Taker of Lives: A Gripping Crime Thriller

by Leslie Wolfe

  “The volume, hombre. It won’t fit. Have you even seen what a hundred million dollars’ worth of cocaine looks like? It’s a mountain of dope. You think it fits in the trunk of your car?”

  He didn’t bother to reply. The entire arrangement made sense. While Pedro was out at sea transferring the dope on the Reina del Mar and taking it to shore on the busiest boating day of the year, Carrillo, coincidentally, was going to take SAC Pearson’s daughter out to sea for a day of fishing and indulging. They were smart, those guys, very smart. If all went well with the dope transfer, Carrillo would bring Lily home without incident. If not… who knows what the heck they were planning, but it sure as hell wasn’t good.

  “Now what?” Lucinda snapped, yanking her elbow out of his grip.

  “Now you be on your way, and keep your mouth closed. If you warn them, I’ll know it was you, and I’ll come for you, no matter where you’ll be.”

  “I won’t warn the son of a bitch, lo juro. Let his sorry ass die in prison.” She kicked one of the paper bags into the water with the tip of her shoe. “I think it’s time I took off to see my mother in LA. She’s dying… I just found out. I can leave tonight.”

  “Excellent decision,” Michowsky said. “Won’t Pedro be suspicious of your sudden disappearance?”

  “I’ll call him from the cab and explain. He won’t see it coming, just like I didn’t see his cheating until it hit me in the face.”

  She kicked the second bag off the dock and it disappeared in less than a second, going straight to the bottom. She secured the bow and stern mooring lines, then turned to leave. “I’m ready.”

  Michowsky took out his wallet. “Do you need cash for your plane ticket or anything?”

  Lucinda laughed, the loud, raspy laugh of someone who drank and smoked her way through life without holding back. Then she patted her jeans pocket with an almost obscene gesture, while thrusting her hip forward. “Gracias, cariño, but I’ve got more in here than you make in a year.”

  He watched her walk away with a determined gait, throwing her hair over her shoulder and straightening her back, the gesture itself making the slender woman seem stronger, unafraid. She headed for North Flagler Drive, where she hailed a cab while talking on the phone.

  Within a minute, she was gone.

  31

  Lies and Truth

  “He lied!” Tess shouted, pushing her chair away from the table and springing to her feet. “The damn son of a bitch lied! This wasn’t live… He’s playing us.”

  She went to the TV and stopped right in front of it, her face so close to the screen she could see the pixels forming the dark image. “Spineless, gutless, piece of shit,” she muttered at the TV, as if the unsub could hear her somehow.

  An unwanted thought came to her weary mind. Why did she believe he’d be truthful and broadcast live, when he’d never done that before? He’d always attacked in anonymity, stealth, then waited until the crime scenes would be trampled and the damage he’d done gone viral, spread all around the world on millions of computers, before announcing what he’d done. Why would tonight have been any different? Just because she’d prodded him with that online comment? Apparently, that wasn’t enough to compel him to change his signature or make a mistake.

  Yet tonight was his first kill, at least by all appearances; the crime scene fresh and his signature different. But different, how? He still opted for delayed gratification, waiting ten days before putting that so-called live streaming video out there. He’d still played it safe, going for ketamine as a murder weapon, and deploying countless forensic countermeasures. He’d still showed no sign of violence… Who kills without any rage, and what were his motivations? A cold-blooded psychopath, someone who would score top points on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. That’s who kills without any rage, in ice-cold blood.

  She mumbled another curse, then turned to Fradella with an apologetic expression on her face. Fradella had closed the lid on his laptop and sat defeated, staring into thin air.

  “He’s playing us,” she repeated, but in a different tone, cold, determined. “We need to reverse that; we need to play him.” Then she reached for the car keys. “Hey D, shoot me Deanna Harper’s address and her file, and go get some shut-eye, all right? I’ll run over there to see the crime scene.”

  “The scene has been released back to the family,” Donovan announced. “The autopsy results are in, from the Miami-Dade coroner’s office. It was ketamine,” he added, then cleared his voice quietly. “But they also found Rohypnol in her bloodstream and an inhalational anesthetic, sevoflurane.”

  “Any trauma or sexual assault?” Tess asked.

  “Nothing.”

  She didn’t bother to ask about trace evidence; it was pointless, after having seen the extent of the forensic countermeasures the unsub took.

  “How about fingerprints?” she asked.

  “With that latex suit?” Donovan asked. “I doubt it, but give me a second, I’ll check all outstanding labwork on the case.”

  “I promise you the unsub didn’t show up on Deanna’s doorstep looking like that. She would’ve never opened that door, let alone invite him in and drink whatever he offered her.”

  For a moment, all they could hear was Donovan’s typing on the other end of the line.

  “They’ve got nothing,” he eventually said with a long sigh. “Some areas were wiped clean, others left untouched.”

  “What areas were wiped?”

  “Kitchen mostly, the dining room table, coffee table in the living room, some door handles.”

  “Any trace elements, hair, or fibers found near those locations?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Nothing that didn’t belong,” he replied. “Sorry, Winnett. He got out clean. Again.”

  She groaned and leaned back against the chair, then closed her eyes. She could visualize him coming inside the house, visiting the kitchen, maybe fixing drinks or food with the host, sitting at the coffee table for a drink, or at the dining table. The typical movements of someone who was a close friend or relative, someone the families were comfortable with. That someone must have left a fingerprint, a hair somewhere. That someone must’ve visited the families at least once before the night of the attack.

  “We need to get Crime Scene into these homes again,” Tess said, “and lift evidence from underneath the sofas, the creases of the pillows, the edges of the upholstered chairs, or anywhere hair fibers and epithelial cells might survive a few rounds of cleaning. Then we need to compare everything we find across all crime scenes. One of the donors will be common to all scenes, and that’s our unsub.”

  “You know this will take weeks of processing time, right?” Fradella said.

  “I’ll pull some strings to prioritize it as much as I can,” she replied. “We don’t have those weeks. His next victim might already be dead by now.”

  At least she could understand his MO better. Once he gave them a roofie and they were subdued, he had them inhale the anesthetic and kept them under for as long as it took.

  “Sevoflurane… That’s a fast-acting, fast-clearing gas, right?”

  She heard Donovan type fast. “Yes, the fastest one on the market.”

  “As soon as he’s done, he leaves,” she mumbled, staring at the stained ceiling tiles, “and they wake up on their own if they ever wake up. But not anymore, they don’t. He’s brilliant.”

  She grabbed her car keys from the table and gave Fradella a determined look. “And we’re going to catch him.”

  “Signing off, then,” Donovan said.

  “Before you do, please send the bug-sweeper team to the new crime scene. I want to make sure he’s not watching us still.”

  It was barely dawn when they pulled up at the curb in front of the Harper residence. A CSI tech was waiting for them, reading something in the dim light of his van’s ceiling light. She recognized him; she’d seen him working at the Bartlett crime scene. She remembered him clearly, not only his distinctive physiognomy enh
anced by hair so curly and stiff it sat upright, but his unusual gumption and intelligence.

  The young tech climbed out of his van to greet them.

  “It’s Javier, right?” Tess smiled, extending a hand. He gave her a short yet strong shake.

  “Call me Javi,” he said. “I’ve just finished sweeping the Bartlett place.”

  “And?”

  He opened his left fist to show her a tiny device. “This was mounted inside one of Christina Bartlett’s dresser locks. Mr. Bartlett sweeps the house regularly for bugs, but never thought of sweeping his daughter’s bedroom.”

  “Can you trace it?”

  “It’s not that uncommon, unfortunately,” Javier replied. “It’s short range and was configured to transmit video and audio in short bursts of information, to save battery life. It’s motion-triggered.”

  “How short range?”

  “One hundred yards or so, not more.”

  She turned to Fradella. “Let’s get some uniforms here to start knocking on doors.”

  “No need for that,” Javier replied. “The receiver is a repeater of higher power and range, just a relay with a five-miles radius. This is how these gizmos work.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “Yeah,” he replied with a bit of pride in his smile. “You’re not going to believe where he planted it. On top of one of those dock posts, under the edge piling cap. You know, the white cone plastic thingies at the top of the dock posts,” he added, seeing the confusion on their faces.

  “How on earth did you find it?”

  He tapped his tool bag proudly. “It’s an active receiver. My device picked it up.”

  “How long would it take the perp to install one of these?” Fradella asked.

  “He obviously knows what he’s doing, so not long. Five minutes, tops.”

  “How about Estelle’s home?” Fradella asked.

  “We found the same minicam in her bedroom, one in the bathroom, another one in the living room. Even the kitchen had one. The unsub knew the Kennedys would probably never sweep for bugs, so he went crazy.”

  “And the Kennedy’s, um, repeater?”

  “The relay? That one I couldn’t find in the dead of the night. My device didn’t pick it up, and I need to get in the neighbors’ yards and stuff. I prefer doing that during the day; I’d rather not get shot,” he quipped.

  “Agreed,” Tess replied. “When you find it, please see if you can download whatever you can. We still don’t know how he learned what we call him.”

  “What, Taker of Lives?” Javi chuckled. “That’s out there now, but I’ll try to figure it out for you.”

  They rang the bell and waited a long minute until Mrs. Harper opened the door. She seemed frail and prematurely aged, and walked slowly, shuffling her feet. She invited them in without a word and led them to the living room, where fingerprint dust still stained surfaces, and upturned furniture reminded everyone that the house had recently been the scene of a crime.

  Mrs. Harper clutched her trembling hands in her lap. “FBI?” she asked quietly.

  “We have reasons to believe what happened to Deanna has happened to other young women,” Tess replied to the unspoken question.

  A tear rolled down the woman’s parchment-like cheek.

  “I was home that night,” she said in a low whisper. “How could I have slept through it all?” She wrung her hands spasmodically, then clutched them again, tightly, until her knuckles turned white. “They told me I’d been drugged, but I should’ve known…”

  “Do you remember anything about the man who visited the night before?”

  She shook her head and stifled a bitter sob.

  “Nothing at all,” she finally whispered. “I don’t remember anyone being here with us. I just remember arguing with Deanna, then feeling very tired while watching TV. Then I went upstairs to bed. The next morning…” she covered her mouth with her hand and didn’t continue. Per the case file, she was the one who’d found Deanna’s body, still naked and tied to the bedposts, just like they’d seen on video.

  “Did you hear anything at all?” Fradella asked.

  She shook her head again. “I sleep with a small fan on. The whoosh helps me fall asleep faster.”

  “What were you and Deanna arguing about?”

  “Her so-called career,” Mrs. Harper replied, bitterness tinging her voice. “I’ve been a corporate human resources professional my entire professional life, and I know how careers like hers end up.” Another sob shattered her. “I thought that was the biggest risk, her throwing her life away blogging and wearing clothes for a living, instead of college and an internship with a large company.”

  “Was she successful?” Tess asked.

  Mrs. Harper nodded. “She was, and that didn’t help me get to her any better. She was making big money, living the life she wanted and didn’t care she’d have nothing when it all went away. It went to her head, and we fought about it almost every day. She accused me of never believing in her. Now, all I can think about is the harsh words I said to her the night before she—” Mrs. Harper stopped talking, choked by fresh tears.

  “You meant well,” Tess said gently, “I’m sure she understood that.” She gave the grieving woman a few moments, then asked, “How come she still lived with you?”

  “I insisted, knowing her blogging glory would soon end, and she’d be broke and alone, too proud to come back home. Her good-for-nothing boyfriend was no help; he always encouraged her to do whatever she wanted. If you were to ask me, he’s behind this somehow. He’s so intense, so aggressive, he’s almost scary.” She wiped a tear off her cheek with her fingers. “She was about to move out to live with him; she was almost finished packing. She told me it was because I drove her crazy.”

  Tess and Fradella exchanged a quick glance. Miami-Dade had investigated the boyfriend, a day trader by the name of Kurt Briggs, and found nothing suspicious. He had an airtight alibi for the time of the attack, trading live on Asian markets from his own loft, miles away from the victim’s residence. Video surveillance in his high-rise condo put him arriving home after nine, and not leaving until the next morning.

  Tess breathed deeply, cringing at the thought of what she had to do. She had to tell the grieving mother that a video of her daughter’s assault had been released on the internet.

  Or did she? What good could ever come out of her knowing that? Maybe the unsub wouldn’t publish his typical press release with photos now that Deanna was dead. Maybe that so-called live streaming video was the extent of it, and Mrs. Harper could grieve in peace without ever learning about it.

  She stood and thanked Mrs. Harper for her time. Javier stayed behind to finish his sweep; by the time they left, he’d already found a minicam lodged behind a kitchen cabinet door handle.

  For a while, she rode quietly in Fradella’s SUV, troubled by an uneasy feeling in her gut that they were missing something critical. She asked herself what that was and went over everything she could think of. They had victimology figured out. Financials, family members, friends, and relatives. Places of employment, deep backgrounds too, although Donovan was still digging, trying to find that one individual who all victims had in common.

  No, the problem was with the timeline.

  “Why now?” she asked, and Fradella shot her a quick glance from underneath a furrowed brow.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road while sipping from an almost finished water bottle.

  “The unsub’s been doing his thing for the past month and a half, yet now he’s stating, ‘The show is just beginning,’ and he unveils his victims, one after another. I need to understand why now, after spending almost two months stalking, assaulting, and killing. What’s so special with this particular moment in time?”

  “He’s after fame himself,” Fradella replied. “He’s making quick releases to make sure people don’t forget him. That’s what he wants, and that’s why he hates these girls. Fame.”

  “P
recisely,” she said, her voice subdued, almost absent. “Because he’s putting up a show. That’s the only part he was truthful about.”

  “Which part?” he asked, with another quick glance thrown her way.

  “That he’s only just getting started.”

  32

  Me: Unsatisfied

  I watched them land on Deanna’s doorstep four hours after I’d shown her face on the net. Four hours! Can you believe it? I’m actually impressed with these cops, but not for the reason you might think. No… identifying someone using facial recognition in this day and age, starting from so many already known factors, shouldn’t’ve taken them four damn hours. I’m impressed that none of those cops readily recognized Deanna; that makes them special, not the typical sheep I see every day of my life. These people actually have lives, do work that matters—even if that means they’re after catching me—and choose not to waste their time gawking at whatever Deanna did, wore, said, or posted. Hats off to you and yours, Special Agent Winnett!

  On second thought, I hope they didn’t SWAT the wrong address; it’s known to happen. They bust through the wrong door looking for a suspect or a victim, next thing you know, they shoot the family dog and throw a flash bang in the baby’s crib, then they apologize and leave. Yup… it’s that sad. Not everyone’s as smart as you are, Agent Winnett, but sometimes, smarts can go against you, and that’s why you’ll never catch me.

  Enough about the cops and feds for now. Let’s talk about all of you for a moment. You, all those who follow my streaming site, who decided to embark on a journey of self-discovery that will take you places you never knew existed. You thought people are essentially nice, all emoji hearts and smileys, goodness and empathy and such? In your dreams! People are dark inside, like an Oreo cookie in reverse. The outside looks clean, righteous, while the inside is dark and ready to spill out at the slightest pressure. I’ll help you discover who you really are… that’s a promise, made solemnly to all five-point-seven million of you. Buckle up; your journey starts with self-awareness.