Steven James - Opening Moves

Though by now Dahmer’s belongings were certainly covered by a mountain of other trash, I was still thankful that no one had discovered which landfill had been used. Keeping people away would have been an endless, disturbing ordeal for local law enforcement.

I walked to the telephone pole where we’d found Lionel Shannon.

No clues jumped out at me. No sudden revelations came to me.

The snow picked up. The minutes ticked by.

Finally, with the thoughts of what’d happened last night and the things Colleen Hayes had told us this morning circling through my head, I left the alley and drove to HQ for the briefing.

The public entrance to police headquarters is on North James Lovell Street. I used the department one on West State Street, just around the corner.

And found the two FBI agents from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime waiting for me just inside the door.

The man: hulking and thickly muscled-bigger even than Thorne, and nearly my height. He had a presence about him that commanded respect and it seemed to affect everyone around us, almost as if he’d brought his own weather system with him into the building.

The woman: petite, with stylish glasses, her light brown hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail. The guy looked about thirty; she looked fresh out of the academy. Both were dressed neatly and conservatively. Most male FBI agents who aren’t working undercover seem to be into ties, but not this guy. Black turtleneck all the way. He held a half-finished two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew in one hand, a leather briefcase in the other.

He introduced himself: “Ralph Hawkins, FBI.” The words came out in a low rumble, a voice you’d expect from a guy who could bench-press a pickup. “This is Special Agent Ellen Parker.”

I greeted them. He passed the bottle of soda to his other arm, then enveloped my hand in his as we shook. “Detective Patrick Bowers,” I said. “Homicide. Just call me Pat.”

“Ralph.”

“And Ellen is fine,” Agent Parker told me.

“Good.”

A couple of moments later, as we passed down the hallway, she unexpectedly excused herself and walked off alone toward the elevator.

Ralph paused. “Gives us a chance to chat.”

Ah. So. Here we go.

I gestured toward the stairs and led the way.

“I understand you’re in charge of this case?” he said.

“Yes.” I could only imagine what a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare this was going to be if he tried to pull rank and take over. It would have been audacious, but I wasn’t ready to put anything past the FBI.

We entered the stairwell. Thorne’s office was on the fourth floor. We started up the steps.

Despite his size Ralph was quick and light on the stairs. “There are two ways we can do this. We can either waste time dicking around trying to figure out who’s calling the shots, or we can work together to catch this psycho. Your call.”

So, he had an attitude and got straight to the point.

My kind of guy.

“Agent Hawkins-Ralph…” We reached the second floor. “I have every reason to believe that you’re experienced and well qualified at what you do, but I need you to know that I’m going to find this guy and bring him in or take him down and if you get in my way I’ll do whatever is necessary to move you aside so I can do my job.”

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the ideal thing to say to kick off our working relationship, but I’ve never been especially known for my tact.

He paused as we reached the third-floor landing. He wasn’t out of breath. Neither was I.

I waited for his response. Tried to read him. Couldn’t.

Then he took a long, unhurried swallow of his Mountain Dew, finished most of it, and smacked his lips. “Glad to hear we’re on the same page. But…” I caught the hint of a smile. “How am I gonna get in your way, Detective, when I’m going to be the one way out in front of you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I can be a bit determined at times.”

“I’m counting on that.” We started for the fourth floor. “Besides, you couldn’t move me aside.”

“I’m stronger than I look.”

He cracked his neck and cords of muscle strained beneath his skin. “So am I.” He downed the rest of his soda and tossed the empty bottle into a trash can as we entered the hallway and passed the elevator bay.

And as he strode beside me on the way to Lieutenant Thorne’s office, I couldn’t help but wonder-if he really was stronger than he looked-just how tough this guy, who was obviously not a desk jockey, actually was.

We met in Thorne’s office, all of us crammed around his desk on folding chairs.

Six of us were at the briefing: Ellen, Ralph, Radar, Lieutenant Thorne, me, and Detective Annise Corsica, a severe-looking woman in her forties with short, choppy hair, thin lips, and probing, astucious eyes. Annise had been on the force more than twenty years and, to put it mildly, had not been happy when I’d been promoted to homicide detective seven years earlier in my career than she’d been.

I’d seen her exhibit what I could only call incompetence on cases, and the amount of respect we shared for each other was mutual; however Thorne liked her and, apparently, she was on the case.

He kicked things off with introductions and then turned the floor over to Ralph. “I’ll let Agent Hawkins explain exactly why we’ve brought the FBI in on this. It has to do with more than Vincent and Colleen Hayes.”

That, I hadn’t heard. I directed my attention to Ralph.

“There are two bodies that’ve been found,” he said, “one in Champaign, Illinois, one in Ohio, near Cincinnati. We’ve been doing our best to keep it under the media’s radar-” He glanced at Brandon. “Why do they call you Radar, anyway?”

Thorne answered for him: “He zeroes in on people. Finds ’em. He’s got gut instincts like no one else.”

It was true. Radar did seem to have uncanny instincts, and that bugged me, not because I envied him, but because I don’t trust hunches, gut feelings, intuition. I trust facts and logic, and when Radar’s unfounded inferences led to results, it always confounded me.

“Gotcha,” Ralph said. “Anyway, we’ve been playing this close to the chest…trying to keep a few details from the public.” He looked around the room soberly. “Forensics has determined that the intestines of one of the victims and the lungs of the other, both women in their early twenties, were consumed. The killer doesn’t remove the organs all at once. Takes his time. Keeps the women alive while he does it.”

“How could you tell the lungs and intestines had been eaten?” Detective Corsica asked. “And not just, well…discarded?”

“He cooked ’em on the victims’ stoves. We found pieces on frying pans and on a fork, but no saliva. No DNA.”

No one said a word.

Without bite marks on the bodies, I imagined it would be hard to determine with certainty that the offender had exhibited anthropophagic behavior, but now, with our case’s connection to Dahmer-and the amputation of Colleen’s hands-the proximal timing and removal of body parts spoke to more than just coincidence, which I didn’t believe in anyway.

Before we could tell if the incidents were actually linked, we would need to do a comparative case analysis, or CCA. By studying the physical evidence, eyewitness reports, crime scene locations and characteristics of the victims, we could judge the likelihood that the crimes were committed by the same offender.

“We found a small soil sample at the scene of the homicide in Champaign,” Ellen explained. “The FBI Lab was able to use the NRCS’s soil data surveys to-”