Creatures of Appetite

by Todd Travis

  “Holy shit,” Scroggins said.

  “Oh my God,” Simms whispered to himself.

  “He’s put some time into making his kills look like Iceman’s but he’s not as smart as he thinks he is; there’s a world of differences between his kills and Iceman’s. First of all, the Iceman has never hit the same town more than once so far, so why would he start with the Brainard area? Second, the Iceman started west and is moving east in a slow but steady path mostly along the interstate.

  “Except for Brainard, which is much farther north than any of his other kills and too far to the west, it would mean that the Iceman is backtracking and I don’t see him doing that. Third, look at each of the four Brainard area abductions.

  “First girl was snatched out of her dad’s car at a gas station while Dad was inside paying for gas. It was nine-thirty at night, how did our guy know Dad was going to stop for gas at that gas station? How did he know Dad was going to pay cash and not charge it? He didn’t, he just happened to be there by chance and snatched the girl while Dad’s back was turned and made off with her. They found the body the next morning. The Iceman would never do that. Shortest discovery time for the Iceman is six days.

  “Traffic going back and forth, it’s a busy intersection. Lucky nobody saw him. It wasn’t a careful grab. Crime of opportunity, the Iceman would never do that. All four of these snatches were opportunistic, and each of the four bodies was discovered in less than seventy-two hours. They were not the work of the Iceman, he’s a control freak, he would never do that. This guy is sloppier, most of the evidence you have is from him, he’s practically left you road signs and you should have fucking caught him by now. The Iceman is a smart crafty fucker and he’s going to be a bitch to catch, but this guy is somebody different and it should have been obvious to you the minute he popped up.”

  Kane regarded Thorne with newfound respect. Gilday and Scroggins glanced at Simms, who has again flushed and had for once forgotten about his hair.

  “I can see it. Makes sense, Jeff,” Scroggins said to Gilday.

  “Yeah. What do you think, Ken?” Gilday asked Simms gently. Simms took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “I’ll have to, uh, run it by the team, and the captain, of course,” Simms coughed and fidgeted. “But I guess that it’s definitely possible and if true, it would explain some things. He could be right.”

  “You guess? If true? Could be right? What kind of chickenshit outfit is this, anyway?”

  “Hold on a minute, Thorne,” Gilday said. “With all due respect, you’ve been here all of six hours and we don’t know each other very well yet, so forgive us for not dropping our drawers immediately for a short-arm inspection from you, okay?”

  “Look, stud-”

  “Could you please stop this aggressive male posturing, all of you? It’s not getting us anywhere,” Kane said. “What can we do now?”

  “I’m going to get back to the team and fly the theory by them, see what they think and if they clear it we’ll update the captain,” Simms said as he gathered up some of his materials. “We’ll do up an analysis, post it on the hotline and of course CC you on it.”

  “Two serial killers, shit,” Scroggins said. “What if Thorne’s right, Jeff?”

  “What if I’m right? Simms!” Thorne snapped his fingers.

  Simms, who’d already begun his hasty retreat, stopped and turned toward Thorne.

  “What?”

  “Let me ask you a question. Where did they get the title for the show Hawaii Five-O?”

  “They … uh, called the show that because Hawaii is the fiftieth state.”

  “Here’s a more difficult one. What was Jack Lord’s real name?”

  Simms coughed and stared at the floor for a moment before answering.

  “The name on Jack Lord’s birth certificate was John Joseph Patrick Ryan,” Simms replied.

  Thorne looked at Kane and the troopers triumphantly.

  “What if I’m right? Of course I’m right.”

  Simms’s reluctant demonstration of TV trivia was interrupted by the entrance of Forsythe and Hairston into headquarters, fresh from their latest press briefing. Forsythe shrugged off his winter jacket and stamped over to Kane and Thorne’s cubicle.

  “All right,” Forsythe said as he loosened his tie. “Do you two have anything to offer me besides the usual bullshit?”

  Thorne looked at Forsythe, composing in his mind a truly sarcastic comment, but before Thorne could unleash it, one of the uniforms, a young sergeant named Johnson, stood and waved for Forsythe’s attention.

  “Captain, it’s Reilly, he says it’s a priority!” Johnson ran to Forsythe and handed him a phone.

  “Forsythe,” Forsythe barked into the phone. He listened for a minute. “Are you sure, are you absolutely fucking sure? Good. Sit tight, you’ll be hearing from us.”

  Forsythe tossed the phone back to Johnson, stood up on a chair and whistled to get the attention of everyone on the floor. Heads popped up from cubicles everywhere.

  “All right, everyone, we just had the break we were waiting for! That was the lab. They got something on the body parts found in Central City, the remains of the Moeller girl. They found a pubic hair belonging to an African-American male!”

  An excited murmur went through the room. Forsythe swiveled to Hairston.

  “Norm, who was that black guy we liked in Kearney?”

  “Carl Mitchell, convicted sex offender,” Hairston replied. “He’s the only African-American we looked at, a part-time truck driver, no alibis for many if not most of the abductions. We interviewed but he lawyered up and we had nothing solid to hold him on.”

  “Now we do. Get on the horn, I want him picked up pronto, I want warrants for his house and DNA sampling, I want it matched with the hair we found and I want him in the box and spilling his skeevy guts out! Let’s go!”

  Forsythe jumped down and grabbed his jacket as everyone in the room started moving all at once.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Thorne said as he casually made another move on his chessboard.

  “What was that?” Forsythe practically skidded to a stop.

  “I said, you’re making a mistake, he’s not your guy.”

  “How do you know?” Scroggins asked.

  “The Iceman is white, not black. No black man had anything to do with this.”

  “Oh shit, here we go again!” Forsythe slammed his jacket down. “What is it with you fucking feds, anyway? Why do you always think that it’s a white guy doing the serial killing?”

  “Primarily because the men we have been catching at it always seem to be white,” Thorne retorted. “Not only that, I’ve been here all day and I haven’t even seen a dark-haired person, much less a dark-skinned one. How many black people do you even have in this state, anyway?”

  “Two point eight percent of the total population,” Kane offered, grateful for her earlier research.

  “Two point eight percent? You want to tell me that in a state with less than three percent black people in it, a black man is somehow going to be able drop into different small towns where everyone is white as Casper the fucking Ghost, waltz in and waltz out with a young white girl under his arm and NO ONE, not a neighbor, not a gas station attendant, not one person reports a stranger with a dark face? Come on.”

  “We have a goddamn pubic hair from a black man!”

  “I don’t doubt that you do, but said pubic hair did not come from the nether regions of the Iceman. There will be some other explanation.”

  “I can’t believe I’m going through this fucking bullshit again,” Forsythe pointed his finger at Thorne. “Look, Slick, I remember this guy Mitchell, I sweated him on the box when we first brought him in four months ago, he’s guilty, I don’t care what color he is, he’s guilty, I could smell it on him. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got our killer in our sights,” Forsythe picked up his coat again.

  “Which one?” Thorne asked.

  “What?” Forsythe stopped. />
  “Which killer do you have in your sights?”

  “What the fuck …”

  “Uh, Captain,” Simms found his voice again, “Agent Thorne has reason to believe that we are dealing with two subjects here.”

  “What? What is this happy horseshit?”

  “Agent Thorne believes …”

  “You have two separate serial killers at work here. One of the jokers is masking his kills to make them look like the first one, but you definitely got two here,” Thorne said. “And neither of them is black.”

  “I don’t believe this! Are you deliberately trying to fuck me up on this?” Forsythe was incredulous. “Was that why you were sent here, to deliberately fuck up this investigation like the other guy did? I don’t have time to fuck around with you, the Frederickson girl might still be alive and you’re here dicking me around! You! Stay out of my way, understand? Let’s go, Norm, I want to be there when they slap the bracelets on Mitchell. Goddamn fucking feds!”

  Forsythe put on his jacket and stormed off, Hairston close on his heels. Scroggins, Gilday and Kane looked at Thorne. Simms turned a darker shade of purple and snuck off with his reports. Everyone else in the large room suddenly found something better to do elsewhere, away from Thorne.

  “Well, I have to say,” Gilday said, “you sure are making friends fast here.”

  “I’m not here to whisper sweet nothings and hand out hand-jobs, fellas. I’m here to tell you what I know, whether you like it or not.”

  “I think you’re right about there being two killers,” Scroggins said, “but are you sure neither of them is black?”

  “I wouldn’t say so if I wasn’t; both of these killers are white.”

  “The DC snipers were black,” Gilday pointed out.

  “I wouldn’t classify them as serial killers,” Thorne said.

  “What the hell else would you call them?” Scroggins exclaimed.

  “Technically, I would call them spree killers. They just happened to be a little more careful than most. Careful spree killers, it’s a new category. They were spree killers, the Iceman is a serial killer.”

  “What’s the difference?” Scroggins asked.

  “Kane?” Thorne put her on the spot.

  “In spree killing, the identity of the victims is secondary and oftentimes incidental to the act,” Kane recited. “Once they decide to go, spree killers kill who’s available, which we have seen at post offices and schools, acting in response to their anger at something beyond the individual victims in their path. For serial killers, the victims and what they represent to the killer are primary to the act, almost as if they have a relationship that’s personal.”

  Kane caught another glimmer of approval from Thorne.

  “Yeah, but Thorne,” Gilday said, “what difference does all that make now? We got evidence now, we got to follow the evidence to where it leads us and if it leads us to a black man, then that’s all she wrote.”

  Johnson popped up again, holding a phone to his ear.

  “Hey, Jeff, is the captain gone?” Johnson asked. “I got another priority.”

  “He’s probably already on his way to Kearney, Bill, what’s up?”

  “He’s already in the transit, Rich, call Norm on his phone,” Johnson said into the phone. “Did you post it? He’s online on the mobile in the truck.”

  “What’s up, Bill?” Scroggins asked after Johnson hung up.

  “There’s just been another abduction, three miles outside of Brainard,” Johnson said, hesitant. “Reilly’s posting it on the hotline right now and we’re putting her out as an Amber Alert. She was snatched not even ten minutes ago.”

  “Bingo, there’s our copycat again, what’d I tell you?” Thorne said.

  Kane immediately refreshed the hotline on her desktop computer and hit print.

  “Shit, that was quick too,” Scroggins said. “It’s not far away, Jeff, let’s follow CSU over to the abduction site, get a look at it ourselves, what do you say?”

  “Affirmative on that, buddy.”

  “Kane,” Thorne said, “do you remember what I said about timing?”

  “Of course. Timing is everything.”

  “Guess what, time is here and now,” Thorne pointed his finger at Johnson. “You, what’s your name?”

  “Sergeant Johnson.”

  “Johnson, I need a car,” Thorne grabbed his coat.

  “We’re going?” Kane asked.

  “You’re going?” Scroggins asked.

  “Hell yes, this scene is red hot and I want a whiff. Johnson, get me a car.”

  “Uh, the captain said …”

  “I don’t care what the captain said, Johnson, get me some fucking transportation!” Thorne snapped. Johnson looked to the troopers for help. Technically, he’d been assigned to the troopers by Forsythe to act as their assistant so it was their call, but most everyone walked in fear of offending the captain, and helping the fibbies was one definite way of doing it.

  “Come on, Bill,” Gilday said. “It won’t hurt if they take a look with us. We’ll all go together. We can follow up with CSU while the captain deals with Mitchell. Get some keys and we’ll get going.”

  Thorne put on his coat and made one more move on his chessboard. He checked his weapon and walked off without looking behind him.

  “Let’s rock and roll, kids,” Thorne rubbed his hands together and Kane would swear that he was almost gleeful at the prospect of what lay ahead.

  13

  Bill Johnson nervously guided a police van through the dark county roads of Nebraska on the way to Brainard, Gilday, Scroggins, Kane and Thorne in the back.

  “Janis Jacobson, eight years old,” Kane read out loud from the printed report. “Playing in her front yard with her dog. Mother turns her back for a moment, girl is gone and the dog is dead.”

  “Crime of opportunity,” Scroggins said.

  “Dog was stabbed, right?” Thorne asked.

  “Throat cut.”

  “The Iceman never killed any dogs,” observed Gilday.

  “This guy isn’t him by a long shot. Biggest difference between this guy and the Iceman is how this guy leaves the bodies. His cuts are more jagged and rushed. He’s obviously stimulated by the kill and gets a little messy despite himself. If the Iceman is messy, he doesn't let us see it.

  “With this guy’s other four homicides, you found the body within forty-eight hours. He’s impatient as hell and that means this one will turn up soon and not far from where she was abducted,” Thorne said. “He parts them out, but not nearly to the extent that the Iceman does. You’ve found most of the parts buried not far from the bodies on these four. Never happens with the Iceman, when you find part of a body, that’s the only part you ever get. You never recover anything else after the initial discovery. Most of the Iceman’s vics you never recover. You’ve gotten every Brainard girl.

  “Two more major differences,” Thorne continued. “First one is the panties. This guy loves to play with the panties, once they were tied to a tree nearby, once stuffed in her mouth; he likes to be funny with the panties. Iceman doesn’t do that. Second major difference is that Mr. FunnyPants doesn’t like to be watched. He covered the eyes of his victims with something, all four times. He has to. That’s his signature.”

  “Jesus Christ, why didn’t somebody say something before this?” Scroggins asked.

  “Why didn’t you notice it, sport?” Thorne asked.

  “Hey …”

  “You’re right,” Gilday interrupted Scroggins before he could get going, “we should have caught that. What else do you got?”

  “This guy, FunnyPants, he lives in the area. You’ve probably interviewed and looked at him already. He’s white, eighteen to twenty-five, unemployed high school dropout. History of depression and probable suicide attempts, he’s been in a mental institution at least once and currently taking prescription medication. No driver’s license, probably lives with a single relative who looks after him. I would say he has a def
ormity on his face, a cleft lip or a scar, something significant that draws negative attention.”

  Scroggins and Gilday looked at each other.

  “Holy shit,” Scroggins said under his breath, “that sounds like …”

  “Someone you know?” Thorne asked.

  Scroggins’s cell phone rang and he answered it.

  “Yeah,” Gilday replied, “someone we looked hard at. He had a rock-solid alibi, though.”

  “What? No shit?” Scroggins exclaimed.

  “What is it?” Thorne asked.

  “They found the Jacobson girl’s body already,” Scroggins hung up the phone, “right outside of Garrison.”

  “That was fast,” Kane said.

  “Fastest recovery yet, this one is nuclear-hot,” Scroggins said.

  “Garrison is only five or six miles from Brainard,” Gilday said.

  “Then that’s where we go first,” Thorne said. “Johnson! We’re going to Garrison and stop riding the brake; we want to get there sometime tonight.”

  Kane noticed that the dynamic had shifted and there was no doubt as to who was in charge now. She found that interesting, to say the least.

  14

  In a cornfield a mile outside of Garrison, searchlights lit up the sky and a tarp covered the dumpsite to protect it from the heavy snowfall. Uniformed men and vehicles surround the site and cordoned off the area with police tape. A forensics team took photos and searched thoroughly for trace evidence as Scroggins and Gilday observed. Kane viewed the body for a long moment before rejoining Thorne, standing off by himself away the group.

  “Are you going to take a look?” Kane asked him.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?’

  “I’m looking at other things.”

  “How could somebody do that to a child?” Kane asked, looking ill.

  “HOW is easy,” Thorne replied. “HOW is always easy. Why, why is what’s important.”

  “Then why, fucking why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  Kane thought on that, realizing that Thorne was again testing her.

  “He’s angry.”