Been working on a new cover for "Death Of A Princess".  It has to be great - like the one for "And Still, She Wept", but I'm having a hard time finding one or creating one that truly does justice to the story.  This most recent attempt is entirely my own - with a black-painted board, a purchased crystal crown, a blood-colored paint mixture, and a color scheme for the title and author name that I think work well.  I welcome comments and/or suggestions!

Chapter 4 - Part I

Chapter 4

 

A jagged scream lodged deep in her throat, Kayleen surged straight up in bed, sweating and shaking, mere minutes before the digital alarm was set to blare out it’s warning into the pre-dawn morning.  It was 4:28 a.m.  It was pitch-black outside and Jody was still dead, but the feel of her own bed beneath her and the absolute silence within the dark corners of her room reassured Kayleen that, for the present moment at least; the monster was already gone.

Kayleen rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and then reached over and clicked the off-button on the top of her alarm.  The sun wouldn’t be up for another two hours.  Sometime in the middle of the night, Kayleen had woken up from her awkward position on the couch and fumbled her way upstairs.

Right now, her body was stiff and sore and her head was thick with the cottony-wool of a fiercely-ferocious hangover.  Her mouth was dry and sour and her stomach rumbled with the knowledge that it probably wouldn’t get fed today, either.  Her right eye felt like it had an ice pick gouged through it, and she was dizzy and nauseous as hell.  But none of that really mattered.

It was time to clear the cobwebs out of her mind, to feel the freedom of the wind on her face, and the early morning dew on her ankles.  It was time to take back the only part of the day that she still called her own.  The one time that she could push her body to the limit and push thoughts of him right out of her mind.

This was Kayleen’s favorite part of the day because now, it was time to run.

 

*

 

6:15 a.m. and she was finally back at home.  Today it was yet another breakfast of only vodka and juice.  She took her glass over to the kitchen table and sat down, wiping off her forehead with the inside of her elbow.  She wedged her small gun out of the waistband of her wet shorts and set it on the table.  She never left the house without some kind of firepower, but anything other than the .22 was too cumbersome to run with.

Salty moisture poured down Kayleen’s face and torso, saturating her white tank top and even her old, thin black Umbros, but at least this time it was from healthy exertion and not from bitter dread.  She looked down as she plucked the damp fabric away from her skin, but froze when her eyes landed on the puffy, raised welts along her chest and collarbone.  Even in this early, weak daylight, Kayleen’s scars were still hideously visible.

Kayleen had at one time inventoried them all.  That had been an egregious mistake.  The initial head-shrinker they’d assigned to her while she was still being held at the hospital had thought it would be a good idea.  He’d actually said it would be “therapeutic”.  Yeah, right.  A half-bald, twitchy son of a bitch, who had probably gotten his Doctorate degree out of a box of Cracker Jacks, had presumed to tell her what she needed to do to get over being assaulted by a sadistic serial killer.  It would have been laughable had it not just been so damned sad.

But, idiot that she was, she’d taken out her compact and then stood in front of the big mirror in the antiseptic hospital bathroom all alone; bright fluorescents blazing, door locked, completely naked.  She’d pulled down the bandages and studied herself from each and every torturous angle.  Then, she’d promptly smashed the compact, gotten on her knees in front of the toilet, and thrown up until she’d tasted blood.

Afterwards, when she was done crying, she’d picked up the phone and called her boss.  Then she’d asked the nurses to re-do her bandages and tape the bathroom mirror over from top to bottom.  The staff had been happy to oblige, and Dr. Severance, feeling that she’d been pushed too hard, too quickly after her attack, had made certain that idiot psychiatrist had never come back to see her again.  But none of it had mattered because the damage was already done.

It would’ve been much more tolerable, and much easier for her to handle, if she’d seen the horrific mutilation and destruction that had been ravaged into her skin, after it’d had more time to heal.  As it was, she’d still been freshly bruised, burned, sliced, and butchered.  The wounds had been raw and leaking.  Her chest had been a veritable roadmap of destruction.

Her body had looked to her just like those of Estes’ other victims; corpses she’d seen either in crime scene photos, or first-hand in the Refuge or at the morgue.  Her emotional state had been so fragile then, it had literally knocked her to her knees.  That day, that exact moment when she’d seen what had been done to her, had changed something deep inside of her.  And it was something that she could never undo.

In those moments she’d spent before the mirror, she’d catalogued each and every degrading horror for future ease of reference.  Even now, those memories remained within clear and unnerving reach.  Kayleen could close her eyes at will and see the serrated skin, the puffy, enflamed lines, the weeping marks, the sliced shapes; everything that Estes had incised so meticulously into her flesh.  He’d gotten her torso, her back, her shoulders, thighs, and calves.  Not one part of her body had gone unscathed.  He’d even decorated the backs of her knees.

In addition to all of that, there had also been the macerated puncture-gash in her shoulder where the bullet had gone in, and another larger one on her back where it had blown out.  His placement had been perfect - right where it had caused her debilitating pain, making her weak, vulnerable, and easily controlled.  But it had also been far enough away from any vital organs to keep her from bleeding to death or passing out before he’d decided that he was done with her.

The worst part, of course was his signature; the triangle around the crescent moon, directly over her heart, along with the flattened infinity sign right above it.  But with her, for the very first time, he’d added his entire set of initials:  R A E, for Richard Allan Estes.  Unfathomably, however, she was the only one he’d taken and marked who was actually still alive.  And no one knew the answer as to why, least of all, Kayleen herself.

With her, when he was done, instead of slitting her throat from ear to ear, he’d merely carved a deep cross right into the hollow of her neck there.  A constant reminder of what he could’ve done; had he only the simplest inclination.  Unable to hide that one disfigurement with most of her clothes, she typically chose to just wear a plain silver locket to cover it.  The kind you kept treasured photos in, except hers remained empty; devoid of memories, hope, or love.

Kayleen finished her drink and slammed the glass down almost hard enough to shatter it.  Then she rested her head in her hands for a long moment and sighed.  When would it get any easier, she wondered?  When would it go away?  Not the scars, necessarily - they wouldn’t ever fade.  But the way she felt about them.  It was as if each one was a physical reminder of how utterly she had eventually failed; as a person, a partner, an agent, a lover, a friend.  As long as they marred her body, their meaning would mar her soul.

She could, of course, have plastic surgery.  It would help to mitigate the butchery some.  Only she didn’t think she deserved any kind of reprieve.  Jody had lost his life that night.  She’d already gotten off too damned easy.  Angrily, she pushed her thoughts away and stood up so abruptly that the kitchen chair rocked back and forth behind her.  It was time to tend to her dog.

Harley was lying on the cool kitchen tiles, still panting like she would never stop.  The poor pooch hadn’t yet gotten used to their brutal, two and a half mile trek up the mountain and back down again.  She didn’t know if Harley ever would.

Back in the city, Kayleen was lucky if she was able to walk her more than ten or fifteen minutes a day.  Work just kept her so busy there that Harley had seemed constantly chafing at the bit for more exercise.  Now, most of the time it was she who dragged Harley along while the dog lagged behind, her long pink tongue lolling sideways out of her mouth as she struggled to keep up.

Back on the night when the Blackthorne Butcher had paid his special visit to Kayleen, Harley had still been at the vet’s office, recuperating from a recent surgery to correct a small tumor on her left paw.  Kayleen knew that if she’d been there that evening, at the very least, she’d have given an advance warning as they’d returned to the apartment after dinner.  If she hadn’t come running to the door to greet her, Kayleen would have known instantly that something was wrong.

Unfortunately, the apartment complex would not let her install any type of security system, forcing her to rely on the “intercom-buzzer” apparatus just beyond the outside door.  It had done little to save her or Jody the night that Estes had come for them; some helpful resident had buzzed him in without bothering to check who he was or what he wanted.

And here, in this old house, the electric system was so bad a security alarm wouldn’t even work.  She’d called, of course, had several technicians come out to take a look in the beginning.  But they’d all said the same thing; her wiring here was so old, so decrepit, that the sirens would go off each and every time the wind blew too hard.  Fixing it would cost at least ten thousand dollars, the payments on which, Kayleen could undoubtedly afford.  Yet that would mean having men – strange men – traipsing in and out of her house for weeks on end, ripping out plaster and stripping up floorboards.  Right now, she was not ready for that level of outsider intrusion.

So, in the meantime, Kayleen made damn certain that her dog was never too far from her side.  It was one of the few easy things she could do to protect herself.  Well, that and making sure that her gun was never too far away from her, either.  Precautions that cost her nothing, but that might one day save her life.  Of course they might not do too much to help her if Richard Estes showed back up on one of the nights when Kayleen had passed out from being blind-stinking drunk.

That realization alone ought to be enough to make her change her habits, but she already knew damn well that it would not.  Alcohol was the only thing that pushed Estes even a tiny bit away from her; the only thing that gave her a small measure of numbing distance from the confines of her own infected mind.  And regardless of the risks, she figured she’d keep right on using it as long as she needed to, perhaps even until it killed her – or until he came back to finish the job.

Kayleen walked into the kitchen now and grabbed a large can of meaty dog food from out of the cupboard and pressed it into the automatic opener.  When she hit the start button and Harley heard the grinding noise indicating that her meal was soon to come, the dog clambered heavily to her feet and then came padding over.

Kayleen snagged a big bowl out of the dishwasher and filled it with a scoop of dry chunks from a bag under the counter.  Then she spooned half the can of wet stuff on top, and jiggled the bowl to mix it in.  The rest of the can would go into the fridge for tomorrow’s breakfast.  Harley ate twice a day but her early meal was the only one where she got spoiled with canned food in addition to her regular stuff.  Otherwise, Kayleen knew from experience that with her already stocky physique, she would get rather obese in just a short amount of time.

Kayleen plopped the bowl of food onto the floor and Harley immediately stuck her face inside and began wolfing it down.  As she ate, Kayleen refilled her other bowl with some fresh water, then she left the pure-bred bloodhound to enjoy her breakfast alone.

She had just headed upstairs to jump in the shower when she heard a knock at the front door.  She was expecting her Aunt Sue that morning, but looking at her watch, she realized that her aunt was more than half an hour early.  Sue knew quite a bit about the attack; more in fact, than Kayleen would have liked.

Back when she’d been in the hospital, Sue had come to visit her over the course of a few of those hazy days.  Although most of the time she’d been covered with a blanket, Sue did walk into the room once when Kayleen had been changing, and she’d gotten an eyeful then.  Also, an overzealous, loose-lipped doctor had taken it upon himself to fill Sue in on most of Kayleen’s injuries.  He’d thought it would be okay with her since they were family, although in truth, Kayleen had been mortified.

But some time had passed since then.  She still felt self-conscious as hell, but God knows, she was tired of always having to cover up like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.  If there was ever going to be a chance that she’d one day be able to revert back to simply being herself, she’d have to somehow get comfortable in her own skin.  Practicing first on her sweet, meek Aunt Sue would be a good place to start.

Deciding on the spur of the moment to forgo throwing on a robe, Kayleen just clomped back down the stairs and reached for the door, swinging it open quickly, before she could change her mind.  She realized her mistake a half-second too late.  She heard his gasp, his sharp intake of breath, felt his eyes rove up and down the length of her.

“Jesus Kayleen, what in the hell happened to you?” Caleb asked, shocked.  His face instantly blanched, and he fell backwards a step, as if he couldn’t even stand to be close to her.  All the while, his eyes continued to make the rounds.

Everywhere they rested, Kayleen could feel his gaze like a searing-hot laser against her skin.  His eyes swept over her legs, her arms, her breastbone, her throat, and despite her light garments, she still felt as if she’d somehow been laid naked and bare before him.  His upper lip curled and he looked positively disgusted; just as she’d somehow already known he would be.

She reacted on impulse, slamming the door in his face and thumbing the bolt.  She grabbed the chain to lock that too, but her hand was shaking so violently she couldn’t get the rounded end into the hole.  As he started banging on the door, she took several dazed steps backwards, not even realizing that she was moving until the bottom step thumped into her calf and she stumbled against the riser and collapsed onto the stairs.

When her butt hit the wooden step below her, she grabbed the railing to steady herself.  She clenched the wooden rod in her bloodless fist, frozen in place while Caleb knocked and pounded and called her name.  At some point, he left off rapping on the front door and moved around to the rear.  Kayleen heard him rattling at the door handle there, and she was relieved beyond words that she always kept it locked now.  He wouldn’t be getting in.  Not today.  Not ever again.

He banged for at least fifteen minutes more but Kayleen didn’t wait him out.  As soon as her trembling legs could support her, she hauled herself up with the handrail and then ran all the way upstairs as fast as she could; his relentless pounding resounding hollowly beneath her as she fled.

 

*

 

Kayleen had been sitting on the floor of the bathroom for nearly an hour.  When she’d first run in there, the face that had greeted her in the mirror was one that she recognized immediately; deathly white, sharply drawn, stricken and sickly.  It was the same way she’d looked when she had still been in the hospital.

Frightened by the glaring similarity, she’d grabbed a towel and covered up as much of the silver surface as she could.  Then she’d knelt down and flung the cabinet under the sink wide open.  Pawing through row after row of soft, thick towels, she’d finally found what she had come looking for.  In the back, safe as always, was her reserve.

She had grabbed the bottle of vodka, thankful that it was still three-fourths of the way full, and then had snagged a stack of Dixie Cups that were stored in one of her drawers.  They were the kind that most people used for rinsing their mouths out after having brushed their teeth.  Hers stood in for improvised shot glasses, and she’d wasted no time in getting one wet.  After the third shot, her cup got soggy.  She crumpled it, threw it onto the bathroom floor, and immediately filled another.  It seemed like a long, long time before the faint knocking finally stopped.  The sound echoed in her head long after Caleb had gone.

When she figured she’d had enough alcohol that the blessed numbness would soon take hold, she set the bottle down, kicked off her shoes, and then climbed into the shower stall completely dressed.  She turned the water on, stripped out of her clothes under the frigid deluge, and then sank back down onto the cold, porcelain tiles, her body shuddering so hard it was like she was having some sort of seizure.

After several long minutes, the water finally kicked in hot.  But even sitting directly in the scalding, needling spray, she still was bone-deep cold.  She wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging herself as tightly as she could, her fingernails digging painfully into her chill, wet skin while she cried and cried and cried.

"Death Of A Princess" Chapter 3 (Part II)

Chapter 3 (Part II)

 

*

 

The late afternoon sunshine was luminous and golden, raining down in sparkling shafts of light that spread out across the grass and rocky out-cropping like some kind of molten waterfall.  The lengthening rays glistened brightly as they lapped along the soft contours of Kayleen’s face, but they could do nothing to melt the chill away from deep within the heart of her.

The woman on the ground before them had been quite beautiful.  Before.  Kayleen knew that from having spent the entire drive up there staring at a copy of Lilah Bittner’s driver’s license.  Most people’s DMV photos were horrible.  They were either frowning, stunned stupid by the brutal pulse of the overly-bright flashbulb, or gawping idiotically at the camera with a frozen, glazed-over smile.  Even Kayleen’s own photo made her look like a reject from Clown College.  But Lilah Bittner’s picture had been absolutely stunning; her sculpted, flawless face and modelesque good looks entirely untainted by the ineptitude of the motor vehicle clerk who had taken it.

Now, however, her beauty was in ruins.  After having been up here in the wilderness for at least three long days and two treacherous nights, her eyes, cheeks, and earlobes were gone, her throat was ravaged, and her white teeth gleamed in a savage, lipless smile.  Kayleen knew already that quite a bit of the butchery - like the mangled fingers and the missing soft tissue - had not been done by the woman’s killer.  No, most of that damage had been inflicted upon her by some of nature’s other cruelest of creatures; crows, rodents, coyotes, ants, beetles, and blow flies.  And luckily for her, it had been done postmortem, so none of it would’ve bothered this tragic young lady at all.

But the really vile stuff, the symbols and lines that were carved into the previously perfect, porcelain skin, the pieces of flesh that were excised and missing, the bruises, the burns, and the gaping gouges and deep tears - well those had been done while the victim was still breathing, her heart still beating, and she’d been conscious and aware of it all.

There was of course nothing on the body itself, at least as far as Kayleen could see on the surface, to tell her these things.  But an absence of various drugs and toxins in the previous victims’ blood screens let them know that none of these girls had received the benefit of anesthesia.  And the coagulated blood and bruising around many of their wounds and lacerations, or lack thereof; told her which of the injuries had been natural and had occurred after death, and which of them had been doled out methodically to a screaming victim by the killer’s own evil hand.  These had included slices too sharp to be from an animal’s teeth, burns in the shape of a letter, chafing and rope marks from restraints, and bruises and welts from unmentionable violence.

The other three girls had been found outside, too, discarded about twenty yards from the side of the road amidst the sprawling mountain vistas in the Blackthorne Wilderness Refuge.  They had all been thrown a little way off from prying eyes, just like this one; in areas where families often camped, but where their bodies could still not be seen from the main drive.

Obviously, although the killer wanted to dump the girls without being caught, he also clearly wanted them to be found fairly early on in the decomposition process.  How else would his achievements be known?  Were he truly trying to hide his gruesome deeds, he would’ve buried the corpses or disposed of them in large bodies of water.  There were literally thousands of places in the refuge alone that the women’s remains could have been placed where they would’ve never been seen again.

So, the fact that he put them close to the road instead of hiding them told Kayleen that society’s recognition of his work was ultimately more important to him than his own freedom.  The reward of seeing his victims and his murderous exploits publicized was so great; the risk was very well worth it in the end.

Unfortunately, only victims one, Julie Reinhard, and three, Bonnie Dawson, had been found within an estimated twelve hours after death.  Accordingly, in those two cases, their wounds and the blood patterns around them were really the best idea they currently had as to the extent of the killer’s rage.  Victim two, Suzie Stoffler, and now victim four, Lilah Bittner, had both been found after a number of days had passed.  Had all their victims looked like this poor thing here today, like a split package of spoilt hamburger with arms and legs, then they would’ve had a much harder time getting a true picture of what ritualistic carnage the killer, himself, was personally invested in.  But the wound patterns in all four victims – wound patterns that had nearly been obliterated by the teeth of wild animals on Suzie and apparently on Lilah, too, – were unlike anything else Kayleen had ever seen before in all her years as a profiler and FBI agent.

Those wound patterns were what told Kayleen now that this victim was also tortured while still alive, still conscious, still able to scream and beg and cry.  That and, of course, also because of the research Kayleen had done to prepare her profile thus far; a thirty-two page summation (and growing), which stated bluntly that a sexual sadist and psychopathic-type serial killer as brutal as this one would want to hear every last syllable, every last moan, every last whimper, and plea, and breath, until the victim could breathe no more.

Knowing this was what had made Bonnie Dawson’s death, so incredibly personal to her.  Kayleen and Jody had been called into the case about a week after the second girl, Suzie Stoffler, had been killed.  As such, Bonnie was the first girl that Kayleen had gotten a chance to see herself, up close and intimate in the autopsy suite, versus merely studying her wounds via photographs sandwiched in a sterile, manila file.  Bonnie had been found so shortly after death, her face had still conveyed her incredible, natural loveliness.  That was the one place their killer never touched.  The cuts and marks and damage along her body, however, had all still been shockingly, horrifically red.

Kayleen shook her head imperceptibly, trying to force herself away from that day in the cold, sterile, metal-clad M.E.’s office, and back to the present moment.  By this point, as sad and heart-breaking as it was, Bonnie was dead and buried, and Lilah needed her now.  And since Lilah had the ill fortune of being discovered on a day that Kayleen and Jody were there in town, she had gotten the rare privilege of being examined on her own veritable death bed.

Poor Lilah.  In addition to being a giving, nice, intelligent woman who’d worked hard at an investment firm and spent her weekends involved with disadvantaged youths at her local community center, she was also the only one of their victims who’d been a mother.  That had to mean something, only Kayleen wasn’t sure exactly what just yet.  Had the killer made his first mistake?  Or, was the fact that the other women were all childless just a mere coincidence?  Regardless, sweet, innocent, six-year old Ella Bittner, whose father had succumbed to cancer just two short years ago, was now a veritable orphan.  She was currently in the care of her mother’s big sister back home in Wichita.

The exact cause of death in this case would be a little harder to determine due to the torn and eviscerated tissue across the young woman’s esophagus from coyotes and other wild scavengers.  But Kayleen was fairly certain that once they ruled out all of the animal bites and scrape marks from where they had gnawed so deeply that they’d apparently managed to chew their way through most of the larynx and pharynx too, they would still find the same deep nick somewhere between the C4 and C5 vertebrae from where he’d slit her throat with a razor sharp ceramic knife, all the way down to the bone.

Because of what they’d found on the first victim, they now knew that it was some sort of exotic brand of expensive chef’s knife that had done the cutting, and not just some run of the mill stainless steel slicer from an average kitchen drawer.  In that autopsy, the M.E. had noted that the killer had sawed so viciously against Julie Reinhard’s spine he’d almost incised it in two.  Upon his closer examination, he had then realized that in so doing, he’d left tiny particles imbedded deep within the bone.

Dr. Goeff Rubens, the resident Medical Examiner for Colorado Springs, had then carefully plucked out those miniscule specks and preserved them before passing them off to the local crime scene processing department at their squad’s headquarters.  They had been able to tell that the fragments were gray ceramic in composition rather than metal, but other than that, they hadn’t been able to do much more.  So as soon as the Feds had gotten involved, they had forwarded all of their evidence to the main FBI lab in Quantico.

From there, Landry Todd, a specialist who was familiar with literally thousands of various types of tools and tool marks, had spent weeks trying to match the tiny shards to a specific knife, but had so far learned only two things; first, that the knife was of very high quality, and second, that it had evidently not been produced anywhere in North America.  Although that was all he had been able to give them thus far, they were still glad to have the lead.  However tenuous, it was really the only one they currently had.

In addition to the marks made by the knife, there had been several other weapons used on the victims as well.  A lighter.  A soldering iron.  Pliers.  Teeth (with the flesh around the bite marks excised so thoroughly that only the faintest trace remained – certainly nothing that could matched to an actual person).  He liked to bite, cut, tear and burn.  He was one sick son of a bitch.

Under the many animal marks on Lilah Bittner, Kayleen was easily able to see a few of the other types of wounds, too; wounds with which she was becoming all-too comfortable, in an unholy familiarity.  No one should have to see things like this.  But as long as those lived who inflicted them, and those died who suffered with them, Kayleen knew that she would be there.

Kayleen was aware that the areas feasted on most heavily by the bugs and carrion-eaters were going to be those that had actually been mangled and serrated perimortem, so she tried to pay extra attention to those places right now.  Even beneath all of the cellular destruction, the gaping and raw lacerations of muscle, skin, tissue, and flesh, she could still make out a few of the ‘special marks’ as she crouched down beside where Lilah lay in the dirt and stones.  At this point in the investigation, every time she tried to fall asleep, she saw those strange and unique designs dancing gleefully behind her closed lids while slumber evaded her as effortlessly as quicksilver running swiftly through her futilely clutching hands.

She drew her gloved fingers gently over what was left of the woman’s body now; from the bottoms of her slender feet, over her long legs, across her narrow waist, along her ribcage, and up to her long black hair.  As she surveyed all of the random damage, interspersed with the purposeful and overly-decisive wounds, she kept trying not to think about the fact that this mutilated stretch of flesh and bone had just recently been a living, breathing, bleeding human being.  The smell was gaggingly nauseating, but she suppressed her natural urge to vomit by holding her breath and swallowing, focusing on the harsh Eucalyptus and Menthol smell of Vicks that she’d rubbed under her nose when she’d first gotten to the scene.

Right now, her hands came unerringly back to the ribcage, where her fingers lingered at that one particular area where the woman’s skin had amazingly been left intact.  All around it, the ravaging had gone on; a frenzied buffet that had lasted for days.  But a hand-sized patch on her upper torso had escaped most of the scavengers’ teeth, along with her stark-white, porcelain face.  And Kayleen knew exactly the reason why.

She leaned closer as she oh so gently brushed her fingertips across the circle, the half-moon, the odd loops and whirls, and the puffy, charred lines of what looked to be the letter “E”.  The designs had been both gouged and burned into the area just beneath Lilah’s left breast.  They had no idea what it all meant, but each woman had borne those same marks in exactly the same place.  And on each victim, the marks - along with their beautiful, tragic faces - had been almost perfectly preserved by a liberal coating of pepper spray.  The kind used to ward off dangerously savage animals when a hunter or hiker accidentally encountered them in the wild.  No one recommended climbing or camping in these towering granite mountains without a can of it.

Their guy had used it to preserve these special markings for reasons that she and Jody could only begin to guess at.  And as wild animals didn’t tend to like the spicy seasoning of pepper spray on their otherwise savory meals, they had predictably left those areas, for the most part, entirely alone.

It had taken a forensic scientist in their division only three days to identify the particular brand of pepper spray used on the victims.  It was called “Bear-Away”, and it was sold in stores from Mom-and-Pop shops interspersed here and there all along the winding roads of these endless mountains, to massive chains of sporting goods retailers all across the nation.  Tracking the purchase of that particular brand in order to try and find the killer had quickly run them into a dead-end; too many purchases of it had been made within the past year, and too many of those purchases had been made with cash.  Besides, a killer as intelligent as this one would’ve surely been smart enough not to leave a paper trail this close to his kills.  Perhaps they’d get lucky with the knife, but Kayleen would bet her salary that they wouldn’t ever get lucky by identifying a subject just from the spray.

So that was it then.  This beautiful, intelligent woman had meant the world to many; her parents, sisters, fiancé, friends.  But she’d been merely a writhing, screaming piece of meat to the killer, her value measured only in terms of how much pleasure she was able to bring to him via her intensely amplified suffering, and the ecstasy he managed to achieve by way of her excruciatingly painful death.

Kayleen’s head swam as she knelt there in the dirt, unable to tear her eyes away from the heartbreaking sight before her.  Knowing that Jody was somewhere just behind her brought her a small measure of comfort, but it could truly do nothing to still the frantic, near-agonized throbbing of her heart.  At least on the outside she was still cool, rational, steady, and collected.

Forcing herself to focus, Kayleen noted once again how dutifully the wild animals had ravaged Lilah’s throat, breasts, and pubis, gnawing gleefully along the tracks the killer’s knife had so helpfully forged for them.  This woman had literally been left behind to be obliterated.  Wiped from the world.  Erased.  Discarded without a shred of dignity.  Dumped naked in the wilderness like a sack of garbage.  Oh, how Kayleen wanted this son of a bitch.  She wanted him so goddamned bad she could taste it.

Suddenly, a feeling like icy fingertips playing a choppy piano tune down the knobby length of her spine brought her up short.  Again, a feeling like she was being watched.  Kayleen had felt the exact same thing when she’d been out at the scene getting a look at the place where victim number three had been found; another lonely mountaintop a few rugged miles away.  By then, the body had long been removed and other than she and Jody, the surrounding area had been desolate and isolated.  At the time, she had assumed it was nothing.  But, could she honestly, simply be imagining it yet again?

She sat up straight from where she’d been leaning over what was left of Lilah’s body and jerked her head to the left, far down the mountain ravine, further than any of the officers or game wardens could safely go.  Rockslides were common in this part of Colorado.  No living thing would be stupid enough to be crawling around down there.  Well, nothing human anyway.  The only eyes she could be feeling on her would be those of a feral animal like a bighorn sheep; notorious for taking terrain like that in stride.  But if it was only a simple animal, why in the hell did her mind quite literally scream at her to stand and run?

Even so, Kayleen did the opposite.  Instead of ignoring it like before, she got quickly to her feet, stepped gingerly away from Lilah’s sprawled form, and walked as far to the edge of the rocky shelf that they were all standing on as she could possibly go.  Despite the chills and shivers threatening to spill forward from her calm façade, she kept her eyes glued towards where the undeniably uncomfortable sensation was coming from.  It was much worse than the last time; now, it was overwhelming.  She zeroed in on it, tightening her face into a mask of emptiness as she stared, and stared.

Suddenly, in the darkness between the two trees where her attention had abruptly been drawn, she sensed a tiny movement.  She leaned forward, just a bit, willing her eyes to make out the formless shape amidst the shadows.  But her foot slid on a patch of sand, and she felt herself going down, down.  The helpless sensation of falling was literally like the world lurching around her in slow motion as her stomach wedged itself up between her teeth.

The drop beneath her was sure death, but she didn’t take her eyes off the shadow.  Instead, she collapsed backwards towards the sturdier section of the large boulder they’d all been standing on, leaning into it with her entire body weight.  Then she braced her hands out to each side, clawing at the ground as her butt mercifully slammed into the precipice.  Rocks rolled down around her, tumbling hundreds of feet into the vast expanse below.  Her feet were now dangling above the abyss.  She had barely escaped going right over the edge.

Kayleen’s heart was juddering wildly, but it had little to do with her fleeting brush with death.  She sensed that she was being studied even harder now, and consequently, her blood instantly surged like ice through her veins.  Jody, as always, immediately noticed her danger, and he came sprinting over to her.

The risks she took invariably made him nervous enough as it was; crawling around through bloody crime scenes that had just barely been cleared, stumbling across an armed bomb, and even arresting a perp as dangerous as Ted Bundy, himself, when he’d gone back to revisit the scene of one of his crimes and Kayleen had been staking it out alone on a hunch in her own spare time.  He had given her hell over that for three weeks straight.  And now, he was undoubtedly asking himself if she somehow needed to hurl herself off the side of a mountain to appropriately appreciate the vagaries of this individual crime scene.  Well, the answer was yes, yes she did.  Even with her back still towards him, Kayleen instinctively knew that he was furious with her.  But she simply couldn’t help it.  This was just the way she was.

“Jesus Christ, Kayleen, what are you trying to do, kill yourself!?” he shouted out, the coarse fear and anger like cracked glass within his normally dulcet voice.

“I saw something Jody.  In the trees there,” Kayleen told him.  She had heard and understood the reason for his sharp tone, and it warmed her heart a bit to know how much he quite obviously cared for her.  But right now she was more worried about the person that she’d sensed down there in the ravine.  Most people would assume she was nuts for even thinking that someone could be there.  At least Jody knew her damned well enough by now to unhesitatingly accept the veracity of whatever she said.

“Here,” he told her, handing her a pair of miniature binoculars he’d had tucked in his jacket pocket as he came to a panting stop just behind her.  He didn’t want to chance getting too close and having the ground crumble beneath her any more than it already had.

“Thanks,” she said softly as she reached back for them.

“Can you at least move away from the edge?” he queried, his voice really brooking no room for argument.  So she instantly scooted back a bit, and he finally seemed to calm down.  “There are a hell of a lot of animals in these woods, Kayleen,” he remarked as she brought the binos up to her eyes and avidly scanned the rocky slopes below.

“I know,” she told him as she focused the binos, but by the time she found the spot where the distant image had been, the shadow was already gone.  If it had ever really been there at all.

Kayleen turned over onto her knees and crawled until the ground was once again solid and sure beneath her.  Then Jody put his hand out and helped her up.  As they both began to walk back towards the body, Kayleen couldn’t help but take one last, long, lingering look at the woods behind and so very far below her.  And that was when she knew, in the depths of her being, that the evil she had sensed - whatever it was that had been watching her; it was still there.

 

                                        Damage

 

Burned out husk-

still smolders.

Shell-shocked flesh,

hurts, blames, and

screams…sometimes.

Laughs.  Loves.  Lies.

Why does it still sting

when innocence dies?

How can the same mistake

Bite?

Over and over;

a poisonous snake,

whose venom washes through me.

Memories made dangerous

and painful again,

a collection of weeping scars.

I push them out:

a mottled, misshapen baby

rotten inside.

Rupturing,

membranes spill

the stuff of

Lost Dreams,

Haunting me,

still.

 

 

 

T.C. Barnes

January, 14th  2003

And so On, and so Forth...

I've been "creating" ever since I first picked up a pencil - my imagination absolutely demanding to be acknowledged.  Initially, it was through drawing pictures.  Then, after I taught myself to read at four years old, it was through words.  The stories and poems I dreamed up and then set down onto paper, helped me get through some of the most difficult and trying times in my life.  And it still amazes me that with only twenty-six little letters, we can not only communicate with others and express ourselves, we can also dream up entire worlds.  We can use our words to hurt or to help.  For good or bad.  We can initiate change, start a revolution, even shape history.  All with our own simple words.

Even though I've found my way as an author of novels, I truly love all forms of creative expression - from graffiti, painting, and sculpture - to plays, poetry, and even architectural design.  They are all ways in which humankind can express and then comment on the bewildering array of experiences that we, as a race of intelligent beings, often either strive or suffer through.  Creative expression is the birth of a dawning divinity.  The more we know about the human heart and mind, the closer we come to "God".  And whether you are religious or not - Catholic or Buddhist - Jewish or Athiest - I think you can probably realize that there is some form of omnipresent "energy" that surrounds us all.  It is said that energy can never be lost, only transformed.  Writing and painting, sculpture and architecture, songs, music and theatre - these are all ways for us to tap into that collective, universal energy.

So here, in my blog (between sharing chapters of upcoming books), I've decided that I'm going to share a deeper insight into my own creative "existence" as well - in its flawed - sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful - complex entirety.  This will include some essays I've written, random musings, opinion pieces, and even poems, too.  I hope you enjoy reading them.  For creative work to matter, it must be a reflection of the human condition - something we strive to comprehend, but oftentimes barely understand.  For a long time, I've cloaked that yearning of mine in the thoughts and actions of my characters.  And even still - the books, poems, and short stories I've long been creating - I actually kept secret for nearly three decades.  It took that many years before I was comfortable enough in my own skin to share them.

When I published my first book, it was the scariest thing I'd ever faced in my whole life (and I've faced brain surgery, cliff-diving, car accidents, working in a maximum security male prison, parasailing, being locked in a small room with a convicted serial rapist, muggings, bad neighborhoods, and being a single mother - just to name a few).  But now, I think I'm ready to share even more because - I believe that you'll see, in all my creative works, that thread of longing; for connection, for clarity, and for conscience.  Especially in my poetry.  At the very least, you'll get to see me, and hopefully, through comments and open communication, I'll get to see some of you, too.   
       

"Death Of A Princess" Chapter 3 (Part I)

Chapter 3

 

 

Kayleen retrieved the liquor and a glass from the cabinet and then poured herself another walloping shot.  She downed it quickly, ignoring the all-too-familiar burn at the back of her throat, the watery sting at the corners of her eyes.

‘Screw him,’ she thought to herself as she lit up another cigarette and silently fumed.  Caleb was still bruised over the fact that she’d left right after graduation from high school – running far away to D.C., leaving her pathetic existence here behind, and finally making something out of her life, once and for all.  At least that had been the plan when she’d headed out on the bus alone that dark, rainy morning more than a decade ago.

Yet if Caleb only knew what a mess it had eventually become, how it had so irretrievably gone to hell for her there in the end, then he probably wouldn’t be perched quite so high up on his tall, wounded horse right now after all; blaming her for escaping, blaming her for leaving, and mostly, just blaming her for how she had so carelessly broken his heart.  She was responsible for most of that carnage, sure.  But the balance of the damage that she’d done in this lifetime actually had nothing to do with Caleb at all.

In the twenty-eight years she’d been here on this earth, she’d been in love only two times.  The first boy, she’d simply thrown away; discarded him like a piece of trash although he had meant the world to her then.  The second one, though, now that one was much, much worse.  Because with him, she’d not only taken his heart, but she’d taken his life as well.

Even though she had not been directly responsible for what had happened to Jody that night, the resulting and insurmountable burden of guilt was still hers and hers alone to bear.  And it always would be.  That stigma would follow her wherever she went, for all the rest of her days.  She was a marked woman, the scarlet letter ‘M’ for ‘murderess’ invisibly emblazoned eternally across her left breast; that same exact area, in fact, where Estes had definitively engraved her, gouging deep into her skin so as to create his permanent and sickeningly-unmistakable signature.

He had said he’d done it so that she could never possibly forget who it was that she belonged to.  Not that there was ever any chance in the world as to that.  Kayleen knew exactly who and what it was that owned her:  a monster, a killer, a demon.  A man without a soul.

Which was why, of course, that Caleb - of all the people in this world - could not ever be allowed to get close to her again.  She simply could not stand to lose him, too.  They may not be in love anymore, but he held a place in her heart that even Jody, her sweet, sweet Jody, had never managed to touch.

With that last thought, Kayleen heaved out a strangled sigh, and then she wiped her nose on her sleeve like a little girl.  As she leaned over to set her empty shot glass back on the coffee table, she looked down and noticed a trail of drops splatting against the thigh of her fraying jeans.  Stunned, she reached up with the heel of her hand and brushed away a thin coating of tears from each of her cheeks.  Was she actually crying?  She hadn’t even realized it.  Apparently she hadn’t used up the last of her tears, after all.

Kayleen had been forcing herself to simply be numb inside for nearly an entire month now.  Back when she’d been recovering in the hospital and still freshly mourning Jody’s death, the agony of acknowledging her pain had practically ripped her guts out with the dawn of each new day.  Every single morning that she’d awoken and allowed herself to feel the full-blown agony of it, had become the forerunner to another long and sleepless night where she’d contemplated the depraved depths of a possible suicide.

What Caleb didn’t know was that besides her great-great grandfather Astin, three more of her relatively-close ancestors had also eventually followed suit.  By now, it was practically a family tradition.

Back in the beginning, when she was quite literally drowning, the shrinks had said to let it out, of course; to “grieve Jody’s death so that she could move forward”.  That the only way she’d ever be mentally healthy again was to face it, “head on”.  But when it had finally gotten to the point where she’d put her own service weapon into her mouth and had gently squeezed the trigger, she’d come to the abrupt and unavoidable realization that something had to give.  That was the day when she’d decided that the only way to deal with her grief, shame, and remorse, was to bury every last one of her feelings deep, deep inside.

So, she’d dried the end of the barrel off on her comforter, and then carefully and gently put the gun back into her nightstand drawer.  Less than six seconds later and she’d been kneeling atop the kitchen counter, reaching into the far back of the highest shelf where she kept the vodka.

The Stoli’ bottle had sported heavy circles of dust, wound ‘round and ‘round the neck in tiny rings.  The last time she’d even seen it before that day, had been the night that she’d first slept with Jody.  After last year’s St. Paddy’s Day celebration, when he had left their unit’s chummy, gaily-bedecked, gaudy, gold and green-themed party so as to drive her home because she’d partaken of one too many ‘Irish’ beers.

Their long and brutal winter had still been valiantly clinging on, and so he’d blasted his heater the entire drive, trying to warm their frozen fingers.  Yet deep inside her, Kayleen had somehow sensed what was coming.  As a result, her face had been tingly-tight and scorching-hot, despite the frigid outside temperature, and the densely-falling fresh snow.

When they’d gotten there, he had walked her all the way upstairs and down the carpeted, indoor corridor to the entrance of her private, quiet little apartment, ostensibly to make sure that she made it inside safely.  But then he’d asked rather nervously if he could come in just to chat, and maybe even have, perhaps, “a small one for the road”.  One thing had been patently clear; by then, both of them had already known damn-well what he’d truly intended.

Initially, he had accepted only a token beer.  Maintaining, for a little while at least, the charade that he would soon be driving himself home.  But considering the immense pressure they’d been under for so damned long at work, not to mention their growing and undeniable attraction; it hadn’t been long before she’d broken out the still-sealed bottle of Stolichnaya.  Both to squelch their stress and anxieties and lower their nervous inhibitions.

Four shots later for him, two for her, and they’d been tearing frantically into each other on her living room floor.  Shedding clothes as if they were on fire, and making love so ravenously that by the end of the night, both of them had drawn blood.  That had been the exact moment when their personal relationship had started:  five months to the day after they’d first been pulled into the doomed investigation that would ultimately cost Jody his life.

On the previous October 17^th, they’d been assigned a case with only two known victims.  Not even yet termed a serial offender at the time, the killer’s crimes had still been so violent, so vicious, so bewilderingly brutal, that the local jurisdiction had already asked them to step-in and lend a hand.

She’d been with the FBI for six years, the last four of which she’d spent as a profiler, by the time she’d first been introduced to the Blackthorne Butcher.  Of course they hadn’t been calling him that then.  His dreaded moniker took another kill and a heck of a lot more media attention before it finally took and stuck.

Still, by then, she’d already catalogued case after case of young children murdered, pets tortured, and both men and women alike; shot, stabbed, poisoned, strangled, and beaten to a bloody and senseless pulp.  But with this one, this inhuman sadist, although none of them could possibly have known it, the worst was yet to come.  Even so, the initial referral packet had contained the most horrific crime scene photos that Kayleen herself had ever seen.  And oh, dear God, but she had foolishly thought she’d seen them all.

Instantly, Kayleen had sensed something animalistic and undeniably profane in the garishly colorful depictions from the Blackthorne Butcher’s kills – something that went beyond simply “evil”; a vile, despicable wickedness that had spoken to Kayleen’s darkest heart of hearts.  In fact, Kayleen’s near-violent knee-jerk reaction of abhorrence had been the very reason she had asked to be assigned the case.  When Jody had also volunteered, she’d instantly been flooded with relief.

There had been six of them in Kayleen’s team, five teams per unit.  Although her primary assignment was Behavioral Analysis Unit #2, Crimes Against Adults, she had, upon occasion, taken a short tour in #3, Crimes Against Children.  That was one of the most difficult and unsettling assignments imaginable, and as such, she’d had a hard time remaining objective.  It took a certain person, a certain mentality, a certain measure of distance to remain a player in that particular field.  So for the most part, Kayleen had stayed with number Two.

Mostly they each kept to one, main, six-man team, simply rotating between various partners within that group of misfits on almost every single case.  Sometimes, the teams overlapped.  But one thing always remained the same; each individual appointment never lasted any longer than 18 months.  Beyond that, the psychological ‘burn-out’ rate was simply way too high.

The assignments themselves depended upon a number of different factors, mostly in regards to a given BAU member’s specialized strengths in relation to the particulars of whomever they were pursuing.  Sometimes, they were assigned to the investigations based merely on their own inherent brand of inborn wisdom.  Other times, they were assigned based on the classes that they had excelled at in graduate school, paired with experience that they’d carefully cultivated once in the field.

Every so often, they’d even be designated to a certain case based on something as simple as their sex, their socio-economic background, or their home state.  Whatever Dr. Severance thought would give each specific team an edge, he would play them towards that end; like chess pieces wielded skillfully against the ultimate game of life and death.  But on this one, other than Jody and Kayleen, there hadn’t been any takers.  The choice, therefore, had been patently simple.

Yet the case had quickly proven to be even worse than anything Kayleen could have ever imagined.  The sheer level of cunning and intelligence, the extreme peaks of merciless, mind-numbing malevolence, and the chilling depths of callous, degenerate evil, had all made this one stand out immediately from everything else they’d ever faced.  And from the very first moment, this case had consumed them down to their souls.  As a result, their relationship, when it had started, hadn’t been so much ‘falling in love’, as it had been rescuing each other from the gaping abyss.  By the time they’d finally started having sex, physically releasing some of that pent-up agony and grief, Kayleen hadn’t been sleeping more than three or four hours a night in over a month straight.

Kayleen got up and retrieved the ashtray from the dishwasher, and then ground the smoldering butt right in the center.  Crumpling back against the couch, she clenched the empty shot glass tightly in her hand as she slowly rationed out another huge measure.  Glancing up at the bottle with misty eyes, she saw that she had unwittingly grabbed the Stolichnaya brand somehow.  She laughed then, a brittle, painfully sardonic chuckle that stabbed out loudly into the otherwise virgin silence.  Then she closed her eyes and tossed it back.

The first two weeks after Estes had come for her, it’d been impossible to staunch her emotions.  She had cried and cried until the suffering had consumed her.  Insanity seemed to dog her heels at that point, with all the anguish trapped inside her, and no outlet left to purge it.  But soon, the liquor had stepped in and methodically taken over.

And from that night on, when she had finally decided to drown her sorrows in the sweet solace of hard spirits, she’d somehow managed to keep staunching it more and more.  Then, not only were the tears dwindling, but so was the balance of her emotions.  Thereafter, she truly was becoming numb inside.  Well, as numb as one could be who had literally lost everything.

Her third psychologist had immediately caught on.  That dried up windbag had, of course, strongly warned her against what she was doing.  But his dire predictions of what her grief would invariably do to her if she didn’t face up to it and work through it right then and there, had merely fallen on stone-deaf ears.  She didn’t give a damn what it might one day do to her, if she happened to live that long.  All she cared about was what it had been doing to her right that very moment.

So, the alcohol had somehow become her eventual savior.  And then, not only had her tears dried up, but her heart had gradually been anesthetized, too.  Now, with the help of that succor on a daily basis, she typically felt next to nothing at all.

When they had broadcast the fact that the girl’s dead body had been found over the police radio a little while earlier, it was almost as if she’d been hearing it all from a cottony and muffling distance.  Thankfully, she’d figured that the alcohol was apparently still holding strong.  She guessed she just had to keep getting blind-stinking drunk around the clock; granting herself the almost uncanny ability to achieve a perspective as insulated and as blank as death, itself.  Her recent batch of tears only told her that she simply wasn’t drinking enough.

These past few weeks, with her new crutch, Kayleen had even been able to fool a different FBI staff psychologist – a woman who she’d been referred to when her superiors had realized that the last one, just like the well-meaning but ineffective first and the debacle of a second, hadn’t been making any headway at all.

This woman, a kindly, heavy-sounding, older lady, had insisted on keeping in touch with Kayleen at least once a week.  Which Kayleen would have never agreed to except for the fact that Dr. Severance had told her specifically that she could not come back to work when she was ready, unless she submitted to the grueling indignity of these regular ‘check-ups’ in the interim.  And regardless of the fact that Kayleen wasn’t even sure that she actually was going back to work, she still clung to the idea of her old life enough to at least try and play along.

So, what did she do exactly to fool the old bat?  Two full glasses of vodka, straight up over crushed ice, Vivaldi playing softly in the background, and her eyes screwed tightly closed while she jammed the phone into her ear hard enough to crush the cartilage as she proceeded to lie, lie, lie.  Do not talk about it.  Do not think about it.  Do not let it out.

Of course the psychologist had tried, but whenever she forced Kayleen to speak of that night, Kayleen only said two or three innocuous sentences before deftly changing the subject.  And then she’d quickly slam down another drink.

It had been working, too.  The shrink thought she was “handling her personal issues”, no one had yet stuck her in a mental ward, and she’d managed to keep the once-relentless tears at bay.  That was, at least, until tonight.

Seeing Caleb, her first love and her first loss, had been like a sucker punch to the gut.  And then discussing her theories about the girl’s death...dear God, it had been too much.  Truth be known, she had wanted to help him out so damned badly.  But she just couldn’t do it anymore.  The Kayleen that Caleb needed to assist him with this case, well, she was dead and gone.  And this pathetic, piss-drunk shell of a woman, was all that was left anymore.

Working with Caleb would mean too many memories, too many thoughts, too much pain seeping up from the cracks deep within her.  No.  Helping him on this case could only mean opening herself back up to the hurt, fear and guilt that she had worked so hard to shroud from her wounded psyche.  She just couldn’t bring herself to do it.  At least not now.  Not yet.  Maybe not ever again.

Kayleen reached out with one shaky hand, overcome with sudden desperation.  Angrily swiping at the neck of the bottle, she poured out yet another shot and then slammed it back – again, then again.  Ready to drink all night if that was what it took to drown out the fire that was just now beginning to rage to life inside of her.  She had to stop it, before it consumed her whole.

But without warning the tears came once more, clogging her throat and pricking the backs of her eyes.  Stifled sobs wrenched through her in grudging hitches, until before she knew it, she was crying so hard that her entire body was quaking.  The tears had no seeming end.  They just continued to course through her entire being in bottomless, wracking spasms, as if she’d been born and bred merely to weep.

It went on and on, into the deepest dark of the pit of night until finally, she cried herself to sleep.  She curled tightly on the soft, over-stuffed couch cushions, the bottle by her side, the glass clasped weakly in her hand.  She spent hour upon hour, sweating and moaning her way through restless, grisly dreams; hunched protectively into herself like a baby drifting amidst a womb of broken glass...