Taker of Lives: A Gripping Crime Thriller

by Leslie Wolfe

  Estelle’s photos leaned more toward the obscene side of the spectrum, with little concern for the layout, for the background or lighting. The images showed escalating contempt for the victim, a stronger drive to depict her in a depreciative manner. He wanted her humiliated on an entirely different level than Christina, exposing her in ways that not only reflected his deep hatred and disdain for the victim, or maybe for all women, but also invited the viewers to look at Estelle as they would look at a piece of worthless trash, to think of her as expendable, inconsequential, and dirty. Not a star, not an idol.

  Was that to say the unsub cared more for Christina than Estelle? The first victim of a serial offender is oftentimes the most relevant, the one he is closest to, the one who crosses his path and arouses his sick senses in a way that pushes him to cross the line and attack his first innocent victim.

  Or was it because Christina’s parents had been gone for the evening and he felt safer, knowing he was alone in the house with the unconscious victim? With Estelle, no matter how bold and organized this unsub was, the close proximity to the victim’s parents had to have increased his stress levels; unfortunately, not enough for him to make a mistake that they could find. Not yet.

  One thing was certain, and she agreed with Doc Rizza in his assessment. The unsub had escalated rapidly. The next attack would be even more vicious, maybe even homicidal. Then a worrisome thought crossed her mind, right as Fradella pulled to the curb and cut the engine.

  “What if he’s already done it again?” she asked. “That’s part of his signature, assaulting, then waiting for the images to go viral.”

  “Didn’t Donovan look for other victims with those specific parameters?”

  “He did, but maybe we’re missing something,” she replied, climbing the stairs quickly.

  As soon as they entered the conference room, she rushed to dial Donovan from the conference phone, while Fradella turned on the wall-mounted screen and fired up the laptop.

  “Hey, D,” Tess said, as soon as Donovan picked up. “We’re here.”

  “Remember what I asked? Don’t kill the messenger, right?”

  “Okay, I won’t,” she replied, some of her irritation with his request seeping into her voice. It wasn’t like she’d ever yelled at him or called him names.

  As soon as the unsub’s website loaded, Tess felt a wave of angst, cold and foreboding, unfurling in her gut and a seeping aversion in her entire body with every beat of her heart. The central portion of the webpage now included a countdown timer showing two hours and forty-seven minutes left, and a statement from the unsub.

  It read, “I’ve decided to up the game a little and do things live. All you need to do is vote. One million votes will pull the curtains open for tonight’s live performance.”

  A gray rectangle with a generic shape of a woman’s head and shoulders was centered below the unsub’s message, the type of pictogram that online forums and social media platforms display when female users don’t upload an avatar. Underneath, a brief description of the targeted victim sent both Fradella and Donovan into a frenzy of database searches.

  “Our guest tonight is young and beautiful,” the description read, “a tall blonde with long hair and blue eyes, just like your dream girl looks. Trust me, I know.”

  Her eyes were stuck on the number shown underneath the wide button labeled, “Vote Now,” the enormity of the number displayed was stupefying and terrifying at the same time. More than seven hundred thousand people had already voted, and that counter was rapidly growing, click after click.

  “This can’t be happening,” Tess said. “What kind of screwed-up world are we living in?” she raised her voice, but no one replied. She wasn’t expecting a response; she wanted to hear herself in an attempt to preserve some decency, some values, some sanity. “Tell me we can track these voters, Donovan,” she said angrily. “I’d like nothing more than to give a judge carpal tunnel from signing eight hundred thousand arrest warrants.”

  “I can’t,” she heard Donovan’s voice over the phone, filled with frustration. For a moment, she couldn’t tell if he was frustrated with the case, the unsub, or with her, or maybe with everything lumped together in what he did for a living. “These people know how to protect their privacy. All this traffic is channeled through encrypted browsing, via Tor, which bounces communication around worldwide networks. They’re careful, because they know what they’re doing is wrong, even if not a chargeable offense.”

  “You mean to tell me we can’t get to any of them?” Fradella asked.

  “I see the occasional unencrypted IP,” Donovan replied, “but what would you charge them with? They could argue they thought it was a show, not real. No one could prove criminal intent. It’s known as the “cannibal cop” defense, based on a New York case that made history by saying the police officer’s online chats were all fantasy.”

  “Since when are you an expert in criminal law?” Tess asked, unable to contain a smile. Donovan never ceased to amaze her.

  “Since I’ve been taking night classes at the University of Virginia,” he replied. “I can’t stay an analyst for the rest of my life, no matter how much you all need me.”

  Her smile widened. She felt proud, although Donovan and she weren’t exactly close. “Congratulations, D. I know you’ll make one hell of a lawyer one day soon, putting many of the scumbags we collar right back on the streets, but let’s catch us another unsub before then, all right? Have you tried—”

  The screen went dark. The only things left were the countdown timer, the vote button, and the count, now exceeding eight hundred thousand and growing at a faster rate than before. By the looks of it, the unsub had every chance of exceeding one million votes by the set deadline of 12:00AM, and they had nothing to go on.

  “Talk to me about these searches. Have you added the physical description parameters?” she asked.

  “They were already in, because they fit the other two vics,” Fradella replied. “The unsub has a type. He didn’t give us anything we weren’t already expecting.”

  “What if you completely remove the suicide attempt or suicide; how many results do you get?”

  “Two thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-three,” Donovan replied. “Then I thought that fame comes with money, and I filtered out those who reported less than two hundred thousand dollars in income last year. We’re down to three hundred forty-seven.”

  “That’s brilliant, counselor,” Tess said.

  “Still, there’s no way we can come up with a way to further quantify fame and run software to data mine it, not until midnight tonight. That software hasn’t even been written yet.”

  “You’re telling me we have nothing?” she asked, her voice raised in pitch and volume so high it turned a few heads in the squad room.

  “There’s nothing we can do, Winnett, I’m sorry,” Donovan replied.

  She paced the room angrily, watching the counter adding vote after vote with unbelievable speed. “What if it’s fake, Donovan?”

  “What?”

  “The vote counter. What if it’s for show? I can’t come to terms that so many people could vote to see an assault take place live.”

  “It’s real,” Donovan replied quietly. “I tested it myself. It only let me vote once, which is even worse. It means every vote is a different person.”

  She paced the room some more, then looked over Fradella’s shoulder. He was putting Christina and Estelle’s addresses on a map.

  “Hey, can you map the three hundred forty-seven potential vics?” he asked, and got no response for a while, until a link popped on the screen. He clicked it and saw a view of the entire South Florida area dusted with lots of red dots, mostly clustered in large urban areas and along the eastern seashore. Christina and Estelle’s blue dots didn’t stand out in any way against the many reds; they just appeared to be entirely random.

  “She could be anywhere,” Fradella muttered angrily. “Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach… We’ve got nothing.”<
br />
  Tess sighed, a long, frustrated breath of air that scorched her lungs as it left her body and parched her throat dry. A troublesome thought agonized in her mind. What if she’d caused this? What if her message to the unsub only pushed him to be bolder, more aggressive?

  Soon she’d know if there was blood on her hands.

  24

  Me: Working

  I’m getting ready to start working. The house is perfectly still and quiet. No one’s home except her, and that opens a world of opportunities; the possibilities are endless. She sleeps soundly, overcome by the latest anesthetics that modern pharmacology has to offer for a bitcoin or two. I finish setting up my camera and adjust the lighting. The ceiling light is powerful, too powerful for what I need, but fortunately it’s installed on a dimmer. I adjust that and look through the viewfinder again. Better. Then I bring two floor lamps from the immense living room and turn them on, adjusting the cones of light toward the bed, for maximum effect.

  I then set some tools nearby on the night table. A couple of syringes already loaded with fluids. One contains a lethal dose of ketamine, in case I decide to go that way. I also brought a handgun and a hunting knife; being home alone with her opens possibilities I don’t normally enjoy.

  I stop for a moment and look at her beautiful, serene face. What made her better than countless others? What earned her a life of luxury in this 3,000-square-foot waterfront property, when anyone can do what she does, some much better? Who decided she deserves to rise atop us all?

  Well, you did. For everything I’m about to do to her and to others, you’re the only one to blame, because you wouldn’t be bothered to see the truth otherwise.

  Have you ever received a nicely wrapped gift and weighed it in your hand before ripping the luscious paper with fingers trembling in anticipation, only to find an empty box inside? Maybe you haven’t, but you could easily imagine such disappointment. Only you’re not reminding yourself of that when you decide to suspend all cognitive processes inside your head and follow these shallow creatures like sheep, bleating happily all the way to the slaughter of rational thought. Some socialite uses Pink Shadow lipstick; now millions of girls rush to buy it, as if that lipstick could change one’s destiny, could shift an unseen railroad switch and take a life destined for mediocrity into much coveted stardom, all for $5.98 plus tax.

  Why, you should ask, why do so many people choose to let go of common sense and their own values, trading them for someone else’s ideas? Because you imitate; you see success in that socialite, something you covet so dearly you’d be willing to kill for, but shush… don’t tell anyone what you’d really be willing to do. You see success and have no idea how to get to it. You have no clue how to get the right combination of factors playing in your favor, especially if you were born the wrong race or ethnic background, or if you indulged in one too many double cheeseburgers. The only thing you can invest, the only thing you can control, is that measly $5.98 plus tax. By rushing to the drugstore to buy one, you can kindle your hope for a better tomorrow. After all, look at that socialite, she uses it too!

  The idols you’re following are nothing but a meticulously designed exterior packaging, nicely constructed and accessorized to hide the hollow abyss inside. They project an expertly manufactured, idealistic image of a role model we immediately adulate. That’s how they manipulate and attract their followers, that’s how they become who they become. Not through some merit of lasting value or any contribution to society, but many times only through some game of chance, where dice fall in the right configuration to open the doors of stardom to the unworthy.

  What value will survive them into posterity? Have they invented anything of worth? Let me explain to you why they haven’t. Because you, yes, you—and please stop looking around to see who else I might be talking to—don’t care about value. You care about looks, about packaging. You don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you.

  Have you heard of Robert Kahn or Vint Cerf? No? You’re using the product they invented every single day, more often than probably anything else, maybe even this very second. Those two men invented the internet, among other things. Yet their names don’t resonate with anything familiar in your mind, as you rush to use their invention yet again to see if I’m right or wrong. But you could easily name five celebrities, even if you can’t think of a single thing of value these social media phenomena with their millions of followers will be leaving behind when they die.

  Maybe they should die sooner… even if for no other reason than to test my theory.

  You see where I’m going with this? People don’t care about value… don’t care about anything else but the stupid packaging, the appeal of the perfect shapes and perfect colors, the superficiality of a carefully architected, multicolored wrapper taped around a big chunk of nothing.

  If that’s the only thing you’ll ever respect, if that’s the only thing you’ll ever admire, I will be forever banished from the limelight of fame and recognition and forced to live a life of mediocrity and rejection, of indifference and anonymity, of forsaking hell. Nothing of value I’ve done, or I could ever do, would matter to you one single bit. See, I was born with brains, not looks. I have a degree, instead of tight abs and a cute ass. If I want to get laid, I have to go barhopping and hope for a miracle to get lucky. No one knows me… no one recognizes me, wherever I go. I simply don’t exist.

  Well, sorry, but I can’t have that; I deserve better. I want my moment of fame, my immortality. Hence, I decided to pry open your mind and force your attention away from Instagram and the latest posting by who knows who that you’re the five millionth person to like and follow and tell you this: I had an epiphany. I realized that real power doesn’t belong to those false idols, to those girls and boys who live in the limelight projected onto them by the glow of your incessant, obsessive adulation.

  The real power belongs to me, the one who can destroy it all. I can smash their lives into infinitesimal shards. I can tear into that wrapper so definitively that no one will be able to tape it back together again, and the hollow inside will be exposed, bare, broken, for the entire world to see how little substance remains once the packaging is gone, pixel by pixel, photo by photo.

  You still have doubts? Mark my words: no matter how lucky, talented, or beautiful, how successful or acclaimed they are, I can make it all disappear under a cloud of shame so thick and dark, they’ll never want to see the light of day again. They’ll know their place. And you’ll know my name.

  I am the Taker of Lives.

  Nice one, Special Agent Winnett, thanks.

  25

  Initial Profile

  The counter had long exceeded three million votes, and more votes were pouring in at such speed that the last two digits of the long string of numbers constantly shifted, unreadable, a blur. Tess stared at the otherwise dark screen, not feeling the tension in her clenched jaws anymore. The tense muscles felt numb yet refused to relax. She racked her brain thinking of something they could do. Maybe there was someone else they could talk to. Maybe some neighbor somewhere has seen something, even though the original canvas had returned exactly zero results in both neighborhoods where he’d struck before.

  They had nothing except an endless string of voters, people who knowingly were enabling a serial predator, were cheering eagerly to witness an assault, maybe even a murder take place live, in front of their lustful eyes.

  “Let’s start sketching a profile,” she said, aware she sounded a bit unsure of herself. The quick look from Fradella and the silence on the open line with Donovan confirmed her doubts.

  They were still missing critical components for the profile, and the result could prove erroneous, imprecise. They didn’t know enough about the unsub’s MO. How did he gain access to the premises? How did he surveil his victims, two or more at the same time, without ever being seen? How did he subdue the victims, then disappear without anyone remembering the encounter? How come not the tiniest speck of forensic evidence was found a
t either scene?

  Like everything else in life, Tess decided to focus on the full half of the glass: what they did know. She grabbed the marker and took an unused corner of the whiteboard.

  “This time we’ll profile relying more on probabilities than facts,” she said, and Fradella stopped typing, turning his undivided attention to her. “I’m going to go with male, Caucasian, because of the sexual nature of the assaults; a vast percentage of all sexual predators choose victims of their own racial makeup.” She wrote the two words as the start of a bulleted list. Then she added “25 to 30” and underlined it. “This is based on the speed at which he’s learning; he’s tech-savvy. He’s highly organized, yet a daring risk-taker. I’d also say college educated, probably technical.

  “What about the drugs he uses?” Fradella asked. “Okay, anyone can get Rohypnol these days, but what about the, um, whatever he uses to subdue them for as long as it takes him to do his thing, to photograph them?”

  “Good point,” Tess said. “Let’s add, ‘medical knowledge’ for now. Anything can be found and bought these days, but he has the medical knowledge to figure out what to use.”

  She paced the floor a little, going back and forth in front of the whiteboard, not taking her eyes off the list. Then she leaned against the table and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to visualize the unsub. What did he look like? Who would a Christina or an Estelle open the door to? Who would they let inside their homes so late at night?

  “He’s smart, good-looking, charismatic, probably single,” she added, scribbling the words as she spoke them, “based on his ability to gain trust and access with successful, twenty-something years old. Well-integrated in society, probably has a good-paying job. He can easily establish rapport.”