Once Taken. Blake Pierce

all talk of yesterday’s murder, her mind turned toward more familiar concerns.

      She hadn’t thought about Peterson all day until now. He was out there, and she knew it, but nobody else believed it. Had she been wise to leave things like that? Should she have tried harder to convince somebody?

      It gave her a chill to think that two murderers – Peterson and whoever had killed two women here – were at this very moment going about their lives however they pleased. How many more were out there, somewhere in the state, somewhere in the country? Why was our culture plagued with these warped human beings?

      What might they be doing? Were they plotting somewhere in isolation, or were they comfortably passing their time with friends and family – unsuspecting, innocent people who had no idea of the evil in their midst?

      At the moment, Riley had no way to know. But it was her job to find out.

      She also found herself thinking anxiously about April. It hadn’t felt right to simply leave her with her father. But what else was she to do? Riley knew that even if she had not taken this case, another one would come along soon. She was simply too involved in her work to deal with an unruly teenager. She wasn’t home enough.

      On an impulse, Riley took out her cell phone and sent a text message.

      Hey April. How are U?

      After a few seconds, the reply came.

      I’m fine Mom. How are U? Have U solved it yet?

      It took Riley a moment to realize that April meant the new case.

      Not yet, she typed.

      April replied, U’ll solve it soon.

      Riley smiled at what sounded almost like a vote of confidence.

      She typed, Do U want to talk? I could call U now.

      She waited a few moments for April’s reply.

      Not right now. I’m good.

      Riley didn’t know exactly what that meant. Her heart sank a little.

      OK, she typed. Goodnight. Love U.

      She ended the chat and sat there, looking out into the deepening night. She smiled wistfully as she remembered April’s question …

      “Have U solved it yet?”

      “It” could mean any of a huge number of things in Riley’s life. And she felt a long, long way from solving any of them.

      Riley stared out into the night again. Looking down at the main street, she pictured the killer driving straight through town on the way to the railroad tracks. It had been a bold move. But not nearly as bold as taking the time to hang the body from a power pole where it would be visible in the light from the warehouse.

      That part of his MO had changed drastically over the last five years, from sloppily dumping a body by the river to hanging this one up for the world to see. He didn’t strike Riley as particularly organized, but he was becoming more obsessive. Something in his life must have changed. What was it?

      Riley knew that this kind of boldness often represented an escalating desire for publicity, for fame. That was certainly true of the last killer she had tracked down. But it felt wrong for this case. Something told Riley that this killer was not only small and rather weak, but also self-effacing, even humble.

      He didn’t like to kill; Riley felt pretty sure of it. And it wasn’t fame that spurred him to this new level of boldness. It was sheer despair. Perhaps even remorse, a half-conscious desire to get caught.

      Riley knew from personal experience that killers were never more dangerous than when they started turning against themselves.

      Riley thought about something Chief Alford had said earlier.

      “The killer’s in no hurry, after all.”

      Riley felt sure that the chief was wrong.

      Chapter 10

      Riley felt sorry for the county coroner, a middle-aged and overweight man, as he spread out the photos on Chief Alford’s desk. They displayed every gruesome detail of Rosemary Pickens’s autopsy. The coroner, Ben Tooley, looked slightly ill. He was undoubtedly more accustomed to examining corpses of people who had died from strokes and heart attacks. He looked as he if he hadn’t slept, and she realized he’d surely been up late last night. And Riley guessed that he hadn’t slept soundly whenever he had gotten to bed.

      It was morning, and Riley felt remarkably rested herself. Her bed had been soft and comfortable, and neither nightmares nor real intruders had disturbed her sleep. She had badly needed a night like that. Lucy and Chief Alford also looked alert – but the coroner was another story.

      “This is as bad as Marla Blainey’s murder five years ago,” Tooley said. “Worse, maybe. Lord, after that one, I’d hoped we’d put this kind of awful thing behind us. No such luck.”

      Tooley showed the group a close-up of the back of the woman’s head. A large, deep wound was visible, and the surrounding hair was matted with blood.

      “She sustained a sharp blow to the left parietal bone,” he said. “It was hard enough to crack the skull slightly. Probably caused concussion, maybe even a short interval of unconsciousness.”

      “What kind of object was used?” Riley asked.

      “Judging from the pulled hair and scraping, I’d say it was a blow from a heavy chain. Marla Blainey had the same kind of wound in about the same place.”

      Alford shook his head. “This guy is all about chains,” he said. “Reporters are already calling him the ‘chain killer.’”

      Lucy pointed to some tight close-ups of the woman’s abdomen.

      “Do you think she was beaten generally, over time?” she asked. “Those bruises look bad.”

      “They’re bad, all right, but they’re not from being beaten,” Tooley said. “She’s got contusions like that all over from being chained so tightly. Between the chains and how tight the straitjacket was, she spent a lot of time in severe pain. Same with Marla Blainey.”

      The group fell silent for a moment, mulling over the significance of this information.

      Finally Lucy said, “We know that he’s small and not very strong – and we’re assuming that it really is a ‘he.’ So it looks like he must’ve subdued each of the women with a single sharp blow to the head. When they were dazed or unconscious, he lugged them into a nearby vehicle.”

      Riley nodded with approval. It struck her as a good guess.

      “So how was she treated during her captivity?” Alford asked.

      Tooley shuffled the photos to reveal images of the dissected body.

      “Pretty badly,” he said. “I found almost no stomach contents. Not much in her intestines either. He must have kept her alive on water alone. But he probably wasn’t trying to starve her to death. That would have taken much longer. Maybe he was just trying to weaken her. Again, it was the same with Marla Blainey. The slashed throats were the decisive and fatal blows.”

      Another silence fell. There was little left for anyone to say, but much to think about. Riley’s head was abuzz with too many questions to ask. Why did the killer hold these women captive? The usual motives didn’t apply here. He didn’t torture or rape them. If he’d always intended to kill them, why had he taken his time about it? Did it take time for him to build up the will to do that?

      Obviously, she thought, the killer was obsessed with rendering his victims helpless. That gave him some kind of satisfaction. He’d probably suffered similar helplessness himself, maybe in childhood. She also suspected that he’d starved the victims for other reasons than simply to weaken them. Had the killer been starved himself at one time or another?

      Riley stifled a sigh. There were so many questions. There always were this early in a case. Meanwhile, there was a lot of work to do.