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The metro area medical examiners were repeatedly calling our offices as if they had our numbers on speed dial, and maybe they did. Deputy Director Miller had sent out a memo at midnight last night to all area police departments, hospitals, and medical examiners’ offices to contact us immediately when dealing with a suspected homicide victim. Our phones were insanely busy. Three more bodies had been found that roughly put their time of death two nights ago, the first night of Mictlan’s application window. Another eighteen murders had happened since yesterday morning.
I had an appointment with the director of the Blue Springs medical examiner’s office in three hours. I was going to be taking Fiona with me. Gabriel, Malachi, Eli, Lucas, and Rachael were going to be part of a meeting between the police chiefs and captains of the metro police departments at noon. The Marshals were catering in lunch, proving it was important. Miller had come in earlier to yell at all of us for not keeping a better lid on things, which confused all of us. We didn’t have a clue what he was talking about until he threw a copy of the KC Star at us. On the front page in big letters was the headline: Visiting Serial Killers Could Mean a Tournament in Town. None of us read the article, we didn’t need to. After several minutes of yelling, I pointed out the news the previous night had floated the idea, and maybe they were just guessing, but with the activity in the last forty-eight hours, we weren’t going to be able to stay tight-lipped about it until October 1. It was only the 25th and shit was kicking into high gear. Miller had stomped out. I was sure he was frustrated, but I didn’t think it was with us personally. We were just here close at hand and Mictlan wasn’t. A half hour later, we’d been told the press conference announcing the competition would be held at 4 p.m. The city was going to erupt into panic. I didn’t think it was prepared. It was one thing for the news to speculate, another for the Marshals Service to confirm it.
An indoor arena in Liberty was going to be used to expand 911 service in the metro area. It would be operational in two days. A batch of volunteer 911 operators from other areas was going to be here that day as well. They’d be put up in hotels around the arena, and the city was pooling resources to provide free meals and entertainment during their down times. Being a 911 operator was stressful under normal conditions, but being an operator during a crisis like this was going to be nightmarish. At least one area serial killer called 911 from the victim’s house and made sure the operator heard the victim die. There were a few others did similar things that weren’t local, but we couldn’t rule out non-local serial killers becoming local temporarily.
Despite our living just blocks from the FGA where our offices were located, two of the offices with doors and their own light switches had been cleaned out and military style bunks put into them. Trevor was working with some of the other husbands and wives of the SCTU to bring us homemade meals, because there was a good chance last night was our last night away from here for a while.
We needed to find Mictlan. If we could arrest him and make the money non-payable, then the killers would probably stop and the visiting killers would go home. Unfortunately, being rich wasn’t enough probable cause even for us, and our warrant for medical records had been quashed, because apparently you could die of more things than just cancer. If we wanted to expand it to end-stage illnesses of all types and not want specific medical records, it would be reconsidered. Except a list of all things terminal that could take a while to kill someone was a super long list. Heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and several others had been added, but what the judge really wanted was a narrowing of demographics like age, sex, ethnicity, etc., more than just a list of diseases that killed a person slowly over a prolonged period of time. Chances were good Mictlan was a Hispanic man, but he could also be a white male or white woman or black male or black female or a hermaphrodite who was purple with tentacles between the ages of 30 and 130. The Malibu Beach Strangler was decidedly male, but we didn’t even have proof that Mictlan and the Malibu Beach Strangler were the same person. We had only Patterson’s intuition they were the same person, and that wouldn’t get us a warrant.
“Blue Springs just called, they have a fourth murder victim and asked if we could come earlier, like now,” Fiona said to me.
I stood and stretched, causing my bruise to ache. Fiona and I were going to go see if any of the four victims fit the victimology of known serial killers. I’d have been willing to bet a donut at least one would. As we headed out, another SCTU twosome, Caleb and Nick Chou, left the building right behind us. They were heading to Olathe, Kansas, where there were three murders overnight; one was older, but had been found this morning. Their job was the same as ours. We had a whiteboard dedicated to listing the suspected serial killer participants. As of this morning, it only had four names. I was sure it would be much longer by the end of the day.
It is fairly easy to get around the metro area. There are plenty of highways and interstates, as well as surface streets. I took a surface street because the highway alert sign near our office said that there was an accident blocking traffic on the I-70 overpass at the sports complex. Fiona turned our police radio on low, as well as the traffic station that served the metro area and reported on all traffic congestion. As we turned onto a road that we could take to the Blue Springs medical examiner’s office without a ton of stoplights, we heard over the police radio that the accident at I-70 had been caused by cows. It made me think I should have taken the interstate, what the hell were cows doing on I-70 at the sports complex? The area was urban industrial with some urban residentials close by, none of which had cows. Chickens were allowed in back yards in some parts of the metro area, but cows were not.
Fiona turned up the police radio a little more as an officer called for animal control to come deal with the fifteen cows on the interstate, one of which had been hit by a minivan and probably needed medical attention.
“This channel is reserved for official use only. Any non-official use is punishable by a fine and jail time,” a calm-sounding female said into the radio.
“A semi carrying a load of cattle had a door fall off on the overpass when he stopped for a light. The cows used the ramp to climb out of the hauler. Some have meandered down the on-ramps onto I-70. A few have gone toward the sports complex and a few more went north on the overpass and are wandering around northern Raytown. This is not a joke, and I desperately need assistance!” a frazzled-sounding man replied to the calm female voice.
“Well, that’s different,” Fiona said.
“I have questions about how the door fell off,” I said. “Remember last month something similar happened at the same stoplight, only with one of those big UPS trucks?”
“Yes,” Fiona nodded.
“I wonder if teenagers are lying in wait at the intersection and opening doors on semis who have to stop for the light,” I suggested.
“Could be, but definitely a problem for the Raytown PD.”
“Yes, but cows are more docile than serial killers.”
“True,” Fiona agreed.
I turned south. Traffic on the surface streets was increasing as people were routed around the cow incident. Due to the traffic, it took us fifty-eight minutes to get from our place in Raytown to the medical examiner’s office in Blue Springs, despite a distance of only twenty-one miles. Thankfully, it wasn’t a peak time or it would have taken us two hours or more. I-70 was one of the main interstates going east and west through the metro area.
The Blue Springs Medical Examiner’s Office was at a regional hospital. Like us, they were in a sub-basement without windows. It had better ventilation and the walls were all painted a pale shade of blue, although a few had murals painted on them. We parked at the back of the hospital where there was a ramp that led down to a loading dock door where the funeral homes and ambulances could pick up or drop off. Next to that door was a door marked authorized personnel only, with an intercom button next to it.
I hit the button, told the woman who answered who I was and heard the door buzz as it popped open. The hospital had requested ages ago that police not enter through the main hospital entrance because it freaked out patients. I could understand that; most people didn’t want to know where the local medical examiner’s office was. The first door when you entered the corridor was marked for authorized personnel only, and I’d never been behind it. The second door was a double door with a reception area behind it. The woman that had buzzed us in sat at the receptionist desk. There was also a small privacy room in the area as well as a couple dozen chairs. Sometimes the ME had to meet with families to explain why someone died. It wasn’t a job I would have wanted. Contrary to popular opinion, not every suspicious death was a murder.
The receptionist called for a doctor and I was about to sit down to wait when a woman in her mid-fifties came out through a door on the side opposite the reception desk. She was tall and slim, her dark hair with streaks of grey put up and under a hat. She wore a blue medical jacket that said her name was Dr. Redding. She was striking, nearly the same height as Fiona, and I suspected she could have been a model if she’d wanted to do that instead of investigate cause of death. However, I had learned long ago that medical examiners become medical examiners because they are innately and obnoxiously curious and generally had a very dark sense of humor. Which is why I tended to like them.
“Marshals, I’m surprised we haven’t met before, I’m Doctor Redding. I caught two of the cases, but I’ll be showing you all four,” she said. “One of them might be a case of SAD, we’ll have to continue investigating it, but it only became a possibility after you were called.”
“SAD?” I asked.
“You’ve heard of SIDs, right? Sudden Infant Death? Where we can’t find a reason for an infant to die, it just does?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Same thing, but with adults. For unknown reasons sometimes an adult just dies and we can’t find a reason beyond heart failure.”
“But essentially all deaths are heart failure, so that isn’t helpful,” Fiona said.
“Correct, good. Most cops immediately assume SAD has to be murder and we just can’t figure out the how of it. Cops can come up with all sorts of ridiculous theories to explain an unexplained death. I’ve heard them all in my thirty years on the job. This is only my sixth case of SAD ever, if it turns out to be SAD, but it will take a while to get toxicology and such, so...” She shrugged and pushed open a door that led us to a very cool room. Although most rooms in a medical examiner’s office are colder than normal, for obvious reasons. There were four gurneys in the room and each held a body.
“Our labs can run toxicology faster and more thoroughly if you want to send it there,” I offered.
“Maybe,” she replied. “Do you just want to look at the bodies, or do you want me to walk you through what I found?”
“Give us an overview of what you know,” Fiona said to her.
“Sure, victim one, white female, probably early twenties. Her nose and eyelids were removed with what I suspect is an old-fashioned straight razor. She was sexually assaulted, violently. Those injuries were all peri-mortem. She died from either suffocation from a plastic bag we found a piece of in her throat, or because she aspirated quite a bit of blood, most likely from the nose wound. The plastic bag wasn’t found with her body. After death, he took a three by eight-inch strip of skin from her shoulder blade down to her lower back.” Fiona and I exchanged a look, but said nothing. We could add another killer to the board, although he’d never removed the eyelids and nose of his victim before.
“Second victim is a white female, age fifty-one. She has nine slashes on her left wrist and forearm, several so deep they hit bone. There are eleven on her right wrist and forearm, same thing, some of them are deep enough they hit bone. A double-edged razor blade with blood on it was found in her purse, but these cuts were done with a large knife, something like a Bowie knife, a non-serrated blade much thicker than the razorblade.” I mentally added another killer to the board.
“Third victim, white male, probably in his mid-thirties. Cause of death is still unknown—for some reason his heart just stopped. He was found in his bed, in his pajamas, under the covers. No bruises, no cuts, no signs of asphyxiation or suffocation. This is the one I suspect died of sudden adult death syndrome, SAD. If I’m correct, toxicology won’t find anything except a mildly elevated level of cardiac enzymes, but it won’t be high enough to indicate a sudden cardiac incident such as a heart attack.” Dr. Redding gestured toward the body. “This one I probably will send to your labs if the results will come back faster. I’ve already spoken to his family, and there is no family history of heart problems.”
“Did he live alone?” I asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but I think so. Detective Smollen caught the case, call him to verify. Is that important?”
“Unlikely, given the rarity of SAD, it’s just something to consider. I’ll have the Marshals’ lab send someone by to get any samples you want them to run for you. We can get DNA in under sixteen hours, usually and toxicology is even faster” I told her.
“Okay,” she replied quietly. “Fourth victim, probably a gang shooting. Male age seventeen of mixed race. Shot twice in the chest.”
I looked at each victim. Nothing about victim three or four immediately jumped out at me, but one and two were either copycat kills or we had the monikers for two other visiting serial killers. It wasn’t just about the wounds and injuries inflicted; it was about the victims themselves. Victim one had probably been attractive in a midwestern girl-next-door kind of way. Victim two was being treated for lupus and had survived a pulmonary embolism caused by deep vein thrombosis; basically, a blood clot in her leg had gone to her lungs, causing hemorrhaging. Plus, she was a chronic pain sufferer. We walked back out to the SUV. The early afternoon was unseasonably warm again.
“Write down your thoughts and I’ll write down mine, then we can swap so we aren’t influencing each other’s opinions,” Fiona said, breaking out a Post-it notepad from her purse, handing me one and keeping one for herself. I wrote down Oregon Stripper and The Slasher on mine and then folded it in half and put it on the console between our seats. Then I opened the driver’s door and stepped out to light a cigarette.
“Done!” Fiona chirped. I turned and took hers from her. She had the same two names I did. I put it on the console. “Get in, let’s get lunch and head back,” Fiona told me. I showed her my cigarette. “I know, get in,” she repeated, and I got into the SUV. Fiona texted the guys that we were stopping at Taco Bell, and orders flooded in.
“Tell them we are getting those big boxes of tacos and sides; I’m not doing eighteen different combo meals,” I said. She texted back something and then giggled when she got a response.
“Caleb said they’d stop and get burgers so Taco Bell wouldn’t spit in our food, given how much we’ll have to order.” I considered that. Caleb had a point, Lucas and Xavier were bottomless pits. They could probably both eat one of those ten-packs of tacos by themselves.
“Uh, download the app and order from the Taco Bell close to the FGN, that will provide them a little extra time to get it ready. I’d go with ten of those taco boxes,” I said.
“Do you want something special?”
“Nah, just as long as you get some crunchy taco supremes.” She told me she would.
“One-hundred tacos ordered; it says they need a half hour,” Fiona told me.
“That’s fine.”