The Collie Murders: A Serial Killer Crime Thriller (3 page)

If the edges of the wound had been seared or burned, Cory might have suspected the wound to be from a gunshot, but what she pulled out of Amber’s skin was no type bullet that she’d ever seen.

“Now what do we have here?”

Cory rotated the hard object between her first finger and thumb, puzzled. Why would someone have purposely forced something like this into the flesh of someone else? It didn’t seem to be anything other than a small round piece of plastic.

She moved over to a desk with equipment set up on it used for taking closer looks at the kinds of things she couldn’t see with her own eyes. Most of the time, she used the space for examining slides of different kinds of tissues. She opened a drawer and pulled out a magnifying glass.

The edges of the plastic object were smooth, and the shape of it was pill-like. Toward the center of it, there seemed to be a thin line and with a second of inspiration, Cory decided to pull at the edges of the object, not surprised when it came apart. Inside of the small plastic container, there seemed to be a tiny rolled up bit of paper.

“What the hell?” Cory mumbled as she spread the bit of paper out with her fingers. The writing on it, unbelievable that it was there to begin with, was small but legible even to the naked eye. It read:

Number one, from me to you. Enjoy.

The ride over to the crime scene from the cemetery wasn’t very interesting, and if it had been, Jon wouldn’t have expressed his feelings one way or the other, especially not today.

Collie was not a very large town, in fact it had a base population of around one thousand people. In cities where there might be more than a million or more people milling about colliding with one another in their busy lives, one thousand was quite minimal.

The buildings in Collie were storyboo
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the kinds of buildings that belonged in fairytales. Vines climbed up their walls, working their way around brick windows edged in brightly colored paint. There were flowers and hedges in front of quaint signs that invited you in and made you want to stay. Mom and pop stores littered nearly every corner, dotted with the occasional thrift store or antique parlor. When the sun set in Collie it was as if it were going to sleep to begin a pleasant dream.

Jon pulled into the lot of Pete’s grocery and frowned at the people roaming about his crime scene. Police tape had been set up to avoid contamination, but every person with an eye and a nose for someone else’s business had come out of the wood to gawk and comment. The news had probably spread all over Collie by now that one of the local girls had kicked her bucket over.

He got out of his car, locked it, made sure his badge was visible, and instead of heading directly to where he knew his deputies were waiting on him, Jon moved to the front of the crowd.

“Clear on out of here, people. This is a crime scene.”

Several faces in the crowd looked ashamed at being called out as the walking rubbernecking monkeys that they were, but some just stood there as if it would have taken an act of the Big Man himself to make them move.

Jon felt like pulling his gun, maybe waving it around a little in a threatening fashion, but just as he set his hand to the butt of his gun, the people started moving off and back to their cars. It would never cease to spark his curiosity how people, when finding out about something so horrible as a girl being murdered, would take their cars and drive to the place where it happened as if they had to try and be a part of it somehow.

He turned away from the departing crowd and headed toward the smaller group of uniforms behind the yellow police tape. His first impressions of the crime scene weren’t very large, in fact if there had been a body there at all, he would have been surprised. There didn’t look to be a struggle, nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Hey Jon.”

Travis offered him a wave as he sauntered over, his brother’s face looking serious.

“Do we know the victim’s name?”

Jon figured that was a good place to begin. However, the change in Travis’ face made all the difference. It was clear, possibly from somewhere deep in his gut, that his brother had known the girl.

“Travis?”

Travis shook his head. “Uh yeah, victim’s name is Amber Montgomery. Worked here for about a year. She was a local.”

Jon motioned for his brother to come closer. “You know this girl?” It was a safe assumption, regardless. Travis knew most of the women in town; if not by name then in the most intimate ways possible a man can know a woman.

“We had a few dates, nothing serious. She was a sweet girl. Makes me pissed that someone did this to her.”

Jon bet it did. His brother might have liked to sample the pleasures of many female’s flesh, but the respect he had for the opposite sex went something next akin to religion for him. He said his grace to Aphrodite.

“I’m sorry I called you in, but a murder isn’t the kind of thing you get to sit out on, you know?”

Jon gave the scene another look and still he came up blank. He asked, “Where’s Pete? Anyone question him yet? Who was the last person to see the victim alive?”

Travis pointed in the direction of a girl whose hysterical crying could be heard now over the sounds of the rest of the world. If Jon took a vote, he’d wager that people up in a space station could hear the poor thing.

“She was on shift with Amber. Her name is Dana Morgan.”

Jon moved away from his brother and entered the throng surrounding the girl. He set his hand on her shoulder and it appeared as if the girl tried to calm herself. Jon offered her a smile and began gently, “You were friends with Amber?”

“Well, yes. I mean, we worked togethe
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I, I can’t believe she’s dead.” A fresh wave of sound broke out, spiced accordingly with tears. Jon squeezed the girl’s shoulder.

“You were the one who found her, weren’t you?”

“She was just out here, slumped behind the Dumpster. Her mouth was all open, it was,
it was so horrible!”

Jon remained patient. He began, his voice slipping into a golden sort of mellow, “Look, Dana dear, the more you can tell me, the more I can help Amber. I want to find out who did this to her, okay? You think you can tell me what you know?”

Dana sniffled. “We were on shift together. Amber stepped out for a cigarette since she was on break. It was late and we were going to be done in an hour or so. When she didn’t come back in from her break, I thought she just left. She’s done that before.”

“Was her car still in the parking lot?”

“No, that was why, well that was why I thought she was gone. Her car isn’t here.”

Jon frowned. “What kind of car is it?”

“I don’t know! It’s red, that‘s all I ever noticed.”

Jon heard Travis chuckle but didn’t pay him any attention. He directed his gaze back at Dana. “What made you think to look behind the Dumpster?”

Dana shrugged. “I was taking out the trash from the bins in front of the store. Pete wants us to do that when one of us has the morning shift. I went to put the bags inside of the Dumpster when I noticed Amber’s keys on the ground. I, I went to pick up her keys and there she was just staring at me.”

Dana broke again, her tears wetting the collar of her shirt. Her blue eyes were so red and puffy from crying that Jon had a hard time picturing that the girl was able to see him or anything else. He looked to Travis.

“Take Dana home and put a deputy on her.” He looked back to Dana and finally removed his hand from her shoulder. He added to reassure her, “Don’t worry about anything all right? I just want a car on you for the night. Lock your door and call us if you see or hear anything.”

Louis waved a charming hello at Dana and offered his hand as Travis winked at him from behind her back. Jon just hoped they gave the girl a bit of room before they decided to pounce on her. He smiled inwardly at the thought of how tempting it must be going up close and personal with a damsel in distress.

Jon shook his head and redirected his attention back to the crime scene. He had a feeling deep in his gut, for a reason he didn’t understand, that whoever committed this crime was just beginning. He hoped that there was a clue, some insignificant thing the killer left behind that would help him prevent this from happening to someone else.

********
 

The hand that was holding the small message shook and Cory had to struggle to regain her composure. She had no idea what to make of the words written on the piece of paper or the implications the words provided. What did it mean? Was someone going to flit around town, offing random people because of her? Why?

Cory stared at the paper again and a chill ran the length of her spine and settled at the back of her head. She felt cold, and not to her surprise, frightened. She decided then and there, that until she understood what the messages meant, she was going to keep it out of her report. At least, she was going to have to mention the odd wound near the victim’s shoulder blade and the strange object she found placed inside of it, and perhaps hint that the object might be capable of containing something.

She looked at the clock presiding over the room as if it was counting down the minutes to her fate. It told her that it was headed toward early evening and the emptiness of what awaited her at her apartment felt foreboding.

As Cory pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex, barely aware that it was going on twenty-four hours since she’d made the return trip from work, she noticed that there was a slight change in the agenda. Next to her normal parking space was a very familiar vehicle. It was Jon’s truck, the baby he’d insisted on acquiring because every man in Collie should own a truck and it meant that he was more of a man because he could afford a vehicle that guzzled gas like a starving man in a bathtub of pudding.

Cory didn’t know if she was up to the task of dealing with Jon, not after the day she’d had and for so many other reasons she didn’t have the strength to be bothered. She had the thought that maybe she should sleep in her little four door to avoid the confrontation. Just as she slid into her space, she was aware that
Jon was sitting on her front porch, his eyes already telling her that he was not about to leave on account that she was too much of a wimp to deal with him, taking her other plans out through the open driver‘s side window.

She cut the ignition to her Sedan and grabbed her purse. She was almost to the door, her apartment keys in her hand when Jon asked, “So are you going to invite me in, or should I take your lack of greeting to me to mean that I should just follow you right on inside?”

Cory looked at her ex-husband reluctantly. “Just get your butt up and come inside before I change my mind and tell you to get lost.”

Once she had the door open and was inside, Cory took a guilty moment for herself and let her eyes roam over Jon. Attraction had never been one of their issues, that was for certain. All six foot four inches of the man, from head to toe, had the ability to heat places on her that couldn’t be mentioned in polite conversation. Jon’s hair was sandy blonde, like his brother’s, though it carried a bit more of the blonde highlights. Travis’ eyes were a kind of hazy blue, whereas Jon’s eyes were bright and lit from within; sparkling sapphires of the rarest variety. Travis resembled his brother, whereas Travis had a boyish appearance, his square lines still rounded by youth, Jon’s features were masculine and all the more mature, given their six year‘s difference in age. While not as built as his younger version, Jon was definitely streamlined, the carved planes of his body so enticing they were mouthwatering. Given all that, one might never think to look past Jon’s appearance to the man underneath, though if one dared to look, they wouldn’t regret it. Cory never had.

“You’re staring at me as if you plan to gouge my eyes out.”

Cory blinked. Had she been staring? Recovering, she replied, “If I was planning to do that, you’d be blind already.” She pointed a finger at her sofa, where it was beckoning her to plop her weary rear onto it and added, “Sit.”