BOOK SUMMARY
When convicted killer and certified psychopath, Richard Heinz, escapes, his re-capture falls on the shoulders of MCU agents Dr Jessica Bennett and Howard Hopkins. Entering a dark wood on a rainy night, they must try to understand the mind of a sick killer before anyone else is harmed.
The problem is that Heinz is out for a reason, and he’s just taken a hostage.
IF YOU GO INTO THE WOODS TONIGHT, YOU’RE SURE OF A BIG SURPRISE…
“Even when she was dead, she was still bitching at me. I couldn’t get her to shut up!”- Serial Killer, Edmund Kemper
“She can't hide; no place to hide.” – Pamela Voorhees, Friday the 13th (1980), Paramount Pictures
SLASHER
By Iain Rob Wright
1
Rain battered the windshield like machine gunfire as MCU officer, Howard Hopkins, stopped the Range Rover outside the nature reserve. Redlake’s police officers were already on scene, busily cordoning off the area.
Dr Jessica Bennett turned to her partner and raised her eyebrow. “Tell me where we are again?”
“Redlake,” said Howard. “I know, I’d never heard of it either.”
“Why did our fugitive trek halfway across the country to some place most people have never heard of?”
“One of his victims lives here. That big Thriller writer—Blake Price, you know the one—moved his family here in 2009 after what Heinz did to them. Heinz has been obsessed with Price for most of his adult life, thinks the guy’s books were written specifically for him. Local police have his home on total lock-down as that’s likely where he’s heading.”
Jessica reviewed her mental notes. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been entirely unaware of Richard Heinz and his sickening acts, but when Director Palu had slapped a dossier across her table, his only instructions had been: “Learn all you can about this monster. He’s escaped and we’re going to catch him.” She’d been surprised because she’d thought the Major Crimes Unit existed to stop terrorism, not recapture escaped inmates. However, once she’d read the file on Heinz, she understood how the man qualified as a special case.
Howard switched off the engine and looked at her. “You ready?”
It was Jessica’s first time out in the field. She had zero experience and zero desire to be out there in the rain and wind, but she nodded. “Yes, I’m ready.”
They got out of the car. Together they headed through the downpour towards a group of uniformed police officers who’d been waiting for them. Back home in Savannah, Georgia, the local police were never pleased to see badges with initials—FBI, CIA, ATF, NSA, EPA, DEA, America had dozens of them—but here in England the various crime enforcement agencies always seemed happy to cooperate.
Tonight was no different as one of the police officers broke away to greet them with a grim smile. “Sergeant Mike Young,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “You’re both from MCU, I take it?”
Howard wiped his wet hair out of his eyes and returned the handshake. “Officer Hopkins and Dr Bennett. We’re here to help you with your unwanted visitor.”
The officer chuckled. “Great, well, we’ve got all the exits from the town’s nature reserve covered and we had eyes on Heinz just under two hours ago. He entered from this direction.”
Jessica eyed the tree-line. A paved pathway cut through the middle of the dark woods, but it melted into the shadows after a dozen feet or so. “Where does that path lead?” she asked.
“It leads to the town’s lake, but branches off in a few places. There’s a bridle path and cycle route, plus a path to the old abbey and museum. It’s hard to know where Heinz will go, but like I said, we have all exits covered. I’ve also stationed a team at the abbey. It makes a good lookout over the northern end of the lake.
“Your director, Palu, has coordinated with our guv and asked us to stand off until you call us in. The press are just waiting for us to shoot the guy down for a story, so we’re happy to let you try and bring the guy in alive. Especially since Heinz may have knowledge of a missing girl.”
Jessica frowned. “Missing girl?”
“Yeah, young lass by the name of Chloe Tanner, thirteen years old. Disappeared eight years ago, but Heinz has been making reference to her lately. Problem is the guy’s so nuts they haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of him. Least if we can bring him in alive they can up his dosage or something, keep trying.”
“We’ll bring him in, don’t you worry,” said Howard. He patted a radio fastened to a strap above his chest. “Are you reachable by radio?”
The sergeant nodded. “Usual band.”
“If you get any sighting of the fugitive, make sure we’re first to know.”
“Will do. Hope you catch the sick bastard. He’s killed three since he escaped. I don’t know how they ever thought it was safe to send a nutcase like him to a hospital instead of a prison.”
“It was a secure facility,” said Jessica, “and it was the appropriate place to send an offender like Heinz. He has a multitude of psychological issues.”
The sergeant shrugged. “There’s no curing evil, luv. They shoulda locked him up and tossed the key.”
Before Jessica had a chance to tell the officer how ignorant he was being, Howard strode towards the pathway. His gait was confident and authoritative. Jessica hoped she came off the same way as she hurried after him, but the truth was her stomach clenched unhappily.
She managed to catch up to Howard and nudged him. “Let me know the next time we’re going for a swift exit so I don’t end up trotting along behind you like a numpty.”
Howard grinned at her. The water dripping off the dark tips of his hair, along with his square, jutting chin, made him look like some lothario off the cover of a bad romance novel. “Numpty? Why Dr Bennett, we’re going to have to make you an honorary Brit if you keep talking like that.”
Jessica smirked. British slang wasn’t something she consciously tried to adopt, but the longer she was in the country, the more she seemed to absorb. In fact, it might have been several weeks since she’d last said “y’all.” “Hey, I’m a daughter of the South,” she said. “You folks are just borrowin’ me for a time.”
Howard touched her elbow. “Come on, quicker we make it through these woods, greater chance we have of finding Heinz before he moves on through.”
Jessica felt a lump rising in her throat but held it down. This was really happening. She was going into the woods to catch a killer.
She followed Howard into the tree-line, sticking to the path. Every now and then there would be a lamppost lighting a short stretch, but other times they navigated only by the glow of the moon. Each of them carried flashlights, along with a can of CS gas and handcuffs, but it was the Glock strapped beneath Jessica’s blazer that she thought about now. She hoped her aim in the field was as competent as it was at the firing range.
Part of her had wondered if a time would even come when she’d be required to wear her weapon—she was a medical doctor and a criminal profiler, not a soldier—but Palu had surprised her by deciding to send her as Howard’s backup. MCU was currently short of officers and most of the usual task force were nursing wounds from a previous mission, so Palu was forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Her inexperience had shown immediately when she’d turned up wearing trousers and jacket, instead of the black fatigues Howard was wearing. Her polyester threads clung to her now as the downpour soaked her through.
“So what did you get from this guy’s file?” Howard asked her. “Do we know what kind of crazy to expect?”
Jessica thought about Heinz’s crimes: several major sexual offences had led to his prosecution and incarceration to a se
cure hospital, but his psychosis had only worsened from there. One day he attacked a nurse, chewing off her nipples and part of her face, leaving her to bleed from a torn artery in her neck. Heinz also managed to kill two fellow inmates before he was finally restrained and placed in solitary care, where he’d remained for the last eighteen months.
That was until Heinz had escaped two days ago, killing the pair of guards transporting him to an MRI appointment at a local clinic. Heinz had complained of excruciating headaches and the Prison Service could not refuse him his human right to medical care. Now two prison officers were dead along with an innocent woman who’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time. The young schoolteacher had run into Heinz on her lunch break. By the time she was due back at her primary school, he’d cut a hole in her belly and raped her in the backseat of her car while she’d bled to death.
Jessica swallowed, took a deep breath, then recounted what she’d theorised from the case file Palu had given her. “Richard Heinz is unlike most serial killers in that he had a pleasant childhood. He was the son of an architect and his mother stayed home to raise him. He was an only child who socialised normally and performed well at school, eventually training as an accountant. He was completely ordinary.”
“So what changed?” asked Howard. “What was his…trigger?”
“I believe his attachment to his mother is key. The reports I read suggest she doted on his every need, until her death when he was aged twenty-three. When Heinz eventually married, he found that his wife was not the accommodating, subservient, surrogate mother he’d been searching for. His frustration led to violence, and his wife left and divorced him the very first time he dared to strike her. Good on her, it might have saved her life.
“Heinz tried several times for a reconciliation, but his ex-wife totally cut him off, making him feel insignificant and weak. He blamed her for not pandering to his ego the way his mother had taught him women should. He projected his anger onto innocent women by raping them.”
“Thus making himself feel powerful again,” said Howard.
Jessica nodded. “Heinz’s sociopathic tendencies are exacerbated by mental illness. Paranoid Schizophrenia has long been associated with serial killers: David Gonzalez, David Berkowitz, Richard Chase, Albert Fish, Jeffrey Dahmer, Kenneth Bianchi, and Ed Gein, to name the most prominent. It’s believed Heinz also suffers from the condition. His version of reality is not the same as yours or mine. That must be why he’s here chasing down some author: he’s fantasising.”
“Not just some author,” said Howard. “Blake Price. He wrote Twinkle. It was amazing.”
“I didn’t read the individual crime reports,” admitted Jessica, “but Mrs Price was Heinz’s final victim before he was captured, correct?”
Howard nodded. “Heinz turned up looking to meet Blake Price, but only his wife was home. After she tried to make Heinz leave, he attacked her with a bottle of Scotch. I won’t go into detail about what he did, but he said afterwards that he did it for Blake—that his wife was restricting his brilliance.”
“That fits with the paranoid delusions,” said Jessica. “Heinz probably believes that he and Blake are best friends—even soulmates.”
Howard shook his head and sighed. “He wrote Blake Price over three-hundred letters from the hospital. He didn’t get a single reply.”
“Paranoid schizophrenics tend to fixate. Every single letter Blake Price ignored probably made Heinz’s obsession even worse. He’ll be wanting to meet Blake Price and find out why he doesn’t value their friendship the same way.”
“Maybe because he raped the guy’s wife,” said Howard.
“That was a favour in Heinz’s mind, remember? It was a way to cement their friendship, like a cat bringing its owner a dead mouse. An animal’s love is not like our own.”
“Let’s just find the guy before he hurts anybody else.”
Jessica slid a hand over the Glock beneath her sodden blazer, ensuring it was still there. “Or hurts us,” she said.
They headed along the path for another five minutes, at one point crossing over a quaint wooden bridge spanning a stream. Then the woods got thicker. Every crunching twig, rustling bush, and hooting animal made Jessica flinch, ready to grab her weapon and shoot. The endless pitter-patter of the rain on leaves was disorientating and made her even more uneasy. Howard had quietened and started walking with a slight bend in his knees. If Heinz appeared, Howard would let his training take over. By watching him, Jessica hoped she would know how to behave and when to act. She was still mad at Palu for sending her out here in the wind and rain—and danger. This was not the place for a doctor.
A shadow skittered across the path. It was only a rat, but that didn’t stop Jessica’s stomach from lurching. The small rodent paused briefly to look at them and then disappeared into the thicket.
Howard sniffed the air. “I think we must be getting nearer the lake.”
Jessica smelt the faintly pungent stink of standing water. Would Heinz be heading to the lake, or would he be moving deeper into the woods? He’d been heading for Blake Price’s home before the police chased him towards the nature reserve, and that would still likely be his ultimate destination. Richard Heinz was a brazen sociopath; he wouldn’t hide in the woods. He might hunt in them, though, which Jessica thought about as she glanced around at the grey and black shadows. The leaning trees and tangled bushes provided a hundred places for a killer to hide. She felt like an extra in a horror movie—one of those airheads whose only role was to be hacked to pieces.
Several more rats scurried across the pavement and into the bushes. It was unsettling enough to stop Howard in his tracks, who held up his hand.
Jessica allowed her fingers to hover over her Glock. “Rats are solitary animals,” she muttered. “You only find them in packs if there’s—”
“A food source,” Howard finished. He yanked his sidearm from the leather holster at his thigh.
Jessica followed suit and snatched her Glock from beneath her blazer and pointed it at the ground, ready. The two of them stepped forward carefully, treading softly, creeping silently. Jessica’s heart pumped against her chest, her stomach turned over in an endless wave, but she remembered her training and concentrated on it now. Her safety was off, a round was in the chamber, and she kept a smart distance from Howard. If Heinz was nearby, there was no way he could jump one of them without being shot and killed by the other.
More rats appeared. They scurried away as soon as they spotted Howard and Jessica. It wasn’t long before the source of the rodent-gathering became clear.
At the edge of the path, half-buried in the weeds, was a backpack. Howard grabbed his torch and shone it. The backpack was purple, suggesting a female owner. Rats had gnawed a hole in its side and dragged out a packet of crisps and what looked like a cellophane-wrapped sandwich. The straps were adorned with an assortment of whimsical patches and shiny badges: PORN DESTROYS, FUJI FILM, BAZINGA! REDLAKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, GOOFY’S GIRL.
Howard turned a circle, sweeping the area with his torch. The only thing with them was the wind, the shadows, and the looming woods.
As the torch beam cut through the darkness, Jessica spotted a dark patch on the ground several feet ahead. Her fear gave way to curiosity and she found herself heading towards it.
“Jessica, where are you going? Stay close to me.”
She ignored Howard’s warning and kept on going. “There’s something over here,” she said.
Howard gave a brief hiss of frustration, but he followed her. By the time she reached the dark patch on the path, he was right by her side. “What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Shine your torch on it.”
Howard did as asked, revealing the stain.
“It’s blood,” said Jessica flatly. There was perhaps an entire pint of it staining the pavement, by her estimation. She knelt and prodded the stain with her finger. It was sticky and cold. “It’s fresh,” she said, “not completely fresh, but still pret
ty recent. It hasn’t washed away in the rain.”
Howard scanned the area with a clenched jaw. “About two hours ago, then?”
Jessica nodded.
Howard kept his gun raised, but placed the torch through a loop fastener on his shoulder. He pulled the radio from his belt and hit the ‘talk’ button. “MCU Officer Hopkins to local Redlake authorities, pick up, over.”
A voice came back immediately. “Sergeant Young, reading you, over.”
Howard took a breath, then said, “Check missing persons reports. I think Heinz has a hostage.”
2
Jessica searched inside the backpack while Howard kept watch. She found a sketchpad and some pencils, as well as an expensive-looking camera with two different lenses.
“I think maybe she’s a photographer or an artist. There’s no ID. From the look of these professional camera lenses, I’d say we’re looking for an adult.”
Howard frowned. “Anything else we can use?”
Jessica shook her head. “Perhaps she’s a student. We should check the roster of local art classes, see if anybody’s missing.”
It was the only lead they had, so Howard passed the info on to Sergeant Young, who said he would get right on it.
“We have to find Heinz,” said Jessica once Howard was done on the radio. “If he has a hostage, the best way to save her is to find him quickly.”
“I don’t know,” said Howard. “We’re here for a manhunt, not a hostage negotiation.”
Jessica straightened and stepped away from the backpack. “There won’t be any negotiation. Heinz is a deluded sadist. All he wants is to satisfy his urges. If he has a girl with him, she doesn’t have long for us to rescue her. Even now it might be too late to save her from whatever sick games he’s playing. If we hang back and do nothing, the girl will have no chance at all.”
Howard seemed to sense her despair and held a hand out to her. “We don’t know for sure he even has a girl with him, but you’re right. We’re here to bring in Heinz, so let’s bring him in.”
Slasher: the Escape of Richard Heinz Page 1