by Matthew Boyd
“The chief put out the press report this morning,” Stacey said, with her eyes glued ahead on the road. “I guess people have gotten desensitized to this sort of thing nowadays.”
She shrugged her shoulders, took a giant swig of coffee, and continued to stay fixated on the road ahead.
Jake just grinned at her and said, “I blame it on the internet.”
The car rolled up the street towards the town commons, and from the look of things, they were late to the party again. The town commons was swarming with police, and the entire area had been roped off to prevent any possible evidence tampering from curious civilians or roving news reporters. The police officer guarding the barricade at the parking lot entrance lifted it and waved them through.
They hopped out of the car and headed down the winding sidewalk path to where the forensics team was cataloguing evidence. A bleary eyed and exhausted Mike Woo and the WPD forensics team were taking samples of a large pool of blood on the concrete sidewalk that appeared to have mostly drained away into the grassy soil.
Other detectives and police officers wandered around, looking at the ground or talking to each other. The ever-present news reporters stood by on the street nearly a block away overlooking the crime scene. This had been their life for the past few weeks. Everyday seemed like déjà vu. At least now they had a lead or two.
“Hey Mike. Whatcha got?” Jake asked, fiddling with a toothpick from his last meal at the hospital.
Mike took one look at Jake’s bruised face and asked, “Jesus, Jake. What the hell happened to you this time? ”
Jake just waved it off, “It’s nothing, man. Our buddy the serial killer decided to pay me a social call last night is all. Stacey here tells me we got another lead. Fill me in.”
Mike looked at Jake as if he had lost his mind, and led them over to a large, blood stained area. It looked like someone had sacrificed an animal right there on the sidewalk.
“Looks like a good old-fashioned murder this time, Jake,” Mike said as he lifted his head in a thoughtful way. “Hmmmph. Never really thought I would actually be glad to see a murder for once.”
Mike opened his eyes wide and shook his head, clearing the cobwebs. “Never mind. Anyway, a jogger this morning discovered the huge pool of blood and called the police. Someone else in a fishing boat down river here was coming up just as the boys arrived and shouted out that there was a body in the water just on the other side of the wall right about…here.”
Mike walked over to the wall and looked down into the water below. “Not much water in the river this time of year, guys. The victim was a female, about eighteen years old. She probably struck the embankment more than anything. When the river rescue guys finally got here and pulled her up, it looked like she had several broken bones as well as stab marks all over her body. Looking at all that info, and considering the amount of blood and the spatters we found that lead up to here, I’d say our perp murdered the victim and then threw the body out into the river, hoping to destroy the evidence.”
Jake was let down. With a look of disappointment he said, “This doesn’t match our boy’s profile at all. He forces people to kill themselves and gets off on it, too. I remember him telling me that I would be the first person he had ever killed with his own hands.” Jake felt the rope burns on his neck with his fingertips and continued, “When he tried to kill me, he was frowning and looked angry. He walked away, leaving me swinging by the neck, and said it was no fun. This right here looks like amateur night. What makes us think he did this?”
Mike reached down into his evidence basket and grabbed a plastic evidence baggie. Inside was another pawn, identical to the pieces found at the other crime scenes.
“Any other evidence that might tell us who this guy is?” questioned Jake. He already knew the answer.
“No.” Mike said, and shook his head, “Andrews tells me they have no witnesses so far other than you that can even give a description either. But if anything turns up, we’ll let you know man.”
Dejected, Jake and Stacey left the techs to it. The two of them were walking in silence, scrambling their brains for answers. Everything about the suicides felt so random and unconnected. None of the victims knew each other, or even had any professional contact. Not a single one of them even attended the same church that Father Hodgkins presided over. It was like this guy was just randomly acting, the only real lead they had were the chess pieces and Jake’s description of the killer.
One of the other investigators passed them a manila envelope containing vital information about the latest victim. Her name was Emma Fisher, an eighteen year old freshman at the nearby university. Her family lived in a city about two hours away and had yet to be notified of her untimely death. She did have a local address, though. She shared a room with another girl at the Zeta Tau sorority house. Jake stood beside the car for a moment, straightening the paperwork and feeding it back into the envelope. He took a deep breath and scanned the area around them, thinking.
“You coming, partner?” Stacey questioned, opening the driver’s door and climbing in.
“Yeah, Stace. C’mon, I want to talk to some of that girl’s friends and see what they can tell us.”
Chapter 8
The Zeta Tau sorority house was well-known as one of the biggest party houses among the local college kids. Every single weekend without fail there was usually some big event or party there, but the girls almost always kept things under control and rarely the police had to be called out. The house was right across the street from the main campus and most of the dormitories were within easy walking distance.
As Stacey pulled the car into a parking spot on the street beside the house, Jake was staring through the car window. He was still feeling pretty awful. The medication was holding back the pain and fever, but dulling all of his senses. Jake felt like he was in a weird dream, with the detail of everything turned down a notch or two, and his head felt like it was floating. Jake pinched himself and took in a deep breath to clear his mind. Both of them exited the car and shuffled up the stone pavers towards the front door. The heat was intense outside and the sunlight nearly blinded them as reflections on the mirrors and shiny surfaces of the cars parked in the driveway flashed into their eyes.
The house was two stories tall, had an enormous front porch area with an old wooden swing, and big, hand-painted banners stretching all across the front of it advertising some sort of upcoming social event. Everything was quiet at the house. Jake could hear the doorbell ring on the inside as he pressed it.
After a few more pushes of the doorbell, and a bit of a wait, a sleepy-looking young blond girl with mussed-up, curly hair opened the door and greeted them with a slightly nervous and groggy, “Yes, officer?”
She looked like she had been partying all night long and was nursing quite a hangover. Jake lifted his detective shield to eye-level and asked the girl, “Does a girl by the name of Emma Fisher live at this residence, ma’am?”
For a moment, her eyes opened a little more, and she rubbed her hand through her bed-hair. “Yes. She lives here. Um, she’s actually my roommate. I haven’t seen her though, well, not since last night. What’s this about?”
Jake asked to come inside and the girl obligingly let them in, pointing them in the direction of a large living room area with ancient-looking wooden floors, two different color couches and a giant flat-screen TV.
The girl’s name was Kristen, and she was one of the senior students in the house. The rest of the girls were sleeping off last night’s party upstairs in their rooms.
“Kristen, we need to ask you some important questions about last night. It’s about Emma. When was the last time you saw her?”
Kristen answered immediately, “Last night, about one o’clock. We left the club and she wanted to stay. She was completely hammered. We tried to talk her out of it but she’s stubborn and refused.”
Jake nodded, writing the information down on some paper. He responded, “Do you know anyone that would wa
nt to hurt Emma or had a grudge against her?”
“No. She’s pretty new around here but fits right in with us. So…what’s this about guys? You’ve really got me freaked out, I’m going to be honest with you.”
“Kristen…Emma was murdered last night,” Stacey said.
The girl immediately snapped out of what remained of her grogginess, throwing her hands to her face and gasping with shock.
“Oh my God, Emma!” She began to weep, “It can’t be! I don’t know... She was with us last night at the club! We were all having such a good time, too. I can’t believe she’s dead…”
Jake placed his hand on her shoulder to console her a bit. “I know this is hard and that you two were friends…we just need to know everything that happened last night.”
The girl recovered eventually and went on to describe their night in more detail. She explained that the girls were all downtown at a club called “Pantino Bob’s” and were drinking heavily and dancing most of the night. About one o’clock, most of the girls decided to catch a cab and leave, but Emma was having such a good time that she decided to stay. According to the girl, this was typical behavior for Emma. There were many nights that she decided to stay at a party or club by herself. The girls had warned her many times how dangerous it was for a young girl to be somewhere alone without her friends, and to top it all off, Emma had a bad habit of asking strangers for a ride home.
“I don’t know why she did it,” Kristen managed between sobs, “We told her this would happen one day. She would just laugh. We told her to call us, or call a taxi to pick her up. She always made it home though. Oh man. This is bad. Bad.”
“So she had a habit of going out and getting rides home with strange people? Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?” Jake said, as he put a confused look on his face.
“Yes. It was like a game to her.”
“I’m sorry to say so, Kristen, but it was a game she lost.”
Stacey took over the questioning and they discovered that there was no one at the club that the girls thought was suspicious.
Kristen bit her lip and answered, “Just the usual crowd, the same ones are pretty much always there on Saturdays.”
The detectives thanked Kristen for her time, gave condolences, and promised to do everything they could to bring the killer to justice. With that, they left the sorority house and made their way to the club the girls had been at the night before.
Pantino Bob’s looked the same from the outside as all the other bars and clubs dotting the street in downtown Winchester. Every building was the same dull red brick and had large windows on the front. Brightly colored flyers were plastered up everywhere, advertising local businesses or an upcoming event or show.
The only thing that could be used to identify the place was a large neon sign in the front window that was now off, and read, “Pantino Bob’s”. Every weekend these places filled up with local students from the college. There was a dedicated police presence every night of the week to keep things in check, but the police did not patrol the area, and instead mostly hung out around their patrol cars parked up in the main intersection in the middle of the action.
What interested Jake the most were the tiny surveillance cameras that had been mounted on the telephone poles a few years ago. There had been a shooting death in the area, and the public demanded that cameras be installed as a way to hopefully reduce crime. Jake banged loudly on the front door of the establishment, but no one answered. Most of these places did not open till much later in the day, so Jake wasn’t very surprised.
He and Stacey strolled up and down the sidewalk, looking into the alley ways, but found nothing special. The man running the cash register at a nearby gas station didn’t remember hearing anything unusual from the night clerk or manager.
“I’m willing to bet we can get some good footage of what happened to Emma Fisher from those surveillance cameras,” Stacey said, scanning the street.
“I’m with you on that. This one right here looks like it’s pointing right at the entrance to Pantino Bob’s.”
“Let’s head to the office and start pulling records. I’ll call video forensics on the way so they can start getting stuff together for us to take a look at. I don’t think it will take them long, everything’s digital now.”
“Remember to thank the taxpayers at the next town hall,” Jake managed with a hoarse rasp, attempting to laugh. “Let’s grab something to eat, too. I could barely stomach that hospital food, and I’m starving.”
“As long as you’re paying, moneybags,” Stacey shot back, as she started up the cruiser and pulled away.
They were back at the precinct within the hour, munching on soggy fries and draining the last bit of soda from the cheap disposable fast food cups. A video forensics technician came in as they were finishing lunch and set a few freshly-burned DVD. He looked like he was busy texting someone on his phone.
“That’s everything on the street camera near the club you asked about between about one o’clock a.m. and four o’clock a.m.,” the tech said, “The quality is not too bad. I hope this helps you guys out.”
Jake slapped his hands together and told the tech, “Appreciate it, Ron. I have a good feeling about this.”
“You’re welcome.”
With that, the tech left the room, still glued to his phone.
“I swear, that’s all I ever see that guy doing,” Jake said. “I can’t stand pushing all those little buttons. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.”
Stacey giggled and replied, “You’re just getting old, Jake. People now a days don’t have to spin a crank around and ask an operator to connect them anymore, in case you were wondering.”
“Hardy har har,” Jake mumbled, crumpling up the empty bags and chunking them in the garbage. “Ok, partner, lets load these videos up and find our boy.”
Stacey placed the DVD into the player and positioned the screen into place. With a few presses of a button on the control panel, the screen came to life with slightly grainy black and white video. The camera that taped this footage had indeed been placed so that it looked directly over the exit of Pantino Bob’s. They watched as various club patrons exited the building, usually in groups, and continued on their way. After about fifteen minutes, they observed a skipping, curly-haired girl bound out of the club with a large group of other girls. They were laughing and goose-stepping down the street, apparently drunk and having a great time.
“There’s Kristen and her sorority sisters,” Stacey mentioned.
They continued to watch the screen. None of the people on the video so far resembled Emma or the suspect. Stacey skipped ahead whenever no people could be seen on the video. Around the three o’clock mark, they saw foot traffic begin to pick up and more people begin to exit from the club. Ten minutes later, they watched as Emma Fisher stumbled out the front door.
Jake and Stacey were transfixed, staring at the screen as they intently watched every move the young girl made. She was staggering around in high heels and playing with her phone. She started leaning over, appeared to drop it, and unceremoniously face-planted right in the middle of the sidewalk.
Then they saw him. The man was a perfect match physically to the suspect. He was big, looked to be fairly tall, and was even wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt. The footage was not perfect and had no sound, but it showed them what they needed. The man rushed over to the girl and helped her up. He held her arm to steady her while they briefly talked to each other. After a few more moments the two figures on the screen walked off together down the sidewalk.
Jake pounded the desk with his fist, “That’s him! I know that’s gotta be him! Hot damn! You see that Stace? Pull every camera record from the entire street and tell the chief to call in every warm body in this place to start reviewing footage! I want to know where they went and if we get lucky we can get a look at this guy!”
Stacey picked up the phone to contact the chief and the pace of the investigation quickly became a fr
antic race for answers.
A few hours later, there was a light knock on the office door. “We got somethin’. Check it out, guys,” Detective James Andrews announced as he waved everyone over to one of the TV screens. It was one blurry still-frame of the suspect, as he passed in front of an ATM camera that was located on the other side of the street around thirty minutes before the abduction.
The photograph revealed that he was a clean-shaven white male with his hood pulled up, blocking most of his face. He had his hands in his pockets and was walking in the opposite direction from the club. The time stamp on the video was labeled, “0230 HRS.”The detectives printed out a blown-up version of the photograph. With the larger image and a bit of photographic manipulation to enhance it, they finally had a picture of the man they believed to be responsible for the deaths. He had a wide chin and possibly dark hair. The eyes could barely be made out, but they were large and staring forward. It wasn’t perfect, and could have been just about anyone, but it was the best lead they had so far to the suspect’s identity.