Before Evil

by Alex Kava

  She could see he was telling the truth. She was surprised but pleased.

  “Sorry about the cookies,” he said and went back to his slide. “Was it the pie?”

  “More or less the combination of pie and flies and whatever he left on top.”

  “It’s a spleen.”

  She had guessed right.

  He pointed to a photograph on his left. It was a duplicate of the one she received from the CSU techs last night. Without the smell the gooey concoction didn’t look worthy of her vomitfest.

  “Dutch apple pie and French vanilla ice cream,” Ganza told her.

  “You can actually tell it’s French vanilla?”

  He shrugged and said, “CSU tech found the container in the freezer. Brought it in for us to test.”

  “How can you be sure it’s a spleen?” she asked even though she was sure.

  “I have the takeout container zipped up in the fridge if you want to take a look. Wenhoff’s doing the autopsies later today. He’ll make the final determination, but I’m pretty sure it’s a spleen.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “You mean mixing Dutch and French?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. He grinned, pleased with himself.

  “Killers have done stranger things,” he told her.

  “The scene was chaotic. He improvised. Used electrical cords from a couple of lamps at the scene to tie their hands and feet. I’m guessing he took a knife from the kitchen to slit their throats. Doesn’t seem like the type of guy who’d know where the spleen was, let alone expertly extract it.”

  “Expertly?”

  “I saw the two bodies. Other than slitting their throats he didn’t carve them up. There were maggots already in what looked like stab wounds. I guess it’s possible that there’s an incision. But a spleen isn’t something you slice open a body and accidentally pull out. It sits under your ribcage tucked in at the upper left part of the abdomen. And it’s actually toward the back.”

  Ganza was staring at her and bobbing his head. “Interesting,” he said.

  From the look on his face, Maggie was grateful he didn’t follow it up with, “How the hell do you know all that?” But he had worked with her long enough to know there was nothing boastful in her regurgitation of information. This was just how her mind worked.

  Instead, he pulled off his latex gloves and washed his hands, drying them as he headed for the refrigerator in the corner. For a second she thought he was going to pull out the bagged takeout container, but thankfully, he grabbed a couple cans of Diet Pepsi instead.

  He handed one to Maggie and popped the tab of his, guzzling it. It used to freak her out that he kept his lunch and his stash of Diet Pepsis in the same refrigerator that housed the specimens from crime scenes. When he wasn’t looking, she wiped down the top of the can. Maybe it still freaked her out a bit.

  “Okay, so we don’t know if the spleen belongs to either of these two victims,” Ganza said. “We’ll have to wait for Wenhoff’s autopsy results.”

  “I’ll be surprised if it did come from one them. This killer just seems too disorganized. He didn’t bring any rope to tie them up. He used a knife he found in their kitchen. But I have to admit, if it didn’t come from the residents of the trailer, where else did he get it? And why would he just happen to bring along a spleen he cut out of someone else?”

  Ganza’s ponytail bobbed with another shrug. “Again, I remind you, we have seen stranger things.”

  27

  “Property taxes list Louis and Elizabeth Tanner as the owners,” Maggie told Ganza.

  He was studying a piece of carpeting the CSU techs had cut out from the trailer’s living room floor.

  “Not the girl’s parents?” he asked without looking up.

  “Katie called them Uncle Lou and Aunt Beth. We found her father in the river.”

  “No I.D. in his pockets?”

  “Could be at the bottom of the river.” In her mind she added, along with my wedding ring.

  She took a break to stretch and ventured over to Ganza’s side of the counter.

  “Did the techs recover any shoe prints?” Maggie asked.

  “They said this was one of the best ones. I have three others.”

  “Actual shoe prints?”

  He gestured for her to take a look at the piece of carpet. He was right. The heel was from a shoe.

  “I’m guessing all the bare foot prints have been ruled out?” He laid out those photos on the counter like cards from a deck.

  “The girl had blood on the soles of her feet. She must have gone inside at some point.”

  Maggie took another stack of photos Ganza had and started working her way through them, using his same method. One by one she fanned them out on the counter above the other set with the footprints. There were various shots of the blood-splattered walls along with several close-ups of the wounds filled with maggots. She was relieved that Cunningham hadn’t asked her to attend the autopsies. She hated maggots.

  Something bothered her about the photos.

  “There was a lot of blood,” she said, talking it out with Ganza as was their usual routine. “He had to be close enough to slit Mr. Tanner’s throat. It splattered all over the walls. It would have sprayed him, too. Why are there so few of his footprints?”

  “Maybe he took his shoes off, at some point. Some of the footprints are smeared so badly we probably won’t be able to determine size. Sure the girl might have gone in with bare feet, but maybe he did, too.”

  “Or he put on shoe covers,” she said absently.

  She came across the photos of the ceiling.

  “He had to tie up Mr. Tanner and suspend him from the ceiling before he cut his throat,” she told Ganza. “How difficult would that be?”

  “Not as difficult as it seems.” He reached over and pointed at a close-up photo of the hook in the ceiling. “Hard part was probably subduing the victims first. He had to tie their hands and feet. Then once he looped the extension cord around this hook, all he had to do was pull down on it. It’d work like a pulley, yanking the body up.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been easier to kill him first?”

  “Maybe that wasn’t a part of his plan.”

  “You think he wanted him to suffer?” Maggie asked.

  “Hey, I analyze the evidence. You psychoanalyze the killers.”

  “There was no forced entry. So they may have known him well enough to let him in. But he didn’t know about Katie and her father.”

  “Sometimes in the rural areas people don’t lock their doors,” Ganza said.

  She came to the photographs of the pie. “It’s not unusual for killers to take trophies from their victims. If this spleen isn’t from one of the Tanners that would mean the he brought it with him to the scene.”

  “Does the spleen signify something in particular?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Was the girl’s father cut? Maybe it’s his spleen,” Ganza suggested.

  “CSU techs didn’t mention it. And that’s another mystery. He uses a knife to kill both victims inside the trailer, but when he needs to stop Katie’s father he shoots him in the back. So he had gun. Why not just shoot all three of them?”

  “Bullets can be traced back to a gun.”

  “Could just throw it in the river.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to get rid of his gun.”

  Maggie thought about that. “Very few serial killers have used guns. Not personal enough.”

  “And this was personal.”

  “Personal enough that he wanted Mr. Tanner to feel fear. Why else string him up and hang him from the ceiling?”

  “But the female victim wasn’t strung up,” Ganza reminded her.

  “No. And we don’t think she was sexually assaulted. Of cou
rse we won’t know for sure until Wenhoff’s autopsy.”

  The wall phone started ringing, and Ganza grabbed it on the third ring.

  “This is Ganza.” He listened and his eyes darted up to Maggie. “Yep, she’s here. You wanna talk to her?” Ganza listened again, nodding, still watching Maggie. “I can do that.”

  He hung up. Stripped off his gloves and put on a new set. “Cunningham’s still at the hospital with the girl. He asked for you to come over. Room 333.”

  “Does he need me to bring anything?”

  “I think he just wants an update and doesn’t want to do it over the phone.”

  “You said he’s still at the hospital? He went there last night.”

  He shrugged like he couldn’t be bothered by Cunningham’s schedule.

  “Before you leave there’s something else I thought was very strange,” Ganza said, and he headed for the refrigerator again.

  This time he did pull out the takeout container with the pie. He opened the plastic evidence bag and slid the gooey mess out onto the counter. Maggie was relieved to find that without the flies and with a reduced smell, it no longer turned her stomach.

  “Is there any way to figure out where the takeout container came from?”

  “I’m guessing they’re generic. I’ll check. Might be a lot number or something like that.” With the tip of his gloved finger, he lifted a corner of the piecrust to show her. “There’s something underneath.”

  It looked like a slip of paper.

  “Is it a note?” she asked.

  “I saw it earlier, but I didn’t want to take it apart until you were here.”

  Now he grabbed a butter knife and some forceps. He gently lifted the crust with the knife and tugged the object out. Ganza held it up with the forceps, gripping it carefully by the corner. It looked like a soggy receipt, only it was a bit thicker than paper. The print was smeared. Piecrust stuck to the bottom portion.

  “Can you retrieve any of that?”

  “You know me. I do love a challenge.”

  28

  Stucky knew there wasn’t much time left. He’d need to take care of this. Before the asshole made yet another mess. And he needed to do it soon.

  This entire detour had become a distraction. He didn’t want to play this guy’s game anymore. It was boring. There wasn’t much challenge. He had prey waiting to be hunted. And Stucky certainly wouldn’t allow himself to get caught up in this amateur’s collateral damage. Because without Stucky’s help, he was sure the asshole would only makes matters worse.

  His janitorial status provided him access to a wide variety of places within the hospital. On his nightly rounds he had acquired quite a treasure trove of surgical instruments. It was always good to restock his supply, but most of these he’d need to use now.

  From just one glance, Stucky saw the man’s bloodshot eyes. His fingernails were chewed down to the quick. His foot tapped out his nervous energy. He looked anxious. Too anxious, though he hid it whenever anyone else was close-by. It looked like he had changed clothes before he’d arrived, but these were already wrinkled from hours of sitting.

  He was so obsessed watching the girl’s room that he didn’t pay attention to the janitor mopping the hallway floor right in front of him. He barely even looked at Stucky when Stucky handed him the folded piece of paper, mumbling that the unit secretary had asked him to pass the note to him. The asshole accepted the lame explanation, glancing at Stucky’s mop and bucket longer than he looked at Stucky. By the time he did look up, Stucky was mopping his way down the hall with his back to the guy. It didn’t matter. He never would have recognized Stucky anyway.

  Before he headed toward the elevators Stucky looked over his shoulder. The asshole didn’t know what to do. The poor bastard truly looked torn. Because just at that moment, the FBI man and his lovely companion were getting ready to leave the room, again. The nurse passed Stucky in the hallway. She’d sit with the girl like she did the last time they left. But nurses had emergencies. They could get called away. And in a matters of minutes—seconds, really—anything could happen.

  Stucky got in the elevator as he fingered the syringe he had in his pocket. He caressed his thumb over the cap to make sure it was still snapped in place.

  He found his clothes where he’d left them in the supply room. He put on scrubs then rolled his shirt and jeans—along with his newly acquired surgical supplies—all neatly into a towel, which he tucked under his arm. He still had time to throw them inside his vehicle and get what he needed from his trunk.

  Then he walked out of the supply room, confidently down the hallways, passing the reception desk, through the lobby and right out the front door.

  29

  More clouds. More rain. It slowed down traffic, but Maggie was almost to the District when she got a call from Ganza.

  “It’s a speeding ticket,” he said without a greeting.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The piece of paper under the piecrust. I was able to perform some magic and resurrect the print. Looks like Louis Tanner got the ticket last week.”

  “He must have had it someplace in the kitchen. Maybe on the refrigerator? People do that sort of thing, right?”

  “I suppose so, but why would it be something the killer thought should go into the pie?” Ganza asked.

  Maggie knew it might not mean anything except for a madman having fun, another sick piece to a puzzle. He could have found Louis’ speeding ticket on the refrigerator or taken it from the counter.

  Rather than discount it, she asked, “Is there anything different about it? Maybe he’s pointing out something on the ticket. Perhaps the date it was issued?”

  “There is one thing I thought was a bit odd. The officer took the time to write argumentative in the comments. All caps. That’s a long word to take time for.”

  “Is it that unusual? I would imagine quite a few people are argumentative when they get a speeding ticket.”

  “Yes, but Deputy Steele thought it was important,” Ganza said.

  “Wait a minute. Did you say Steele?”

  “Can’t make out the first name, but yes, Steele—S-T-E-E-L-E. Does that mean something to you? Warren County Deputy.”

  “There was a Deputy Steele at the crime scene with Sheriff Geller. The sheriff claimed they didn’t know the Tanners, but to be fair, at that time none of us knew the names of the residents. Steele could have given Louis Tanner a speeding ticket and not known where he lived.”

  “Just a coincidence then,” Ganza said.

  Except neither of them believed in coincidences.

  Twenty minutes later Maggie pulled into the hospital’s parking lot, found the first slot and called Cunningham.

  “Agent O’Dell, you probably just missed us. I’m headed to the cafeteria.”

  “I’m still in the parking lot, but I wanted to run something by you right away. Ganza found a piece of paper inserted under the piecrust.”

  She explained it to Cunningham while she watched the few hospital employees leave and arrive. She realized she was in the wrong lot. This was for employees, not guests. In her rearview mirror she saw a woman in a white lab coat getting into her vehicle. A man in blue scrubs walked through the lane in front of Maggie’s car. He was carrying a small red cooler—probably his lunch. It looked like there was a bloodstain on his tunic.

  Surgery, the ER, she reminded herself as she continued to tell Cunningham, “It may be a coincidence but—”

  “Steele is posted outside of Katie’s door right now,” Cunningham interrupted.

  He sounded more alarmed than Maggie expected. She could hear him tell someone that he needed to leave.

  “Deputies write dozens of tickets,” she said. “He might not even know that the man he wrote a speeding ticket for last week was the victim in the trailer.”

  “We left hi
m up there with her. Probably fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago.”

  His voice broke in and out.

  “I’m on my way back to the room.”

  Maggie was climbing out of her vehicle when she saw a police cruiser two lanes from where she was parked. On the side of the vehicle, she could make out the last letters iff that weren’t blocked by the car in the next slot. Someone was in the driver’s seat.

  “Sir, there’s a sheriff’s vehicle here in the same lot. Might be Deputy Steele’s. Someone’s behind the wheel.”

  “Or it could be his replacement. Give me a minute.”

  She heard the ding of an elevator then his end of the phone line sounded like a wind tunnel.

  Maggie dropped back into her car seat and waited and watched. The driver hadn’t moved. His head was down, chin tucked. Hat tilted. From this angle it looked as if he might be reading something.

  Another ding and Cunningham said, “Are you still with me, Agent O’Dell?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Damn it! He’s not in his chair.”

  Cunningham sounded out of breath.

  “Where is he?” he asked, but it was mumbled, and Maggie realized he wasn’t asking her.

  Someone close-by answered.

  “Steele’s not here, Agent O’Dell. The nurse said he left in a hurry. Shortly after Dr. Patterson and I left the room.”

  “So this could be him down in the sheriff’s vehicle?”

  “I need to stay here with Katie. Approach with caution, Agent O’Dell.”

  Again she was surprised by the urgency in his tone.

  “Sir, are you saying you believe Deputy Steele could be dangerous?”

  “All I know for sure is that Steele left his post without being relieved. He’s tired, he’s exhausted. Could be he just needed a break. Maybe he was called away on a family emergency. Just be careful, Agent O’Dell. No matter what’s going on with Steele, we know we have a killer still on the loose.”

  “Understood.”

  “Call me as soon as you’ve made contact with the deputy.”