Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1)

by Blake Pierce

  Mackenzie stood up and walked back to the front of the house. While she had no real reason to believe the killer had been inside, the fact that he had selected the yard outside as one of his trophy stands made the house guilty by association.

  She stepped up onto the porch and it creaked under her weight right away. In fact, the entire porch seemed to settle around her weight. Somewhere out in the forest, a bird called out in response.

  She made her way inside the house, pushing past a mostly deteriorated wooden door that scuffed against the floor. She was instantly assaulted by the smell of dust and mildew, the overall scent of neglect.

  Stepping into the house was like stepping into a black-and-white movie. Once inside, that old gut instinct that James had once held in such a high regard told her there was nothing abnormal here, no huge a-ha sort of clue that would bring this case to a close.

  Still, she couldn’t resist. She explored the empty rooms and hallways. She observed the cracked walls and peeling plaster, trying to imagine a family once living in this ruined space. Eventually, she made her way to the back of the house where it looked like a kitchen had once thrived. Old cracked linoleum clung to the floor in curling sheets, revealing a rotten floor beneath. She looked across the kitchen and saw the two windows that looked to the backyard—the same two windows that she’d felt were staring at her on her first time out here.

  She walked across the kitchen, sticking beside the neglected counter along the far wall in order to avoid the questionable floor. As she moved, she realized how utterly quiet it was in the house. This was a place for ghosts and memories, not a desperate detective reaching blindly for some sense of what a killer was going through. Regardless, she made her way to the rear wall and looked out of the first window, sitting to the left of an old battered kitchen sink.

  The location of where the pole and the third victim had been was visible from the window without obstruction. From inside the house, it did not look nearly as intimidating. Mackenzie tried to envision the order of things from her place at the window, as if looking at the imagined scene through a TV. She saw the killer bringing the woman to the pole that he had already placed there. She wondered if she was unconscious or somehow inebriated, wobbling on her feet with his hands under her arms or at her back.

  That spurred a thought that no one had bothered checking yet. How does he get them to the pole? Are they knocked out? Drugged? Does he simply overpower them? Maybe we should get the coroner to check for any substance that causes lethargic behavior…

  She stared at the scene for a bit longer, starting to feel the seclusion of the forest along the backyard pressing in on her. There was nothing out there, only trees, hidden animals, and just the slightest stirring of wind.

  She exited the kitchen and made her way back out into what had once been a living room. An old scarred desk sat against the wall. It was visibly warped along the top and many of the scattered papers on it looked like leaves that had been cast to the ground and rained on for years. Mackenzie made her way over to the desk and rummaged through the few papers.

  She saw invoices for pig feed and grain. The oldest was dated June of 1977 and came from a farm supply in Chinook, Nebraska. Notebook paper that had been aged so badly that its blue lines were missing held someone’s faded handwriting. Mackenzie glanced over the writing and saw what looked to be notes for a Sunday school lesson. She saw references to Noah and the flood, David and Goliath, and Samson. Under the mess of paper were two books: a devotional called God’s Healing Word and a Bible that looked so old that she feared it would crumble into dust at her touch.

  Still, she found that she was unable to look away from the Bible. Seeing it brought to mind visions of the crucifixion that she had learned about during the handful of times she had ventured into a church with her mother at an early age. She thought of Christ on the cross and what it had represented, and found herself reaching for the book.

  She thought of the cross Christ had died on and superimposed that sight with the sight of those three women on their poles. They had ruled out religious motive but she couldn’t help but wonder.

  She opened the Bible and flipped past the front matter, heading directly for the table of contents. She knew very little about the Bible, so half of the names of the books were not familiar to her.

  She scanned the table of contents absentmindedly, about to put it down, when suddenly she spotted something and her heart started beating faster. The names of the books. The numbers beside them.

  As she saw the abbreviations, it reminded her of something else.

  The pole.

  The numbers.

  N511

  J202

  With trembling hands, she started at the top of the Contents page, placing her finger on Genesis. She then scrolled down with her finger, looking for a book that began with “N.”

  Within seconds, she stopped at the listing for the book of Numbers.

  She flipped through the dusty pages, the smell of rot wafting into her face. She located Numbers and then scanned through for Chapter 5. When she found that, she then ran her finger along the page until she came to verse 11.

  N511. Numbers, Chapter 5, verse 11.

  She read, and with each word, her heart beat faster. It felt as if the temperature of the house had dropped by about twenty degrees.

  And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, and a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner; and the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled: Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest…

  She read it several times, hands shaking, feeling excited and sick at the same time. The passage filled her with a sense of foreboding that made her stomach a little queasy.

  She flipped back to the table of contents. She saw that there were several books that began with J, but solving that little riddle wasn’t her specialty. Besides, she was pretty sure she had enough to go on with the passage from Numbers.

  Mackenzie closed the Bible and placed it back with the forgotten papers. She ran out of the house and back to her car, suddenly in a hurry.

  She needed to get back to the station.

  More than that, she needed to speak with a pastor.

  This killer was not as random as everyone thought.

  He had an MO.

  And she was about to crack it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Mackenzie had not stepped foot into a church since the wedding of her college roommate. After her father died, her mother had tried dragging her and Steph to church on numerous occasions and it was for that very reason that Mackenzie did everything she could to avoid it.

  Still, as she entered the sanctuary of New Life Methodist Church, she had to admit that there was a certain degree of beauty here. It was more than the stained glass windows and the ornate altar—there was something else entirely that, quite frankly, she could not put her finger on.

  As she neared the front of the sanctuary, she saw an older man sitting in one of the pews to the front. He had apparently not heard her enter because he had his head down, reading in a book.

  “Pastor Simms?” she asked. Her voice boomed like the Almighty in the cavernous sanctuary.

  The man looked up from his book and turned to face her. He was a man in his fifties, dressed in a button-down shirt and khakis. He wore the sort of eyeglasses that instantly made him appear to be infinitely kind.

  “Detective White, I presume?” he asked, getting to his feet.

  “You presumed correctly,” she said.

  He looked a bit shocked but met her at the head of the sanctuary all the same.

  “Forgive my surprise,” he said. “When your Chief
Nelson called to request some of my time for your research, I wasn’t expecting a woman. Due to the heinous nature of the crimes, I find it rather odd that a woman would be heading it up. No offense to you, of course.”

  “None taken.”

  “You know, Clark speaks favorably of you.”

  The name Clark threw her off and it took her a moment to realize that he was talking about Nelson—Police Chief Clark Nelson.

  “I’ve heard that a lot lately,” she said.

  “Well then, that must be nice.”

  “And unexpected,” she said.

  Simms nodded, as if he understood perfectly. “Nelson’s a bit of a blowhard at times. But he’s also extremely kind when he needs to be. I imagine that’s a hard part of himself to show at work.”

  “So he attends this church?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Every Sunday. But I digress. Please,” he added, gesturing to the pew he had been sitting on. “Have a seat.”

  Mackenzie did so and looked to the book Pastor Simms had been reading from and was not at all surprised to find that it was a Bible.

  “So, Chief Nelson tells me that you have questions about scripture that may be able to lead to the arrest of the man that has been killing these poor women.”

  She pulled out her cell phone and pulled up the picture she had snapped of the old Bible from the abandoned house. She handed it to him and he took it, adjusting his glasses as he looked at it.

  “Numbers, chapter five, verses eleven to twenty or so. Do you think you could tell me how you interpret the verse?” she asked.

  He glanced at the picture briefly and then handed the phone back.

  “Well, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Not all Biblical passages need to be decoded. This one simply speaks of adulterous women being forced to drink bitter waters. If they were pure, no harm would come to them. But if they had engaged in sexual relations with anyone other than their husbands, the waters would bring a curse upon them.”

  She pondered that.

  “The killer has carved N511 on each post he has hung a victim from,” she said. “And based on the sort of women he has been choosing, the allegory seems pretty fitting.”

  “Yes, I’d agree,” Simms said.

  “He’s also carving J202 into the posts. There are too many books of the Bible that begin with J for me to make an educated guess. I was hoping you’d have some insight?”

  “Well, Numbers is an Old Testament book and if this killer is killing based on what he thinks is Old Testament law—however misguided his interpretations and actions may be—I think it’s safe to say that this other reference would be Old Testament as well. If that’s the case, I feel certain that it’s referring to the book of Joshua. In Chapter Twenty of Joshua, God speaks of Cities of Refuge. These were cities where people who had accidentally killed others could flee to without prosecution.”

  Mackenzie chewed on this for a moment, her heart racing, something starting to click inside. She picked up the Bible and found Joshua and dug up the passage. When she found it, she read it out loud, a bit creeped out by the sound of scripture coming out of her voice in this empty church.

  Then the Lord said to Joshua: Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses, so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and find protection from the avenger of blood. When they flee to one of these cities, they are to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state their case before the elders of that city. Then the elders are to admit the fugitive into their city and provide a place to live among them. If the avenger of blood comes in pursuit…

  She trailed off here, astounded, knowing she had finally figured out the source of the numbers. It was both thrilling and deflating. She had a window into his MO now—and yet it was still so vague. None of this could bring her to his front door.

  “There’s more, you know,” Simms said.

  “Yes, I see that,” she said. “But I think that’s enough. Tell me, Pastor, do you know how many of these Cities of Refuge there were?”

  “Six in all,” Simms said.

  “Do you know where they were located?”

  “Roughly,” he replied.

  He picked up the Bible and turned to the back, showing her a series of glossaries and maps. He came to a map that represented Israel in biblical times and, adjusting his glasses again, pointed out six locations.

  “Of course,” he said, “these locations may not be exact, but—”

  Her heart started beating hard as she made a connection that almost seemed too good to be true. She gripped the book tightly.

  “May I take a picture?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he replied.

  She photographed it with shaking hands.

  “Detective, what is it?” he asked, studying her. “Have I been of help in some way I don’t understand?”

  “More than you know,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  When Mackenzie entered the conference room, the place was abuzz. Nancy sat at her usual spot at the end of the table, divvying out the most updated reports on the Scarecrow Killer case. Policemen were taking their seats at the table, murmuring solemnly as if they were attending a funeral. As Mackenzie wedged her way to the front of the room where she saw Nelson speaking to another officer, she noticed that she was getting a lot of looks from the officers she passed. Some were still scowling at her as they had three days before in this very same room. But (and maybe this was her imagination) some were looking at her with genuine interest and, dare she say it, respect.

  Nelson saw her coming and ended his conversation with the other officer right away. He put an arm around her and turned her away from the crowd that still continued to gather in the room. “This news,” he said. “Is it going to net us an arrest within the next few hours?”

  “I don’t know,” Mackenzie said. “But it can certainly narrow our search. It’s going to bring us very close.”

  “Then you run this show,” he said. “Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” she said, ignoring the pit of worry that bubbled up in her stomach.

  “Well then, here we go,” he said. With that, he turned to face the room and slapped his meaty hands down on the table several times. “Okay, everybody,” he shouted. “Take a seat and zip your mouths,” he said. “Mackenzie has a break in the case and you’ll give her your full attention. Save any questions until she’s done.”

  To Mackenzie’s surprise, Nelson took one of the remaining chairs against the wall, pushed away from the large conference table. He looked to her and that was when she realized that it was all on her. Maybe it was a test or maybe Nelson was just at the end of his rope. Either way, this was her chance to grab this precinct by the balls and prove her worth.

  She looked out to the room and saw Porter sitting among the faces. He gave her a quick smile, almost like he wanted to ensure no one else saw it. It was probably the sweetest thing he’d ever done for her and she found that Porter was starting to surprise her at every turn.

  “I revisited one of the crime scenes this morning,” Mackenzie explained. “While the visit itself did not reveal the break, it led me straight to it. As many of you know, each post the killer has strapped the women to has had two code-like groupings of letters and numbers: N511 and J202. After speaking with a pastor earlier today, I discovered that these are references to Numbers 5:11 and Joshua 20:2.

  “The Numbers passage talks about an Old Testament approach to adultery. Any adulterous woman was brought to the priests and given what were called bitter waters. The thought was that the blessed water would curse adulterous women and would not affect a pure woman. In essence, it was the church’s way of judging or accusing women thought to be unclean.

  “As for the reference to Joshua, that passage refers to Cities of Refuge—cities that men could escape to if they had accidentally committed murder or killed to protect themselves, their families, or their pe
ople. In these Cities of Refuge, the murdered could not be prosecuted. In fact, it is said in the passage that all men residing in a City of Refuge would be spared from the avenger of blood.

  “Now, according to the pastor I spoke with, there were six of the cities. And that leads me to believe that there are going to be at least three more murders.”

  “Why is that?” Nelson asked, disregarding his earlier rule of keeping all questions for the end.

  “I believe the killer is killing these women to use them as a representation of each City of Refuge. And, as he is killing them, he believes he is taking on the role of the avenger of blood. More than that, he is, in a sense, building a city.”

  The room fell silent for a moment as they waited for her to explain. She turned to the wall behind her where a well-used whiteboard had recently been cleaned. She grabbed a marker and drew a crude map from memory, sketching out the map Pastor Simms had showed her in the church.

  “These are the rough locations of the six cities,” she said, placing large dots along her crude map. They made a crude oval shape, each city almost the same distance from one another.

  “Now, if you were to take a map of the area containing the sites where we have found each of the bodies,” she said, “it would resemble this almost exactly.”

  Right away, Nancy started typing something into her computer at the back of the table. Without looking up from her screen, she said, “I’ll bring up a map,” she said. “Lights, please.”

  The officer closest to the light switch hit the lights while another flipped on the projector that sat in the middle of the cluttered conference table. Mackenzie stepped to the side to allow the light to shine directly on the dry erase board.

  Nancy had brought up the same map that was attached to the reports that she had handed out earlier. It showed each highway, secondary road, and town within a one-hundred-fifty-mile radius. On the map, three Xs had been placed where each of the victims had been found.