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.
No comments:
Post a Comment