Hellbound: The Tally Man (10 page)
Read Hellbound: The Tally Man Online
Authors: David McCaffrey
He faced them and saw her and the child she had called Ellie clutching at each other, their faces contorted in importunate desperation. Turning away, he closed his eyes and stepped out into the enticing nothingness, its embrace cool and weightless. As he fell, his body was suddenly racked with pain. Mere seconds stretched into what seemed like minutes as Obadiah spasmed from the white-hot needles that burrowed their way into his upper back with movement akin to insects beneath his skin. He tried desperately to reach the area being affected, but was unable to bring his flailing arms round far enough to make contact, stifling a cry of anguish as his body suddenly thrashed about as though a marionette whose strings had just been cut. He tried to focus his mind on dying, but the pain was unrelenting, refusing to allow him a moment’s respite.
And then just as abruptly, he felt himself slipping away into stygian blackness whilst his world contrastingly burned dazzlingly bright, light and dark having a battle to see who was superior. Obadiah Stark felt as though he would have nothing more to think about as the darkness enveloped him.
Then he thought he began to feel a slight breeze on his face and heard what sounded like seagulls. He heard the sound of a child calling his name, smells tickling his senses.
And it all began anew.
Dr. John Franklin, BS.c. HONS, PH.D. M.A., M.CLIN, PSYCH. A.F.PS.S.I.
Case Number: 01020541/27
Subject: Stark, Obadiah James (a.k.a. The Tally Man) cont.
Victim history:
Obadiah’s first murder is believed to have been committed in 1988 at the age of twenty-two, eighteen years after being released from state custody. Though no forensic evidence was found at the crime scene linking Obadiah to the murder, nor were there any witnesses forthcoming, during one of my interviews with the subject he alluded to one of his tally marks being specific to the victim, but refused to elaborate.
The victim, Lauren Tolson, was found on 10th October 1988, just off Highway 90 in Louisiana. This highway connects the West Bank to the East Bank on the north (via the Huey Long Bridge) and to St. Charles Parish on the west. Her throat had been slashed, the cut going so deep as to almost sever her spinal column. There were no signs of sexual assault. She had been rolled inside an old carpet and left at the bottom of an embankment, approximately five hundred yards from the highway. When discovered, Lauren’s body was in the later stages of decomposition, with forensics estimating she had died three weeks earlier on 19thth September 1988.
If this author is to assert Lauren being Obadiah’s first victim, then the crime showed an already brutal and uncompromising approach towards killing. Lacking the finesse he would later develop and hone, it is clear from the severity of the knife wounds that the subject felt no remorse or hesitation at taking a life, ensuring that death was quick and disposal of the body equally as capricious.
Though speculation remains concerning Lauren Tolson as Obadiah’s first victim, there is no doubt that the subject’s next victim was Angelina Tegan, a twenty-seven-year-old housewife from Monticello, Baton Rouge. Married with two children, her body was discovered on the 24th of November 1988 in a brownfield site just outside Monticello, her body half submerged in a pool of water with hands and legs still bound together. Her body was partially clothed, though once again no signs of sexual assault were present. Her throat had been cut almost through to the vertebrae and she had multiple stab wounds to her abdomen. This increase in ferocity indicates that the subject had still not developed the patience he would eventually demonstrate, instead inflicting the mortal wounds in a frenzied manner that implied anger or frustration. When questioned by this author, Obadiah freely admitted murdering her, stating that though he found the location distasteful, he knew that the environment’s industrial nature would help mask or destroy any signs of physical evidence.
Monticello, an area of Louisiana not comprised of an overly affluent population, is home to many people in the East Baton Rouge parish who earn an average $49,000 a year. To Obadiah, such a working class family environment presented the perfect opportunity for him to ‘take from his own’ as he put it during our conversations concerning Angelina’s murder. She represented someone that he could value as an opportunity, but devalue as a reminder of where he came from. With feelings of emptiness by this time probably more chronic than acute, and despite being only his second murder, Obadiah may have already been attempting to fill such emotional voids with the pain of others. It is of interest to note that at this time he was already honing his ability to compartmentalise his own socially dissociative symptoms, characteristics which would act as a barrier to him interacting with his potential victims in the friendly manner. This learned partitioning of his sociopathic side would later develop into an ability to hide his murderous pastime within a façade of charisma.
Both murders highlight Obadiah Stark’s highest value and singular desire already in its infancy - control. Though he would later develop this to feed his need for order and perfectionism, at this point in his career he was already projecting himself as the sole source of his internal strength. On a basic level, Obadiah’s actions represent a perfect example of man’s need, from a biological standpoint, to achieve power and control. With society and the media reinforcing such a belief by providing rewards for dominance and promoting an ideal that power can often be gained through violence, Obadiah Stark chose to demonstrate such an evolutionary process. He understood that the effective use of violence could provide him dominance and gain him a measure of control. Put simply, taking responsibility for defining his own destiny under his own terms, he had already chosen to use the pain of others to guide his way. And he was doing it with no more regret than if swatting a fly.
Excerpt taken from interview with Obadiah Stark (dated 17th April 2010):
“Once I had chosen them, there was no escape. They were dead as soon as I laid eyes on them. And yes, I used them to satisfy my every desire, enjoying the fact that I held their lives completely and utterly in the palm of my hand. That’s a power you can’t buy. You have to take it.
Did I feel bad about the first one? It was certainly the most challenging, but then the first of something always is. Did it plague my consciousness? No. After all, you only feel guilt if you’ve done something wrong.”
‘We lie only when we are attempting to cover up something we know to be illicit…There is no need to hide unless we first feel that something needs to be hidden. We come now to a sort of paradox. Evil people feel themselves to be perfect. At the same time, however, they have an unacknowledged sense of their own evil nature. Indeed, it is this very sense from which they are frantically trying to flee.’
M. Scott Peck
Chapter Seven
September 27th
23:18
Denny Street, Tralee (Trá Lí)
County Kerry, Ireland
CRIMINAL Anthropology is better known as offender profiling, the method by which links can be made between the criminal, the crime, characteristics and physical appearance amongst other traits.
Though its birth is often debated, it is thought Johann Kasper Lavater was amongst the first to proffer a link between the criminal and their facial structure. Widely derided in the in the late nineteenth century, other professionals such as Cesare Lombroso and Raffaele Garofalo believed that criminals were born with physiological differences that were detectable. Add some misconceived social Darwinism to the mix that considered certain species possess a moral superiority over others, and you had a heady misrepresentation of what constituted a criminal.
More modern adaptations of the theory of criminal anthropology and its relation to the study of physiognomy have allowed it to find its place in modern-day profiling, discovering actual links between criminal activities, galvanic skin responses and chromosomal abnormalities.
* * *
Sleep just wasn’t coming. Thoughts gently ricocheted off the walls of Joe’s mind, creating a circumfused hum inside his head that caused him to massage his eyes with the knuckles of his forefingers. The low, background buzz of the television he had left on in the living room drew his attention, seducing him further from the embrace of sleep.
His head ached from staring at the computer monitor for virtually three straight days. Since his interview with Margaret Keld, he had managed to gain face time with the relatives of Wendy Dutton and Niamh Kelly – Obadiah’s third and fifth victims on Irish shores. Securing the family’s participation in his book hadn’t been easy. Mark and Susan Dutton had flatly refused an interview until Ciaran once again intervened and reiterated what it was that Joe was trying to do with his book. Despite his burgeoning inferiority complex towards the necessity for Ciaran’s interference, he was grateful for the assistance. Once the Dutton’s had agreed to an interview, Mary and Robert Kelly followed suit. Because of this, he had ended up working flat out, editing his column during the day whilst writing until the early hours of the morning on his book.
Getting back from work earlier today, Joe had decided to take a break, permitting himself an early meal and shower before climbing into bed. But despite it now being past eleven, he couldn’t shut his mind off. He particularly kept going over and over his meeting with Mark and Susan Dutton. He had expected it to be difficult, especially given their paralleled animosity alongside Margaret Keld towards the ‘sloth-like’ intervention of the Gardaí during their daughter’s murder investigation. Because of this, he had taken a slightly different approach with his questions, realising that to acquire their honest opinions on Obadiah’s execution, whether they considered it just punishment for his crimes and their feelings on law enforcement inadequacy, he would have to be slightly more aggressive in his approach. And though eventually forthcoming, just like Margaret Keld, Joe felt that something was ‘off’ about their acerbic focus on the inadequacy of Obadiah’s punishment in the eyes of the law. The Dutton’s had been almost excitable when the interview had turned towards their feelings on Obadiah’s execution.
They had begun by explaining that they had always felt strongly that the ends did not justify the means, regardless of what the Bible said about an ‘eye for an eye.’ When the interview drifted towards how their daughter, Wendy had suffered, they had begun to contradictorily preach that the justice system was broken and that current application of the death penalty was insufficient to ensure a just punishment for the crimes it was applied to. Echoing Bertie Ahern weeks earlier, Joe had put forward the juxtaposition that Obadiah would have been able to feel emotions the rest of us are capable of feeling, and that there was no such thing as a humane method of killing someone, therefore wasn’t the suffering equal for both the victim and the perpetrator. Following a heated discussion and accusations of Joe being a heartless bastard, he had been politely thrown out of the house.
Letting out a huge sigh, he told himself to relax and tried to clear his mind, but no matter how many times he turned over in his bed, he couldn’t seem to get comfortable. It was nagging at him and he was infuriated as to why. The interview with the Kelly’s had gone slightly better. With the family offering him a little more substance other than disbelief in the justice system, he had found himself interested in their belief that Obadiah Stark’s reckoning was out of their hands and in the hands of a higher power. Though Joe had thought they had come across as too comfortable with Obadiah’s punishment, he couldn’t deny that the religious slant the interview had taken provided him with an interesting springboard upon which to place his analysis of Obadiah’s behaviour and driving forces. Still, despite his catholic upbringing, the Kelly’s telling him that the soul of their daughter’s killer was getting what he deserved left him a little ill at ease.
“For crying out loud.” Sitting up in bed, Joe flung the duvet off his legs and mussed his hair. If he wasn’t asleep by now, he probably wouldn’t be for hours. Therefore he may as well get some work done. Slipping on a t shirt and jeans, he left the bedroom and sat down at his desk. Flicking on his laptop and the desk lamp, he glanced back at the television and saw Michael Landon walking down a dusty road as credits rolled across the screen. An angel with a perm, he thought. So very eighties.
Redirecting his attention to the monitor in front of him, he skimmed over his work from earlier, finding himself quietly pleased with the results:
Serial killers are often seared into the societal consciousness by the constant pontificating of the media and public hysteria. With every aspect of the killers and victims lives documented and poured over exhaustively, it is no wonder that frequent discussions take place on the whys and wherefores of how they became killers and whether the punishment they ultimately received is punishment enough.
Conversely, it is not often public and personal outrage that engages tabloid readers and stimulates debate, nor is it the ongoing debates around how they could do what they did to those poor, unfortunate souls. The one question that rules above all else in the quest for understanding is simply why? Why did that person grow up to become a monster?
We need to know their motives, the lead up to their violent act. We need to know what pushed them into taking those first, dark steps down the road of cruelty and hatred towards life. There must be a reason, however nebulous, that caused them to feel that what they were doing was right and just. Were they hugged too much or not enough? Was it for money, power or sex? Whatever the elusive answer, it could never be The answer. That one reason, above all else, that singularly focuses on the countless individual emotions, beliefs, desires and ideals that drove them to do what they did. And if it was ultimately ever proffered, would we even understand it?
Making a few minor edits and deciding that maybe it would be his preface, he clicked on the save button and rose from the desk. The kitchen floor was cold as he grabbed himself a glass of water. He considered taking something to help him sleep, but decided against it. He had never been a big pill fan, instead preferring to let nature run its course.
Cradling the glass in his hands as he walked slowly into the living room and placing it on the table, he dropped into the sofa, putting his head back and closing his eyes. If this was an example of things to come, Joe wasn’t sure if he would be able to keep up a high standard for both jobs. One of them would inevitably end up showing a lack of productivity, but he couldn’t allow it to be his job at newspaper. The book was a luxury he had been afforded the opportunity to develop; a more challenging luxury than he had first envisioned. And as helpful as Ciaran was being, his understanding would only go so far if the column began to suffer. Maybe he shouldn’t have started the book in the first place. Being around crime and criminals was bad enough, never mind having eaten, slept and breathed Obadiah Stark for more than two years. To have decided to spend more time in the killer’s psychological company and write a book on what made him tick was, in hindsight, not his best decision. But as with most things, it had seemed a good idea at the time.
Reflecting on the interviews so far, he wondered if he was simply reading too much into them. Maybe they weren’t hiding anything, and it was just a mechanism for venting such profound grief that they would never find closure for. Maybe he was being too much of a reporter, and looking for things which weren’t there. He couldn’t blame them for wishing further suffering for Obadiah’s soul. They, and so many others, had lost that which was most precious to them and now faced only on-going pain. At least he conceded, Obadiah’s had been brief.
Joe finished his water and turned off the television mid news bulletin. He decided he would try his bed again. If he lay there long enough he knew he would eventually fall asleep from boredom if nothing else. To help him on his way though, he poured himself a generous short of Jack and drank it in one mouthful. Tablets he didn’t care for, but Jack never let him down.
Its warmth filtered into his stomach as he climbed into bed. He rubbed his eyes hard, causing phosphenes to dance across the blackness behind them. As he saw his own blood cells move through the capillaries of his retina, they momentarily merged with images of Obadiah’s victims before moving out of his visual axis, leaving him with a twisted montage of innocent bodies lying brutalised on the floor. Their physical corruption lulled him into a fevered sleep.
* * *
There was a low buzz in the newsroom. Reporters bustled about Joe as he weaved between them with the precision of an ice skater. It could be a hazardous place for those not accustomed to its frenetic activity, especially as the days crept closer to deadline. Joe had often found inspiration from the electricity that such an environment produced, channelling its energy into his work.
He had woken at six thirty, feeling refreshed after eventually falling to sleep.
Good old Jack, he mused. That guy had known his shit.
After showering and dressing, he had grabbed his laptop and heading up the R551, arriving at his desk in good time. The office had been empty as usual when he had arrived, given his penchant for getting there early. Now it looked like an eruption of human beings had taken place.
“O’Connell!” The shout across the room was barely audible above the activity around him. “Someone’s in the conference room for you.”
Puzzled as to who it could be, given he had no appointments in his calendar, he quickly topped up his coffee and made his way to the opaque, glassed covered wall at the far end of the newsroom. Walking in, he was pleasantly surprised with the sight that greeted him.
The long, slender legs, accentuated by the tight fitting skirt she had on which stopped just above her knees, were only slightly less distracting than her generous breasts which added shape to her button-down, white shirt. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, complimenting the oval shape of her face. She had a fine nose, slightly sun kissed skin and large, almost cat-like eyes, coloured the deepest shade of blue. Her lips were full and the colour of faded coral.
“Hi,” he flashed his most appealing smile.
Legs stood and moved towards him, extending her hand. “Mr O’Connell? I’m Victoria Carter.”
Joe’s smile grew wider, so much so that he thought he was probably starting to look a little foolish. “I wasn’t expecting you. After I left you a message, I guessed you got tied up with work and I didn’t want to pester you with repeat phone calls.”
As he took her hand, he caught the slightest hint of her perfume, subtly yet stimulating. Her hand was warm and gripped his firmly.
“Well, I was travelling to Ireland anyway with work and I have family here, so I figured it would be an ideal opportunity to meet you.” Her clipped, English accent gave the sound of an old-fashioned headmistress. He found it an added pleasantry to an already appealing presentation.
“Lucky me, then,” he replied. “I have to say, I appreciate your offer of assistance. I mean, I’ve followed Obadiah Stark for years, but know I’ve only scratched the surface as to what made him who he became. Any guidance or input you could give me would be great.” Victoria sat back down and indicated for Joe to join her. “Well, it would be my pleasure. It’ll be nice to be involved in someone else’s book for a change rather than writing it myself.”
Joe knew she had had a few books published, some of which were often referenced as amongst the best examples of dissecting what criminal profiling actually was. He actually felt a little awed sitting in her presence, with her offering to help him. In his line of work, he had often had brief contact with celebrities and academics, but Victoria Carter was quite an opportunity.
Hot and smart.
“So, how long do you think you’ll be here for?”
“I’m not sure yet. It depends how involved we get in your work and how long my other responsibilities take…maybe a few weeks. In all honesty, I’m looking forward to working with you. Though my work has brought me into contact with some of the most dangerous and most evil people on the planet, Obadiah Stark is particularly fascinating. He was a walking contradiction of social acuity and psychopathic tendencies. When I heard you were working on a book about him, I saw it as an occasion to work with someone who was driven enough to attempt an understanding of his desire to kill. I must confess, I have a certain affinity for Obadiah Stark.”
