Silent Graves (Brandon Fisher FBI Series)

by Carolyn Arnold

  He heard a deeper moan escape her throat and turned from the window to the woman.

  “Sydney. Sydney.” He said her name twice, calling out as one would to a child in deep slumber.

  Her head lolled side to side and her eyes shot open.

  There was recognition there, followed by fear.

  Her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils dilated. She said something from behind the silver duct tape, but it wasn’t audible.

  “Now, if you’re a good girl and cooperate, everything will be okay.” He sat on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand down her inner thigh. She quivered beneath his touch. He wanted to experience pleasure in response, but his feelings were void.

  She mumbled again, and this time he was tempted to remove the tape.

  He pulled out a vial and a needle.

  She screamed—more like muttered—from behind the tape. Her head rocked back and forth, and her body thrashed as much as her constraints would allow.

  He saw it in her eyes as he had witnessed in all their eyes. Their pleading with him to have mercy be shown—but who was he to deny them the pleasure of flesh.

  He plunged the loaded needle into her neck, and, within seconds, the movements stopped.

  Her eyes rolled back, and her body fell limp.

  “There you go baby. Good as new.” He rose from the bed and unzipped his pants, taking his time with the buckle of his belt, and then lifted his t-shirt over his head. He would take control again.

  Tears seeped from her eyes as he got on top of her.

  Chapter 7

  Woodbridge, VA

  Tuesday morning

  Chief of Police Albert Patton sat behind his desk, tapping a pen against the edge of it. “Glad there’s finally some attention being paid to this case. The FBI didn’t want it years ago.”

  Paige and Zach were seated across from him.

  She put assorted crime scene photos on the desk. “We’re aware of that, but we’re interested now, and it’s not just the case of Melanie Chase but other similar cases in the area.”

  He lifted one and held onto it. He shook his head. “What a waste. Unbelievable how sick of a world we live in. Every day, when I don’t think it could get any worse, it does.” He put the photo down. “Her face is vaguely familiar. What was her name again?”

  “Lena Swanson. She was found along I-95 around Lorton back in seventy-three.”

  Patton shook his head in silent meditation. “You know, I remember Melanie Chase’s case very clearly. Some of them stick with you more than others.”

  “What made this one stick?”

  “You mean besides the fact she was a beautiful woman? Just that there was nothing for us to go on. Everything led to a dead end. Everyone in her world was removed of suspicion so we thought maybe it was a truck driver, you know, because she was found in a ditch along I-95. Yes, as I gather from your expressions, that’s like finding a needle in a haystack. There weren’t the man hours required for it, and then the doubt comes into play. What if it wasn’t a truck driver we were looking for? There was one guy, though, a Frank Wilson, but the evidence wasn’t there. He worked with Chase and happened to be a short-distance driver for a meat packer.”

  “We’ll need the name.”

  “Of course. Straightline.”

  “How long did you investigate the case?”

  “Years, but when everything kept circling, we had to move on.” The chief’s face reddened. “Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do.” His eyes hazed over.

  “Anything you remember that stood out from witness interviews, or who was the last to see her alive?”

  “Her husband. He said he dropped her off at work in the morning. Everything was normal, but, if you’ve read the file at all, you already know things didn’t play out like that. Her workplace said that she had quit her job. Being dropped off there was all an act.”

  “She could have been having an affair.”

  “Absolutely, but that, like so many other things, was one of them circles. It couldn’t be proven. The husband adamantly dismissed the idea as being inconceivable.”

  “Yet, she withheld the fact she quit her job from him. It wouldn’t take much more lying ability than that to cheat.”

  “Well, like I keep saying, nothing was proven.” He paused a few seconds. “Since I heard about that woman Rogers on the news, I’ve had a few sleepless nights wondering if I had missed something and could have stopped it. I take it you’re thinking these old cases are connected?”

  “Is there anything else you think we should know about Melanie Chase?”

  The chief rubbed his chin. “She was a married woman with no children. You likely know that from the file. What you might not know is she was described by her friends as worldly and outgoing. She wasn’t shy.”

  Paige wondered if her ‘worldly ways’ were what ended up with her on a metal slab and then six feet under.

  “The killer was profiled as a male. There wasn’t evidence of sexual assault, but she had been bound. The forensics team figured for about a day.”

  “It was enough to leave the bruising?”

  “She was a fighter. We even lifted epithelial from beneath her fingernails, not that we could do anything with it, but we were hopeful for the future. DNA wasn’t considered reliable evidence until over a decade after Chase. There were abrasions on her hands. Maybe you’ll be able to do something with it now and find a match for the DNA.”

  Chapter 8

  Quantico, Virginia

  Tuesday afternoon

  All of us were in the briefing room at headquarters. Jack had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. I wondered what the man would look like without one. Zachery hugged another cup of coffee, and Paige scribbled notes into a file.

  “Are you going to share with us?” Jack asked her.

  “Sure. I just wanted to get my thoughts together.” She pried her eyes from her notepad. “Zach and I spoke to the chief in Woodbridge. The first victim, Chase, wasn’t raped, but she fought back. There was foreign skin trace found beneath her nails. They collected DNA, but it was fairly useless in that day and age. On the way back, I called in a favor to the lab. They pulled it, and entered the parameters into the database. No known match at this point.”

  “And Frank Wilson was their number one suspect?”

  At first, I questioned where Jack had gotten the name from but remembered Nadia mentioned it in our briefing.

  “Yes. He’s since passed away with cancer.” She consulted her notes. “Two years after Chase.”

  “Well, that rules him out for the second victim found in seventy-three.” The cigarette bobbed as Jack spoke.

  She nodded. “Partially why he was eliminated as a suspect for Chase.”

  “The other reason?”

  “His wife swore under oath that she was with him at the time of the disappearance. These two factors were enough to cast suspicion from Wilson. With Chase and the second woman, Swanson, neither was sexually assaulted but were both bound. They were only missing a short time.”

  “If he were a truck driver, he’d have scheduled stops to make. He couldn’t risk getting caught,” I said.

  “With a truck driver, we’d be looking at a short-run route.” Zachery lifted his cup for a sip.

  “You said the first two were not raped? What about the other one?” I asked Paige.

  She lifted her folder. “She was. Trace of semen was found. No match in the system.”

  “It didn’t tie back to DNA from the first two? You mentioned Chase had epithelial under her fingernails.”

  She shook her head. “Well, obviously not. I just mentioned that we had that run through on the way back here.”

  I disregarded the bitterness in her tone. “Are we considering it being a team?” The revelation, even though it had been mentioned during our briefing, had my stomach shrinking into a knot thinking about what those poor women had been through—and so close to my home.

  “All these women were ages twenty-two to thir
ty and married with no children, as we had discussed. Melanie Chase had quit her job not long before her disappearance and death. Amy Rogers didn’t have to work a day in her life.”

  Jack removed the cigarette from his mouth, tapped the end gently on the table, and stuck it back into his shirt pocket.

  Apparently, I was jumping ahead.

  “Continue. What else do we know about the victimology?” Jack asked.

  “They were different nationalities—Caucasian, Asian, and Hispanic. The unsub isn’t limited by race, but he doesn’t seem to be picking his victims at random either.” Zachery gestured to the screen where the before and after pictures were displayed. “They were all beautiful women with a vibrant age range, but all of them were healthy and took care of themselves. They didn’t subscribe to raising a family with their husbands but wanted to keep the power of their sexuality with no childbirth.”

  “You’re saying mothers aren’t sexy?” Paige lifted her eyebrows.

  “Not what I’m saying, but it lends itself to the criteria to which the unsub is attracted. These women were aware of their beauty. You can see it in their eyes. They were confident.”

  “But not powerful in the sense of the corporate world.”

  “Yet, powerful in their own domain. They claimed ownership over themselves and didn’t transfer this power to their husband.”

  “You think he targets adulterous wives?”

  “It could fit the profile.”

  “There are still a lot of questions to answer. Like what made him change his MO?” Zachery asked. “Was this second person there from the start?”

  “Good question. Why go from not sexually assaulting the victims to rape? And the DNA not matching…” Her words trailed off for a few seconds. “We mentioned a team. Could be that the first unsub was perfecting his method of torture and murder. Maybe he wasn’t capable of rape? What if it wasn’t a mutual decision for the second person? What if he forced them to rape on his behalf?”

  “You’re talking a surrogate? Our unsub used someone else to live out his fantasies? Killing them was no longer enough. It wasn’t enough defilement.”

  I traced a circle on the table with my index finger—my mind in thought. “It was likely someone close to him, a long-term friend, or a child?”

  Paige shook her head. “Nothing turned up among Chase’s long-term friends. Wilson’s wife was interviewed at length about her husband and her possible involvement.”

  “Her involvement?” I asked.

  “Yeah, with no sexual assault with Chase, it lent itself to the possibility that a female could have been the unsub.”

  “Just because of that?”

  “Because of that and the fact women don’t typically sexually assault other females. Of course, for every statistic, there’s a contradictory case.”

  “A good one would be the Canadian case of Carla Homolka. She took part in the sexual torture and murder of her own sister.”

  Paige cocked her head at Zachery as if to say, did you really need to bring her up?

  Jack pulled the cigarette from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Let’s focus on the unsub. What does all of this tell us about him?” His eyes went to me for an answer.

  “He likes to be in control, making him a narcissistic-type personality. He binds them, drugs them to have power over them. Maybe he’s lacking it in his everyday life.”

  “Agree with Brandon. I also think that he knows the type of woman he wants. Amy Rogers fits that profile,” Paige said.

  “We must remember the average age for a serial killer is early thirties. Assigning that age to the unsub from the seventies—”

  I quickly did the calculation. “That would make him in his seventies today.”

  “He could be as young as mid-sixties. We could dig into short-run truck drivers who would have taken I-95 during the years of nineteen seventy to two thousand.”

  “You’re kidding right?” The words gave birth before I had time to think about them or reel them back. Now I was left to defend my statement. “That would seem like an impossible feat. The list of potential suspects would be too large for us to investigate all of them. Wouldn’t it?”

  “Pending does have a point boss.”

  I could tell it killed Zachery to agree.

  “We need more than this to narrow down a truck driver Jack,” Paige added.

  “Well, what about this other guy he may have started working with back in—” With all the years being mentioned, I was quickly losing track.

  “Two thousand,” she said. “She was the one that was raped.”

  “Assuming that the original killer worked with someone younger, maybe that person took over for him, or maybe they are working together?”

  “If the two of them are still working together, the older man could be luring them. The victims would think him a harmless old man and come closer. He drugs them, and the rest is history.”

  “We’re spinning here. We need more to go on.” Jack’s voice carried the exasperation we were all experiencing. The room lay thick with tension and deep thought. “Let’s go at this a different way. If this unsub’s come out of hiding, why and why now? Even just taking the last case from two thousand where the sexual assault took place, there is a huge cooling off period from the second victim in nineteen seventy-three.”

  “The original could have had health limitations? Maybe he died, or maybe he changed his MO or means of disposal? Maybe there were more victims, but we don’t know about them. Then you consider the number of reported cases of missing women in the area over just the last six years. Something’s triggered him, or his surrogate, to get going again.” Jack rubbed his forehead. “This case is already giving me a headache. Zach and Paige, I want you two to go talk to Wilson’s wife from the time. Brandon and I will go to see Chase’s husband.” Jack pulled out his lighter and left the room.

  Chapter 9

  Same day…

  Dumfries, VA

  Tuesday, about noon

  Trent Stenson trailed behind Hanes through the corridors of The Department of Forensic Science. “I deserve to be in that room.”

  “The autopsy really isn’t that much fun.” Hanes kept moving toward the morgue. “Shouldn’t you be taking care of business for Dumfries PD?”

  Trent stopped walking.

  Hanes turned around. “What? Don’t be like that. You know how this works.”

  “If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t even have an ID on her. I’m the one that’s been watching these cases over the years and putting everything together.”

  “We don’t even know if it’s her yet. I’ll keep you posted.”

  The doors swung shut behind Hanes as if engulfing him into its keep.

  “I’ll keep you posted.” Trent mumbled the words, wishing he could have gained access to the case he was certain would advance his rank, but, more importantly, he wanted this bastard stopped and caught.

  Hans Rideout stood over the body wearing a teal green smock. His instruments were lined out beside him on a silver tray, organized in an amazing fashion. The metal of his tools refracted the bright lighting of the overhead bulbs. His glasses were resting on the top of his head when he came in, but he pulled them down as Hanes approached the slab. “I assume we’re ready to get started here.”

  Hanes’s focus diverted from the corpse that, given its twist on decomposition, had his coffee threatening reappearance. He made eye contact with Rideout. “You seem ready to go.”

  “This case intrigues me. This is my first cadaver that has signs of adipocere. These are a rare find.”

  Hanes dared to take a glimpse at the body. His stomach unmistakably tossed. He hated this newfound reaction. While Rideout termed it “a rare find,” as if it were something to be treasured, Hanes would have been happy to never come across it.

  “You will be pleased to know that we were able to obtain her fingerprint. It has yet to produce us with an identity, but it is running through the system. All right, let’
s get started.”

  Rideout made external observations of the body and spoke them for the benefit of his recorder. He would compile them into his written report afterwards.

  “The body is that of a Caucasian female and appears to be well-nourished. Height is sixty-six inches, and the body weight is one hundred ten pounds. I would estimate her age between twenty-six to thirty-three.”

  He moved the body to its left side and then its right, peering beneath it.

  “No signs of lividity, but, based on the age of the body, that’s expected.”

  “So, we don’t know what position she died in?” Hanes asked.

  “That would be correct. Livor mortis is long gone.” Rideout continued on with the external examination, noting all the physical attributes of the deceased. Her hair was brown, shoulder length, both ears were pierced—no earrings. He listed the details of the decomposition and the stages as he worked over the body.

  Hanes made notes of what Rideout was saying, even though he’d get the full autopsy report to view later. He normally didn’t have a problem standing in for autopsies. He saw it as part of the job, but he could never shake the feeling that everyone became catalogued, as if inventory, by the process. He wondered how the ME would describe him when he was the one lying on the gurney—mostly bald with brown stubble on his head, measuring in at seventy-four inches, weighing two hundred and thirty pounds. Hanes shook the thought that he often revisited.

  “Now, here is an interesting find, and one I know we noted at the crime scene.” Rideout lifted her left wrist. “Contusions on both of her wrists and ankles.”

  “Bruising?”

  Rideout smiled, which seemed sickly out of place with his gloved hands covered in the deceased’s fluids.

  “I’m wondering if we’re looking at a serial killer. He binds his victims and dumps them in the river?” It sounded ridiculous to Hanes when he said it out loud. They only had one body. Technically, they needed three to classify it as a serial. Maybe he was listening to Trent too much.