The Collie Murders: A Serial Killer Crime Thriller (5 page)

Now, Heather was a bloated, barely recognizable mass of a human being, the subcutaneous fatty tissue oozing out of places on her body where the decomposing gases had torn the skin open were yellow and reminded Cory of honey. The wound in her chest was the obvious cause of death, a star-shaped brand marking where a gun had been fired point blank at her. The bullet probably shredded its way through the chest and then lodged somewhere within the body. It wasn’t a nice, or pretty way to die, but at least it had been quick.

Dr. Willis took his frail looking arms and lifted Heather so that she would then roll over onto what appeared to be her side. Cory moved in closer, interested
against her better judgment, to see if there would be that strange little hole in her shoulder. She couldn’t imagine that it would be there, since the victim found in the parking lot had been strangled and Heather had been shot. If there was a serial killer running on the loose, they would stick to one method of killing and only one method. Right?

Cory had to blink as her eyes took in the splotchy colors of the skin of Heather’s back. She’d been found lying against the far wall of her apartment facing the door, her eyes wide open looking to greet anyone who ventured in. The way she’d sat had formed the discoloration on the bottom side of her showed where the blood in her body had settled. It would prove that Heather hadn’t been moved after she’d been shot, that someone had gone into her apartment and murdered her.

“What is that indentation there? Dr. Lance, come shine a light where my finger is resting.”

There on Heather’s back, obscured by bloated tissue, was a small circular hole with smooth, surgical edges. Cory could tell what it was even before she found a pen light to do as Dr. Willis had commanded.

“Hold it still, woman.”

Cory hadn’t realized that her hand was shaking or that the bottom of her stomach had given way so that her insides now resided on the tiled floor. The room itself was spinning, warning her that something significant was about to happen. As she thought this, Willis pulled out a small pill-like plastic object from the hole in which she’d illuminated for him.

Willis pulled his tape recorder, pressed the record button and began speaking, “Small cylindrical foreign object located in the upper deltoid muscle of the right shoulder. Possible projectile.” He then pressed stop on the recorder and dropped the plastic object into a sample bag.

“Take this and see if you can scrape off a slide for me. I want to know what that is made of and what it might be or have belonged to.”

Cory took the bag from him, not bothering to tell him that she already had a good idea of what it was and moved off to the slide table. Instead of picking out a magnifying glass of a slicer, she removed the little object from its bag and pulled it apart. As before, there was a message inside. As she read it, her breathing began to speed up.

Number two, coming for you.

Jon drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his brother’s cruiser. The atmosphere inside of the station was too heavy. He’d wandered out to the cruiser to keep from going on a killing spree to murder duck tarts. Louis was sitting next to him, keeping his eyes directed out at the parking lot.

“What do you want to do?”

Louis’ voice had calmed down somewhat, but Jon could tell that the man, despite his predilections with women, was a fierce friend and a good man. Louis had been partnered with Travis since they’d both joined up two years ago and Louis was more like an adopted brother than a friend to either Travis or Jon. It was too bad Louis’ last name was Kale instead of Harper.

“I don’t know. I’m just drawing up blanks wherever this is concerned. Where do we look when there’s nothing to point us in the direction we need to go?”

The feel of the ribbed padding of the steering wheel as he squeezed it in his hands made him feel frustrated. Louis had made a good point, a point that he’d already put to himself a hundred times. Jon replied, “There is a lead at the hardware store across the street from the grocery store. I think it’s safe to assume that all three of these murders are related.”

“How do you figure that?”

Jon scoffed. “Louis, this is Collie. When was the last time someone was killed in this town?” Jon saw Louis shrugging and he added, “Precisely.”

A hand slapped itself against the glass of the driver’s side window. It was slender and manicured, the nails colored a cute pink. Just as Jon registered the hand, it lifted and slapped again.

Instead of saying anything through the closed window, since at least for today, nothing was going to be that surprising, Jon pressed the button on the door rest to slide the glass into the door. Jon could see the body of a girl, a rather beautiful girl peering down at him with tear-blazed determined amber brown eyes.

“May I help you?” Jon was nothing if not curious.

“Sheriff Harper?”

Jon stuck his elbow on his door and lifted an eyebrow. “The one and only. What do you want?”

“My name is Abigail Bradley and I believe you have my boyfriend in custody.”

Jon sighed. This was just not his day. He couldn’t remember all the times he’d had to turn girls down because Travis hadn’t liked to hurt the feelings of women. He’d probably told the girl he was going to see her when he was off duty and she was irritated that he was being held up. The girl looked the part of the stressed-out mall rat whose whole life probably revolved around which of her shoes matched with which purse.

“Look doll, I’m sure he rocked your world, bu
t
”

“
Excuse
me?”

Jon felt a hand on his left shoulder and then he was being pushed back into his seat so that Louis could lean around him and get a look at the girl at the window. He grinned when their eyes met.

“You the girl he’s been telling me about, the one who’s got him on the hook for good?” Louis waited for the girl to nod, and then he directed his eyes to Jon.

“I think you might want to listen to her. She’s Mayor Bradley’s daughter.”

Jon waved his hand at the woman to back away from his window, gave a glance at Louis and then hoisted himself out of the cruiser. Just what had been going on underneath his nose was anyone’s guess. He never would have expected that Travis would keep a girl longer than an evenin
g
his version of a relationship was allergic to the sunrise.

Jon sighed as he let his body rest against the cruiser. “All right, spill.”

Abigail huffed, as if she were preparing for an Olympic foot stamping event for spoiled brats, and she said, “He couldn’t have killed anyone because he spends all his off duty time with me and he hasn’t been with another girl except for me for the last three months.”

Jon felt his brows lifting off his eyes in surprise. Three months? Jon frowned. “If he’s been dating you for that long, then how is it that this is the first time I’m meeting you?”

Louis answered Jon’s question as he walked from around the other side of the car, “Because of who her daddy is, right Abby? I bet he’d have a heart attack knowing who his little girl is running around town with.” He glanced at Jon, “No offense, buddy.”

Jon shrugged, “None taken.”

“My father makes dating anyone difficult, so what? I didn’t want to make trouble for Travis. As it is, you got more on your hands than you realize. My father wants this stuff hushed out and dealt with quick because of the elections coming up. He doesn’t want the people to think he’s not able to keep them safe.”

Jon put a hand to the bridge of his nose. Abigail’s words made a lot more sense than he wanted them to. He knew the Mayor, knew the type of man he was. Marshal Bradley would step on his grandmother if she was in the way of what he wanted. It also made sense why the Hadley boys were keeping roost inside of his station. Hadley was close, it was a bigger city and it held auxiliary force for the town of Collie if any major event happened and they needed the extra men. On any day of the week, Jon knew he had about five men at his disposal, more if he tapped the trainees. However, Hadley had a regular force of about thirty.

Jon gave Abby another glance over. He couldn’t see what Travis saw in this pretty packaged brat, but then, Travis had a way of seeing people for who they really were and not for what they appeared to be.

He said, “We’ll take care of things, don’t worry. The most they can do to him right now is drill him full of stupid questions and try to make him admit or say something in their favor. The worst thing that Travis has against him is his reputation.”

“That’s why I’m here!” Abby emphasized her words waving her arms around like a lunatic.

Jon smiled as he rubbed his leg. There it was, a kernel of something interesting peeking through her exterior. Spunky, wasn’t she? He said, “Look, you can go in there, give them what you told me, but I don’t think they’ll let him go until I find someone to take his place. If it’s like you say and your father called in the auxiliary force for Collie, then he wants Travis to take the hit. They probably won’t listen to you.”

Louis broke in, “The best thing you can do for him is not make him worry about you. If your father is like you say he is, then he won’t be happy that you’re throwing yourself on the spikes for Travis. Everyone will know that you two have been together if you provide him with an alibi.”

Abby’s eyes watered but it was clear she was forcing herself not to cry in front of the two fully grown men she’d just met. She said, “So there’s nothing that I can do for him?”

Louis smiled softly, a smile that said he knew what she was thinking and that he felt sorry for her. It was a sign to Jon that there was something more going on with Travis and Abby than what met the eye.

Louis put a hand to Abby’s shoulder. “You can make things easier on him by not making him worry about you.” He paused a moment and then smirked. “You could spend some time with me, if you wanted to. I can take your mind off things.” He waggled his eyebrows for emphasis.

Abby hauled off and kicked Louis in the shin, so hard, that he had to hop around in a circle looking like a one-legged circus monkey.

“You’re lucky I didn’t aim that somewhere else.”

“I was joking!” Louis managed as he nursed his bruised shin.
 

********
 

“You’re taking too long to scrape that slide, Dr. Lance. Come over here and give me a hand with this other one. This woman must have weighed a ton
before
she was dead, I can’t imagine what she weighs now.”

Cory took a deep breath and put the note inside of a drawer where she‘d stashed the other note. Eventually she’d share the evidence with the others, there wouldn’t be a way around it, but the fear of someone possibly coming after her had her wanting to take things slowly. What if the killer was someone close to her? She wondered briefly, in a ditch effort to relieve her anxiety, if the notes were meant for her or for Dr. Willis, if she was a psychotic serial killer offing random women, Willis would be the first spot on her hit list.

She turned from the slide table and inspiration struck her like a club being wielded by an invisible hand. The first victim had been killed at Pete’s grocery and she’d been a counter clerk. Before she’d gone off to med school, right out of high school, she’d worked at Pete’s for a stint to have some cash at her disposal. For another coincidence, the location of where the other two were found, the very apartment where Heather and the nameless woman were found, was the same apartment her mother had rented while they were looking for a new home in her senior year of high school. In fact, Cory had remarked to Heather the first time she’d met her that the woman was a far better housekeeper than her mother had been.

Cory put a hand to her mouth, now certain that the killer, whoever they were, was someone who knew her and had known her for some tim
e
at least as far back as high school.

“
Now
, Dr. Lance.”

Cory made herself move to where Dr. Willis was standing with the second victim. He’d already gone over the body with the woman on her back, and as he’d insensitively commented, the woman had been on the heavy side while she was alive. She wouldn’t have called the woman “fat” since that was not what she was. Thick, was a better word, and possibly the term ‘curvaceous” was more flattering, Cory didn’t know, but she did see that death had not been kind. With surgical gloves, she placed her hands to the woman’s shoulders and with Willis, they were able to lift her on her side.

As with Heather, this woman had died sitting up, the blood settling on the underside of her body. Cory had the image that both women had been lined up on the wall they’d died against and then were shot execution style. Again, as with Heather, and because Cory’s eyes were scouring the unidentified woman’s flesh as if she had laser scanners for eyes, there was the pencil eraser sized hole on her right shoulder.

“What is with these wounds?” Willis mused as he dug another plastic pill out of the victim’s flesh with tweezers. Willis handed the removed sample to Cory as she helped him set the woman once again down on her back.

“I am going to let you finish up here, think that you are equipped to handle that much?”

Cory nodded, not bothered at the moment by Willis’ sniping. She was more concerned with what the third message was going to say. Willis left the room his concern not directed at Cory or what she was going to do once she was gone but more with what he was going to do once he was at home.

“Probably sit on his lonely ass and stare at a wall until he slips into a coma if I’m lucky,” Cory mumbled to herself as she again returned to the slide table. The snarky sarcasm she realized, was the effects of the effort her mind was attempting to keep her from coming unraveled.

“Is there something I can help you with, Dr. Lance?”

Cory set the plastic cylinder on the table and wheeled around at the sound of Drew’s voice. She was looking around the room as if she’d walked in on a display at the zoo. Something about the expression on her face was creepy to Cory, but not completely un-Drew-like.

“I think I have a handle on it.”

Drew smiled, her white teeth glinting underneath her pale lips. “I know you’ll solve it, Dr. Lance. Who else could do better than you?”

Cory watched Drew for a second, wondering why she was keeping that smile on her face. She was dressed as she normally was, drab khaki pants with a patterned flower blouse, a white coat draped over her like a superhero’s cape. Drew didn’t look out of place, she didn’t leave an impression. She was like a tree in a park or a piece of crumpled paper on a sidewalk. A thing that went with the picture. The smile though, was eerie.