Black Coral

by Andrew Mayne

  “Our suspect then realized he had to do something with the bodies. That’s when he went out to Pond 65, which was even more remote back then, drove the vehicle into the water, and swam away.”

  George considers this for a moment. “You think the suspect drove the van into the water himself? That seems like a dumb way to do it.”

  “Maybe. It could have been a failed suicide. Also, remember that he was probably a teenager himself, so it might’ve seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea.”

  “All right. I’m not fully convinced. But that’s . . . plausible.” He says the last word with some difficulty. “Now explain why you think he’s an active serial killer.”

  “It’s thin, I’ll admit. But I’m not the only one who has thought along these lines.”

  “You’ve spoken to someone else about this?”

  “Yes. An anonymous person who thought the case didn’t add up but didn’t want to go against the head of a certain four-letter law enforcement agency.”

  “Got it. So what did he or she say?”

  “This is a map of other crime scenes. Mostly in South Florida. The victims are almost always younger, attractive females. Sometimes there are males with the females. But never a male alone. In each case the male appears to have been incapacitated and the woman violated, but no DNA is ever left behind.”

  “That’s not exactly a narrow profile,” says George.

  “There’s one other factor. In every single one of these murders, a piece of packaging from instant-camera film was found nearby and logged as evidence. Not always close by, but somewhere near the scene.”

  “He’s taking photos.”

  I nod.

  “Lots of people had those cameras back then.”

  “The majority of our victims didn’t. We found a film cartridge in the van, but none of the kids owned a Polaroid camera.”

  “Tenuous,” says George.

  “It’s a start. And there’s one other thing.” I pull the bag with the half-nude Polaroid of Grace from my evidence box. “This was in Caitlin’s belongings. When I first saw it, it looked like a little joke between them.”

  “You think our killer took the photo?”

  “Or they did it with his camera sometime before the concert. I think he may have been a guy they knew but their boyfriends didn’t. Maybe a little older. Maybe a little more interesting.”

  “Maybe a little more psychotic,” says George. “Okay. What are the next steps?”

  That catches me off guard. I’ve been so worried about persuading him that I haven’t really thought through what happens after that. “I . . . um. Well, there’s this list of suspects in the other cases. We could start by interviewing them.”

  “Sure, we could see how they respond to questions about the other cases. Might help rule them out. But what’s the main plan?” he asks. “What are we going to do that the other investigators didn’t? It can’t be brute-force, nose-to-the-ground background checks. We don’t have the resources.”

  I contemplate this for a moment. “Well . . . we should start with the Pond 65 case. That was his first kill, as far as we know. There’s a good chance it’s also where he was at his sloppiest. I guess I can start by looking into who the kids knew and talking to their classmates. Maybe someone noticed a creepy serial killer type.”

  “With a penchant for Polaroids.” He shrugs. “You might be surprised. You know why Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t stand out in high school even though he was a classic weirdo that liked to kill animals? Because he wasn’t the weirdest kid in school. Find out who the other weirdos were. Not just the obvious ones. They don’t have to be people that were known to hang out with our subjects.”

  “You think a classmate could have done this?” I ask.

  “Probably not. But here’s the thing about weirdos—they’re the best at telling you who the other weirdos are.”

  “Okay. I’ll start with the guy who spoke at the memorial.”

  “He a weirdo?”

  “More of a busybody narcissist.”

  “All right. I’ll give Amelia Teng a call and see if she wants to stop by.”

  “Teng?” I’ve never heard him mention her name.

  “Criminal psychologist. One of the good ones. She worked with us on profiling. Not the voodoo kind. Solid statistical stuff. She reminds me of your professor. All about the numbers.”

  “Okay, great.” I nod at the mug shots on the wall. “I’ll also track down some of the suspects.”

  “With Hughes. I don’t want you talking to them alone,” says George.

  “That’s a bit . . .”

  “Sensible. Complain all you want, but that’s gonna be our policy with potential sex-offender interviews. Got it?”

  “Yeah.” I tell myself I could take any of those losers in a fair fight. But it’s never a fair fight.

  “Good. Now, in your extra time, I still want your brain on the New River Bandits. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WEIRDOS

  Randy Fulton is already waiting for me at Lester’s Diner when I arrive. He’s wearing a polo shirt and a sports coat, a look I’ve seen on journalists before. It kind of says, “I tried.” My own professional attire consists of slacks, a polo, and a jacket that I wear over my gun when it’s not too hot. I kind of miss the beat-cop uniform.

  “Detective McPherson,” he says as he tries awkwardly to get up from the booth.

  “Please, sit.” I slide in across from him and ask the waitress for a cup of coffee.

  “We didn’t get a chance to speak at the memorial,” he says.

  “Yeah. I was talking to the parents.”

  “Oh, and how did that go?” he asks with a reporter’s curiosity.

  “It was emotional. Anyhow, I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “And I, you,” he says pulling out a notebook.

  “Um, are you writing an article about this?”

  “No. A book, actually.”

  Okay. “I see.” He’s got a probing look in his eyes, like he’s already writing this scene in his head. “Anything we talk about will have to be off the record.”

  Fulton makes a show of snapping his notebook closed. “Then I’m afraid we have nothing to talk about unless you come back with a subpoena. And let me assure you that I have excellent counsel.”

  I can’t stop from rolling my eyes. “Are you for real?” I gather myself. “Let me put it this way, Mr. Fulton. There are two sets of questions I can ask. The ones where I trust you and you find out a little bit more about the case but don’t source it back to me. Or the smaller set that you’ll find pretty boring.”

  He pauses for a moment. “Is this about the fact that Tim and Dylan raped the girls?”

  He’s wrong about that, but he knows something. I almost ask him how he got hold of the coroner’s full report. Instead, I take a breath and try to play it cool. Maybe he knows something else. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re not a very good liar.”

  “How would you know? I asked you a question. I didn’t say one way or another if what you said was true.”

  “I’m a political reporter. I deal with the best liars in the world every day,” he replies.

  “If they’re so good at lying, how come everyone thinks ‘lying politician’ is a redundancy? But you’re right. I’m not a good liar. Which is why I don’t bother trying. So why don’t you tell me what you’re talking about.”

  I need to know if he’s talking about a recent revelation, possibly from the internal report, or something he knew from back in high school.

  “I have my sources, off the record.”

  Okay, so it’s a recent revelation. “No rumors about that back when you were in high school with them, then?”

  He blinks at my question. “Well, they were an odd group.”

  “Did you even know them? I’m beginning to think your only connection was seeing your old high school in the news.”

&nbs
p; “Of course I knew them.”

  Time to call his bluff. I check my watch and start to slide out of the booth. “You’re wasting my time. I have other people to talk to.”

  Fulton watches his single best source for his book get up to leave. “Hold up, Detective. We might be able to help each other.”

  “It sounds pretty one-way. I don’t think you know anything about anything.”

  His nostrils flare. “Really? Did you know that Caitlin was sexually abused by her stepfather? The same man at the memorial?”

  I sit back down. “And how do you know this?”

  “Sources.”

  “Thirty-year-old sources? New ones? I’m not asking for names. Just a shred of credibility.”

  “She had a peer counselor. An older student she could confide in. She told her that she’d been abused.”

  “The peer counselor told you this?” I ask.

  “Among other things. Caitlin begged her not to tell anyone, so she didn’t at the time.”

  “I see.” Okay, Fulton knows more than I realized. I have to keep stringing him along without divulging the real thrust of my case. “I’m trying to track down a diary that belonged to her. It went missing after she did. It wasn’t in the van.”

  “Interesting.” He makes a note of this.

  “Who did the kids hang out with?”

  “Themselves, mostly. There were a few other lowlifes that would hang out across the street from the school in the morning and smoke before class,” he says.

  “Did anyone stand out in particular?”

  “There was one kid, Ethan Rafferty. They called him Rattery. Tall kid. Long, curly, blond hair. Looked like the overweight member of a heavy metal band. He drove an old beat-up Buick to school. Sometimes I’d see Tim and Dylan with him. Once or twice, the girls. Caitlin may have dated him for a month or two after Dylan dropped out.”

  “Was there anything unusual about him?” I ask.

  “He was a big LSD user. I think he had issues to begin with. His dad was a cop, funny enough.”

  Yeah, hilarious. “Did he have any kind of record?”

  “Besides possession? They all did. But it was a joke. The juvenile court judge would let them go with a wrist slap—more like a hug.”

  “Nothing violent?”

  “Like fighting? Not then. Not that I know about.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not then’?”

  Fulton makes an unpleasant smirk. “Rattery developed a bit of a meth habit. Quite the record now.”

  The glee with which he says this annoys the heck out of me. What’s his problem? Was he the guy who could never get laid in high school and is still bitter about it? Maybe there’s something more. Of the two girls, Caitlin was the more conventionally attractive one . . .

  “Tell me about Caitlin. You said that you really didn’t know the group. But what about her? Did you have a connection?”

  “You mean, did we . . . ? Oh no. She wasn’t my type.” Human?

  “Did you talk?”

  “We had a couple classes. I helped her with some homework.”

  Bingo. Teenage Fulton had a crush on her. I wonder if he tried to act on it? What happened?

  “I met Dylan’s father. He’s a piece of work.”

  “That whole family was,” replies Fulton.

  “The dad came across as a bit of a bully.”

  “Like father, like son.”

  Here we go. This might be why Fulton seemed almost gleeful calling Tim and Dylan rapists. “You ever have an encounter with him?”

  Fulton’s eyes narrow. “Both of them. They weren’t nice people.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Let me guess: Dylan caught you talking to Caitlin, so he and Tim jumped you.” I try to make it sound like it’s not a big deal.

  “Something like that. They could be mean.”

  “Yet you said nice things at the memorial.”

  “I’ve tried to forgive.”

  By writing a book accusing your teenage enemies of being rapists?

  “Anyone else they hung out with?”

  He shrugs. “Nobody worth mentioning.”

  Man, Fulton’s childhood trauma runs deep. I’d try to coax more from him, but I think I’ve reached the limit for today.

  “So, answer me this question, Detective: Why are you still asking questions about this case? Are you going to investigate Tim and Dylan for rape?”

  “Nope.”

  “No? Because it’s an old case or because you’re afraid of the fallout from the families?”

  “Neither. Because I have no reason to believe that Dylan and Tim participated in any kind of rape.”

  Fulton scrutinizes my face, trying to see if I’m lying. “I see.” He looks dejected. “Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

  As I walk out of the restaurant, I see a text message from Hughes:

  get here asap

  found a partial print match in an active crime scene

  It’s followed by an address.

  I text back:

  New River Bandits?

  He replies a moment later:

  No

  a partial match between your cold cases and a new murder

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DITCHED

  At first, I think I have the address wrong. The GPS in my truck takes me to the northwestern part of Broward County and one of the last undeveloped parcels of land before you get to the Everglades. When I turn a bend in the dirt road, I see a line of police cars and a forensic van.

  Hughes is talking to a woman wearing a Broward Sheriff’s Office jacket. I exit my vehicle and walk over to them. Despite all the activity, the sound of the cicadas creates a constant hum.

  “Sloan McPherson, this is Detective Hoffer,” says Hughes.

  She’s a tad shorter than me and has auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her grip is strong and confident. “I don’t believe we’ve formally met.”

  I glance over her shoulder at a group of people standing on a berm overlooking what I assume is a ditch. If there’s a body here, that would have to be the spot.

  The roads look like they were carved out for eventual construction a few years ago. The brush is overgrown, and the grass is weedy and tall. It’s one of the last good places to dump a body in this area—if you’re too lazy to go a hundred yards west and drop it in the Everglades.

  “What’s the situation?” I ask.

  “The body belongs to Alyssa Rennie,” explains Hoffer. “She was reported missing five days ago. We did a preliminary search of her town house and saw signs of a potential struggle.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Missing too. The fight might have been between him and an assailant. We found some blood at the scene but haven’t matched it to anyone we found yet.” She gestures to the berm and the group standing on it. “Her body was found this morning by a trail biker. Strangle marks on the neck, although the preliminary exam shows minimal bruising.”

  “She was unconscious?”

  “Possibly.”

  “What about the boyfriend? What do we know about him?”

  “Jared Sanna. Coworker. They both work at Seagrass Financial Services. They started dating and spending time at one another’s places a few months ago. No record on him.”

  “What’s the connection?” I ask Hughes.

  “They found a partial print in her place. It matched two of the crime scenes on your wall.”

  A chill runs down my spine. We found the van eight days ago. Did its discovery agitate our killer? Is this woman dead because of me?

  “This one was five days ago?”

  “That’s when she was reported missing,” says Hoffer.

  “Don’t even go there,” Hughes says to me. “Chances are the killer already had her picked out. And we don’t know when she was killed. It might have been before.”

  His words do little to make me feel better. Logically, there’s no way
I could have known, but emotionally I’m afraid I’ve opened Pandora’s box. What if he’d gone dormant? Have I reawakened a serial killer into action?

  “What else do we know?” I ask.

  “Not much,” says Hoffer. “We’re still gathering evidence from the scene. If I had to guess, she’s been here a few days. Assuming this is connected, what can you tell me about the suspect we’re looking for?”

  “Well, until a day ago, we didn’t even know there was a killer in the van case. But if it’s the same guy, he’d have to be in his late forties or early fifties now. He’s from here, at least since he was a teenager. We’re looking to see if he went to high school with them.”

  “That’s a start. Let’s keep talking and pool our resources.”

  “Can I take a look at the body?” I ask.

  “Follow me.”

  She leads Hughes and me over to the berm and introduces us to her supervisors and the two other detectives on the scene. Some of them are familiar faces, but I didn’t know their names.

  The ditch is an unfinished storm drain that runs the length of the property. Yellow grass and crushed meadow fox plants partially cover her body. She’s nude from the waist up and wearing pantyhose ripped at the sides. Her head is tilted to an angle with her hand near her chin. If it weren’t for the decomposition, she could be sleeping.

  Hughes glances at the body, then turns away. Probably seeing his wife or daughter in her place. I get it. I’ve been there . . . every time I look at a body.

  I glance around the crime scene. Yellow tape marks off certain sections, while small plastic signs denote objects of interest like bent grass or partial footprints. Back on the road, forensic technicians are making castings of tire tracks.