Suicide Serial (3 page)

“Whoever got in here was meticulous, if
anyone
did come in through that window. I’m of the persuasion that this has just become a homicide, Stacey, or at least a bit more than meets the eye. What do you think?”

Stacey looked doubtful as she said, “I don’t know, Jake. How do we know one of the kids didn’t put that thing in the toilet or something? For all we know it could have come from anywhere. I’ll admit the marks on the window are a bit suspicious though.”

Jake cracked his knuckles loudly and said, “Well, we could ask the kids about the chess piece, but they are probably too young to be reliable and they are traumatized by all this mess. Tell ya what, let’s go check out something. I have an idea that maybe something got missed or maybe even overlooked at the last suicide. We can take my car, get Carl or somebody to drive yours back to the station. Heck, I’d better call my wife. I have a feeling that this day just got a lot longer.”

Chapter 4

The silver 2002 Ford Crown Victoria pulled up into the hilly driveway, its axles squeaking and the suspension bouncing around the passengers inside. The old car had seen a lot of action when it was first commissioned into the police force years ago; plenty of high-speed chases and minor crashes. Now it belonged to Detective Jake Harris, who had nothing but respect for the old clunker. Turning off the engine, Jake peered out the windows at the property. Everything looked the same as the last time he was here. The house had only been vacant a few days and police tape was still covering the front door.

“Alright, let’s scope it out Stace.”

“Right behind you, Holmes,” Stacey said with a snicker.

He and Stacey exited the vehicle and wandered around the outside of the house. Only a few days ago news reporters and their vans had littered the street in front of the house, all of them hoping to be the first to get the scoop on any new information. The resident there had been Father James Hodgkins, priest of the First Church of Christ just down the street, and victim of the last known suicide in the county.

The Father had a large and devoted congregation and was well known for his rousing sermons and dedicated faith. He was an active member of the community and contributed much of his time to helping with volunteer organizations for the less fortunate. Father Hodgkins was a loved and happy man, something that made his apparent suicide all that much more surprising to everyone that knew him.

The WPD had launched a rigorous investigation into his death, devoting all of their available manpower to it and leaving no stone unturned. The forensics team and investigators had pored over seemingly every detail of the man’s home, habits, and relationships. They had found nothing. Each and every member of the church had been questioned repeatedly, but motive for murder could never be found.

“I know what you’re thinking Stace,” Jake mumbled, feeling his now-swollen lymph nodes in his neck, “the team went through this place with a fine-tooth comb. So how are we gonna find anything they didn’t?”

She knew Jake far too well to even try to deceive her thoughts to him. It was obvious she thought they were grasping at straws.

Stacey shook her head and spoke with a tone that expressed her doubt, “You hit the nail on the head. I remember seeing Mike covered head to toe with insulation from the attic,” Stacey cracked a smile at the thought. “They went through every speck of dust in the place, trying to rule this one out as anything but a suicide. I think the phrase, ‘needle in the haystack’ might be appropriate here, Jake.”

Jake tore the police tape off the front door and entered the house. The off-white blinds and curtains were all closed, but someone had forgotten a small side lamp and left it on. Father Hodgkins was not a deeply private person. The investigators had closed all the windows to discourage nosy gawkers from trying to get a peek inside.

Stacey started turning on more lights so they could see. They both walked into the now brightly-lit kitchen, where Father Hodgkin’s body was discovered. There was a chalk outline of his body still marked on the floor where he had collapsed. A concerned neighbor had looked in the window and seen him there and called police. Strewn across the floor and inside his stomach were the remains of a bottle of the prescription heart medication, Tranzidek. The fatal overdose had killed him within 30 minutes, stopping his heart. There were no bruises, scrapes, or unusual damage to the body.

Jake strolled right across the kitchen and into the small study in the next room. Clicking on a light, he wondered over to the one thing here he thought might give them a clue; a small collection of various board and parlor games the old Father had stowed away in an old closet.

“I remembered seeing all this stuff in here before when we were doing our investigation. Didn’t think much of it till now.” Jake said, reaching up high and pulling down the cardboard box full of games.

It was barely holding together anymore, and just after getting it out of the closet, the bottom of the box tore open and out spilled Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Chutes and Ladders, checkers…and chess. Jake set the old wooden chessboard to the side. It was closed up and secured with a small brass latch.

He flipped the latch and opened the chessboard. The pieces were plain, faded, plastic black and white chess pieces. As Jake began to root through them, he noticed one that was different; it was heavier than the rest and made of stone. It was the Bishop piece. Jake flipped up the bottom of the chessboard, revealing a small, handwritten note. The scrawled writing on it said only one thing, “Your Move.”

“Son of a gun,” Jake said, and held the piece up to the light, searching for any additional information. “I think we’re on to something, Stace.”

Stacey called in their discovery. Within minutes, detectives from several cities across the county converged on the sites of every previous suicide in the last three weeks. It didn’t take long for them to find the chess pieces. Most of them had been left out in plain sight or stashed with any other chess pieces that might be in the residence.

Of the remaining eight suicides, seven of them revealed a chess piece. The one scene that did not contain a piece was the only one generally thought all along to have been a suicide that “made sense”. It was the suicide of a young man who had recently failed out of college and lost his girlfriend in the same week.

All the chess pieces had been overlooked as unimportant during their respective investigations, or they had never been found in the first place. Each piece was of the same white stone, and all appeared to have come from the same set. Four were pawns, two were rooks, and the last was a knight.

By the time they were ready to wrap things up, it had gotten late and the investigation had drawn on a few hours past midnight. The detectives were confident, however, that they had discovered a pattern to the deaths.

“Ok, so now we know that each piece represents something about the person who was killed,” spat WPD’s Chief of Police Harold Lunkster.

He had served as the WPD’s police chief for over fifteen years. Everyone affectionately referred to him as “The Lunk”, a nickname he hated but had eventually embraced. His hair was permanently thinning and white, but his thick moustache rivaled any in the land, and his wife
hated
it. He was perpetually chewing gum since he quit smoking six years ago. He chomped it loudly between each sentence.

“The pawns were just regular, ordinary folks; one guy was a florist, for cryin’ out loud. Another one was a house wife. The bishop was a preacher. The guy they found the knight with was an active-duty marine sergeant on leave. We thought he killed himself because of the war, or post-traumatic whats-it-something. Guess we were wrong, huh?”

Chief Lunkster tossed down the stack of papers he was holding on his desk and looked around the room at his detectives.

“What gets me is this rook piece. Just what the heck does a castle have to do with a couple of fishermen?” The Lunk glanced around the room but came up empty. No one seemed to know.

“Well sir,” Stacey perked up, “In Russian, the rook, or
ladya
, stands for ship or boat. There aren’t exactly castles in Winchester, so I guess he had to find some connection he could use for his sick game”. Stacey was always a bit shy to flaunt her intelligence. She blushed a bit, but put on a look that dared anyone to mock her. She threw up her hands in mock agitation. “What, I took a couple of classes in Russian. You guys are so uncivilized.”

Chief Lunkser said with a smile, “Well, Detective, I knew you were smart but I never knew you spoke Russian.” He looked over at a disheveled Jake. “How about you teach something to your friend here, like how to tie a tie or get a haircut and a shave sometime.”

Jake instinctively straightened out his tie, but couldn’t think of a witty comeback.

“Maybe now we can get some real closure for these families that are involved. I’ve scheduled a press conference tomorrow to let the public know we have a serial killer on our hands before this leaks out or someone else gets killed...or kills themselves…thanks to this psycho.” The chief picked up his phone and began to make a call before sending them on their way. “Anyway, good work, you two. We can do some more on this in the morning, until then, Jake, for God’s sake go home and get some rest. You look like shit.”

Jake felt like shit, too. His fever had crept up even more and he was feeling like he was burning up. His skin felt clammy and uncomfortable. It took him what seemed like forever just to get the car started and make it home. Jake was looking forward to a nice shower, a shave, and some cold medicine.

He parked his vehicle in the garage and entered. The house was still and calm. Everyone was sleeping soundly. Patrolling the house, Jake checked in on his little family. The kids were snoozing away in their rooms. His wife was out cold and bundled up under the covers of their king size bed. He unholstered his weapon and locked it away in the small safe that rested on the top of his dresser. With children in the house, long gone were the days of tossing his firearm in the drawer in the nightstand beside his bed. He stripped off his shirt and wandered into the kitchen. The tile floor was freezing cold to his naked feet. Jake reached up into the cabinet and took out two cold medicine pills. Each one of them seemed like the size of a quarter.

“Whoever designed these things is pure evil,” he thought, “haven’t these guys ever heard of a sore throat?”

Walking over to the sink, he filled a glass with cold water and painfully downed the two pills. Just then the light in the garage flashed on and then quickly back off.

“What the heck?” Jake said as he moved to go check it out.

Chapter 5

Jake swung open the door to the garage, grabbing the baseball bat he kept tucked away in the corner. He crept around, looking for intruders. The garage was eerily quiet. Suddenly, the garage door sprang to life and started rising. Jake spun around, startled, and the overhead lights cut back on, blinding him. He felt a stunning coldness as something hard and heavy smashed against his skull. Dropping the baseball bat with a clatter and crumpling to the floor, his world went black.

“Oohhh God…my head…what the f…” Jake trailed off in his mind.

Everything was still spinning and blurry. For a moment he thought maybe the tripped down the stairs after taking the cold medicine. He wanted to rub his head, but discovered that his arms had been bound tightly behind him with duct tape. The sticky tape clung to his hair and skin and every tug against his restraints was agonizing.

Straining with effort, Jake managed to kick out his legs and sit upright. He could barely manage to breathe, much less talk, as a he had been gagged with a cloth wrapped in duct tape all the way around his head. He could just barely make out what looked like a crowbar lying on the floor near a small pool of blood. In the dim, featureless garage a man approached. A passing car’s headlights briefly illuminated the inside of the garage. For a moment, Jake was able to see him as he approached and his eyes adjusted. The man was wielding a huge knife, and spoke to Jake with a harsh, deep voice.

“I guess there’s no need to pretend anymore is there Detective?” said the man out of the darkness. “After all, kudos to you on cracking the case.”

The man was bulky and about six feet tall. He wore dark jeans, a black hoodie with rolled-up sleeves, a ski mask, and had on green surgical gloves. Jake could smell the overwhelming odor of cigarettes coming off the man as he drew near.

“I was wondering if anyone would ever figure it out. I left my mark with all of them, but I had a feeling the last one would be the easiest to find.”

Then Jake felt the rope around his neck. It was tied into a noose. Jake began struggling against his restraints. He tried desperately to force words through his gag but the only sounds that came out were muffled and unintelligible.

The intruder just continued walking towards him and said, “There’s no use fighting me, Detective Harris. Or should I call you Jake? You know how this works by now. Cooperate or I will kill them all.”

The man thumbed the point edge of the gleaming butcher knife. “I’ll save your sweet little daughter for last. It would be my first kill, actually. Who knows, I might rather like it. I’ve never
actually
killed anyone. I just love watching you sheep kill yourselves. There’s really nothing quite like it, knowing you have someone trapped, and making them choose their life or someone else’s”