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Eli and Malachi’s teams both had DNA to submit for testing, which sort of annoyed me. It was very possible, no, probable; that the woman Eli’s team had arrested was the Screwdriver Slayer. The injured male’s DNA was going to be tested too, but everyone on Eli’s team agreed he was mostly unlucky. Or lucky, depending on how one looked at it; he’d lived. Of course, he’d lived because he’d been able to hit her in the head with a frying pan after she attacked him. It had been a good, heavy cast iron skillet. She was lucky she just had a small skull fracture. They’d both run out of his house with him chasing her, screwdriver sticking out of his chest, when a neighbor had intervened. He’d been outside spraying his yard for bugs and he’d used the spray like mace, getting the girl in the face. She’d tripped, and with her skull fracture, she’d passed out long enough for the police to be called and the neighbor to help the guy subdue her with zip ties.
Malachi had picked up a man who’d been discovered moving a dead body out of the trunk of his car. Malachi thought the guy might be The Tampa Strangler, because the dead female had a scarf knotted around her neck and tied into a big bow, much like the Boston Strangler victims who he emulated. He’d been caught red-handed, was tased three times by Metro police and shot twice before one of the officers hit him across the knee with his billy club; that had finally stopped him. He no doubt had a shattered knee.
Fiona was sitting all cozied up with an NSA analyst. The explosion had destroyed all of Mictlan’s computer equipment, and now Fiona and the NSA analyst were attempting to use Patterson’s login information to the serial killer club to figure out who was in the competition. I was staring at the whiteboard full of suspected competitors. Both first-string teams were resting. Eli’s team was sleeping in the bunkbeds in the converted offices. Malachi’s team had been sent home, as they would be running an operation tonight using the Secret Service agents as decoys to catch the Ripper.
“Metro has a dead body they want us to look at, should I get Eli’s team up?” Mitch asked.
“No, we can take it,” Gabriel said, standing. Xavier and I both stood. It seemed that even shorthanded and banged up, we could handle going to look at dead bodies. We’d been assigned a new SUV. It even smelled new, which was a shock to all of us. There was a note on the dashboard: “SCTU Members Are NOT allowed to smoke in government vehicles.” Gabriel took it off the dash and handed it to Xavier. Several months ago, the SCTU teams had been forced to sit through a “Where You Are Allowed To Smoke As A Government Employee” lecture. Malachi was way worse about smoking where he wasn’t allowed than Gabriel, Nick, Rachael, or myself. Although we all occasionally broke the rule. Xavier said it was because we were slaves to our addiction, but I thought we did it just because a rule existed. This was especially true of the psychopaths.
Traffic was surprisingly light. Not just compared to the last couple of days, but compared to normal. We made good time driving from Raytown to the metro area. Even without lights and sirens, we made it to the address Mitch had given us in record time. There were an unmarked police car, two cruisers, and an ambulance parked along the narrow, residential street. People were peeking out through their curtains. This was unusual, too. Normally people made excuses to work in their front yard when the police showed up at a neighbor’s house. Or if they didn’t care what everyone else thought of them, they came up and talked to anyone in a uniform, trying to get information. We pulled up and parked behind one of the cruisers.
“I’m really glad to see you guys,” a uniformed officer said. “We were asked to do a welfare check, as no one had heard from the occupant for nearly a week. She was sitting in a chair in her living room. We could see her through the curtains from where we stood on the porch. My partner also said he could smell her, but I couldn’t and I doubt he could either.”
“Really?” I asked. I wrinkled up my nose. I could smell her. She’d been dead a while. If she was a competition victim, she was an entry victim, because she definitely didn’t die last night or this morning. “Any idea how long she’s been dead?” I asked.
“You can smell it,” Xavier said. I nodded.
“The ME said three or four days,” the uniformed officer said.
“Who’s the detective?” I asked.
“Ray Hernandez,” the uniform told me. Xavier nodded. We headed toward the house. I was trying to use my left hand to get a small container of balm out of my pocket. I made it myself, it was peppermint essential oil suspended in coconut oil and beeswax. The beeswax made it a semi-solid in the heat of my jeans pocket. The tin only held one ounce, but it was usually enough for a murder scene. Dead bodies have a distinct, pervasive smell. Peppermint didn’t trigger migraines and neither did coconut or honey, which is why I made my own. A lot of cops used Vick’s Vapo Rub, but I found the mentholatum threw off my sense of smell more than peppermint did. I finally got it out, and Xavier held out his hand. I almost told him he should have brought his own, when I realized I couldn’t open it myself, and handed the small tin to him. He opened it and held it out to me. I reached for it and caught myself just in time to not dip my right fingers into it. I rolled my eyes at myself and Xavier smiled wide. I smeared the balm on my upper lip under my nose and then rubbed it on the edges of my nose. Then I dipped my fingers in it again and put a little in the opening of each nostril. After I finished, Gabriel took some out of the tin and applied it to his nose. Then Xavier did the same. He finished, put the lid back on, and shoved it in his pocket. Which was fine, I’d have to get another tin of it. I kept a stack of about a hundred in my desk at the office, as well as about twenty packed in my travel bags. When I made it, I mixed up batches of 200 ounces and poured each tin individually. I used to carry a larger jar, but it went just as fast and was harder to carry to crime scenes, which is where I needed it most. Even a day-old puddle of blood smelled strongly of decomposition.
The victim was a woman in her forties. She was single, no children, and her family didn’t live close. There were several brochures on the porch marked Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Xavier put on gloves and picked one up. There was another inside. I tried to keep an open mind. But as soon as we entered the house and I looked at the victim, I knew she had been killed by the Bolt Gun Killer. The killer always left religious pamphlets at the crime scenes. Usually it was The Watchtower magazine put out by Jehovah’s Witness, but a few times it had been pamphlets that could only be picked up at a specific church. We had no idea why she left the religious materials, because the killings didn’t have any religious significance. Lucas thought it was cover in case anyone saw them arrive or leave; “Nothing to see here, just your friendly missionary here trying to save another soul.” This made as much sense as anything else we had thought of, so we collected it and tried to figure out where it came from. Which is how I’d learned you could order The Watchtower online. The DOJ had gotten a subpoena and looked through all the orders from the printing company, but it hadn’t shed any light on our killer, there were a lot of people who read the magazine and its associated materials in Missouri and Kansas.
We’d also learned that the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent people out into communities to save souls a lot. There were dozens of these missionaries running around the metro area at any given time, and only sometimes did they seem affiliated with a specific church. It had been a real pain in the butt to run background checks on all the missionaries we could find. However, we’d all decided it was a great cover for a serial killer.
“Ace, come here,” Xavier said to me. I turned away from the dead body. It was bloated and awful anyway. He was nearly nose-to-nose with a teddy bear on a shelf. “Is that a nanny cam?” Xavier asked, wiggling a gloved finger about a centimeter from the bear.
“Do I look like a nanny cam expert?” I asked.
“Well, I thought Elle might have used them when the kids were little,” Xavier replied.
“She might have, but I doubt I would have known. But it is the only teddy bear in the room and she doesn’t have kids.” I shrugged. “It’s also old. It’s one of those Christmas bears with the date on the sweater.” I pointed out the obvious. The sweater had the year 1986 on it. Xavier picked up the teddy bear and we both examined it. It wasn’t a nanny cam, probably just a favorite stuffed animal from her childhood. I had one with the year 1995 on it. Every time I had moved it had moved with me, because it was one of the few gifts I had left from Isabelle.
As Xavier put it back on the shelf, we both noticed there was a camera on the back wall of the shelving unit, over where the bear had been sitting. It was one of those small spy cameras. For a split second I got excited and then I remembered, even when people had fancy high tech security cameras set up in their house, we almost never got a case where the murder and murderer were recorded. This camera wouldn’t be connected to a hard drive, it was too small. It probably had a memory card, but it was unlikely it had been turned on.
“We’ve got a camera, but don’t get too excited,” I said, leaning into the shelf. There weren’t any lights on the camera. I touched the memory card and then ejected it. It popped out of its slot easily. I handed it to Xavier who put it in an evidence bag he had conjured up from somewhere. We’d take it back to the office anyway and have Fiona check it out.
Our crime scene technicians were beginning to show up. The ME wanted permission to remove the body, and Gabriel gave it. Even with the source of the smell gone, the house would still smell like decomposition. All the fabrics in the house would probably have to be thrown away. The odor would be in the curtains, the furniture, and in the carpet. Sadly, even porous woods like oak would absorb the smell and there was nothing that would take itout. If we stayed in the house too long, we’d have to throw out our clothes, because the smell wouldn’t come out of them either.
Thankfully, now that the crime scene techs were here and the body was gone, we could leave. The ME would need to confirm that the cause of death was a bolt gun, but I’d seen enough to convince me it was the Bolt Gun Killer. It was a distinct, but fairly obscure, way to kill someone, and coupled with the religious materials, I would bet on it. Xavier decided to go with the body. Gabriel and I headed back to the office. However, en route we were redirected to a shooting in the park. The exact same park we’d gone to a few days ago where the Cardiologist had struck. I groaned as Gabriel rerouted toward the park. We were parking when Mom called me.
“My team is responsible for the shooting. You look pale, are you in a lot of pain?”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In a building across from the park, eight stories up. He grabbed a victim and Jacob took him down, meaning you can expect a semi-hysterical witness.”
“Great,” I said. I hated the cloak and dagger stuff. “Should I tell my boss?”
“Yes,” Mom said, and I heard the line disconnect.
“Jacob thinks he took down the Cardiologist,” I told Gabriel.
“Ah,” Gabriel replied and lit a cigarette. “Did he?”
“Beats me. I’ve been warned there’s a surviving victim and she’s hysterical.”
“Text her to get out of there in case Metro wants to look for the shooter,” Gabriel said. I was a step ahead of him and already texting her burner phone that had been activated for this operation. I got a response that said sixty seconds. It would take us longer than that to walk to the site, so I ignored it and lit my own cigarette. The weather was warm again for October with the temperature in the mid-70s, which slowed us down even more, because we basically meandered, enjoying the sunshine and warm air. A cold spell was being predicted for next week, so we’d better enjoy the warmth while we still could. There was a huge crowd; police officers, paramedics, and park goers that had been sucked into the unfolding drama milled around. I wondered if none of them realized there was a sniper in one of these buildings. In their defense, they probably didn’t, and it was a good thing the sniper was working to protect life and not take it, or the park would have been a smorgasbord of victims.
We flashed our IDs at an officer who was trying to ensure the crowd stayed back. People were pushing as close to the crime scene tape as they could get. The only good thing was that the largest concentration of men in wrinkled suits was in a wooded area, obscuring the victim and dead person from view. The officer let us in, and someone asked why we were allowed in and they weren’t. Gabriel gave them an are-you-stupid look; I didn’t bother turning to look at them at all. The uniformed officer could deal with them. Even in the metro area, the SCTU was usually identifiable on sight, although I had a cast and my head had a large bandage.
My mom was correct, there was a semi-hysterical woman with some bruises and minor cuts. She was telling Ivan Daniels about how the guy had ambushed her and tried to drag her from the path to the woods. She was fighting him tooth and nail when suddenly he started bleeding and collapsed. I decided to look at the dead body, because I wasn’t great with living victims. If Jacob was correct, she was lucky. So far no one had escaped the Cardiologist that we knew of; he overpowered all his victims, even the males. Knowing me, I’d tell her to send a thank you card to his killer, which was why I was looking at the dead guy with the hole in his head. Jacob had put a bullet just above his right eyebrow. There were a couple of knives in his jacket, which explained the jacket over his hoodie. He was also wearing workout pants. I didn’t know what they were called, but they were made out of the same material as professional basketball player shorts, complete with holes. I’d probably seen a half dozen pairs on park attendees on my way to the crime scene, meaning they were fashionable and I should probably try to figure out what they were called at some point. He had brown hair, was in his thirties or forties, and looked like a regular person, except for the double layer of a hoodie and a jacket.
“Fan out and search the woods for clothes,” I said loudly. “This guy has to be changing clothes because this is a memorable outfit.” The pants were white, the hoodie was light grey, the jacket was black. If this guy was the killer, he was going to need to change his clothes before he left the woods or everyone would see him covered in blood. I pulled on gloves and began examining the jacket. It had no insignias or brand names on the front, just a generic black windbreaker. “Can someone help me roll him over a bit?” I asked. A man knelt down next to me and I realized it was an attendant with the ME’s office.
“Long time no see, Marshal Cain,” he smiled at me. Even I knew he was being sarcastic because he’d been at the last body twenty minutes ago. We rolled him onto his side for a moment, just long enough for me to look at the back of the jacket. Nothing on the back of it either. I was almost disappointed; I had expected it to have iron-on letters announcing he was police or something. Lots of serial killers masqueraded as police officers of all sorts. We’d even arrested a guy who owned a souvenir SCTU jacket, which could be purchased at the US Marshals gift shop located in the Marshals headquarters in Washington, DC. The difference was the color and the lack of the badge emblem; none of the Marshals souvenir merchandise had the US Marshals badge on it, unlike our Marshals gear. Even our hats had the badge emblem on them.
Evidence would be collected from the scene and wherever the dead guy was staying; that evidence would suggest whether or not he was the Cardiologist. But this was another case where the deciding factor would be DNA. Some serial killers never leave useable DNA, but the Cardiologist wasn’t one of them. Any time we had serial killer DNA, it held the most weight for determining the identity of a serial killer. I continued to kneel next to the body, trying to absorb his secrets via metaphysical osmosis. He didn’t have a wallet on him, which meant he probably didn’t have any identification. We might be forced to release his picture to the media to get a name and address. Until then, he’d be known as something like Possible SK John Doe. If we proved he was the Cardiologist, he’d remain a John Doe, because we didn’t have any identity information on the Cardiologist. Eventually a friend or family member would file a missing persons report, but it could take months for that information to get matched to him. This was part of my job I hated; I didn’t like having unidentified suspects or victims. It was almost as bad as having to inform a family one of their members is a serial killer. If I had a cause, that was it—people didn’t consider the families of serial killers victims, but in truth they were repeatedly victimized by the public, by the press, by their serial killing family member, by the police, by the criminal justice system—the only difference was their victimization didn’t usually involve their deaths. If we ever identified Possible Serial Killer John Doe, someone would be forced to inform his family about his death and why he was here, and it would be terrible. The family would cry, scream, blame, and plead. And a timer would have started; the SCTU tried to give the family a decent amount of time to process before releasing the name of a serial killer, but sometimes it was impossible, and the moment we released it the family would be inundated with calls from reporters. For a moment, I wondered if this guy had a family. Was there a wife and children waiting for him somewhere in New Orleans? Were his parents still alive? Did he have siblings? Did he have nieces and nephews? If he did, their lives were about to change, I knew from experience.