The Trees Beyond the Grass (A Cole Mouzon Thriller) (4 page)

CHAPTER 6

DALLAS

HIS PORES STILL
emptying themselves of the whiskey onslaught from his Friday night, Leas passed through airport security at DFW trying to remember how he had come to hunt those who killed. As a member of CIRG, the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, he had been told that his time in Tulsa was done. The reprimand would come, but he was still one of the best they had. So, they were sending him out to investigate a death that matched one recently in the Tudor City neighborhood of Manhattan. He had talked with New York’s Detective Lefler on his way to the airport and been filled in on the investigation in that case and another potentially related killing outside San Diego a month and a half earlier. There was a loose pattern and that was never good. Boarded, the plane’s seatbelt made a point of reminding him of his few extra pounds from too much whiskey and too many fries on the road, digging against his government-issued black blazer.

A blonde, middle-aged flight attendant with too much drugstore makeup came to his cramped coach seat and asked if he needed a drink. Thinking it was best for now to hold off, he ordered water. As she walked away she gave him a big smile framed in deep red lipstick over her shoulder. Except for the deep black circles under his eyes, his black hair and creamed-coffee skin would have disguised his forty-three years. “Being Hispanic has its advantages,” he would say when someone feigned shock at his age. “…Of course, there are disadvantages, too.” The prejudice of color still lingered like a cat hanging by its claws on a window ledge. Yet, he had benefited from the gravity of time taking its effect on the issue, slowly pulling down some barriers.

Leas had joined the FBI to satisfy his need to understand killers. In high school he’d read Kraft-Ebing’s 1886 study of homicide,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
which introduced him to the study of serial killers
.
In his opinion, other than the occasional movie at the castled El Raton Theater, growing up in rural Raton, New Mexico, he had few options but to read. Today, his reading choices would be flagged by the school as a potential threat to other students and the school. But in the mid-80s, he was just called ‘dark.’ He had to agree that ‘dark’ was a good description for that pimple-faced boy in New Mexico. His teenage bookshelves were loaded with fiction and non-fiction, all on one subject, serial murders. He couldn’t say when he acquired his taste for the crime, but it had stuck early and he had never let it go.

The ‘punk’ movement overshadowed his obsession back then, with bands like Flux of Pink Indians and X singing of riots and standing up to organized government. The Reagan years were great for those voicing anarchy, violence, or just hatred of any issue. The government was too busy with the USSR to consider threats in schools.

Today, it was a very different situation. With 9/11, a new focus was placed on domestic sources of violence. This was only compounded by the recent events at the Aurora Theater in Denver and Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, which put a clear focus on threats in our own backyard. His lifelong fascination would rightfully raise flags in school today and land him in counseling, at a minimum, if for no other reason than to ward off liability for the school should he act on his interests.

But he didn’t act. He never wanted to murder, but he did want a front seat to the psyches of those who did. And he hadn’t been involved on either of those recent events. Mass killings, where four or more people are killed at once, weren’t his specialty. At forty-eight, Leas wasn’t ‘the expert’ on serial murders, but he was pretty close. It was still unclear whether there was a new serial killer on the loose. Technically, a serial murder is defined as a series of three or more killings, not less than one of which was committed within the United States, having common characteristics such as to suggest the reasonable possibility that the crimes were committed by the same actor or actors. In layman’s terms, someone who killed three people in separate and distinct events.

Looking down at the stack of manila files on his lap, he wondered if he was dealing with another serial killer. From the outside, there wasn’t anything special about the murder he was now flying to Dallas to review; well, at least for someone who investigates such things. What was unique was that he was being assisted back in Quantico by Units 2 and 3 of NCAVC, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes.
What interest would Unit 3, Crimes Against Children, have in a thirty-four year-old dead guy in Dallas?

With Mr. Patrick, he now had three bodies.
Were these murders linked?
He still didn’t know. What he did know was that if they were linked, the murders were occurring at a much faster rate; the killer had become impatient. And, impatient knives produced more bodies.

CHAPTER 7

ARRIVING AT TONY
Patrick’s Angelina Drive home just west of Dallas’s downtown area, Agent Leas immediately noted the lack of any evidence of forced entry.
He knew his killer.

“Captain Monroe, the FBI’s representative is here. What did you say your name is again?” A young local detective, no more than maybe twenty-six, with a large camera around his neck, ushered Leas through the doorway of the home and into its living room, where several other detectives stood discussing indecipherable matters.

Leas had learned from one of the files that the body had been found at six a.m. Friday when a co-worker had arrived to give Patrick a ride to work. When there was no response from honking the horn, he knocked on the door and it opened, revealing the bloody body of Patrick lying in the middle of the living room. The officers had been on the scene a full day by the time Leas got into Dallas. It was now six p.m. Central Time and the officers were worn and tired like an old rag.

“Agent Leas, Quantico. Nice to meet you, Captain Monroe.” Leas extended his hand to the black officer and they shook as the captain took stock of the man before him. Leas similarly took in his host, noting Captain Monroe had some obvious years on him.
Sixty-eight?
His classic double-pocketed, deep blue short-sleeve shirt and matching pants were accented by the large egg-shaped badge with a star at its center that was brandished across his left chest. On either side of his collar were pinned four gold stars, to signify his experience and importance. From the busied movements about him, it was apparent the captain had full control of the scene, and Leas had no interest in stepping on his toes.

“Agent, can you tell me why you’re here and what you have to do with my guy?” The look on the captain’s face conveyed the clear message that he was not happy to have to tolerate the FBI’s involvement in his case. Another agent came up behind him, and the captain occupied himself with signing a form while Leas answered.

“Captain, your guy caused a few red flags to pop up in our system. Seems some of the injuries match another recent crime in New York City, and perhaps one in San Diego. So, of course, I’m here to see if there’s any relationship between them, and if so, I have a lot of restless nights ahead of me.” Leas looked down at the small plastic numbered tents scattered around the room.

“Indeed.” The captain’s face soured but his interest was clearly peaked. “Do tell. Agent Leas, you say? What about my guy has the FBI spending my tax dollars to fly in a high-class shrink to tell me how to do my job?” The younger agent walked off, satisfied with the signature he had collected.

Leas looked around the room. “Captain, I’m not a shrink, just an investigator like you. And I’m not here to frustrate your investigation, and certainly not here to tell you how to do your job. In fact, you are very much respected back at Quantico. Your work on the Charles Albright case was impressive, to say the least.” Leas was referencing the Dallas Ripper, also known as the Eyeball Killer, who killed three prostitutes between December 1990 and March 1991. His signature was shooting the victims and removing their eyes. But for the hair found by Captain Monroe’s team on the last victim, Albright would have walked because the jury did not convict him of the first two.

The captain huffed, “Agent, don’t blow smoke up my ass. Dallas is still in the South and we are very much astute at recognizing a snow job. You still haven’t answered my question. Why. Are. You. Here?” The captain was clearly losing patience in playing host.

Turning his direct attention to the captain, Leas continued. “Of course, Captain. It seems some of the elements of your scene caused a match in ViCAP.” ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, was the database where all violent crimes in the country were cataloged and collected so that they could be analyzed for potential patterns. “In this case, the cut patterns seemed close enough to another crime to cause ‘taxpayer dollars’ to be spent to ship me to Dallas.”

“Yeah, like what?” The captain’s Deep South Texas accent oozed out.

“Well, to be certain, I’ll have to take a look at the body back at the coroner’s to confirm; but your officers documented a square cut on the victim’s lower back that may match that New York case I mentioned.”

The captain looked at Leas and said, “When was that death?” Leas had the captain’s attention now. He needed to provide enough information to keep it, and his cooperation, but not enough to risk a leak by any of the captain’s crew. It was too early to put whoever this was on notice that the FBI might be on their trail.

Leas continued, “It was a week ago, Wednesday. The body was found a day later…after a photo surfaced on the internet. Facebook. Evidence of a struggle, no forced entry, but a square patch was removed from the body.”

The captain lifted one brow and looked up slightly as if peering over a pair of glasses. “Are you saying someone is hopping planes and killing people? TSA stops a granny for carrying a butter knife on a plane, but can’t stop a cut-happy doctor from jumping on and slashing all over the country? A waste of my taxes, again.” The captain looked away with that last statement; he clearly didn’t like the fact that he paid taxes.

“You said doctor… Where did you get that?” Leas was surprised; there were suggestions of surgical precision in the Havex case in New York.

The captain twisted at the hips to look over at the door where the young officer who had met Leas upon arriving now stood. “Hendrix, get over here.” With his large, worn hands he waved the man over. The skinny, bony-framed man of maybe five and a half feet scurried over, grasping his camera in one hand. “Yes, Captain?”

“Show the FBI guy those fancy pictures you get paid to take.” Hendrix moved between the two towering men and flicked on the black Nikon d600 that hung around his neck. The screen glowed in the dimly lit room. Elbowing the short detective in the shoulder, the captain barked, “No, no. Go to the injuries to the back.” Hendrix flicked through as the captain had ordered and then twisted the screen towards Leas.

ON THE SCREEN
was a photo of someone’s bloody back. The body was face down on brown carpet, its arms spread to either side. A small swath of skin on the right hip had been removed, forming a perfect square. Lifting his head, Leas looked around the room and noted the same carpet in the living room where they were standing. “See there, Mr. FBI Agent, that cut is too precise to be some fool’s deer knife, or even a steak knife. Look at those edges. You mentioned the Charles Albright case. I learned in that case that when someone uses a very sharp, surgical-grade blade, like that crazy did on those poor woman’s eyes, the edge of the cut is smooth and crisp. When I look at the cut on this guy’s back, I see Albright all over again. Whoever cut Mr. Patrick here used a scalpel. I’ll bet on it.”

Looking back down at the camera’s screen, Leas nodded his head in agreement. The captain was as good as his reputation back at Quantico suggested. Indeed, from the picture at least, it looked like someone had used a scalpel to remove the skin patch. Of course, that did not mean a doctor was the killer. But it certainly narrowed the field.

Leas said, “You got any pictures of the front of the body?” Hendrix leaned the camera closer to Leas after first locating the frontal shots. Mr. Patrick was on what appeared to be clear poly plastic from the police crew’s processing team. His hands had been cut off with a much rougher blade, an act that would have taken considerable time and patience. The contusions around the edges of severed wrists suggested he was still alive when the sawing commenced. The hands were missing from the picture of the body. A close-up of the face showed several deep cuts, suggesting a knife fight. Several shots later the hands were displayed, resting on some table, palms down, as if they were waiting for dinner to be served.

Leas took a deep swallow and looked over to the captain. “Yeah, that looks like the work of a scalpel on the cut, but not on the hands. But I’ll wait to confirm when I see the body. Have you estimated time of death?”

BUSY AGAIN WITH
another officer, the captain spoke without eye contact, “My people say sometime last night. From the looks of things, he knew the lady.”

“Lady?” Leas was twisting his head around to gain access to the captain’s eyes.

Feeling the gaze, he looked back to Leas. “Yeah, some kids down the street say a white Toyota pulled in right after this guy sometime around nine last night and a woman got out. Couldn’t really describe her other than to say she was tall and slender. White or Hispanic, with long hair. Other than that it was dark, and them being under a streetlight made it difficult to see two blocks over.”

Leas knew what he was talking about. The phenomenon of light pollution turns people into silhouettes when the viewer is in an area lit more brightly than the area being looked into. The eyes get overloaded and can’t adjust to see the details in the dark area. Leas had been taught the principle using the example of trying to see stars in the city versus the country. Lots of stars versus little to none. They’re there; the viewer just can’t see them because of all the other light. All the kids could likely see was the person’s outline.

The captain was good, bowling strikes left and right. First the scalpel, now a woman. Detective Lefler had seen the same signs of a female being involved in the Havex case. The captain continued, “He must be six-four, two-hundred pounds at least. We suspect from the puncture in this guy’s neck that she drugged him or something to be able to deal with him.”

“Tranquilizers? Poison?” Leas pinched his eyes, causing a furrowing of his brow as he processed this information.

“No clue yet, that’s in the coroner’s hands. I’m just here to coordinate and investigate once we figure that out.”

Leas looked back down at the white outline on the floor as he pondered this information. The use of poison was usually a dead giveaway of a woman’s involvement. Men tended to be violent in their killing, using brute force and weapons to take down their victims. Woman almost always used poison. Here they had a hybrid, poison with violent force to finish them off.

There were tons of theories for the disparity of methods between the sexes, but Leas had come to find that with the rare occurrence of a female serial killer, she needed an advantage over the muscle and bulk a man usually possessed. Women also tended to murder for money, not passion or control like men. The rare exceptions included Aileen Wuornos, made famous by Charlize Theron’s portrayal in the 2003 movie “Monster,” and the couple, Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood, who killed for sexual pleasure. All three came out of Florida. But Leas wasn’t in Florida, and statistics suggested it was highly unlikely he was dealing with a female passion killer.