by Holly Hunt
The Holiday Killer
by Holly Hunt
Copyright © 2015 by Holly Hunt
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Modern Meltdown Productions
Queanbeyan, NSW Australia 2620
www.themodernmeltdown.com
A young boy, five years old, sat sleepily behind his mum's recliner, watching the fireplace in front of him. On the clock behind him, midnight ticked slowly closer. The Christmas decorations around the room were gaudy, tired, and past their lifespan, but they were heirlooms and well-loved, so his mother continued to pull them out every year.
The boy tilted forward a little, yawning. It was well and truly past his bedtime, but he was definitely going to stay up to see Santa Claus.
The clock ticked over to midnight, and a rustling emerged from the chimney. Tom looked up, suddenly wide awake, and peered around the armchair to the chimney. Grains of soot dropped from the chimney into the fireplace below, and Tom hid a little more, watching the fireplace with trepidation.
Then the rustling stopped, and Tom watched the fireplace. But nothing happened.
He peeked out a little more, his heart starting to sink with disappointment. Maybe Santa didn't come if you were waiting for him?
Suddenly the front door clicked open and Tom gasped, hiding behind the chair, watching. He could hear the door creaking open, and feel the slow gust of cold as the wind from outside crept into the warm house. A large, bulky man stepped into Tom's view, dressed in a red suit, but lacking a beard or white hair. Tom watched him with one eye from behind the chair, and stared. Santa!
The man turned to look at him, smiling, and gestured for the boy to follow him. But Tom hesitated. This man was dressed like Santa, but his parents had taught him to be wary of strangers. Should he go? Or should he run upstairs and tell his parents about this?
The man gestured again, then reached into his large sack and pulled out a small present, perfectly wrapped, and held it out to him.
Tom emerged slowly from the chair, stepping slowly toward Santa. The bulky man smiled and headed for the front door, gesturing after him for Tom to follow. Tom looked at the present and cautiously followed the man to the front door, looking out. He couldn't see the man, but that didn't mean he was gone.
Suddenly something grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides and covering his mouth and nose with a large hand. Tom tried to scream, to wriggle out, but the man was much stronger than him, and he was cutting off his air.
The man carried him from the house, managing to steer him out without the kicking boy knocking anything over, and threw the boy into the trunk of his car. Winded, on the verge of passing out from oxygen deprivation, Tom weakly gulped in air as he watched a second shape carefully shut the door to the house, leaving behind no sign.
1
The house was swarming with police, the officers doing their best to search for the kidnapper, in both the house and the wooded lands surrounding it. The person taking these kids would come in the night, steal the children away, and leave a little token of the holiday—in this case, a purple party hat for New Years' Eve—in the child's place.
Detective Elizabeth Donhowi sighed, rubbing her forehead. This was the fourth kid to go missing under the same circumstances since June. She knew he wouldn't be the last, not unless they caught the person doing this. She did find it strange that the kidnappings happened on holidays, but she and her captain reasoned that the kidnapper was striking when the police force was at their thinnest.
She took a long slug of coffee; she'd been pulled out of her bed by the phone at 2:30 in the morning, when the parents discovered little Mike missing. He was the fourth victim of this lunatic—the fourth child under the age of six to be dragged from his bed in the middle of the night.
Liz didn't hold out much hope for the kid, held hostage to a madman who liked to butcher children for fun. The boy would turn up sometime tomorrow, hanging from a tree with his stomach split open. It was how they were always found.
Frustrated, she threw her cup in the bin and stalked back to the cruiser. There was little she could do around here until the forensics guys went through the entire house, top to bottom, searching out footprints, hairs, fibers, footprints outside—anything they could use to track him down. And now it was starting to snow. The forensics guys were forced to hurry with their casts of the boot prints near the family's back door, before the approaching weather obliterated them beneath the white flurries.
Happy New Year, she thought to herself, climbing into the passenger seat of her car.
"It was him, wasn't it? Not a copycat?" Lisa asked, her door open as she blew smoke from her cigarette out into the freezing early morning air.
"Too perfect for a copycat. And now that it's starting to snow, the boys are going to have a hard time finding any more footprints." Liz picked up her cell and dialed the number for home. Phil would be waiting for her call telling him how long she would be on scene.
"Still working?" he asked with a yawn, clearly just waking up.
"Yeah. It's the Holiday Killer. We're going to be working all day and into the night." She paused. "Sorry, Baby. I'll try to be home before midnight."
"You do what you have to do, Liz. I'll keep an eye on Jamie."
Liz smiled to herself—a sad smile. Jamie was their only son, a bright seven-year-old who had the potential to become the Holiday Killer's next victim, if she didn't tread carefully on this case. "He won't kill again until Easter. But it's better to be safe. Thank you, Phil." She glanced out of the car, at the sergeant heading for her. "I have to go, your dad's coming. I love you."
"Love you too, Liz. Say hi to him for me."
"Will do." Liz hung up, then climbed out of the relatively warm car, closing her jacket. The icy winds were starting to pick up.
"Donhowi, Edwards." The sergeant looked the pair over, taking in the snow melting on their jackets and the smoldering cigarette still in Lisa's hand. "Forensics is done with the bedroom. You two get in there and find something to catch the bastard."
Lisa crushed the cigarette under her boot and threw it in the car's ashtray, straightening up her jacket as the sergeant hurried way, collar up against the wind. "After you," she said, gesturing for Liz to move.
Liz shut the car door and headed for the house, Lisa right behind her. Taking a deep breath, she opened the front door and stepped inside.
It was mayhem. The father of the boy was yelling, harassing officers and demanding to know why they hadn't brought his son back yet—they'd been there three hours, surely they should know something by now. Liz skipped around the scene, nodded to one of the officers keeping the father from punching someone, and headed up the stairs.
The bedroom was quieter than the living room, but not by much. Four police officers were crammed into the tiny room, each trying to make sense of the scene. Two of them worked a corner of the room, where a lamp had been knocked to the ground and broken, while the other two assessed the kid's toys, which were arranged as though they were meant to trip anyone coming through the door.
The bed sat in the middle of the room, the covers clean but thrown back, as though they'd been wrenched off the kid. The pillow was on the floor, a numbered place card detailing a shot one of the detectives wanted the forensics guys to capture for evidence.
Where the pillow usually sat was a purple party hat, already bagged and dusted for prints. Liz took in the room, noticing the unnaturally clean surface on everything, and frowned. This kid was her son's age; his room should be co
vered in discarded toys, clothes, books, paper, rubbish—anything he felt like playing with. Even the painting on the wall, a sailboat that looked like it had been painted by the kid himself when he was younger, was perfectly aligned and missing even the smallest speck of dust.
All that made the place look messy was the ring of toys, the broken lamp, and the discarded pillow. It made her uneasy, this uncharacteristic cleanliness.
"The kid knew he was coming," she muttered, crouching down to look at the line of plastic soldiers and cars—toys that would make a noise if stepped on or knocked over. "But how? How would he know that the killer was coming for him?"
"His parents would have been tense," Lisa said, stepping up behind her. "He would have felt their apprehension. It's not like this is the Holiday Killer's first attack. He would have done what he could to make them feel like he was safe."
"You don't have kids, Lisa. How would you know that?"
"I have spent a lot of time with Jamie, Liz. He's a smart kid, and it's something he would have picked up on."
Lisa stepped over the toys, heading for the window. There was printing dust on the sill, but none on the windowpane, where a streak too large for a child's hand marred the clean surface. She watched Lisa lean in close to examine the glass.
"There's a handprint here," Lisa called, looking at the other officers in the room. "Did the forensics guys get this? It hasn't been tagged."
"It's a glove print," one of them called. Liz stepped past the toys to look at the print herself. "You can't get anything from a gloved hand," the officer continued.
"Except the size, material of the glove, and…" Liz leaned in a little closer. "Particles and residue from the glove's locations." She pulled out her cell and dialed the sergeant. "Send a couple of the forensics boys back up to the bedroom. They missed something."
There was a grunt on the other end of the phone and the line went dead. Liz shook her head at the sergeant and turned back to the room, looking it over. If the forensics guys had missed the handprint on the window, they might have missed something else, too.
"Did someone clean up in here?" she asked, pulling on a pair of latex gloves and opening the closet door. Inside were some clothes, a couple of toys. No mess pushed aside for later, no muddy shoes in the back of the closet… Nothing.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end. This was weird.
"Get the mother up here," she called, looking to Lisa. "Everyone else, out of here, now."
The other officers stared at her, but shuffled out when Lisa snapped at them. The sergeant appeared, forensics team on tow, and Liz directed them to wait until the mother arrived.
"Step inside," Liz said, holding her hand out to the weeping woman. "Be careful not to knock over the toys."
The woman was hesitant, and looked around the room with fresh tears dripping down her cheeks, but Liz sighed and held out her hand, taking the woman's.
"I have a son Mike's age," she explained, gently leading the woman into the room. "Jamie. He's a real brat about cleaning his room. Never has anything where it's meant to be. I swear, the kid thinks his clothes should live on the floor and his books belong on his bed." She smiled at the woman. "I bet Mike's the same, right?"
The woman nodded, looking at Liz. "Yeah. At least three times a week I tell him to clean his room, but he never does, not until I threaten to throw out all his stuff. He usually just throws everything in the closet and says he's going to do it later." Her smile dropped off as she looked around the room, confused.
"When was the last time he cleaned up his room?" Liz asked, holding the woman's hands.
"About a week ago." She looked around the room again. "Did you guys clean up in here?"
"Was it messy when you put him to bed last night?" Liz asked, glancing at the sergeant over the woman's shoulder.
"It—it was, yes."
The sergeant approached, and Liz looked to him. "How many of the victims' rooms were cleaned out when we got there?"
"All of them were spotless." He looked to the officers behind him, and, realizing the issue, barked at a nearby officer, "Get the father back up here, now."
"Tammy, I need you to think," Liz said, turning back to the mother. "Is there anything missing from this room? Anything at all?"
Mike's father, John, had come into the room now, and picked his way over the line of toys. He held his wife and she looked around, trying to think. What she said would have a bearing on the case, and Liz hoped her suspicions were correct.
"Where's Zanzelbub?" John asked, looking to his wife. "Do you know?"
The woman walked carefully around the room, looking in every corner, doing her best not to touch anything. "He's not here." She looked at Liz. "His stuffed T-Rex. It's not here."
Liz nodded, motioning for the forensics team to look at the window. "Thank you, Tammy, John. Come with me. We'll have some coffee while the boys finish up."
2
The vibrating of her cell phone dragged Liz from her sleep. She answered it groggily, rubbing at her eyes.
"Donhowi."
"Detective Donhowi, this is dispatch. They've found a body on Lowrig Boulevard." The woman hesitated. "It's the kid, Liz. In the vacant lot."
"I'll be right there." She hung up and climbed out of bed, noting the time. Only 4:30.
"Did they find him?" Phil muttered, looking at her over the head of their son, who was still asleep.
"Yeah, but it doesn't sound good." She pulled on her jacket and pants, and grabbed her phone off the bedside table. "Look after Jamie, and I'll see you two later." She leaned over to kiss her sleeping son's forehead and her husband before running out the door.
By the time she reached Lowrig Boulevard, the area was swarming with press and onlookers eager to see the Holiday Killer's latest work. The place was a rundown part of the city's slums, covered in garbage and filth that wasn't entirely animal in origin. The buildings around here were dark, their owners hiding from the snow, clearly trying to keep off the radar. Liz looked around the street, taking note of the faces she could see as she approached.
One of the journalists jumped in front of the car, the loud thump of the man's hands hitting the bonnet dragging her back to the current task. She waved him off, pointing to the recording device placed at the bottom of her window, and the man backed off; she could tell he was after an insurance check, and wasn't looking for real trouble.
The police guarding the entry to the site stepped aside, lifting the tape so she could drive her car through. Reporters and journalists behind her tried to push in, but the uniformed police didn't let a single one through.
Liz climbed out of the car and stepped onto the curb, pulling her snow jacket closer. It was threatening to storm again, but for now, the sky was merely cloudy. The winds picked up the dirty snow left from the night before, throwing it toward her face, and she pulled her coat up to cut through the biting air as she made her way toward the cluster of police. The vacant lot where the boy was dumped had been scrubbed relatively clean by someone in a fifteen-foot circle around the body, the police trying to keep out of the clean area as though afraid it would bite them.
Mike's body was strung from the fire escape in the center of the circle, torn and gore-splattered. Liz swallowed the bile rising in her throat, and took a shaky breath.
"Liz." The sergeant looked at her, then at the body. "It's the kid. I need you to tell his parents."
Liz stared at him. "All due respect, Bill, but I'm the chief investigator here. Why am I being assigned to—"
"Because you can keep the lady calm." He looked awkward. "I'm not very good with crying women; you know that. And the officers who normally do it… Well, one of them's on stress leave from dealing with these kids, and the other thought it would be better if someone they've already talked to told them. Might help them take it a little easier."
Liz sighed, still feeling a little queasy. "I'll let them know on the way home. For now, I have to examine the body and ask some questions."
The sergeant, looking like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, headed for the group of officers. Liz followed him, heading for the man standing to the left. He was staring at the body, his hand over his mouth.
The poor boy had been strung up by his big toes, the skin ripped from his legs and flapping lazily in the wind from his hips. His chest cavity had been opened, the cartilage torn down the side of his breastbone, leaving the ribs open like a door, his organs draped across the fire escape. The look of pain and horror on the kid's face told Liz that the poor boy had been alive when he was cut open.
"Are you the man who found the body?" she asked, stopping beside the sick-looking man, who was sweating and pale.
"Yeah. And who're you?" he asked.
She took stock of the expensive-looking shoes, in spite of his low-budget outerwear, and instantly took an interest in him. What was a rich man, who was clearly trying to pass himself off as a poor man, doing in the slums? Was he connected to the body?
"I'm Detective Donhowi. I'm in charge of this investigation." She looked the man over, also noticing the silk tie peeking out over the collar of his ratty snow coat. "Can you tell me what you were doing on a vacant lot in an industrial area at this time of the morning?"
The man stared at her, wide-eyed. "You think I did it, do ya? You think I would do that to a—"
His face went suddenly green before he spun around and puked, though the retching failed to bring anything from his stomach except bile. He'd likely thrown up earlier when he found the kid. The sight of the boy's arms, twisted at unnatural angles and broken at the elbows, was definitely a good reason to lose his breakfast.
"No, sir. But I do need to know what you were doing out here so early in the morning."
"I was walking my dog. Your friend Detective Edwards has him."
"I'll make sure you get him back." She looked him in the eye. He seemed genuinely disturbed by what he'd found, but she couldn't tell if he was faking it. Being out here with his dog didn't make sense, anyway. Lisa had arrived after Liz, and there was no sign of a dog. More and more suspicious. "Did you see anyone or anything out of the ordinary around here before you discovered the body?"