Blood Sisters

by Jim O'Shea

  The day had become overcast and the tiny corner of the cemetery reserved for the Meeker family seemed to be sucking gray from threatening clouds, making it even darker than surrounding sections. She knelt in front of her sister’s grave marker, pushed the stems of the mums into the dirt, and gently caressed the cold granite.

  “I miss you, Mel,” she whispered. “But it’s time I let you go.”

  The cemetery became as quiet as a deserted cathedral, until The Crossing’s bells tolled in the distance. When Libby looked up, her attention was drawn to a thin shaft of light poking through the cloud cover in the valley below. At the bottom of a long sloping hill, a familiar figure dressed in a tan overcoat ducked in and out of shadows.

  “That’s it,” she mumbled under her breath as she climbed to her feet.

  Enough was enough.

  Libby took off running down the hill, racing through bands of light and shadow but careful to avoid icy patches while keeping the familiar figure in sight. But the morning sun had glazed the hillside, causing her to lose her footing.

  She slid on her back the rest of the way down the hill and came to a stop next to a thick stand of tall, thin juniper bushes. The mysterious figure had disappeared but something appeared to move deep inside the thick growth, so Libby struggled to her feet and pushed through a narrow opening. More movement to her left pulled her in deeper, and repeated rustlings caused her to change directions several more times.

  The next thing she knew, Libby found herself in a maze with no entrances and no exits, a surreal jumble of narrow, green pathways and countless dead ends. She sensed she was close to the source of the mystery…perhaps too close.

  She took a step backward, then another, slowly retracing her steps toward the light. When she finally wedged through a tiny opening in the wall of juniper, a familiar voice spoke to her from out of the labyrinth, using familiar words from a childhood game.

  “Olly olly oxen free…”

  Libby turned and ran.

  21

  Homicide was normally quiet after 8:00 PM, except for the few remaining one-fingered typists catching up on their paperwork. In the midst of the background clickety-clack, Hunter sat at his desk and studied the Ginger Killer case file for the umpteenth time, focusing this time on the high-level chronology he’d recorded on the inside cover of the file.

  Sept 2—Schrupp/Farmington murder, single stab wound, no forced entry

  Sept 6—Hart/Magna murder, same M.O.

  Sept 15—contacted Tooele Police re: case file # 81562 (Meeker)

  Sept 16—Tooele City. Interviewed Elizabeth “Libby” Meeker.

  - Tooele P.D. discovers third victim (Flannery) same M.O.

  - Tooele P.D. turns investigation over to SLC P.D.

  Oct 7—Leads dried up. Returned to HQ.

  He turned to the FBI profiler’s assessment of the suspected serial murderer in his case file—the typical white, middle-aged male with mommy issues. Although it was a crisply written analysis, complete with boilerplate Hunter had seen before, there was nothing to sink his teeth into—nothing to explain why a disturbed man suddenly began killing people.

  Thousands suffered from abuse, mental illness, or insecurities, but few added murder to their list of personality quirks. The Ginger Killer remained an enigma—his goals and motivations still, along with his identity, a secret.

  A map of Utah and its five surrounding states hung on the wall of his office, with pins and red string showing the course of destruction taken by the Ginger Killer. Three murders in less than two weeks, each along a path that followed Interstate 15 south like a plague, and with the last pin stuck in a dot on the map labeled ‘Tooele City’.

  Then nothing.

  He shook his head.

  Serial killers fell into four categories as far as Hunter was concerned. The thrill seeker and the psychopath being two of the most common, with serious overlap between the two. Then there were those whose mission was to rid the world of some undesirable group of people—whites, blacks, straights, gays…or thirty-ish females with hair the color of blood. There was also the type driven by imagined voices, but they all had one thing in common.

  “They’re all crazy,” Hunter muttered under his breath.

  Although the various leads and evidence had dried up during the month since the Ginger Killer had last struck, the basic facts surrounding the case remained unchanged. Exact same M.O., same victim physical description, and in a geographic sequence that pointed due south. In each case, the killer left no trace of himself. It was as if the women were murdered by a ghost, at least until he arrived in Tooele and became flesh and blood...or at least a digitized version.

  It turned out the apartment complex where Hannah Flannery lived had security cameras, and a grainy, black-and-white image of what was believed to be the murderer had been captured from a distance. Although the footage contained nothing more than a five second sequence of a figure wearing a tan trench coat and hat floating across the complex’s empty parking lot, he’d played it over and over on his desktop computer.

  Hunter poured the remains of his flask into the coffee cup on his desk, took a sip, and pressed the Play icon once again. He ignored ringing coming from the phone on his desk as the video played, but when the one in his pocket rang seconds later it sounded like an alarm. Gooseflesh flared when the caller ID popped up on the screen. He picked up immediately. “Hunter.”

  “Detective.” The Tooele sheriff’s voice had a much sharper edge to it than in previous conversations. “We think we’ve got another Ginger Killer murder on our hands. You still have the lead on the case so I wanted to—”

  “Who?”

  “Same M.O. as Flannery,” Huneke said. “Young female with red hair, single stab wound to the chest, no sign of forced entry, the—”

  “What is the victim’s name, Sheriff?”

  “A neighbor noticed the front door to the house was standing open, so I had an officer check it out—”

  “The name, Sheriff Huneke! What is the victim’s name?”

  Paper rustled on the other end of the phone line. “Becker.”

  Hunter relaxed his death grip on the phone.

  “Meghan Becker. Age thirty-one. Found her in an Adirondack chair on the front lawn. We believe she’s been dead well over twenty-four hours.”

  An entire day in the front yard?

  “Did she live in a secluded area?”

  “No, but the body was propped up in the chair wearing clown makeup and made to look like a Halloween decoration. I don’t believe anyone noticed it was actually the home owner and, based on what I saw, I’m not sure I would’ve either.”

  Hunter kept a bag packed over the past few weeks and reached for it under his desk after ending the call. He holstered his 9mm and made another entry inside the front cover of the Ginger Killer case file before shoving it in his briefcase and bolting for the exit.

  ~*~

  Nov 1—4th murder (Becker), return to Tooele

  Hunter flashed his badge to the officer guarding the Becker residence before ducking under yellow crime scene tape that stretched across the victim’s front yard. The murder site had attracted some visitors by the time he arrived, and he exhaled at the sight of a news van parked across the street.

  Vultures.

  Hunter made his way to the circle of officers surrounding the body.

  Dr. Mark Jonas knelt in the center, so he came up behind the medical examiner quietly and peeked over his shoulder.

  The murder victim’s limbs draped over the arms of a chair and her head tilted back at an awkward angle. Her face was covered entirely in white pancake makeup and a bizarre grin was painted around her mouth with thick, red lipstick. An empty plastic pumpkin rested in her lap and covering the wound on her chest was a piece of paper that read, ‘PLEASE BE KIND TO OTHERS. ONE PIECE ONLY’.

  “They think the G.K. moved her out here, Detective,” said one of the uniformed officers with a name badge that read BURGE.

 
Hunter looked at the young officer.

  “The Ginger Killer,” Burge said. “They think he killed her inside the house and dragged her and the remaining candy out here. It’s probably his handwriting on the sign.”

  Hunter looked back toward the house and saw a wide groove in the snow leading up to the front door, the entire carved path dotted with blood and flanked by footprints on one side. Even from a distance, they appeared to be shaped by cowboy boots. “Looks that way,” Hunter said.

  “I don’t think the kids paid much attention to the sign.” Burge gestured toward the empty plastic pumpkin.

  Hunter tapped Dr. Jonas on the shoulder.

  “Hey, Hunt,” Jonas said without looking up. He was in the process of pulling the piece of paper off the victim’s chest with a pair of forceps. “Give me a few minutes here.”

  As the Salt Lake City Chief Medical Examiner reached back into his briefcase for a second pair of forceps, Hunter turned toward the Becker home in a wide arc, careful not to disturb the imprints in the snow. Definitely cowboy boots again, and roughly size ten—again. The scene inside the front door was identical to the previous murders. Lock and chain undamaged, signs of a violent struggle in the entry foyer, and blood.

  Plenty of blood.

  Jonas was waiting for him when he returned to the body, and the blood-soaked paper was now laid out flat on a piece of plastic. He used the forceps to flip it to the back side. The page had been torn from a book—a Bible to be more specific—the Old Testament’s Book of Deuteronomy to be exact.

  Hunter snapped several photos of both sides of the page and was in the process of returning the phone to his pocket when Jonas knelt next to the body and grabbed the forceps again. He reached into a black nylon bag, pulled out a third latex glove, and held it at arm’s length.

  “Keep the phone out,” he said. “I’ve got a tasty bread crumb for you to follow.”

  Hunter noticed Jonas’ eyes twinkle and immediately understood what that meant. He’d played poker with Mark often enough to know the man never bluffed. He had filled an inside straight, and it was written all over the man’s face.

  Hunter reached down for the glove.

  “Such as?”

  “I found something inside the victim’s mouth.”

  Hunter let the statement register for a few moments as he slipped on the latex glove and turned on his phone’s flashlight. He tilted it up and down until he saw a tan lump wrapped around a back molar. “Gum?”

  “Spearmint, I believe,” Jonas said. “But that’s not it. Look again.”

  Hunter maneuvered the light around until the beam located a distinctly-shaped object lodged behind bottom teeth and buried below the gum line in her cheek. For a brief moment, his eyes refused to focus, but when they did, he ripped his gaze away from the image as if it had the power to burn his retinas. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “I’m not sure what you think it is,” Jonas said. “But it looks like a piece to a jigsaw puzzle to me. Appears to be made of wood.”

  Hunter spoke slowly and deliberately, trying to keep from gritting his teeth. “What’s it doing in her mouth?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me. I did a cursory exam of the oral cavities of the previous victims but there was nothing like this.”

  Hunter stepped back as Jonas knelt over the body and extracted the foreign object from the mouth of Meghan Becker. It was, in fact, a puzzle piece covered in saliva, but also appeared similar in size and shape to the ones he’d seen in Libby Meeker’s home.

  Hunter felt feverish and his breaths became shallow, but he managed to take several photos of it with his phone before stepping out to the edge of the front yard. It took several minutes to regain his composure, while he stared out on the small crowd gathered behind the yellow police tape.

  Without hearing him approach, Jonas suddenly stood next to him. “There can’t be many more young women left in Tooele with red hair,” Jonas said.

  Hunter cringed.

  “I’d like clean copies of the piece of paper and the puzzle piece as soon as you can manage it, Mark.” He did a slow scan of the faces in a crowd that had grown much larger.

  “Sure.” Jonas blew warm air into the palms of his hands. “You think he’s out there right now?”

  Hunter shrugged. “Not uncommon for serials. Like a dog returning to its vomit.”

  “You know something we don’t know?”

  Hunter patted Jonas on the back as he started toward the driveway. “I’ll see you later. I need to go talk to someone.”

  22

  Libby pressed her back against the outside wall of a small storefront, wishing she could simply dissolve into the cold limestone. Despite the fact that her eyes were squeezed shut, she could feel two other identical ones focused on her from across the street.

  Nature is governed by the simplest of laws, one of which clearly states the fact that one person cannot physically be in two different places at the same time. That eliminated the possibility that Libby herself had just stepped out of the front door of the Tooele National Bank building across the street. Another maintained that when a person died they were dead, and not able to visit financial institutions or drive cars. Despite those well-accepted rules, Libby’s dearly departed twin sister now sat and stared at her from the driver’s seat of a car parked in front of downtown Tooele’s only bank.

  Sight, therefore, was no longer a valid sense like touch and smell. It had apparently acquired new properties, capable of bending light and twisting reality based on circumstance. For Libby, the biological sciences notwithstanding, what her eyes perceived no longer seemed trustworthy.

  She wasn’t quite sure how long she stood on the downtown Tooele sidewalk, but when the sky ruptured and released torrents of rain, it forced her inside a small bake shop. She was sitting at a table staring blankly through a silver curtain of rain, when a burst of lightening lit up the window. It was when she saw her clear reflection in the glass that a sudden and profound realization washed over her. The enemy stalking her was real.

  Not a psychological disorder, not a ghost or demon—at least not in spiritual form—but flesh and blood. Flesh and blood that apparently had an account at Tooele National. Libby pulled her cell phone from her purse and selected a name from the list of recent calls. Aisha picked up on the first ring.

  “What up, girly girl?”

  “Azzi, I know you’re traveling...” Libby paused, sucking air through her mouth in loud, halting gasps. “I’m sure you’re very busy, but I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s the matter, honey?”

  “I…” Libby’s teeth gritted together involuntarily, and she had to force them to relax. “I just saw Melissa.” The words sounded bizarre as they left her mouth, and were met by a stark silence. “I know this is impossible to believe, but Melissa just walked right out of Tooele National as plain as day.”

  More silence, until Aisha spoke in an uncharacteristically nervous voice. “Did you get a selfie with her?”

  Libby pressed the red End button on her phone and set it on the table. She stared at her reflection again in the window as the phone rang, and reached out to touch the cold, hard glass. It was solid, and her reflection moved in synch with her body. She needed that.

  Her phone went silent but when it began buzzing again, Libby pressed the green CALL button and held it up to her ear.

  “I’m the worst friend in the history of the world,” the familiar voice said.

  The truth was the opposite. Aisha had been the best friend a woman could ask for, and Libby felt a twinge of guilt. “No you’re not, Azzi. I’ve dumped so much on you over the past few months.”

  “Well, I—”

  “You have every right to question me. I question myself sometimes. But…I swear I just saw my sister walk out of the bank.”

  “OK.” Aisha’s tone became more confident and upbeat. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Libby leaned against the window and lowered her voice to match he
r friend’s. “I’m all ears.”

  “Did she still have the short, Navy haircut?”

  “I’m not sure,” Libby said, surprised by the sudden realization that she didn’t know. “I think she had a stocking hat on this time. Her hair must have been tucked into the hat.”

  “Was she wearing the tan overcoat again like at the cemetery?”

  “I think so. She was sitting in a car, but I remember seeing the collar.”

  “Like your mom’s old trench coat?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “Perfect,” Aisha said. “Hurry home and get it, grab a stocking cap, and go—”

  “I’ve got it on right now.”

  “Seriously? You haven’t worn that coat since your mom gave it to you.”

  “It looked like rain this morning so I threw it on.”

  “OK.” Aisha paused. “Then all you need is a stocking cap and you don’t have time to run home. You can probably pick one up cheap at Connie’s. Tuck your hair in the hat, go in the bank, and look around as if you forgot something.”

  A dozen or so possible outcomes raced through Libby’s mind, none of them good. “What happens if somebody asks me why I’m there or what I forgot?”

  Aisha didn’t hesitate this time. “Give them that Meeker smile and see what happens.”

  Right. The plan had far too many flaws, but before she realized what she was doing, Libby was strolling south down Main Street toward Connie Mac’s Haberdashery as Aisha went over possible scenarios and offered encouragement. Once inside, Libby made a bee line toward a pile of stocking caps next to the checkout counter.

  “Hold on, Aisha.” Libby muted her phone, set it on the counter, and grabbed a hat from the top of the stack with one hand while reaching into her purse with the other. Instead of a familiar leather wallet, her hand emerged gripping a bundle of dark blue nylon with red piping. Her old, high school stocking cap…and it had been there the entire time. Libby apologized to the clerk, returned the new cap to the pile, and retrieved her phone as she turned toward the door. “OK,” Libby said, before realizing the phone was still muted. She clicked a button on the phone’s screen. “OK, I’m good to go.”