A Thorn Among the Lilies (11 page)

C
HAPTER
18

I
waited a while after my mother got off the phone before approaching her with my question. I had just gotten home from playing at Dewey's for a change (a suggestion from my mother), when I came in to find her sitting in the kitchen, going over some files. I needed to ask her the question that had been running through my head while I overheard her talking with that detective from Birmingham. “Mom, can I ask you somethin'?”

She looked up. “Certainly.” She motioned to the chair beside her. “Why don't you have a seat?”

I pulled out the chair and climbed on top. I started to think about how to start my conversation, but I couldn't come up with anything good.

“So,” she said, “tell me what's on your mind.”

“Well, I was wonderin' . . . Mom, what's a serial killer?”

She hesitated and I saw her swallow. “Now, who told you about serial killers?”

“Nobody, that's why I'm askin'.”

“Well, someone must've mentioned them for you to even know the term.”

“I overheard you talkin' to that officer from Birmingham on the telephone earlier on. And you was talkin' 'bout a serial killer and I ain't never heard of one, so I thought I'd ask.”

My mother took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The setting sun shining through the kitchen window went behind a cloud, making everything slightly darker. The world felt a bit gray for an instant.

“Well,” my mother said, “serial killers are murderers who kill more than one person. Actually, technically, I think it has to be three or more, but that doesn't matter. One, two, three, ten, it's all horrible. Their victims are generally people they don't know, but the killers usually follow some sort of pattern.”

“What do you mean they follow a pattern?”

“Well, one might only kill college girls with black hair and wearing dresses who he manages to encounter alone on the street. Things like that.”

I thought this over. “The other night when you were talkin' to Officer Jackson, you mentioned ‘rituals.' What are rituals?”

My mother let out another very audible sigh. “Are you sure you're ready for a conversation like this?”

I nodded. “Yes, I'm old for my age. You always tell me that, remember?”

“Okay, well, some serial killers will always murder their victims all the same way. Say they use a gun and shoot them. They might shoot them all in the heart. That becomes their tag or their trademark.”

“But they can be more complicated in the way they kill them, right?”

“
Much
more complicated. And much more horrible. And I'm afraid if I went any further with this conversation you would be havin' nightmares.”

“What sort of pattern does the case you're workin' now have?”

I could tell my mother was considering whether or not to answer this question. Finally, she gave me an answer, but I was pretty sure she left a lot out. “Well, without goin' into the gruesome details, this killer knows how to sew, and either drives or has access to a Chevy or Ford pickup truck.”

“How do you know all that?”

“This is what I do, honey. I'm paid to figure things out.”

“So do you think serial killers are people who, when they're not out killin', still follow patterns in their lives?”

She thought about this, staring up at the ceiling. “That's a very good question, Abe. One I hadn't thought of before. Let me consider it a while and I'll get back to you.”

I smiled. I was always happy when I managed to come up with good questions. I was even happier when I happened to come up with good answers, but that happened less often.

“So, Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“There's a serial killer livin' in Alvin?”

“Oh, we don't know that for sure, honey. Right now we're just speculatin'.”

“What do you base your speculatin' on?”

“The fact that we've discovered two murders, both with the same distinguishin' features that contain elements that point to them happenin' here. Serial killers are habitual. They usually can't control themselves. I am talking to a detective from Birmingham 'bout it tomorrow. I'll know more then.”

“These distinguishin' features. Is that part of their pattern?”

She smiled. “I suppose it is, yes.”

 

The first thing I did with my new information about serial killers was go over to Dewey's and fill him in. I figured, if there's a serial killer in Alvin, and all serial killers follow patterns, me and him should be able to figure out who it is just by watching people. We were good at watching people, and finding the ones who followed patterns every day should be easy.

“So,” Dewey said when I finished explaining, “anyone we see who, say, does their dishes every morning after breakfast, then goes for a jog, then has lunch, then watches TV every day before supper is probably out killin' folk at regular intervals?”

“I don't reckon
every
one who follows patterns kill folk, but I think it's an indication that they might,” I said.

“So you reckon we should ride around town and start documentin' who's doin' the same thing every day at the same time?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Those are the unstable people we have to be careful of. Once we've got a list of maybe twenty potential suspects, I can present it to my mom. I'm sure she'll be super happy when I do.”

“You know, my ma follows a pattern pretty much,” Dewey said. “She even has certain days she does laundry and certain days and times she vacuums. Think she might be out slaughtering folk?”

“She very well could be, Dewey. This whole serial killer thing is so new to me that I don't know who we can trust, if anyone. I'd suggest you start documentin' her behavior, just in case.”

“I'll definitely do that. What 'bout your mom?”

“What 'bout her?”

“Does she follow patterns? Should we be documentin' her?”

“Dewey,” I said, “she's the one tryin' to
catch
the serial killer. She ain't the killer.”

“But how do we know? She might have the best disguise of anyone.”

I thought this over. “Actually, she doesn't really follow any patterns. All her days are different on account of all the different crimes she's constantly tryin' to solve.”

“Oh.”

“All right, I suggest we head out tomorrow after school on our bikes and start documenting what we see. Main Street will be a good place to start. In the meantime, make sure you keep tabs on your ma. I don't want to see her get shot or anythin' in some kind of police standoff.”

“No, that wouldn't be very good. I also wouldn't wanna find out she'd been killin' people. Would make her seem not as nice a ma as she does now.”

“Yeah, I s'pose that's true. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow.”

And with that, I rode back home, my brain quickly switching through all the people I knew in town. Most of them
did
follow some sort of pattern every day. I knew this already without having to go document it. Especially the ranchers. Their days rarely changed. And the more I thought about that, the more convinced I became that one of the ranchers was most likely the serial killer. But then there was Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow, who I know I wrongly accused once, but this time was different. He completely lived his life by a pattern: going into his shop at the same time every evening, leaving it the same time every morning, sleepin' during the day, grocery shopping Saturday mornings. Problem was, if I accused Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow again, my mother would not only not take me seriously; she'd likely get really angry about it.

No, I was sort of stuck when it came to him. I decided not to put him on our list, but to keep a close eye on him just the same. Besides, odds were it was a rancher. There were more of them than just the one Mr. Wyatt Edward Farrow, and they ran through just as many patterns in their life as he did.

Me and Dewey needed a way to prove who it was. But how?

C
HAPTER
19

L
eah sat in Ethan Montgomery's office cradling a steaming cup of coffee and waiting for Ethan to get off the phone. He'd waved her in when she knocked on the door, and she closed it shut behind her. Montgomery's office was plush, with a lot of wood. It had a big window looking out front with wooden blinds he kept open. Beyond that window was a fig tree that was currently being checked out by a hummingbird.

The room also had windows looking into the main room with wooden blinds he usually kept shut. Even the door had a window on it with blinds. Those were shut, too.

His desk was a hulk of a thing, taking up probably a quarter of the room. Leah often wondered how the movers ever got it in here. Ethan continued chatting while sipping his coffee. He leaned back and his chair groaned and creaked, something it had been doing for as long as Leah could remember. She wished to hell he'd either buy a new one or oil this one.

An avid sports fan, Ethan had a television hanging from the top corner of the room opposite his desk. Below it was a side-loading VHS VCR. The other side of the room was taken up by bookcases stuffed with law books.

Leah liked the smell in this room. It had that musty old smell of wood and books that reminded her of how her father's study used to smell before he got cancer.

The ceiling was tiled, and in the center was a big wooden fan that turned so slowly Leah doubted it accomplished much of anything, summer or winter. In fact, it was always on, summer and winter, just slowly turning away the years.

Finally hanging up the phone, Ethan took a big swallow of his coffee. “So,” he said. “I hear you reckon we have ourselves a serial killer livin' right here in Alvin.”

“Well,” she said, “what we have are two victims with the same MO with similar nail scrapings matching the soil in parts north of Alvin along with a high concentration of cedar shavings on our victim. The first victim showed up in Graysville, just outside of Birmingham, but she had scrapings they couldn't pin down. I reckon they're goin' to end up bein' the same as our victim's. I am meeting with their detective later today. The soil samples they found match nothing up there. As you know, the second vic washed up here on Willet Lake.”

She looked at him for a reaction but saw none. “Don't worry,” he said. “I'm following you. So far, this isn't rocket science.”

“Well,” she said. “My guess is that after the first murder, our suspect got scared and tried to cover himself by gettin' the body as far away from Alvin as he could. But when he didn't get caught, he started gettin' cocky.”

“So now he's just leavin' 'em in his backyard?”

“
Our
backyard. And it's just a theory.”

“Why do you say our backyard?”

“Because in both cases there was writing on the chest of each victim that I believe was put there to taunt law enforcement.”

“What did they say?” Ethan asked, suddenly a little more interested.

The body we found, as you likely already saw in the report, had ‘Justice Is Blind in the Eyes of the Lord' written across her chest. The body they found in Graysville said, ‘A Thorn Among the Lilies,' which is a sort of mixed-up version of the Song of Solomon 2:2, which
actually
reads, ‘As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.'”

“Creepy. So you're thinkin' whoever did this just got out of the joint and missed his mother's funeral? Actually, the last quote points to a sister. Maybe there's a woman still in prison who's about to miss her mother's funeral and the brother's a little pissed 'bout it.”

“Hadn't thought of that, thanks.” Leah copied down what he'd said and put it in her book.

“And what else do we have to go on, I mean, besides the eyes?”

Ah, so Ethan had seen everything so far. Leah hadn't been sure how much of the loop he'd actually been in. Judging by his questions, it was really hard to tell. “Well, I've told Detective Dan Truitt, the homicide detective from Birmingham, that I'd work with him on this case. We're gonna trade evidence this afternoon. But so far, we've got the stitched eyes, the nail scrapings, some shoe castings, tire castings, and the phrases written across the chest of both bodies.”

“That's it? Nothing else?”

“No, there's more,” Leah said.

“There always is.”

Outside a dog started barking. Leah turned to look at a man walking his bull terrier, which didn't look like he wanted to be walked anywhere at all. He seemed to be fighting it every inch of the way. When she turned back to Ethan, Ethan's eyes were up on the television, as though he wished there was something playing on it. Anything but this conversation they were having.

Leah wasn't about to let him get away too easily. She still had lots to say.

“Both victims were found with roughly chiseled wooden crosses in their pockets,” she continued. “They also had ligature marks on their wrists and ankles. Their final deaths came from a .22 caliber shot to the right temple. I haven't got the report from Detective Truitt yet, but it looks like our round came from a Beretta Model 950 Jetfire.”

Ethan sat back and his chair complained. “Sounds like you've made this your personal project.
Find the Serial Killer.
”

“I'm doin' my duty.”

“The crosses might just be a signature.”

“What do you mean?”

“The killer might just leave them there as his marking, so you know it was him. He'd know the cross would be something that wouldn't be leaked to the press. It's his calling card.”

“Or he could be a religious wing nut. We've had our share of those throughout the years,” Leah said.

Ethan took a big breath, picked up some papers on his desk that seemed completely unrelated, flipped through a few, then glanced back to Leah. “You do realize you're a significant pain in the ass.”

“I've heard that before.”

“Well, it's fine and dandy that you're investigatin' these murders, 'cept for one little problem.”

“What's that?”

“I know your habits. Don't start goin' out and questionin' everyone who's ever used a sewin' machine or driven a truck.”

“Well, what other options do I have? I mean, obviously I'm not questionin' everyone who sews, but I have to question anyone who fits.” Leah took a sip from her coffee mug.

“All right. Whatever you do, though, try desperately not to get the Feds involved. That's rule one. They'll just take over, and the last thing this town needs is that. What you want to do is pretend
you're
a Fed and profile the subject like they would do. Don't aspire to be an FBI agent, just become one. Number one rule: You're no longer looking for a suspect. You're looking for an unknown subject, or unsub as they say at Quantico.” He chuckled to himself.

The ceiling fan in Ethan's office continued to turn slowly above their heads. For once, the television hanging in the corner was turned off.

“How do I ‘profile' someone? I thought that was spooky FBI stuff you had to go to Quantico for years to learn,” Leah said.

Ethan picked up the paper from his desk again, pretending to read it. “Nah,” he said, “you can do it. It all just comes out of those feelings you carry around in your gut. And
you
more than anyone have those gut feelings. So you really already know how to do it.”

“No, Ethan, I don't know nothin'. Why don't you explain it to me?”

He paused, drumming his fingers on the top of his desk. Leah suspected he was trying to decide how much time he wanted to spend with her this morning. “Well,” he finally said, “tell me about your victims. First, why do you think they were both killed by the same person?”

“There's just too many things in common with their deaths for them not to have been.”

“Like?” Another loud chair squeak as Ethan sat back again.

“Like what I've already told you. Everything. The sewing of the eyes, the message across the chest, the chiseled wooden cross in the pocket. Oh, and they were both kept alive for up to a week before the suspect—sorry, unsub—killed them.”

“How were they killed, again?”

“.22 caliber round to the side of the head.”

“Which side?”

“Both on their right temple.”

“What if there were two?”

“Two what?”

“Unsubs. You're making too many leaps of faith. What if it's a woman? What if it's a man and a woman? Or two men or two women workin' together. One down here, the other in Birmingham? Or what if it's a copycat?”

“There wasn't enough info in either our press release or Birmingham's to have such a detailed copycat.”

“What if it's a cop?”

Leah paused and her breath caught. She never would have suspected a cop serial killer. “You mean a cop doin' both killings, or a cop coming to Alvin to copycat the first killin' knowing exactly what went down?”

Ethan shrugged. “Either. My point is, don't jump to conclusions until you have the evidence to back it up. Right now you have nail shavings possibly putting both victims at the same place and that place
could
be in the forests of northern Alvin. There's not much up there. Can't imagine spending seven days alone or with a hostage all bound up with her mouth duct-taped shut.”

Suddenly Leah felt nauseated. She had a sudden urge to vomit. There were just too many potential suspects. “This is a big case,” she said. “Bigger than I thought.”

“It happens,” Ethan said, nodding. “And your first suspect killed his victim sometime around September twenty-fourth, according to the
Birmingham Times.
”

So, Ethan knew a
lot
more about this situation than he was really letting on. Leah found that very interesting. “Right. I am meeting with Detective Truitt this afternoon and we will find out exactly when the victim was discovered.”

“Pretty much two and a half months apart. That means if we
are
dealing with a serial killer, you probably have three weeks to a month to figure out who it is before he gets to number three.”

“Now how did you figure that out?”

“Because I've read about serial cases. Killing is about power and about thrill, and the more the suspect kills the more power and thrill he feels. He can't help himself. He's like a drug addict. He will kill more and more often to keep the feeling goin'.”

“Our girl had a lot of booze in her and had been drugged with roofies. Folks that knew her referred to her as a ‘loner.' Maybe this guy targets girls in bars who are by themselves. Drinkers. Heavy drinkers. Easy prey. Especially if he can drug them before taking them.”

“Okay, you're usin' your detective gut. Good. Keep going.”

Leah took a big breath. “They were both killed the same way. With their wrists bound and tied lying somewhere in sawdust. It could be a barn, a farmhouse, anythin' like that.”

“What makes you think they were lyin' down?”

“I don't know, I just . . . there's no indication of them bein' tied
to
anythin'. I suppose they could've been propped up, or tied to a chair. Then the killer unties them before bringing their dead bodies out to be dumped. Having them seated would make it easier to stitch the eyes.”

“I think they were tied to chairs,” Ethan said. “Otherwise, they would wiggle like fish during the sewing, making it almost impossible. That is, unless they were unconscious, but I think our killer is the kind of guy who would want them conscious through the process.”

“They'd be screaming, but we found residue of glue around Mercy Jo's mouth that matches the glue used on duct tape. So that took care of any sound she made. It's interesting that he took the duct tape off before dumping the body.” Leah finished her coffee. Above her, the wooden fan continued to slowly turn.

“Yes, I saw the duct tape in the report. Hence my earlier comment.” Ethan came forward, his big arms landing on his desktop. “So your guess is he drives them to the dump site after killing them.”

“If I had to guess, then yes. That's what I think.”

“Why stitch their eyes closed?” Ethan asked.

“No idea. ‘Justice Is Blind,' it said on the chest of our vic. I believe that alludes to him blinding her. But in the first killing there's no reference to blinding. To be perfectly honest, I don't know, Ethan. I've thought that one over and nothin' 'bout it makes any sense.”

“Think 'bout it some more right now.”

She gave him an answer right away, the one she'd been playing with for some time. “I think they are blinded so they won't see the rest of it.”

“The rest of what?” Ethan asked.

“Their deaths bein' played out.”

Ethan nodded. “That might make sense. Why would the killer not want them to see the rest of it, though?”

Again, Leah had this one pegged. It was the only thing she'd come up with since trying to solve these murders. “To save them havin' to go through the trauma of witnessin' what he was 'bout to do. So they don't see the shot comin'.”

Ethan leaned even farther across his desk, as though trying to get as close to Leah as possible. “So you're sayin' this person who stitches their eyes shut, then after keeping them alive in agony for six or seven days before shootin' them in the head, is full of compassion?”

Leah sighed. “I told you I wasn't good at this.” She went for another sip of coffee, then remembered she'd finished it.