by Hadena James
I opened the envelope. I had seen the script many times in the past. Small neat block letters, handwritten but looking so much like they should belong to a typewriter.
“I hope you got my gift and have figured out their significance. I hate to see you struggle with something like this, someone like this. If you didn’t get the significance, you should think a little harder. I’m sure it will come to you.”
There was no signature. It wasn’t necessary. I folded it and put it back into the envelope.
“Well, the teeth are from The Butcher. He says they are significant. Beats the hell out of me why they are significant though.” I handed the letter to Lucas.
“Fingerprints?” Lucas asked.
“You can check, but I find it unlikely you’ll find any. Never have in the past.” I shrugged.
“Never hurts to double check.” Lucas looked over the envelope. He turned it over twice, examining it. He even sniffed the envelope.
“Find anything?” I asked.
“It smells like formaldehyde.” He answered.
“They always do,” I shrugged again.
“They always smell like formaldehyde?”
“Yep.”
“Do the teeth?”
“I didn’t smell the teeth.” I commented.
“They smell like formaldehyde.” Xavier stated.
“Ok, that tells us they were stored. I’m thinking that your letters are treated with formaldehyde for a reason.”
“What reason? Other than to slowly poison me.”
“I think that’s a question for your serial killer,” Lucas left me hanging.
“Well, that didn’t help much.” I sighed.
“Yes, actually, it does. Formaldehyde would prohibit oils from sticking to the paper.” Xavier stated. “It’s a preservative, but it preserves flesh, not oil. Hence, no fingerprints. The teeth were probably stored in it ages ago.”
“I didn’t know that about formaldehyde,” I admitted.
“You know about a lot of other things,” Xavier teased.
“Does this help at all?” Alejandro frowned at all of us.
“Probably not,” I admitted. “Mainly because I don’t know the importance of the teeth.”
“How old do you think the teeth are?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know for how long DIY dentists were using mercury or lead or both in their teeth. It wasn’t covered in any of the books I read. Honestly, I don’t know much about dentistry in general. I know some unusual facts here and there, like the radium thing. That’s it.”
“If you don’t know anything about dentistry, then the clue must pertain to something else.” Lucas stated.
“Teeth. During some time periods, the removal of teeth was vogue, others not so much. It was occasionally used as a torture method, but that was actually earlier in history or in other parts of the world. The Europeans did it, but it wasn’t really their thing. They were more likely to remove fingers and toes than teeth as a form of torture. The removal of teeth didn’t mark you, brand you or stigmatize you in Europe. The Europeans were all about the symbolism behind their tortures.”
“Could that be it, the lack of European symbolism?” Xavier asked.
“How so?” I countered.
“Teeth mean nothing to Europeans, unlike the other tortures you’ve named. Could that be part of it?”
“I don’t see how. Most cultures have their removable bits. This was the European removable bit. They didn’t perform many lobotomies or castrations or splenectomies.”
“Maybe we need to narrow it. What year did you have your bottom teeth removed?”
“February of 2006.”
“What happened that year?”
“I got my driver’s license. I graduated high school. I moved to Michigan. I’d had a stalker for a year.”
“What prompted you to remove your teeth?”
“I was in a gas station and someone tried to rob it. When I didn’t submit to their orders to empty my wallet and get down on the ground, they hit me in the mouth with the butt of their gun. It broke out two more bottom teeth. By that time, I’d had implants and I just decided to do something different. A few days later, I went to the dentist, he pulled the rest of the teeth and I got fitted for temp dentures.”
“Is there a police report?” Michael asked.
“Yes,” I frowned at him. “There is a report. He busted out my teeth, I broke his nose and the store keeper knocked him out. The police arrived, rushed me to the hospital and arrested the guy.”
“Is that important?” Alejandro asked.
“Maybe. Did it appear in the papers?” Michael continued.
“No, there was far more interesting stuff going on at the time. There was a Jack the Ripper in New York that had killed several and left their mutilated corpses around the city. That was taking up most of the front page news that month. The middle pages were filled with other, important things. I don’t remember what, I just remember being grateful that I wasn’t in the papers for it.”
“If you had your stalker then, maybe he remembers something you don’t.” Lucas offered. “Did you meet anyone new that month?”
“Uh, if I did, they didn’t register, meaning they didn’t stick around for another meeting. Aside from the robbery it was a quiet month.”
“Did you have a lot of months that year that weren’t quiet?” Lucas asked.
“Not really. March was rough. August was rough because of the move. I got my driver’s license in September. I drove home and had a car accident in December. That about covers 2006.”
“What about prom?” Xavier asked.
“I didn’t go to prom,” I gave him a stupid look. Like anyone would ask me to prom.
“Now the year before that was interesting. The Butcher appeared, my brother went on a shooting spree and was convicted, the press hounded my mother about it for months, three of my classmates were murdered in the school parking lot by a random drive by shooting, someone tried to blow up the other high school in my town, and Malachi graduated from high school that year, the one they tried to blow up. He actually found the bomb and moved it to a safer location before it detonated. Nyleena finished college and was instantly offered a job in KC and moved. Her first case was a serial killer case that she won. The NYC Jack the Ripper appeared and killed eight or nine in the first five days.”
“You can stop,” Alejandro held up a hand and shook his head.
“What happened first?” Lucas asked.
“The Butcher. I got my first letter from him in January 2005. I thought it was a prank, but turned it over to the FBI anyway. They also thought it was a prank.”
“After that?” Lucas continued.
“School shooting. Classes had ended for the day. There were about forty or fifty students in the parking lot. Someone drove by and opened fire. Over twenty were injured, including the guy that was supposed to give me a ride home that day, three were killed.”
“When was that?” Michael asked.
“Oh, that I’ll never forget. April 1, 2005, it was a Friday. That’s why this guy was giving me a ride home. It was Malachi’s birthday. He normally picked me up from school, but didn’t because he was going out to party that night.”
“Did they catch the shooter?” Xavier narrowed his eyes at me.
“No. I was the only one that could give a description of the car.” I frowned at him.
“Could it be the same person?” Lucas asked.
“Who?” I asked back.
“The person in the car and our killer now?”
“Sure, in a world where coincidences are a dime a dozen, I suppose so. I can’t imagine the drive by shooter and this methodical killer are one in the same.”
Chapter 37