The Chilling Spree (34 page)

“Technically, if he was sending that kind of
message, wouldn’t he have cut off her fingers?”

I shook my head.  “Johnny, it’s a
metaphor.  Said, wrote, you get the connection, right?”

“Sure,” he said.  “I still think –”

“Let’s go have a look inside.  We can
debate the intent later after we’ve got the full picture.”

Franklin offered gloves.  Johnny
started flipping lights on inside the entry, then the living
room.  That was far enough to show us what Franklin
described.  Her little pink tongue, complete with a root
longer than I would’ve expected, seemed more torn out than
cut.  It was indeed skewered to the floor beside her head.

I imagined it wagging, still trying to spew
the vicious lies she printed about me on a day that should’ve
focused on Darkwater Bay’s loss of an outstanding police
detective.  Thoughts of Karma returned.

Johnny flipped on the dining room
light.  “Holy shit,” he drawled.  “Helen, what do you
make of this?”

The bloody orifice that was once the holder
of the tongue was crammed full of something saturated in reddish
brown ink.

“Blood?”

“Seems likely,” I said.  “But what is
it?”

Johnny pointed to a shredded morning edition
on the other side of her body.  “Speaking of metaphors, it
looks like someone decided to make Belle eat her words,
literally.”

“More apt, choke on them.  Look at how
distended her neck is.  Jesus, he really packed her full,
didn’t he?”

Johnny stole a peek at me.  “Or
her.”

“Don’t even go there, Orion.  I know
what I said after the funeral yesterday morning, but even if I had
considered acting in the heat of the moment, you’re forgetting one
important fact.”

“I know.  You’ve got an ironclad
alibi.”

“Unless you want to consider that Devlin was
snoring away half the afternoon.”

“No way, Doc.  I’m not falling for the
devil’s advocate thing.  We record your mileage every time
that car leaves for police business.  It’s become habit for
you.  Bet you didn’t even realize you logged in your mileage
on the way to the funeral this morning.  Chris did the same
when he got Devlin home from the cemetery.  That vehicle
hadn’t moved a millimeter before we came out tonight.”

“Well good.  At least you’re not simply
taking my word for it.  There might be hope for you after
all.”

“Nothing jumps out and screams that this is
linked to the other two murders,” Johnny said while my eyes
continued to assess the rest of the room.

I gripped his arm and pointed to the wall
behind us.  “You might want to reserve that judgment for a few
seconds, commander.  Check it out.  Second Chronicles
18:21.  Pretty hardcore Old Testament message.”

He turned.

Scrawled in blood on the wall were the
words:
Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit
in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil
against thee.

Johnny’s fists clenched.  “Son of a...
it’s the same religious bullshit we found with Tippet.”

“Which was remarkably absent from Goddard’s
crime scene, Johnny.”

“As far as we know,” he said. 
“Somebody tampered with that scene, Doc.  He wasn’t left
backstage, he was moved there.  God only knows what kind of
message was destroyed.”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Did CSD take the entire amplifier stack
into evidence?” I asked.

“Of course they did.  Why?”

“Did anybody bother to spray the grill with
Luminol?”

“Helen, we already know that there was blood
–” he stopped abruptly.  “Which could’ve left microscopic
trace in the pores of the metal if someone wiped off a
message.”

“Or, similarly for the walls inside that
semi-trailer.  Is Pan Demon still hanging around town?”

“Madden said he had no plans to leave until
Kyle’s funeral is held.  This of course won’t happen until
Winslow releases the body for burial.”

“And you won’t green-light that until his
parents get back into town so you can notify them that Kyle is
dead.”

“That doesn’t mean the crew is still around,
Helen.”

“But that trailer should’ve been impounded,
at least until Forsythe went over it with a fine tooth comb and
made sure he had every microscopic trace of evidence.”

“Let’s talk to him when he gets here,”
Johnny said.  “And pray that it’s still in our custody. 
I’d like it sprayed down along with that speaker grill.  If we
missed the first message, it could put a whole new spin on this
case.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And speaking of how you don’t believe in
coincidences,” Johnny began.

“Were we?  Didn’t somebody say that
Scott Madden had some sort of religious awakening in recent
years?  I’m pretty sure they did.”

“Oh yeah,” Johnny nodded, “though I doubt a
Buddhist would be quoting scripture.”

“Maybe not.  Being Buddhist in this
country is about as trendy as listening to little boys with girly
haircuts sing bad pop music,” I said.  “Totally cool to do,
but without any sort of substance or value added by the act.

“I wonder what Madden’s religious
affiliation was while he grew up in Darkwater Bay.”

“Odds are about 85 percent in favor of
Catholicism, Doc.  Only 15 percent fall into the category of
other.”

“Are Catholics rabid fanatics about
homosexuality in this city?”

“I wouldn’t say rabid.  We’re not
religious activists, Helen.”

“Maybe not on that issue, but I seem to
recall an uproar in recent years when Pope Benny conceded that
using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV got some sort of special
dispensation from the church.  Birth control is still
discouraged.  And abortion?  Forget about it.  There
are rabid Catholics about the choice issue.”

“Again, rabid is harsh.”

I didn’t remind him of our conversation in
the shower earlier.  It would’ve been inappropriate.  CSD
showed up to start processing the scene, and Johnny and I split
with different priorities.  Let him talk to Forsythe about the
possibility of a missed message from the first crime scene.

I had bigger fish to fry.  Briscoe had
arrived with what I suspected, could be our perp’s message in all
of this.

Briscoe thrust a short stack of pages into
my hands.

“This is it?  It’s barely a dozen
pages, Tony.”

“He packs one hell of a message into his
sermon.”

I climbed into the front seat of the
Expedition and flicked on one of the map lights.  The horribly
penned masterpiece was rife with
thees
and
thous
and
shouldests
.  It was exactly what I expected to see
written by some self-righteous schmuck too ignorant to realize that
the verbiage used in the King James version of the bible was
written in the contemporary language of the day.  There was
nothing mystical or particularly holy about old English.

“He’s a nut job, right?”

“Not by a long-shot,” I said.  “Let’s
not let our hubris get in the way of one glaring fact, Tony. 
We’ve missed our shot at figuring out what he’s trying to say while
he killed two more victims.”

I scanned the contents of the brief
document.  The crux of the message was that the world was
headed for hell.  Baby killers, queers, drunkards and drug
addicts had eroded the moral fiber of our society to the point that
none of the aforementioned sins were particularly heinous in the
eyes of the modern man.  Therefore, our killer saw himself as
the divine retribution mandated by God to punish the guilty and
send a message to the world that it was time to change its evil
ways.

It ended with his final warning. 
Thou must repent, for the love of money is the downfall of
mankind, and the price of ignoring sin is to forfeit the eternal
soul in damnation.

I tossed the ridiculous thing aside and
muttered, “Bullshit.”

Briscoe’s face hung like rotted meat on a
skeletal hook.  Incredulity filled his eyes.  “You can’t
possibly think this guy is kiddin’ around, Helen.  We got us
three dead bodies that says otherwise.”

“I don’t doubt he has a deep seeded motive
in all of this, Briscoe.  What I doubt is that this diatribe
is more than a smoke screen designed to do a couple of things at
least.”

“Like what?”

“Make us scratch our heads and waste more
time trying to figure out if he’s a religious nut or not, and get
the paper sucked into the drama to create a state of terror in the
city.  And what better way to insure that the Sentinel will
bow to his demands than to kill one of their own, one who in a
matter of hours has become the most high profile journalist in the
city?  You once told me that she hitched her wagon to Crevan
because she wanted to scoop the competition.  Well, she did it
now.  She’s the story.”

“You really think it’s as simple as
that?”

“Johnny wants my profile.  Based on
what I saw in that house and this nonsense I just read, I’d say
it’s a distinct possibility.”

“But you ain’t a hundred percent
certain.”

“Behavioral profiling never is.  I
don’t care how good someone thinks he is.  There are no
absolutes in psychology.”

“Still, we got three very different victims
now.”

“Smoke screen,” I punctuated each word with
a finger jab to his chest.  “I don’t think the motive for
killing Belle had a damn thing to do with Goddard and Tippet. 
Did I ever tell you about the prevailing theory during the height
of the D.C. Sniper case?”

Briscoe shook his head, leaned in a little
bit in anticipation of being taken into my confidence.

“Well, as it turned out, the government had
enough physical evidence against the guy to not only convict him
with the death penalty for his sentence, but they actually killed
the guy with a lethal injection back in 2009.  Some thought
that his random kills were nothing more than a way to mask his true
target once he got around to killing her.”

Briscoe frowned.  “I recall hearing
something about that on the news.  Didn’t some folks think he
planned to murder his ex-wife?”

“Bingo.”

“Now hold the phone there, missy.  You
ain’t suggestin’ that Puppy had a damn thing to do with this! 
He don’t got it in him to kill a bug, let alone Belle or anybody
else.”

“Of course I wasn’t suggesting…
she’s
the smoke screen.  Remember?” I picked up the so-called
manifesto and waved it under his nose, “This thing is part of the
smoke screen.  How does one best camouflage a hate
crime?  You start popping off people who in no way could be
construed as part of that demographic worthy of extermination.”

Something obscure niggled in the back of my
brain.  I couldn’t bring it forward for the life of me. 
Our motive was there, in the manifesto, in the murders, maybe even
in his choice of victims.  Our killer was someone I talked
to.  I felt it in my bones.  What had I missed?

“You’re gettin’ all spacey again,
Eriksson.”  Briscoe backed ten inches away. 

I imagined him sprinting through Crevan’s
front yard screaming for Johnny before I had a chance to go rogue
again.  It pulled a chuckle from deep in my belly.  “I’m
not running off to close a case alone again.  Calm down. 
I’ve got a gut instinct that the answer to this has been staring me
in the face from the beginning.  Where are the witness
statements from the first case?”

The driver’s door of the Expedition sprang
open before Briscoe could answer.  “CSD’s got the scene,”
Johnny said.  “And Forsythe said the trailer in question is
still parked out at division.  They haven’t finished
processing it yet.  Been sorta busy with more bodies,” he
said.  Eyes darted between Briscoe and me.  “What the
hell did I miss?  Are you two fighting again?”

“No,” I said tersely.  “I was telling
Briscoe that I need the witness statements from the Goddard
murder.  I think I’m missing something critical.”

“It’s gonna have to wait,” Johnny
said.  “Tony, if you could oversee this scene until CSD is
done processing and make sure the ME knows we need a cause of death
ASAP, I’d appreciate it.”

“Where you goin’, John?”

He sucked air into his lungs.  “The
uniformed officers watching the marina just called me.  The
Goddard’s yacht pulled into the bay twenty minutes ago. 
They’re headed home.”  Johnny’s eyes met mine.  “Are you
ready for this, Helen?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“They’re the only people in this mess who
haven’t added their perspective,” he said.  “Might be the
impetus that pushes us in the right direction.”

Briscoe slammed the passenger door and
saluted to his friend.

“What didn’t you tell Tony, Helen?” 
Johnny pulled away from the curb and sped through the residential
area for the inner city freeway that would take us quickly to
Bayshore and the marina.

“I want to see the witness statements. 
That’s it.”

“I thought we had an agreement that we were
in this together,” Johnny said.  “Or has something changed
already?”

“My gut says I missed something big,
particularly after I read this ridiculous manifesto,” I began
explaining what I read between the lines.  “Suddenly, I’m not
sure we’ll find a message like we did with Bobbi Tippet and Belle
Conall with the first victim, Johnny.”

“Because of this diversion tactic
theory?”

“Yes.  I think Belle’s murder was
intended to make us look in another direction all together. 
This guy might’ve gotten scared when he realized that it was
obvious that bias was a factor in the first two deaths.”

“Well it was pretty obvious.  They were
best friends.  They were gay.  They both had adopted the
persona of women.”  Johnny tapped his fist lightly on the
steering wheel.  “Women.”