by Hadena James
“Yes, that’s her,” Kyle said.
“Her name is Mallory Riggings and she’s been missing since Thursday. Her neighbor reported that Mrs. Riggings left at her normal time for a meeting that night, but she never arrived at the meeting,” Detective Terrance said.
“And you think I did something to her?” Kyle tried not to sound indignant.
“Her husband said he found your card with a time written on it for that Thursday night,” Detective Hyde said.
“I never talked to her. I figured she was like other women I had asked, she had politely taken the card, but was never going to call me for a session,” Kyle defended himself.
“You’ve done this before?” Detective Hyde asked.
“Of course!” Kyle stood up and walked into his art room. He came back carrying a portfolio of photographs. “All these people have modeled for me. Most of them were approached the same way that I approached the woman with the Pink Prius. I handed them a card and told them to think about it. Models from agencies are just too perfect and require too much materialism to catch the real beauty of the human form. They require time to put on make-up and the right outfits and the right settings. But the real people, the people who do not model for a living, do not have those requirements. I can see much more of their humanity and natural beauty.”
“Why do you have photos of all these people?” Detective Hyde asked. Detective Terrance actually shook his head at this question and handed Kyle back the photo album.
“Have you ever tried to paint or sculpt a person? They need to move, shift positions, breathe, and they have involuntary muscle movements. I spend about an hour taking pictures of the subject in different poses and lighting situations. I pay them for their time, usually a thousand dollars, and send them on their way. If they want to see the painting or sculpture when it’s done, I keep their name in my contact files. Lots of people who model want to have a picture of the piece. However, after the piece is completed, I keep only one photo of the person. If I kept all of them, I’d be running out of room in my house. Some artists draw the figure into the painting or do a rough sketch, I find that to be limiting. I might decide that I want to paint them sitting on a fountain or lying on a boulder, so I take photos. It gives me more versatility with my artwork. However, I have everyone’s consent on file to be used as a model. I can get those if you want them.”
“No, that won’t be necessary Mr. Summers. We would like permission to check your phone records,” Detective Terrance said.
“Of course, whatever you need,” Kyle handed him a card. “You can reach me at this number at any time.”
Detective Terrance practically dragged Detective Hyde from the house. Kyle shut the door and put his head against it. He could hear them outside, arguing. Detective Hyde was arguing that they should have been more persistent in their interrogation. Detective Terrance was telling Hyde to shut up, they were barking up the wrong tree.
Kyle grabbed the photo album. The name Terrance seemed to be familiar now that he thought about it. He flipped towards the beginning of the book and found a photo labeled Belinda Terrance. Kyle closed his eyes.
He remembered Belinda. She had been stunning some ten years earlier. He’d met her in a car wash. He’d just started working with clay. On top of his usual fee for modeling, she had commissioned a second painting for her husband. Could this detective be related? Could he be the husband? Kyle opened the door.
“Excuse me, Detective?” Kyle said, not thinking as he spoke. “Are you married to Belinda Terrance?”
“Yes,” Detective Terrance answered. “Your painting hangs in our bedroom. It did wonders for her self-esteem.”
“She was a beautiful model when I painted and sculpted her. I imagine she is still just as beautiful,” Kyle pressed.
“It depends on your perspective,” Detective Terrance smiled. “She has developed MS and is in a wheel-chair now. I still think she’s the most beautiful woman on the planet, but others don’t see what I see.”
“Tell her to call me if she’d like to model again,” Kyle said.
“I’ll do that,” Detective Terrance looked at the younger partner. “Thank you Mr. Summers, we’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”
Kyle shut the door again. His muse was missing and he wasn’t involved. For the first time, he was glad he kept two sets of photo albums. One for the living models, one for those that had not been as lucky, especially since his disposal spot had been found. At the time, he had thought it was just unnecessary work, but now, he saw the importance of that second album and keeping it secret.
Twenty
The US Marshal building in Las Vegas was currently under construction. It appeared that someone had attempted to bomb it. This wasn’t the case, but it looked like it. Most of the exterior windows and doors were shattered and boarded up. The interior doors were skewed, the windows were skewed and the floors felt spongy in places.
Otherwise, it looked like a normal US Marshal Building. They all contained the same grey color scheme that was preferential to white. The desks, chairs and all of the other furniture was black and probably from IKEA or the US Marshal equivalent that probably included a prison.
The bomb damage wasn’t really bomb damage. It was from an explosion, but it was a construction accident, not an intentional bomb. They had been blasting something nearby and someone got a little zealous with the explosives. All the buildings around the US Marshal building looked the same. They all had boarded up doors and windows that failed to give any real clues about what was hidden behind the plywood sheets.
We sat in a windowless room. It had windows at one time, but they had been boarded up. The lights were turned off and non-fluorescent lights had been brought in and set up around the room. Whiteboards tried to hide the plywood sheets covering the windows, both made the room seem gloomier.
The tables were set up in a square with several computer chairs pulled up around it. Both were black in color and contrasted the grey walls and darker grey carpets. However, I could detect just a hint of blue and purple in the darker grey carpet.
In front of me sat three boxes. Inside the boxes were missing person files, all of them belonged to prostitutes or homeless people. I didn’t know who reported homeless people missing, I guessed it was other homeless people. And that was why I hadn’t opened a single file yet.
I had nothing against homeless people. However, I didn’t want to delve into boxes of crazy. Lucas had told me that some homeless people were schizophrenic and others suffered from hallucinations caused by other disorders. This made me question how many of the missing homeless people were really missing or just figments of someone’s imagination.
There was also a glimpse of myself in these boxes. If it hadn’t been for the trust fund and some intervention of intelligence, I would probably be like these people. I could see myself homeless, malnourished and struggling to survive. Worse, I could see myself suffering from more than just a personality disorder.
Also, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for in the files. Homeless people and prostitutes disappeared often in the United States. Only a small portion of those disappearances were serial killer related.
The victims didn’t look alike, weren’t the same sex, weren’t in the same age range, and didn’t reside in the same locations. I had virtually nothing except stacks and stacks of missing persons cases that might or might not be related to our killer, but with no real way to connect them to the case. We were back to trying to mine gold on the moon.
“Is there a problem?” Gabriel asked me after several more minutes of non-involvement.
“What am I looking for?” I asked him.
“Anything that stands out to you. Use that infamous gut of yours,” Lucas answered for Gabriel.
“There are probably three hundred files here,” I pointed out.
“More than that,” Gabriel responded, he pushed his own stack of files away from him. “We don’t know what we are looking for exactly. We�
��ll figure it out. Michael isn’t able to do this on his computer because of his hands. We can’t figure out how to run the software, so we are doing old fashioned police work. Our killer started somewhere.”
“Yes, but where and when? We have officially fallen down the rabbit hole and have no clue what is going on or what we are doing,” I argued.
“What would you suggest we do instead?” Gabriel asked.
I thought for several minutes. My mind came up with nothing. It wasn’t just that we had nothing, it was that we had victims but no consistent victimology or anything that connected them besides being homeless or prostitutes. I didn’t give him an answer, instead I pulled a box of files to me.
One box later, it turned out that homeless people didn’t report other homeless people missing, at least, not often. They were more likely to be reported missing by social workers and employees of places that rented out PO boxes.
Two boxes later, I had learned that prostitutes were reported missing by a variety of individuals; some were friends, some other prostitutes, some pimps, some family members and then there was the omnipresent social workers.
When I finished box three, I realized that social workers didn’t get enough credit for their work. I also realized that I never wanted to be a social worker or anyone that worked with the mentally ill. I stood and stretched. Gabriel turned on a small TV that had been hidden in the room. I checked my watch, it was noon.
“We watching TV now?” I asked.
“The news is coming on,” Gabriel said.
Our piece about the dead homeless and prostitutes was supposed to air for the first time this afternoon. We listened to four minutes and six seconds of news on the missing politician’s wife. Our section lasted all of forty-one seconds, just enough for the news anchor to say that we had identified the homeless victims and were looking for any information about them. The prostitute wasn’t mentioned. I timed both of them using the stop watch on my phone.
It said something about our society when a missing woman took precedent over a serial killer. Of course, it could be argued that the serial killer’s victims were dead and the missing woman had a chance to be found alive; but you could also argue that it was more important to find a serial killer because he was just going to keep killing while the missing woman would be found one way or the other. I didn’t believe the missing woman was alive, possibly because I always prepared for the worst.
There was a commotion outside the room that couldn’t be seen because of the construction being done in the building. A man was shouting at the top of his lungs at someone or multiple someones. He was demanding to see us.
Gabriel stood up and went to the door. As he turned the knob, a man burst in. His suit screamed money; it had been tailored to fit him and only him. Not a single hair dared to be out of place on his head and had been combed into a style that accentuated his face. His hands were manicured and he was used to getting his way.
“May we help you?” Gabriel asked the man. The man appeared to be in his mid-forties.
“Who are you?” The man looked at Gabriel as if he were examining a bug.
“Gabriel Henders of the US Marshals Serial Crimes Tracking Unit. Who are you?”
“My name is Peter Riggings, my wife, Mallory is missing,” Riggings tone changed immediately upon hearing Gabriel’s credentials.
“We know she is missing, we just saw it on the news, taking precedent over our serial killer,” Gabriel gave him a look that would wilt most men. Riggings seemed oblivious to it.
“She met with some artist the night she went missing and the local police are so enthralled by his status, they won’t do anything,” Riggings told him.
“We do not investigate missing persons cases unless we can directly link them to a serial killer or mass murderer working the area,” Gabriel told him. “Your wife does not qualify.”
“I demand you assist with the search and return of my wife,” Riggings started turning purple.
“I do not answer to you and neither does my team. Go home and maybe she’ll come home when she’s ready,” Gabriel told him.
“She’s dead, I know it,” Riggings said. “You have to catch her killer.”
“How do you know she’s dead?” Lucas asked.
“I feel it,” Riggings answered. Lucas stood up. He easily had six inches on the politician and two hundred pounds of pure muscle. Riggings looked intimidated for a moment, then regained his composure.
“Your gut feeling on her well being does not make it real,” Lucas said. “Have the local police checked all the usual missing person places; family, friends, bus stations, airports, rental cars? Is there any reason that she might leave; is there problems in your marriage?”
“I did nothing to my wife!” Riggings shouted at Lucas. “And our marriage is not your concern.”
“It will be,” Gabriel told him. “If we were to get involved in your case, we’d go through your life with a fine tooth comb. Find every secret you have, your wife has and in the end, you’ll feel like you’ve been victimized by us, but there will be nothing you can do about it.”
“Are you threatening me Marshal Henders?” Riggings narrowed his eyes and his face darkened with rage. “I can have your badge; you have no idea who you are dealing with.”
“Actually, we do,” I spoke up from my chair. During the exchange, I had tilted my chair back and put my feet up on the table. I had also been overwhelmed by the calm. I didn’t care that his wife was missing, I cared that he was being a dickhead to Gabriel. “Peter Riggings, lives in Henderson, married sixteen years, three sons and one daughter, but you favor your sons because they are going to continue your legacy. You’re a representative in the state government, but have aspirations of becoming a bigger fish in the federal Congress. Your wife went missing two days ago, on a Thursday, on her way to a PTA meeting, in theory. Oddly, her car has not been found, even though she drives a Pink Prius. This tells me that either she drove off into the sunset because you’re an ass or her car was disposed of somewhere very remote. Personally, I’m of the mindset that the second one is the more probable. But you killing your wife hardly counts as serial murder.”
“How dare you!” Riggings colored darkened so much, I thought his head would explode from the pressure. He began shouting at me, most of it unintelligible. When I didn’t react, he seemed to get even angrier. Gabriel and Lucas stood and watched. Xavier moved behind Riggings.
“When you are finished, feel free to leave,” Gabriel said.
“I will have all your badges,” Riggings turned around and found himself face to face with Xavier. Xavier raised an eyebrow at him.
“You have scratches on your neck,” Xavier said. “How’d you get them?”
“What?” Riggings took a step away from him.
“Your neck, there are scratches on it, how’d you get them?” Xavier repeated.
“I don’t know,” Riggings said.
“That is a really bad answer,” I said. Riggings turned back towards me, his fury instantly re-ignited.
“And you don’t seem to like women who have opinions,” Lucas said.
“One more indicator that he killed his wife, I swear she’s buried in the backyard,” I said.
Riggings came at me. He knocked my feet off the table and filled the vacated space with his hands. He bent so he was inches from my face. The color drained from red to white, he suddenly realized he had bitten off more than he could chew. I stared back into his eyes.
“We’re done,” Gabriel suddenly grabbed his arm and spun him around. “I’m arresting you for assaulting a federal officer. You wanted us involved in your wife’s disappearance, now we are. I’m going to tear your life apart and see what I find in the scraps.”
Twenty-One
The house was large with an adobe facade and solar panels on the roof. The doors and windows were trimmed in a darker brown. Like most of the yards we had seen in Nevada, there wasn’t any grass. Instead the yard was decorated with rock gardens
and cacti plants. A short stubby tree grew on the side of the house.
Gabriel was currently on the phone. By the yelling, I’d say it was our boss or bosses. Lucas was shaking his head. Several officers were standing around looking at us, unsure what to do. Since we had just butted heads with a political official and Gabriel had lost his temper, I could understand their hesitation.
I walked around to the back yard with Xavier. We surveyed the dry ground. There was a hot tub and a swimming pool, both covered with a wooden structure. Xavier was watching the ground where he stepped, I was surveying it as a whole. Michael joined us. We all stared out across the crowded desert landscape.
“I hope your right about him killing his wife,” Michael whispered. “Gabriel is in some serious hot water. If we find her dead, in this yard, it would go a long way to getting him out of it.”
I shrugged. I didn’t want Gabriel in trouble, but I also wasn’t sure where he had hidden the body or how the car had gotten away from the house, driven by a woman. I was sure that he had killed her. He had all the hallmarks of a wife killer.
“What did he say when he burst into the office?” Something seemed to lodge in my brain, but I couldn’t remember it.
“That his wife had gone to meet an artist and never returned,” Xavier said.
“I’m just spit-balling, but if he really is a control freak and someone offered to make his wife art, he might have killed her in a jealous rage,” I said.
“That doesn’t tell us where he hid the body,” Xavier said.
“Maybe we are looking at it wrong, maybe he didn’t hide the body,” I pointed to the house. Xavier walked over and broke open the back door.
The house didn’t smell like there was a decomposing body anywhere. It did have an interesting scent though; a mixture of bleach and copper. Despite the occasional smoking, I was cursed with a very good olfactory system. I was constantly bitching about the colognes, deodorants and scented body washes used by the team members.