The Christopher Killer

by Alane Ferguson

  “Hey yourself,” Cameryn answered through the screen. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your pop faxed the preliminary coroner’s report on Rachel and, well, there’s something in it I wanted to run by you. Since you’re the wannabe forensic guru, I thought you might be able to help.”

  Cameryn, aware her grandmother was listening to every word, leaned closer. “My dad should be back any minute and he won’t like it if you’re here.”

  Justin leaned in, too, on his side of the door. “No worries,” he said. “I’ll be ready to peel out of the driveway. I’m very fast.”

  “How’s Adam doing?”

  “His dad showed up and the questions were flying. I guess you already know about Rachel’s shrine, and when you combine it with the witness that saw him, well, it doesn’t look so good.”

  “What’s happening now?”

  “His dad said his kid needed a lawyer so that’s pretty much the end of it. Once a suspect bring lawyers up everything’s over. Lyric’s there, too.” He waggled the report in the air. “So, what do you say? Will you help me?”

  She could sense he was reading her closely, watching her for a reaction, gauging how they were going to treat each other since he’d shared the information about Hannah. And the way she was going to handle it was to send all that emotion reflexively underground. She was a professional talking about the case, that was all.

  “All right, let’s do it,” she said. Justin began to open the screen door to enter the kitchen. “Nope, other way,” Cameryn corrected him. She grabbed her jacket off a hook and said, “Follow me.” They hurried along the pave-stones to the edge of the yard where their glider sat beneath a cluster of large aspen. She liked it here, because there was no window facing this part of the yard. The glider was private.

  Leaves had landed on the seat, so Justin brushed them off, and they fell like giant snowflakes onto the ground. He took off his sunglasses and she could see the question in his eyes, could see the outer calm that hid what he felt churning beneath his surface. He took a step toward her, and Cameryn took a step back.

  “About the other day,” he began. “The way we left it, I—”

  But Cameryn cut him off. “No. I can’t do it, Justin. I haven’t talked to my dad yet and I just can’t do it. Not now. Tell me about the case.”

  “Before you shoot me completely down, can we at least sit?” he asked, pointing to the cleared-off swing.

  “Sure.” She sat down, and he sat next to her, closer, she realized, than he needed to. Silently Justin handed Cameryn the envelope. She opened it and pulled out the first report, skimming through the cause of death, which was listed as strangulation, to the manner, which was homicide, and then down to the toxicology levels. Most of the blanks had not been filled in, and Cameryn knew those omissions were because the tests would take days to complete. The rape test, however, had come back negative.

  “We know none of the other Christopher victims were sexually assaulted, right?” she asked as she flipped to the next page.

  “Why can’t we just talk?” His voice was soft, pleading. “I won’t bite.”

  She looked up at him and kept her gaze steady. “None of the other Christopher Killer victims were sexually assaulted. Is that right?”

  Justin raised one eyebrow, a lone comma on his forehead. “All right, we’ll do this your way,” he said. She could tell he was disappointed. Shifting gears, the tone of his voice seemed to change. The urgency was gone, replaced by a clinical, almost antiseptic sound. “I checked everything I could find on the other cases, and it’s like Jacobs told us at autopsy. None of the girls were assaulted. So, that leaves us with pretty much nothing. I mean, what’s the motive here?”

  “The killer could be female.”

  “I thought of that, too. But that’s not a profile that fits. Women pretty much aren’t serial killers, not unless they’re going along with some man.”

  “What about the Aileen Wuornos case?” Cameryn countered. “They even made a movie about her and the actress who played Wuornos won an Academy Award. Wuornos was a woman and a serial killer.”

  “You’re right. But in the Wuornos case the woman started off killing her tricks. See? Right off you got your motive. In this case I think our perp’s a man, but he’s a sicko without any kind of reason to kill that anyone can tell.” Justin leaned back into the glider and rested his head on its top rung. With his neck stretched that way, she saw a faint mark at the base of his neck, a scratch that almost blended into tan skin, no thicker than a pencil lead. “So what’s the story here?” he went on. “And what’s up with the medal? It makes no sense.”

  “I think the killer’s trying to leave some sort of message. I found out Saint Christopher is still a saint and he was used as a protection for travelers. It could mean the killer’s from far away.”

  “A traveler. Interesting.” Justin stretched out his legs, as if he were talking about the clouds instead of discussing a killer.

  “Do you know where the other murders happened?” Cameryn asked.

  “Actually, I’ve got a map here, with the locations marked. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern that I can tell. See what you think.” He reached inside the manila envelope and handed Cameryn a Xeroxed map. Four different locations had been starred, and next to the stars were names. Hillary Rogers, 19, Plano, Texas. Candace Jones, 17, Braxton, West Virginia. Dawn Kennedy, 22, Albany, New York. And now, the newest star, Rachel Geller, 18, Silverton, Colorado. She had wondered if the other victims had been from small towns, too, but Plano and Albany were big cities, although she wasn’t sure about Braxton. And Justin was right—there didn’t seem to be a pattern, at least not one that was obvious.

  “Okay, new question. Do you know anything about the difference between an organized and a disorganized killer?” he asked her.

  “A little.” She gave the glider a kick so she could move, since she did her best thinking when she was in motion. In her mind she pictured her Practical Homicide Investigation book, the one that graphically showed forensic techniques as well as real homicide scenes. With its explicit black-and-white photos and detailed profiles, her PHI was the roughest and most useful of her resource materials. It was the book her mammaw had tried to throw away. Cameryn had fished it out from underneath a pizza box, and it still smelled like onions.

  Squinting, she pictured the list. “I know disorganized killers are loners,” she recited. “They usually live close to the crime scene and, let me think…they’re night people, right? I mean, they like to go out at all hours, to bars and stuff. And, um, I think the book said they internalize their emotions, like hurt and anger. They tend to look different, too.” She stopped then, picturing Adam. That first time she’d picked him up he’d talked about visiting Hillside Cemetery and hanging out in the basement of the souvenir shop. No matter what the explanation, he had put up photographs of Rachel. Plus he was a loner, which by definition put him on the fringes of normal, which meant in at least a few ways he fit the disorganized profile.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  Cameryn hesitated. “Disorganized killers are considered the weird ones in the neighborhood. They’re males. They’re not educated, they have no close personal friends, and are usually between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five.”

  Justin smiled at her. “Bravo,” he said. “That’s very good. No wonder your pop hired you.”

  But Cameryn waved the compliment away. It wasn’t hard to figure out the direction of this conversation. “So what you’re saying is that you think Adam’s the killer. You think he fits the profile of the disorganized offender. You think he’s a copycat who built a shrine to Rachel and when she rejected him he killed her and put a Christopher medal on her to throw the police off the trail.”

  “I didn’t say that. Adam clammed right up when his dad arrived and demanded a lawyer—some high-powered woman from Durango. Don’t put words in my mouth, Cameryn. The reason I’m here has to do with these reports. Look.” He pu
t the stem of the sunglasses between his teeth as he opened the manila envelope and murmured, “I had these documents faxed this morning and…Are you even listening to me?”

  She wasn’t, at least not completely. Her thoughts worked quickly, one idea morphing into another, and she wanted to follow their lead. “Albany. One of the girls that was killed was from Albany.”

  “I want to talk to you about the coroner’s report.”

  “All right, all right, I’m listening.”

  A voice drifted from the back door. “Yoo-hoo, Cameryn, are you getting too cold out there? I made some hot chocolate.” Mammaw stood by the kitchen door, her posture ramrod straight. She clutched two mugs, one in each hand.

  “No thanks, Mammaw,” Cameryn called back. “We’re fine.”

  Even from the distance she could tell her grandmother was giving Justin a hard look. “You’re sure, Cammie?”

  “Positive. Thanks anyway.”

  “All right. Come inside if you get too chilled.”

  “We will. Bye, Mammaw.”

  Justin pushed the glider and chewed the stem of his sunglasses. “Well, it doesn’t take a great detective to figure out she doesn’t like me,” he said as the screen door slammed shut.

  “Nope. She doesn’t trust you. Neither does my dad. They both think you’re up to no good.”

  He looked disappointed, but only for a moment. “Actually, I would have liked that hot chocolate,” he said, and dropped the sunglasses into his pocket. “Let’s get back to the case.”

  Cameryn said, “By the way, just so you know, Dr. Jewel doesn’t think it’s Adam. He said so in his reading after you left. He said Rachel told him the killer is still in Silverton and will kill again.”

  Justin put his foot down and stopped the glider, which caused Cameryn to rock forward. “Believe it or not, I think he’s right. It’s not Adam. I just don’t think he’s our guy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “A couple of things. First of all, I believe the perp’s an organized offender. Jacobs’s looking at Adam first and the killing scene second. That’s backwards. What do you remember about organized killers?”

  “Um, they’re smart. They fit in well with society. They’re the type of people you want to be friends with, but they’re really self-centered. They’re almost always male, older than the disorganized killer. And I think they try to involve themselves with the police investigation.”

  “Exactly!” Justin turned to face her. “That’s a completely different profile than Adam. Think about the crime scene. The killer used duct tape to bind Rachel’s hands, which shows the need for control, and control equals organized. And another thing—the perp had to think ahead to bring the duct tape, which shows planning, which again points to organized.”

  “Rachel’s body was laid out carefully, with her hair combed and her feet positioned. Isn’t that the kind of stuff an organized killer does? And leaving the Christopher medal’s another organized thing to do,” she added excitedly, “because they like to ‘make a statement.’ Leaving the medal is a pretty big statement, don’t you think?”

  Justin seemed impressed. “And I thought you were just interested in cutting people up.”

  Cameryn smiled at this. “A forensic pathologist has to learn to read the clues off the body. If you don’t, you won’t be able to process it right. Like I said, I study.”

  “Which brings me back to why I’m here,” he told her. “Organized, disorganized—that’ll only take us so far. I want to go with facts. Look at this partial tox screen.” He moved closer, and she could feel his arm against hers, could smell the scent of his soap. As his index finger ran down the front page until it hit a bright yellow line, she noticed that Justin chewed his fingernails. “Begin with Rachel’s blood work—there, on line twelve.”

  Drowned in bright yellow ink were the typed words “Rohypnol (flunitrazepam).” She looked at him blankly. “I’m sorry, Justin. If I’m supposed to know what these are, I don’t.”

  “Rohypnol is a benzodiazepine that is also known by the street names of roofies or R-2. You know, the date-rape drug?”

  “What?”

  “Rachel was drugged, Cammie. Someone jacked up her drink. You’re a waitress at the Grand—do you ever leave your own drink out on the counter while you’re working? Because the way I see it, the perp could have slipped a roofie into her drink and waited for her to close the restaurant. This is a fairly low level of drug—it would have made her woozy and maybe a little sick. In that state she probably would have walked right off with the guy.”

  “Except servers aren’t allowed to drink on duty—at least where the customers can see. Sodas are in the back only.”

  “Hmmm. Well, somehow the perp got it in her drink. And it gets even stranger.” Justin’s brow furrowed in concentration as he pulled more papers from inside the envelope. “What I’m going to tell you now is something that you can tell no one else.”

  Cameryn raised her eyebrows. “Okay.”

  “I’m serious, Cameryn. I could get in big trouble for showing you this. It’s information from the other Christopher cases. Law enforcement holds back certain things from the media to protect the integrity of the case if they go to trial. You can’t let this out to anyone.”

  “I won’t.” Cameryn crossed her heart. “I swear.”

  “These are the coroner reports from the other victims.” He pointed to the second page. “Look where I highlighted. It’s the same on all of them.”

  The outdoor sounds—the creaking of the glider, the rustling of the trees—seemed to fade into silence as she read one brightly highlighted area, then another. She flipped through the other coroner reports. Flunitrazepam, flunitrazepam, flunitrazepam—each murdered girl had been given date-rape drugs.

  “One of the other victims was a waitress like Rachel, another worked at a Seven-Eleven, and the third was a maid in a hotel. Four girls on low levels of date-rape drugs, guaranteed to make them compliant.”

  Justin tapped the reports. “For once you’re not connecting the dots. The information on the roofies wasn’t released to the media. A copycat killer could place a Christopher medal on a victim, easy, but how would he know to use the drug? Rachel was another victim from the same serial killer.”

  “So it’s not Adam,” Cameryn breathed.

  “No. Jewel was right.”

  Sounds came rushing back as Cameryn’s mind began to whirr again. It wasn’t Adam. The drug suggested a person with at least some city experience, and leaving the medal behind suggested a traveler…. She chewed theedge of her lip. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but Dr. Jewel knows a lot about the murder. Could it be him?”

  “Again, I thought of that, but we checked him out just like all the other police did in all the other cases. Unless he can kill someone from a distance using nothing but psychic powers, he’s not our man. I checked all the airlines and he didn’t fly out of New Mexico, period. Ditto with buses, which don’t even run to Silverton. I checked every single car rental in New Mexico and the man didn’t rent a pogo stick. Just in case, I ran all the car rental returns during the time frame and got nada. Not to mention the witness who said he was there at the conference. Jewel’s clean.”

  “Well, how can you explain the things he said about Rachel? He said he knew she dyed her hair. He said she had on hoop earrings with green beads. How could he have known all that?”

  Justin paused. “He couldn’t have. I think he’s the real deal.”

  But Cameryn was taking in something new, Justin’s dirt-covered license plate. Something registered in her mind. Something Dr. Jewel had said…

  Her face must have changed, because Justin asked, “What’s wrong, Cammie? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just…tired. It’s been a hard day. I think maybe I should go in now.” She looked again at the mark on his neck, the bit of pink that stretched up his neck like a snake’s tail. And it felt like that very snake was coiling inside
her, knotting her together.

  His gaze followed hers. “You’re looking at the scratches? I was pruning trees for my landlady. I guess I’m not very good at it.” He flipped up the collar of his jacket.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Well, my dad’s going to be here any second, so—”

  “So you’re telling me I should go before I cause problems. No worries. I certainly don’t want to overstay my welcome.” He stood, and the glider did a crazy dance before Cameryn steadied it. The sun was behind Justin, wiping out his features as his frame cast a shadow over her. She looked up at him.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked again.

  She made herself smile. “Positive. Can I keep this map? The one that shows where the victims died?”

  “Sure. I’ve got copies at the station. Okay, then. Well, I’ll just get on back to Sheriff Jacobs. Make sure you stay out of trouble.”

  “I will,” she nodded. At that moment nothing made sense. She was a scientist, a skeptic, and yet there seemed to be proof that Jewel was real. Justin believed in him. So did Lyric. And in some ways Jewel seemed to meet the burden of proof that science demanded. Still, the idea of a psychic getting signs from the dead went against everything she believed in. Her mind reeled as she tried to separate the fact from the fantasy.

  “You promise to stay out of trouble?” Justin pressed.

  “I promise.”

  “Good.”

  She watched as he walked to the edge of her driveway. He gave her a tiny wave, touching his fingers to his forehead, then slid into the seat of his Subaru. She looked at the map, at the star on Albany, the place where Justin had been raised, and West Virginia, just a heartbeat away from the Blue Ridge Mountains where Justin admitted he’d traveled on his motorcycle. He’d been in the area where two of the murders had occurred. But that in itself meant nothing. Millions of people had connections like that. It was the piece that Jewel had divined that tied it all together.

  Justin tapped his horn twice as he pulled away. His tires spun a small cloud of dirt that hung in the air, almost covering the New York license plate.