Terrorbyte

by Cat Connor

  “I was asleep.” I wasn’t apologizing, I was stating fact.

  A giant grin spread across Lee’s face. “I thought you would’ve been researching.”

  “I will be.”

  The delicious aroma of one hundred percent Arabica beans wafted from the bag he carried. I snatched it. It smelled so good as I unfurled the top. Inside I discovered two coffees. “Yes!”

  Lee grinned. I didn’t think he could grin any wider than he had already; I was wrong. “Do I know how to treat you or what?”

  I took a cup and passed him the bag. “You’re good.”

  We sat at the small table under the window on the far wall and drank our coffees in silence. After my last swallow I rocked back on the steel-framed chair and asked, “So did you come by to bring me coffee, or do you have another reason?”

  “One block over from the first crime scene is another one.”

  I took a slow breath. “When was it discovered?”

  “Half an hour ago. A neighbor grew suspicious and called it in. Apparently no one has seen the victim in three days.”

  “So this could be before Julie Trevalli was murdered … and well before the Northern Virginia murders.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You been over?”

  Lee shook his head. “I got coffee and came here, thought we’d go together. We’ve got a weather situation out there.”

  And I knew I was having an eyebrow situation in here. I could feel my right eyebrow arching. “A weather situation?”

  Lee’s amusement resounded from deep in his throat. “I sounded like a dork, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I tried to control my smirk. “Do explain this weather situation.”

  “Another storm warning. Hurricane Josephine expected to come inland at Virginia Beach within the next four hours. Already we have high winds and torrential rain moving up the state … tornado warnings in four counties.”

  “How bad is it going to get?”

  “Worse than last month’s.”

  How long had I been asleep? Mac hadn’t mentioned another storm or tornado warnings. He shouldn’t be on the road.

  “Roads open or closed?”

  “Coastal roads are open for evacuation purposes only. Main routes are open but being monitored closely.”

  I chewed my lip as I considered the news. “Okay, so it’s just us then. You, me and Sam.”

  Lee nodded. “Until the weather clears it’s just us.” He smiled. “And Mac.”

  How did he know? “How?” I asked.

  “Caine called me, said Mac was coming on down.”

  Mystery solved.

  I stood, stretched, then pushed my chair in. “We best get over to the latest mess.”

  “Hope you have a decent jacket.”

  I looked down to find I was still wearing old sweats. I grabbed some clothes and hit the bathroom. It didn’t take long to have a quick shower, dress, brush my hair and attempt to look like I hadn’t been asleep all afternoon.

  As soon as we stepped foot into the parking lot I understood why Lee had enquired about my jacket. Rain bucketed from the sky. I almost missed Mac’s arrival with all the water driving into my face.

  Mac met us by Lee’s car. He gave me a quick hug, followed by a scrutinizing look. To which I replied, “I’m okay. Can we go?” My words swirled away in the wind. Rain splashed against my face, stinging my eyes. A person could drown in this weather. “Now?”

  He swung open the car door, holding it firmly against the buffeting wind while I climbed into Lee’s car. The door slammed the minute Mac let go. Sheets of water poured down the car windows.

  “Is this the weather issue you spoke of, Lee?” I asked, as the window wipers worked frantically to clear the windscreen.

  “It’s definitely weather,” he replied. “Buckle up, this could get interesting.”

  It was almost a relief to reach the crime scene, only ‘almost’ because I knew what was in store. We entered the apartment complex together; dripping puddles onto the foyer floor. Two police officers stood on one side.

  Lee spoke to one. “Can we drop our jackets by you two, please?”

  The cop nodded. “Sure.”

  We left our wet jackets in a pile under the watchful eyes of the two young police officers.

  “Crime scene that way?” I asked, pointing down a communal hallway.

  Both officers nodded.

  As I walked along the hallway, it began to feel like all the other buildings we had been in recently: oppressive, painful, way too dark.

  A uniformed officer greeted us at the apartment door. “Special Agent Conway?”

  “Yes. Do we have an ID on the victim?”

  He read from his notebook. “A neighbor told us the apartment is leased to a Sophie Gendell, a thirty-four-year-old mother of three.”

  “Locate those children.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I took a breath before going in. I wanted to hold it as long as possible, knowing the air inside the apartment would reek of bourbon, blood, and decomposition, all built on a thinning layer of chlorine.

  The note was stuck to the cabinet above the meticulously penned first line of the poem. It was the first thing I saw when I walked into the room.

  “I’m not loving this note,” I said. I tried to exhale more than I inhaled. It was tricky. “Nice that I didn’t have to go looking for it though; that was real considerate of our Unsub.”

  Lee and Mac stepped up beside me. Mac read it aloud, “‘You could be a carrier, Conway.’”

  As I saw it there were two choices: freak out at the note or get on with the job. The job won. More exactly the serene look on the face of the victim won. It wasn’t the first time I had a sense that the victims didn’t die screaming. That was something worthy of more thought. I stepped back and absorbed the ambience of the room. I pushed away the overriding smells from the bourbon, blood and none-too-fresh body.

  The kitchen was clean. Countertops scrubbed. Dishes washed and put away. I opened a cabinet. Tidy. Boxes of cereal in a row. There were notes on the fridge, stuck by colorful magnets. Reminders for swimming lessons, soccer practice, hair appointments, the dentist. Then there was a photograph of the victim laughing with her children.

  This woman was a mother. I got a sense of love for her children. And now she lay on her back in a pool of bourbon and congealing blood. Lines from my poem were written around her kitchen cabinets in black pen.

  Flashes went off as the photographer did her thing. They reflected oddly in the thick blood pool, casting unusual patterns, swirls and brilliant spots of light with radiating beams. For a second I thought the victim would have liked the pretty patterns. The gold ribbon around her neck made the whole scene appear oddly festive.

  “What do you think that means?” Lee muttered, sidestepping to get out of the photographer’s way.

  “It means this is becoming more personal,” I replied. “Or it began personal and we’re looking at it out of sequence.”

  My mind wandered back to a conversation with Mac in our home, the night of the fundraiser. The night he talked of children and I reminded him that our gene pool needed cleansing. Crime scenes with chlorine; notes suggesting cleansing; I am a potential carrier of mental illness. How could the Unsub know that?

  “Timeline?”

  “We can’t be sure until forensics get back to us. But so far, this is looking like the first. So Sophie Gendell is victim one, then Julie Trevalli in Richmond, then Christine Campbell up in Alexandria and Laura Amos in Herndon.”

  I nodded. “How many days between Sophie and Christine? Just a guess, Lee.”

  He rocked on his heels, lines of thought working themselves into his forehead. “It’s warmish, so maybe only a few days. No more than four, I’d say.” The lines smoothed as he smiled at me.

  “Four sounds about right.” Satisfied that the Unsub didn’t somehow overhear a conversation in my home, I turned my attention back to Sophie Gendell. This was not how some
one’s life should end. I knelt down next to her, carefully avoiding the blood and bourbon mix. I leaned as close as I could to her face and breathed in.

  Chlorine.

  I whispered, “I’ll find the person responsible so you can rest in peace.”

  Mac’s hand reached down to help me stand. “Did you say something?”

  I straightened my jacket and shook my head. I noticed how none of us wanted to mention the new addition to the crime scene: an extra gold ribbon lacing the victim’s mouth shut and tied off in a perfect bow.

  What’s with the fuc’n bows?

  He’d taken time and care over this crime, more time than he’d taken at any of the others. There was an entirely different feel to it. But I couldn’t explain that in an evidential way. Everything pointed to this being the first murder. This is where it started. A series of small electrical impulses caused my spine to tingle and the watching began. Eyes were following me yet there were none to see.

  Chapter Ten

  Welcome To Wherever You Are

  Two hours later, we were on the road. Midnight had been and gone, but it failed to take the horror with it. Tuesday wasn’t shaping up to be much better than Monday.

  Lee and Sam were a half hour ahead of us because I’d stopped at the cemetery to visit mom. Amidst torrential rain and frenzied gales, I slogged through the darkness and located her gravestone; I confirmed she apparently was still in the ground. It wasn’t really a visit; it was more like a curfew check. I conducted them periodically. It made me feel better knowing where she was.

  We headed back up north. I hadn’t intended leaving Richmond so quickly but the growing storm made delaying travel impossible. I hoped I’d garnered enough information from the crime scenes in Richmond to help our investigation. Poor Mac: packed a bag and drove all the way down to help out with the investigation, only to drive all the way back a mere couple of hours later. Such is life within team chaos.

  A familiar tugging in my gut made me very aware of one similarity between Jack Griffin and this new sicko. He seemed to like to travel, to spread his crime scenes over a wide area. I restricted my thinking to the one similarity, because it was easier for my brain to digest. Any contemplation about these murders being personal would overload my delicately-balanced psyche.

  My fingers played with the charms hanging from my bracelet and lingered on a small silver angel. Had I thanked Mac?

  “Thanks for bringing this down for me.”

  “You’re welcome. Why did you want it?” Mac asked, flicking the windscreen wipers on to high.

  “Not sure, it just makes me feel better, I guess.” I knew exactly why I wanted it. Each charm was bought for me by my father. Every time he went overseas the first thing he did was find a jeweler and buy me a silver charm. He carried the charm in his top pocket while he was away and put it on my bracelet when he got home. He always came home safe and sound. If one charm at a time protected dad, surely the whole bracelet had more power?

  I didn’t want the evil to get me.

  An hour into our journey, with a murky, gloom-filled, wet dawn well on its way, rain was coming down in sheets. Twigs and small branches tangled in the windshield wipers.

  “What’s that?” Mac pointed up ahead. I thought I could see a red glow but couldn’t make it out clearly. The wipers were going flat out and still I couldn’t see much past the hood. Squinting into the dim light didn’t help.

  Suddenly I knew what it was.

  “Tail lights!”

  Mac’s foot hit the brake. We both lurched forward, seat belts locked. The car came to an abrupt stop.

  Offering a silent prayer to the ABS god, I hit the hazard switch at the same time as Mac. I grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and swung my door open. My clothes were drenched through within seconds. The sodden fabric clung to me as I hurried to the shape, which I’d determined was a car wrapped around a tree. I heard Mac call out from close behind me. “Ellie! You want road flares?”

  I turned into the sheets of driving rain hoping my voice would carry sufficiently. “Good idea, grab them!” I yelled.

  I reached the car and my wet hands slipped on the door handle as I struggled to open it. I kept slipping, almost going under the car several times. The ground seemed to be a giant mud slick. It was sucking at my boots and trying to pull me under.

  I tugged at the door again. It wouldn’t budge. I shone the flashlight in through the window. I could see someone inside and that the air bag had deployed and collapsed. An awful thought crept up on me: it could be Lee.

  “What kind of car is it?” I asked, still fighting with the door.

  Mac appeared next to me. “It’s not Lee’s car. Let me.” He handed me his flashlight so he could use both hands.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  He braced himself against the back passenger door and tried forcing the door handle up; the handle lifted but the door didn’t budge. Mac shoved his fingertips into a gap at the top of the door and pulled; the metal groaned but stayed fast.

  “Crowbar?” I suggested.

  “Trunk,” he replied. “I’ll get it.”

  He turned then stopped by the back door, which was unscathed compared with the front of the car, which was a twisted wreck.

  “Shall I draw you a map to the trunk of your own car?”

  A wet finger flew in my direction. “One sec.” He pulled the rear door handle, the door sprang open. Mac disappeared into the car.

  I pulled my cell phone from my wet pocket and punched in ‘911’. As the operator answered, the driver’s door screeched then popped open. Perfect timing: I had zero clue where we were. I knew at some stage we’d left the highway but my tired mind couldn’t recall when or why.

  “Mac, what road is this?” The irony of the question didn’t escape me. I was asking a directionally-challenged person where we were.

  Sometimes I have no idea what goes on in my head.

  He climbed out the passenger door and took the phone from me, shaking his head and saying, “This time I do know where we are.” There was a touch of surprise in his voice. Directions weren’t something I usually had to ask for, let alone something he was usually able to give.

  Something was very wrong. I leaned closer to him. Rain poured, taking the scent of chlorine with it.

  I grabbed the phone back from Mac and spoke into it. “There is chlorine present at the scene. You will need hazmat gear with self-contained breathing apparatus for the body recovery. We have no way of knowing how potent the chlorine is or the quantity involved.”

  The voice on the phone confirmed what I’d said and hung up.

  Mac stared at me. “I didn’t smell it!”

  “It’s all over you. You have spare clothes?”

  “Of course. How bad is it?”

  “Take your clothes off, all of them … and thank God it’s raining hard.”

  He looked at me in absolute horror as he began peeling off his saturated clothes. I returned to our car and found him clean stuff from our bags, plus a large plastic bag for his contaminated clothing.

  “How bad, Ellie?”

  “It’s highly toxic and irritates the respiratory system. It can form hydrochloric acid inside your lungs by reacting with the water in the mucosa.” Take no prisoners. “It causes burns especially to eyes, mouths, airways. It’s also flammable; just add a spark and it’s an instant firebomb.”

  “And it’s in our drinking water and our swimming pools?” Mac said. “That’s just fuc’n fantastic.”

  “At safe levels.”

  While pondering the scariness of the strong chlorine and Mac’s inability to smell it, I donned two pairs of latex gloves – not easy to do in the rain – and went to have a look at the car. Chlorine gas is heavier than air and settles low. I attempted to reach the driver’s side of the wreck and slipped in the mud at the edge of the road. Hauling myself back to my feet was difficult. Mud covered my jeans and tee shirt and it began to act like sticky body armor, causing my
movements to stiffen as my clothes grabbed my skin.

  I stood by the driver. I knew I couldn’t bend down near him, because a greenish gas was visible about his knees. His body smelled strongly of chlorine. His head was turned, facing away from me. The airbag was fully deflated so it was easy to reach him. I noted he wore his seat belt.

  “Sir?”

  I shook my hand hard hoping to dislodge some of the mud. The charms on my bracelet sent mud in all directions. I reached into his neck and felt for a pulse.

  I couldn’t feel anything.

  Moving my fingers under his jaw, I tried again.

  Nothing.

  I went for his wrist.

  “I can’t find a pulse.”

  I sloshed away from the car. The smell was unbearable; it began to irritate my nose. A large puddle near the rear tire gave me somewhere to wash my gloved hands. I didn’t want chlorine on me, no matter how little.

  I felt Mac’s hands on my shoulders. “Police and ambulance are on their way with a hazmat team and all the gear. There are landslides and flooding, so some parts of roads are blocked with debris … might take them a little while to get through.”

  “Can you smell it now?” I asked. With the car door open, gas was leaching out into the rainy atmosphere, drifting under the car and around the front tires.

  “Yeah, smells like a swimming pool.”

  “Did you notice anything about the body?”

  “No.”

  “Why was the driver looking at the passenger seat? Maybe he turned his head instinctively on impact – but what if there was a passenger?”

  I looked up at Mac; rain ran into my eyes as I did so. It stung. It really stung. The rain had washed the leave-in conditioner from my hair into my eyes. I found a moderately clean piece of my shirt and wiped some of the tainted water from my eyes.

  “Was there a passenger?”

  Mac disappeared, then reappeared on the other side of the car. He opened the front passenger door with surprising ease and more gas wafted to freedom. “This door wasn’t closed properly. Bag’s deployed as it would in a crash, but no one is here. Curious, no?”

  I joined him, the beam from my flashlight playing upon the front console, allowing me to inspect the airbag. “There’s something there.”