A Serial Affair

by Natalie Dunbar

  She leaned over him, smoothing the hair back from his forehead. Then she fumbled with her bag. Something flashed in the moonlight filtering in from the front of the tent.

  Flint’s throat caught when he saw what it was. He tried to cry out but a painful, gruntlike sound was all he could manage.

  The blonde’s eyes were cold with malice. “This is for all of us, for what you did. You see you didn’t really get away with it.”

  She fumbled with his belt and his pants. Then he saw the knife rise and come smashing down. Flint whimpered…

  CHAPTER 9

  Reed was having a hell of a dream. They’d been having dinner when Marina shot him a dreamy-eyed looked then leaned over and kissed him. Now she was in his lap and all over him, hot, warm and sweet. He reveled in the taste of her mouth, her unique scent and the tactile feel of her soft curvy flesh in his arms.

  A nagging, buzzing sound pulled at him. He fought it, realizing that he must be asleep. He didn’t want to wake up.

  Marina paused between kisses to rub her face against his and nibble his bottom lip. “Are you going to get that?”

  Reed sat up in bed, pounding the mattress and cursing. Automatically, his gaze touched on the alarm clock he kept on the other side of the room. It was only five o’clock in the morning! His alarm wasn’t ringing. It was the damned phone!

  Lifting the receiver, he snarled a hello into the phone.

  “Woke you up, huh?”

  Reed recognized Marco’s voice. He was a detective friend who worked the third shift. “You know you did, Dawg, so what’s up?”

  “We just found another mutilated body. This time it was Alderman Huber. We found him at the construction site for the new office building down on the waterfront. He was at the ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday and came back later to party at the Yancy Street Hotel. Since the scene is still fresh, I figured you’d want to see it before the forensic boys get done and they pack things up.”

  “You figured right,” he told Marco. “It sounds like something that should be handled by the task force anyway.”

  Copying the address on the pad he kept by the bed, Reed thanked Marco and put in a call to Marina.

  Still half asleep, her voice was soft and melodious. As he’d suspected, she insisted on coming along and agreed to meet him at the site.

  With a brief, brisk shower and some speed dressing, Reed was on his way.

  At the construction site, a group of patrolmen kept people back. Reed flashed his badge and pulled Marina in along with him. When it looked as if there might be a problem, Marco appeared and vouched for them both.

  At the tent, forensics had taken casts of high-heeled footprints discovered where they’d found Huber, but they were a bit skeptical since many people had trampled the area during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. There was also a pointy high-heeled toe print in the blood near the body and forensics was busy capturing it.

  Moving through the area in plastic-covered shoes and gloved hands, Reed and Marina stood outside the taped area taking in the scene.

  Flint Huber was sprawled on the floor of tent with his pants and underwear down around his knees. He’d been stabbed and unmanned just like the other victims. Glassy-eyed in death, he stared up at them, his expression unnaturally calm.

  Blood painted the scene, which was tainted with the stench of death. Reed swallowed bile. He heard Marina gag, but she, too, held onto the contents of her stomach. They stepped parallel to the line of yellow tape.

  Scanning the area past the body, Reed noticed that the white-linen tablecloth on the nearby table was mussed and bore imprints that suggested that someone had been sitting on it.

  “Flint Huber. He would have been next on the list if the rationale we worked out last night rings true,” Reed noted.

  “Only four more to go,” Marina reminded him. “We’ve got to make sure protection is arranged for the rest of them.”

  Reed went back to watching forensics work. The science involved had always fascinated him. “You know this doesn’t fit the four-month pattern, don’t you?”

  Marina sighed. “Yeah, I was thinking that, too. Maybe our killer saw an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.”

  “Maybe.” Reed inclined his head. “Or maybe she’s changing the pattern.”

  “Dear Lord, I hope not,” she said with a sigh. “We’ve got to stop her. I’m hoping we can bring her in alive.”

  Reed’s gaze met hers. He didn’t speak, but his expression spoke volumes. He thought she was dreaming.

  Marina turned her attention back to where forensics was still painstakingly collecting evidence. “There’s not much more we can do here. I’m going home to get another half hour of sleep and get ready for work,” she announced.

  When he didn’t reply, she turned and started for her car. Reed fell into step beside her. Down near the gate, the patrolmen held a group of reporters at bay. They shouted questions at Reed and Marina.

  “No comment,” Reed called back calmly.

  “Hey, I know you,” one yelled as Marina went past. “You’re not a cop, you’re FBI. What are you doing here?”

  “No comment.” Marina kept walking.

  When a group of reporters headed for them, she and Reed got into their cars and drove away.

  Reed called Marina as soon as he got into his condo. “You know we’re going to have to brief the press about the murders, don’t you?”

  Marina sounded tired. There was an undercurrent of irritability in her tone, probably because she hadn’t got enough sleep. “Yeah, I knew it was coming. I just didn’t think we had enough information about what’s happened at the site to be briefing anyone.”

  “That’s true, but I’ve seen how this works with other people assigned to task forces. We’re going to have to brief the media and give them something to satisfy the public that we’re working this. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  On the other end she responded quickly and hung up the phone. Reed didn’t bother taking off his clothes to climb back into bed. He set the alarm clock and crashed on the couch, fully clothed.

  By nine o’clock, the task force had received a direct request from the mayor to hold a press conference on their activities before the end of the day. The media now knew that Alderman Huber had been killed and a connection had been made to Elliot Washington’s death.

  Reed had been called in to brief his captain, Ean Shepherd, and Ross Spaulding, Marina’s supervisor, had called for an update on their progress. Reed and Marina scheduled the briefing to the press for 3:00 p.m. to give forensics time to supply preliminary data, and themselves as much time as possible to prepare.

  At three, Marina and Reed stood together at the wood podium in the station training room that had been converted into a briefing room for the press. She and Reed had drawn straws on who would speak first. She’d won. It hadn’t been a popular decision with his management, but Reed had always been a straight-up guy. He stood by his decision and she loved him for it.

  The room was filled with several local people she’d only seen on television before this. Working with Talbot, she been a part of national briefings to the press on several occasions, but standing here with Reed to brief on their work felt like a totally different game. She took in a breath and let it out slowly. As cameras flashed in their faces and cameramen jockeyed for optimum positions, she spoke into the microphone.

  “Good afternoon,” she began, pleased that her voice came out strong and confident. “I am FBI Special Agent Marina Santos of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and this is Lieutenant Reed Crawford of the Chicago Police Department. We’re both co-chairs of the task force put together by the FBI and the Chicago Police Department at the request of Mayor Dansinger to identify and arrest what we believe to be a serial killer operating in the Chicago area. With the death of Alderman Flint Huber yesterday, we’ve identified four victims: Aubrey Russell, Colton Edwards, Elliot Washington and Flint Huber. Each victim was murdered, his body mutilated
and left in a public place. Lieutenant Crawford will continue this briefing.”

  Marina stepped aside and Reed took his place in front of the microphone and reintroduced himself.

  “As part of our investigation, we’ve been working to determine what the victims have in common and if the killer is selecting them at random. We have established that the choice of victims is not random. Each victim has been between the ages of twenty-six to twenty-eight. Each victim attended Chicago’s Merriwhether University during the same three-year period and all belonged to certain organizations that we are not prepared to identify at this time. We are in the process of contacting potential victims and offering them protection. We’re asking that anyone with information about any of these murders, that could lead to an arrest, please contact the taskforce at 1-800-TForce1. This concludes our briefing. We will now have a short question and answer period.”

  Justin Cleary of the local ABC station got his question in first. “Should all male students who attended Merriwhether during the years the current victims attended be worried? How big is your pool of potential victims?”

  “No, all male students at the college during the years the victims attended should not be worried,” Reed answered from his place at the podium. “We’ve identified a much smaller group at risk and are currently notifying them of the danger and making arrangements for their safety.”

  Carla Corbin, another reporter at a local station followed up with the next question. “What are you doing for former students at risk who may have moved out of the area?”

  “We’re asking male former students who attended Merriwhether with the victims and belonged to the same organizations on campus to contact the task force if the information on file with Merriwhether is not current.”

  “Are we looking for a male or female serial killer?” Ron Collins, a Tribune reporter interjected.

  “The evidence to date indicates that the killer is a woman,” Marina said.

  Collins nodded in response.

  The next question came from a Chicago Sun Times’ reporter who was always critical of the police and other law enforcement agencies. “How long has the task force been working these murders?”

  “A little over three weeks,” Marina responded, straightening her shoulders and bracing for a healthy dose of criticism.

  “If you knew that a select group of Merriwhether students was in danger from a serial killer, why didn’t you warn the public? Maybe you could have saved Alderman Huber’s life.”

  Marina faced the reporter, fighting hard to keep the anger out of her voice. “Actually, we didn’t identify the group until yesterday and it could still be a coincidence. We suspected that former Merriwhether students were in danger, but we could not be certain which group until we gathered and analyzed enough evidence. Starting a wholesale panic among the former students was contrary to the public interest.”

  “How many potential victims remain?”

  “We are not prepared to make that information public at this time,” Reed said, giving Marina time to recover her temper.

  “How big is your task force?” an older man in the back row called.

  “Special Agent Santos has access to all FBI resources needed and I have access to all the C.P.D. resources,” Reed answered diplomatically.

  “So there’s just the two of you!” the man stressed.

  Reed ignored him.

  “Last question,” Marina announced, checking the clock with anticipation. She selected a slender, nondescript female reporter from one of the smaller newspapers. “What are your and Lieutenant Crawford’s qualifications for running a task force?”

  Marina all but let out a sigh of relief. This question would be easy. “I’ve worked in the FBI’s Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime for a number of years, most of it working to bring down high-profile serial killers with Lowell Talbot. Lieutenant Crawford has spent a number of years with C.P.D. working high-profile cases in homicide and honing his investigative skills.”

  “Why isn’t Talbot working this one?” the reporter retorted. “Doesn’t Chicago merit the best the FBI and the C.P.D. have to offer?”

  Heat burned the surface of the skin on Marina’s face and neck. That comment was a particular twist of the knife in her gut. She’d worked hard to get to the place where she would be offered an assignment like this and she was damned and determined to do her job. She ground her teeth, swallowing back bitter words that could be twisted and misinterpreted by the press.

  While she struggled with herself, Reed spoke in a calm, authoritative voice. “Both agencies feel that Ms. Santos and I have the skills necessary to stop this killer.”

  Marina recovered. “This concludes our briefing. Thank you all for coming.”

  More camera flashes, a few more questions tossed out for comment and ignored, and then it was over.

  “Not bad,” Captain Shepherd declared from the back of the room when the last of the press had gone. “Of course there’ll be more fallout over Huber, so get ready. He was popular with the press. The sooner you bring down this serial killer, the better.”

  Reed and Marina gathered their things and walked back to their office. They barely looked at each other. Marina felt as if she’d been through an emotional wringer.

  Inside the office, the temp they’d left working the phones was busy. She’d already received several calls from former Merriwhether students. Two of them were students on Reed and Marina’s potential victim list. They’d been asked to come into the station, but had elected to wait until tomorrow. They had requested increased patrols in their areas and agreed to stay home.

  Marina was determined to go home and rest. The press conference had been draining. In addition, she figured that she had at least a little downtime before the killer struck again. In fact she could almost imagine the killer in a room somewhere laughing at how she’d gotten away with another murder.

  On the way out, Marina and Reed passed the break area where several cops were gathered around the wall-mounted television. On the screen was a replay of a portion of the press conference they’d conducted earlier. A scathing review of the press conference and the task force work being done by Reed and Marina followed. Mercifully, someone changed the channel, but the new station featured more of the same. When another station change yielded the same refrain, Reed and Marina turned and headed for their cars.

  “If you listen to them, we’re the most incompetent pair on the planet,” Reed mused darkly as they went through the gate to the parking lot.

  “It’ll get better,” Marina said, determined to rise above this round of negativity. “We can get together and work on our list of perpetrators. Maybe something will pop out of it.”

  “Not tonight.” Reed cut her off. “I need a task force break tonight and I figure it’ll have to last me for a while.”

  Marina swallowed and said good night. Normally she would have argued with him or bullied him into seeing that they had to work together and push on, but she was still feeling too bruised from the way things had turned out. She knew that the media attack and the day’s events were just temporary setbacks, but in truth, Reed’s words echoed thoughts she’d been trying to suppress.

  Marina’s mind was all but numb from overwork and stress. She felt overwhelming guilt for not moving through the case information fast enough to stop another murder and yet, what could she have done? She and Reed had worked hard. Damned hard. Marina had come under fire while working with Lowell Talbot, but never like this. Talbot had somehow known how to play the media like an instrument. They’d loved him.

  She glanced back at Reed, noting that he’d assumed that calm, brick-hard expression that covered a multitude of emotions. He’d had that expression when she’d dumped him, too. Why couldn’t she forget about that?

  On automatic pilot, Marina got in her car and drove. She didn’t want to go home where her family and friends would be sure to drop by or to call to hash over the news reports. She oscillated between thoughts of go
ing to the gym to hit the punching bag and drowning her sorrows at the bar.

  The gym won. She changed and went a good forty minutes with the punching bag. Afterward, she showered and put on fresh clothing, but replays of the press conference still weighed her down. Worst of all, the nagging realization that the serial killer had changed the mode of operation hovered like a dark cloud. Anything could happen now, even another murder.

  CHAPTER 10

  Somehow Marina ended up at Cuff’s, the local cop hangout. She sat at the corner end of the black leather bar and drowned her sorrows in a couple of Black Russians.

  As she sipped the second drink, she saw Reed seated three stools down from her. He was staring into space morosely, a whiskey glass to his lips and an empty one in front of him.