Conduit

by Angie Martin

  Lionel beamed like a proud father. Aurelio was perfect for the assignment, and she balanced out both Shawn and Timmons as he had expected. She had also done enough homework to know about the previous crime on the campus, and used that information in the perfect manner.

  “That’s excellent work,” Lionel said. “The less time we spend in front of a judge getting subpoenas, the better.”

  “I still think the flirting helped,” Shawn mumbled.

  “I’m sure it did,” Lionel said, “but first place goes to Aurelio today. Let’s see the tape.”

  “This is from the day our victim disappeared,” Aurelio said. “It’s time stamped 5:46 p.m. The view is of the west side of the building.”

  Aurelio picked up the remote in front of her and started the tape, which showed vehicles and pedestrians moving through a parking lot near the library. “I have it at half-speed now,” Aurelio said. “Keep your eye on the lower right-hand corner.”

  Black and white cars moved through the lot at varying speeds, with an occasional student crossing the blacktop. Then he saw what Aurelio wanted to show him. A person wearing a dark jacket with the hood up and head held down came into view. From the large build of the person, Lionel surmised it was a man. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his jacket, and he moved at a slow, measured pace while others dashed about the parking lot. The man zigzagged through parked cars, but never once stopped at a vehicle.

  “Does the camera rotate at all?” Lionel asked.

  “No,” Shawn said. “None of the cameras on the campus move. Even though this is one of three cameras in the library parking lot, you can only see him on this camera.”

  Though Lionel had also guessed the person to be male, he asked, “Do we know for sure it’s a man?”

  “We find out really soon, sir,” Aurelio said.

  After the man walked out of view, Aurelio fast-forwarded the tape. When it reached 6:04, she slowed the action. The man came back into view and walked almost the identical path as he did before.

  “That’s definitely suspicious behavior,” Lionel said.

  “Exactly,” Timmons said. “He holds to this pattern through the rest of the tape. We think he doubled back around by going behind the building. If he walked against the back of the library, there are no cameras with the right angle to catch him on video.”

  Twice more, in fifteen to twenty minute intervals, the man maneuvered through the cars in the same manner. Then at 6:53, the man came back into view for his fifth lap through the parking lot. This time, the hood of his jacket did not cover his head. Despite the pixilation and the night shadows creeping over the screen, Lionel could easily tell it was a man with short, dark hair.

  The man inched across the parking lot, weaving through the few cars that remained. At every turn, though, there was not even a glimpse of his face.

  “This happens four more times. After we see Lucy Kim emerge from the library, we don’t see him again,” Aurelio said.

  “Because he grabbed her when she left,” Lionel said. He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair, contemplating what needed to be done next. “Timmons, I want you to get this tape along with the tapes from the other library cameras to the lab. Let’s see if we can get them cleaned up. We might be able to see at least part of his face. Figure out the makes and models of the cars he walks between and calculate his height. He looks pretty tall from what I can tell, and that could help us find him.”

  Timmons retrieved the tape from the player and raced out of the conference room without a word.

  “Aurelio, you seem to have connected with Dean Reynolds, at least on a threatening level. Take two uniformed officers with you back to her office and let’s get our hands on all the other security tapes from the campus. He may be seen leaving the campus in a car or we might catch him letting his guard down in another part of the campus and get his whole face. Either way, I want a few cops reviewing tapes around the clock to get through them as fast as possible.”

  Aurelio nodded and rose from the table to start her new assignment.

  “Just a second, Aurelio,” Lionel said.

  Aurelio paused in the doorway. “Sir?”

  “Let’s also get all the tapes from the campus starting the day Diane Murphy’s body was found up through the day Lucy Kim disappeared.”

  “Great idea,” Shawn said. “He probably started stalking her as soon as he dumped Diane Murphy’s body. If he did, we might see him on an earlier tape.”

  “I’ll get a favor called in to start the work on a subpoena,” Lionel said. “If Dean Reynolds doesn’t release the tapes willingly, let me know and stay on her. With the evidence on this tape, we’ll have a subpoena within minutes if it’s needed. I want you right there to get the tapes and bring them back for review when the subpoena arrives.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  After she left, Lionel leaned back in his chair and stared at his half-eaten Danish.

  “This could be the break we’ve needed,” Shawn said. “We have one week to catch him before the feds come in. It’s a good thing for us if that is him on the tape.”

  “I know it’s him, but I also know he’s not going to show us his face. It can’t be that easy, not with how careful he is.”

  Shawn reached across the table and snatched the Danish. He tore off the part where Lionel bit into it and stole the rest.

  Lionel frowned, but didn’t confront him. They had been partners long enough for Shawn to get away with a little thievery here and there. They both knew Lionel had no intention of eating the rest of the pastry.

  “When are Cassie and Emily coming by?” Shawn asked, with a large bite of the Danish stuffed in his cheek.

  Lionel consulted his watch. “In about twenty minutes.”

  “Any idea how they fared at the memorial service?”

  “Nope, but hopefully they got something for us to go on.” Lionel lifted his coffee mug and swirled the cooling liquid around the bottom. “Why did he walk around the library so many times? He risked someone seeing him and calling security.”

  “He was stalking her and she was in the library already,” Shawn said. “He was completely fixated on Lucy Kim. She had to be his next victim, and he was willing to take a risk that someone noticed him.”

  “I guess if you think about it, a busy school campus really isn’t that much of a risk,” Lionel said. “Unless a student passed by him a few times, they might not even notice him. The kids we saw on the tape were solely focused on getting to their destination.”

  “It’s a good reason to choose that location,” Shawn said. “He stalks the women so he knows they are what he wants, but he also stalks the location where he plans on snatching them. He makes sure it’s the perfect spot where he won’t get caught.”

  “The school she works at said that she always leaves early to go to classes on Thursday. Then she goes to the library. I bet she stays at the library until closing every Thursday. He would have known that, but he arrived at the library well before closing time, in case she altered her routine and left early. He wanted to take her there, and he had to be sure he would get her.”

  “If she had left the library early, before he arrived, he wouldn’t have taken her that night, but he also wouldn’t have waited another week to take her from the library. He would have found another opportunity, maybe even gone to her apartment.”

  “No, he’s not a disorganized killer so he wouldn’t have waited for a random opportunity.” Lionel pushed back his chair from the table and stood up. Excitement coursed through his veins, fueled by the theory they were forming. “But you’re right. He also wouldn’t have waited another week to take her at the library. He would have had a backup plan. He doesn’t leave anything to chance, so he would have made a contingency plan when he stalked her.”

  “So let’s find out what that plan was.”

  Lionel smiled. “He may have made a mistake when he was scoping out a secondary location. Maybe there are cameras there as w
ell.”

  “But take it a step further. If he had a backup location for Lucy Kim—”

  “Then he had a backup location for the other women,” Lionel said. “Pull a couple guys off the tip line and have them re-review the statements of the families and friends. Let’s put together a detailed routine for each of the women and identify where the secondary location to take them would have been.” Lionel swallowed the rest of his coffee.

  “We’ll check for cameras, witnesses, anything that can help.” Shawn moved to the conference room door and paused before exiting. “We’re getting closer,” he said. “We just need another mistake and we’ll get him.”

  “Another mistake could mean another body. We have to find him before that happens.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Watching Cassie’s face as she examined the photographs of a deceased Lucy Kim, Emily remembered why she didn’t want to go to the police station that morning. The murders were like a toxic cloud that floated over everyone who came across the case.

  Just a half hour earlier, Cassie was bubbling over with excitement at the prospect of seeing Shawn. In the parking lot, she had adjusted the rearview mirror in her car to apply an extra sheen of lip gloss and make sure every hair was in its rightful place. When they walked into the conference room, her eyes expressed nothing but pleasure when Shawn greeted her with a hug.

  Cassie’s infectious smile disappeared upon opening the file. Engrossed in the pages of reports and photographs, she didn’t notice Shawn watching her with an unmistakable light in his eyes. Emily noted that Shawn had just as much of a teenage crush on Cassie as she did on him, but neither one of them were willing to make a move for fear of Lionel’s fatherly protectiveness.

  Now was not the time for them to broach the idea of a relationship or even a first date. The death of Lucy Kim drifted along the thick, silent air in the conference room, and no one seated at the table dared to speak. There was nothing anyone could say that would be appropriate at this moment.

  As Cassie examined the horrors contained within the flaps of the case file, Emily reflected that the woman she heard calling her name just two days earlier could very well have been Lucy Kim. The timing of her death, as well as the murder of Diane Murphy, corresponded with the cries that invaded Emily’s mind.

  Combined with the automatic writings that were identical to the message the killer left on the bodies, Emily could think of no other explanation than it was the women calling out to her while being tortured. Yet based on what Lionel and Shawn had told them about the murders, she had heard the voices long after the women died, as if they were on some sort of psychic time delay.

  If the voices she heard were those of Lucy Kim and Diane Murphy, then the voice she heard last night was a new victim who, while being tortured, reached out to Emily for help. The automatic writing did not accompany the voice, but the voice had been strong enough to get through on its own. It caused Emily to become ill while a fog of darkness rolled through her mind.

  Since no body had been found, Emily surmised that the time delay had been removed, and she heard the woman screaming while she was dying. The darkness, however, perplexed Emily. It remained with her this morning, clinging to the corners of her mind, but it was not propelled by one of the victims. Emily shuddered at the thought that she might have opened a portal for the killer. If he was like her, he was much stronger than any psychic she had ever known.

  Cassie closed Lucy Kim’s file, but kept her eyes focused on the table. Lionel and Shawn watched her, waiting for a comment. When they first arrived in the conference room, Emily declined the offer to look at the file. It contained photographs of the body where it had been dumped, as well as autopsy photographs, and Emily didn’t want to burn those images into her mind.

  Cassie’s somber expression told Emily she made the right decision. She was not easily shaken, but her pallid skin and repeated sighing expressed that the images contained within the file were worse than she ever could have imagined.

  She launched the file across the table in a swift slide toward Shawn, who stopped it from flying off the edge. “I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies,” she said. “With all the classes I took, we were shown some pretty awful things. But that…” She pointed at the file and locked eyes with Shawn. “He’s beyond sick.”

  “I told you it wasn’t a good idea for you to look at it,” Shawn said.

  “No, I needed to see it. I might also need to drink a bottle of vodka to sleep tonight, but it helps me better understand what we’re up against.”

  “So what are your thoughts?” Lionel asked.

  “The profile the feds sent you is really good,” Cassie said. “They are absolutely right that he’s a piquerist. A rather extreme case, but it’s definitely piquerism.”

  “What is that?” Emily asked.

  “Piquerism is a type of killing style, if you will. It describes the act of a killer who gets off on penetrating the skin of another. Sometimes people include it in really crazy freaky sex, but for the most part when we talk about someone being a piquerist, it’s in reference to a killer who stabs his victims for sexual pleasure.”

  “That’s what confuses me,” Shawn said. “We found no semen on the body or at the dump site. None of the victims had any signs of rape or forcible entry.”

  “There doesn’t have to be,” Cassie said. “He would just need to get some kind of sexual gratification from it. It’s possible he satisfied those needs during or after the victim’s death, but washed off any of his fluids from the body before dumping her.”

  “Then maybe he could have done it later, and not near the body so he could make sure no evidence was left behind by accident,” Emily said.

  “Anything’s possible,” Cassie said. “Whatever the case, stabbing these women and slicing up their skin really turns him on. He gets extreme pleasure from mutilating their bodies while they are alive.”

  “When we spoke on Saturday, you also agreed with the feds that he didn’t start killing here,” Lionel said.

  “The pictures of the bodies only confirm that suspicion. His earlier victims wouldn’t have suffered that much torture. As he killed more women, he needed to go to greater lengths to satisfy his desires.”

  “So he escalated to where he is now?” Emily asked.

  “Exactly,” Cassie said. “From here, he will get bolder because he’ll need more and more to achieve satisfaction. He might start taking women in crowded places or in the middle of the day just to be more daring and give him more of a thrill. Every part of the crime feeds his desires.”

  “Some people theorize that serial killers might get tired or they want to stop, so they purposely make mistakes to be caught,” Shawn said.

  “This guy won’t stop,” Cassie said. “He doesn’t want to be caught. He wants this to keep going as long as possible.”

  “But becoming bolder may cause him to accidentally make mistakes,” Lionel said.

  “There’s something I don’t agree with on the profile the feds sent over,” Cassie said. “They said he may be married or living with a family member. They also said he may hold down a job. While those things are true of a lot of organized killers, there’s no way this guy has a job or lives with someone else. What he does requires not only complete isolation, but it takes time. If he has a job and a wife, then he has the spottiest attendance record at work and his wife probably suspects he is having an affair. I just don’t think he can do what he does with those distractions. His whole life revolves around these murders.”

  Lionel scratched down notes on his legal pad of paper. “What you’re saying makes perfect sense. I thought he also must live in a house outside of the city, somewhere isolated.”

  “We have a lot of that around here,” Shawn said. “But with bodies being left in all parts of the city, there’s no way to tell in what area he might be living.”

  “You said that the message to the police was complete,” Emily said to Lionel. “He carved ‘hear me’ on the bodies.
If he isn’t going to stop, does that mean there’s more to the message?”

  Cassie shot Emily a look that told her she knew her question was more than curiosity. “It’s possible,” she said.

  “The guy has a plan,” Lionel said. “He has some sort of mission or purpose, but we don’t know what that is. That’s what ‘hear me’ means. What he wants us to hear is still a mystery.”

  “Do you have another body?” Emily asked.

  “No,” Shawn said. “We’d like to keep it that way.”

  Emily swallowed hard before her next question. Her questions were a little too inquisitive and specific, but she had to know if her theory about another victim dying last night was correct. “If he’s escalating, then based on the timeframes of the other murders, is it possible he killed another girl in the last 24 hours or so?”

  “I really hope that he hasn’t,” Lionel said, “but I suppose it’s possible.”

  Cassie’s eyes drilled holes through Emily. They had been friends for so long that one usually knew what the other was thinking, but she had kept Cassie in the dark about the voices and the automatic writings. Cassie would soon suspect something was wrong, if she didn’t already.

  She needed to change the subject before Cassie got too curious. “What else would you like us to help with?” she asked Lionel.

  “We’re reviewing some family statements today,” he answered. “We may ask you to interview some family members and see if you can get things out of them that we didn’t.”

  “I made a connection with Tara Murphy, Diane’s aunt,” Emily said.

  Lionel wrote the name down. “Tara Murphy,” he said. “I don’t recall that name from the family interviews.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Emily said. “From what she told me, she’s the black sheep of the family. Diane and Tara were very close, even if the rest of her family wasn’t accepting of Tara. If we need to interview her family, then Tara is the one we would want to talk to. She knew Diane a lot better than the rest of the family.”