The Collie Murders: A Serial Killer Crime Thriller (4 page)

“I think I should have called you first, but I sort of decided to come over at the last second.” Jon offered her an insincere apologetic look.

Cory handed Jon a flat glare for his trouble. “Just come out with it. All this silence is getting to me.”

Jon ran a hand through his hair and wondered just what he was going to say. At first he’d come to Cory’s place thinking he could talk to her casually, that maybe for once in the year and a half that they’d been divorced, that they could be friendly with one another, but then when it was clear that she wanted to attack the encounter as clinically as if he were one of the corpses on her slab, he decided to take a different approach. Wisely, he avoided mention of David.

“I wanted to ask you about the body that was found today. Did you find anything interesting? Something that might give me a clue as to what sort of crazy we might be dealing with?”

Cory shrugged and picked a spot on the wall above her television to stare at. She replied, “I don’t know, really I don’t. As far as I can tell, the person who did this is a very calculated individual. I don’t believe this was a spur-of-the-moment-incited-by-passion sort of deal.”

Jon glanced over Cory’s face and wished he hadn’t. She looked a little road weary and tired, but beautiful in spite of it. He realized that it had been a long time, possibly a few months, since he’d last seen her in person, and her presence was overwhelming.

Every day, Cory aged into a lovelier version of herself, like a caterpillar coming out of a cocoon to fold out into a colorful butterfly. Since the day he’d first laid eyes on her back in high school, the woman had been the most enchanting human being he’d ever been lucky enough to catch sight of. Talk about incited by passion.

Jon shook his head before speaking. “I thought pretty much the same. The girl who found the body said that our victim had left the store on her cigarette break and never returned. Her car was not in the lot, so the girl thought the victim left early. What that tells me, is that whoever the murderer is, knew precisely when to strike, that at some point they’d planned out how best to attack. What do you think she was she killed with?”

Cory put her hand underneath her chin. “I think maybe some sort of thin wire, like metal fishing line. If I remember correctly, there’s a hardware store across the street from Pete’s. Maybe the killer simply bought their weapon there and walked on over.”

Jon had to consider that a plausible theory. It certainly would have been convenient, and if it was true, then it gave him a place to start. Maybe Old Gary would
remember a person buying wire in his store, or at least might have noticed a person who acted funny or stood out. He moved his hand to reposition himself on the couch when his fingertips brushed the bare skin just above Cory’s knee. He could see the creamy color of her thigh and then higher, where not even a natural disaster would have prevented his eyes from roaming.

“Do you have anything cold to drink?”

Jon watched as Cory’s brows scrunched at him in confusion. Her eyes had been watching where his had been wandering.

“What?” Cory asked.

“I’m thirsty.” It was all he could think to say. If he’d said that he needed a splash of something cold to keep himself from thinking hot naughty thoughts, Cory might have had a colorful word to spit at him and possibly a decent backhand across his face.

Cory moved from her place on the couch and wandered over into the kitchen to see what she might have in her fridge. She was aware that Jon had gotten up to follow her, but she thought nothing of it. So many of the things that they did while they were in each other’s presence felt normal to her because of the length of time that they’d had to get used to one another. It felt as natural to her to have him near her as it was expected that she’d keep on breathing even if she wasn’t aware of it. It was reflex, a thing that happened because it was supposed to happen.

Jon was simply following after Cory, thinking to get his hands on something cold as quickly as possible when she turned from the fridge and bumped into him, he was almost unaware of when his hands went to her waist. The sound of the plastic pitcher she’d been holding crashing into the tiled floor of the kitchen was muted by the sudden intensity of his pulse which decided it needed to reverberate in his ear drums and erase higher forms of thought.

Jon’s hands moved, finding their niche gliding along the warmth of Cory’s torso. They were possessed, itching to once again feel their way along the route they knew belonged to them. Without thinking about it, and because suddenly it was all he could think of doing, Jon bent in and pressed his lips to Cory’s. The instant the connection was made and he could hear her exhaling such a soft sweet sigh of pleasure, his kiss deepened and he was pressing her into the counter as he encouraged her mouth to open wider for him.

Cory was many things except a person that didn’t believe in the immutability of logic. She rarely did anything without thinking it through, though the impulse to go along with Jon’s advance was too strong and overwhelming to fight against. For once, she was going to float with the flow and give in to what she wanted. It had been so very long since she’d been under the spellbinding effects of Jon’s touch; so much so that she’d almost forgotten how the scent of him could be as intoxicating as a spike of heroin hitting the bloodstream.

Cory opened her mouth, consciously allowing Jon’s skilled tongue to dance with hers, and right about the time she might have died from the enjoyable lack of oxygen to her brain, Jon back off and nuzzled his heated mouth against the flesh of her neck. She felt fingers playing with her blouse and didn’t care to object, in fact, her own fingers were finding the snaps and catches of Jon’s clothing in order to facilitate their rapid removal from the heated force of his body.

“Where?” Jon whispered in her ear, the commanding tone filled with husky need.

Cory, breathless, mouthed, “Bedroom,” and she had just enough left to her senses to know that Jon had begun to guide her towards that very place, his mouth keeping a constant connection to some hot spot either along her now exposed shoulders or along the highly erogenous zones lining her neck.

She was aware when her head hit the plush chilled softness of the bed, aware when hands roamed the length of her body in a deft successful duty to remove the clothes from her, though she wasn‘t aware of time or space as a person in their right senses would have  been. Cory had her eyes open, but could see nothing except for the bright colors of colliding emotions bouncing between Jon and herself. She felt as his hot skin pressed into hers, as his heavier weight made it harder for her to breathe in a blissful way. Her hands turned into playful claws as they raked Jon’s back, and she heard his hiss of pleasure as she nipped the flesh of his chest.

Jon felt as if all the things he’d bottled inside of him, all the anger and pain, was now being refocused and reformed into something else, something undoubtedly more beautiful than he had the words to describe. He teased and tasted, relishing the rediscovery of the pure heaven that was Cory’s body. How he’d missed the curved mounds of her breasts, the way the sides of her hips quivered as he touched the skin there, or the taste of the effects of her excitement as the very core of her prepared itself for him.

Her legs parted as easily for him as opening a book, the trust there enough to humble him, and with care he slid gently into the place that needed his touch the most, the searing heat enough that he had to force his patience and grit his teeth against the tension. If he moved now, he’d risk ending the encounter too soon and not allowing for Cory‘s excitement to build, though even in his consideration, Cory was unwilling to allow him to have his way. She moved for him, forcing their connection to its fullest extent, and she lifted to him, the flat of her belly meshing with his for an instant before she fell back to the bed. He moved now, finding the natural music in which to keep his pace with, and as the beat picked up, as the world went white for them both, Jon became lost in the explosion that suddenly rippled down his spine and stole his ability to inhale. Cory followed him, the display of fireworks that flushed her body pink and dotted her skin with perspiration a sight he‘d never forget, her ecstasy exquisite in its thundering release.

Jon collapsed next to Cory, the sounds of their respective out of breath exertion like a soft tune to the rock concert that had come before it. As much as he wanted to close his eyes and nestle into the glory of what had just transpired, somewhere deep in the part of his brain that still clung to reality, Jon knew he had to leave. The second he attempted to move from the bed, to abandon the radiating warmth of Cory’s body, her hand flung out in the darkness and held onto his forearm.

In a voice that sounded so fragile, and nearly unrecognizable as hers, Cory commanded, “Stay.”

Cory felt warm and delicious, as if she’d been baked in a cake. She came to awareness slowly, most likely because her subconscious knew something her conscious mind hadn’t wanted to get around to thinking about that early in the morning. Of course, the boneless feeling in her body told her that it wasn’t actually morning, just as the light shining in her window had already broadcasted. An arm had draped itself over her body, and as she moved to get out of bed, said arm flexed and pulled her in closer to the soft muscled wall that was behind her. Memory came flooding back to her, filling in the empty smiling places in her brain that tried to convince her that all was well in the land of make-believe. She wanted to relax here in this comfort, but the understanding that she had messed up royally the night before pressed on her like an elephant looking for the world’s smallest chair to sit in.

Somewhere in the corner of her bedroom, something was ringing and vibrating, the sound of which, she imagined, was trying to claw its way along the carpet and up the bed for attention.

“That’s my phone.”

The lazy sound of Jon’s satisfied voice jarred her and she immediately stiffened. She didn’t know a graceful way to get out of the situation, and she sure as hell didn’t know what was going to happen once she was out of bed, scrambling for what remained of her pride. What happened between them the night before was a fluke accident, a lightning strike in the middle of a desert. She felt him moving against her, the hard warmth of his body equally as pleasant as it was scathingly awkward.

A second and third phone began to ring and Cory realized that by some cosmic alignment, both her cell and landline had gone off simultaneously. Jon’s phone continued to ring, and by the fourth minute of the most incredible noise to ever grace a human being’s ears, Cory forced herself from the bed in an attempt to gather the sources of the sounds and kill them. Before she could, the sound ceased and she realized that she was standing buck naked in the middle of her bedroom giving her ex-husband quite the show.

Jon sat up in Cory’s bed, stretched and then looked at the alarm clock that she had placed on her nightstand. It was well into the afternoon, they were both probably unprofessionally late for work and he didn’t care. He looked to Cory, caught her blush and then looked away just as his cell began to ring again.

“There’s only one thing that makes us both this popular,” he stated as he found his cell in his discarded pants and answered it.

CHAPTER 5
………………………………..

“Hello?”

Jon heard the lazy tone in his voice and loved it, since it was evidence that he hadn’t imagined the work out session that had transpired between Cory and himself the evening before. The fresh image of her heat-blossomed body in the throes of passion would carry him into the next millennium.

“Jon where the hell are you, man? I called your house eight times, you didn’t answer. You get drunk somewhere and forget how to get home?”

Cory couldn’t hear what was being said to Jon, but she watched him frown and wondered what was happening. If it had something to do with either of their professions, then it was probably a break in the case they were working.

Jon caught the tone in his brother’s partner’s voice, which was a decent mix of exasperation and excitement. “What’s going on?”

The first tendrils of worry began to infiltrate through his after sex fog.

“First of all, where are you?” There was a pause on the line and then a sound as if Louis had expelled the whole amount of air in his lungs through his teeth all at once. “Tell me you
didn’t
.”

Understanding sounded the same in every language. Jon smiled. “I won’t tell if you won’t. How do you know anyway?”

“Cause I’m looking at your friggin’ car outside of her friggin‘ apartment, that’s why. Get your ass dressed and down here right now. We’ve got another crime scene.”

Jon showered, dressed, raided Cory’s fridge and then waited for her to do the same. It wasn’t but half an hour before the pair of them were decent enough to be seen in public. Jon left the apartment first, noticing that Louis was waiting impatiently near his truck. By the time he was walking up to him, Cory was easing out of her apartment and locking the door behind her.

“You really should answer your phone when someone calls it.”

Louis’ face was business disguised as a lion ready to take that final swipe at the gazelle. Pissed off would have been an understatement for him.

“Fill me in. Why are you here if there’s a crime scene to investigate? Where‘s Travis?”

Louis’ face flashed a heated glare before his eyes flitted to Cory and then back to Jon.

He said, “Early this morning, the superintendent of this apartment complex decided to pay a visit to one of his tenants since the tenant was a week past due on her rent. He noticed a smell coming out of the apartment, and curious, he opened the door. He not only discovered why his tenant was late on the rent, but that she’d had a girlfriend with her to keep her company as they both decomposed.”

Louis looked away from Jon before he continued, “As we were processing the scene, waiting on the coroner to arrive, we were kindly removed by some dingle berries from Hadley City who told us that the case was now theirs. All I can guess is that someone called them in, most likely that ass mayor of ours.”

Jon frowned. There was something Louis was gliding over. He could understand that the discovery of three murdered women in a small town might be big enough news that the Mayor’s panties might get bunched so much he’d call in help, but that wasn’t
what had caused the excited near panicked tone in Louis’ voice. Jon asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”

Again, Louis glanced at Cory, possibly to make sure she was listening, and then he directed his eyes to Jon. He replied, his voice hollow, “Man, your brother’s been arrested as a suspect.”

********

In Louis’ cruiser, headed toward the station, Jon’s anger could barely remain contained within the cab of the vehicle.

“What the hell do they mean by arresting him?” Jon said as he slammed his hand down on the steering wheel.

Louis sighed as he looked out of the window of the cruiser and watched as Collie flew by in a rush of election posts and hand-painted advertisements.

Louis answered, “They found out that Travis had a previous relationship with at least two of the victims. They arrested him because he’s the only connection there seems to be between them, since none of those women seemed to have known each other. The third victim is unidentified.”

Jon growled a foul expletive underneath his breath. “I told him that dogging around was going to get him into trouble, that idiot. Were they all strangled?”

Louis shook his head. “The two women in the apartment had been shot point blank in the chest. There wasn’t a sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle insid
e
it was as if those ladies hopped in front of the gun and asked to be done in.”

“How long before the good ole’ boys showed up?”

Louis shrugged. “We were at the crime scene a good while. The coroner had just arrived and was getting his mitts dirty when they waved their city badges and told us to get lost. I have no idea how they knew that the girl from Pete’s was connected, since even we didn’t know, but they asked a few questions, frowned a little bit and then carted Travis off to the station.” Louis clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a sound that meant he was irritated, and he added, “If Travis did this, then I’m my own Aunt Fanny.”

Jon had pulled into the station and was out of the car before he thought to remark on Louis’ comment. The station had marked cars from the bigger city to the north taking and they took up the prime parking spaces. Even as he neared the door, he could see the figures of about five men in uniform meandering all through what appeared to be the remains of the deputy’s work desks and files. They’d torn the place upside down.

As the front door to the station closed behind him, Jon demanded, “Who the hell is running this circus?”

The nearest cop turned slowly in his direction, his crisp suit crinkling as his eyes took in what probably appeared to him to be a civilian, and he said, “Who the hell are you?”

Jon scoffed and stepped forward to make room for Louis who was just making his way inside. He replied, “I’m Sheriff Jonathan Harper, this is my station. I want an explanation and quick like.”

A man moved from around the edge of the hallway leading to the two interrogation rooms they possessed, and judging by his official pickled-rear way of walking, Jon knew he was the chief among the Indians. He was tall, though perhaps an inch shy of him, bronzed from too many days in the sun, and his deep brown eyes whispered intelligence.

“It’s about time you showed, Sheriff. I was just about to send out an APB for you, perhaps with the thought that you might have helped your brother kill off his conquests. Do you think it might be wise to arrest you, too?”

Jon fought the reflex to grab the man and choke the life from him. For one thing, it wouldn’t have satisfied him, and for two, there were more of them than there were of him. He said, his teeth together so he was almost hissing, “Your asinine reasoning aside, what evidence do you have to arrest anyone?”

The man moved to stand in front of Jon and he extended his hand. “My name is Sheriff Martin Pence. I can understand your anger, particularly when our suspect happens to be your brother, however you ought to cool down some before your temper leads you to make some bad decisions.” Sheriff Pence smiled. “Maybe you’d like to ask your deputy some questions? I have a mind that he might talk to you.”

As he was led into the interrogation room where they had Travis handcuffed to a chair, he’d fought hard against the inclination to lose his control. When this was over, he was going to need a series of stiff drinks from his trusty flask.

Travis looked as if he’d been pulled through a car wash by the hairs in his nose. Since the last time he’d seen him, Jon thought his brother had undergone a disturbing transformation. It really was true about what they say of wild animals getting locked inside of cages. No longer than it had been Travis looked as if he’d given up all hope.

“Hi there, bro.” Travis said as Jon took a seat across from him.

“Hey yourself.” Jon replied as he leaned in forward on his elbows against the table that was set between him and Travis. He added, “Heard you had a rough morning.”

Travis smirked. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You going to be okay?”

Travis looked at Jon square in the eyes as he replied, “You betcha. But, do me a favor?”

Jon smiled. It might not be apparent to those who were watching the exchange going on, but a world of information was had passed between them. A brother knew how to talk to his sibling without saying much of anything. Travis was telling him he was innocent, that there was still a job to be done and that he was going to have to do it underneath the noses of these suited braying jackasses.

Jon nodded. “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

“Punch that Pence guy in the face first chance you get.”

********

Cory wasn’t happy that Jon had decided to leave his truck in front of her apartment, but she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. When she arrived at work, she came to a very frayed-looking intern and the devil himself for a boss. The bodies had been in the lab since the morning, waiting on God knew what to be processed, and as soon as Dr. Willis saw her, he set into gnawing on her posterior.

“Do you think that in your job description it states that you are entitled to show into work whenever you wish to arrive?”

Willis’ face was the color of a plum, his tiny round head and beady eyes appeared as if they were about to pop like zits out of his skull. He continued, “If I didn’t need your hands right now, I’d have you fired and barred from ever working as an M.E again. You have a lot of nerve, what with me tolerating you working here to begin with, and with you being a woman to boot. What about the world worries you besides saving for high heels and lipstick?”

Cory shook her head, but kept quiet. She could see that Drew had taken most of the verbal beating as it showed in her eyes and in the redness that rimmed them. Cory took a deep breath, straightened her clothing, and said, “Sir, if you would allow me, I’d like to examine the bodies with you. I was told that they were in advanced stages of decomposition. I don’t think we should wait much longer, do you?”

“I will be heading up the examinations to make sure you don‘t go messing anything up like you‘re bound to do and you will be assisting. If you so much as look off into space during the exams, I’ll fire your pretty little rump on the spot.”

Cory followed Willis into the lab, struck first by the smell that had filled the entire room. The smell coming from a human body that had had a week long to decompose had a kind of rank odor that could have wafted out of Hell itself. The hitch to her stomach, the moderate tilt-a-whirl that seemed to slosh her insides back and forth had her gagging like she was fresh out of med school.

“You going to be okay, or do I need to send in for your hopeless intern to take over?”

Cory glared at Willis behind his back. The man was a monster, the kind of creature outdated by more modern standards of thinking. She could bet that in his day, it would have been a crime to consider a woman an equal. She hadn’t realized before now how much she’d grown to hate the man.

She watched as Willis began to examine the first body, a woman by the name of Heather. Cory had known Heather; she’d lived only five apartments down
from hers. Friendly enough, Heather had a son who lived with her mother because Heather had had some trouble with drugs after her boy was born. The woman had been living in the apartment on her own under a clean-living program and had been scheduled for a custody hearing next month. Whenever Heather had talked about the hearing, her face had lit up like it was the night before Christmas.