I would not repeat that mistake.
23
Prison Shank
Crouched at the base of her prison toilet, Ella Snead toiled in the darkness, fashioning a weapon.
Although the light in her cell had been extinguished hours earlier, Ella had drawn the privacy curtain around the toilet anyway, hoping her captor wasn’t watching. She was fairly sure he couldn’t see what she was doing, but she also knew that if she remained in there too long, he might grow suspicious. He had told her his video feed was being archived, so she couldn’t assume that simply because he wasn’t watching at the moment, he might not view the recorded footage later.
Suddenly she heard a noise.
She froze.
Oh, God, is he coming?
Heart in her throat, she waited, not moving a muscle.
Seconds passed.
Nothing.
Ella finally unclenched her fists, deciding that the darkness must be playing tricks on her. When her heart finally slowed, she took a deep breath and resumed her labor.
Several days earlier when the light had been on, Ella had managed to slide back her toilet a few inches, exposing the concrete floor beneath. When she finished working that night, she would reposition the toilet, covering the marks she had scraped on the floor. Her nascent weapon would then go into the drawer at the bottom of the toilet, concealed beneath a layer of compost. It was the one place she was confident the man wouldn’t look.
Pausing to check her progress, Ella used her fingers to test the dagger she was crafting. Her makeshift “prison shank”—a toothbrush whose fat end she was tapering to a point—was taking longer to complete than she’d hoped.
She had first started grinding the red plastic handle against the floor beneath her bed. It had seemed the perfect place for her to work, as the cramped confines beneath her cot were out of webcam view. In addition, should the man happen to check, her time there could be explained by the growing tally of scratches she had cut into the plywood. So far she had made twelve gouges with her belt-buckle prong—two groups of five, and two more—adding her marks below the twenty-seven that her prison’s former occupant had totaled.
Ella suspected that her crude reckoning of time was something her captor had already discovered. Maybe it even amused him. Unfortunately, the red toothbrush handle left telltale marks on the floor, which was something he might also notice and not find amusing.
Does he search my prison? she wondered.
Probably, she decided.
It was a risk she could not afford to take.
Ella hadn’t seen her captor in days, which was puzzling. As near as she could tell, he had visited daily in the past. Had something happened to him?
After his last appearance, he had left an extra stash of granola bars in the cabinet.
Was he planning to be gone?
At first, that possibility had seemed attractive.
Then another thought occurred.
What if he never comes back?
With a shrug, Ella had decided that starving might be preferable to whatever fate her captor had in mind.
Using her fingers, Ella adjusted a wad of clothing she had crammed beneath her dog collar, protecting her throat. She had no illusions that the flimsy insulation would offer much protection should the man discover what she was doing. He would simply turn up the voltage on his device, or do something worse. Nevertheless, although she had avoided wearing the cloth insulation whenever he visited, it made her feel less vulnerable when she was sharpening her weapon.
It didn’t make sense, but she did it anyway.
Clenching her teeth in determination, Ella resumed her work, all the while considering how best to conceal the dagger on her person when the time came to use it. Of one thing she was certain: She needed to stay focused and strong to make that a possibility.
And she would.
She had no choice.
Best case scenario, she would somehow tempt the man into having sex with her. Then, at the right moment, she would strike. After her earlier experience offering the man sex, however, Ella considered that prospect unlikely.
There was also a chance she would develop a tolerance to the man’s drugs—assuming he didn’t increase her dosage—enabling her to fake unconsciousness and catch him unaware. But as time went on, that possibility seemed to be becoming less likely as well.
Worst case scenario, she could jam a wad of clothing under her collar, refuse to take his pills, and wait for him to enter her cell. Maybe she could surprise him, stab him—where?
The throat.
Or the chest.
Or maybe his eyes.
Whatever happened, Ella knew from listening to her father’s prison stories that the important thing in a stabbing was to keep stabbing. One hole in someone isn’t enough.
Can I do that?
Grimly, Ella lowered her head and continued sharpening her weapon, deciding that if given the chance, she would stab her captor without hesitation.
And she would keep stabbing until he was dead.
For again, she had no choice.
24
Blood Moon
How could this have happened?” Chief Ingram demanded.
No one replied.
I glanced around at the faces in Ingram’s office. We had lost four men the previous evening, and the mood there the following morning was grim. Making matters worse, the killer had posted a video of the carnage.
“Until now, in its more than five-decade history, do you know how many SWAT officers have been lost in the line of duty?” Ingram continued angrily. “One,” he answered, not waiting for a response. “And last night we lost four? So I ask again, how could this have happened?”
Again, no one replied.
Assistant Chief Strickland finally spoke up. “How about you, Kane? You were lead investigator on the UCLA murder, and you always seem to have something to say. Who screwed the pooch?”
Every eye in the room turned toward me. Uncertain how to respond, I stared at my hands, which Metro’s doctor had dressed at the scene with gauze and hydrogel. Singed by the blaze, my eyelashes and eyebrows were also missing, along with a fair portion of my hair. Bottom line, I looked like shit, and I felt like it, too.
“I did,” I said at last. “I should have seen it coming.”
“What do you mean by that?” Strickland snapped.
“It was all a little too easy,” I replied. “Discovering the webcams, running down the voice-altering software, finding the fake credit card. The guy set us up. I should have seen it coming.”
“To be fair, The Magpie’s recent behavior constitutes a significant alteration in his modus operandi,” interjected Director Shepherd, who was also present that morning with SAC Gibbs and Taylor. “No one at the Bureau anticipated his change in M.O., either.”
“I never should have green-lighted the breach without first securing that hatch,” added Lieutenant York, Metro’s SWAT commander. “I’m as much to blame as anyone.”
“The plate that trapped your men was concealed beneath the floor. There was no way for you to have known,” I pointed out, realizing that, like me, everyone felt responsible.
“That may be, but it still shouldn’t have happened,” said York.
“None of this should have happened,” said Ingram. “There will be plenty of blame to spread around later. Let’s move on. How is Lyons doing?”
Sergeant Lyons, who had led the storage-container breech, had been the only officer to make it out of the firetrap alive.
“I talked with a doctor at the UCI burn center this morning,” York replied. “Lyons is still in intensive care, but he’s going to pull through.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” said Ingram. Then turning to me, “What do we know about the firetrap?”
Following the arrival of Engine 45 from Rancho Santa Margarita, the blaze had eventually been extinguished and the bodies of our men recovered. Since then investigators had been sifting through the rubble.
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“We don’t have all the results yet,” I answered. “We do know that the gasoline accelerant was stored in an above-ground water tank. The fuel was gravity-fed to a sink, toilet, and sprinkler heads inside the metal container. A ventilation fan and an electrically powered barrier plate were probably activated when SWAT opened a door down below. We think the killer sparked the blaze with a phone call.”
“And he knew to do that because . . .”
I shrugged. “He evidently had a webcam concealed in the underground container, the same one he used to record the fire. Probably got a webcam alert when our guys entered the space below the shack.”
At my mention of the killer’s video, the room fell silent.
The internet post chronicling the deaths of our men, a loss the media were now calling “The Blood Moon Murders,” had quickly gone viral. Although it had only been hours, the horrific video had already garnered millions of worldwide views. Like me, most officers in the room had watched it, if only because we felt we had to.
Once.
I would never watch it again.
“What’s with the weird music?” asked one of Snead’s detectives. “You know, in the killer’s video?”
“The eerie music, if you can even call it that, is from a video game,” replied Gibbs. “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. My son plays it. At one point in the game the sky glows, the air fills with burning embers, and the moon rises red—a blood moon—like during a lunar eclipse. According to my kid, the ascent of the blood moon is accompanied by a respawn of all your enemies.”
“Zelda, huh? Anything to investigate there?” asked Taylor.
Gibbs shook his head. “We started down that road and quickly gave up. Too many gamers out there.”
“So where does that leave us?” asked Lieutenant Long, posing the question on all our minds.
“Director Shepherd?” said Ingram.
Looking dejected, Shepherd turned toward Gibbs. “Gibbs, you want to run it down?
“Yes, sir,” said Gibbs, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing. Then, “Working with Captain Snead’s unit, we are still compiling databases of anyone recently making an online or retail purchase of a dog training collar, a Taser device, or the forensic textbook in question—Forensic Science: Cases and Materials on Criminal Investigation. So far no correlations.”
“After what just happened, how do we know those parameters aren’t just more red herrings?” asked Strickland.
“We don’t,” said Gibbs. “We still have to follow up.”
“I agree,” said Ingram. “Please continue, SAC Gibbs.”
“Yes, sir. Working on the theory that our unsub is stalking his victims, our CART techs have been combing through social media sites, looking for any commonality—friend requests, contacts, and so on. So far nothing there, either.
“In addition, we have reached out to a sister agency in the hope of determining how the unsub obtained Captain Snead’s and Detective Kane’s cellphone numbers,” Gibbs continued. “That agency is also cooperating in an attempt to pierce the hidden-service-protocol network that our unsub is using to post his photos and videos. The best we’ve been able to do so far is to locate his upload sites. By the way, his latest video was posted at a Starbucks in Arizona.
“Last, our field offices in Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco are working with locals to interview witnesses, search for stalkers, and vet any forensic experts who might be involved in the murders.” Gibbs shook his head. “In summary, we’re coming up cold on all fronts.”
Ingram turned to Snead. “Bill, what do you have?”
“Not much,” Snead replied. “Our contacts in the gang unit came up with a list of Ketamine/GHB purchasers, none of whom panned out. The fact is, an anonymous purchase of the date-rape drugs in question is impossible to track. Our canvass for a witness or informant has hit a brick wall. We’re still hoping to determine who opened the fake checking account in Orange County, but we’re not hopeful. We’re also assembling a retail-purchase list of anyone buying the forensics textbook Kane came up with, but that could be a false trail as well.”
“Like the voice-altering software and the surveillance webcams,” said Ingram. “Any thoughts on that, Kane?”
“I honestly don’t know, Chief,” I said, beginning to doubt those lines of investigation as well. Nevertheless, although Deluca and I had struck out requesting a list of forensic students from various universities, I made a mental note to visit the textbook’s author. “I still think we should follow up, like Gibbs said.”
“Do that,” said Ingram, turning back to Snead. “Anything to add?”
Snead had seemed shell-shocked the previous evening when his daughter hadn’t been found, and from his appearance, he hadn’t slept since. “Again, not much, except that following the killer’s latest video, our tip line has been ringing nonstop,” he said. “We have a BOLO alert out on the killer’s Chevy Astro van, if it is his van. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Again the room fell silent, every investigator present thinking the same thing: Time was running out, and our efforts had been reduced to grasping at straws and hoping we got lucky.
Ingram turned to me. “Sum up your efforts to date, Detective Kane,” he ordered, sounding exasperated. “And skip any bullshit about what you’ve done so far that hasn’t worked. Tell me what you’re doing right now that will.”
“I do have one possibility,” I ventured, wondering how to present it.
“Are you going to make us guess?” demanded Strickland.
“No, I was just . . . anyway, our problem is that we’re not certain which of our leads may have been intentionally left by the killer. We don’t know what to trust.”
Several investigators nodded, including Gibbs.
“Based on the complexity of the killer’s M.O., it’s likely he started his activities a lot earlier,” I reasoned. “Back then he was probably strangling his victims, too.”
“And in the past he might not have been as careful as he is now?” Taylor jumped in, anticipating where I was going.
“Right. So we look at unsolved strangulation murders—especially those involving abduction—and see where that leads us. Maybe he made a mistake earlier in his career. If nothing else, we can be fairly certain that anything we turn up won’t be a false lead.”
“Seems a bit oblique,” Strickland noted doubtfully.
“Maybe. But unless someone has a better idea, I think we should pursue it,” said Shepherd. “I can have our northern field offices work with locals in the Portland/Seattle area on that. Maybe extend it to the western states.”
“Thanks, Alan,” said Ingram. “I’ll bring Robbery-Homicide’s cold case section in on it as well.” Then, with a glance around the room, “Anything else?”
When no one spoke, Ingram pushed on. “Fine,” he said. “For those of you living on another planet, there’s a press conference downstairs in a few minutes. Mayor Fitzpatrick will be making a statement, after which Director Shepherd and I will have the pleasure of addressing our friends in the media.”
A number of detectives smiled grimly. As the investigation had dragged on, many in the media were now accusing Los Angeles authorities of incompetence—blaming elected officials, police administrators, and investigators alike. Sparked by worldwide horror at the “Blood Moon” video, what had begun as a national news story had become an international disgrace, with the mood in the press turning ever more toxic.
The eyes of the world were upon us—not that I cared.
I had one thing in mind, and it wasn’t looking good in the press. The killer had reaped the recognition he so obviously desired. I wanted to make certain he got everything else he deserved as well.
“Director Shepherd and I will be heading downstairs shortly,” Ingram continued. “I’m not certain how we are going to explain last night’s events, but when we do, I want everyone here present. I also want Assistant Chief Strickland, Captain Snead, Lieutenant York, and Dete
ctive Kane standing up there on the podium with me. Understood?”
We all nodded.
“A memorial for our murdered SWAT members has been scheduled at the Crenshaw Christian FaithDome. It will be held on Sunday of next week,” Ingram concluded, glancing around the room. “I will be announcing the memorial service at the end of the news briefing. Needless to say, we will all attend that event as well.”
Again, everyone nodded.
Ingram checked his watch. “Okay. It’s time to close ranks, go downstairs, and face the music.”
25
Disturbing Call
Miss me, Ella?”
As near as she could estimate, it was Ella’s seventeenth day in the man’s prison. It had also been five days since she had last seen her captor, a time during which she had suffered the nauseating symptoms of drug withdrawal. Adding to her misery, her stash of granola bars had run out two mornings earlier.
“Where were you?” she asked, avoiding his question. Not meeting his gaze, she swung her bare legs from beneath the covers and sat on the edge of her bed.
“A business trip. You are not the only concern occupying my time. Here, I’ve brought you something,” he coaxed, setting a McDonald’s carton on the floor. “Sausage and Egg McMuffins. I hear they’re yummy.”
For some reason, the man seemed uncharacteristically elated. Ella eyed the McDonald’s box, feeling her stomach rumble with hunger.
“You know the rules,” the man warned. “You get your treat, but only if you behave.”
“Behave? What else can I do in here besides behave?” Ella demanded, scratching at a rash that was developing under her collar.
“Careful, Ella. Someone might get the impression you don’t respect me.”
Ella lowered her gaze, forcing herself to remain calm. Upon hearing his approach, she had barely managed to hide her weapon in the compost drawer, yank the protective clothing from beneath her collar, and return to her bed in time—slipping under the covers just before he entered.
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