Suicide Serial (8 page)

Stacey shuddered for a moment and continued, “He was about four years older than me. The kids at school used to give him hell and just generally tortured him constantly for being so…different. I remember finding Henry’s little ‘hideout’ in the woods behind his house one day. He made this little… shack…thing out of fallen tree branches and had a big tarp over it to keep out the rain. I was exploring by myself when I saw it. I was 14 years old, I think. He had strung up animal parts all over the place. Stuff that had been out, rotting, for days. There were flies buzzing everywhere. He had cats hanging by their necks and a dog’s severed head jammed on a stick right in the front. I still remember the smell, it was awful. The dog’s tongue was hanging out and its eyes were nothing but hollow holes. I screamed, and out comes Henry from inside his little shack.”

Stacey sat back down in her chair, distraught, staring out the window. “Jesus Christ, Stace,” Jake said as he tried to comfort her, “You must have been scared out of your mind. Did he hurt you?” Stacey looked up at her partner and smiled.

“No. Thank God. I was frozen in place though. He looked just as surprised as I was. After a moment, he asked me what the hell I was doing there and pulled out this big kitchen knife. I turned around and ran as fast as I could to my house and told Daddy. I don’t know if he ran after me or not. I never even looked back. The next day the police were there and talked to me and they took him away. The family moved to the other side of the town and Henry stopped going to our school. I never heard from or saw him again. Until now.”

Stacey regained her composure and performed another quick search of the DMV database. It revealed an old license photograph of their suspect. The information matched what Stacey had told Jake. His name was Henry Engel, and he was now twenty-nine years old. The address on the license did not match his father’s, as it was issued before the family had moved away.

The team now had everything they needed to obtain a warrant to search the home of Fredrich Engel. Jake donned his bullet-proof vest and checked his weapon before re-holstering it. “I’ll notify the chief. He’ll want to send SWAT out there. Let’s go bag this guy. I can’t wait to get cuffs on him and get him in the box.”

Chapter 9

The WPD SWAT team vans screeched to a stop right outside the Engel residence. The armored van’s doors slid open and the SWAT team rushed the house. A police helicopter was hovering loudly just overhead. The house was a large, modern-style single story with a grey, rusted 1993 Buick Regal parked in the driveway. Jake and Stacey jumped out of their cruiser and stood by with their guns drawn, at the ready.

SWAT broke off into two teams. One team headed straight to the front door with a battering ram and the other team went around the rear of the house carrying a hook and chain that was attached to the van. Radios were chattering orders and communication all around them as the detectives kept a close eye on the surrounding area. One of the guys from SWAT gave the countdown at the front door. Within seconds the front and back doors were both torn off their hinges and SWAT flooded into the house.

The waiting was tense for a few minutes as SWAT cleared the home. The detectives gripped their firearms tightly, waiting for any moment to hear shots ring out, but the shots never came. Over the radio finally came a voice announcing, “All clear, all clear. No suspects in residence. One code 27.” SWAT team members had slung their weapons and began to exit the house.

The SWAT lieutenant stopped outside the front door, and while wiping out his goggles told Jake, “The house is totally clear. I saw one dead body inside that big office in there.” He took off his helmet and brushed the sweat out of his hair, continuing, “Phew. Man, you guys got your work cut out for you. There’s some seriously disturbing shit inside that house. Good luck, Harris.” The lieutenant just shook his head and walked away. Jake didn’t know whether to be worried or thankful. Jake and Stacey put away their firearms and proceeded to enter.

The interior was musty, like the air had not moved for quite some time. The kitchen sink was full of dirty dishes and trash littered the floor. No lights were on, but all of the curtains were open, allowing ample sunlight to enter. Tiny particles of dust that had been kicked up by the assault team floated through the sunlight coming in through the windows. The entire house was still and quiet.

There was a pungent, distinctive aroma in the air, which got stronger as the duo approached the study. Opening the door, the reason for the horrible smell was immediately apparent. The dead body of Fredrich Engel was seated in his leather chair, turning black from decomposition. His mass of white hair fell down around his head on both sides. The back of his skull had exploded out from a self-inflicted gunshot wound through the mouth. Dried spatters of blood and bits of bone had showered the headrest of the chair. He was slumped over and wearing a stained white shirt and black tie. Laid out on the table in front of him was an intricately carved wooden chessboard.

On one side of the chessboard were all of the black pieces, identical in every way to the ones found at every suicide except for their color. Some of the black pieces had been moved to different positions and were lying down, as if defeated. Only the king and a bishop remained upright. The white pieces were missing.

Jake walked over to the body, covering his mouth and nose with one hand to mask the smell. A piece of paper shuffled under his feet as he walked closer. Jake looked down at the paper and saw that it was a simple handwritten note. The handwriting was identical to what had been found on the scrawled note at the pastor’s house. He bent over and picked it up, giving it a quick read.

“
He was the first pawn. Finally I am free.”

Jake resisted the urge to ball up the note and throw it aside. Instead, he flattened it out on the desk and left it there. On the floor underneath the desk chair another white pawn chess piece which rested on its side. He bent over and picked it up with a gloved hand. There appeared to be a bit of dried blood spatter on it, but nothing else. Jake and Stacey walked around the study to search for more evidence.

The room was very large, and there were enough books to fill a small library. Fredrich Engel had collected large volumes on literature, history, and psychology. He had a prominent assortment of texts on chess and all the various elements of logic and game theory. Some of the books had been written by him, as well.

The detectives exited the room and explored the rest of the house. A large television had been smashed to pieces in the living room. Glass fragments had scattered all over the hardwood floor and furniture. Other than the destroyed television, there was nothing else interesting about the room. The bedrooms appeared completely normal, tidy, and untouched. Nothing was out of place. The beds were properly made, closets were organized, and no traces of blood or violence apparent.

On a dresser in one of the bedrooms was a slightly faded, framed photograph of Fredrich, Henry, and another woman that Stacey identified as “Katherine”, the matriarch of the family. All three were smiling and seemed happy. Henry looked to be about 2 or 3 years old. Someone had used a permanent marker to place big X’s on the faces of the parents.

Jake and Stacey made their way to a wooden door at the end of the hallway. The floors of the hallway were dirty, like someone had walked outside and tracked in mud. The door was partially hanging off its hinges and had multiple deadbolt locks and an iron bar that could be lowered in place to prevent anyone in the basement from getting out. It had been opened and cleared by SWAT, but the darkness that led into the basement still evoked a natural fear in both of the detectives.

Jake flicked the light switch on the wall and instantly the darkness was dimly illuminated. The faint odor of excrement and urine wafted up the stairs and filled their nostrils. It was almost as vile as the smell of the office and the rotting corpse of Fredrich Engel. They carefully descended the stairs and made their way into the large basement area. The floor was not finished, and other than the small tile landing at the base of the stairs, it was totally dirt or mud.

The small overhead lights did little to uncover the farthest corners of the basement, but easily revealed a central area that appeared to be Henry’s living space. A completely worn-out and dirty couch with a few stained pillows rested in the very middle. Filthy sheets and clothing had been piled up on the floor. Food wrappers, Styrofoam cups, and assorted trash were strewn about the entire basement. A small table held a few books on chess and a horror novel that looked like it had been read hundreds of times. A larger metal table behind the sofa held a wide range of scattered wires, electronic circuit boards and batteries, and a few different small hand tools.

Mouse droppings littered nearly every surface and bugs crawled around everywhere. There were heavy iron bars welded into place on the small windows that let in only the smallest amount of light. There were literally years of human waste lining the edges of the basement. On the walls, there was writing. One large area had been devoted to keeping a tally of something, probably days. Tally marks extended for several feet down the wall, and there had to be well over one thousand such marks. In other areas, there were strange, cryptic messages. One of them that had been repeated many times read,

“
Deliver unto me my vengeance, so that I can cover the world with the blood of the righteous.”

It became clear that Henry had been held as a prisoner in the basement. Jake could barely breathe with the overwhelming stench.

“No wonder this guy is so messed up,” Jake said, silently wishing he had brought a gas mask. “Looks like dear ol’ dad had been keeping him locked up down here for years.”

“Jake, I’d swear that equipment on the table looks like someone has been making a bomb. If Henry has something like that…”

Jake interjected, “I don’t even want to think about the repercussions, Stace. He seems to be a pretty smart guy so I can’t put it past him to construct something like that. Let’s keep looking to see if there’s anything else down here before we move on.”

Stacey nodded and silently flipped through the books on chess and then the horror novel, looking for another message to give some insight into Henry’s next move.

Jake shined his flashlight behind one of the large concrete support columns and saw something that caught his eye. “Over here, Stace. Check it.”

Stacey flipped on her flashlight and walked over to where Jake was pointing. There was a torn white sheet barely covering something.

Stacey reached down and removed the sheet. Underneath were the remains of what was most likely a female. The body was mostly a skeleton and had been almost completely stripped of flesh over time. The victim was wearing a patchy, ragged dress that looked like it had been coated in blood and allowed to dry out over the last decade. She had a gold necklace with a cross hanging around what was left of her neck, along with a fraying, ancient-looking rope. Her hands and feet were still bound with a similar type of rope. Above her hung the other half of the frayed noose, swaying quietly from the first-story floor supports that formed the basement roof. A pawn chess piece had been jammed into the mouth, which had broken front teeth and an obvious jaw fracture. Smeared in thick lines of dried blood on the support column was the word, “Mother.”

Jake nearly jumped out of his skin when his cell phone rang out loudly.

Chapter 10

She was beautiful, and everyone loved her, except for one person.

Marci Harrington had been the 1998 Winchester High School Homecoming Queen. She was beautiful, popular, and had a bright future lined up for her. She had graduated college and worked as one of the town’s foremost interior designers. Marci had a penchant for style, and helped some of the richest people in town create some of the most attractive living spaces possible. Her husband Rick was an attorney, a real political mover and shaker, gnawing at the bit for a chance to become the next DA. They both came from privileged families and lived in a big house in a nice neighborhood. They had a two year old child, Michael, together. Everything was perfect, until today.

Right now, Marci was facing the biggest decision of her life.

A big man wearing a ski mask and holding a butcher knife had smashed through their sliding glass backdoor no more than five minutes ago. Marci ran and scooped up her son to try and protect him. The man kicked out hard with one powerful leg and had knocked her over before she could get away.

Now the man held her crying, red-faced little boy at knife point. Marci was pleading with the man, “Please let him go! Please! I’ll do whatever you want! Just put him down, let my son go!”

Henry Engel cracked his neck to the side and smiled evilly as he spoke, “Of course you will, Marci. I’m going to tell you exactly how to save your son’s life.”

Henry still held Michael, waving the blade around in front of the child, teasing. Broken shards of glass crunched under his boots as he slowly walked towards the panic-stricken, terrified Marci.

“Get on your knees,” Henry commanded, brutally, his harsh voice loud even over the child’s crying. Marci had no choice but to do as he said. “Good. Now, hold out your hand. I have a present for you.” Her hands shaking, Marci held them out in front of her. She closed her eyes, scared to bear witness to anything more.