by Ty Patterson
Two of the seated men shivered.
The Ghul.
He didn’t go by any other name. He had a different one a long time back, but no one mentioned it and most had forgotten it. He was the HOF’s assassin.
He beheaded and tortured captives on camera and the videos were uploaded on the internet. The videos spread like wildfire across the globe and kept the HOF prominent in the news. They made the assassin a focal figure not just for the HOF but also for the West’s hunt. He rarely spoke, but when he did, it was with a British accent.
He was British, born to wealthy parents of Syrian origin. He had studied in America and had worked in New York and Boston for a few years when the attraction of the HOF lured him to Syria. He found his true calling, killing, with the outfit.
His psychopathic tendencies were spotted by One and he encouraged The Ghul to indulge in them on Western captives. Omar had ambitious plans for The Ghul.
He wanted to send The Ghul to the Great Satan and carry out his killings in the enemy country. He would send a team along with The Ghul or maybe use the cells they had in America to support him and record the killing.
It would send shockwaves through the enemy. It would take the war to the Great Satan’s heart.
His aide refilled his glass and brought his mind back to the present.
‘The Ghul will chop his head off.’
‘On TV.’
The Butcher lay on a roof in Fallujah in moonlight.
Ten p.m. on Saturday and the town lay still, as still as a town besieged with war could be.
In the distance he could hear rifle fire as the HOF fought the Iraqi army, whumps dotted the airwaves as bombs exploded. But the section he was in was quiet and still, a civilian enclave which the HOF had commandeered.
The Butcher was wrapped in black, his mask pulled tight over his face. His guns lay nearby. There was no other movement on other rooftops.
He had come across one other sniper as he had moved rooftop to rooftop. That sniper now lay in a pool of his own blood.
The Butcher watched a house across the street in which a teacher and his wife lived. The teacher didn’t have a school to teach in, there weren’t any students. His wife was young and right now she was beneath Ibrahim Kazi.
Kazi was a HOF leader. He was responsible for leading a front against the Iraqi army. He was watched closely, a future leader of the HOF.
The Butcher unwrapped an old camera and scrolled through the photographs he had taken. Kazi could be seen entering the house. The teacher’s wife could be seen opening the door. The door closed behind the two.
On a side street were two vehicles which contained ten men, Kazi’s men.
They knew what Kazi was up to, they were his protection detail, but out of respect for his nocturnal activities, they had stationed themselves away from the front. They had nothing to fear in any case. This was their city.
The Butcher heard one of them say something unintelligible, a couple of others laughed. Fighting men relaxing, one of them with another man’s woman.
The teacher was old, the wife was young. It was her duty to service Kazi.
The Butcher looked back at his escape route, over several rooftops, down a crumbling staircase by the side of a home, into a small stable where goats were tied. He would stash his weapons there; change and rush back to the teacher’s home.
A concerned citizen trying to help.
It was risky.
It was dangerous.
He would meet an unimaginable fate if he was caught.
It could be pulled off.
He settled back and raised the gun.
Breathe in
Breathe out.
Forty-five minutes later he saw shadows move inside through a window.
The door opened.
Kazi’s wife.
She peered through the door, looked back and said something and stepped away.
Kazi came out, grabbed her in a rough embrace and pushed her back.
The door shut behind him and he stretched his arms for a moment.
A warrior relaxing.
A second later his head burst.
The Butcher didn’t see his body falling.
He was moving. One arm grabbed the rifle – the other was deliberately left behind to taunt the HOF - another grabbed a bag, five seconds from the kill shot he was moving away from the trigger point.
Five meters.
Ten meters.
A leap across a roof.
Shouts behind and beneath him. The alarm was raised.
Another leap. Another roof.
So far there was no one on any nearby roof.
Moonlight shone as he ghosted through the night.
Another jump, then down the steps taking care not to break them further.
Inside the stable, past an inquisitive goat.
Change of dishdashahs.
Running toward the commotion.
‘Brothers,’ he shouted, ‘I saw someone running that way. I was urinating against the wall,’ he pointed at a house, ‘and saw a figure jump down and run. He had something on his back.’
One of the men grabbed him roughly and questioned him.
The Butcher looked him in the eyes, replied and then said. ‘Brother, he’s getting away as we waste time.’
He was shoved away and Kazi’s men spread out.
The Butcher was joined by other bystanders, many of whom split in different directions to aid in the search. He looked at the body, which was now dragged to the front of the house and joined another search party.
He lagged behind slowly, split, and swiftly made his way back to the stable.
He grabbed his bag and rifle.
A sound.
He whirled round, a handgun appearing as naturally as a breath of air.
A boy.
Maybe eight years old. His head was bald. His eyes were wide as they stared at him.
Neurons flashed silently as two pairs of dark eyes appraised each other.
A goat moved and the spell was broken. The Butcher removed his finger from the trigger and disappeared in the night without looking back.
Toward the HOF dominated area of the city.
Oct 29th- Nov 4th
It was the middle of the next week in New York.
Zeb returned to the office after more than a week in Washington D.C. and saw the twins huddled over a speakerphone.
A week since I saw them last, since my foot-in-mouth moment.
Beth looked up and winked at him and he nodded gravely. He heard Chang’s voice detailing a lead, the twins listening quietly and when he had finished, they fired questions. Zeb drifted away and replied to a text message from Broker.
All well. Twins on top of things. Nowhere near finding perp.
His phone buzzed. Broker’s reply.
My absence is obviously telling.
He replied to another message from Bwana. It was a picture of the four of them relaxing on Bondi Beach.
Honest, we are working hard.
‘Hey, hotshot. Welcome back.’ Beth came over and hugged him.
Her words were muffled against his shoulder. ‘Sorry, I should have told you.’
He held her back by her shoulders and looked in her deep green eyes. ‘No apologies needed. I am not the most sensitive guy around.’
Her lips curved in a smile and she hugged him again.
Meghan shouted impatiently from across the room. ‘Some of us are trying to catch a killer.’
Zeb went over to her. ‘What have you got?’
‘Frank Howell, Raul Cole, Wade Johnson – these are the three chefs on that show. Chang’s men interviewed the production staff and organizers and they have ruled out almost all of them. The chefs still are on our radar. All three of them served the VIP guests and some witnesses remember they had long discussions with the women.’
‘How’s that possible?’
‘Once an episode is shot, the VIP guests can move around on the set, talk to the chefs. One of
the privileges of being a VIP.’
‘The four of them knew each other?’
Beth’s brown hair flew as she shook her head. ‘We went along with Chang to interview Saunders’ husband. He was sure she didn’t know the other three.’
Her lips curved down. ‘That was bad, Zeb. He and his son are coming apart. They have a tough time ahead.’
She fell silent. ‘Meg says dad went to pieces for a few weeks when Mom died. But then he put himself together and became stronger. I don’t know if Mr. Saunders is so strong.’
Meg says, because she has no past memory. Her memory starts from the day she woke up in hospital after being operated on for the headshot.
‘I think that’s why Chang took you two along.’
Beth blinked away the past. ‘We also spoke to Regina Hunnicker, and Kohler’s and Krantz’s husbands. Four years is a long time, but they were quite certain the women didn’t know one another.’
Meghan rustled the sheaf of papers in her hand. ‘So these three chefs – we got a few surprises once we started digging into them.’
‘Howell’s a convict. He served two years for assaulting his then girlfriend.’
Beth nodded at the question in Zeb’s eyes. ‘Sexual assault. Rape.’
Zeb skimmed over the sheet she handed to him.
Howell raped and assaulted his girlfriend when he was twenty-one in a drunken rage. He had a history of abuse and admitted to his guilt when he was arrested. He served two years in Sing Sing and when he was released, lived a reformed life.
He trained as a chef and worked in diners and cafes across the city, moving up to working in bars and then got his first big break when he was selected to compete in the TV show six years back. He made the semi-finals and came back every year, either as a contestant or as a special guest.
Zeb handed the sheet back.
His story is good TV material. Bad boy turned good, fighting against the odds.
‘The TV show didn’t know of his background?’
‘They did, but it didn’t matter to them. His background was made for prime time ratings.’
‘You both are looking into his life?’
‘Yeah, so are Zak and Chang. But there’s something else.’
Meghan led him to her computer, typed out a Google search query and showed him the results.
‘Wade Johnson was accused of date rape when in college. The accuser dropped the charges later on. Johnson comes from a wealthy family and there is some internet gossip that the accuser was bought.’
She brought up the accuser’s details, a Denise Zehnder. Zehnder now was working in California in a healthcare company.
‘We called Zehnder, but she refused to speak about the events.’
Meghan looked up at him. ‘Johnson and Howell, and in fact Cole too, are all in their early thirties. All are loners. No long-term relationships. Johnson’s folks are wealthy, but they are divorced. He was raised by his father who married a couple of times again. Howell was raised by a single mother. He left home when he was eighteen. Cole came from a stable family, went to Syracuse University, dropped out and then did various things before getting into cooking. All three are from New York state.’
‘Some of those characteristics are similar to serial killer profiles aren’t they?’ Beth commented.
‘Yeah, yeah, we know.’ She forestalled Zeb when he made a move to speak. ‘We aren’t getting ahead of ourselves.’
She nudged her sister. ‘Tell him the other stuff.’
Meghan’s eyes shone.
‘We got four hits for unsolved murders across the country. All four were women, body parts missing. All four had cuts roughly similar to McCallum’s. Two in California, one in New Mexico, and one in Texas. All four were women in their late twenties.’
The cuts were important. Mary McCallum had been cut in a unique way, going from left to right, downward, like a shoelace.
Buttons clicked, pages rolled, photographs appeared on the screen.
‘Janice Morales, twenty-eight-year-old call center handler at a cab service. Lived alone in a small apartment, small room actually, just a few blocks from the office in Austin. Found in the back of an abandoned car. In addition to the cuts, her fingers and the flesh on her face were missing.’
Another click.
‘Gabby Steen in New Mexico, waitress, lived alone, disappeared one night as she walked home from work three years back. Her body was found in a dumpster two weeks later. In addition to the cuts, it was missing fingers and toes.’
‘The last two, Joann Prebble and Erica Rodriguez were escorts and were also heavy drug users, in L.A. They had a history of soliciting, were arrested several times. Prebble, who disappeared two years back, was found with her eyes missing. Rodriguez was found last year in a parking lot.’
Meghan swallowed and Zeb could see her fingers tremble. ‘All four of them had those cuts.’
Four women who would never see another sunrise. Somewhere, someone was still grieving for them.
Zeb moved away and went to the murder board, to the map of the country, letting the sisters compose themselves.
‘Chang and Pizaka know about this?’
‘Yeah. They are talking to the detectives on all those cases and will get back.’
‘Why didn’t all those cops talk to each other, then?’
A silence, then Meghan drawled, ‘I guess the Commissioner is asking just that and is lighting fires under some butts.’
West coast to East coast.
‘You said this show traveled?’
Meghan’s voice turned lighter. ‘Yeah, and to those cities as well, but our three contestants weren’t in the show by then.’
‘You are – ’
‘Yeah. Chang checked with the then employers of these three men. Two of them were on vacation in the same cities, the times the four women were found. Any guesses who those two were?’
‘What?’ Both of them asked when they read his expression.
‘Both at the same time?’
‘Yeah, together. They were both guest commentators of local TV channels in those cities.’
Zeb let it sink in, toyed with it in his mind. ‘Serial killers, assuming it’s one of them, work alone normally.’
Meghan objected. ‘The Hillside Stranglers were a pair of men.’
Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, cousins, the killers behind the media epithet, kidnapped, raped, and killed ten women in the late seventies in Los Angeles. The youngest they had murdered was twelve years old; the oldest was twenty-eight.
He shrugged. ‘Okay, let’s talk to Chang and Pizaka and tear their lives open.’
A phone rang; Beth reached out and took it.
She listened silently, said ‘hold on,’ scrambled around and reached out for the remote.
She turned the TV on and waved for Meghan and Zeb’s attention.
She stopped at the first news channel.
A horde of reporters outside One PP, TV vans and cameras surrounded it.
A rolling caption ran at the bottom of the screen.
Flayer stalks city.
Chapter 7
October 29th - Nov 4th
‘The shitstorm that Zeb predicted, happened.’
Rolando’s face was grim the next day when he addressed Zeb, the twins, Pizaka, Chang, and many other detectives from the task force.
‘The killer sent a copy of that same note as well as another framed piece of skin to that same newspaper. The city is in a frenzy, the mayor is calling for hourly updates.’
He growled angrily. ‘You know what the media is calling him now.’
‘The Flayer.’ His hand jabbed out in the air as if felling an invisible news reporter.
He straightened. ‘Leave the politicians to me. However, I have scheduled a press conference in the afternoon and that should hopefully give the media column inches and air minutes to fill.’
He glared at Zeb. ‘You are still standing by your other prediction?’
Zeb nodded.
He knew the rage wasn’t directed at him.
‘Any day now. It’s almost a month since Saunders’ abduction. This guy fits the hedonistic killer label. He kills for the thrill.’
Zeb was referring to the motive-based categorization of serial killers which was accepted in many policing circles.
That categorization placed killers in four boxes, visionary – psychotic killers who acted on voices they heard, mission oriented – killers who saw themselves cleansing society, hedonists – who killed for pleasure and power oriented – those who killed to establish dominance over another person.
‘Labels.’ Rolando batted the classification away. ‘Zak, Missing Persons have anything?’
Zak came forward and took over from the Commissioner. ‘Nope. This is what we have got so far, folks.’
He went through a brief summary of Zeb’s findings as well as the progress the detectives had made.
‘Two persons of interest.’ He looked in the twins’ direction. ‘Good work on that.’
Chang read out names of the stakeout teams. ‘Two teams in rotation for each chef. Zeb you’re good at being invisible. You want to ride along?’
Zeb declined. He worked alone.
The press conference was packed and a murmur swept through the room when Pizaka and Chang appeared, followed by Zeb.
Questions rained thick and fast, some were answered, and some were deflected.
A red-faced reporter stood up angrily. ‘You’ve got a big fat zero after four years and four victims, haven’t you?’
Could be eight victims.
Zeb leaned forward and said drily. ‘It’s called an investigation, not a miracle.’
Pizaka frowned in his direction, but Zeb ignored him.
You invited me to the party. Deal with it.
Chang read out a helpline number, a vague description of the killer.
Male, white, twenties to late thirties.
The same reporter stood again. ‘That describes half the population of the city.’
Chang paused a beat. ‘Yeah, but we can safely rule you out.’
Laughter broke out and the tension eased.
The killer looked up from the chicken casserole he was making and turned the volume up.
Of course they have nothing. Who’s that other person?
Zeb Carter. He’s not a cop.