Victim 14

by KJ Kalis

  Bradley sat back down in the folding chair. As soon as he did, Jack jumped up in his lap as if knowing his owner needed some comfort, “Well, as you can imagine, all hell broke loose. People were crawling all over Sean’s house and mine. They went through the gas station and the restaurant where he’d been seen last with a fine-tooth comb, those fancy people from the FBI showing up with their matching jackets and all…” Bradley’s voice drifted off. “A couple of days later, I got a call that they found something in the Little Bayou Pond, part of a body. I have to tell you, I knew right then and there it was Sean. They didn’t have to say any more than that.”

  Emily walked back over in front of the board where Sean’s information was hung. She sighed, wondering how many questions she could ask Bradley without upsetting him. It was his brother after all. “Was there anything unusual about Sean’s murder?”

  Bradley snickered, “Other than some maniac chopped his body apart and tossed the torso into a pond? Nope.” Bradley stood up, shooing Jack off his lap, “Sorry, Miss Emily, I don’t mean to be snide. It’s just that even two years later, it’s hard to believe Sean is gone.”

  Bradley had come up next to Emily, staring at the pictures in front of them. Emily turned to the side, “Are you comfortable talking about the details of the case with me? I don’t want to upset you.”

  Bradley nodded, “Flynn told me you’d have to ask some pretty pointed questions to get to the bottom of this, but he also told me that if anybody could solve this, it would be you. All I’m hoping is you give it your best shot. Those morons from the FBI haven’t done nothing for us.”

  “All right then, let’s get to work,” Emily said.

  * * *

  For the next couple hours, Bradley and Emily stayed in the garage, the morning light filtering in through the open door. Jack ran in and out every few minutes, alternately sitting on Bradley’s lap and sniffing Emily’s boots. Bradley walked Emily through every detail of the case, starting with the very first person who’d been murdered, Cory Hawkins, all the way through Gerald Wexner, the last victim. Emily paced back and forth in front of the boards in the garage, trying to absorb as many of the details as she could. Bradley had amassed an enormous amount of information, more than most families of victims she’d ever worked with. But then again, she realized, they were dealing with a serial killer, not a one-off or person that had run away. The person they were dealing with was relentless and dangerous. The back of Emily’s neck started to crawl. She swallowed, refocusing on the boards.

  For a minute, they were silent. Emily walked in front of the images, while Bradley sat on the folding chair. A second later, Emily pointed to the torsos. “Bradley, why do some of these torsos look different from others?”

  “What about them?” he said.

  Emily stopped in front of one of the torso pictures, one that was red and mottled. There were a couple that looked red and another few where the skin was pale and gray. “This one, and the one over there, the skin is all red. See that? The rest of them, the skin is gray. Any idea what caused the redness?”

  Bradley’s face paled even in the dim light of the garage, “That? Yeah, the medical examiner thought the killer poured acid on the skin before he dumped them.”

  Emily swallowed, realizing she was dragging Bradley through all the details of everything that had been done to his brother and others like him. Luckily, Sean’s torso wasn’t one of the ones that was blistered and red. Emily glanced at Bradley, who was staring down into Jack's fur. She couldn’t imagine how hard this was for him. From the corner of her eye, she spotted another folding chair, one that matched the one Bradley was sitting in. She pulled it out and unfolded it, sitting next to Bradley. They sat quietly for a minute, both lost in thought. Emily was trying to wrap her brain around the kind of person who would mutilate others. Part of her was sure Bradley was reliving the days and weeks around his brother’s disappearance and his death as they talked about it. If Emily had learned one thing, it was that no one got through life without pain and struggle. Some people’s pain looked different than others — could be a divorce, or the loss of a parent, or the destruction of a dream — but everybody had an issue that followed them. This kind of loss was too much, though.

  “Are you okay to keep talking about this?” Emily said. The words coming out of her mouth surprised her. Initially, she’d been resistant to looking at this case, but now, sitting with Bradley, she realized it was an opportunity to make a difference, that was if she could find the killer. And that was a big if.

  In cases like these, Emily knew the FBI didn’t spare any expense, especially if the crimes had gone unresolved. Even if they weren’t on the scene, she was sure they had analysts working on the case in the meantime. It was a black eye to the agency that any serial killer could get away with as many murderers as he had. Emily stared at the images again, the chunks of flesh and faces swimming in front of her as she scanned them pinned up on Bradley’s boards. The killer almost had to be a him, didn’t it? Emily thought about it for a second, the reality of looking at bodies cut up into pieces settling over her.

  Bradley looked up from the small dog sitting on his lap, “Yeah, I’m okay. Like I said before, Carla thinks I’m crazy, but this is probably actually what keeps me sane. It’s nice that you're interested.”

  Emily wanted to ask him if other people weren’t. That seemed so callous to her, but she avoided the subject. “Okay,” she said, standing up and walking over to the images again, this time to the board that held all the faces and the bodies of the victims. There were only a couple of women in the lineup. Other than that, it was all men who looked to be between twenty and fifty years old, maybe a little bit older. Emily stared at the torsos, “Hey, Bradley?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you ever notice there seem to be some pieces missing here?”

  Bradley raised his eyebrows and smiled, “Other than heads and arms and legs? Sure. That’s one of the strangest things about the case.” He got up from the chair, took two limping steps, and stopped next to Emily. “The thing that makes this killer so strange in my mind,” Bradley said, lifting a crooked finger to point at the pictures, “is that it’s not enough to just chop somebody up.” He glanced at Emily, “Not to sound like I’m speaking ill of the dead, or anything,” he said. “But if you notice the women’s torsos are missing the very things that make them women. The men have the same problem. On top of that, there are a couple of bodies where the medical examiner said there were pieces of bone missing. Now, what on God’s green earth would you do with a piece of bone from a dead body? That’s one thing I just can’t wrap my brain around.”

  Emily folded her arms across her chest and chewed her lip, “I can’t say I understand that either.” Her mind was racing. In their call the night before, Mike and Flynn hadn’t mentioned any body parts that were missing. It seemed strange to her, given the fact they said they’d accessed the medical examiner’s reports. Maybe it hadn’t been mentioned? That seemed equally strange. It was the medical examiner’s job to detail every last bit of the body, or in this case, what was left of it.

  * * *

  Emily stayed with Bradley for another hour or so, talking through more details of the case. By the time they were done, Jack was sitting on her lap as if he’d known Emily his whole life. Lifting the small dog and setting him gently on the floor, Emily looked at Bradley. “I think I’ve taken up enough of your time today. I’ve got some more research to do,” she said, standing up and brushing the white dog fur off her jeans. “I appreciate your time and the hospitality.”

  Bradley struggled to his feet, reaching for his cane, “You’ll keep me posted on what’s going on?” he said. “Time is running short, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m afraid of that, too…”

  8

  By the time Ollie got home from work, the rage inside of him had built into an enormous amount of pressure. He’d nearly killed the man he worked for with his bare hands after he rejected a batch o
f fittings back, saying they weren’t up to spec. His words sounded just like something Libby said to Ollie, telling him he wasn’t good enough and that she was leaving for a better life.

  A better life.

  Ollie pushed in the back door at his house with such strength that it ricocheted off the wall behind it, leaving a dent. He knew there was only one way to rid himself of the anger and the pressure in his body. There was only one way for him to get on with his life, at least for the next few months. Ollie unlocked the basement door and went down the steps, staring at the calendar, the date Libby had left with the girls glaring at him. He realized it had been so long that he didn’t even know what his girls looked like anymore. They could walk by him on the street and he’d pass them as complete strangers. Ollie punched the brick wall of the cellar, nearly shattering his hand. He didn’t even feel the pain, only seeing the blood and torn skin after he did it. He went back upstairs, turning the lights off behind him.

  9

  Three hundred miles away, Cash Strickland picked up a sub sandwich from a deli in the building next to his office and headed back upstairs. It was his dinner. The day had been long, catching up on reports and paperwork at the FBI’s Baton Rouge office. The FBI had satellite offices nearly everywhere. The goal was to be able to get to any crime location within the country within an hour. It was an ambitious goal especially in the middle of Louisiana, where hundreds of miles of farmland or parkland could sit empty for years until a crime occurred, but it was the goal, nonetheless.

  By the time Cash got back up to his office, most of his colleagues had left for the night. When they weren’t out on assignment, his office of FBI agents kept pretty regular hours, just following up on cases, writing reports, and attending training. But, when something happened, the job became nonstop, sometimes for weeks on end.

  After eating a few bites of his sandwich, Cash glanced at the calendar on the wall. The dates loomed ahead of him, one in particular giving him pause. It was nearly the six-month anniversary since the last torso had been found in Tifton. Would there be another?

  Cash used a napkin from inside the bag to wipe his fingers. With a few keystrokes, he was able to bring up the case files the FBI had on the murders in Tifton. Not that Cash wanted to relive them, but there was nothing to suggest the torso killer wouldn’t strike again, and soon. In front of him, the screen lit up with hundreds of images taken by the FBI’s crime scene experts and their team of medical examiners. While the FBI had resources and expertise much beyond local law enforcement, that wasn’t always a benefit. At times, the agents would collect so much data that the real story could get hidden. It became like a needle in a haystack. Cash shook his head, looking at the layers of information in front of him, wondering where that needle in a haystack was. They’d never had a solid lead on the killer. In his mind, it was a miracle they were even able to identify the bodies with how mangled they were by the time the killer was done.

  Standing up from his desk to get away from the massive amount of information,

  Cash stood by the square window in his office. It had a not-so-lovely view of the parking garage below, but at least he had a window. When he’d been promoted to field supervisor and given a team of his own, the little office came with it. There wasn’t much of a view, but at least it was outside. The guy he’d taken over for had retired. Cash remembered the day he’d handed him the keys to his office. “Enjoy it,” was all he said.

  At the time, Cash thought the promotion was exactly what he wanted — the next step he needed to build his career in the FBI and hopefully end up as an Assistant Director or at least a Division Director at some point. Now, a couple of years later, Cash wasn’t sure how long he’d last.

  He walked back to his desk, the open files of the Tifton torso killer still up on his screen. Sitting down, he felt a streak of pain in his calf. He needed to get out for a run, that was for sure. The FBI had stringent fitness requirements and Cash had always been able to supersede them, but the amount of paperwork he had in his job right now made it hard to find time to hit the gym. He’d do that in the morning, he decided.

  From inside a drawer in his desk, he pulled out a lined notepad, figuring he might make some notes on the Tifton killings. Before he could write anything down, Janet Crenshaw stopped by his office, her blonde ponytail pulling her hair back from her face, her FBI windbreaker barely covering the bulky sidearm she wore on her hip. “Hey boss,” she said, leaning in his doorway. “Know what time it is?”

  Cash hadn’t looked up. He was staring at one of the reports from the medical examiner. “No,” he muttered.

  “It’s been almost six months…” Janet walked away without saying anything more.

  Cash stared at the doorway as she walked away. He could almost hear Janet’s voice echo the words again, “It’s been almost six months.” That couldn’t be a good sign.

  There was nothing more frustrating to Cash than not being able to solve a crime. Solving cases was what he was good at. He had a focus like very few others, or so his yearly evaluations read. That was one of the reasons he was chosen to lead the team. Leaning back in his chair, Cash felt a surge of frustration and slammed the pencil in his hand down on the desk. There was no way of knowing whether the Tifton killer would strike again. If the perpetrator did and followed his pattern, Cash should be getting a call about a missing person in Tifton sometime during the next couple of days. It felt like a ticking time bomb lodged in his chest.

  It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried to solve the case. He’d met with his team and specialists, and profilers, and higher-ups’ multiple times, trying to figure out a way they could protect the people in Tifton. Was there a way for them to find the killer before he struck again? Or maybe they could send in the Louisiana State Highway Patrol to keep an eye on the township? All the ideas he and his team, the profilers, and his bosses tossed around came to nothing. The words of one of the profilers working on the case haunted him to this day, her words seared in his mind, “Someone like this, Cash, is very hard to find. He’s like a mouse in the walls of your house. You know he’s there, you know he’s eating your food, but you only see the result of what he’s done. This guy is going to be nearly impossible to catch.”

  The phone on Cash’s desk rang, breaking his concentration on his computer screen. He stared at it for a second and then glanced back at the computer, the files from the mutilated bodies swimming in front of him. Sighing, he picked up the phone, “Agent Strickland,” he said.

  “Agent Strickland, this is Sierra Day. Do you remember me?”

  Cash swallowed. The timing couldn’t be worse. Sierra Day was the sister of Joe Day, body three-one. Joe was taken in the third year of the killings, the first body of the year. It was before Cash had taken on the case, but he’d talked to Sierra periodically throughout the years.

  “Of course. How are you?”

  “Honestly? I’m nervous. We’re getting close to that time again. You have any news on Joe’s killer?”

  It was as if there is a theme to the day. First, Janet. Now, Sierra. “I’m sorry, Ms. Day. I wish I had something new or different to tell you. As I’ve told you before, we have some of the best profilers and case managers working on your brother’s murder and the murders of the others we think are connected, but there’ve been no new leads.”

  “Not even in the last six months?”

  Cash quickly flipped through the file in front on his computer screen and saw the face and mangled torso of Gerald Wexner, the last body to be found in Tifton. The situation had been the same as every other time. Gerald disappeared. No one saw him for a couple of days. Someone reported him missing and then a couple of days later after the FBI had been called in again, his body was recovered from the Little Bayou Pond. The FBI had tried staking out the pond, but somehow, the killer managed to get in and out without being seen. How that was possible, Cash still wasn’t sure. “No, I’m sorry. As you know, there’s not a lot I can say about an ongoing investigation, except
that we’re working on it.” He felt a tension in his chest, wishing he had more to tell her. “I promise, we haven’t forgotten about Joe or any of the other victims, but I don’t have anything to report right now.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Cash wondered what would happen next. Would Sierra start to cry? Maybe it would be better if she screamed at him? Both options were entirely possible. Victims' families could be unpredictable.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What are we supposed to do now?”

  Cash was surprised at her reaction. Sierra was calm and rational, something many victims' families were never able to accomplish. Maybe it was just the passage of time. After all, Joe had been gone for more than four years. “Other than being aware of your surroundings and calling me if you sense anything off, there’s not a lot more that I can suggest.” Cash’s heart sunk at the words coming out of his mouth. There really wasn’t anything else he could suggest, but he wished there was. Maybe move out of Tifton? That’s what he really wanted to say, but agency policy prevented him from saying things like that.

  “And, if the killer strikes again, do you have any new plans or strategies in place to catch him?”

  Cash furrowed his eyebrows. Sierra was way too calm. “As I’ve said, we haven’t stopped working the case. And yes, we’ve been in discussions with our top people here at the agency to get this solved. What those things are, specifically, I can’t discuss.” In reality, Cash had nothing new but telling Sierra that wouldn’t help. There was nothing more they could do than what they were doing, which was to show up once something happened and hope to catch the killer. So far, it’d been completely unsuccessful. He was praying for a break in the case.