Entropy (20 page)

The only other person attached to the investigation, other than local officials and the coroner, was a civilian industrial scuba instructor. Apparently he had been called in after the discovery of the first victim when a certified diver could not be located, and a decision had been made to continue to use him when further victims were discovered. In his record, it was stated that he had aided in the recovery of a body after an industrial drilling job. I felt sorry for him, being involved in something as disgusting as this.

Despite what you initially wanted to believe, cases like this fundamentally changed you. It distorted everything you once respected, and manipulated your perspective on love and passion. In fact, it eventually poisoned anything you once held dear, no matter how strong you thought you were. Because of what had happened, I now found being around children anguishing and demoralizing.

The case file was expansive and well-documented. Initially, it was made up mostly of photographs of known sex offenders, possible suspects, and other persons of interest. As the murders continued and escalated in brutality, even though the circumstantial evidence piled up, there was not enough to positively identify a person of interest, or establish a clear motive or pattern to the seemingly random killings. In the beginning, based on confirmed alibis, at least 50 people within a 200-mile radius were eliminated as suspects. There were hours of wiretaps, several transcripts, telephone records, but no real physical evidence that would be needed for a successful prosecution. I tossed through the photographs, and read over the psychological profile that was issued by the F.B.I.

The perpetrator is over the age of twenty-five and most likely unmarried, but this fact should not eliminate potential married suspects. It's possible that the suspect could be married, but uses it as a cover. Look for a past history of abuse as a child, by member or members of his family. Search for a history of prior arrests if a suspect is identified. He rarely socializes with adults, choosing to identify with children instead. Establish a pattern if one has not already been discovered of the age and gender specifics of the victims. Most importantly, if crimes continue, look for someone who has access to children though field trips, parties, teachers, babysitters, businesses who employ minors, social workers, members of the clergy, etc. But be wary of stereotyping the above positions. He could be aided by other molesters; i.e., sex rings, trafficking and/or internet profiling. Most likely, the suspect is highly intelligent and articulate, and needs to be considered extremely dangerous.

Collections of pornography were a beginning. Possible leads existed in published references to child development, deviant behavior, missing children, police procedure, and photographs. The investigating detective had left unintelligible handwritten notes in the margins of the psychological profile. It looked as if it read
who was he
? There were allusions regarding
public urination, exhibitionism, scatophilia, sadism and coercion
. I could read other words, such as
violent, dangerous and dissociative, costumes, drugs, alcohol and remnants of clothing.

Who was I?

Jonathan Levin. Arrested in May, on suspicion of lewd behavior when caught repeatedly frequenting a local playground near a school. Before being arrested was seen fondling himself through his clothing, before exposing himself to several women and children. Was released less than a month later when witnesses failed to testify, and posted bail after undergoing a psychological evaluation. Current whereabouts unknown.

Pedophiles had a tendency to communicate with one another, and frequent places where children gathered. I thought that the suspect, or suspects, lived or were employed locally, and had seen all of the victims at one time or another, prior to them being murdered. Even if he was stalking the victims indiscriminately, he had to have been watching children. Not to mention the fact that a good number of the bodies were discovered in or near areas of water that were either dilapidated or abandoned. Someone knew the area in detail. It would be nearly impossible, but I wanted to search census databases for the last several years, for people who may have relocated from the area.

I sat quietly on a park bench and watched a group of children in a playground, focusing on the other adults and the environment around the innocence, rather than the children themselves. It all appeared innocuous: children laughing on the swings, playing in the mud; women who were sharing subdued conversations while fastening child harnesses and shoulder diaper bags. But everyone knew that something disgusting rested just underneath the surface. There was no changing that, and no matter who was apprehended, it could never go back to being what it once was. None of us ever would ever be the same again. Mistrust had poisoned everyone.

***

The flames flared up, fed by the latent chemicals in the composition of the photographs, and rolled across the distorting images of suspects and buildings. I accidentally burned a photograph of us at her sister's wedding. I leaned closer and tried to save the vibrant colors of the gorgeous dress she had worn but it was too late. My wife Noemi's hair blanched and dissolved into ash, as if aged rapidly and unnaturally. Within the next twenty-four hours, an arrest warrant was going to be issued for a man in connection with the murders. Most of the undercover surveillance that I had attained was responsible for him being named the prime suspect in the case, and would be used by the prosecution. The District Attorney was going to charge him for all of the bodies discovered: multiple counts of murder in the first degree. His lawyer would no doubt try to plea that his client was “not guilty by reason of insanity,” because of the inherently violent and sadistic nature of the crimes committed.

The child pornography downloaded onto my laptop, and the explicit photographs and films shared with suspects were also being destroyed. I had already handed over the backups. In the deep corner in our living room, I had leaned up against her leather ottoman, and was tossing through the remaining grainy images, sick representations of manipulative shadows hovering over innocence. During the case, I had seen endless cases of sodomy, abduction, rape, molestation, incest; a horrid laundry list of physical abuse and torture. Photographs, videos, webcam images and sick poetry. The images were parasitic and unavoidable. Most people couldn't stomach it. It wasn't something that you ever wanted to experience or be accustomed to seeing. Sleeping had become increasingly harder for me. Children embraced by agony and pain now took over my dreams with indiscriminate nightmares. I wanted to scream. The things that I had seen had steadily seeped into my skin and corrupted me.

The light from her reading lamp bled down along the molding and walls, and across to the base of the stone fireplace. It flickered over the surface of the hardwood floor. In its reflection I could see partial movements, quick random flashes of light, and the slights and variations in the texture of the floor. I thought I'd look up and see her coming across the room again. Noemi had discovered me here several months earlier, obsessing over scene diagrams and evidence, searching for an end and a beginning to everything, unable to determine or recognize one thing from the other.

“What are you doing up?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to wake you,” I said, hurrying to hide the crime scene photographs and evidence. There was a distant look of disappointment in her eyes. “I didn't want you to see this,” I added.

“See what?”

“You don't want me to answer that,” I half pleaded.

“It doesn't matter if I see them or not. I may not see the photographs or whatever it is you have there, but I feel it every time I touch you, and see it in your face every time you make love to me,” she said. She crouched down and stoked the embers of the fire. The snap and crackling of the wood echoed across the vacancy of the room. “Whatever it is, whatever you're experiencing, it's ruining us,” she said.

“I can't do this right now. Please go back to bed. I promise I'll be in soon.”

“That's what you said last night,” she said, turning her back to me. The moonlight sliced through the skin and bones of her spine and shoulders. “This thing has been going on for four months.” She wanted me to touch her, to open up and need her. When I didn't, she stepped back towards me and rested on the floor on her back, her lingerie lightly touching the sides of my ankles. “It doesn't have to be you.” Her body burned in the light, as if immolated by a high sun as she lay in a field of peaches.

“What doesn't?” I asked.

“The one who ends this, catches him,” she said. “Haven't you sacrificed enough for the Bureau? Haven't
we
sacrificed enough?”

“I'm not doing this for the Bureau. It's different this time.”

“What makes this case different from all the others? Look at the scars on your hand, your back,” she said, holding my hand. “You burned yourself deliberately, for Christ's sake.”

“It's different. You asked me to be honest with you about what I did. And against my better judgment and everything that I was taught, I did. But I'm not in the middle, out there finding the bodies, struggling with the consequences. I'm only consulting.” I said. “There's no danger in this,” I added.

“Look at you. You're sweating and your hands are shaking.” She spread herself across my legs and ankles, and passed her lips affectionately and sympathetically over the scar on my leg, not knowing that it was caused by a gunshot wound.

Who am I?

Peter McDonnally, small time con artist. Arrested with three other men for the attempted holdup of an armored car. Transferred to another correctional facility after four years in solitary confinement. Last seen living in New Jersey, walking with a profound limp after sustaining a leg injury from a gunshot wound during a failed holdup attempt. He is still wanted for questioning over the robbery of jewelry stores in Missouri, Alabama and North Carolina. Current whereabouts unknown.

“I'm worried about you,” she added.

“Nothing's going to happen to me,” I assured her.

“That's not what I meant. What about us?” she asked.

“Do you love me?”

“You know that I do,” she said, moving my legs apart and nestling her body inside mine.

“We'll survive this. It's almost over.” I cupped a hand around her chin and leaned closer, perspiration from the humidity in the room falling across her lips. I kissed her hard, violently. She lingered against my face, her delicate features melting against the abruptness of my imperfections. I spun her around and ripped her lingerie from her body, and explored the muscles in her abdomen. I grew inside her as she wrapped her legs around me.

But in her voice I could hear the indistinct screams of terrified children, the light, audible whispers of terror muted by her arousal. In her lips I could taste apprehension, as well as desire. However Noemi pulled me through her body and I lost myself inside her, knowing that there were things that I could never tell her; that less than twenty minutes ago I had been watching a video of a young girl, who was probably no more than fourteen, being forced onto her hands and knees to gratify her captor. It was disgusting, trying to pretend to be aroused by that violent image, and carry on a dialogue with a sexual offender.

I now hated everything about myself, but not here, not right now. With Noemi I was able to live in the moment and forget – even if just for a little while. I licked her throat, our bodies aroused, the recollection of who I had been several minutes ago, now lost in the violence of the photographs scattered around us, like dead leaves in autumn. Long strands of her hair spread out against an overturned picture of an eleven-year-old unclothed Asian girl, her arms tied behind her back by a red sash. There was a story there, in that photograph, which I could just not tell her.

I closed my eyes and tried desperately to hide in the tenderness of the skin beneath her collarbone.

“Leave those people. Stay with me,” she said, my head resting across her breasts. I assured her that I would and slept peacefully for over an hour as her fingertips traced tiny lines over the scar from the burn, the imperfections below my shoulder blade that was initially meant to represent God, but now meant something else altogether.

Who was I?

William McCoy, convicted arsonist responsible for the deaths of nine church parishioners in Pittsburgh in 1999. As previously documented, he was wanted for the destruction of an abortion clinic in 1997. First arrested in 1995, for trespassing on private property with other protestors at a women's clinic in Alabama. He is on the Federal Bureau of Investigations domestic terrorist list. Current whereabouts unknown.

The burn inflicted on my shoulder was almost seven inches across, and had been surgically manipulated to resemble the face of the Virgin Mary. That was the way an in-depth psychological profile suggested an agent be introduced to the people who claimed responsibility for the arson-related destruction of several women's clinics in the south, in 1993. Their motives appeared to be based solely on religious grounds. That same group was also believed to be responsible for nearly eleven deliberate fires in at least eight different states.

Initially their actions had only damaged property. Yet their intentions had escalated to include intimidation, assault and murder. Three people had been killed in a fire that ripped through a clinic, and ruined an adjacent building which housed painting supplies. It had happened over a year earlier, in Mississippi. Notes were retrieved from three of the crime scenes which referenced specific passages in the Bible, written on the backs of religious postcards. The postcards had images of manipulated paintings. The arsonists believed their actions were based entirely on the word of God and that they were his disciples. Fanaticism bred hate. And such disregard and contempt would only widen and burn.