Fifteen Times a Killer Read online

  “First, I’ll perform a cyanoacrylate test on the plastic,” he told her. “We call it fuming.” He took the plastic pouch to a cabinet and placed it inside, then squeezed a compound into a dish and placed it next to the piece of evidence. “The vapor will adhere to any latent prints and allow us to view them.”

  Corrina watched him close the door and press a couple of buttons, then he returned to the desk and picked up the first sheet of paper.

  “Fifteen times a killer, eh? Do you think he killed that many?”

  “I’m hoping the answer is no,” Corrina said, “but it’s early stages.” She nodded at the paper in his hand. “I’m hoping the answer is in there.”

  “Then let’s take a look.” Trey took pictures of each page in turn and asked for her email address, then opened a new message and attached the photos he’d just taken. “That should be with you in a second,” he said. “You’re welcome to read them here while I run the Ninhydrin test.”

  “What’s that?” Corrina asked.

  “It’s a chemical we use to lift prints from porous materials such as paper. It reacts with the amino acids in the residue left by human contact and leaves a purple stain.”

  Corrina’s phone pinged. She checked it and saw that Trey’s email had arrived, and there were twenty-seven attachments. She clicked Forward and added a message for McCrae Loney:

  This is what we found at the scene. Let me know your thoughts.

  After hitting Send, Corrina found a comfortable stool and started reading.

  Fifteen Time a Killer

  Prologue

  What makes a serial killer? That’s the age-old question. Ask a hundred criminal psychologists and they’ll all give you a different answer, but most will agree that there is a catalyst, an event—traumatic or otherwise—that turns a rational human being into a killer.

  That said, not every life-changing experience will produce a serial killer. Thousands of people suffer emotional or physical trauma every day without chopping up their neighbors or shooting up a shopping mall. For a few, though, what some might consider a normal, everyday occurrence is enough to tip the scales.

  What you’re about to read is my story. You could even say my confession. Yeah, I reckon it is. This is me confessing to everything I done, and I’m doing this so others might continue my work when I’m gone. As you’ll figure out, there’s no shortage of deserving people, and there never will be until we show them all the error of their ways.

  Picture a seven-year-old boy. His name’s Kevin. He’s small, even for his age, and he ain’t that bright. His clothes are all from yard sales. His father ran off when Kevin was a baby, the lure of another woman’s bosom too much to resist. Kevin’s mother works as a waitress during the day and seamstress on weekends, but there’s still nothing left at the end of the month. Home is a rented two-bedroom house in rural Alabama, with peeling paint and weeds in the yard.

  Kevin is an only child, so you’d think his mother has plenty of time for him, but she has other priorities. The men that share her bed, and the liquor they bring with them. For Kevin, seeing his mother hung over each morning is as natural as going to the bathroom. It’s just the way it is. It’s like the sun going down at night, or water being wet. Some things just are.

  Kevin used to be an independent thinker, always asking questions to get a better understanding of the world around him, but that natural curiosity was quashed by his mother at an early age.

  “Mama, why is the sky blue?”

  “It just is, honey,” she would say, as she poured a little of her special mommy sauce into her morning coffee.

  “Mama, how do birds fly?”

  “They just do,” she would tell him.

  Before long, Kevin stopped asking, figuring that if everything “just was,” there was no point seeking deeper meaning. His teachers at school were much the same, encouraging him to just sit quietly, listen and repeat rather than think for himself.

  So when Billy-Bob Hoskins decided to make Kevin’s life miserable, there was no “why me?” It was something bigger kids did, as far as Kevin was concerned.

  It just was.

  Billy-Bob was two years older than Kevin he was almost twice his size, too. He was a third-generation bully from a long line of degenerates, and Kevin was the kind of victim he thrived on.

  Kevin had seen Billy-Bob around the school a few times, but his first encounter was on his way home one day. As always, he walked. There wasn’t enough money for a bike, and the bus didn’t go past his house. It was only two miles by road, but Kevin knew a short cut that took him through the woods and over Cutter’s Stream. It was Kevin’s favorite place, where the only things he encountered were peace and quiet.

  Until today.

  He was sitting by the stream, watching birds flit across the top of the water, hoping to catch the flies that danced above the surface. He was so engrossed in their performance that he didn’t hear Billy-Bob and his three hangers-on approach.

  Billy-Bob liked an entourage. There was no fun in humiliating the helpless if there was no-one to share it with. Today, he was with Chuck Bellow, Steven Johns and Hank Phillips. The three weren’t really Billy-Bob’s friends, but they enjoyed a symbiotic relationship whereby they encouraged his misdeeds and as a result weren’t themselves bullied by him.

  “Whachya doin’ here?” Billy-Bob asked as he casually tossed a stone Kevin’s way.

  Kevin scrambled to his feet and stared up at the giant of a boy standing before him. It was the closest he’d ever been to Billy-Bob, and couldn’t believe how menacing the older boy looked.

  “N..nothing. Just…just sitting is all.”

  “Just sitting,” Billy-Bob repeated, tasting the words as he chewed them over. He looked at his three companions. “He’s just sitting.”

  As always, no-one said a word. They preferred Billy-Bob to take the lead. Instead, they offered their usual derisive snickering.

  “Way too warm a day to be just sitting,” Billy-Bob said to Kevin. “More like a swimmin’ day if you ask me.”

  “I…I don’t really s…swim,” Kevin said.

  “You’re a stutterin’ little fuck, ain’t ya.” This from Chuck Bellow, gaining confidence from Kevin’s anxiety.

  “I heard swimmin’s good for curing that,” Billy-Bob said, and he lunged at Kevin, grabbing hold of his shirt and marching him toward the water’s edge.

  Kevin, panicked at the thought of going in, thrashed his arms like a windmill in a tornado. A flailing hand caught Billy-Bob in the face, and Kevin heard the gasps from the onlookers.

  Billy-Bob released his grip and touched his nose. His hand came away red.

  “You’re gonna pay for that,” Billy-Bob growled as Kevin backed away.

  Desperate, Kevin spotted a stick on the ground, a gnarled old branch as thick as his arm. He picked it up and held it out in front of him, like a Jedi about to battle his foe.

  But Kevin was no Luke Skywalker. Billy-Bob snatched the stick and smacked him upside the head, knocking Kevin to the ground.

  “Jeez, Billy-Bob, I think you killed him!”

  Kevin squirmed on the ground, his vision floating like he was in an underwater dream.

  “He’s fine. Just needs coolin’ off. Gimme a hand.”

  The four boys picked Kevin up and carried him to the stream.

  “What if he really can’t swim?” Steven Johns asked when they stopped at the edge of the fast-flowing water.

  “Everyone can swim, my pa says. Just needs to try harder.”

  With that, Billy-Bob and his cronies swung Kevin once, twice, and on the third swing, they let go.

  Kevin flew through the air, the world passing by in slow motion, until he was shocked back to reality as he plunged into the freezing water. He gasped, sucking icy liquid into his lungs. He was in a full-blown panic, his arms flailing, legs kicking frantically to keep himself afloat, but his head slipped below the surface again. He desperately needed air, but some invisible force seemed to be p
ulling him down into the swirling depths.

  His foot suddenly touched something, and he realized he’d hit the bottom. The surface wasn’t that far above his head, and he pushed with all the strength he could muster. His head cleared the water and he tried to gulp in oxygen, but the water in his lungs left him coughing instead. After a few anxious attempts, he managed to get air in, and he caught sight of Billy-Bob and his gang standing on the bank of the river. He’d drifted maybe fifty feet down river by this time, but he could still see them clearly, and what struck him most was the relaxed look on their faces. They didn’t seem concerned with his predicament at all.

  As his head slipped under again, Kevin’s thoughts turned to survival. He knew that if he let himself sink to the bottom, he could push himself up again, so he stopped struggling and waited for his feet to touch the riverbed. It didn’t take as long this time, and when he pushed upwards, his head and shoulders breached the surface. He saw that he was a little closer to the bank as the river dog-legged to the right, but a second later he was back under water. When he hit the bottom again, he took a couple of ponderous steps forward before pushing for the surface once more. Land was tantalizingly close, and he wind-milled his arms toward sanctuary. Progress was painfully slow, but his foot suddenly touched a stone and he found he was able to stand upright and keep his face above the freezing water. With measured steps, he waddled to the shore and collapsed onto the muddy bank.

  Kevin lay there for a few minutes, fighting to catch his breath. He expected to hear Billy-Bob and his friends approach, perhaps to apologize, but more likely to finish him off.

  But they didn’t come. Kevin eventually sat up and looked around for them, but he found himself alone. He got to his feet, knowing that he should get home and dry out, but he was hesitant. He would have to pass the place where they’d thrown him in, and if Billy-Bob was still there, they might decide to give him another dipping. Indecision gripped him, and he stood where he was for another thirty minutes, shivering in his wet and mud-stained clothes.

  Hunger finally forced him to move. He gingerly walked back to the place where Billy-Bob had found him, but there was no sign of anyone. Relieved, he continued to the bridge and crossed over the river, then walked the remaining mile home through woods and fields.

  The question came unbidden to his mind: why had Billy-Bob thrown him in the river when he knew he couldn’t swim? Was it Billy-Bob’s intention to kill him? Having never been through such a traumatic experience before, he had no barometer to go by. Maybe his mother would know why Billy-Bob had done it…

  “He just did,” said his mother’s voice in Kevin’s head.

  Maybe that was the explanation. Maybe trying to drown people was as natural as apples falling from the tree, or clouds forming in the sky. If that was the case, and it was okay for Billy-Bob to do it, it should be fine for Kevin, too.

  And so Kevin got it into his head that killing people really wasn’t that big a deal, and a serial killer was born.

  Of course, that never really happened. Kevin is a figment of my imagination, but there are many like him out there. There are also more Billy-Bobs than I care to imagine, preying on the weak without considering the effect they will have in the months and years to come. Will one of the victims return to school one day with a loaded rifle? Will he seek to punish the girl who mocks him and get a taste for killing?

  Being the target of childhood bullying isn’t the only trigger, as you will discover in the coming days and weeks. I also don’t claim to be an expert on the subject. The people who know about these things will want to apply a label to me, such as psychopath, or sociopath. And you know what? They may be right. Either way, I don’t care. All I know is that someone pressed my button, and this is how it turned out.

  Corrina slammed her phone down on the desk in frustration. “The sonofabitch is playing with us.”

  Trey looked up from his work, shocked at the outburst. “I take it he didn’t leave his name and address.”

  Corrina snorted a laugh. “No, he didn’t. Any luck over there?”

  “Nothing so far on the paper.” He got up and checked the glass cabinet where the plastic pouch was being treated. “Doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything here, either. This guy isn’t going to make it easy for us.”

  “Do they ever?”

  The physical evidence had yielded nothing, and from what she’d read so far, the manuscript’s only purpose was to taunt them.

  Experience told her it would be hours before Birch had anything to report, and it had already been a long day.

  “I’m heading home. If you find anything, let me know.”

  Trey promised he would, and as Corrina left the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Centre, she called McCrae.

  “Did you get the photos I sent?”

  “I did,” he replied. “Read the prologue. I think we can scrub Stephen King from our list of suspects.”

  “What do you mean?” Of course, Corrina knew who Stephen King was, even if she didn’t often read for pleasure. With a busy work life and a son to look after when she got home, her relaxation usually took the form of a glass of wine in front of the TV.

  “I mean, he’s no author. I think he believes he is, but he shouldn’t give up the day job.”

  Corrina knew that McCrae read a lot of fiction, from horror to crime, action thrillers to spy novels. He was always recommending books to her, but she rarely looked at any of them. When she did, it took her around six weeks to finish them, mostly because she only read in bed and fell asleep after a few pages.

  “I’ll pass that to the BAU, but I’m sure they’ll pick up on it.” The Behavioral Analysis Unit would pore over the document to help develop a profile of the author. Sentence structure, use of language and writing style would all help to identify the suspect’s probable educational background. They might eventually be able to come up with the reason for the killings if it wasn’t evident in the rest of the story he’d left at the scene.

  “Alistair confirmed that it’s human remains,” McCrae said. “Looks like it’s been in the ground for a number of years, judging by the decomposition. It was wrapped in plastic, probably to transport it to the burial site.”

  That sounded logical. “Does he know anything else? Cause of death? Gender?”

  “Nada. He only knows it’s human because the bag was split. He thinks it happened when the body was dumped. He was able to identify an arm, but it’ll be hours before the entire thing is excavated.”

  If the body had been in the ground as long as Birch suspected, a few hours wasn’t going to make much of a difference. With a recent kill, there would be a lot they could do to get a lead on the killer, such as tracing the victim’s last movements, combing through CCTV and phone records, and interviewing eyewitnesses. With a body this long dead, the priority was to identify the victim.

  “In that case, I’m calling it a day. Let me know if they find anything.”

  “You got it.”

  Corrina walked back to her car, her thoughts split between seeing McCrae again and a potential serial killer on the loose.

  Chapter 3

  “Hi, Mrs Stone.”

  “Hey, Kat. How’s Connor?”

  The babysitter was sitting at the dining table in front of a mound of schoolbooks, pens and pencils. She began to gather them up.

  “He’s fine. I read him a story and he was asleep by eight-thirty.”

  That should have been me, Corrina thought. It pained her that she was missing out on a huge chunk of her son’s childhood, but the Bureau wasn’t a nine-to-five job.

  Something Mike was always keen to point out.

  Corrina handed Kat her fee for the night and saw her out. She waited by the door as the teenager crossed the road to her own house across the street, waved, then disappeared inside. Corrina closed the door and went upstairs to Connor’s room.

  He was fast asleep, the night light casting stars and planets on the ceiling. Corrina sat on the edge of his be
d and stroked his light brown hair.

  Putting him to bed at night was one of the highlights of her day, when the chores were done and they could spend some time together. On the few occasions when she wasn’t able to do it, she felt incomplete, like a part of her was missing.

  Connor moaned and turned over, wrapping the sheet around his shoulders. She adjusted them and tucked him in, then kissed his forehead and backed out of the room.

  Downstairs, she went to the kitchen and took a portion of lasagna from the freezer. She’d made a huge batch five days earlier, so that if she wasn’t home in time to make dinner, Kat would have something to feed Connor. As it was, this was the first time she’d been late home all week. It also beat cooking a fresh meal.

  As it rotated slowly in the microwave, Corrina poured herself a glass of wine. Half was gone by the time the food was ready. She topped up the glass and took her dinner through to the room she used as a home office. It wasn’t a big space, but it had everything she needed: a desk for her laptop, a small table for the printer, and a mahogany filing cabinet.

  Corrina downloaded the photos to her laptop, took a mouthful of lasagna and scrolled through to the start of chapter one.

  * * *

  Chapter One

  I thought long and hard about how I should tell you my story. I even wondered if I should tell it at all. Maybe it would have been better to just carry on, keep killing until the killing was done. But death was only a part of it; they had to know. They had to suffer, to know the pain their actions caused. They had to feel it for themselves.

  Kerry Swanson was the first to die.

  I remember it like it was yesterday, just like I remember all my victims, but Kerry was different because she was the hardest to kill. I don’t mean she fought like a lion. She was hardest to kill because she was the first, and I told myself that once I do it, I ain’t never going back. Up to that point I was just a good old boy, leading a good life. I paid my dues, helped my neighbors, stayed on the right side of the law. I could continue on this road or listen to the voices in my head, the ones that told me vengeance would be mine.