B00CCYP714 EBOK (12 page)

Rainey turned quickly to see Katie holding sleeping Timothy against her shoulder.

“He was restless,” she said, still patting the baby’s back unconsciously. “Come on, we’ll take him to bed with us.”

Rainey smiled and bounded up the stairs. “Here, I’ll take him,” she said, holding her arms out to take her son.

Katie handed the baby over to Rainey, and then steered them all toward the third floor master suite. “Honey,” she said, patting Rainey on the back now, “we’ll be okay. It’s like you say, you’re not paranoid, just prepared. I know you’ll keep us safe.”

Rainey looked down at the precious babe in her arms, the smallest of the boys. “I know why my father was so vigilant with me now. The thought of something happening to one our children—I don’t know, Katie—I really do think I could commit murder if someone threatened them.”

Katie smiled up at Rainey and said matter-of-factly, “You’ll have to get in line.”

#

Her cellphone ringing startled Rainey out of a dead-tired sleep. She felt like she had just closed her eyes, but the clock on the bedside table said it was five minutes before six a.m. Three hours of sleep was better than none, she supposed. Fearing something had happened to Mackie, she frantically felt for the phone.

“Hello,” she said, not even pausing to see who was calling.

“Rainey, this is Sheila. I’m so sorry to call this early, but this could not wait.”

Sergeant Detective Sheila Robertson, of the Durham County Criminal Investigation Division, was an old friend and a frequent colleague. Their most recent endeavor together was as members of the missing women’s task force. If she was calling this early, it could not be good news.

“Hang on, Shelia. Let me get where I can talk.” Rainey rolled out bed and started for the bathroom, hoping Katie could settle Timothy, who woke with the ringing of the phone, back down for a few more minutes rest. Once she was behind the closed bathroom door, Rainey said into the phone, “Okay, what’s up?”

“We have a body,” Sheila began. “I need you at the scene.”

“I don’t know if you heard about Mackie, but I have to go back to the hospital in about an hour. Do you think you can do this one without me?”

Rainey looked in the mirror at her tired eyes and wild hair. It was still slightly damp when she removed it from the ponytail before falling asleep. She was now blessed with a bride of Frankenstein hairstyle, which would require another shower and some heavy conditioning to bring under control.

Sheila brought her back to the conversation with, “No, Rainey. You really have to come out here.”

“Out where? What is it, Shelia? You sound shaken.”

“I am, Rainey, and you will be too. Look out your back window.”

#

Rainey stood under bright portable lights provided by the Medical Examiner’s office. Still wearing the tee shirt she slept in, she had jammed a baseball cap over her mop of hair, thrown on some jeans, jumped into her boots, and grabbed her coat on the way out of the house. She arrived still warm from recently being cuddled with Katie and Timothy. It did not take long for the cold to seep into her bones upon seeing the body of a young woman deposited in the woods behind her house. It was obvious, from the condition of the body and the ground beneath it, that this was a fresh body dump, no more than a few hours old.

“This guy is a freakin’ animal,” a uniformed cop said over Rainey’s shoulder.

Sheila shooed him away. “Go string some more crime scene tape or something, but do it away from here.” The officer moved on, while Sheila mumbled under her breath, “Chatham County rookie.”

Rainey’s house was in Chatham County, making it not a Durham County problem, but someone notified the multi-county task force. Sheila had been dispatched to see if this was one of the missing women. No ordinary homicide, this was the work of a sadistic sexual killer, an offender type with which Rainey was all too familiar. 

“We’re going to need to put that hair in some kind of containment device, if I’m going to let you get closer to the body,” a diminutive, salt-and-pepper haired, bespectacled woman said, while smiling up at Rainey. 

If she had not been wearing gloves and the protective clothing of a medical examiner, Dr. Helen Wood might have been mistaken for a dainty little grandmother. Rainey had worked with Dr. Wood before. Her presence indicated the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had already been notified. From what Rainey could see of the body at a distance, she was very glad the esteemed pathologist was present.

Rainey dug in her coat’s many pockets. “I’ve got a tieback in here somewhere.” She stumbled on the note left for her last night. “Oh, here Sheila. You’re going to need an evidence bag. I suspect the UNSUB in the rape cases left this in my coat last night. See if anyone has video of Wiley Trainer’s vehicle while I was inside the house.”

Dr. Wood shook her head. “Trouble finds you, Rainey Bell.”

Rainey put the note in Sheila’s gloved hand and continued looking for a hairband, answering, “Yes, it seems to.” 

Discovering one in the breast pocket, she pulled the band around the bush attached to her skull, calming it into a more manageable ponytail, and tucked it under the collar of her coat. She added latex gloves handed her by Dr. Wood’s assistant, pulled a flashlight from her pocket, and signaled the doctor that she was ready to enter her crime scene. Dr. Wood, satisfied that Rainey wasn’t going to shed all over the body, took a step forward, beckoning Rainey and Sheila to follow. She pointed at the lividity staining under the victim’s skin.

“She was definitely dumped here. And you’re going to find this very interesting. She was frozen, probably some time ago. I can’t be sure until we get test results, but she still has ice crystals in her core. She must have been frozen in this position.”

Rainey examined the body for clues, and there were many. She was naked, head shaved, and posed with her hands still tied behind her back, ankles bound, slumped to the side. The position and mud on her knees indicated he left her kneeling, face pressed into the mud, buttocks raised in the air, exposing the damage done by the remaining oversized phallus protruding from her rectum. Rainey agreed with Dr. Wood, he had frozen her in that pose. As her body thawed, it fell over, ruining his art. Rainey had seen this type of presentation before. He was displaying his work like a sculpture, drawing the eye of the beholder to the horror first.

Signs of brutal torture were evident from her ankles to the ligature still positioned around her neck. There was hardly a place on her body without trauma. Rainey could not see the victim’s face, as it was still partially submerged in the mud, but she was sure he did not leave it untouched. She started talking aloud for Sheila’s benefit, but softly, so the curious and untrained would not hear details that should remain guarded for the moment.

“This level of bruising and injury does not look like a single beating. These were multiple attacks over time, possibly weeks, or months.”

Dr. Wood concurred, “Don’t quote me yet, until I can evaluate the tissue samples, but I think you are correct. There is healing evident around some of the lash marks, scarring, and old bruising. Poor girl went through hell for an extended period.”

Rainey squatted behind the body, intrigued by a bite mark on the victim’s buttock. “I know you haven’t done a thorough exam, but have you seen any other bite marks?”

“No, but her breasts are badly bruised and with lividity, it’s hard to tell,” Dr. Wood replied. “We’ve already taken pictures of that one. I think we’ll be able to get a good dental match, if you find a suspect.”

Rainey looked at the bite mark closely. Struck by its familiarity, she pulled out her phone.

Sheila, put her hand on her arm. “Hey, the brass kind of frowns on personal pics at the crime scene. I’ll make sure you have a full set of official photos.”

“I’m not going to take a picture. I’m going to show you one.”

Rainey typed in some info in a search engine and soon pulled up the picture she sought. She turned the phone so Dr. Wood and Sheila could see the screen.

“Ladies, you are looking at Ted Bundy’s bite mark. Doesn’t the bite mark on this victim look a lot like this?”

Sheila looked surprised. “Are you trying to tell me this body has been frozen since Ted Bundy was loose in the seventies?”

“No, but as you can see, his bite mark is readily available on the Internet. I think this killer made a set of teeth to look like Bundy’s.”

“Why would he do that?” Shelia asked, a knee jerk question, one Rainey was sure came to everyone’s mind when faced with the depravity of others.

Rainey pointed at the ligature around the victim’s throat. “See that hangman’s noose, that’s mimicking Gerard John Schaefer, another dead sadistic murderer. Although he was only convicted of two, he was a suspect in many more. The pose is reminiscent of several offenders, sadly too numerous to name.”

Rainey noticed something sticking out of the mud under the head. “Can we roll her yet?” She asked Dr. Wood. “I think he might have placed something under her face.”

Rainey was not ignoring the close proximity of the body to her residence. She could see the top floors in the distance, mostly obscured by evergreen branches, but still visible. The American Tobacco Trail ran behind her house. It was a recreational trail that traversed the Triangle. The body was located a few feet into the woods, just off the well-traveled path. He wanted this body found and placed it where it could be seen at daylight. Sheila told her an anonymous call alerted Chatham County deputies, who located the body. Rainey was sure the caller was also the killer. So anxious was he for Rainey to recognize his work, he could not wait for the body to be discovered by a passerby.

He may have stood in this spot, watching Rainey while she paused on the landing peering back at him. This was a message to her. He was screaming, “Can you see me now?” It did not miss her attention that the positioning of the body, had it stayed in the kneeling pose as he planned, pointed the buttocks squarely at her house. “Kiss my ass, Rainey Bell,” he was saying. She kept those thoughts to herself, while Dr. Wood and her assistants rolled the body onto an evidence collection sheet, careful to preserve the pose for the time being.

The body was located in a sunken area that sometimes flooded with the spring and summer rains. This close to the lake, the ground remained damp, if not wet, most of the year. Dark, thick mud caked on the victim’s face obscured her features. A partial death mask impression remained in the mud where her face had been. Now that the body had been moved, they could see the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of the muck. Dr. Wood’s assistant took pictures and then cautiously removed what turned out to be a twenty-dollar bill. She placed it between two clear pieces of plastic, careful not to dislodge or disturb the mud still attached to half of the bill, should it contain prints. Once inside a sealed evidence bag, the assistant gently handed it to Rainey.

Rainey examined it closely with her flashlight. One end of the bill was fairly free of dirt and she could see something typed along the edge.

Sheila stood next to Rainey, looking over her shoulder. “What does that say?” she asked.

Rainey pulled the evidence bag closer, looking at the tiny print. When the words became clear, she read them aloud.

“Agent Sexy, I believe you’re looking for this one.”

Rainey looked back at the mud-covered face of the victim. The skin of the body was pale, but could have been a light skinned or mixed race young woman.

She asked the medical examiner, “Dr. Wood, what ethnicity would you assign the victim?”

“I thought she was Caucasian, but now that we’ve rolled her over, I’m leaning toward light skinned African American-Caucasian mix.”

Rainey thought she knew the identity of the victim, but she had to be sure. “Look for a small tattoo on her right shoulder.”

Dr. Wood leaned down, brushing some dried mud from the victim’s skin. “Yes, I see it. There is a dark bruise under it, so it’s hard to read, maybe a capital ‘H’ followed by a lower case ‘a’ and—”

“It says Halle,” Rainey said. “Halle is her daughter’s name. The victim is Jacqueline Upshaw. She went missing in September 2012.”

“That’s the girl whose mother shot Mackie, right?” Sheila asked.

“Yes, and it also explains why she is the victim he chose to give us and why he placed her in my backyard. I dismissed him last night and spoke to the media about the serial rapist instead. He’s jealous. This is his coming out party. He’s making sure he gets his notoriety, which may be his undoing.”

Sheila was still looking at the evidence bag in Rainey’s hands. “Why a twenty-dollar bill? What’s the significance?”

“The UNSUB wants us to know he has studied, that he’s an expert on serial killers. This is a counterfeit bill, I’m sure, and his ode to James Mitchell DeBardeleben, or Mike as he was called. He has also been called America’s most sadistic killer, which explains the torture. If our UNSUB is emulating that particular offender and ones like him, then this woman suffered immeasurably and welcomed death when it came.”

Dr. Wood squinted up at Rainey. “There will be more bodies, I presume.”

“Yes, many. He’s kept them hidden so far, but the media attention will lead him to expose more. He did not learn one very important lesson from DeBardeleben.”

“What’s that?” Sheila asked.

Rainey handed the evidence bag to Sheila. “DeBardeleben never craved the media attention. It’s why he was able to get away with so many crimes for so long, and he spread his evil deeds over many states. He died in prison, having never confessed. Our guy seems to think he’s smart enough to hunt in one place and not get caught, even flaunt his presence now. Why not? He’s escaped detection so far.”

“Why draw attention to himself? Does he want us to stop him?”

Those were both questions Rainey had answered repeatedly during her years with the BAU. She would probably answer them again in the future, just as she responded to Sheila now.

“That’s a common misconception. Sure, some killers turn themselves in, or self-destruct, but this is an apex predator. Smart and cunning criminals, committing well-rehearsed, well-planned crimes, do not plan to get caught. But what is the point of being the greatest serial killer ever, if no one knows you exist? They get sloppy, caught up in the game with the police and the media.