Suicide Serial (6 page)

Stacey put her hands on her hips and looked out over the top of her sunglasses. She was obviously not happy. Stacey shook her head and said, “Oh, no you don’t, Jake. You know the chief thinks you’re crazy right? He told me to kick your ass and put you back in here if you tried to get out before you were better.”

Jake squinted at her in the bright sunlight and carefully raised himself out of the wheelchair. Movement was still painful and his head swam for a second. He regained himself and walked over to her car door. He grabbed the handle to open it, but Stacey slammed her hand against it and pushed her finger into his chest. In an angry voice, she asked him, “Where do you think you’re going? You trying to get yourself killed this time?”

Jake moved her hand away and made his case. “Listen Stace, you know as good as I do that this guy is not going to stop killing people unless we stop him. If you were in my shoes after the night I had, I’m willing to bet you would be doing the same thing as me.”

Thumbing his pocket, Jake yanked out his beaten-up pair of old Ray-Bans and put them on. He had band-aids covering multiple cuts and bruises on his face. He looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a prizefighter and lost. Jake swayed a bit, still unsteady after the concussion. Stacey felt like she could have knocked him over just by breathing on him if she had wanted to. The nurse waved goodbye and pushed the wheelchair back inside the hospital. Jake gave her a little salute and turned back to Stacey.

“Listen, Stace, I know you guys. I’m sure the whole force thinks I’m brain damaged or something anyway, after our last big case. But this guy went after me. He threatened my family. Help me take him down or step aside. I’m going after him with or without clearance. Just please don’t stand in my way.”

Stacey crossed her arms, considering what her partner had said. She let out an exasperated sigh and opened the back door of the cruiser, pulling some things out.

“Here. You’ll need this then, I guess. Just try not to get killed, ok?” Stacey said.

She slapped his badge, holster, and gun on the roof of the cruiser. Stacey blew out her breath again and smirked, telling Jake, “Now get your ass in the car, partner. We got another lead.”

It was already lunch time and the day was beginning to really heat up. The sun had decided to blast away every cloud in the sky, and heat rose up off the street in waves. People were out everywhere, going on with their day to day business, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there was a monster in their midst. Stacey had the air conditioning in the car blasting at its maximum.

“The chief put out the press report this morning,” Stacey said, with her eyes glued ahead on the road. “I guess people have gotten desensitized to this sort of thing nowadays.”

She shrugged her shoulders, took a giant swig of coffee, and continued to stay fixated on the road ahead.

Jake just grinned at her and said, “I blame it on the internet.”

The car rolled up the street towards the town commons, and from the look of things, they were late to the party again. The town commons was swarming with police, and the entire area had been roped off to prevent any possible evidence tampering from curious civilians or roving news reporters. The police officer guarding the barricade at the parking lot entrance lifted it and waved them through.

They hopped out of the car and headed down the winding sidewalk path to where the forensics team was cataloguing evidence. A bleary eyed and exhausted Mike Woo and the WPD forensics team were taking samples of a large pool of blood on the concrete sidewalk that appeared to have mostly drained away into the grassy soil.

Other detectives and police officers wandered around, looking at the ground or talking to each other. The ever-present news reporters stood by on the street nearly a block away overlooking the crime scene. This had been their life for the past few weeks. Everyday seemed like déjà vu. At least now they had a lead or two.

“Hey Mike. Whatcha got?” Jake asked, fiddling with a toothpick from his last meal at the hospital.

Mike took one look at Jake’s bruised face and asked, “Jesus, Jake. What the hell happened to you this time? ”

Jake just waved it off, “It’s nothing, man. Our buddy the serial killer decided to pay me a social call last night is all. Stacey here tells me we got another lead. Fill me in.”

Mike looked at Jake as if he had lost his mind, and led them over to a large, blood stained area. It looked like someone had sacrificed an animal right there on the sidewalk.

“Looks like a good old-fashioned murder this time, Jake,” Mike said as he lifted his head in a thoughtful way. “Hmmmph. Never really thought I would actually be glad to see a murder for once.”

Mike opened his eyes wide and shook his head, clearing the cobwebs. “Never mind. Anyway, a jogger this morning discovered the huge pool of blood and called the police. Someone else in a fishing boat down river here was coming up just as the boys arrived and shouted out that there was a body in the water just on the other side of the wall right about…here.”

Mike walked over to the wall and looked down into the water below. “Not much water in the river this time of year, guys. The victim was a female, about eighteen years old. She probably struck the embankment more than anything. When the river rescue guys finally got here and pulled her up, it looked like she had several broken bones as well as stab marks all over her body. Looking at all that info, and considering the amount of blood and the spatters we found that lead up to here, I’d say our perp murdered the victim and then threw the body out into the river, hoping to destroy the evidence.”

Jake was let down. With a look of disappointment he said, “This doesn’t match our boy’s profile at all. He forces people to kill themselves and gets off on it, too. I remember him telling me that I would be the first person he had ever killed with his own hands.” Jake felt the rope burns on his neck with his fingertips and continued, “When he tried to kill me, he was frowning and looked angry. He walked away, leaving me swinging by the neck, and said it was no fun. This right here looks like amateur night. What makes us think he did this?”

Mike reached down into his evidence basket and grabbed a plastic evidence baggie. Inside was another pawn, identical to the pieces found at the other crime scenes.

“Any other evidence that might tell us who this guy is?” questioned Jake. He already knew the answer.

“No.” Mike said, and shook his head, “Andrews tells me they have no witnesses so far other than you that can even give a description either. But if anything turns up, we’ll let you know man.”

Dejected, Jake and Stacey left the techs to it. The two of them were walking in silence, scrambling their brains for answers. Everything about the suicides felt so random and unconnected. None of the victims knew each other, or even had any professional contact. Not a single one of them even attended the same church that Father Hodgkins presided over. It was like this guy was just randomly acting, the only real lead they had were the chess pieces and Jake’s description of the killer.

One of the other investigators passed them a manila envelope containing vital information about the latest victim. Her name was Emma Fisher, an eighteen year old freshman at the nearby university. Her family lived in a city about two hours away and had yet to be notified of her untimely death. She did have a local address, though. She shared a room with another girl at the Zeta Tau sorority house. Jake stood beside the car for a moment, straightening the paperwork and feeding it back into the envelope. He took a deep breath and scanned the area around them, thinking.

“You coming, partner?” Stacey questioned, opening the driver’s door and climbing in.

“Yeah, Stace. C’mon, I want to talk to some of that girl’s friends and see what they can tell us.”

Chapter 8

The Zeta Tau sorority house was well-known as one of the biggest party houses among the local college kids. Every single weekend without fail there was usually some big event or party there, but the girls almost always kept things under control and rarely the police had to be called out. The house was right across the street from the main campus and most of the dormitories were within easy walking distance.

As Stacey pulled the car into a parking spot on the street beside the house, Jake was staring through the car window. He was still feeling pretty awful. The medication was holding back the pain and fever, but dulling all of his senses. Jake felt like he was in a weird dream, with the detail of everything turned down a notch or two, and his head felt like it was floating. Jake pinched himself and took in a deep breath to clear his mind. Both of them exited the car and shuffled up the stone pavers towards the front door. The heat was intense outside and the sunlight nearly blinded them as reflections on the mirrors and shiny surfaces of the cars parked in the driveway flashed into their eyes.

The house was two stories tall, had an enormous front porch area with an old wooden swing, and big, hand-painted banners stretching all across the front of it advertising some sort of upcoming social event. Everything was quiet at the house. Jake could hear the doorbell ring on the inside as he pressed it.

After a few more pushes of the doorbell, and a bit of a wait, a sleepy-looking young blond girl with mussed-up, curly hair opened the door and greeted them with a slightly nervous and groggy, “Yes, officer?”

She looked like she had been partying all night long and was nursing quite a hangover. Jake lifted his detective shield to eye-level and asked the girl, “Does a girl by the name of Emma Fisher live at this residence, ma’am?”

For a moment, her eyes opened a little more, and she rubbed her hand through her bed-hair. “Yes. She lives here. Um, she’s actually my roommate. I haven’t seen her though, well, not since last night. What’s this about?”

Jake asked to come inside and the girl obligingly let them in, pointing them in the direction of a large living room area with ancient-looking wooden floors, two different color couches and a giant flat-screen TV.

The girl’s name was Kristen, and she was one of the senior students in the house. The rest of the girls were sleeping off last night’s party upstairs in their rooms.

“Kristen, we need to ask you some important questions about last night. It’s about Emma. When was the last time you saw her?”

Kristen answered immediately, “Last night, about one o’clock. We left the club and she wanted to stay. She was completely hammered. We tried to talk her out of it but she’s stubborn and refused.”

Jake nodded, writing the information down on some paper. He responded, “Do you know anyone that would want to hurt Emma or had a grudge against her?”

“No. She’s pretty new around here but fits right in with us. So…what’s this about guys? You’ve really got me freaked out, I’m going to be honest with you.”

“Kristen…Emma was murdered last night,” Stacey said.

The girl immediately snapped out of what remained of her grogginess, throwing her hands to her face and gasping with shock.

“Oh my God, Emma!” She began to weep, “It can’t be! I don’t know... She was with us last night at the club! We were all having such a good time, too. I can’t believe she’s dead…”

Jake placed his hand on her shoulder to console her a bit. “I know this is hard and that you two were friends…we just need to know everything that happened last night.”

The girl recovered eventually and went on to describe their night in more detail. She explained that the girls were all downtown at a club called “Pantino Bob’s” and were drinking heavily and dancing most of the night. About one o’clock, most of the girls decided to catch a cab and leave, but Emma was having such a good time that she decided to stay. According to the girl, this was typical behavior for Emma. There were many nights that she decided to stay at a party or club by herself. The girls had warned her many times how dangerous it was for a young girl to be somewhere alone without her friends, and to top it all off, Emma had a bad habit of asking strangers for a ride home.

“I don’t know why she did it,” Kristen managed between sobs, “We told her this would happen one day. She would just laugh. We told her to call us, or call a taxi to pick her up. She always made it home though. Oh man. This is bad. Bad.”

“So she had a habit of going out and getting rides home with strange people? Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?” Jake said, as he put a confused look on his face.

“Yes. It was like a game to her.”

“I’m sorry to say so, Kristen, but it was a game she lost.”

Stacey took over the questioning and they discovered that there was no one at the club that the girls thought was suspicious.

Kristen bit her lip and answered, “Just the usual crowd, the same ones are pretty much always there on Saturdays.”

The detectives thanked Kristen for her time, gave condolences, and promised to do everything they could to bring the killer to justice. With that, they left the sorority house and made their way to the club the girls had been at the night before.

Pantino Bob’s looked the same from the outside as all the other bars and clubs dotting the street in downtown Winchester. Every building was the same dull red brick and had large windows on the front. Brightly colored flyers were plastered up everywhere, advertising local businesses or an upcoming event or show.