by J-F. Dubeau
His trailer, however, was that of a man driven stark raving mad. Sam was quite obviously obsessed with dark things. The cramped two-room residence, if it could be called such, was littered with letters he’d penned and drawings he’d made. There was a large and disturbing collection of knives on the counter near a filthy sink. More knives than any sane man should own. Stacks of books from a dozen religions, each dog-eared and annotated, were piled in every corner.
The first room, which seemed to function as a combination living room/kitchen, turned out not to be the source of the smell. A thick cloud of flies pointed instead to the second room. Inspector Crowley already had a good idea of what he was going to find there.
The door was ajar. Neither of the two officers expected to be met with any resistance, but just in case, Crowley drew his sidearm. He nodded for Bélanger to nudge the door open. As it creaked ominously, light spilled into the pitch-black bedroom. Lying restfully, almost serenely on the bed, was the body of Ms. Annette Benjamin, a retired schoolteacher, volunteer at the local library, prize-winning gardener, and latest victim of the Saint-Ferdinand Killer.
Stephen put his 9-mm Smith & Wesson back in its holster, sighed loudly, and scratched the back of his thick neck. The inspector had never considered himself much of an intellectual. He’d skipped or slept through most of his training sessions on blood-spatter analysis, crime-scene assessment, and other modern investigation techniques. Not that he wasn’t qualified to do his job, but creeping into his midfifties, Crowley was from an older school of crime fighting, one that relied on gut instincts, hard questioning of witnesses, and even harder interrogation of suspects. Still, he knew that when a body turned up, it was time to call in the eggheads.
“Jackie?” the inspector croaked into his radio. “Send for Randy and let the boys know to pick up Finnegan if they spot him in town.”
He turned down his radio and took a better look at the bedroom. Officially, his job was to wait for Randall McKenzie, the medical examiner, to show up. It was going to be a long wait. Randy didn’t work exclusively for the department, and doubled as one of two physicians in Saint-Ferdinand. Also, he was notoriously nonchalant about his duties. Crowley had plenty of time to make his own observations about the scene.
First and most obviously, Ms. Benjamin had been killed elsewhere. The dark patches of blood covering her light-blue flower-patterned dress suggested she’d been stabbed multiple times in her ample belly. Lack of blood in the room meant the body had probably been dragged there. No mean feat, considering Finnegan weighed at most 150 pounds, while his victim must have hovered near 250.
The more Stephen observed the body, the stranger it all seemed. The corpse had been positioned faceup, both arms lying to her sides. It seemed Old Man Finnegan had been worried about his victim’s comfort. The body was also fully clothed, reducing the likelihood of a sexual motive. Ms. Benjamin wasn’t known for her wealth, making theft another unlikely motivation.
The heat and humidity seemed amplified within the cramped trailer. Sweating profusely, Crowley took a step back out of the room. The smell was becoming a bit much to tolerate, and a little fresh air wouldn’t go unappreciated. But before he could walk out, Stephen’s attention was drawn to the many flies that crawled over the body. Death and decomposition, while unpleasant, had never bothered Crowley. Nor had the sight of blood or gore. Flies, however, touched a nerve. They reminded him that people were nothing more than walking, talking bags of meat, ready to become something else’s meal.
The flies on Ms. Benjamin were especially numerous, which wasn’t surprising considering the weather and circumstances. But for some reason, the repulsive insects had congregated around her eyes. Ignoring his disgust, Crowley shooed the flies away from the body. As the insects scattered into a small black cloud, the inspector got a good look at the dead former teacher’s face. He had to crouch down in the dim light to make sure, but there was no mistake. Someone had removed Ms. Benjamin’s eyes.
“Crowley!”
Bélanger’s call cut through the stillness. The lieutenant was phlegmatic by nature, unruffled by even the most traumatic crime scenes. Inspector Crowley knew that when Mathieux Bélanger raised his voice, it was for a good reason and, accordingly, he double-timed it outside.
There he found his lieutenant crouched next to one of the many refrigerators, a small pile of bright pink clothes at his feet. The door to the refrigerator stood open, giving the impression the old appliance had disgorged the pink bundle.
“I heard a hum from one of the fridges and took a look,” Bélanger explained.
Crowley looked down and saw that the bundle was in fact a second, tiny body. He immediately recognized her as Audrey, the eight-year-old daughter of William Bergeron, a local business owner and friend. Crowley had seen her alive the previous day, sitting at the counter of her father’s drugstore, telling long stories about everything she was going to do during the summer. She’d been wearing the same pink dress, her blinding platinum hair tied in the same ponytail. Her body had neither obvious wounds nor signs that she had suffocated while in the appliance. Her eyes were open and, more important, still in their sockets.
“Christ . . . ,” whispered the inspector.
The news of this discovery would destroy William and his wife, Beatrice. Audrey was their only child and precious not only to them but to all of Saint-Ferdinand. More than a few of William’s acquaintances attributed his recent sobriety to Audrey’s presence in his life. She had been a fragile thing from the day she was born, over a month premature, but sweet as sugar. It was no surprise that everyone was so protective. Even older kids would allow her to tag along with them, ever doting on the delicate child.
Once news of her death got out, the villagers would tear Finnegan apart if they found him before the cops did, and Crowley had half a mind to let them. Anger came easily to the inspector. Affection for his own son aside, Crowley wasn’t an openly loving man. Frustration was his language and he could speak it louder than most, often by punching inanimate objects in order to vent. But it was his job to tell William and Beatrice what had become of their only child. He’d had many similar conversations since becoming a cop, but they never got any easier.
For almost twenty years, Saint-Ferdinand had been home to a very long stretch of unsolved murders and disappearances. When they’d chanced upon evidence that might put a definite end to the killings, there had been much reason to celebrate. But it was quite a different feeling for Crowley to realize that he’d known the killer for so long and had never once suspected him. It was embarrassing. For that reason alone, the inspector felt like administering a legendary beating to Finnegan himself.
Thankfully, decades of professional experience soon took over. The inspector stood and walked to the nearest refrigerator, putting his hand on its back. Frowning, he walked over to another and did the same. Crowley repeated the process with another six refrigerators before he stopped, looked around, and realized something.
“They’re all working, Matt.” There was an unmistakable gravity to his voice. “Every one of ’em, humming like a diesel.”
Crowley was partially right. There were seventeen fridges on Finnegan’s property. Some were in plain sight; others were overgrown with vegetation. Eleven were running off of a hijacked power line.
The inspector and his lieutenant had suspected that more of the fridges contained bodies, but they dutifully waited until the medical examiner, EMTs, and as many other cops as they could round up arrived before going through the grisly task of opening them. By late afternoon, Sam Finnegan’s property was swarming with law-enforcement professionals gathering a gamut of forensic evidence from fingerprints to blood samples, to casts of shoe prints and tire tracks. Only then was every refrigerator opened and documented.
When the lion’s share of the investigation was done, their biggest fear was confirmed. Each of the functioning appliances was revealed to contain the body of a victim. Of the six that were no longer in operation, two wer
e stuffed with putrefied remains. This brought the confirmed body count to fourteen, which was shocking until a shallow trench was discovered near the edge of the woods. In it, bones of clearly human origin had been dumped. Once these were sorted and counted, the number of victims would increase dramatically.
Most of the corpses were easily identified. No effort had been made by Finnegan to hide who they were. Personal items were left untouched. Their wallets and jewelry had remained with them. They were unmolested, apart from the slashed throats and missing eyes.
Many of the victims were familiar to Crowley. They’d been neighbors from his childhood, high school classmates he’d lost track of, or faces he recognized from the case files of the Saint-Ferdinand Killer. Some were residents of the small village, while others were hikers and campers who had vanished in the surrounding woods throughout the years. The media had blamed bears or hiking accidents for the disappearances. The locals knew better. So did the inspector.
“You can’t start blaming yourself, Stephen.” Randy McKenzie was bent over the body of Melanie DesPins, a middle-aged mother of three who had disappeared four winters before. Her throat had been slashed mercilessly, her eyes ripped out. Randy was short, balding, and rotund. His was the physique of a man who spent his time sitting or eating, often both. His eyes, however, displayed uncanny intelligence and care that made him almost attractive, in a friendly neighbor kind of way. “Till today we’ve barely had a thing to work on with this case.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Crowley grumbled. “People have been disappearing on my watch for years. What do we have? Eighteen? Twenty dead people? And Audrey Bergeron in the mix. I didn’t get into this line of work to count corpses like notches on a belt.”
“We had nothing to work with. No prints, no witnesses. Hell, most of these people I’ve never even heard of, and I grew up here! And no one would have thought Sam Finnegan capable of this.”
On this, Randy was correct. There had been other, more likely suspects over the years. Outsiders, mostly, as the people of Saint-Ferdinand were reluctant to imagine one of their own capable of such horrors. Just nine months ago they’d brought in a trucker called Patrick Michaud, who frequently camped in the surrounding woods. He had been through town frequently enough to be responsible for the crimes, and a watch he wore had belonged to one of the victims. Michaud claimed he’d found it in the forest. He was grudgingly released for lack of evidence.
So, yes, Randy was right. Crowley had no reason to blame himself or anyone in his department for missing the obvious. They had all worn the same blinders. They’d all ignored what had been staring them in the face. Yet it was difficult not to feel responsible, especially for poor dead Audrey.
“Doesn’t it seem strange that she’s here, though?” asked Randy as if reading the inspector’s mind.
“None of them should be here, Randy,” Crowley said, and frowned.
“Yes, of course. What I meant is that she’s the only victim below thirty-five, and she has no apparent wounds.” The medical examiner snapped off his latex gloves dramatically. “I know there wasn’t much of a victim profile when we only had one or two bodies, but now? Now we have an MO.”
“And she doesn’t fit into it.” Crowley scratched the back of his neck again.
“Hell, I doubt she was even murdered. I don’t think she was part of Sam’s plan.”
That was an odd statement. The girl was found less than twenty-four hours after her disappearance, trapped inside the refrigerator of a madman. Eight-year-olds rarely died of natural causes. On the other hand, there was no sign she had struggled. No bruises or lacerations. Audrey had always been a tremendously fragile child as a result of her birth. She had a weak heart and suffered from severe asthma. Either of these things could have killed her from within. The coincidence nagged at Crowley, though.
“Randy?” the inspector asked. “Do me a favor, will ya?”
“Sure.”
“Figure out where she died for me. If it was within city limits . . . well, you’ll have some work.”
Randy hesitated, looking nervously around for a moment. “I would really rather not,” he answered at last.
“Randy. She was just a kid.”
“Fine.” A shiver went up the medical examiner’s spine in spite of the heat. “But God dammit, Stephen. . . .”
A few silent moments passed as both men surveyed the scene. A dozen officers from Crowley’s department and other regional stations were busying themselves securing the perimeter and identifying evidence. The Saint-Ferdinand officers had become somewhat comfortable working a crime scene. It bore witness to the morbid history of Saint-Ferdinand that small-town cops knew so much about how to handle a murder scene.
“What about the eyes?” Randy asked, breaking their contemplation. “Any idea what that’s about?”
“Not sure. I’m really hoping he wasn’t eating them, though.”
“Depersonalization,” someone interrupted.
Both men turned around to see a woman in her late twenties wearing a gray pantsuit, her shoulder-length brown hair held up by large sunglasses. She looked up from the body of Ms. DesPins and smiled apologetically.
“Disfigurement is used to dehumanize a killer’s victims. Makes killing easier. Especially if the murderer knows his prey.” The woman walked over to kiss Randy on both cheeks.
“This is Erica Hazelwood,” Randy explained to Crowley. “She’s a doctor in criminal psychology and one of my favorite students. I figured she could drop by and give us a hand.”
“Great. Another expert.” Crowley clearly didn’t like surprises. He was about to vent the day’s frustrations on the medical examiner but was interrupted once more by the new arrival.
“I just want to help out with the case, not step on your feet, Inspector.” Erica’s smile quickly turned to concern, and she empathetically put a hand on Crowley’s arm. “But I mostly work with victims’ families. I’m here about the little girl’s parents.”
Crowley realized he’d been clenching his fist during the exchange and relaxed, a little embarrassed at his temper.
“If you’ll allow her, she’ll break the news to William and Beatrice,” Randy added. “You’ve got enough on your mind, I imagine.”
“You’re right, Randy.” He turned to Erica. “Sorry, Ms. Hazelwood.”
“It’s quite all right, though I must ask: How long have you been working today?”
Stephen had been woken up around three in the morning. One of his officers had been called in to break up a fight at a local tavern. Sam Finnegan had arrived at the establishment around two thirty in the morning. He’d tried to purchase a beer, revealing his hands were stained with blood. Arnold, the bartender, was immediately suspicious and refused him service. Things became agitated when Finnegan wouldn’t take no for an answer. Old Sam fled the scene, but the complaint had been reason enough for Crowley and Bélanger to visit his trailer. They’d knocked on his broken door ten hours ago.
“Not that long,” Crowley lied.
Erica was about to contradict him, but the inspector’s radio scratched to life.
“Crowley?” came Lieutenant Bélanger’s distorted voice. “I found the eyes.”
Sam Finnegan, it turned out, had not eaten the eyes of his victims. Instead he’d put them to a more industrious use. Lieutenant Bélanger’s location was deep in the woods, roughly ten minutes’ walk from Finnegan’s trailer and obscured by thick evergreens. He stood outside a small cave opening. Moss-covered rocks lined the entrance, which was barely visible through the foliage. The cave itself wasn’t very imposing. Less than six feet in diameter but burrowing almost straight down into the ground. It would have been a claustrophobic fit for most adults.
Sam’s handiwork was evident in the way he had arranged the area. He’d set up a dark brown couch facing the cave like a lunatic’s living room. The piece of furniture was covered with branches in a crude but premeditated attempt to camouflage the setup. Empty liquor bottles and cigarette bu
tts littered the forest floor, testifying that old Sam had spent a large amount of time there. But most disturbing was a semicircle of half a dozen thin metal rods, planted firmly into the ground and meticulously spaced at regular intervals. Speared at the tip of each of these metal rods were the eyes of Sam Finnegan’s victims.
“So much for dehumanizing his kills, huh?” Crowley commented, his own eyes riveted by the bizarre scene before him.
“Sam . . . ,” Randy murmured, crouching to examine the nearest rod. “What the hell were you doing?”
“How did you not notice a pattern of missing eyes in the bodies that were found, Inspector?” It was Erica, carefully tiptoeing through the ferns and branches while trying to get a better vantage point on the gruesome tableau.
“The bodies we found were all at various stages of advanced decomposition,” Crowley said while studying one of the eye rods. “We have a lot of hungry critters in these woods, Ms. Hazelwood. They tend to go for the soft tissue first. Eyes, tongues, and balls.”
Erica’s face twisted in concern. “Then why haven’t these been devoured yet?”
Crowley ignored the question. He already knew the answer, and anyone with ears could figure it out. Aside from the rare gust of wind disturbing the branches of nearby trees, the area was completely silent. No birds chirping, no squirrels rustling through the undergrowth. The eyes had not been eaten because, for some reason, there were no animals to eat them.
The inspector opted to keep this observation to himself. He knelt down to investigate the skewered eyes further. The one closest to him was bright blue. Incredible care had been taken not to damage the globe of the eye or obstruct the pupil. The inspector reached out slowly toward the rod, but before he could touch it, Randy interrupted him.