Chained Guilt (Hidden Guilt (Detective Series) Book 1) (2 page)

So the actions of a good cop I would never meet, someone who had just been doing his job, had saved my life here in Russia two decades later. I didn’t believe in fate or karma, but if I had, this would be it times two.

“Well, again, thank you,” I said sincerely. “What about the bodies?”

“I will brush your tracks from the snow after you leave. I will tell them when they come—and they will—that I was sleeping and woke to the sound of gunshots. I know nothing more.”

She finished patching me up, and I geared up to leave. Before I left the cabin, I pulled my notepad from my pocket and awkwardly scribbled a note. She didn’t ask me what I was doing. I grasped it in my fingers as I stepped from the door, which closed firmly behind me. Before I left the yard, I tucked the message for Prodinov into one of the dead men’s jacket pockets. I left it sticking out a little so that he could see it. It read:

One day soon this will be you
.

I slowly made my way back to the highway, circling wide around the warehouse where I’d had my run-in with Prodinov. Good thing hitchhiking was as common in Russia as back home. When a compact car pulled over to pick me up, I climbed in. The driver said something about where I was headed. Before tonight it had been a long time since I’d spoken the language but I muttered, “Airport.”

It took a while and several rides, but I eventually made it within walking distance of the airport as the sun slowly rose from the east. I was near frozen, but anxious to get the hell out of the godforsaken country. As I walked down the street that would take me into the warm terminal, I pulled my phone from my jacket pocket. I had a text message from Cap. I accessed it.

Have to cut your vacay short. Child killer here has everyone up in arms.

Vacation?  Yeah, right.  He knew damn well why I was in Russia. I would have to put my personal battle on hold for now.

I had allowed my anger to control my thinking and underestimated what it would take to kill Prodinov, especially here in Russia. Revenge had clouded my judgment.  It might take me two months or two years, but I would regroup and replan. I had the patience and the determination. One day, I would return to Russia or wherever my hunt for Alexander Prodinov took me. One day we would meet face to face, and I would kill him.

1

I sat in my car and watched the officers working the crime scene. Some tried to control the crowd, while others took photographs of the vic. Even though we were all trained professionals, this murder was horrible – even for Police. Channels 2,11 and 13 were here covering the story. Their news vans lined the street.

              Captain Wilcrest had already warned me that this would be one of the saddest things I had ever seen. I had seen some pretty bad ones over the years, so I was mentally prepared for anything. This vic, Emily Miller, age eight, had been kidnapped, raped, cut up, and left in the park like a piece of animal meat. Wilcrest was probably right, and I was not looking forward to it.

              I forced myself out of my squad car and headed across the street to MacGregor Park, where her body had been discovered. Boy was this becoming quite the mess. Little Emily was the second kid killed here this month. We definitely had a serial on our hands, or so it appeared. In a city the size of Houston, narrowing down a suspect was never easy. I had left Prodinov behind in Russia, so I was sure it wasn’t him, but that was all I was really sure about.

              As I got close to the body I noticed fresh tire tracks. From their width and depth, the set of tire marks appeared to come from some sort of van. The tracks were a little wider than those left by your typical SUV.

              “Cap, have someone run a report on rented vans and cross that with people with medical training. Start off with a hundred-mile radius and let’s see what we get,” I said as I walked up behind him.

              “Good idea, David. Whoever did this has definitely had medical training. Those aren’t random cuts.”

              I figured as much before I even saw her body. I was pretty sure the MO would be exactly the same as the first, which was good and bad. Maybe now we could take suspects in this case and compare them to the list created from the first killing. If we found a match—anything—we’d catch our first break. Lord knows we could use one.

              “Porter, it’s bad. We gotta catch this son of a bitch,” a patrolman said as he passed.

              As Captain Wilcrest and I strode closer to the vic, I smelled an unusual, putrid odor. The smell was so strong, it almost made my stomach heave, and I have a strong stomach. I tried to breathe through my mouth.

              “It’s the body,” Wilcrest commented. “Whoever did this poured something all over her little body.”

              “Has the lab finished taking photos?” I said. “If so, let’s get her covered up, please.”

              This murder was horrific. Whoever did this didn’t need a trial, not in my book. Probably explained why I was a cop and not a judge. Criminals wouldn’t like me as a judge. They would be armless, handless, dead . . . or worse. This perp had spared nothing. He had even cut on her genitals. I slipped on a pair of latex gloves, crouched down, and carefully turned her onto her side so I could see the back of her body. It also had been mutilated.

              “What do we got?” I asked, glancing up at the captain. “You got anything I can use yet?” 

              “No, not much.” He shrugged. “A note was left for you—by the killer, I presume. It said, ‘More to come, Porter. Blame yourself.’ That was it.”

              “I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean,” I said, frustrated and angry.

              “Well, hopefully you’ll figure it out, ’cause that’s our only chance here, I think. Someone’s calling you out. You get any serious threats lately? Prodinov, maybe?”

              “No. He’s a killer, no doubt about that, but this isn’t his style. Something about this is different. It’s too complex for Prodinov.”

              Maybe Prodinov was paying someone else
, I thought. Maybe I had underestimated what he was capable of. That was the worst part of it all. People were dying for no apparent reason. It was a game to these sick assholes, and this was probably just another. So far, I was eighteen and zero. No serial had ever called me out and won. None. Prodinov was the only one I had yet to bag. Till now.

              We kept a close eye on web traffic, because there was always lots of chatter there. Hell, Vegas even had a line going on whether anyone could elude me for more than five years. Prodinov was two years in so far. I had recently been exposed to recruitment efforts by the FBI and CIA, but staying home and around my girls was important to me—even more so than upping my arrest record or enhancing the prestige surrounding my name. I knew I could take some office job, do it well, and probably enjoy the hell out of it. But I also knew watching my girls grow up would only happen once. Maybe after it was just my wife and me, I would consider a change of scenery.

              This was the only aspect of my job I hated. I didn’t want to be playing games with killers, but that’s exactly what everyone else had made it out to be. A cat and mouse game with people’s lives. At this point, I didn’t see a way out. Hell, deep down, maybe it was a game to me, too.

              I looked at the note through the Ziploc evidence bag and tried to read it again. It may have been our best piece of evidence. I needed to run a handwriting analysis as soon as possible. I was grasping at straws but would take a break any way I could get it. If this killer was as good as I thought no way I was getting finger prints off this.

              “Whoever did this went out of his way to make sure these two murders were different than anything I’ve ever seen,” I said. “He wanted my attention. He wanted me to know what he was capable of. I’m sure he knows I have a daughter around this age, too, and that probably influenced his choice of victims. The attention to detail, the precision of the cuts, the placement of the body . . .  My mind was already churning.

              “You leave for vacation tomorrow, right? Real vacation?” Wilcrest said with a smirk.

              “Yeah I’m supposed to, but I think I’ll have to send the girls by themselves and stay here to work on this case. Not much else I can do here tonight, but we need to get a jump on it first thing in the morning.”

              “I think you should go, David,” Wilcrest said. “Me and the boys will get started here. I’ll keep you updated to the minute. Besides, it’s only a week, and you owe it to your family. You’ve been putting in a lot of hours, kid. I don’t want to have to tell Miranda you aren’t going. I know how much your family means to you. They need this. You need this.”

              Wilcrest was right. I had been working insane hours. Even more after the first kid was killed several weeks ago. Like him, I sure as hell didn’t want to tell Miranda I wasn’t going on vacation with them. I sighed, nodded, and left the crime scene. I took the long way home, feeling like I needed to stop in at Joe’s Diner, a small coffee shop on the outskirts of town.  A few of my old friends owned the joint, and they always took good care of me.

              They had the restaurant set up like an old sixties malt shoppe: black-and-white checkered floors, red plastic booths with chrome trim, and even an old juke box. The best part was they never made me pay. I would still come here if they did, but what the heck, I figured. Take advantage when you can.  I walked in and Judy, Joe’s wife, nodded at me.

              “Hey, David. I assume you just came from the park where that kid got killed, huh?” Judy said as she walked over with my usual cup of coffee.

              “Yeah.”

              “I heard they cut this kid all up, too?”

              If anything went on in this town, Judy Ballatip, was all over it. I loved her to death, but nothing got past her well-tuned ears. Sometimes I wondered if we shouldn’t bring her on the force, as she always found out everything anyway.

              Judy was a throwback from the sixties era the diner portrayed. She had long red hair, always wore a floral sundress and an apron. Hard to even imagine she and I were the same age. I loved her and Joe like family. Joe and I had played high school football together, and I’d probably kill a man for him without hesitation. Not probably, I would. He was the brother I’d never had. There were things about me that nobody knew but Joe. I’d gotten offers to play college ball, as did Joe, but he gave it all up and married Judy instead. I didn’t understand that until I met Miranda years later. I turned my attention back to Judy.

              “Yeah, it was pretty bad. Can’t say too much else about it, though.”

              “Well you’ve always caught them before.” She offered an encouraging smile. “I’m sure this will be over soon.”

              “I sure hope so, Judy.”

              Judy left to take care of other customers, and I drank my black coffee in silence. I looked around at all the Elvis photos in the shop. Guess I had never paid much attention before. I tried to think of anything about the crime scene I might have missed. There was one thing, one indisputable fact I believed about crime scenes: there was always evidence. Whether I found it or not, well, that was a different story, but there was always evidence.

              After forty-five minutes of vegging, I figured I should head home. “I’ll see you next time, Judy,” I said as I left.

              I jumped on I-45 South and took the long way home. I tried to put myself in the shoes of the parents who lost their kids so suddenly and violently. The pain had to be unbearable. There was not much you could do for a grieving parent, either, especially if you hadn’t felt the pain firsthand. The parents I gave the “your kid is dead” speech to wouldn’t hear a thing past those four words. I could be singing the ABCs and they wouldn’t know the difference.

              When I got home, I eased my keys onto the kitchen table. I found myself still wanting something to nibble on, even after my coffee stop. I opened the fridge but didn’t find much, and cereal didn’t sound too appealing at the moment. I gave up and closed the door.

              I had a strong urge to check on my daughters, especially after the night I’d just had. I crept up the staircase, trying not to wake them. I cracked the door to Hilary’s room. She slept hard, not moving a muscle. I walked over to Karen’s room, opened the door, and stepped inside. I squeezed my body into one of her Dora chairs. I just wanted to watch her sleep. She was a perfect kid. For some reason, Karen and I bonded on more levels than I did with Hilary. People always said parents had favorites even if they didn’t tell anybody. I guess, in part, that was true for me also.

              I sat in Karen’s room for two hours as my mind wandered back to what I’d seen earlier. If I ever caught the person who did this, someone better have a video camera out. It was the only thing that would prevent me from ripping his head off right there on the spot. And it wasn’t a guarantee. Finally, I sighed and rose. I needed sleep. I gave Karen a kiss on the forehead and headed for my room. Miranda was a beauty, even in her sleep. I cuddled up next to her and thanked God for how lucky I was to have her. Then, I tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep.