Blood Dahlia - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries)

by Methos, Victor

  “Yeah, the open-unsolved cases. I could help on those. The ones where no one else can do anything.”

  He nodded. “Even if you could, why would you want to? Arnold thinks you can see the dead. If you believe that, why would you possibly want to see murder victims? I can’t imagine they’re too happy.”

  “It depends. Some of them want justice. Others have gone crazy. They’re mindless… It just depends.”

  He sipped his coffee and set the cup back down, absently running his finger along the rim. “When I joined the Bureau, they had me assigned to the forensic accounting division. That’s what my undergraduate degree is in, accounting. So they thought I would like that. We checked bank accounts and ledgers against deposits and checks written. I thought I would quit my first day.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I knew something better would come up. If I just stuck to it, I knew they’d give me something better. Well, as it happened, the forensic accounting division was moved, and I just kind of floated around for a few weeks. My boss assigned me to Behavioral Science just a few days ago. I’m not even sure what the hell I’m doing. Arnold says there’s this whole other world that people don’t see that we do, and that it’s gonna change me.”

  “You think it will?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “It won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ve already seen so much death.”

  He paused for a moment and then drank some more coffee. “How do you know?”

  She hesitated. “I just know.”

  “You think you see something, huh?” he said, trying to suppress a smirk. “Well, let’s hear it. What do you see?”

  Sarah didn’t like his tone. He was handsome and pleasant up until then, and she didn’t understand why he needed to mock her. “I see a little boy filled with bullet holes. He’s crying because he doesn’t know where he is.”

  Giovanni’s face went completely slack. Sarah thought he turned white, but it could’ve been the way the shade played off his face. He sat in silence a long time, unmoving, his eyes locked onto hers.

  “How did you know that? Did Arnold tell you I served in Iraq?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Forget I said anything.”

  The tea was warm and went down smoothly. She savored it, allowing it to calm her nerves. This, just talking to someone else, felt better. Even though Giovanni looked like he might faint any second.

  “Did the boy say anything?” he asked after a long silence.

  “No. One of the bullets went through his throat, so his voice wouldn’t come out.”

  Giovanni swallowed and stared down into his coffee awhile. “We were in Fallujah. Our position was fired upon, and we fired back. It happened every day. We were used to it. We went over there, and we’d hit this boy. Maybe ten years old. He’d been the one firing on us.”

  “No,” she said. “It wasn’t him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was some man. Someone with a beard and one of the white hats that doesn’t have a brim. He’d been shooting at you guys. When you started shooting back, he shot the boy first and threw the gun on him. I think he was hoping you’d find the body and not pursue him.”

  Sarah looked back at the birds. They’d found a few crumbs and were dipping their heads quickly, eating as much as they could before something took this opportunity away. Somehow they knew that good things didn’t last forever.

  “If you’re making that up, you’re a serious asshole,” he said.

  “I’m not making it up. I told you what I saw.”

  He leaned back in the chair. “I still don’t believe it. I was in a news story once. You could’ve googled me. Is that what you did?”

  She shrugged. “Believe what you want, Giovanni. I’m not here to prove myself. I was here for a job, but it looks like I’ll have to find something else. Something away from bars and booze. Maybe I could work at a school library or something.”

  He chuckled. “My high school librarian was an eighty-year-old woman who threw books at us. You don’t seem like the type.”

  She smiled. “Yeah. You know when I first saw a library, I was amazed. All these books that anyone could read. And then I discovered the internet and Wikipedia.”

  “When was this?”

  “About five years ago.”

  “You discovered the internet five years ago? Were you living in the Arctic or something?”

  “Almost. An Amish community. That’s where I was born.”

  “So what happened? You went out on your little world pilgrimage and decided you didn’t want to live on a farm anymore?”

  “It’s called rumspringa, and no. I did rumspringa when I was sixteen and decided I wanted to stay.”

  “Then what happened?”

  She watched her tea, the way the fluid sat still as glass when she didn’t drink it. The color was rich, and even the smell warmed her… but she couldn’t help a thought that crept into her mind: it would be better with a little whiskey.

  “I was thrown out.”

  “Really? For what?”

  She looked at him. His eyes were dark brown, speckled with bits of green. They took her in, and he didn’t move when she spoke. He actually listened to what she had to say rather than just waiting for his turn to talk.

  “Maybe we can talk about that some other time,” she said. “The day’s so pretty. I don’t want to think about that stuff.”

  He nodded. “Okay. How about we talk about what other jobs we could get you outside of the library?”

  She smiled. “I’d like that.”

  17

  The body was wrapped nicely in the tarp. In the back of the van, he’d also stuffed several paint cans, brushes, rollers, buckets, and anything else that prying eyes would think a work van should contain. Daniel Wolfgram never used any of them of course. Manual labor wasn’t something he enjoyed.

  Wolfgram lifted the body off the floor and heaved it onto his shoulder. He had to take a moment and balance himself because of the weight, but once he got a feel for it, it wasn’t difficult to walk. He made his way out of the kitchen and to the back of the driveway. Glancing around to make sure no neighbors were out, he quickly shoved it into the back of the van. The body flopped like a side of beef. He tried to contort it further, making it look out of shape. He piled a few things on top of it and then scanned his neighborhood again before shutting the van’s doors.

  Wolfgram climbed in to the driver’s seat and adjusted his rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of his own eyes. When he was a child, he had been told you could hypnotize yourself by staring into your eyes long enough. He had tried it once and lasted several hours. But no mystical experience came. All that he gained for those several hours was a realization that his eyes didn’t look like other people’s eyes. They were emptier, without the emotion and tears he saw in the eyes of the other kids at school.

  As he started the van to pull away, his neighbor George came over and waved.

  “Daniel, glad I caught you.”

  Wolfgram smiled widely. “How are ya, George? How’s Maddox’s flu?”

  “Better now. He was throwing up for a day straight, but then his fever just broke last night and he’s on the mend.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Um, anyway, the reason I stopped you, we’re having that little get-together tomorrow and I wanted to make sure you got our invitation.”

  “I did. Unfortunately, I can’t make it.”

  “You know, I don’t think Debra’s gonna be okay with that. She invited her sister specifically to meet you.”

  “I… don’t think I can make it, George. I’m really busy right now.”

  “I get that, but listen, Debra’s sister is hot. And if you ever tell Debra that, I’ll kill you.”

  George laughed at something that was apparently funny. Wolfgram grinned, though he didn’t understand what
it was that was so humorous. Humor had always been lost on him.

  “Debra invited her just to meet you. You can’t ditch.”

  He hesitated. He wondered if anyone would notice if he just reached out and slit George’s throat right now. “Okay, I’ll be there.”

  “Great. See you tomorrow then.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Wolfgram waited until George had walked away before he glanced at the body in the back. He turned back around, started the van, and pulled out of his driveway.

  His neighborhood was about as cookie-cutter, family-friendly as you could get. Wolfgram was the only single man on the block, and several of his neighbors tried setting him up on dates. They didn’t understand someone who preferred to be alone. It was alien to them. Just as wanting a family and children was alien to him.

  The van rounded the corner and headed up to the freeway. Wolfgram checked his GPS and made certain he was headed the right way.

  This was glorious, his magnum opus thus far. The excitement tingled in his belly, and he could barely contain it.

  Since a month ago, when he had learned from the local news that the FBI had taken over the Blood Dahlia murders, he had been trying to come up with a way to contact them. Something that would capture their interest and let them know he was watching and paying attention. This idea had hit him in a dream, and he hadn’t been able to let it go.

  The freeway was nearly empty at ten in the morning. It was the perfect time for travel, he’d found. Most people probably thought late at night was the safest way to travel when trying not to attract attention, but he’d found that that wasn’t true. The bulk of DUI arrests happened at night, and any decent-sized city had plenty of police officers out looking to pull people over for the most minor traffic violations. Ten was past the morning rush but before lunch. He’d found that few officers were out on the roads.

  The day was turning out to be a pleasant one, and he rolled down his window and put his fingers outside to feel the wind. A terrible memory jolted him, and he pulled his fingers inside. He remembered his father would roll the window up whenever Daniel’s fingers were outside, trying to catch his fingers between the glass and the frame. His father told him it was to teach him a lesson, but Wolfgram never could figure out what lesson that was exactly.

  His exit was coming up, and he could barely contain his excitement. As he drove down the off-ramp, he looked around him and into his rearview—a habit he’d purposely developed. He wanted to be aware of his surroundings at all times.

  There was a surface street in a residential neighborhood he had to take for six miles, and he turned on the radio. Though no music appealed to him, he did listen to talk radio and enjoyed the energetic banter. Someone was yelling at someone else about how to solve homelessness.

  The drive was quick. Too quick. Wolfgram thought he would have time to prepare, to replay the incident in his mind over and over. But he hadn’t even been able to concentrate because of the anxiety and adrenaline coursing through him.

  Only three quick turns through a maze of residential neighborhoods and he was there. The home was nice. Large, with an immaculate lawn. He parked up the block. Far enough away that none of the home’s neighbors would notice his van.

  Once stopped, he put on a blond wig with long hair that came down to his shoulders. The boots were in the seat next to him. They had built-in inserts—custom made by him—that added six inches of height without anyone else being able to notice. And because of their design, they didn’t even affect his balance that much.

  Next were the fake tattoos. The most prominent was on his neck, a skeleton. The tattoo was bright red. The most memorable color to the human mind. They were placed on transparent sticky plastic. He had to just press them against his skin for about half a minute, and they would stay there at least a day, or until he could wash them off. They’d been designed by a tattoo artist in Florida for people who wanted to wear their tattoos around for a few days before committing to a more permanent decoration.

  Wolfgram looked himself over in the mirror, adjusting a few hairs, and then stepped out. The day was warm, and the sky a clear blue. He walked around the van to the back and opened the doors. The first thing he got out was a dolly. He examined the neighborhood slowly, going from house to house and looking in all the windows. A car was coming up the street, and Wolfgram didn’t make eye contact as they rolled by. When the sound of the engine had faded, he pulled out the body.

  Crumpled and heavy, it barely stayed on the dolly. He had to lean the dolly far back to make sure the body didn’t tumble off. Then he stacked a few rollers and paint cans on it before shutting the van doors and heading down the sidewalk back to the house.

  The neighborhood was the type of place where couples had a lot of dogs and no children. He saw lawn signs supporting liberal issues and bumper stickers with phrases like “9-11 was an inside job” were plastered on a stop sign.

  Wolfgram looked both ways before crossing a street. The home wasn’t far now.

  As he rolled down the sidewalk, a woman stepped outside her house and turned to lock her door. She glanced to Wolfgram but didn’t pay much attention. He smiled to her and nodded, and she nodded back. As he walked past, he memorized the address numbers on her house.

  The home he was here for was two houses down now. He had to stop a moment and just make sure he wasn’t being followed. It was amazing there was no security here, or police, or even a camera on the street corner. There was nothing protecting any of these people from him.

  He rolled down the sidewalk and quickly turned toward the house. Pulling the body out, he lifted with his legs as he heaved it up and onto his shoulder. Before taking the stairs up to the porch, he looked around again.

  The porch had some furniture: a side table and two chairs with a swinging bench on the other side. He stepped to the swinging bench and plopped the body down. He made it sit as upright as possible. Until now, the body had appeared crumpled and loose. Now, the outline of a human female was clearly visible.

  Wolfgram turned and began casually walking back to the van.

  17

  As soon as Rosen walked into the field office building, he knew something was wrong. One of the younger agents looked at him just a little too long. Nothing really revealing, but enough that told Rosen something had happened last night and that everyone had already heard about it.

  When he stepped off the elevator on his floor, his suspicions were confirmed. One of the secretaries came up to him and said, “Kyle needs to speak with you, Arnold.”

  “What about?”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “You really need to get a TV.”

  “I will. What is this big secret I’m supposed to know?”

  “Somebody dumped a body on the director’s front porch.”

  Rosen stared at her, unable to say anything for a moment. “Which director?”

  “Gillian, Arnold. She got home and saw a body sitting on her swing bench.”

  “Shit,” Rosen said, his eyes drifting to Kyle’s office.

  He tried not to panic. It could be anything. Some nutjob digging up corpses at the cemetery. He’d had that once before, a case in New Mexico. Two high school students thought it’d be funny to dig up corpses and arrange them in inappropriate poses around the high school.

  But somehow, he knew that was not what it was. His gut told him this was something much, much worse.

  He marched to Kyle Vidal’s office. Giovanni was already sitting there. Rosen walked in and shut the door behind him. He sat down across from Kyle and waited for him to speak first.

  “You’ve heard?” Kyle said.

  “I did.”

  “I don’t think I need to tell you what it looks like when a body is dropped off on the porch of the director of Behavioral Science. It makes me, and it makes the Bureau, look bad.”

  “Do we know who the victim is?” Rosen said, avoiding the bait that would just lead to him
getting criticized for something he couldn’t have possibly controlled.

  Kyle exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked tired, Rosen thought. Kyle had probably been informed and called into the field in the middle of the night.

  “Not yet. I’ve been getting updates, but you’ll have to get over there yourself.”

  Rosen nodded. “We’re on it.”

  As he went to leave, Giovanni followed him. Kyle said, “And Arnold?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s missing her face.”

  He hesitated at the door. “I’ll handle it.”

  “You better. PR is something the Bureau’s really concerned about lately, with all the NSA information leaks. Everybody already dislikes us. They can’t think we’re incompetent, too.”

  Rosen nodded and left. He waited until they were down the hall before he asked, “When did you find out?”

  “This morning,” Giovanni said. “Someone posted it on my Twitter feed.”

  “This isn’t good. I’ve never seen someone so brazen. I mean, we’ve gotten notes and things before, but nothing like this.”

  Rosen pulled out of the parking lot and was silent as he drove to the interstate. Only when he was nearly there did he realize he didn’t know exactly where he was heading. He’d never been to Gillian Hanks’s house.

  “Find out where it is, would ya?”

  “I know where it is. Take the sixty-six up to Falls Church.”

  “How do you know where our boss lives?”

  “I was invited for a party once.”

  Rosen glanced over. “What kinda party?”

  “I don’t know. Just something welcoming new agents to the field.”

  “Oh.”

  The interstate was relatively clear, and Rosen got into the far left lane, weaving between a few cars before settling into the middle lane. The drive was long, and he felt like talking, but Giovanni seemed completely preoccupied by his phone.

  “Those things will rot your brain.”

  “What will?” Giovanni asked.

  “Being on your phone that long. It’s not natural.”