Daddy Long Legs

by Vernon W. Baumann

  One of the detectives raised his hand. Human pointed to him. ‘What about a tip line? You know, get the public to phone in with tips or observations.’

  Human took a deep breath and remained quiet for a moment. He spoke slowly. ‘Tip lines can be a good idea ... but not now.’ There was a discontented rumbling in the room and several shouts of protest. Loudest among them was Engelman. ‘Look, although tip lines do sometimes yield results, more often than not they just end up bogging down the investigation with a tonne of data, most of it completely useless.’ Human sighed. ‘Let me give you some examples. During the investigation to catch the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, not only did the tip line severely distract the police, but a sick, so-called prankster who mailed in a recording of his voice completely changed the focus of the Ripper task force and succeeded in derailing the entire investigation. Instead of focusing on Sutcliffe, who had at this stage already been identified as a possible suspect, they altered the profile. The result was that the investigation lasted several years longer than it needed to. In the case of the Green River Killer in Washington State, the task team was so overwhelmed with the ridiculous amount of data gathered from the tip lines that the investigation dragged on for more than a decade. A decade! Ten years. Once again, the killer, Gary Ridgway, who had also at that stage been identified as a possible suspect, was allowed to continue killing with impunity, in a rampage that lasted more than ten years.’ Human turned to the detective who had asked the question. ‘Do you want this twisted bastard to continue killing for ten more years?’ There was silence. ‘Look, I have, over the years, developed a graded set of priorities.’ He turned to the board again and started scribbling. ‘Right at the top of my list of priorities is forensics. Within this list, I include basically any kind of concrete objective evidence, video footage, audio recordings, paper trails etc. These are the things, gentlemen that win court cases. Next in line are eyewitness accounts of abductions, body dumps etc. Once again, an eye witness on the stand is powerful ... and concrete. Next in line is what I cover under the general term of profiling. It includes the work I’ve just discussed,’ he said, pointing at the three lists on the white board. ‘Then, to cut a long story short, almost right at the bottom is public tip lines. The public tends to be over-enthusiastic when it comes to these things, believing they are aiding detectives when all they’re achieving is over-burdening us. A tip line, to me, is always a last resort.’ He looked at the group of men, trying to gauge the mood. ‘Okay. Detective Engelman and I will work out the schedule,’ Human said, once again trying to reconcile with the difficult and truculent policeman. ‘You will receive your assignments within the next hour.’ Human carefully surveyed the group of faces. ‘Any other questions?’

  ‘DNA.’ It was a black detective who spoke. The only one in the group.

  ‘Yes, good question. A few years back when the first dedicated cold case squads were introduced, they sent a preserved sample from the Hope case to a lab for DNA testing. A useable profile was extracted.’ Human paused. ‘But it didn’t match any of the profiles in the DNA database.’ Several of the detectives expressed dismay. ‘Now, guys, all that meant is that the killer hadn’t been arrested or tested for DNA until that time. It’s been several years since then. We’re going to check our profile against the database again. Later today, in fact.’ Human checked his watch. ‘Of course, I’ve requested that the lab review all the biological samples that have been preserved since the original murders. I want them to look for additional DNA profiles. For all we know, our original DNA profile that was compiled might not even belong to the killer.’ The black cop who had asked the question nodded with appreciation.

  Human’s face became grave. He ruminated gravely while the men in the room stared at him in silence. ‘Detectives, if the killer follows his established patterns, it means he keeps the boys captive for a period of about a week. We’ve lost two days. The reality is simple. Yet powerful.’ Human took off his glasses and cleaned them on his button-down shirt. Taking great care to ensure they were clean, he positioned them on this thin face. ‘Gentlemen, there’s no need to stress the vital importance of what we’re doing here. The eyes of the entire country are upon us. We have less than a week to make this happen. The longest period of time during which the killer held a victim captive was eight days. The average was closer to six. I believe, being the first time he’s been active in twenty years, we can look at a longer period of captivity. Whatever the case, we’ve lost two days and the investigation is on the back foot. We’re on borrowed time here, gentlemen. We have six days to catch a killer. And save a boy’s life.’

  Eight

  Day one - Thursday

  In an effort to impress the value of time on his investigators. Human instructed that a wall clock be purchased and mounted on the wall. It was a constant reminder that their biggest enemy was time. And that every revolution of the clock hand was eating away at their chances of ending the reign of Daddy Long Legs.

  While his detectives scoured the records, Human busied himself dealing with the immediate evidence. First things first. Hoping to trace the call to the Hope Gazette, he requested a warrant for Telkom, the South African telecommunications giant that still exercised a virtual monopoly, especially when it came to landline communications. The next thing he did was interview Mitzi Booysen, underappreciated artist and Hope Gazette receptionist. Having taken the call from the killer, she was the closest thing they had to a witness at this stage. The interview revealed little, except for a mystifying detail. She told Human that the caller had sounded unnatural. As if he was taking pains to disguise his voice. Human found this an intriguing detail and decided to check it against the case files.

  He also used this time to phone the Kimberley crime lab and ask that they re-submit the existing DNA profile against the database, in the hope that the perpetrator’s DNA was maybe now listed. He spent the rest of the day pouring over the boxes and boxes of case files and evidence from the original investigation.

  Since the late nineties, all forensics and lab work had been moved off-site to Kimberley. Human put in a personal request that a dedicated CSU team be sent to Hope.

  When the day was done. Tired. And drained. He dragged his unwilling body to the guesthouse. And without eating. Fell asleep on the bed with his clothes on.

  Day two - Friday

  Having slept fitfully, Human rose early and went to the office while no-one was there. And continued wading through the mass of case files, more than nine thousand pages of sometimes dense, sometimes illegible, sometimes inexplicable material covering evidence, interviews, thoughts and observations and, of course, the crucial forensics. He worked with feverish determination, using the early morning quiet to immerse himself in the sordid world of the psychopath known as Daddy Long Legs. It was a tedious and mind-numbing task, made almost insurmountable by the sheer mass of evidence collected by the original team of investigators. It was also a massively time consuming task, making hours pass as if they were minutes. When Human found himself again the room was filled with a dozen phoning, scribbling, chattering, frowning detectives. Running about like madmen. He looked at the clock. Ten ‘o clock. He hated the amount of time this was taking. As the lead investigator, however, it was crucial that he become intimately acquainted with every single aspect of the case. Skipping details was a luxury he simply couldn’t afford. Especially if that single detail was the key to the entire investigation.

  Later that morning, the lab contacted Human. The DNA profile on record had produced no hits. The killer’s DNA, it seemed, was not in the database. Despite having abducted and mercilessly killed a string of boys, he had completely evaded capture. And had avoided being arrested for even the tiniest misdemeanour. Human grudgingly admired his psychotic precision.

  Hoping that his CSU team had not yet departed, he phoned the Kimberley office and requested that the crime scene investigators bring every single biological sample in storage related to the case with them. He wanted them
to re-test everything they had. The ‘samples’ included mostly the clothing of the victims, where available. Thankfully, the original investigators and pathologists had preserved crucial items in cold storage. Although DNA testing had not yet been in use in South Africa at the time of the initial killings, by the late eighties, the South African police was aware of the groundbreaking work done in Great Britain, where a landmark case featured the first successful use of DNA to catch a perpetrator, a rapist in that case. As a result, by eighty-seven, all items featuring body fluids had been carefully preserved in expectation of the time DNA testing would be available. As Human had mentioned to his investigators, there was no guarantee that the DNA profile they were working with was even the killer’s DNA to begin with. They had to cover all their bases. It was crucial.

  The rest of the day was passed in a haze of scribbled notes and reports that were, in most cases, more than twenty years old. It was a bizarre and eerie voyage into a dark past. A sick history that had, in the space of a few days, become a present reality.

  Day three - Saturday

  The next morning, Human awoke at his desk. It was four ‘o clock in the morning. Feeling groggy and edgy, Human made his way to the guesthouse where he was staying. After a shower and an unpleasant tasteless breakfast, he headed back.

  About an hour later, Human received the results of the phone trace. He was aggravated that the trace had taken so long but received the news with relief nonetheless. The call had been made from a public phone, located in front of a local supermarket. As luck would have it, his Kimberley CSU team had reported for duty minutes before. Consisting of three crime scene investigators and two lab technicians, the team of young people had impressed Human with their enthusiasm and professionalism. A good sign. Without a moment’s hesitation, Human, together with the Crime Scene Unit, rushed to the location. While the CSU investigators took fingerprints, Human interviewed employees of the surrounding businesses. Nothing. The traffic through this area was simply too great. Human suspected that this was why the killer had chosen the spot in the first place.

  Frustration mounted. Human realised that serial killer cases were never solved this speedily. Of course he did. But in this specific case, they were confronted with a rare bonus: the possibility of saving the life of a victim. It was a bonus, to be sure. But also a curse. A factor, with the tantalising and redemptive possibilities it offered, that weighed down heavily on the experienced investigator.

  During these first few days, Human received dozens of requests for interviews from various media bodies. He declined them all. The thick-skinned, seasoned reporters were not perturbed, however. The media staked out the little dirt road in front of the detective unit. With the result that it was becoming a Herculean task simply arriving at work and leaving again. As soon as they spotted the celebrity detective, they would follow him around. Reporting and observing his daily activities first hand. At night, the more determined amongst them would camp outside his guesthouse.

  That night, Special Assignment featured a segment on the abduction. The image of a tearful Lorraine van Jaarsveld was projected into a million South African homes, begging the person who had taken her son to deliver him safely home. The producer of the segment made reference to the ‘famous’ detective and hinted that the investigation was slow and unfocused, producing no results. That was what you got for not co-operating with the media, Human thought. Although he was miffed at the insinuation, a part of him was also pleased, hoping it gave the killer false hope. Later that night, the news reported on another development. A group of heartless students from the University of Cape Town had started a countdown timer, speculating when the missing boy’s body would be discovered. Human noted, with wry contempt, that their estimation matched his to the day. Sometimes he wondered if the world was worth saving.

  That night he fell asleep at his desk. He dreamt of an abandoned synagogue. A dead girl. And a killer whose impossibly long arm reached across twenty years to strangle him slowly.

  Day four - Sunday

  Early the next morning, while pouring over the mound of case files and evidence collected in the original investigation, Human discovered something unsettling. He immediately called Engelman on his cell phone. Although he had obviously caught the detective still in bed, he was strangely out of breath. He informed the detective that he needed to see him urgently. ‘Something’s wrong here,’ he said about thirty minutes later as Engelman stood before him. He pointed to an open file in front of him. ‘There’s a discrepancy between the evidence log and the actual contents,’ Human said, consulting the file, ‘between items 735-A and 897-C.’

  Engelman stared at him impassively. ‘You mean you don’t know about it?’

  ‘Know about what?’

  Engelman smiled derisively. Human bristled. Although he had taken great efforts to ingratiate himself with the detective from Hope, his continuing recalcitrance and truculence was starting to grate the Johannesburg policeman. ‘I think you better explain very quickly what is going on here.’ Engelman’s smile disappeared. He sighed, and briefly described the events of that February evening in nineteen-ninety when ‘a person or persons unknown’ had broken into the Hope evidence room and stolen various autopsy reports, biological samples as well as other important items of evidence. When he had done, Human stood before him, stunned into silence. When he spoke, his words were measured and slow, taking great care not the let his exhaustion and frustration incense his fragile mood. ‘Are you telling me someone stole crucial evidence, directly from the Hope police station, and no-one thought to inform me of this?’

  Engelman met Human’s gaze equally. ‘We thought you knew.’ Human rubbed his forehead in slow frustration, hard enough to make his knuckles turn white. This was huge. And potentially explosive. Bizarre and perplexing enough to derail the entire investigation and send it veering dangerously into another entirely different direction. The implications were disturbing. And frightening.

  ‘Was anyone ever arrested for the break-in? Was there ever an investigation?’

  ‘Well, there was an internal investigation, after which –’

  ‘An internal investigation?’ Human couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘For God’s sake. The whole world has gone mad.’ He slumped down in the swivel chair. ‘Go to the police station and get me the report on the ‘internal investigation’,’ he said with contempt. ‘Right now.’

  ‘Excuse me, I’m a senior detective. I hardly think –’

  ‘I said right NOW.’ Both Engelman and Human were taken aback by fury of the outburst. Without another word, Engelman turned and walked out. Human ruminated darkly, almost too afraid to contemplate the implications.

  Later that morning, Joe Ndabane, Director for Priority Crime Investigation, called him. ‘Wayne, my broer,’ Ndabane stammered in his uniquely syncopated manner through the speaker of the phone. ‘What’s happening there?’ Human quickly gave him a rundown of the investigation. ‘Wayne.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You must speak to these idiots from the media, Wayne. They’re making us look like mamparras.’ Wayne grimaced, knowing what was coming. ‘Wayne, I’m not loving this, my man. I’m not loving this. I don’t like to look like a mamparra.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Speak to these fuckers, Wayne. Tell them what they want to hear.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Wayne.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘You must catch this guy.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  About an hour later, while a horde of reporters clamoured for attention, Human held his first impromptu press conference.

  Over the course of the day, the results from the review of the arrest records starting coming in. During the years eighty-eight and eighty-nine, there had been several hundred arrests, as can be expected from an area the size of the search grid. Of those, only thirty-nine had been white males. Of that group, only five matched the profile of a thirty something white male. Of the fi
ve, only one was incarcerated for a significant period of time; eight years. And it was for fraud. Although Human believed the man didn’t match the profile at all, he was nonetheless added to a list of possible suspects. A list that included all of one suspect. So far, this avenue had proved a dead end.