that budget was still an issue, even with the five-thousand-dollar monthly envelopes stacking up in her safe.

  Stepping outside, the air was thick and humid. Before she even got to the truck, she realized she was sweating. Summer humidity in Louisiana was nothing like anywhere else. Inside the truck, she flipped on the air conditioning, feeling the cool air bring her body temperature down. How people live here, I’ll never know, she thought to herself, suddenly wishing for a brisk winter wind off of Lake Michigan. Living in a hot climate wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, she realized.

  Pulling out of the bed-and-breakfast, Emily took a better look at the town. It had been dusky bordering on dark when she drove in the night before, so she hadn’t gotten a good look at the homes and businesses in the area.

  There wasn’t much to the center of Tifton, a single big-box grocery and home goods store, flanked by a few smaller strip centers that looked pretty new, a couple of gas stations, and two single-story office buildings. The buildings seem to be clustered together as if they were huddled in one place. It looked like the start of a city expansion plan that never came to fruition.

  As she drove out of the center of Tifton, a few homes dotted the sidewalks. Stopped at one of the few lights in the town, Emily could see the sidewalks had heaved in a couple of places, probably from flooding. The homes ranged from small and well-kept to those that looked like they had been built forty years before and never touched since.

  About two miles out of the center of town, the woods became thick and dense again, the trees and scrub clamoring for rays of sunlight. Every now and again, Emily would pass a driveway where enough space for a home and a small yard had been cut out. She’d seen the home the night before, but there were even more on the other side of town. The roads were narrow, with no guardrails and not much in the way of striping. A semi-truck passed Emily’s pickup, nearly side-swiping her, his horn blaring, “Geez,” Emily said, feeling her stomach knot. She instantly wished for the wide, well-striped lanes of the Chicago freeways. “How do people drive around here?” she muttered.

  Ten minutes later, the GPS told Emily to turn onto a side street that was barely paved. It looked more like pitch and tar — a combination of gravel and road sealants that made something of a passable street — than it did a properly
paved roadway. Her truck's tires vibrated over the sealed gravel. Slowing down, the GPS told Emily to make another turn, this time onto the driveway to her right. Nearly hitting the mailbox, Emily swiveled the truck onto the sharply angled driveway. Unlike many of the other homes she’d seen in the area, this driveway was still flanked by trees and undergrowth. Emily leaned forward, tilting her head, looking to see exactly where she was going, the truck hitting a rut in the road. A moment later, the trees widened, exposing a home low to the ground, perched on an incline, a large garage off to the side. As Emily parked the car, she realized the garage was probably bigger than the house.

  Getting out of the truck, Emily checked to make sure her pistol still sat squarely on her hip. She pulled her T-shirt down over the top of it. She didn’t know Bradley Barker, but there was no reason to take any chances, especially given the fact that she’d never met him before. Only Flynn had talked to him in an online forum. That wasn’t much of a referral, in Emily’s mind. Locking the truck, Emily walked to the front door, first on a paved walkway, then taking a few steps up to the front door. She pressed the doorbell, but the door opened as soon as she did. A man with thin, balding hair and thick glasses that made his eyes look wide greeted her, “You must be Emily?”

  Emily nodded. “Are you Bradley?”

  The man nodded. “I’d invite you in, but the place is a mess. Let’s go over to the garage — that’s where all the information you’re looking for is, anyway. I’ll be out in a sec.”

  Emily turned away and walked back down the front walk, frowning. It seemed strange to her that Bradley would send her out to the garage. The back of her neck tingled. Who was this Bradley anyway? Supposedly, he was the brother of a victim, but wouldn’t it be clever if Bradley was the one who was doing the killing? Emily shook off the thought, but reached for her pistol, leaving it in the holster.

  By the time Emily made it around the side of the house, Bradley had come out. He walked with a cane and had a severe limp in his right leg. That he couldn’t move well gave Emily at least a bit of comfort. Unless he was faking it, Emily was faster than him in case he tried anything. As if he knew she was wondering about his limp, he looked at her and said, “Fell off a tractor about fifteen years ago helping a buddy bring in a crop of soybeans. Broke my leg. It never set quite right.” Limping ahead of her, he called over his shoulder, “Surgeons say they can fix it, but I’m not much for people cutting me apart if you know I mean.”

  Emily wondered if his comment was some sort of sick Tifton humor, but she didn’t respond in case it wasn’t. “Thanks for taking the time this morning. I heard you lost your brother to the torso killer. Is that right?”

  Bradley pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the side door to the garage. Emily followed him in. Flipping on a light switch, Bradley said, “That’s right. My brother Sean. He was a good guy, too. Everybody liked him. Just up and disappeared one night and never came back. They found what was left of him in the pond a few days later. Can’t imagine what he went through.”

  The words hung in the air. Emily watched for a moment as Bradley stared at the ground, his lips moving, but nothing coming out. It was one thing to kill someone, but to dismember them, that was something else entirely. Bradley was right, the amount of torture and torment the people had gone through before the torso killer ended them was unthinkable. Emily shivered even in the heat, the thought settling on top of her, hoping the dismemberment had happened after they were already gone. The alternative was nearly unthinkable. Hopefully, there was some mercy in whoever was killing the people of Tifton, even if that mercy just meant a quick death.

  As Emily’s eyes adjusted to the inside of the garage, a bank of dim fluorescent lights hanging from above, she saw there was an old-fashioned chalkboard on a wooden stand against the wall. Next to it was a matching whiteboard. To her left, there were more photographs and news articles taped to the drywall. The smell of mold and mildew, probably from the incessant humidity, hung in the air. As she glanced around, Bradley said, “Well, this is it.” He hung his cane on the back of a folding chair and sat down, staring.

  From behind, Emily heard some scratching and turned just in time to see a small white and brown dog jump into Bradley’s lap. He scratched the dog behind his ears, “I wondered when you’d show up to meet our guest,” he said.

  Seeing the dog reminded Emily of Miner. The thought made her wish for home. “Is that a Jack Russell Terrier?” Emily asked.

  Bradley nodded.

  “What’s his name?”

  Bradley looked confused for a second, “Jack. What else would you name a Jack Russell Terrier?”

  The way Bradley said it, with his deep southern drawl and matter-of-fact tone, made Emily laugh. “That’s funny.”

  Bradley narrowed his eyes, “You have a dog, Miss Emily?” By the time he asked the question, Jack had jumped off of his lap and was sniffing around the edges of Emily’s boots.

  “I do. Australian Cattle Dog. His name is Miner because he digs so many holes in my yard. All he needs is a hard hat and a headlamp.”

  The moment of levity seemed to cut through the tension in the dark garage, the images and information Bradley had amassed about the torso killer looming in front of them like grisly wallpaper. “So, tell me a little bit about what I’m looking at here,” Emily said, taking a couple of steps forward.

  “Well, let me start by telling you that my wife, Carla, she thinks I’m plum crazy for doing all this. Won’t come out to the garage at all. But it’s the only way I can stay sane, knowing that the killer is still out there. Even after all these years, I can’t believe Sean is gone.” His words hung in the air for a second. Bradley sighed and then pointed to the boards in front of him and the information on the wall. “I’ve been collecting information ever since Sean was killed. Articles, images, whatever else I can find. Just trying to get the whole mess straight in my head if you know what I mean. Then, I found your friend Flynn on the forum.” He looked at Emily through his thick glasses, “You’d be surprised how many people are out there with unsolved crimes like me. It just eats at you, day after day after day,” he said, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping his forehead.

  It was no surprise to Emily that people were tormented by crimes that were never solved. She tried her best to help families like Bradley’s when she was working with the Chicago Police Department and now on her own. But helping others and staying free would only last as long as she didn’t get caught if she had to take action, like killing someone. Investigating was one thing. Getting vengeance could look very different than that, though. “You are quite the detective, I see. Tell me a bit more, would you?”

  “Yeah, Flynn warned me you're pretty to the point about things,” Bradley said, standing up and limping over to the chalkboard. “On this board, I have information about each one of the victims. That one,” Bradley pointed to the whiteboard that was stationed next to it, “That one has information just about Sean,” he looked away as if it was too painful to see. “On the wall is just general information I found about the torso killer over the years.”

  Looking more closely at the chalkboard and whiteboard, Emily realized each one of them had to be at least six feet wide and every inch was packed with sticky notes and articles and pictures, some of them marked with questions or arrows. “Flynn brought me up-to-date on the general gist of the case, but why don’t you go over it with me?”

  “I’d be happy to. For some reason, it helps me when I talk about what happened to Sean.” He approached the whiteboard where the information about his brother was located. “As I said before, Sean was a good guy. Nothing fancy. No one in our family is. We’re all just your average Southerners. I spent my career as a bus driver for the local school district. Sean was a mechanic. Never married. No kids.” Bradley walked over to one of the pictures on the board. Pointing, he said, “This is my favorite picture of him. It was taken a couple of years before he died.”

  Emily walked
closer to the board and stared at the image, the edges wrinkled from the heat and humidity. There was no doubt there was a family resemblance between Sean and Bradley. Sean looked to be younger, with a wide grin and a round face, much like Bradley’s. “Was he younger than you?”

  Bradley nodded, “Almost ten years. Surprise pregnancy. ‘A mistake of the best kind,’ my mama used to say.” He paused for a moment, “Anyway, Sean was a mechanic. He worked at the only garage here in Tifton. There are a couple of others a little farther out, depending on what you need fixed, but Sean liked being in town, seeing the familiar faces of the customers for oil changes or flat tires. He used to say that a whole lotta life could happen between fixes – someone might get married, have a baby, get a new job. You know, that kind of stuff. One night, after work, he went out to eat. What exactly happened after that, we’re not sure. Tifton isn’t exactly the kind of place where people have surveillance cameras if you know what I mean. That was a Friday night, so nobody was really looking for him until Monday when he didn’t show up for work. By lunchtime on Monday, I got a call from his boss. Sean was always reliable. Always the kind of guy who showed up when you told him to. I thought it was strange too, truth be told. I tried calling him, but no answer. I drove over to his house and checked it. Nobody there. That’s when I got to thinking there might be a problem. Right after that, I went to the police station. I wish you could’ve seen the look on their faces when I told them that Sean was missing. It was like they knew or something…”

  Emily chewed the inside of her lip. The pain in Bradley’s voice felt like a knife sticking into her. Victims like him were the reason she used to love her work with the Chicago Police Department. They were real people with a real loss they suffered with every single day. And Bradley was suffering. “What happened then?”