The Mind’s Eye

by Perry Prete

  A source within the police department confirmed that the physical characteristics are so similar that one could mistake them as being from the same victim. It is for that reason that the police are looking for a single suspect in all three slayings that they believe are connected. The reason why someone would attack three women of similar appearance has eluded the investigative team.

  The suspect is described as male, Caucasian, between the ages of 20 to 35, of average intelligence working in a position that gives him freedom to move about without bringing attention to himself."

  Carl closed the paper, "I can prove it all. This is what Nora is pissed about. The fact that I've connected all three of the murders in a way that no one suspected or would say. I think it's the whole creep factor that's wigging everyone out."

  "And everything you said can be confirmed?" Sam asked. "I can't give my confidential source away but yeah."

  "Don't ever make anyone force you to give up your source. That's sometimes the only thing that keeps people honest; the fear that someone may rat them out." Sam spun around in his chair. "What did Nora say?"

  Carl unfolded the paper again, found a pair of scissors in the drawer and began to cut the article out, "Nora won't stand up to the owners. The owners don't want to piss people off because they need the subscriptions and paper sales are down. Even our online edition is barely scraping by. Everyone is afraid of lawsuits, pissing off the readers. No one wants news anymore. They want fluff, not reality."

  Sam continued to spin while sitting in the office chair as Carl spoke. "It's hard to deal with life. Sometimes I get overwhelmed myself. A little fluff never hurt anyone." Sam reached out, grabbed the end of Carl's desk to stop his spin. He looked at Carl as his head continued to swim. "Whoa. I'm too old to be doing that." He placed a hand to his head, "Anyway, listen, write your story, tell the truth, don't be so, I don't know, melodramatic. Tell the truth without making it sound so macabre. Do you have any more leads?"

  Excited, Carl pulled his notepad from his jacket pocket, he flipped through the pages, stopped and told Sam all the details of the visit to the apartment building.

  Sam stood, smiled, placed his hand on the young man's shoulder, "Tell the story," took hold of his cart and walked away.

  Carl watched as the old man sauntered down the aisle, realizing that Sam was teaching him what a reporter was in the early days. He continued to watch as Sam pushed the cart. Carl admired the old man, wishing he had been his editor. Carl turned his attention back to the notebook, scanned the notes and began to type. As Carl pounded out his story, the sound of the old typewriter echoed in the newsroom.

  *****

  Ken, Paul and Dan were sitting in the only boardroom of the police department. They had brought all the case files into the room, the whiteboard was taken from Paul's desk and placed at the end of the table, and all three of them typed feverishly searching for any information on amputations and transplantation. Paul had invited Maura to join them in case she had something to add as he presented his theory to his friends.

  Dan pushed Ken's shoulder, "Hey, did you guys know they're doing limb transplants on amputees. Arms more than legs but it says here they will be trying a full head transplant soon. It's one thing to get a heart, liver, kidney from someone. You never see the organ; it's inside you. Those face transplants are just, well, gross. But if they can get everything worked out, imagine looking down, and one hand is yours, and the other is a transplant. Two different hands on the same person. Two different sets of fingerprints." Dan thought about the ramifications, "Our job is going to be a whole lot harder in the future.'

  Ken leaned over to see Dan's laptop screen, "Seriously. They can do all that shit?"

  "That's what it says here. Hey, if it's on the internet it has to true right," Dan chuckled.

  Maura weighed in, "The advancements on limb transplants are probably further ahead than anyone really knows. A lot of science is conducted behind closed doors and isn't presented until after they know if the procedure is successful. I don't think the public wants to know what kind of animal cruelty actually exists in the name of science."

  Paul considered what Maura had said, "If the advancement is further along than we know, would our guy have to have access to those studies?"

  Dan and Ken turned to Maura. "Not really. If this guy is doing what you think, the vic's are dead. The procedures are easy. No real risk. Other than having to kill the vic first that is."

  Paul left his laptop and stood behind Ken and Dan, peering over their shoulders, "I'm just spit balling guys. Do you think the girl could be alive while these surgeries are being done?"

  Dan didn't look back at Paul, "I doubt it. The article talks about teams of surgeons and physiotherapists and months or years of rehab. And that's for one arm. I can only image the team behind the scenes to make this work. The facility alone would be massive and the cost extreme. There would be no way a lone person or even two or three could pull together something this complex. Not to mention the cost, it would be in the hundreds of thousands or more."

  Paul thought about what Dan had just said, "We all in agreement that the girl would be dead?"

  Ken, Maura and Dan shook their heads.

  Ken turned and looked up at Paul, "What makes you think the unsub is doing this, what did you call it, this theory of yours?"

  "I called it the Frankenstein theory. You make one new girl outta many. You saw the pictures, the arms, hands, fingers, nails, body shape, they all coulda been from one girl, right?"

  Ken still looked puzzled.

  Paul walked around the table to face Ken and Dan, "If you want to brick your house, you use the same type of bricks. Otherwise, the house looks odd, different colors, different styles, things just don't fit. Am I making sense Maura?"

  She nodded in agreement.

  Paul continued, "I'm thinking this guy is a perfectionist. He has a goal." "Which is?" Dan asked.

  "To have the perfect woman. Whatever is in his mind, whatever he sees as the perfect woman. It would certainly be different than what you and I think, but in his mind, he knows exactly what he wants. And if it takes three or four girls with all the parts from them to build the one single perfect woman, in his mind, she will be the perfect woman. Hear me out. One: two torsos, no arms, no legs, no head. Two: one arm found. Three: we found fishing line in the arm. He may be using fishing line as sutures. I asked Maura, sutures eventually dissolve or breakdown. Fishing line can potentially last forever. If he was sewing the parts together, why not use fishing line. Somehow, this guy knows when a body part is faulty. They found a tumour in Paige Kirkby's arm and Abigail Schneider had cancer too. You've heard of dogs that can sniff out people with cancer, what if this guy has a dog that can do that or maybe he can do that? What if he can tell when someone has cancer?" Paul was excited. He felt like he finally understood exactly what the unsub was doing. "My Frankenstein theory. This guy is a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein. At least, I think so. But my theory is sound."

  Ken and Dan considered what Paul had just explained. "Do you think the guy is sick enough to try and bring her back to life? Like they did in the movies," Ken had a disgusted look on his face.

  Paul paced around the room, trying to contain his excitement, "We all know you can't do that. But even if he tried, what harm can he do, she's already dead. The worst you can do is bring her back to life."

  Dan had a horrible thought, "What's he doing with the parts he doesn't want?"

  Ken reminded Dan, "Two torsos and an arm so far. What haven't we found?"

  Paul picked up a can of Dr. Pepper, took a drink, "At this point, I'm more concerned about what happens next. What if he isn't finished? What if he needs more body parts? What if he doesn't have all the parts to make a whole?" Paul felt his personal phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out, saw the name on the screen, without excusing himself, ran from the room. Paul's pulse quickened, his palms moist, he swiped the icon to answer the call, "Hi. I've been waiting months for your ca
ll."

  *****

  The room was cold, below freezing, and with each breath, he could see the vapors rise and disappear above him. The room was large enough to work around the stainless-steel table placed in the centre. The table wheels were locked to prevent it from rolling as he worked. LED lights were set in the ceiling, evenly spaced to avoid even the tiniest of shadow, providing Will with a perfectly lit workspace. The LED lights were chosen so that they could remain on and not create any heat in the room.

  Will had purchased all the components for a walk-in freezer and insulated the floors, walls and ceiling and placed the evaporator unit inside the freezer and outside the house hidden beneath the back deck. The walls, ceiling and floor had been strapped, and urethane foam sprayed between the studs and the walls lined with rigid foam insulation. The fans blew freezing air into the room to keep it a constant minus ten. It meant that he had to wear a winter jacket, toque, gloves and insulated pants to work, but it was worth it.

  On the table, a woman's body lay uncovered on the cold stainless steel. The body rigid, not from rigour but from being frozen. Her eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling, seeing nothing, void of emotion, unable to comprehend the events that went on in the room around her. She stopped caring long ago. The skin was a pasty pale white, hard to the touch. All the blood had been carefully drained out when she first arrived, and the various body parts preserved in one of the many freezers in the basement.

  He removed a glove and ran his fingers lightly across the frozen skin of her cheek. He felt something stir within him. Unable to pull his gaze from her eyes, his fingers ran down her neck, across her breast, slid over her stomach, passing by the vagina instead veering off to her left outer thigh. He stopped at her knee and made tiny circles around her patella. He traced her knee cap and took in a deep breath then continued to her feet. He admired his work. The sutures were even spaced where he added the appendages, the arm where it attached to the shoulder, the hand at the wrist. He had used a Wartenburg wheel to run along the skin, piercing evenly spaced marks along the skin before the monofilament fishing line to sew the parts together. He had practiced his suturing technique and perfected the method of joining the two body parts, making the suture and hiding the knot inside the skin. His method was almost perfect.

  The right leg had been carefully removed from one body along the natural fold from the groin to the hip. The incision had been precise and exact. He made sure the muscles, ligaments and tendons, and the femoral artery was undamaged during the amputation. The head of the femur was aligned with the socket in the pelvis of the main torso, and he moved the leg around to ensure a proper fit. The last two sets he had weren't a fit, and regardless of what the pieces looked like, they had to be perfect.

  With his eyes closed, he remembered how she had looked, every curve, the angle of her jaw, her raven black hair, how her body felt. Soon, he thought. But only when she was ready. He covered the body on the table with a white cotton sheet, turned off the lights and closed the door. He removed his heavy jacket, hung it up on a hook beside the door, stuffed the gloves into the jacket pockets and went upstairs.

  *****

  Will heated his soup, grabbed a large whole wheat bun, placed his dinner on the table with the newspaper laid out beside the bowl, sat down, ready to eat a late dinner. He sank his spoon into the soup, blew across the hot liquid then sipped it. He repeated this many times until he found the article written by Carl Kadner. Will tore a chunk from the roll and ate it as he read the article, smiled broadly, laughing at times as the article described the events and who the reporter thought might be behind the murders. He was amazed at the conclusions Carl had come to, "He's good, wrong but good," he thought to himself.

  Will dipped his spoon and took another mouthful as he continued to read. "This guy is pretty smart." He tore another piece of bread and this time ran it around the edge of the bowl. He bit into the moist crust as he finished the article.

  He brought the bowl to the sink, washed the dishes, dried them and put them away. Will wiped down the counter, folded the cloth and draped it over the tap and brought the moist towel to the laundry. He smirked as he thought about the article and what the reporter thought of him, even his own actions sickened him at times, but it was a means to an end.

  In the distance, Will heard his cell phone chime. He went to the hall table, retrieved his phone and saw that Katy had texted him. He read her message, typed a reply, grabbed his jacket and car keys and headed out the door.

  He walked past the dogs as they slept in the yard. Will called out to them. They raised their heads and broke into a full run to the edge of the yard and stopped at the chain link fence. Will walked over, extended his hand, they sniffed it. He scratched their heads, told them he wouldn't be long, got in the car and drove away.

  Katy was waiting at the coffee shop. She had both hands wrapped around the paper cup, warming her hands. She had just received the text from Will informing her he would join her shortly. She was looking forward to seeing Will again. They didn't have plans to meet, but she was feeling special, hoping things would move forward with Will and thought a cup of coffee, some small talk, would lead to something more. She anxiously waited for him to show up, shuffled her feet under the table and couldn't

  keep still. Each time the door opened, her eyes would dart up to see who had arrived. She smiled broadly, only to be disappointed when she didn't see Will. Katy took another sip of her coffee; the drink was cooling down quickly. She removed the lid, looked in to see that the cup was almost empty. Katy couldn't believe she had almost finished her drink. With one large gulp, she downed the last of her coffee, left her jacket on the chair and went to stand in line for another. She rationalized that she must be really nervous if she finished her drink that quickly.

  Katy tossed her empty cup in the trash, stood in line and waited her turn at the counter. One by one, she moved closer until she was at the counter. As she was about to place her order, she jumped as she felt someone grab her waist. Katy spun around to see Will standing behind her. She wrapped her arms around him, hugged him and kissed his cheek.

  "Glad you could make it."

  Will simply smiled, told her to take her seat and he would bring the coffee to the table.

  May 4

  It was just before midnight, the office building was empty, even Sam had already completed his office cleaning and left for the night. Carl rubbed his right eye where it struck the desk. Sleep deprived one moment, pain the next. He stood, pulled his jacket from the back of the chair, donned it as the phone rang. He picked it up answering with "Yeah" forgetting where he was.

  "Is that the way you answer the phone?"

  "Sorry, I'm working on a few hours' sleep for the last few days. Who is this?" Carl was too tired to recognize the voice.

  "Do you want the latest from PD central or not?"

  "Maura?" Carl felt a burst of energy, took his seat and fumbled for a pen. "Why didn't you call my cell?"

  "I figured it would be harder to trace a call to a general number than a cell. Maybe I'm just full of shit or paranoid but what the fuck."

  "Whatcha got?" Carl knew this had to be good if Maura was calling him. "Go stream Young Frankenstein and read up on limb transplants."

  Maura figured being cryptic was more fun. "Had a chat with the detectives."

  "What the fuck are you talking about? I don't have time to watch movies." Carl was more than a little frustrated.

  "Watch the movie then do your research, Carl." Maura hung up the phone.

  He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, "Young Frankenstein and limb transplants. Huh." Removing his jacket, he pulled his laptop closer and clicked on the Netflix icon. "I'm going to need another energy drink," he said out loud for no one to hear.

  *****

  At that moment, Paul stood before Nicole's house, wondered if what he was about to do was right and knocked at her door. He waited for a few moments, knocked again, still no answer. He waited, was ab
out to call her when the overhead light came on, and he heard the door creak open. An eye peered between the crack then swung wide open.

  "What's going on?" Nicole was wearing flannel pajamas and Croc sandals.

  "Can we talk?" Paul looked as though he had been up for days, his hair askew, bags under his eyes, he looked physically and emotionally exhausted. Nicole opened the door wide inviting Paul inside. Without saying a word, Paul stepped past Nicole and went directly to the couch and fell into it. Nicole didn't detect a scent of alcohol as he brushed past on the way to the living room. She followed and took a seat directly across from him. "Coffee?" she offered.

  Paul didn't answer. Instead, he asked Nicole a question, "Do you remember when you read my picture that I carry?"

  Nicole nodded. "Did you call?"

  "Called me." He reached down, untied his running shoes and pulled them off. He squirmed out of his suit jacket and let it fall to the floor beside his shoes. "Can I crash here on the couch?" It wasn't so much a request as telling Nicole he was going to do what he was asking. He fell to the side, curled up and before she could answer, he had fallen asleep.

  Nicole picked up the jacket and laid it over his shoulders. She stood over him, looking at Paul wondering what had happened and went back to bed.

  *****

  Katy and Will sat across from each other in the nearly deserted coffee shop. It was almost one and more customers were leaving than entering. Canned music played overhead; the baristas were cleaning up the coffee machines, readying them for another busy day.

  Will sat back in his chair, Katy was fidgeting with her jacket and constantly playing with her cell phone. He noticed Katy avoiding eye contact and her inability to focus on the conversation. Will smiled politely, often looking past Katy towards one of the workers. She was cute and young with shoulder length thick dark hair. He would watch the young girl for a moment when Katy was looking away, then glance back at Katy. Will would sneak a peek at the young girl, waiting to see if she had an aura, nothing.