Once Taken

by Blake Pierce

  But Bill said nothing as he drove. Riley knew that he felt exactly the same as she did. After all their years doing this job, they’d never gotten used to losing a victim. It was especially hard when they felt that they were closing in on the killer.

  When they arrived at the park, Riley saw that television crew vans were mingled with police vehicles. The crowd outside the taped-off area had gotten larger, and people were snapping pictures with their cell phones. She and Lucy followed Bill as he pushed his way through to the police tape. They showed their badges to a pair of cops who were doing their best to control the area.

  Then the three of them walked up the road toward where the body was still hanging in plain view. Riley could now see that the victim was clad in a straitjacket, just the same as the earlier victims. And like Rosemary Pickens in Reedsport, she’d been hauled up on a rope that ran through a pulley.

  Riley stopped and stared, shaken by the sheer audacity of the display. Eugene Fisk must have stopped his van here before dawn, climbed up onto the overhanging limb, fastened the pulley in place, then climbed back down and hoisted Carla Liston’s body.

  And all without being seen, Riley thought. He’d been more than daring, but he’d also been lucky.

  This wasn’t some abandoned warehouse by a railroad track, but a well-used road through a city park. With any other serial killer, Riley would assume that he was becoming more brazen, thumbing his nose at the authorities. But she knew that Eugene Fisk was a different sort of creature. This was more likely to be a gesture of sheer desperation. Again she wondered what was going on with the maniacal killer.

  Special Agent Harvey Dewhurst trotted toward them. He was overweight and middle-aged, and at the moment he was anxious, red-faced, and sweating. He was also as angry as hell.

  “I hate it when this kind of shit happens,” Dewhurst said. “You guys are the Quantico experts. You tell me what we can do for damage control.”

  “First of all, you’d better get her down,” Bill said.

  Riley agreed. She had asked Chief Alford to leave Rosemary Pickens’s body hanging until she could get to the scene, but this was a different matter. The Reedsport police had been in better control of the crime scene. Here, too many pictures had been taken of this corpse already. And she and the rest of the FBI on site had already looked everything over.

  Dewhurst turned to the local cop in charge.

  “Tell your people to bring her down,” he said. “And tell the coroner to get right to work on the body.” He looked around and added, “And clear those onlookers out of here. Move the tape back where they can’t take pictures and open up some room for the coroner to get his wagon in.”

  The cop hurried away to carry out Dewhurst’s orders.

  “What next?” Dewhurst asked.

  Riley thought for a moment.

  “We might as well take advantage of the media,” she said. “Have the local TV stations alert the public that we’re looking for a white Ford delivery van. A dented rear bumper, no other known markings, a Pennsylvania license plate. Agent Vargas can give you a photo that she took of it. Make sure the public sees it.”

  Then Riley reached into her bag and pulled out the photo of Eugene that the psychiatrist had given her.

  “This picture shows the suspect as a teenager,” Riley explained. “He’s now twenty-seven years old. Take this back to the field office and run it through the age progression program. We should be able to get a good image of what he probably looks like now. Then make sure it gets on TV and the Internet.”

  She thought another moment and said, “Don’t mention that the perp has a stutter. That will help filter the calls.”

  At that moment the coroner called out to Dewhurst, “You’d better have a look at something over here.” He was crouched over the body that had been lowered carefully to the ground.

  Riley, Bill, and Lucy all followed Dewhurst to see what the coroner was indicating. The woman’s eyes were wide open, and she still wore a terrified expression on her face. The coroner pointed to her throat.

  “Her throat was slit,” he said, “and it’s my understanding that’s how he finished off the other victims. But look here. There wasn’t much bleeding at all.”

  He turned and looked at them. “It wasn’t the cause of death. This time, her neck was broken first.”

  Bill looked at Riley with surprise.

  “Another change from his MO,” he said to her. “What’s going on with this guy?”

  “I don’t know why he’s changing so fast,” Riley said. “He doesn’t seem like the type who would change at all. But I do know who we should ask about it.”

  Chapter 35

  Riley was once again inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility. She hoped this turned out to be a good idea. Bill was with her, although he had joined her only reluctantly, insisting it was a detour from their investigation. But deep in her gut, Riley felt that Shane Hatcher would still have valuable insights to share.

  “I sure hope you’re right about this,” Bill grumbled as the guard led them into the visiting room—the same cream-colored room where Riley had met with Shane Hatcher two days ago.

  As soon as they sat down at the table, Hatcher was escorted into the room by a pair of guards. He sat down across from them, and for a long moment he stared over the top of his reading glasses at Bill. Then he turned to Riley.

  “I see you brought a friend with you,” he told her.

  “This is Special Agent Bill Jeffreys, from Quantico,” Riley said. “He’s come to Albany to join in the investigation.”

  Hatcher sat there with that now-familiar inscrutable smile on his hardened face. Again, he looked Bill over the way he’d looked at Riley the last time—sizing him up, figuring out what made him tick.

  Riley knew that in spite of—or perhaps because of—being locked up for a long time, Hatcher was a cunning observer of human nature. She wondered what kinds of observations he was making about Bill right now.

  “You don’t need to tell me why you’re here,” Hatcher said. “I saw it all on TV. Quite a scene. I figured you’d be back.”

  He shook his head with disapproval.

  “All those vultures out there—reporters, gawkers, TV executives crazed for ratings. Doesn’t it make you crazy? One thing about this place, you don’t have to deal with that kind of barbarity. Sure, we’ve got our own various kinds of barbarity, but really, I prefer it. It’s like I tell everybody here, freedom is overrated. Do they believe me? Never.”

  Riley heard Bill’s derisive snort. She found it a bit weird herself to hear this kind of moralizing from a multiple murderer. But she reminded herself that Shane Hatcher was no ordinary monster. She thought that even if she were to talk to him every single day for years on end, he’d always be able to surprise her—and probably also to scare her.

  “You were right about everything,” Riley said. “The perpetrator was tormented as a kid. His mother chained him up, he was bullied in an orphanage—bullied by other kids, and also by the nuns who were supposed to take care of him.”

  “What else have you found out?” Hatcher asked.

  “He’s been killing since he was a kid,” Riley said. “He slit his own mother’s throat when he was ten. A year later, he slit another kid’s throat and burned down the orphanage. He was institutionalized for years, but he convinced everybody he was fine, including his doctor. That’s why he’s free now.”

  Hatcher nodded knowingly.

  “Something’s different now, isn’t it?” he said. “He’s changed his modus operandi. That’s why you want to talk to me.”

  Riley could see that Bill was leaning forward and paying close attention now. Her partner could be disdainful, but he never had a problem appreciating whatever sources of information turned out to be valuable.

  “This guy is moving faster now,” Bill said. “He’s not keeping his victims alive for as long.”

  Riley added, “And he didn’t kill this latest victim the same way as the others. He d
id cut her throat, but not until after she was already dead.”

  “What was the cause of death?” Hatcher asked.

  “Her neck was broken,” Bill said.

  Hatcher squinted his eyes with interest.

  “I can tell you for sure, he didn’t mean to do that. It was an accident. The throat-slitting—it’s part of his ritual, he can’t change it, not deliberately. So he did it afterwards, but that didn’t work for him. He’s losing control. He’s going to move even faster now, trying to get his equilibrium back. But he can’t. Nothing will work for him. Nothing will go right. He’ll make mistakes.”

  Hatcher paused and thought for a moment.

  “Don’t underestimate the power of his psychosis. What he does isn’t about trying to get any advantage, like money or status. It isn’t about taking revenge. And he definitely doesn’t do it for thrills. This guy is absolutely driven by something he doesn’t understand. He may not even want to do what he’s doing.”

  Riley realized she’d been thinking much the same thing all along.

  “He’s remorseful,” she said.

  “That’s right. He feels guilty as hell. And the only way he can think of to absolve himself of all that guilt is …”

  Hatcher gestured to Riley to finish his thought.

  “To keep right on killing,” she said. “To appease the demons driving him.”

  Hatcher nodded and smiled. “Smart girl. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way he is. His desperation is mounting and that might give you an advantage. He won’t just disappear, go into hiding. Not for long.”

  Hatcher drummed his fingers and added with a slight smirk, “Whether you can catch him before he kills somebody else—well, that’s up to you. Glad that’s your job, not mine. That’s another thing that’s no part of life here in the Big House. ”

  Suddenly Hatcher called out, “Guard, I think we’re through here.”

  Riley was startled. She’d expected to be able to ask a few more questions. Hatcher obviously had different ideas, and she knew better than to argue with him about it. Besides, he’d told them a lot in very short order.

  Hatcher leaned across the table toward Bill and Riley.

  “One more thing,” he said quietly. “I can feel all the fighting going on between you two. Get over it. I’m not saying you’re good for each other. You’re probably bad as hell for each other. But you get good things done when you’re together. That matters more in the long run than all the other stuff.”

  He gazed closely at Bill, then pointed to the wedding band on his finger and said, “And forget about trying to fix things with your wife. It can’t be done. She’ll never understand the kind of life you’ve chosen. Or that has chosen you.”

  Riley could see Bill’s jaw drop with shock.

  Then Hatcher turned to her and said, “And you. Stop fighting it.”

  Riley was on the verge of asking, “Fighting what?”

  But no, she had to draw the line at taking personal advice from a cold-blooded murderer. That couldn’t be healthy.

  Not even if he’s right, she thought. And he probably is.

  “Oh, and something else,” Hatcher said. “You two are just like all the cops and investigators I’ve ever met. You psych yourselves into thinking you’re immortal, even if you know better. Don’t let yourselves do that with this guy.”

  Hatcher’s voice took on an added urgency.

  “He’s wounded where it hurts most—in his soul. There’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. Watch out. Don’t get as sloppy as he’s getting.”

  Hatcher rose from his chair and smirked again.

  “He’s liable to kill one of you before he’s done.”

  Chapter 36

  The next morning, Hatcher’s words kept rattling through Riley’s mind.

  He’s liable to kill one of you before he’s done.

  Before that, she hadn’t been thinking about the chain killer as a direct threat to her or other agents. The victims he sought out, took, and murdered were of a specific type. But she knew better than to ignore Hatcher’s warning. The man had uncanny insight, apparently born of years of focusing on human behavior from his special perspective in a high-security prison

  Even here, in the ultra-secure Albany FBI field office, considering those words created an irrational but palpable sense of danger. It seemed almost as if Eugene Fisk was among them right here and now, unseen but poised and ready to snatch one of these agents from a desk. It didn’t make sense, but there it was.

  Riley was walking through the open area where agents at desks were taking phone calls, collecting tips and leads. The air was filled with phone chatter. Riley was moving from desk to desk, asking about everybody’s progress—or lack of it.

  At one desk, a young male agent was just ending a phone call.

  “What was it about?” she asked.

  The agent shook his head wearily.

  “A teenaged girl over in Searcy was sure that her Uncle Joe was our guy,” he said. “He fit the description. But too many details don’t fit. I asked about a stutter, and he talks just fine. If what she told me is true, though, Uncle Joe is definitely a perv who ought to be behind bars. I referred her to Family Services.”

  “Keep at it,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll get something soon.”

  She looked across the room at all the focused and dedicated faces, doing their best to find Eugene Fisk. As expected, hundreds of people had called the hotline number, many of them suspicious of a neighbor or relative.

  Since no mention had been made to the media about a stutter, asking callers about that was a quick way to find out that the lead was false. Callers often said something like, “Well, no, he doesn’t stutter, but he’s a mean creep.”

  And of course, countless people had spotted white Ford vans up and down the Hudson River Valley. Those tips were harder to sort through, but the agents were doing their best to filter the information. Lucy was also working there in the room, helping the field agents sort out plausible leads from the loads of useless chatter. They were passing any credible tips along to Bill, who had been assigned as the lead agent on the case.

  Deciding that it was time to see how he was doing, Riley made her way to the temporary office Bill had been given. When she opened the door and peered inside, he gestured for her to come in.

  “Anything new?” Riley asked as she walked in and sat down.

  “Not a damn thing,” Bill growled. “We’ve had five confessions so far—guys who turned themselves in in different towns. Nothing but your garden-variety attention whores.”

  Riley sighed with discouragement. At her best, she could get into the mind of a true serial killer. But the mind of a wannabe psychopath remained an impenetrable mystery to her. What on earth could these guys be thinking?

  Just then, Lucy poked her head in the door. Her face was set with determination.

  “We’ve got something,” she said, coming into the office. “I’m afraid it’s sort of a good news, bad news situation.

  She gave Riley and Bill copies of a printout.

  “These are transcriptions of three recorded calls,” Lucy explained. “They’re all from people in Talmadge, a town about halfway between here and Reedsport. Each one of these people called about a guy who calls himself Eugene Ossinger. He fits the description perfectly, right down to the stutter.”

  Riley skimmed the transcripts.

  “I see that he drives a white Ford van,” she said.

  “Right,” Lucy said. “It didn’t occur to any of our callers to write down the license number before our bulletins got out. The van’s not there now. But two of them remembered it as having Pennsylvania plates.”

  “Sounds like him all right,” Bill said. “What’s the bad news?”

  Lucy sat down beside his desk.

  “We also got a call directly from the Talmadge police department,” she said. “One of these people had called them first. The local cops have been to the scene al
ready, and a SWAT team too. Eugene Ossinger’s not there anymore. Nobody knows where he’s gone.”

  Riley refused to be discouraged.

  “It’s a start,” she said. “Let’s get over there right away.”

  *

  About a half an hour later, Bill, Lucy, and Riley arrived in Talmadge, a little town on the west bank of the Hudson. When Bill pulled the car into the address they’d been given, the place was already taped off and surrounded by local cops and members of a SWAT team. A few neighbors were gathered nearby. Everybody seemed to be just waiting around for the FBI agents they knew were on the way.

  The three agents got out of the car and strode toward the house. Bill introduced himself and his companions to the cop in charge.

  “He must have known he’d been spotted,” one cop told them. “He was gone before we could get here.”

  “Let’s have a look at the premises,” Riley said. They walked through the front door into a very small living room. The rest of the house included a single bedroom, a rudimentary bathroom, and a mini-kitchen. The old and worn furniture looked like it had been used by many renters.

  As Riley and Lucy poked around, Bill nodded and said, “I’ll go look in the basement.”

  Riley noticed a few signs of a recent struggle, including a broken lamp. Otherwise, everything in the house was reasonably neat and clean. The place struck Riley as a sensible choice for someone with a minuscule income. She figured that Eugene patched together a living by doing odd jobs of one kind or another. The bedroom closet held a few ragged clothes. Riley guessed that he had taken whatever he could with him, although he probably didn’t have much to his name.

  She heard Lucy call out from the kitchen, “There’s just a little food in the refrigerator. Nothing unusual.”

  Riley stepped out of the bedroom just in time to see Bill come back from the basement.

  “This is his place, all right,” Bill said. “Come have a look.”

  Riley and Lucy followed Bill down a short flight of wooden steps to a bare, concrete floor.

  A bloodstained cot was in the middle of the small, cell-like space. There could be no doubt about it. That was where he’d kept and tormented his victims, probably enchained and straitjacketed all during their captivity.