by Ethan Cross
But now, as he looked back on the events of his life, he no longer saw merely random chaos, pain, and death. He saw purpose. He saw meaning. All of that pain had been to mold him, to sharpen him into a finely crafted weapon, an instrument of fate. And it was still molding him, shaping him, changing him. All people were the sum of their collected experiences, and his suffering had made him strong. Just as the events of Marcus’s life had shaped him.
And soon Marcus would truly understand the inner workings of fate. The puzzle pieces would snap into place, and all would become clear. Marcus would look at the world through different eyes. And fate had chosen Ackerman to be the catalyst of this epiphany, just as Marcus had been for him.
He was reminded of a quote he had absorbed somewhere along the way: A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
That was Marcus. He would try to fight fate at every twist and turn, but the destination would still be the same. Fate would win in the end.
Ackerman twisted the blade of his fifteen-inch survival knife and watched the light reflect off the stainless steel. As he admired the weapon, he wondered if he’d first have to remove some of the distractions in Marcus’s life before he could realize his true potential.
23
Sitting on an uncomfortable gray folding chair in the back of the briefing room, Marcus watched as Detective Sergeant Trevor Belacourt stepped up to a small podium at the head of the room and called for everyone’s attention. A whiteboard occupied the wall at the detective’s back. It was lit by a projector suspended from the ceiling by silver chains. The room had bare cream-colored block walls and windows looking out onto a patch of rural land. A big folding table packed with donuts, coffee, and various creams and sugars sat against one wall. A mixture of uniformed officers and men and women wearing khakis and white shirts and suits filled the room. Maybe thirty people in all. They ceased their conversations and began to take their seats. The whole place had an institutional smell like some community-college classroom—traces of lemon-scented cleaning fluids, coffee, and fumes from erasable markers. He noticed Vasques sitting quietly in the front row.
Leaning over to Allen, Marcus whispered, “I read that Jackson’s Grove is a member of the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force. Are some of these guys detectives from other precincts in the area?”
Allen just nodded and pointed toward Belacourt, who had begun to speak. The balding commander of the Jackson’s Grove detective division presented the details of the case, directing the gathered officers to the packets each had received upon entering the briefing room. He explained that, since he had worked the Anarchist case before, he would be investigating alongside the lead detective, Marlon Stupak, on it. He instructed his men to coordinate everything with one of them. Stupak stood and gave the room a wave. He was a thin black man with a perfectly shaved head and an overly coifed goatee. His suit looked a little too clean and expensive to Marcus.
Belacourt said, “We are also honored to have Special Agent Victoria Vasques consulting on this case with us.” Vasques stood, looked out over the officers, and nodded curtly, all business.
“As you may know,” Belacourt continued, “a woman named Jessie Olague was abducted two nights ago. If our killer holds to his pattern, then she may already be dead.”
Marcus flipped open his packet and thumbed through the information. Belacourt proceeded to discuss the department’s efforts to stop the killer, but Marcus had little interest in patrol routes and information that he already knew. However, the packet did contain one item that he had yet to read. A profile of the killer.
The document described the Anarchist as a highly organized offender and a white male between the ages of thirty-five and fifty. With that much, and some of the other conjectures, he could agree. But, as his eyes continued down the page, he became increasingly dismayed at the profile’s content. It made several leaps of judgement that he felt were flat-out wrong. It stated that the killer was probably single, though socially adequate and charming in his own way, but also a loner who didn’t like people. It went on to say that he was a narcissist and a psychopath incapable of feeling any remorse for his crimes. He would have problems with women and blame them and others for the issues in his life.
The profile had all the right terminology, but it lacked the proper insight. And it could have been leading the police in the wrong directions. Depending on how much stock they put in it, a profile like this could cause investigators to ignore potential suspects and send them spiraling down a road that would lead to the deaths of more innocent people.
Belacourt was discussing the victim demographics when Marcus raised his hand and waved it back and forth to draw the cop’s attention. Beside him, Andrew whispered, “What are you doing? Put your hand down.”
Marcus ignored him. He was sure that Belacourt had seen him but had diverted his gaze. He persisted with even more exaggerated movements. Finally, Belacourt said, “Yes, in the back, do you have something to add?”
Marcus stood and said, “Yes, I do. I’m Special Agent Marcus Williams with the Department of Justice. I just wanted to let you know that this profile”—he held up the packet—“isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. If you follow this, you’ll never catch this guy.”
Allen whispered, “Sit down, Marcus.”
Belacourt cocked his head to the side and said, “Really, Agent Williams. Why don’t you enlighten us?”
“This profile makes some great leaps that could potentially be sending the investigation in the wrong direction. First of all, there’s no indication of the killer being a loner. In fact, I believe the killer may be married or living with someone.”
Belacourt laughed. “Thank you, agent. But—”
Marcus cut him off and plowed forward. “He takes the victims one night and then holds them somewhere throughout the next day, waiting until the next evening to kill them. This suggests to me that he doesn’t have time to do everything properly on the first night because he needs to get home before he’s missed. He might have a wife who works a night shift like Jessie Olague’s husband did.”
“We’ll take that under—”
“Also, he’s likely not charming or very socially adequate. It would be much easier to abduct a woman from the street or charm them into his vehicle like Ted Bundy did, but this guy doesn’t. He immobilizes them within their own homes without the slightest confrontation, which requires a great deal of work and planning. Then this profile says that the killer is a psychopath, which he isn’t. He hates himself for what he’s doing, but he can’t stop for some reason.”
“Thank you, Agent Williams, we’ll take—”
“Look at the care that the killer has taken with the victims.”
“Care? He drinks their blood, forces their eyes open, and burns them alive.”
“Yes, but only after he’s cut their femoral arteries, which is unnecessary. I think he does that because, true or not, he feels that he’s sparing them prolonged suffering. A psychopath would take pleasure in controlling the women and causing them pain. This guy drugs them in such a way that if he didn’t wake them up they wouldn’t even remember the incident. In his own twisted way, he doesn’t want them to suffer more than necessary. He’s mission-based. He kills to gain something other than pleasure.”
Belacourt stood there for a moment and then said in his nasal voice, “Is that it? Can we move on now?”
“Actually, no. The profile also doesn’t mention anything about a profession or vehicle. I would say that this killer works with numbers or variables in some way. Risk management, insurance, bank, financial, systems analysis. Definitely something white-collar. And he drives either a Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Nissan Altima, or Ford Fusion. Those are the top-selling cars of the year.”
Belacourt chuckled. “So that’s really just a guess based on statistical probability. We can look up stats online, too.”
“Sure you can, and so can our killer. That’s why he driv
es one of those vehicles. He wants to blend in. He doesn’t leave anything to chance. He would have analyzed the data and chosen a car that had the highest probability of blending with others on the road. That’s the way he thinks.”
“Thank you, Agent Williams, for your insight. But it seems to me that the current profile seems more accurate. So, moving on, we—”
“Who put that profile together? It reads like it was written by a cadet. It surely didn’t come from the BAU.”
Allen grabbed his arm. “You need to sit down now.”
Belacourt’s nostrils flared, and his mouth formed into an angry slit. The man had endured enough interruptions. “That’s quite enough. If you attempt to hijack this briefing one more time, I’ll have you removed.”
Marcus dropped into his seat and seethed at the dismissal. Andrew opened his packet to the page containing the profile and pointed to a box in the lower-right corner. It read: Prepared by FBI Special Agent Victoria Vasques. Marcus closed his eyes and rubbed furiously at his temples. He had forgotten his migraine medicine at the hotel.
“Smooth,” Andrew commented.
Allen leaned over and said, “Do you know the meaning of the word discretion?”
24
Harrison Schofield and his wife Eleanor pulled through the security gate and into the parking lot of the Will County Mental Health Center. The hospital had changed its name in 1975 to be more politically correct. Prior to that, it had been known as the Will County Home for the Criminally Insane.
Schofield took a deep breath and looked around the grounds of the so-called hospital. It didn’t resemble any other hospital he had ever seen. It reminded him more of a prison. The home consisted of a large single-story building faced with red brick and surrounded by a twenty-foot barbed-wire fence that curled inward to make it nearly impossible to climb. Snow covered the ground, and shards of ice clung to the bare hard maple and oak trees that dotted the landscape. As he stepped from the car, he smelled a combination of diesel and sewage-tainted water wafting through the air. The sewage flow of the Chicago River and Ship and Sanitary Canal found their way into the Des Plaines River south of where he now stood, and if the wind was just right, industrial run-off mixed with the flow from the canal to make a perfect storm of noxious odors. It seemed to him that he always visited his mother on windy days.
He and Eleanor walked into the visitor area, and a security man buzzed them inside. The big black guard sat behind an inch of Lexan polycarbonate. He slid a clipboard through a waist-high slot. As he filled out the proper paperwork and signed in on the guest registry, Schofield noticed that the guard had abnormally small hands for his size.
“Do you need a locker key?” the guard said.
“No, thank you. My wife is waiting here.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know when the patient is ready to be seen.”
Schofield walked over to the row of linked orange visitor chairs and sat next to Eleanor. He emptied his pockets and gave her the contents.
“Are you sure that you don’t want me to come in with you?” she said.
“I’m sure. You really didn’t have to take time off work to come with me. I could’ve done this alone.”
“You could have. But you shouldn’t have to. I know how hard this is for you. Are you sure that you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I love you, Harrison. I’m here for you no matter what. You can tell me anything.”
He knew that he should have felt some kind of warmth or surge of happiness at hearing those words, but unfortunately he felt nothing. He squeezed her hand and raised it to his lips. “Thank you.”
After a moment, the guard called, “Schofield?”
He thought it strange that the guard went through the same motions even though he was the only visitor on the list. As he stood, his wife commented, “If she’s doing better, maybe next time we can bring the kids.”
He smiled back at her. “I’m sure she’d like that.”
*
The narrow visitor room was one of many holding areas in a long hallway. A Hispanic orderly dressed all in white opened the windowed door for Schofield. The man had a tattoo of a python running up the left side of his neck. Inside, the walls of the visitor room were yellowed with age, and his mother sat in a metal chair at the far end of a gray rectangular table. She looked good. She was a beautiful woman with long black hair and rosy cheeks. She had given birth to Schofield when she’d been only thirteen and could easily have passed for his wife or sister rather than his mother.
He sat down across from her at the long table. The light from a barred window at her back fell over her shoulders and reflected off her black hair. She gave him an angry look and then turned away in disgust.
“Hello, Mother,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
She spat at him. “Why do you come here? You filthy little maggot. You’re an abomination.”
He swallowed hard and fought to remain calm. “I hear that you’re doing well. You look healthy.”
She turned away and refused to acknowledge him. He looked at the window in the door to see if the orderly was watching, but the tattooed man was nowhere to be seen. “No one’s listening, Mother. Don’t you think that it’s time you told me who my father really is?”
Her face curled into a snarl. “You know who he is. That demon raped me and impregnated me with his vile seed.”
Schofield closed his eyes and tried not to let her see him cry. He had listened to this for as long as he could remember. His mother, who had always been mentally unbalanced and had run away from home, had been twelve years old when she became pregnant with him. At the time, she had been taken in as a member of a cult led by a man that called himself the Prophet. The group was comprised of others like her—runaways, miscreants, the mentally unstable. When she became pregnant, she told the other cult members that Satan himself had come to her in a dream and implanted her with the seed of the Antichrist. She attempted suicide during her second trimester, but the Prophet stopped her.
From the moment of his birth, Schofield had been a revered outcast. The other children were afraid of him. They refused to play with him and resented his special status. They called him names when the adults weren’t listening. Freak. Monster. Devil. They hated him, but he only wanted them to be his friends, to treat him as a member of the group.
But worse than any of them was his own mother. She hated him with a passion and intensity that he never understood. She tried to murder him on many occasions throughout his youth, and if not for the intervention of the Prophet, he would never have grown to see adulthood.
“So are they treating you well here, Mother? Do they have a Christmas tree? Do you exchange gifts?”
Her lips trembled with rage, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze or respond. He sighed and stood up. “Merry Christmas, Mother. Eleanor and the kids wish you the same. The kids would like to see you.”
The angry look on her face melted away, and her eyes grew large like those of an expectant child. When she spoke, her voice was filled with a breathless anticipation. “Will you bring them? I’d love to see them.”
He looked out the window and thought for a moment. “I’ll only bring them here if you behave yourself. You don’t have to love me. I don’t blame you for that. You’re right. You’ve always been right, and I understand that now. I am an abomination. But I won’t let you speak to me like you did today in front of my kids.”
“I promise. Please, bring them.”
“I’ll consider it.”
With that, he pounded on the glass. The tattooed orderly opened the door and escorted him toward the exit. As they moved down the long white hallway, Schofield tried to focus on the white tile floor and the glowing reflections of the fluorescent lighting instead of on his mother and the past. Deep mouthfuls of air filled his lungs over and over. It took all his strength and focus to keep from hyperventilating or throwing up.
25
Vasques fumed as Belacourt concluded the b
riefing and dismissed the officers. She had been utterly humiliated, but she refused to let Williams get under her skin. She needed to maintain her composure. She needed to maintain control.
The room was getting warm from all the bodies, and she had to get some air. But Agent Garrison stepped in front of her as she moved toward the door. He gave her that awkward what-can-you-do smile and said, “Agent Vasques, we were hoping to meet with you about the case. Maybe review some of the evidence together. Question the witness.”
She wanted to bust his teeth out. These men had publicly disgraced her, and now they wanted to waste more of her time. But it would give her the chance to give Williams a piece of her mind. The corners of her mouth curled into a faux smile that took all her willpower to maintain. “Sure. I have some work to do at the Chicago field office. You can meet me there in an hour.” She handed Garrison one of her cards. “The address is there on the card. It’s on West Roosevelt Road. Park in the garage across the street.”
Garrison seemed a bit surprised at her easy acceptance of their request. “Great. Thank you. We’ll see you there.”
She pushed out of the building and reached her Crown Vic. She popped in four pieces of gum, chomped them furiously, and gripped the steering wheel until her fingers ached. Her phone had been on vibrate during the briefing, and she had felt a few text messages buzz through. With great effort, she tore her fingers from the steering wheel and ripped the phone from her jacket pocket. The first text was from a friend at the Bureau.
Checked out your new buddies from the DOJ. Williams is listed as working there, but he doesn’t seem to exist at all beyond that. Like he’s been erased.
She sat there a moment watching the traffic fly past on Route 50 and let her mind wander through the implications of this new information. The Bureau had some of the best diggers in the world, and if her friend couldn’t access Williams’s background, that meant that it was classified at the highest levels.