The Thrill List

by Catherine Lea

  I returned her smile. “You seem very sure it’s a replica room.” I thought it was possible. But Conway was sure. “No songs? No hallucinations?”

  She faltered for a split second before replying and I knew she’d seen or heard something.

  “Gut feeling,” she said.

  I knew what that meant, either a song she’d heard while we were in the room or Christopher Chance rocked in and told her something. I don’t suppose it really mattered which but the hallucination thing worried me a whole lot more than the songs.

  Heavy footsteps sounded behind us. I looked over my shoulder. Lee and Sam. Sam carrying the evidence bag.

  “Next crime scene?” Lee asked.

  “Yes. Working backwards,” I said.

  Sam dropped the evidence bag in the trunk of his car. Conway and I climbed into our car. I noticed her hide a yawn behind her hand.

  “You sure about this? We can take the next three tomorrow.” Futile question. I knew that. She would insist she was okay and that we should get on with it.

  One look. She glanced sideways and shook her head. A smile formed.

  “Of course,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  The nice thing about visiting crime scenes at night, traffic was easy.

  * * *

  I alighted from the vehicle first, leaving Conway alone with a personal call. I walked back to Sam’s car, parked behind us. The three of us stood in front of another derelict house, or at least that’s how it appeared. Over grown garden. Broken windows highlighted by moonlight. The scene guard watched us from the front step. Waiting. Would we approach or not. His hand rested on the butt of his sidearm.

  A car door closed. Conway joined us.

  “All right?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Her smile said more than her single syllable response. I knew from her smile she’d been talking to Mitch. Just friends? Not for long if that smile was anything to go by. One hell of a good friend for phone calls to be okay after eleven at night.

  “Let’s get in there,” I said, leading the way up the crumbling path to the scene guard. This time I handed over my identification. The scene guard allowed us entry. Lee slipped in front of me.

  Did they really think I didn’t notice?

  Another entrance way to a dark dingy house that had seen better days stretched out before us. The unmistakable sound of four people donning latex gloves and letting them snap against our wrists resounded.

  “Where to?” Lee asked, shining his flashlight down the hallway. “Floors are intact.”

  “Good,” I replied checking my phone for the particulars of the scene. “Second bedroom.”

  Lee stopped at a crime scene taped doorway. He tugged one edge, the tape fell away. Stepping aside he said, “After you Chicky.”

  Conway moved past me.

  “Thanks,” she said stopping in the doorway. A few seconds ticked by before she stepped over the threshold.

  I followed Lee into the room. Sam didn’t come. I stepped back out the door and shone my flashlight toward Sam.

  “Sam, what’s up?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not sure, probably nothing. Jumpy. I’ll hang here for a bit.”

  “Okay.”

  Conway looked at me as I entered the room again. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sam’s gut is twanging.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Let’s not take all night then.”

  Another inconsistent room in a house that’d seen better days. I touched the surface of a dressing table with a built in mirror. No dust. One sniff told me it’d not long ago been polished. Not Lemon Pledge this time though.

  “Conway, what’s this smell?” I beckoned her over and pointed at the dressing table. She was good with scents.

  “It’s Pledge, original,” she replied with a smile and went back to the nightstand.

  “That’s different,” I said. “The last scene was Lemon Pledge.”

  “Personal preference,” Conway replied. “We need to find out who these women are and get into their homes.”

  It bothered me that police hadn’t provided us with identities. It’s not that hard to run finger prints. This is Northern Virginia a lot of people have government jobs or jobs in areas that require them to have their finger prints recorded. Something else irritated me. They were missing women at some point. So why no missing person reports? That’s a pretty good way to identify bodies.

  “Kurt, another vibrator.”

  Lee provided Conway with an evidence bag.

  “Same deal as before?” I asked.

  “Yes. Drawer was shut this time though. When I opened it, I found cast off and then saw the vibrator. Smudged bloodied prints low on the shaft. Suppose there is nothing to indicate sexual activity here either?”

  “Nope.” I’d hoped the last one was an anomaly but now it looked like part of the Unsub’s Modus Operandi or signature. “Conway, signature or Modus Operandi?”

  “Too early to tell.”

  “What does your gut say?”

  “Signature.”

  I nodded.

  “Is there anything else? Lee, you see anything out of place?”

  “Again, no jewelry box. Something else Kurt. It didn’t occur to me at the last one, but, now I’m seeing it again. So it’s something.” Lee swept an arm around the room. “No electronics. Not a thing. No clock, radio, tablet, i-anything, phones, television, eReader, laptop.”

  He had a point. How many people had an actual electronics free bedroom? Not that many.

  “Back up, eReader?” Conway said. “No tree books either.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Could be he chose two women who didn’t read,” Lee said with a small laugh. “Not even a magazine in here.”

  Sam called out. “Moving right along. This is not a good place.”

  Conway nudged Lee. “Go, he’s worried. Sam is never worried.”

  I crossed the room to Conway, to escort her out. She clutched the evidence bag in one hand while photographing the drawer and room with her phone. I took the bag. She smiled and carried on taking photos on our way out of the room.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Sam.

  “This place is dark, bro. Real dark. Some bad shit has happened here. More than this recent death,” Sam said, taking point and moving out.

  Conway stepped up beside him. I couldn’t hear the conversation but I did notice his shoulders relax as he breathed more deeply once they were outside.

  “What was that?” I asked Lee. It felt like something.

  “Sam’s jumpy. Ellie calmed him down,” he shrugged. “She caught him. It’s all good.”

  I shook my head. “Sam is never jumpy. That’s big. Tell me?”

  Lee’s hand closed around my arm, stopping my forward movement. “Before you joined Delta A, we were in a place not too different from this place actually. We went back to the scene to check something, the four of us were right there, next minute, Sam’s down, stabbed, and the Unsub is running.”

  “Mac was with you then?” No one talked much about life before I arrived in Delta and I didn’t really want to ask. I’d seen the looks on their faces when something from that period in time cropped up. It was dark. Some of it I knew. I knew about injuries sustained by the team during various cases but unless there were notes on file, I was there, or they told me, I didn’t know the details regarding the lead up to particular injuries. Copies of their medical files are kept by me. Except in Conway’s case. I have the original in a safe in my office and a copy stored with everyone else’s. Her file contains injuries sustained during covert operations, everything regarding that part of her life remained sealed.

  Lee nodded. “Sam’s stabbing happened a few days before Mac’s death.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” I asked, tipping my head toward Sam and Conway. She seemed okay but it didn’t hurt to get a second opinion.

  “Yeah. Sam’s demons seem to be active, but Ellie is okay.”

  We
carried on to the cars and separated.

  I made a note. Keep an eye on Sam. Crappy houses seem to be the theme with this case and I didn’t want someone like him losing it, ever. I climbed into the driver’s seat, swallowing a smile. Conway losing it is bad enough, she can hit pretty hard, but Sam could knock me out cold for days.

  * * *

  “Next?” Conway said while checking her phone.

  “You sure?” I asked pulling away from the curb and glancing in the rearview mirror. Sam drove the car that pulled out behind us.

  “Of course. Let’s get it done. Tomorrow we can start the investigation with scene visits already taken care of and an idea of where we’re going and maybe what we’re looking for.”

  She had a point. Several points. They were all good.

  We spent the rest of the drive spent in a comfortable silence. Half an hour later I pulled up outside another house.

  “Do we have any idea who owns any of these properties?” Conway asked opening her door.

  “Nothing in the reports. Something else for us to look in to.”

  Conway made a note on her phone. “I’ll get Manning to lend a hand with that,” she said, shoving her phone in her jacket pocket.

  Lee and Sam joined us by our car.

  A scene guard walked toward the sidewalk. He spoke from about six feet away. “Can I help you?”

  Conway and I met him. She handed over her identification.

  He nodded and pointed his flashlight toward the front door of the property. “Watch your step, the house is rotting.”

  Another run-down house.

  Lee took point. We all pulled gloves on before entering.

  The scene guard wasn’t kidding. Floor boards were rotting and crumbling. Looked like feet had gone through in places. Someone had rigged a rope handrail along both sides of the hallway. Good thinking. At least that should stop any of us falling underneath the house. No way would they have brought a body out this way. Would’ve been hard for the Unsub to bring someone in this way too. I made a mental note to have a look for another way in and out of the house.

  “How far?” Lee asked.

  “Third bedroom,” I replied.

  At the door of the bedroom, Lee and I stepped aside and let Conway do her thing. She paused in the door.

  “Can you smell that?” she asked turning her head in my direction.

  I shook my head. “What?”

  “Incense. Someone burned incense in this room. Patchouli.” She entered the room. I followed.

  Again the incongruity of the room set it apart from the rest of the house.

  The pine furniture gave an almost airy feel to the room, not like the dark stained wood in the crime scene.

  The blood that ran down the full length mirror on the wall by the bed, dried in streaks, nice touch.

  So far the houses would’ve been right at home on a Hollywood horror movie set or as haunted houses for Halloween. From the end of the bed I looked at the wall in front of me. The blood splatter missed a spot. A person sized area.

  “Can you see that?” I said to Conway and pointed at the wall.

  “Yeah. Someone was there. Whoever it was would’ve got a fair bit of blood on them.” Conway took photos.

  I carried on looking around the room. Again no jewelry box and no electronics and no books.

  “The nightstand is different,” Conway said. I joined her by the side of the bed. The nightstand in this room was a small glass topped table with a lidded wicker box underneath. “Chances are the table protected the box from cast off.” She pointed to blood smears across the glass.

  There was just enough room under the table to open the lid of the box, it flipped up.

  Conway froze as she looked at the contents.

  “Conway?” No response. “Ellie?”

  She came to life, shook her head, and dragged the box out from under the table. “She had a lot of toys,” Conway murmured. “There is blood in here.” She glanced across the room. “How many evidence bags do you have Lee?”

  Lee checked inside his bag. “Four left. How many do you need?”

  “Four. We got any more in the cars?”

  “Yeah, Chicky Babe, I re-stocked our car this morning,” Sam replied.

  I smiled. These were some of the things Delta B needed to learn and learn well.

  Lee gave Conway the evidence bags, one at a time, and waited for her to write on them and add the evidence then took from her. He dropped them into his bag.

  “She might have been alive longer than the others,” Conway said. “More toys containing traces of blood. Do you know anything about her wounds?”

  I flicked through the reports on my phone, reading fast.

  “She’s Jane Doe number 2. Fifteen cuts to her torso none of them deep enough to be fatal, all prior to her throat being cut. Preliminary report suggests her throat was cut right to left.” I looked at the wall behind the bed then at Conway. The Unsub was behind the victim, he probably held her head with one hand, and cut her throat with the other.

  “Tortured and killed by a left-handed Unsub,” she said. “Any DNA evidence found at any of the scenes? Were any of the victims bound or restrained in anyway?”

  “Jane Doe number four had a sticky residue around her wrists and ankles and bruising to those areas. Consistent with being restrained. None of the others that I can tell from this report.” I scrolled further. Nothing. I checked the time. Closing on midnight. Screw it. I made a call to the medical examiner’s office. They worked shifts. Someone would be there.

  “It’s SSA Kurt Henderson, investigating case number seven-seven-four-nine-zero.”

  “You’re speaking with Caroline Kristie, how can I help?”

  “Can you pull up your preliminary reports on all the victims of case seven-seven-four-nine-zero please?”

  “One moment agent, retrieving the information now.”

  “I’m especially interested in Jane Doe number two. Was she restrained?”

  I heard keys tapping.

  “We believe so, we found no residue on her skin, so probably not tape. Something soft, but she struggled against it. There is chaffing on her wrists and ankles.”

  “Left-handed Unsub?”

  “Yes, or at least he used the knife in his left-hand.”

  “Where do you think he was when her throat was cut?”

  Keys tapped.

  “The medical examiner made a note here that says the Unsub was behind the victim. She pulled latent prints from the forehead of the woman.”

  “Do we have a toxicology report for the women?”

  “Yes. Traces of Flunitrazepam were found but only in the second woman’s blood.”

  “Got identities yet?”

  I got the feeling the Unsub was experimenting, perfecting his techniques, deciding on his ultimate signature.

  “Yes, agent,” Caroline said.

  I patted my pockets.

  No notebook? I waved at Lee and motioned for a pen and notebook.

  He handed me both. I placed the notebook on the dressing table and wrote the women’s names and ages down as Caroline said them.

  “Victim one is Sienna Charleston aged twenty-five. Victim two is Dahlia Silver aged thirty-two. Victim three is Veronica Talbot aged thirty. Victim four is Jeanette Lewis ages twenty-seven.”

  “Families?”

  “We’ve only just finished the identification process, families have not been told yet.”

  “Do you mind if we handle that tomorrow?”

  I knew they wouldn’t. No one liked telling relatives bad news.

  “Not at all. I’ll have the full reports on your desk by midday. We’re half way through the autopsies now.”

  “That’s good work.”

  Astounding really.

  “Slow week for murders and unexplained deaths, no backlog,” Caroline replied.

  “I have a feeling there might be some more coming your way, unless we can get a handle on this Unsub. Was there DNA left at any of th
e scenes?”

  “Not from ejaculate but we have some saliva that we’re running from two of the women’s bodies. Might get lucky. We’ve also got some finger prints. Not holding much hope there, they were quite degraded and smudged. The Unsub might be in the system. If so, we’ll be able to tell you as soon as we get all the results back.”

  “Thanks Caroline. I’ll be in touch.”

  I hung up. Conway waited, expectantly.

  “And?” she said.

  “What were you thinking before?”

  “Sexual sadist,” she said.

  “You might be on the right track.”

  “The women from this scene, Dahlia Silver aged thirty-two had Flunitrazepam in her blood stream and was restrained. The ME thinks the bindings were soft.”

  “Rohypnol,” Conway whispered. “The Unsub was prepared to sedate.”

  Conway delved back into the box she’d pulled out from under the nightstand.

  She held up four long pieces of black fabric.

  “Restraints like these? She made it easier for him. Looks like she already liked a little bit of light bondage. These are silk scarves.” Conway called out to Sam. “We’re going to need more evidence bags.” She turned back to me. “Whoever was in charge of these scenes …” She shook her head. “… A five-year-old could do a better job of evidence gathering.” A smile lit her tired eyes. “Wasn’t Delta B was it?”

  “Ah no. It’d be way worse if they’d been in control,” I replied, matching her smile.

  “We ready to move?” Lee asked.

  “Yeah, one more crime scene to go.”

  I glanced at Conway before she left the room. She looked how I felt. Tired. Grim. Trying to give the victims her full attention but I knew she preferred crime scenes with bodies as opposed to empty scenes. I’d seen her work crime scenes countless times and always felt as if the bodies spoke to her, so this, was harder than usual.

  * * *

  Ellie sprang out of the car as soon as I parked. Keen. I knew she wasn’t in a hurry to see another crime scene so much as get it over with and go home. Me too.

  “Heads up,” I said and threw her a pair of latex gloves, and then pulled a pair on myself.

  The scene guard swaggered toward us, shining his flashlight at our faces. I shielded my eyes, held my badge out and introduced myself. He dropped the beam to the ground, raised one eye-brow and told us to go on in. From outside the house seemed in better repair than all the others. Made a nice change. A noise in the distance gave me pause. A door closing, maybe? I turned and looked down the street. Most of the houses sat in darkness. Lights burned brightly on a few porches. I listened. About five houses away a dog barked. Sounded like someone let the dog out. I pulled my attention back to the scene in front of me.