Drained, page 3
“I have,” I said.
“Good. You and I will get together as soon as we’re done here and go over some other things.”
I nodded.
“Okay, let’s get down to business.” Ball handed both of us a file.
I took the folder in my hands and flipped it open. The cover sheet read SK 138. I assumed SK stood for “serial killer.” I flipped another page in to see photos of a deceased woman lying in a Dumpster, and the next page was an autopsy report and more photos. I kept flipping pages. A copy of the woman’s driver’s-license photo and personal information came next. She appeared to be from a Chicago suburb. The following pages looked to be sheets from interviews with friends and family. I flipped another page—photos of different woman in a Dumpster and then another—three total. The last two victims were three weeks apart and also from the Chicago area. The last victim had been found just two days prior.
Beth spoke up. “These dates…” She thumbed through the pages. “Looks like the first one was a month ago. Why didn’t I hear about this?”
“The local PD never reported it to the bureau. The second two were dumped in the same precinct. They called the bureau after the second victim. The bureau found out about the first in the other precinct, put it together, connected the dots, and notified us.”
I flipped to the pages of the autopsy reports and ran my finger down the page to the cause of death. I looked up at Ball, standing on the far side of the table. “Drugged and drained of blood?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Yeah. The draining of the blood was this guy’s MO when he was active years ago,” Beth said. She flipped to another page in her file.
“Appears it still is,” Ball said. “They found Rohypnol in each woman, which is new. A lot of Rohypnol. It looks like about four or five times what it would take to incapacitate someone. The body dumps are all similar—basically, someplace off the beaten path where there’s a Dumpster. The draining of blood is done by needles—it’s consistent with victims past.”
“Nothing to connect the victims?” I asked.
“There never was on the past victims,” Beth said.
“The new ones?” I asked.
“The local branch is just getting rolling with the most recent ones, but so far, no,” Ball said.
“How many victims were there before?” I asked.
“Thirteen total now,” Ball said.
“Do we have files from the previous victims?” I asked.
“We do, and I’ll give them to you to look over. Those files have been gone over who-knows-how-many times, though,” Ball said.
“Okay. Were there ever any suspects with the previous killings?” I asked.
“Not a single one, as far as I recall,” Beth said.
“Keep in mind we didn’t have the technology then that we do now for hunting people down. It’s a lot harder to hide now than it was even eight years ago,” Ball said.
“Any idea how he was selecting his victims?” I asked.
Ball looked at Beth to field the question.
“I think I remember there being theories in the original files, but that’s it. Nothing was ever proven,” Beth said.
I nodded and looked at Ball. “You said the local branch of the bureau was working on this… How far are they into the investigation?”
“The Chicago branch is actively investigating it but only a couple of days in. They requested us as it’s an open investigation through our department. I told them we’d be at their office tomorrow.” Ball looked at me. “Trial by fire?” he asked.
“I’m up for it,” I said.
“Okay. Beth, this guy is one of yours, so…”
“Absolutely. I’m ready to go,” Beth said.
Ball looked at me. “You guys will fly out in the morning. Jim will arrange everything for you. That’s it. Rawlings, you come with me so I can get you set up on a few things. After that, Beth can get you up to speed on everything we have regarding the previous homicides attributed to this guy.”
“Sure,” I said.
We disbanded and left the office.
CHAPTER FOUR
Brett sat at the breakfast bar in his kitchen, wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a white undershirt. He was fresh from the shower after his daily morning workout. He was just about through with his breakfast—a grapefruit, two eggs, and a chicken breast. He washed down each bite with a gulp of a protein shake. Brett glanced at the clock on the oven—a bit after nine. He’d need to get moving if he wanted to be in the office on time for his first meeting. He lifted the last forkful of chicken to his mouth, chewed, and washed it down. Then he rinsed his plate, set it in the dishwasher, and from the counter, grabbed a piece of paper he’d printed. He made for the basement stairs.
Brett walked downstairs. The lower level of his home was completely furnished, his own personal man cave. The main room held a pair of pool tables, a foosball table, and a pair of dartboards against the left wall. A large bar shaped in an L took up the far right corner. He walked past the large theater seats facing a huge television in the center of the wall next to the bar. A single door stood in the middle of the large room’s back wall. The door led to a short hallway. His home gym was to the right, a sauna to the left. Brett continued past them to another door leading to an area of unfinished basement reserved for storage. In the far left corner of the unfinished side of the basement was a washbasin, some miscellaneous shelving, and his washer and dryer. To the right side was a flight of stairs leading up to the garage. He walked over toward the washbasin and the stainless-steel embalmer’s table standing before it.
Brett reached for a roll of tape on a shelf. He tore off a two-inch piece and taped the paper he’d printed next to others like it on the wall. Brett put on some blue rubber kitchen gloves that were sitting on the edge of the washbasin.
He looked down and to the left. Becca lay in her undergarments on the embalming table. Needles with tubes attached came from both sides of her neck, both arms, and both thighs. The clear plastic tubes held a bit of blood, but most of it had already drained into the basin under Brett’s watchful eye the night prior. Brett liked to keep the needles in overnight though the women generally drained within minutes of having them inserted. Becca was dead and had been that way for at least twelve hours.
Brett pulled the needles from her neck first, then arms, then legs. He lay them inside the washbasin, where he would thoroughly clean them at another time. He turned and grabbed a bottle of bleach and a sponge from another shelf on the wall. He doused the woman’s body and began scrubbing, head to toe. When she was cleaned to his satisfaction, he rinsed her down to wash the bleach away. He took his old Polaroid camera from the shelf, snapped a photo, and pulled it from the camera. Brett shook it in his hand and set the camera back on the shelf. When the photo finished developing, Brett paper clipped it to the page he’d just taped to the wall.
He turned and walked back upstairs to get ready for work, planning to dispose of her when he found a suitable time.
CHAPTER FIVE
I walked in the front door of our red-brick Arlington townhouse. Karen and I had been a little sticker shocked by the cost of property in the area, so we were opting to rent prior to purchasing. I wasn’t the biggest fan of someone living attached to us, but I told myself it was temporary.
“Porkchop!” I called.
I heard thumping puppy feet and the scratching of bulldog nails on the wood floors of the second story. I heard his usual controlled fall down the steps. He turned the corner where the stairwell met the hallway before me. He slid, brindled butt first, into the wall as he turned the corner. His paws swiped off of the hardwood as he tried to gain traction running toward me down the hall. I knelt for my welcome-home greeting. He ran full out toward me, locked up the brakes a few feet short, and slid to a perfect stop in front of me. He licked and slobbered and barked as he received his petting. Then I stood and headed into the townhouse. Porkchop walked directly at my knee. “Come on. Outside,” I said.
I opened the sliding glass door at the back of the house and let him out into the fenced-in backyard, leaving the door cracked open. I knew he would return when he finished doing his business. I tossed my car keys and phone onto the kitchen table, and I caught the time, a bit after six thirty. Karen would be home any minute.
Porkchop reappeared from outside and came to my feet.
I reached down and gave him a scratch behind his ears. He stared back.
“Were you a good boy today?” I asked. “Let’s go find out before your mother gets home.”
I did a quick lap around the lower level while Porkchop followed. I didn’t see any puddles on the wood or anything chewed on. None of the boxes stacked in the corners looked disturbed.
“Halfway there, dog,” I said.
I headed upstairs to give the second story a once-over. Porkchop raced me up the steps and won. I looked over the master bedroom, office, and spare bedroom—again, dog-trouble free.
I stopped in the hall after checking the main upstairs bathroom and looked down at Porkchop. “Well, holy shit. You made it through the day without doing anything naughty. I’m impressed.”
He looked at me and cocked his head to one side.
“Okay, come on, let’s go get you some dinner with a few treats sprinkled on top.”
He didn’t respond.
“It’s dinner time.”
Porkchop spun in a circle around my legs. He knew the words “dinner time.” He liked dinner time.
“Do you want some treats?” I asked.
He about went back-over-front, tearing down the stairwell toward the kitchen.
I headed for the steps, went back downstairs, and fed the dog. The food was vanishing before my eyes in a few seconds.
“Chew,” I said.
He didn’t.
The sound of the front door opening and closing caught my ear and the dog’s. I left the kitchen and turned into the hall. Porkchop was already at my wife’s feet.
Karen knelt and scratched him behind the ears. “Hey, buddy,” she said. Karen looked up at me. “How did he do today?”
“I didn’t find anything anywhere,” I said.
“Good job, Little Chop.” Karen continued petting the dog.
“How was the drive today?” I asked. “I heard the traffic guy on the radio on my way home. It sounded bad.”
Karen stood. She wore a gray blazer over a lighter-gray shirt and matching slacks. A multicolored necklace hung from her neck. She kicked off her shoes at the door. “The traffic was brutal,” she said. “It took me damn near an hour to get ten miles.” Karen freed her black hair from a bun. It fell a few inches past her shoulders.
I walked over and gave her a hug and a kiss. She was holding a brown bag of groceries in her arm, so I took it from her. “What did you get?” I asked.
“Organic chicken and spinach plus a few other things. Basically, everything to make chicken Florentine.”
“I thought we were done with the organic kick?” I asked.
“Nope. I found a nice little market.”
I nodded but said nothing.
“I figured after dinner we could go out and see the town a bit. Maybe do a little dancing,” Karen said. It sounded more like this is what we are doing as opposed to I would like your input on the topic.
Karen enjoyed control, which after almost twenty years of marriage, I’d gotten accustomed to. She seemed to honestly like being in charge of the little things, from food to vehicles to entertainment. The big things in life we always discussed. The truth was while I’d often get crap about my wife wearing the pants, not having to worry about the little things made my life a lot less stressful, and as much as I could take or leave dancing the night away, it made her happy, which made me happy. Karen could still get a little carried away at times, but as far as our marriage went, I don’t think we could be a better pairing.
“Um, about going out,” I said, “shouldn’t we probably deal with the boxes and start getting things organized instead?”
“It can wait,” Karen said.
I shrugged and headed for the kitchen. As I set down the groceries on the counter next to the sink, I said, “Kane called me this morning.”
“Oh yeah? Just to talk or what?”
“Seemed like it. I’ll call him back a little later. I have to think he’s bored just sitting behind a desk.”
“Ah, he knew the job he was taking. How is Callie doing?” Karen asked. “She has to be due any day now.”
“We only talked for a minute. I had to get off the phone. The navigation in the car was acting weird again.”
“I’ll make an appointment at the dealer,” Karen said.
“Or I could just get a different car,” I said. “I’m kind of sick of the Pinkmobile.”
“It was thousands off because of the color. It was a smart buying decision,” Karen said. “But fine, if you want something else, get something else. I was thinking of relinquishing the vehicle-buying decisions to you anyway.”
“Really?” I asked. Karen had picked out my last four or five cars. They had all been awful.
“Yeah. Cars are now going to be your department. I kind of think they should be. Don’t you?”
“Hell yeah. I’m getting something cool, then. Enough of this slow hybrid crap,” I said.
She smiled. “Just settle down. I’m still going to retain veto ability.”
“Damn,” I said. “Oh, I got made fun of for looking like a stereotypical FBI agent today.”
“By who?”
“Coworker. Maybe along with the vehicles rights, I could get clothing rights as well?” I asked.
“Hank, I’ve seen how you look when you dress yourself. That is still one-hundred-percent my department.”
“Fine. You seemed like you were being generous, so I had to throw it out there.”
Karen smiled and walked to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I dropped my hands and held her by her waist.
“So,” she said. “Don’t leave me in suspense. How was your first day? Aside from being made fun of for looking the part.”
“We talked on the phone like four times,” I said.
She ran her hand along the side of my head, staring at me with her dark eyes. “I don’t care. Tell me again,” she said.
“You first.”
“Same old same. Make sure everyone is doing their job. Find traffickers, take down traffickers. Okay, now you.”
“It was fine. I met the team and got acclimated. Learned some things.” I paused. “They gave me my first assignment.”
She furrowed her eyebrows. “They put you on something already? You didn’t mention that part.”
“Yeah, I was waiting to tell you until I was home. I’m going to need to pack tonight. I leave in the morning for Chicago.”
Karen snapped her head back. “You’re shitting me, right? They are sending you out on something after being there a day. For how long?”
I shrugged. “They didn’t mention that part.”
“Hank. Look at this place. We’re not even settled in, and you have to leave?”
“It’s the job, I guess,” I said.
She let out a hard breath and dropped her hands from my neck. She walked toward the stairs to head up to the bedroom and spoke over her shoulder. “Okay, well, we’re definitely going out, then. I’ll help you pack when we get home.”
I followed her. “Sure,” I said. “Sorry that I have to leave.”
“No. I know. It just seems a little rushed to me.” Karen reached the top of the stairs and turned left into the master bedroom. She headed to the closet door and pulled it open before unbuttoning her blazer and grabbing a hangar.
I stood in the bedroom doorway and leaned against the sill. “Trial by fire, or so that’s what Ball said. May as well see how I do right out of the gates.”
Karen hung her jacket and began looking through her dresses for what I assumed was something to wear out on the town.
“Little black one,” I said.
“You think?” she asked, looking over at me.
I nodded.
She pulled the little black one from the hangar and held it up before her. “So are they sending you with someone or the whole team or what?”
“Me and another agent.”
She brushed over the front of the dress with the back of her hand. “What’s he like? Do you think you’ll work well together?”
“Um.” I scratched the back of my head. Karen could be a little emotional on certain topics as of late. I figured being sent out of town with another woman could be one of those topics. We were trying to have a child, and she was taking some things to help us with that, one problem being the emotional side effects of the fertility aids the doctor prescribed. I gave her the truth and braced myself. “It’s actually a she.”
Her head snapped around, and her eyes locked on me. “A she?”
“Yeah.”
Karen looked away. “What’s her name?”
“Agent Harper.” I hoped a title and surname would end the conversation—it didn’t.
“What’s she like?” Karen asked.
“Seemed professional.”
“Oh,” Karen said. “Married?”
“Don’t know.”
She looked over at me and cocked her head to one side. That was a common pose when she wasn’t buying what I was selling.
“You didn’t look for a ring?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Looking for rings on women’s fingers isn’t really something I do.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Well, what does she look like?”
I let out a breath. She wasn’t going to quit with her interrogation.
“Is that going to matter for catching a potential serial killer?” I asked.
“I’m just asking.”
“I don’t know, Karen. Why does it matter?”
“So she’s good looking.” Karen hung the dress back on the rack.
I rolled my eyes and cracked my neck from side to side. I pulled myself from the doorway and walked over to her. She gave me her back and acted as though she was looking for another dress. I wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her on the side of the neck. “Do you really think there’s a reason for you to be worrying about this?” I asked.
