Without Remorse, page 3
The killer had nerves of... well, steel, if he was willing to risk being caught just to put the finishing touches on his grotesque sculptures. Junkyards weren't exactly public spaces, but they had employees, visitors, and offered the opportunity at being discovered.
Evidently, though, judging by the images, the killer didn't care. He was bold. Brash. Two bodies within thirty-six hours. He was moving fast. No reason to think he was ready to stop now. Which meant he was only just getting started.
Dakota glanced towards Agent Carter, deciding now wasn't a good time to ask for permission to access the old case files. Clearly, she still had some proving to do. But while they'd gotten off on a bad foot, Dakota felt that solving this case would go a long way in earning some leeway.
“And you?” Agent Carter said, looking towards Dakota. Her tone was less harsh all of a sudden, and some of that lingering kindness in her gaze came to the surface. “Any questions?”
“I—just the one,” Dakota said. “When does our plane leave?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dakota adjusted her tray, clicking it into place. She made sure her seat was upright and shot a sidelong glance at Agent Clement. Marcus had brought his own snacks for their flight, and the small bag of fruit gummies littered the gray folding table. He also leaned back in their economy seat, giving himself ample room for his ample frame.
He'd unbuttoned his suit and had yet to notice the gummy that had landed on his belly. The two of them took completely different approaches to air travel.
Marcus adjusted the screen of his computer and clicked through the crime scene photos, his expression of distaste growing with each image.
“Bizarre,” he muttered. “Truly odd.”
Dakota was no longer paying attention to the murder scenes, but rather was paying closer attention to the images beneath the crime scene photos—these ones displayed the driver’s licenses of the victims.
Michelle Stanton, the second victim, had been in her early twenties, but had no listed home address currently. The address on the license was currently occupied by an older Korean couple with work visas. According to the locals on the scene, Michelle had been homeless.
Dakota's gaze flicked to the image of the first victim. A bright faced, smiling younger woman with vibrant eyes and dark hair. Caitlynn Jackson had been an honor roll student from a wealthy family.
“It doesn't match,” Dakota murmured, shaking her head softly.
“What's that?” Marcus glanced over and the fruit gummy tumbled from his belly onto his lint-covered seat. “Oh, bonus!” he said, grabbing the red candy and popping it into his mouth.
Dakota shook her head. “The victims don't match. Different heights, different ages, different races, different socio-economic backgrounds. What's he targeting?”
Marcus frowned, glancing down at the driver’s licenses. “Huh. Good point. See, that's why I bring you along, Steele. Details like that.”
Dakota snorted. “Don't pretend you hadn't already noticed.”
Marcus shrugged. But she noticed he didn't deny it. Still, she wasn't offended—she knew her partner was trying his best to help her feel comfortable and accommodated. As Dakota stared at the images of the two young women, both of them a decade her junior, she felt a familiar sense of anger rising in her chest.
It started as a prickle but spread as heat across her chest and arms. Both women had been vulnerable, defenseless when they'd been attacked. The killer preyed on the young and the marginalized. In one case, a college student far from home, walking towards her dorm room late at night. In the other, a homeless woman struggling to get her feet back under her.
Michelle in particular caught Dakota's attention. Coach Little, thanks to his Catholic roots, in between expletives and complaints about the boxing circuit, occasionally had some, as they called it in the sporting world, old-head wisdom to offer. Now, she remembered an expression he'd once shared. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
She sighed, staring at Michelle's image on the screen, wondering how much of Dakota’s own life might have turned out different if not for Coach Little. If not for his hundreds of hours of investment in her. When she'd dropped out of school and ran away from home, he'd given her a place to stay. She'd slept on the old Irishman's house more than once. She'd gotten in with the wrong crowds too. Had made a bit of a mess of it. But fighting had saved her life.
Coach Little had saved her life. Not that she thanked him often enough.
Dakota couldn't help but wonder what a woman like Michelle could have done if someone, anyone, had just shown her a little bit of compassion.
Her hand balled on her lap, but she unclasped it quickly before Marcus could notice.
No one had been there for this woman while she'd been alive. It was a very poor consolation, but Dakota was determined to bring some sense of justice to an otherwise cruel ending.
It wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't help Michelle. If Coach Little had been here, she might have asked him to throw up a prayer or two on behalf of the second victim.
But Dakota and Marcus's job was of a far less ethereal and more proximate variety. They were going to catch the murderer, and they wouldn't need the wrath of the divine. No, Dakota's rage would be more than enough.
Normally, she medicated the anger with alcohol. But now she was determined to deal with the pain another way. She would make the bad guys suffer instead.
“Excuse me,” a flight attendant said, smiling from the aisle at them both. “Drinks?”
Dakota blinked, glancing in surprise at the drink cart. Her eyes darted along the miniature bottles of alcohol stacked in neat trays that had been slid into the side of the cart.
“Just water, please,” Marcus interrupted, raising a hand and smiling genially. “Thank you.”
“And you?” the flight attendant asked, turning her smile towards Dakota.
“Umm, yeah, water. Thanks—sparkling if you have it.”
Dakota didn't glance at Marcus. But she felt another flash of gratitude. She knew he sometimes got nervous on flights and, in the past, would often order some manner of small chemical courage; but now, out of solidarity, he was forgoing his coping mechanism.
As the waters were placed in their cupholders, Dakota shot a look towards Marcus. “Thanks,” she muttered.
“Don't know what you mean,” he replied. He tapped a finger against his computer screen while he took another sip. “See this? The second crime scene—the one where he posed the victim as if she was flying—he soldered the metal. It was quick work, but not sloppy.”
“What are you saying?”
“I'm saying,” Marcus replied, “that I think our killer might have experience in metalworking. It's worth keeping in mind.”
Dakota studied the pictures Marcus indicated. Loops of steel soldered to rusted iron. Lengths of rebar melted against a refrigerator's lid. An odd, half-melted, metallic mess. And yet, in a horrible way, beautiful. Even the victims, how they'd been posed, seemed completely intentional. Not just intentional, but careful. The bodies meant something to the killer. Almost as if he'd dealt more tenderly with them after death than before.
Dakota shuddered at the thought and reached down to take a sip of her sparkling water as the plane carried them towards their destination.
CHAPTER FIVE
As their taxi carried them towards the ten-foot, red brick wall, Dakota could feel her nerves returning. She managed to keep her emotions in check, though, as she thanked the driver, paid him, then joined Marcus on the curb to face the wall encircling their second crime scene.
She nodded, pointing against the gray skyline. “Crane,” she said.
Marcus followed her indicating finger and frowned. “I see it,” he murmured. He shot her a look. “The body is at the coroner's, but they left the metal sculpture intact.”
The two of them approached a metal gate where two police officers stood next to a parked cruiser.
“How's it goin'?” Marcus called out, raising a hand. The cops eyed the giant with skeptical expressions.
“You feds?” one of them asked.
Dakota nodded. Marcus flashed a thumbs up along with his badge.
The cops stepped aside, glancing back towards the yard. “Isn't pretty in there,” an older, grizzled officer said, shaking his head and sighing. “Not pretty at all.”
“They moved the body, right?” Marcus replied, frowning. “It's been eight hours.”
“Yeah, yeah—we moved it,” the old-timer said. “But no way to get the blood stains out of the lime. Or the rust. There's a torture device dangling from the crane. See it?”
Dakota looked past the officer and frowned. As Marcus made small talk, as he was the sort to do, Dakota gave a hurried apology and scooted past the men, moving into the trainyard. The coroner and paramedics were gone. The body was also gone.
But the remnants of the crime scene were all too obvious. Stray gravel crunched underfoot as she craned her neck, peering up at the dangling chain from the crane hook. In the images, the corpse had been hung upside down, the chain wrapped around her ankles.
The killer was helping the woman to elevate... Why else would he have gone to the trouble to pose her so high up. Dakota also noticed an old, rusted train on overgrown tracks, just beneath the floating body.
“So that's how he reached it,” she murmured.
She noticed blood stains on the metal... but not much. She frowned, glancing at the ground and looking along the old train yard. She spotted an ancient office-building with busted windows and a missing door. There were a couple more abandoned cars with paneling gone or tracks stolen.
She also spotted a tent just beneath an arching bridge.
She turned her back on the crime scene and began moving towards the tent. Someone had marked out the spot with yellow tape.
And now, as she drew nearer, stepping into the shadows of the over-arching structure, she frowned. So that's where most the blood had gone. The ground was dark—a rusted hue among the stones and dappling old, worn cardboard. The tent was ripped, torn. More blood there, too.
She glanced back towards the train. The killer had taken his victim here. Had she been sleeping? At the very least it looked as if she'd put up one hell of a fight.
Instantly, Dakota felt a flash of satisfaction.
She'd often thought that if she went down by some bad guy that she at least wanted the chance to get in a punch and a kick or two.
“Anything?” Marcus called out.
Dakota turned and shrugged. “He killed her here but posed her there. Only a short distance away.”
Marcus followed Dakota's indicating finger then nodded. “Guess so.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why pose her over there?”
Marcus frowned, considering the question. “You think it was pre-planned?”
“Maybe... he would've had to know Michelle beforehand, then. She wasn't random if he planned it.”
“I mean... look at that thing,” Marcus said, nodding towards the metal chain. “He definitely was prepared. Used a darn blowtorch by the looks of things.”
Dakota felt a tinge of nostalgia at the word darn. Around Coach Little and most of her neighbors back home, the idea that swearing was anything but a mode of expression never would have crossed their minds. But Marcus avoided cussing, though he often reacted like a giggling schoolboy when others did it around him.
She shook her head. “So if it was planned, then he came prepared. Which means he had tools and scraps in a truck or car somewhere. Think we can get local traffic footage?”
Marcus nodded. “I'll put in a request.”
Dakota glanced back towards the broken tent, the blood stains. She shook her head. “Something else... Michelle fought.”
“Good for her.”
“I was thinking the same. But not only that—look at the blood. The tent.”
“Definitely didn't go quietly.”
Dakota nodded, but then tapped her phone. “On those images you sent, the coroner's, did you notice anything strange about the body?”
Marcus hesitated but then nodded. “Yeah. No wounds except the death blow.”
“Exactly. Almost as if the killer was trying not to harm her.”
“You know, except for the whole murder business,” Marcus said distastefully.
“Yeah, but you know what I mean. The bodies—they seem to matter to him. He took care not to inflict too much damage. Then he posed the body afterwards.”
“Posed it high up,” Marcus pointed out, indicating the dangling metal chain once more.
“High up,” Dakota said. “Exactly.” She frowned now, considering the implications. Why was the killer protecting the corpse? There had been no sign of sexual assault. No sign of cannibalism. Nothing she might normally have expected from such behavior.
Dakota stood in the shadows of the bridge, staring at the bloody tent and frowning.
A loud voice suddenly jarred them from their reverie. “Hey, you two—what are you doing there?”
Dakota turned sharply, instinctively lowering her center of gravity. But just as quickly she readjusted, standing straight. To anyone without training it would just have looked like a little bouncing motion as she turned.
The man walking towards them, though, scowled, moving with a limp and walking with a wooden cane. He wore a cap, with bristles of white hair jutting out from beneath. A long, curling goatee tickled the end of his sharp chin.
“This is private property!” the old man snapped. “Cops will have your hide!”
“We are the cops,” Dakota replied softly.
“FBI,” Marcus added, raising his badge.
The old man suddenly straightened, blinking in surprise. “Oh—oh... Right. Apologies.”
“I'm Marcus Clement,” Dakota's partner said, nodding in a congenial manner. “Mind sharing your name?”
“Yes, of course. Mickey Faber. I'm the manager of this place.”
“This place has a manager?” Dakota said, wrinkling her nose.
Marcus cleared his throat. “I—ah, think what my partner means is this place looks like a bit of a hassle to manage all by yourself.”
“I manage the scrap,” he replied curtly, clearly not at all offended by Dakota's initial comment. “Trying to get the whole place dismantled by the end of the year before demolition comes through.” He flashed a yellow grin. “Almost at a healthy profit just by tearing the whole place down, you know.”
Marcus nodded, looking sufficiently impressed.
Dakota, though, said, “If you manage this place, did you know Michelle Stanton?”
He hesitated now, scratching at his bristly chin. Standing in the shadows of the bridge to nowhere, he looked older now, his face cast in darkness. He let out a little sigh. “I knew Michelle. Didn't know her last name was Stanton. First I heard she was here was last month. I manage a few condemned properties. I don't normally visit, except to help scrappers in.”
“But you knew Michelle was staying here?”
He winced, glancing past the FBI agents towards where the cops remained by the gate. “It—it wasn't meant to be a problem. I told her she had to find another place. But... she seemed so desperate. Told me it was safer for a woman to live behind a lock,” he shrugged, waving towards the walls and the gates. “To be honest, she didn't harm the place. Just sort of slept here. A pretty lady like that, I felt it was the least I could do. Can you imagine a good-looking gal trying to shack up under a bridge somewhere?” He shook his head, clicking his teeth together.
Dakota frowned. “The way you say it, it almost sounds like Ms. Stanton was expecting trouble.”
The man snorted. “A young woman like that, living on the streets? Expect it or not, trouble finds you. She was just trying to stay safe. I didn't see the harm in it.” He glanced up at the crane and winced. “Bad way to go. Wish I'd installed some cameras. I was going to, you know. I thought about it—but just didn't get around in time.” He shook his head in disgust and heaved another sigh.
“So you can't think of anyone specific who Michelle had a problem with? Anyone she might have been scared of? An abusive ex? A stalker?”
Mickey wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Can't say anything like that comes to mind...” He trailed off, then clicked his fingers against the curve of his walking cane. “Now that you mention it, though, one of our contracted custodians has had problems with the homeless in the yard in the past.”
Dakota and Marcus both perked up now, paying attention. Mickey's brow wrinkled in consideration. “Actually, the guy I'm thinking of got into a bit of an argument with Ms. Stant—what was it? Stand?”
“Stanton.”
“Yes, Ms. Stanton. He got into an argument with her last month when he found her. That's when I was brought in. I just... didn't have the heart to make her move. I told her to,” he added quickly. “For legal reasons... But as for enforcing it...” He trailed off and shrugged.
“It was on the docket,” Marcus added helpfully.
“Exactly.” He tapped his long nose. “On my to-do list, for certain.”
“This custodian,” Dakota said, “his job was to keep the place clean, I imagine?”
“Clean, locks checked, mold checked—infestations managed. He advised a few months ago to hire an exterminator. You know, damn rats.”
“And this custodian had an altercation with our victim only a few weeks ago?”
“Month ago, but yeah. Guess that's a few weeks.”
Dakota frowned. “Does this man have a name?”
“Sure. He isn't one of my employees. He's Alec Haines. Actually, the little redneck is scheduled to work at one of my garages in the depot across the street.” Mickey gave a nasty little chuckle. “Bastard's been lying on his timecard. You can tell him I sent you.”
