by Alex Archer
“Do you see now why I asked you to be careful?” Novack said.
Annja barely heard the question. She was still trying to get her head around twenty-three murders. In five years? They were talking about a murder every two to three months.
“So many? Tell me you’re exaggerating.”
“I assure you I am not. There may even be more.”
Annja had suspected something was going on, but this was way beyond anything she’d imagined. Twenty-three.
“Why bring this to me?” she asked. “I’m not a cop or a private investigator.”
“No, you’re one better. You’re a seeker of the truth. I can see it in you. You won’t rest until the answers are laid out before you.”
She didn’t know about Novack’s claim that he could “see” her drive to find the truth, but she had to agree with his assessment. Now that she was involved in this whole mess, she would see it through to the end.
“All right, I’m listening,” she told him.
“Twenty-three murders. All of them young, good-looking women in their twenties and thirties. In the beginning there were months between them. Sometimes as many as six to eight. Lately, however, they are coming more steadily. The last three have only been a month apart.”
Annja knew that serial killers often fell victim to their own need, murdering victims more frequently until, in their own haste, they made a mistake and wound up caught by the authorities. Some psychologists theorized that the killers’ own subconscious guilt drove them to such frenzied lengths, but Annja wasn’t convinced. She thought it was a much simpler emotion than guilt—good old-fashioned greed.
One could argue that Báthory had brought about her own downfall by taking one too many victims. It made sense that a killer using Báthory’s legend as a basis for his—or her—crimes would do the same.
And yet...something wasn’t right. Twenty-three murders in the same area should have raised a huge outcry. The police should have been all over this, with a multidisciplinary task force assigned to handle the investigation. When Annja had brought the latest victim into the hospital, they should have immediately put two and two together. They hadn’t. Just the opposite, in fact.
“If there have been twenty-three murders in the past five years, why are the police acting as if this latest one is an isolated incident?” she asked.
“Because this is the first time the victim was someone who actually mattered. At least to the authorities.”
Annja stared at him, not understanding. “Come again?”
Novack handed Annja a file filled with case summaries for each of the twenty-three alleged victims, including color photographs. She began leafing through the documents, and it didn’t take long for her to understand what her companion was talking about.
The “murders” were actually a collection of suicides, accidental deaths and missing persons. Many of the women were noted as being on the fringes of society—prostitutes, known drug users, runaways and the like—and their absence had either been reluctantly reported to the police weeks after they’d dropped out of sight or hadn’t been officially reported at all. Many of the disappearances had been uncovered by Novack while talking to others on the street. The handful that weren’t from the fringes were loners by nature and could just as easily have packed up and moved on without telling anyone where they were going.
She looked up, confused. “These aren’t murders. Why are you wasting my time with this?” she asked.
Novack didn’t bat an eye. “Ignore the reports. They’re worthless. Look at the photographs instead.”
Annja pulled several of them out of the file. “What do you expect me to...?”
The file contained two sets of images. The first were crime scene photos, like the one Novack had given her the night before. The second set was a haphazard collection of images—most likely cobbled together by Novack himself from arrest records, CCTV cameras and photos supplied by relatives—that showed the victims as they’d been before they’d died. It was these images that caused Annja’s comment to die in her throat. The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention.
All the women looked remarkably similar.
They could have been cousins, Annja thought. In some cases even sisters.
They had narrow faces and expressive eyes, with clear skin and healthy-looking hair. The hairstyles themselves were all different—some wore their hair long, as Annja did, while others had cut theirs considerably shorter, and one even had a crew cut—but their features were remarkably similar.
Annja knew it was a long shot, but she asked the obvious question anyway.
“Are they related?”
“No.”
She looked up from the photos. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. I did the research myself.”
“They all look far too similar for this to be a coincidence,” Annja told him.
Novack nodded. “I agree.”
“What do the police say?”
“They disagree with me.”
“Then you need to go back and try again. Get them to listen to you.”
“I tried. Several times, in fact. Shortly after my last attempt I was brought into the captain’s office and told that I was, without argument, going to announce my retirement for medical reasons.”
That must have been both humiliating and painful.
“But honestly, my forced retirement isn’t what’s got me worried.”
The conversation was starting to feel surreal. “Twenty-three possible killings aren’t enough?”
“No. It’s what the killer’s doing afterward. At least three of the bodies—maybe more—were drained of their blood.”
Annja looked up slowly. “You mean the victims bled out, don’t you?” she asked, just to be sure.
Novack shook his head. “No, I mean drained. As in all of it. If I was the superstitious type I’d say that Báthory had come back from the dead.”
The image of those two unusual wounds on Marta’s leg flashed through Annja’s mind.
“The medical examiner’s report noted that the latest victim had several deep cuts along her torso, from which she could have bled extensively, but she also had two puncture wounds on her inner thigh near the femoral artery.”
The former senior sergeant watched her closely as he asked, “How do you know what the autopsy report says?”
This time it was Annja’s turn to shake her head. “That’s not important right now. Just tell me if any of the other bodies had the same kind of injuries.”
He nodded. “Two that I know of.”
That was all?
“You’re sure there aren’t others? Were the injuries noted in the autopsy reports?”
“I didn’t see those reports—I was already retired by the time these two victims turned up. But I know the injuries were there.”
Annja was skeptical. “How could you if you didn’t see the reports?”
He hesitated, as if reluctant to answer, but finally said, “I sneaked into the morgue and examined the bodies before they were sent off to the undertaker.”
Annja laughed; she couldn’t help it. Apparently she’d found a kindred spirit.
Novack frowned, misunderstanding. “I have a man on the inside who’s been helping me, but he couldn’t get to the reports without being discovered, so I did what I had to do.”
She shook her head. “I’m not criticizing,” she told him. “Far from it. I was laughing because I would have done the exact same thing in your position.”
He didn’t look all that mollified, but at least he let it go.
“Did you see any of the earlier bodies?”
“A few. On the cases I was assigned to, at least. I don’t remember seeing anything like what you described, however. If there had been injurie
s like that, the medical examiner, Petrova, would have discovered them.”
“Unless he’s part of the cover-up.”
Even as she said it, she knew it couldn’t be that simple. Too many people would have seen those reports. Petrova wouldn’t have been foolish enough to hide the presence of such wounds in the other twenty-two alleged victims only to list them so blatantly on the autopsy report for the twenty-third.
Then a thought occurred to her: perhaps this time he didn’t have a choice.
“Were any of the other victims still alive when they were found?” she asked Novack.
“No.”
Annja felt her pulse quicken. Thanks to her “interference,” the latest victim had been brought to the local hospital before she succumbed to her injuries. Those involved wouldn’t have been able to tuck the situation away under a rug somewhere; too many people were involved at that point, from the doctors and nurses at the hospital to Annja herself.
The autopsy report hadn’t been made public and probably wouldn’t be, not with an active murder investigation under way. Nor had there been any mention of the cause of death at the press conference. Annja only knew about the blood loss and the puncture wounds because she’d broken into Petrova’s office and seen his notes. By naming Csilla as the alleged killer, those involved, be it Petrova or someone else, could keep the facts from coming to light long enough for it not to matter.
Besides being clever, it made a weird, twisted kind of sense.
If everything Novack had said was true.
But Annja wasn’t convinced yet. It was still possible that he’d fabricated all of this as part of some delusional need to remain in the spotlight. Novack might have deliberately picked the so-called “victims” because of how similar they looked to one another. In fact, the idea that Novack might be suffering from his own fabricated delusion actually made more sense than the widespread conspiracy to cover up the murders of twenty-some-odd people.
But something in his story rang true, enough that she wouldn’t be able to walk away without checking it out for herself.
It was only when Novack asked, “What are you thinking?” that Annja realized she’d been silent for a while.
“I’m thinking that you’ve convinced me of the importance of doing some more digging.”
Novack breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” he muttered underneath his breath.
“Who else knows about this?” Annja asked, gesturing to the folders.
“Once I was fairly certain there was a pattern, I brought the first ten cases I’d located to my direct superior. He dismissed it out of hand and, as you know, took me off active duty. After that I didn’t see the point in sharing it with anyone except Radecki and, of course, now you.”
“Radecki?”
“Martin Radecki,” Novack qualified. “He’s a junior officer from my old squad. He came to me a few months ago, asked if he could help. He’d heard rumors I was working on something big when I’d been sacked. The other guys laughed at him, but he was willing to dig in and get his hands dirty. He’s the one who’s been getting me some of the information from the crime files. He’s gonna go far, that one.”
Just a handful of people, then.
It wasn’t as bad as Annja had thought.
“I’m going to take a closer look at these files. Where can I reach you when I’m done?”
Novack shook his head. “I’ve been moving around lately. Why don’t I just reach out to you?”
Annja didn’t understand his reluctance, but she decided not to push the issue. “All right,” she said. “Give me a few days and then get in touch.”
His expression was grave as he said, “Don’t take too long. A young woman sits in a jail cell wrongly accused while the real killer still roams free.”
15
This time she answered the phone almost immediately.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to disturb you, but there’s been a development I think you should be aware of.”
“Let me guess. Ms. Creed is continuing to make a nuisance of herself.”
“Yes. She’s been in touch with Novack.”
“So?”
“Novack can still hurt us.”
“Unlikely. No one listens to him, not after what we did to his reputation.”
He gritted his teeth, not liking the direction the call was going. Why couldn’t she see the danger here?
“I believe this Creed woman will listen. If you review the material I sent over, you’ll see that she has the tenacity of an irritated mastiff and...”
“I’ve read it.”
The flat tone of her voice let him know he was on dangerous ground, and he quickly backpedaled.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to imply that you had not. I was merely concerned for our enterprise.”
“My enterprise,” she corrected, to which he wisely said nothing. At least her tone was less angry.
She was quiet for a moment and then, “What would you suggest?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Eliminate Novack. Cut the head off the snake before it grows any bigger.”
“Do you think that’s necessary?”
“I do. He hasn’t stopped his investigation—we know that. I suspect he isn’t sharing all that he’s uncovered. There’s no telling how much information he’s gathered since leaving the force. At least when he was inside we could control him.”
He winced the moment the comment left his mouth—he’d argued pretty vehemently about leaving Novack as an active duty officer where they could keep an eye on him. His argument hadn’t gone over well, and calling her attention to his stance after all this time wasn’t so smart. Thankfully her mind was on other things.
“I met her today, you know.”
He froze. That was, perhaps, the last thing he’d expected to hear. Had Creed gotten that close already?
“What happened?”
He must have let some of his anxiety creep into his tone because she laughed and said, “Relax. She was in the village, showing those pictures around again, and stumbled upon the collection team. I was on-site at the time and decided to say hello, see what the fuss was about.”
“Do you think she suspects?”
“No. She thinks it’s a genealogical study and nothing more.” She paused, and then said, “She’s quite beautiful, you know.”
Her beauty, or lack thereof, didn’t make a difference to him. It was his job to make certain their operation continued without disruption, and all Creed represented to him was a potential chink in their armor.
“I know you ordered Creed left alone,” he said, “but now there’s been direct contact between them. She has a reputation for uncovering the things others would prefer to keep hidden, and leaving her to continue her investigation could be damaging to us in the long run.”
She was quiet a moment, considering. At last she said, “No, I want Creed left alone. She has some powerful friends who could be a problem for us should they come looking for her.”
“I can make it look like an accident.”
“Yes, I know. You’ve gotten quite good at that over the years.”
He said nothing; those very skills were the reason she paid him so handsomely. No need to brag.
“If and when the time comes, I’ll have you deal with her, but not until I give the word. And don’t think your little stunt the other night went unnoticed. She might not have ended up with Novack if you hadn’t pushed her in that direction.”
He took the rebuke silently, for he knew as well as she did that she was correct. It had been a clumsy operation and he was embarrassed by how it had turned out, but at least next time his people would know not to underestimate Creed. For a cable television host, she had more than a few tricks up her sleeve.
His boss wasn�
��t quite finished yet, however.
“Besides, after seeing her, I’m wondering if she might be a good fit for our program. I don’t want her harmed until we can determine if that’s the case.”
“I understand.”
“If you think it’s time to deal with Novack once and for all, then go ahead. Just make it clean.”
He smiled. It’s about time...
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll handle Novack.”
He knew just how to do it, too.
16
Back at the hotel, Annja began going through the information Novack had provided, looking for connections between the victims, similarities in methods of death and the like. She needed something the police couldn’t just brush off. Novack had gone through the file numerous times doing exactly what she was doing now, but she did it anyway, because a fresh pair of eyes could sometimes find details that had been previously overlooked.
Annja read each file in turn, taking several pages of notes in the process. Novack had said that Vass was the first victim “the police couldn’t ignore,” and after spending time with the documents he’d provided, she understood why he’d used that phrase. The vast majority of the women had been drifters, runaways, prostitutes—“the dregs of society,” they might have been called in another place and time. Annja preferred to think of them as the less fortunate. “There but for the grace of God go I” came to mind. She became even more determined to get to the bottom of the whole mess. These women were no less deserving of justice than anyone else.
She was going through the causes of death, looking for a pattern of any kind, when her phone rang.
“Hello?”
“What time is it over there anyway?” Doug asked.
Annja glanced at the clock. “One o’clock in the morning.”
“Did I wake you?”
“No.”
Annja heard muttered grumbling on the other end and couldn’t resist a smile. She’d apparently spoiled his attempt at payback.
“Got something for me, Doug?” she asked sweetly, pretending not to have heard his disappointment. Might as well let him save face.