by Leslie Wolfe
All stars lined up for me that day, and they let me go without even a single word of apology. Fucking bastards… Later, I’d learned that dear old Donna had picked the precinct’s accountant out of the lineup. Although grateful for that twist of favorable fate, I was a little frustrated too. The man looked mediocre, almost humble. The only things we had in common besides gender were hair color and height. How could any woman I’d been so intimate with, for so many hours, confuse me with… that?
Good that she did, nevertheless.
Unfortunately, after that wonderful night with Donna and the ensuing near-disaster, I didn’t dare try again, not for the longest time. I had no idea how the cops had found me, no idea what I’d done wrong. I learned to curb my urge, and hoped that one day I’d stop feeling its unsatisfied burn deep inside the very core of my being.
It never stopped burning. That fire would kindle repeatedly in my groin, demanding action. Demanding me to possess someone completely, urgently.
You see, what I want is primal. Total, absolute power over a woman. Remember, I always take what I want. You might struggle to understand why I do that so freely, without any concern for the human being I choose to enjoy. Let me explain that as simply as I possibly can.
Have you ever enjoyed an apple? Have you ever sunk your teeth into that crisp, fresh skin, freeing the juices that quench your thirst so deliciously? Ah, so you have… In that case, here are some questions for you to ponder: Have you ever apologized to that fruit for possessing it, for consuming it? For the infinite pleasure its demise had brought to your senses? Have you ever felt bad about your craving for its savor? Has that conscience of yours, that you take such pride in having, ever bothered you with long-lasting remorse for every apple you’ve ever relished?
I didn’t think so.
16
Questions
Fradella helped Tess list the three cases up on the case board. They placed them around the center of the board, in chronological order. Tess hoped to uncover the unsub’s before and after killings, and possibly some in-betweens, so she made sure she’d left space on the board for any such findings.
A little to the left was the Watson case, with several pictures showing the bodies, how they were found, and close-ups of their fatal wounds. Allen Watson was shot twice in the chest. The children were shot in the head, point blank, execution style. Finally, Rachel was stabbed three times in the abdomen.
With the Meyers, things differed somewhat. The man was shot twice in the chest, much like Watson, but the woman had been tortured before being stabbed to death. The trend continued with the Townsend family. The man was shot twice, the daughter killed quickly and painlessly with a bullet in the back of her head, and the woman visibly tortured, then stabbed.
Tess stepped back and looked at the board. She thought through all the images and analyzed all the details, as if it were the first time she saw them. She frowned and muttered something under her breath.
“What’s wrong?” Michowsky asked.
“This doesn’t happen,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the board.
“Sure it does. Look at Garza. He’s done a lot of these.”
“No, I meant these empty spaces before the Watsons and after the Townsends. No way was this his first crime. No way Townsend was his last. We have to find his first victim. I’m willing to bet everything I’ve got in my wallet that Watson wasn’t his first victim.”
“Because of how organized he is?” Fradella asked.
“He’s organized, careful, and precise. He’s nowhere near Garza’s level of organization, but he’s up there. The Watson family is as low risk as they come. But look at his evolution, developing from murder to rape. That doesn’t happen. History, statistics show us serial killers evolve from rape to murder, not the other way around.” Tess scratched her head and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Okay, let’s map out this mess.”
She drew a table, putting each family name as column headers, then the last header she labeled TGV.
“TGV?” Michowsky asked.
“Typical Garza victim,” Tess replied. “We’ll map discrepancies here.”
“I thought you assumed these three weren’t Garza’s victims, right?” he asked, his confusion underlined by a hint of a frown.
“Yes, we’re starting from that assumption. If Garza did kill these families, then we have nothing to worry about. He’s going to fry in a few days, and no one’s going to come after Laura Watson.”
“Then, why are you mapping the discrepancies?” he pressed on.
“We need to uncover who this unsub really is, when he’s not copycatting Garza. Which aspects of victimology, MO, and signature belong entirely to this killer? What defines him?”
“Cool,” Fradella said, hopping off the conference table where he’d perched himself and grabbing a marker. “Can I try?”
Tess invited him with a hand gesture.
He added a few lines to the table and started labeling them at the far left.
“So, we have MO, weapon, signature, victimology—you said. What else?”
“That’s it for now, let’s populate the fields,” she invited him.
He started scribbling notes in each cell.
“I think the first question we need to answer is this: Are we looking at a single unsub for all three cases? Or are we looking at more than one?”
Both men looked at her.
“Two or three copycats over such a short period of time?” Gary pushed back. “It would be highly unlikely, I believe.”
“I agree,” Tess replied, chewing lightly on the back end of her dry erase marker. “Let’s think horses, not zebras.”
“Huh?” Todd reacted.
“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras,” she quoted. “It’s a guiding principle for medical students, encouraging them to not waste time chasing the improbable. It’s the medical version of Occam’s razor.”
“So, we’ll go with the assumption it’s just one unsub?” Todd asked.
“For now,” she replied quietly, while her frown deepened. “No, this isn’t right, see?” she pointed at the signature line. “I don’t think we know his signature yet. Rape and torture are not his signature, Todd, they’re part of his MO. For Garza, what he did after the killings was his signature.”
“Then how do you define a killer’s signature?”
She liked Todd. He had an inquisitive mind and absorbed every bit of knowledge with enthusiasm. He was smart and willing to grow professionally, although sometimes a bit of an ego stood in the path of that.
“A signature is what the killer does in addition to the actual crime, the part he doesn’t need to do to execute the crime. In our unsub’s case, the shooting and stabbing, even the rape were his MO, but we don’t know the signature yet. It’s critical to figure it out, because it sheds light into his psychological makeup, into the reasons behind who he is and why he does what he does.”
“We can’t find that out from what we have here?” Michowsky asked.
“Maybe we can, but we haven’t yet. It could be something small, a tiny thing. Maybe he takes souvenirs, something so small and insignificant no one noticed it was missing from the crime scenes. It could be as simple as taking pictures of his victims. Maybe it’s something he does, that we haven’t figured out yet.”
She paced the floor for a while, going back and forth in front of the case board, not taking her eyes off it.
“Gary, you worked the Watson crime scene, right? Tell me what you remember.”
Michowsky cleared his throat before speaking.
“Um, we found Allen Watson just where the housekeeper told us he’d be.”
“Um… Hannah Svoboda?” Tess asked, after checking her notes.
“Yes, she’s the one who called 911.”
“Ah, yes, got it. Let’s forget what’s in the case file. Tell me what you felt, what your gut told you. What you smelled, heard, or sensed.”
“Ugh… it’s been a while, you kno
w?” he said pensively. “I remember the TV, blaring, set on a cartoon channel. I recall we were so shocked at what we saw, it took us a while to turn that off. We cleared the house first, and I was the one who cleared the kitchen. That was the worst, worse even than the children’s bedrooms upstairs. Blood everywhere, like you see there,” he added, pointing at the case board.
She nodded quietly, waiting for him to continue.
“I remember thinking the blood patterns looked disturbed,” he added, staring at the floor, and running his hand through his buzz-cut hair.
“Disturbed?” Tess asked. “As in—”
“You know how blood pools after the victim is stabbed and falls to the ground, right? It forms a puddle with smooth, curved edges, especially on an even, shiny surface like kitchen tiles. This one was different. It was like someone touched the blood, messed with it. The puddle was irregular, and the edge had angles and smudges.”
“Could that be a signature, maybe?” Tess asked. “Did you see the same pattern with the Meyers?”
“In retrospect, maybe. I remember thinking that at the Meyer crime scene, but then concluding I couldn’t be sure, because of the torture. You know, he tortured the Meyer woman.”
“You mean Jackie Meyer, right?” she said quickly, drilling him with an unforgiving gaze. She didn’t appreciate the apparent lack of respect toward the victims. The least they could do was say their names and treat them with the deference they deserved.
“Right,” he replied with a quizzical expression in his eyes.
“But is it possible, based on what you remember, that the unsub messed with the blood pools of Jackie Meyer after her death?”
“Doing what?”
“We don’t know that, but nevertheless, is it possible?”
Michowsky stood and walked to the case board. He squinted and studied closely all the Meyer crime scene photos.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he eventually said.
“Okay,” she sighed, “let’s look at the Townsends next. We have more photos in here,” she added, opening the Townsend case file.
“Yeah, I see it here, and here,” Todd said, pointing at one of the photos. “What the hell was he doing?”
“Is,” she corrected him. “Is he doing. There’s no reason to believe he stopped.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he replied.
She propped her hands on her hips and let out a frustrated breath of air.
“Todd, please pull a random Garza file from the box. Any case file should do it. Let’s check the blood puddles.”
He obliged and scattered the case photos on the table. It was a family of three from Kendale Lakes. The woman, a redhead, reminded her of Dr. Jacobs.
Tess studied the photos closely, biting her lower lip and frowning.
“Uh-huh,” she eventually said, “so go ahead and add one more line to that discrepancies table. Name it blood puddles. Garza didn’t mess with the blood puddles. You can see where he removed the bodies form the particular spots they were killed, but the puddle edges are intact. Entirely different.”
Todd obliged, hesitating a little before adding the word “disturbed” under the three cases they were working, and “intact” under the TGV header.
“We’re getting closer to discovering his signature,” she said. “Is there any entry in the forensics notes on these blood puddles?”
Todd shifted through the case file, looking for the report. He mumbled as he read through it and made those sounds some impatient people make instead of tapping their fingers.
“Nope, there’s nothing. Kind of unusual. They must have thought—”
“They must have thought Garza did it and stopped working it. Stopped thinking, stopped doing their jobs,” Tess snapped. “Makes our job really interesting now, fifteen damn years later.”
Michowsky shot her a hurt, antagonized look.
“You’re so quick to judge, Winnett. People are doing a great—”
“Oh, just spare me, will ya?” she snapped. “Just don’t say good job, ’cause you know it wasn’t.”
She slammed the case file shut and resumed her pacing. She stared into the gaping wounds of the three stabbed women, then she remembered something she’d read in the Meyer case file: “Unusual skin distension pattern in stab wound. No trace elements found.” She wondered if there could be any correlation between that unusual distention and the altered blood pools. A thin theory, as thin as such theories could ever get. To her, Jackie Meyer’s stab wounds looked just like Rachel Watson’s or Emily Townsend’s, but Doc Rizza might have a different opinion.
“Before we start pulling all the unsolved rape and murder cases in the past twenty years, we need to speak with the ME. Maybe the doc remembers something that’s not in there.”
17
Family Lunch
Laura studied Adrian discreetly, as he drove her SUV on the quiet Miami Shores streets, all boasting neatly manicured lawns in front of large, modern American homes, mostly hidden from view by lush greenery. Cypress trees, palmettos, flowering bushes, all trimmed and professionally maintained, completed the picturesque image of a neighborhood for the comfortably wealthy who didn’t want to push the envelope and add another zero to the price of their homes, for the privilege of living in glitzy Miami Beach.
Adrian looked tense and uncomfortable in his perfectly pressed shirt and slacks, far from his normal routine, which included T-shirts, typically with humorous messages, and worn-out jeans. He’d fussed about his attire for a long, nerve-racking hour, feeling the pressure of having to impress his girlfriend’s family over a long, pretentious lunch.
It wasn’t the first time that Adrian had met her adoptive family, but the only other time had been a quick conversation in passing that took place in the Lincoln Road Mall, where they’d run into one another. Laura and Adrian, dressed down and having a good time eating junk food at the Chinese tray-pusher in the food court, and the Welshes, dressed to the nines, strolling through the mall like Miami royalty. It didn’t go that well. Carol’s kindness and pleasant demeanor felt forced, and Bradley’s frown dismissed Adrian, making him feel small and unwanted. Adrian, much like any other young man in his place, never forgot the bruise to his ego.
The car turned the corner onto Grand Concourse, and Laura shifted in her seat, a little anxious herself. The familiar silhouette of the house she grew up in didn’t seem so familiar anymore; almost seemed like a stranger’s home. She’d moved out a couple of years before, when she’d gone to school, but that wasn’t the reason. For the past few days, she’d spent lots of time dwelling in the past, the more distant past, where a white, two-story house in Palm Beach had been her home.
Bradley and Carol had sold that property on her behalf, afraid the bad memories would stay with the house and haunt her years later. They were right, but lately she’d found herself driving by that house and staring at it, trying to remember, trying to feel something more than the sense of doom that hadn’t vacated her heart since that damn TV show.
She returned to her reality when Adrian cut the engine. They’d arrived, and he was parked on the street.
“Go on,” she encouraged him, “park in the driveway. It’s all good.”
“Oh, hell no,” he reacted, and hopped out of the car. She smiled when he approached her side and opened the door for her, like a true gentleman.
They walked the distance to the main door without saying a word, both immersed in their thoughts. She pushed the door handle and walked right in, and Adrian followed, after a second of hesitation.
“They’re here,” Amanda hollered from the middle of the stairs, then continued her descent, flying over the wide steps in a rush to get to them. She was four years older than Laura, and had been her loving, cheerful adoptive sister ever since she could remember. She had long, wavy, chestnut hair, and the face of a poster girl for cheerleader nationals. Bursting with energy and lust for life, Amanda had made Laura’s life better at every milestone. First boyfriend, she was there to give
good advice. First heartbreak, she snuck out and bought a quart of Häagen-Dazs for them to share, turning the bitterness in Laura’s tears to laughter, sprinkled with cynicism for everything male.
Amanda hugged Laura tightly, then pulled herself away and turned to Adrian. She grabbed both his hands and held them to the sides, as if examining a model. He was petrified.
“Well, look at you. I heard a lot about you, but you’re not bad at all,” she concluded, in her typical direct, undiplomatic way. “Yep, you done well, sis,” she laughed and finally let Adrian go. Immediately, he shoved his hands inside his pockets and took a step back.
Bradley appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a paper towel.
“Hey,” he said, then approached and kissed Laura on the cheek. “Adrian,” he extended his hand, and the young man took one hand out of his pocket and firmly shook Bradley’s hand.
“Sir.”
“New lamp?” Laura asked, pointing at the modern chandelier hanging above their heads. It was different from everything she’d seen at the factory. It was metallic, all stainless steel, with each arm a custom shape, an upward pointing triangular form with irregular edges and surfaces of smooth, curvy, brushed metal. Each such irregular, flattened pyramid section hid a small light bulb behind its base, throwing multiple triangular shadows on the walls. Quite an interesting design.
“Just a prototype, something I had fun creating,” he said, smiling toward the ceiling.
“Are we making it?”
“Oh, no,” he laughed. “The engineers said it would be too expensive to make; it wouldn’t be worth it. Too much of a hassle to supply parts for it, being that each arm is a different mold, a different component.”