1
Abstract Murder
Chapter One
Michael
Lenie invited me over and we spent the entire day sitting on her balcony watching the sun fade away. It was one of the few days that the temperature didn’t rise above eighty; for the middle of summer it was a great day to be outside. She wanted to spend one day with her partner that didn’t involve the case we’ve both been obsessing over since its inception. The Ice Pick Girls, was the moniker given by the press to the three women who had died those horrible deaths.
I knew that Lenie didn’t have any alcohol in her house, so what did I do? I brought over the makings for tequila shooters. She limited her intake to two shooters. Any more makes her head feel foggy and she has difficulty concentrating; and for what awaits us around the corner, she’ll need her mental faculties intact. Lenie knew that as soon as I finished my last drink I’d start ranting about the case. The two of us also knew that whatever argument or heated debate might ensue would certainly bring a sense of clarity and perhaps a fresh perspective to the events. It might even suggest something that would lead us to the other three missing women.
“Len, I was just thinking there’s something we’re not seeing.”
“In what regard?”
“I’ve gone over the crime scenes again and again in my head--I can’t explain it! I know the missing clue is staring us right in the face and we can’t see it because we’re too close. Every time I close my eyes, I see what that sick fucker did! It’s like I’ve got a loop projector inside my head. I know that the missing link to finding those other women is standing right in front of us like an erect dick, waving at us and we can’t fucking see it,” he replied. “Michael, come over here and sit down. Lie on your back and put your head in my lap.”
“I’m not in the mood for any deep sea diving tonight, Len.”
“You’re a funny guy!”
“Never lose your sense of humor, Len. In a world ripe with madness, a sense of humor will always keep you sane. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know. Why do you think I’m still your partner? Now put your head in my lap already. Oh and FYI, if I really wanted you to explore my southern region it would have already happened. So be quiet and close those hazel-green eyes and relax. Give me your glass.”
Lenie
Michael leaned back, still maintaining a death grip on his glass.
“Relax. Breathe in deep through your nose, and then force it out through your mouth. I want you to do this a few times. It’ll help clear your mind and allow you to focus.”
He nodded. I kissed him on the forehead in order to bring the tension to the surface so that I could pull it out. I reached over and lit the candles and incense that were on the coffee table to create a tranquil environment. I leaned back and placed my hands on the sides of his face. Using the first two index fingers of each hand, I made concentric circles around his temple areas, working my way across his face, down his neck, then back up again. By the time I returned to my starting point Michael appeared to be dead asleep.
“Michael, how do you feel?”
“Great. You’ve got a magical set of fingers on you.”
Michael continued his deep breathing; in through his nose and out through his mouth. After a few moments I felt his body relax.
“I need for you to clear your mind. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
“All right, is everything in your head silent?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to step outside of the picture frame. Remove yourself from the loop, and then replay it again inside your head. This time slow everything down and look at it frame by frame. Slow it down even further; now go over every item collected.”
“All of the victims were wearing identical bras. Same manufacturer; same lot numbers. I contacted the company that makes them, he said. The woman we pulled from the Patuxent had a partial telephone number on the heel of her left hand, 518-768.”
“That’s an upstate New York area code.”
“That’s it Len! I know where to find the three other missing women! We’ll find them somewhere in or around their homes. There isn’t going to be any smell from decomposition because they’re encased in plaster of Paris.”
Michael
The phone rang.
“Lenie, you gonna get that?”
“Let it ring. This is more important.”
The ringing grew louder and more intrusive.
“Lenie, answer the phone--it’s giving me a fuckin’ headache.”
I sat up to answer the phone and dropped my glass in the process, causing it to shatter against the hardwood floor. This jarred me awake and I realized that I had just dreamed what happened. I’d passed out in a recliner in my condo. I then reached over and answered the phone. It was Lenie, she’d had located two of the missing three women.
That was creepy! I’d just dreamt about finding the missing women then Lenie calls and tells me where to meet her. I jumped up, splashed some cold water on my face then bolted for the door. Melissa Davis and Lara Kincaid were found in the attic of Ms. Kincaid’s home. Their bodies had been huddled together, encased in plaster of Paris. You could see clear impressions of their faces in the plaster but we’d have to run DNA test to make sure the initial identification was accurate.
The bodies had been posed so that Kincaid’s head rested in the lap of Ms. Davis, like Christ’s head in Mary’s lap in Michelangelo’s Pieta. Ms. Kincaid’s parents, who thought to search the attic, discovered the bodies and phoned the police. By the time I got there the forensic team was already busy collecting and testing any evidence left behind. Just like the previous victims, there wasn’t much to collect--just a toe-tag acting as a price tag.
You’re probably wondering how we could have missed this! How could a search for the missing women not include a total sweep of the house? Well when you’ve got, three different
jurisdictions and different law enforcement agencies involved something’s bound to get lost in the mix.
Is that a good thing?
No, unless you’re the person who committed the abductions and murders. The key to ensuring against fuck-ups of this nature is clear-cut communications among the agencies; but until it stops being a pissing contest this kind of shit’ll continue to happen.
Once again, Lenie went with the bodies to the medical examiners while I followed up on a hunch. I went over my notes, then drove over to the last missing woman’s apartment, where I began looking for any place large enough to store a body. I found a crawl space underneath the front steps to her house. Inside I found another toe-tag, this time sans body. It read, “This one’s a keeper! Perfect bone structure, you’ll find it when it’s ready for display.”
That was five years ago, and we still haven’t been able to locate the remains of Tamara Morely. Just more perverted versions of well-known art, using real bodies. Now it seems as though I’m right back where I started. Every now and again I have to check the mirror just to make sure it’s my face looking back at me.
My name is Michael Hallard and for the last fifteen years I’ve worked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Science Unit. The official title of my job is Supervisory Special Agent, a title that says everything and nothing. It has just enough authoritative condescension to be believed, but in fact it’s a mouthful of random words sewn together to make something appear more important than it really is.
In my version of reality, words mean nothing; it’s a person’s actions that speak volumes to me. I realize that what I just said might come off as cynical, but after working fifteen years as a criminologist and profiler for the Bureau, I have seen horrible things that people do to one another. Therefore, I tend to view the world from a different slant, one that is jaded so that it operates in terms of black and white with little or no room for shades of gray.
I joined the Bureau shortly after receiving my masters and doctoral degrees in forensic psychology from Johns Hopkins University. One morning, I received a registered letter from Unit Chief Benjamin Rhodes, requesting a meeting with me. As far as I knew, it wasn’t policy for the Bureau to actively recruit agents. I know that I have a tendency to imbibe as often as time allows me, but I didn’t recall ever submitting any applications to the Bureau. It made no sense for me to be receiving a letter from this man. I couldn’t understand how this guy had even heard of me, or what he hoped to accomplish through our meeting.
My curiosity had been piqued, so I got into my car and made the drive to meet with Rhodes. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a keen insight when it came to deciphering a person’s personality, and I had this man’s personality traits pegged within five minutes of meeting him. He immediately put me in mind of Frank Burns, the inept and sniveling major from the series M*A*S*H. The only difference between the two was that Rhodes was a book-smart intelligent man who lacked common sense. He was a strictly by the book kind of guy who blindly played follow the leader. Nevertheless, I sat silently and willingly bought his pitch to join the Bureau. I didn’t let my immediate dislike and distrust for him stand in the way of my becoming a member of one of the most formative investigative units in the world. I couldn’t let the opportunity of a lifetime slip through my fingers just because Rhodes was a prick.
I was being handed a chance to further my knowledge about the machinations of
the human psyche, something that’s been an obsession of mine from an early age. My job consists of trying to climb inside criminal minds to study and chart their patterns of behavior. In most instances, I have to form a kind of strange and often bizarre alliance with them so that I may better understand them and anticipate their next move. I have the arduous task of crawling around in the muck and mire of their nightmares to unearth the madness that compels them. It’s imperative that I try to understand what makes them tick. If I had to choose one thing about my job that really gets to me, it would have to be the endless amount of senseless brutality that I deal with on an almost daily basis. It’s easy to become desensitized to violence after seeing all of the appalling things I’ve seen throughout my tenure.
At first glance, you’d be hard pressed to believe that I am a law enforcement officer, let alone an FBI agent. I’m not your average cookie-cutter, clean-shaven agent with neatly cropped hair who speaks in a monotone. Nor do I possess that blank expression portrayed by most actors. I get a bent kick out of people meeting me for the first time. You see, most of them seem unsure just how to deal with me. I hate to admit it, but I like keeping people at arm’s length and off balance in terms of understanding the real me. Feel free to call it a minor quirk in my personality, but it gives me the edge to get my job done.
The men I come in contact with are prime examples; most of them are either in local law enforcement or within the Bureau. They find my tactics somewhat unconventional. To the local boys, I’m just another asshole Fed who’s invading their territory and usurping their authority by taking over a case that they’ve been diligently trying to solve. Then enter me and my guys into the equation, stand back and watch the tension fill the room like smog. I can understand the anger they must feel towards us, and I empathize with them in their belief that we’ve moved in and stolen their thunder.
Among some of my colleagues, I’m seen as a rogue element that pushes legal ethics to the limit in order to put a case to bed. I make no apologies for any of my actions. I’m here to do the job to the best of my ability, and that’s exactly what I do. I’m not here to score brownie points or to become anyone’s best friend. To better understand their frustrations, you’d have to comprehend the politics and territorial nature innate to the male sex. There must be something in our genetic make-up that drives us to be so competitive and sometimes combative towards one another. I’m not talking just about human beings. Males throughout the animal kingdom exhibit this same aggressive behavior. Countless documentaries show males fighting each other for dominance and the right to mate. So in many aspects, we men are no different from our animal brethren.
Women are at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to dealing with me. Well, let’s just say the ones I’ve been involved with. Most of them seem to drift in and out of my life without ever scraping the surface of who I really am, and I can’t blame them. Some of the women who have been in my life tend to find me to be somewhat aloof, a dark and brooding, tormented figure of a man whom they feel they need to save. They also find me to be easy on the eyes--their words, not mine.
Then there are the women who are drawn to my wild and reckless side, but those relationships don’t last very long.
The speed at which adventurous women morph into maternal guardians is often mind-boggling. While I appreciate their feelings for me, I’m not in the market, for mother replacement--that role has already been filled. Don’t get me wrong. I love women, and I enjoy being in their company; but the last thing I need is yet another lecture on how to change my life for the better.
I’ve got Lenie for that. Besides, my job allots me precious little time to form any kind of real relationship, so I have to get by with the next best thing, the occasional bump and grind. It’s not really fulfilling, but it does serve a purpose. If I’m lucky, maybe in a few years I’ll meet the right woman, fall in love, settle down and have a couple of ankle biters. Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to curb the self-destructive tendencies that gnaw at me on a daily basis. But then…who am I kidding?