Terrorbyte (15 page)

“In the living room – I'll be back,” I replied and hurried out the door. Mac was still on the phone in the kitchen. I closed the living room door behind me and pressed the power button on the stereo. Mac called it a sound system and it had more speakers than anyone could ever need. I just wanted to play a Grange CD and drown out the crap in my head. I wanted volume.

Music blared, drums pounded. It didn't so much wash over me as pulsate through me, as I stood in the middle of the room, arms outstretched. I turned to watch waves of noise disrupt the air. They flowed from me and rippled across the room, skimming the furniture, sliding across the coffee table and melting into the wall. The air around me was like a pond and the music was the stones, sent skipping over the shiny surface by invisible hands.  A monarch butterfly flittered near the water's edge on the story told by a guitar. A bass thump punched the air, sound bounced – the butterfly vanished.

As more music floated and rippled into the walls I became aware that the visual disturbances could be part of a migraine, or something worse. I closed my eyes, it was music I needed, not the visual effects.

I knew an answer lay somewhere. The puzzle before me left clues in music. I guess it's no accident that music has keys. I jerked back to the present. It has keys but no chlorine. A quote by W.H. Auden flowed into view on a stream from a guitar solo, ‘Music can be made anywhere. It is invisible and does not smell.'

The desire to explore the crime scenes again rose up strongly. I hit the power button on the remote, turning off the stereo. Music fell to the floor and writhed uncomfortably. I ignored it and called the medical examiner.

He answered quickly. I asked him some specific questions. “Were the victims alive when they were stabbed?”

“I believe so. I've found evidence of a heavy duty anti-psychotic drug in all the victims so far. Thorazine was not prescribed for any of the women I've examined but was in their systems in very high doses. They would've been unconscious but not
dead.”

“Any evidence of chemical burns?”

“No,” he replied.

That ruled out chlorine; maybe they really did go swimming.

“Stomach contents?”

“Coffee.”

Quick morning swim, coffee, high dose of Thorazine and death. Fun date.

“Thank you.” I hung up. Unconscious but not dead was something I needed to mull over.

I found Lee and Sam and announced I was going back to the last scene. The anticipated resistance didn't happen.

Sam jangled car keys. It looked like we were taking his work-supplied Expedition. “Ready when you are. Let's get Mac.”

It was late afternoon when we arrived back at the scene. Light was fast fading, swallowed by rain and general misery. I wanted Wednesday to be over as soon as possible.

My first observation was that someone was missing. Where was the guard who was supposed to be watching the crime scene?

“Hold up,” I said to my team. “Anyone seen the guard?”

They all glanced around the approach to the house.

“On a break?” Lee offered.

I shook my head. “As if.”

Lee agreed, “They're not paid to take breaks.”

I nodded. I knew the security firm we used. Their reputation was impeccable. We checked the exterior thoroughly. The crime scene tape was intact. The door was still sealed. There was nothing untoward, no suggestion of foul play. It was possible there'd been some sort of communication meltdown and a guard hadn't been assigned.

“Everything's still sealed, so unless anyone has any objections, I'd like to carry on as we're here and it would be a shame to waste this time. Give me a minute to call the security firm now and find out why we don't have a guard posted.”

I scrolled through the contacts in my phone and clicked on the security company. The phone rang and rang, eventually flicking to voice mail. I left a scathing message about the lack of guards on our crime scene and made sure they knew it was going in my report. That'd make them work harder when their contract came up for renewal.

Sam tapped my shoulder. “Come on Chicky, let's do this.”

The first thing I noticed as we re-entered Marie Kline's home was that the smell hadn't improved in the absence of her body. The rotting garbage brought stinging tears to my eyes as it assaulted my senses.

Lee and Sam looked around the rest of the house while Mac and I checked out the kitchen.

“What do you see?” I watched Mac's face. I saw concentration and brow furrowing.

We were standing next to each other in the middle of the filthy, creepy-crawly infested room. Things scuttled out of sight. Shadows made noises. Dark recesses filled with garbage moved inexplicably. Our shoulders touched and without warning, Tammy Wynette popped into my head and belted out ‘Stand By Your Man.' It was impossible to hold back a smile.

“I'm drawing a blank here, babe,” Mac said and turned his face to mine. “You're smiling.”

“I'm standing by my man.”

He laughed. “Tammy's joined the party, huh?”

The song stopped. Without warning, heavy footsteps ran from the house.

Lee hollered, “Sam's down!”

Everything faded to gray as I ran towards Lee's voice with my phone open in my hand, stopping abruptly in front of them both near the back door. It was as filthy as the rest of the house. Sam was sitting on the ground clutching his side, Lee was kneeling beside him.

“You get a description?” I asked Sam and Lee.

“Neither of us saw anything,” Lee replied.

I had Comms on the line and told them to advise all police to be on the lookout for someone running away from the scene. Without a description there wasn't a lot anyone could do, except hope that someone saw the Unsub leave the premises, or noticed a stranger in the area.

I hung up and turned my attention to Sam.

“Sam?”

“It's nothing – a flesh wound.” He winced as Lee opened the jacket Sam was wearing. “He hit me from behind, all I saw was a flash of steel in my peripheral vision.”

Gray became red, deep velvet red, as it spilled through Sam's cream shirt.

“Your nothing is bleeding all over,” I replied and made a decision to get him the hell out of there. We could make better time than an ambulance. Especially since emergency services were stretched to capacity by the storm. “Can you move?”

The dirt around us was a great motivator; the less time our wounded friend spent in the disgusting house the better.

“With help,” Sam replied.

Lee applied pressure to the wound. I saw dark, almost black, blood ooze through Lee's fingers.  I looked for Mac. He was in the doorway examining something substantial.

“What the hell is that?”

“A knife.”

I didn't hear him properly over the pounding rain above us. “Say again?”

Mac gloved up, then carefully lifted the object so I could see. “As I said: a knife.”

“Jesus. That blade must be a good eight inches long and,” I squinted as light reflected off the surface, “one and a half across.”

“Yeah,” he replied, dropping it into an evidence bag and handing it to me. “Looks military to me.”

Sam groaned, “Good to know I wasn't wounded by some feeble kitchen knife, Chicky Babe.”

Lee looked at me and said, “He could have a liver laceration, Ellie. Let's get him out of here.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You know this?”

“Medic, Gulf War,” Lee replied, by way of explanation. “And I saw plenty of black blood in the field.”

The things you learn.

“How serious?”

“It's way up there. You have the knife in your hand, it could easily be worse than I think.”

Mac swooped in next to Sam. He looked at Lee waiting for orders.

“Let's move,” Lee said. “Lift him to his feet.”

Mac and Lee hooked their hands under Sam's armpits and hoisted him to his feet, trying not to spill too much of his blood in the process. With support, he managed to walk to the car. I slammed the door to the house and ran after them. I hurried by them and opened the car. Lee and Mac settled Sam in the backseat.

I dropped the bagged knife on the floor in the front. I leaned down, reached under the seat, pulled out the first-aid kit and gave Lee all the wound dressings we had. The blood was more black than red, as it dripped from Lee's hand when he grabbed the packets and opened a hemostatic sponge. I slid into the front passenger seat. Lee packed the sponge into the wound and applied pressure. Sam groaned.

Mac drove. Visibility was one and a half car lengths at best and the rain came down in sheets. The torrential rain drowned out all external noise and plunged the whole world into the depths of a thick gray murk. We had no idea what the traffic was like. I hit the lights and reached for the radio. A flick of my wrist changed the frequency to an open channel.

“This is FBI Special Agent Conway requesting all available cars for traffic assistance. Officer down! Cut us a path from Vale to Fairfax Hospital on Gallows … We're in a black Expedition, grill lights active.”

The airway flooded with replies. Less than a mile later a police cruiser slipped in front of us. Flashers lit the interior of the car, sirens wailed in the wind. In the wing mirror I saw another cruiser slide in behind.

The radio chirped and a voice burst forth, “Agent Conway, stick to my bumper.” The brake lights flashed on the car ahead.

“Will do.  And you are?”

“Officer Rich Edwards. Mac, you okay?”

Mac and I smiled at each other. He was an old family friend. Their fathers worked together for thirty years. I depressed the talk button for Mac, “I'm okay, Rich. I'm halfway up ya tail pipe. Go ahead and put your foot down.”

I was so glad Mac was driving. Aquaplaning was a definite possibility and not one I relished.

The radio crackled. “All roads are wide open. Traffic stopped to get you through. We'll take you all the way. Hospital notified.”

“Ten-four.”

I curbed the urge to add ‘Rubber Duck'; C.W. McCall's ‘Convoy' played through my head. What was it with the country music?

Lee whistled from the back. “Damn, Ellie, you don't mess around, huh?”

“The longer he's in the company car … the bigger the cleaning bill.”

Sam managed a laugh. “You're all heart, Chicky.”

I settled back into the seat. Lights flashed even brighter against the gray wet background, causing my head to pound in time with each pulse from the flashers ahead.

I puzzled over Sam's stabbing. Why would our Unsub go back to the scene? Did he leave something behind? I drifted back to the house. My eyes closed as the scene rolled out. I'll just bet there's a country song there somewhere. Couldn't think of a song about a filthy dump of a house, so I moved further into the memory bank, examining everything about the yard and house.

The outside: mud patches on weed-strangled lawn; overgrown flower beds under the front windows, long since choked with weeds. Closed curtains, ripped and hanging in droops from the top. Initial impression: those who resided there didn't care much for their surroundings. This dank hole shouldn't exist in middle-class America. The cracked glass panel in the front door seemed to fit with the rest of the unkempt exterior. I walked through the door, and it didn't smell any better in my memory. The spartan furnishings were possibly thrift store purchases and had definitely seen better days. A book stack grabbed my attention. She read Stephen King and John Grisham. I walked on.

Why did he go back? I stood in the center of the kitchen. What did I miss?  I took careful stock of my surroundings. The poem written around the walls; body; ribbon; bourbon; black Sharpie pen. Whoa! Back up. A black Sharpie on the counter, half-hidden under debris, as if it'd rolled away. 

I jabbed at my phone. My fingers hit buttons before my mind caught up, searching for the number for Charlie Coleman, who headed up our forensics team.

“Charlie, it's Ellie Conway; did you process the Vale scene?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Did you see a black marker pen?”

“I picked one off the counter, ma'am. Strange writing on it … foreign … Russian maybe.”

“Process that A-sap.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“We have a knife for you, too. Looks military, has Sam's blood on it. Can you have someone meet us at Fairfax Hospital to pick it up.”

“Yes, ma'am. Sam okay?”

“He will be.”

“Good to know.”

‘Yes, ma'am' flowed so easily. I knew it didn't mean ‘Yes, ma'am!' It meant ‘We'll get to it as soon as we can, ma'am. No promises. Might not even be this month, ma'am.'

I felt the corners of my mouth turn up. Finally, we had something useful, not just another body. Bad enough that the assailant stabbed Sam from behind and none of us saw anything.

Until the marker pen discovery, this had looked like a very grim day. Now we had caught a break – maybe even a fingerprint or two. We also had a knife that might reveal more pieces of the puzzle. I crossed my fingers that the evidence would be processed quickly. That answers would be forthcoming.

We placed Sam in the capable hands of the Inova Fairfax Hospital emergency surgical team. Competent as they were, it didn't diminish the worry or the waiting time. I paced the emergency room waiting area. Lee and Mac leaned on a wall, away from the ill and injured, watching me and talking quietly.

A doctor hurried from behind the double glass automatic door and beckoned to me – Lee and Mac came too. He confirmed Sam's injury was a liver laceration and told us he would go up for surgery as soon as they had a theater available. He was otherwise healthy and strong, which the doctor assured us would work in his favor.

Hospital emergency departments are huge time-sinks. It was late when Charlie sent Adam, a member of the forensics team, to meet us a few minutes after two theater nurses wheeled Sam away to the surgical suite. I handed over the knife and watched as Adam signed the evidence receipt. Satisfied the chain of evidence remained intact, I sent him back to the lab.