Steven James - Opening Moves

“Once again,” I reiterated, “I think that right now we should focus on what happened rather than spend time speculating on why it did.”

It looked like everyone except Detective Corsica was satisfied, ready to move on.

Ralph aimed the tip of his pen at me, signaling that I was up. “I understand you and Radar spoke with Colleen Hayes this morning. What do we know?”

“The offender is Caucasian, large frame, approximately six feet tall. Brown eyes, unless he was wearing colored contact lenses. He only said four words when I spoke with him last night on Vincent’s portable phone and I didn’t note any distinctive accent. Colleen doesn’t think she could recognize his voice again. I’m not sure I could either. She knew of only one offender, and he took her someplace near or just past the breweries and then to the pier where she was left. The car he used has a trunk. The space he took her to was cold, like an unheated garage or cellar.”

In my mind I was following the possible travel routes a person might drive from the Hayes residence to the valley where the breweries are. “Based on the nature and sophistication of the crime, it’s probable that the offender has a history of violence. He might already be in the system.”

“Prints?” Ellen asked.

Thorne shook his head. “No incriminating ones. Not on the cuffs, not at the house. Nothing.”

Detective Corsica turned to me. “You sent out a call last night that the suspect had gotten away when you actually had him in custody.”

“Based on the information we had at the time, we thought a woman’s life might be in imminent danger.”

“Based on the information you had at the time.” Her tone was condescending and I was getting tired of dealing with Detective Corsica’s attitude.

“It seemed prudent to let officers search the neighborhood for a few minutes if it meant buying some time to protect Colleen Hayes. I made a judgment call.”

“So,” she said, “you initiated a waste of time and resources and-”

“With all due respect, Annise, I don’t consider anything done in the line of protecting innocent life to be a-”

“What you did was-”

Thorne raised a hand, a stop sign to cut us off. “Alright, alright, you two. Easy.”

Annise’s eyes seared the air between us. I let her glower.

One more thing needed to be said. “There are still enough questions here that I think Vincent needs to remain a person of interest in this case.”

“Agreed,” Ralph acknowledged, then turned to Thorne. “But don’t release that to the press. If he’s innocent, the last thing we need is having them run him through their meat grinder.”

Considering the cannibalistic behavior related to these crimes, Ralph hadn’t perhaps chosen the best phrase there, but I figured it was a slip of the tongue. It didn’t sound like he was a fan of the press. I wasn’t one either and I agreed unreservedly with his suggestion.

We spoke for a few more minutes about which direction to take the investigation and then Thorne said, “So where does all this leave us?”

Ralph spoke up. “I’ll bring Pat up to speed on the other cases from Illinois and Ohio. Beyond the obvious connection to Dahmer and dismemberment, we can try to see if we can identify any other ties to what happened last night.”

Yes, the comparative case analysis I was thinking of earlier.

Thorne slid the papers on his desk into a single stack, straightened it punctiliously. “I assigned Thompson, Holdren, and Lyrie to this. I’ll brief ’em on what we talked about here. They can start following up on the tip list-last I heard we’ve already had seventy-two names called in, plus four confessions. You know how these false confessions go, but we’ll check ’em out. And we’ll scan the DMV records for names of sedan-owning large-framed male Caucasians with brown eyes.”

“I’ll look at names of felons living in the area,” Radar offered, “see what I can come up with for people with past convictions of assault, or, well, a history of maiming others. Amputating their limbs.”

I had a feeling that last criterion would make it a short list. At least I hoped it would.

Detective Corsica motioned toward Ellen. “We can review open kidnapping and missing persons cases in the Midwest. Look for any connections. The FBI will have a lot more on those than we do here.” Ellen nodded.

Ralph stood. “Good, let’s see what we can get done on this thing, meet up again after lunch, say one thirty, unless any solid leads come in before then.”

If we met again at one thirty, it might not give me the chance to catch Dr. Werjonic’s three o’clock lecture and I began to prepare myself for the eventuality that I wouldn’t make it today.

As important as my grad classes were, from the start I’d put my work here at the force first. Most of my professors were more than happy to provide me with printed copies of their lecture notes if I missed class. I hoped Dr. Werjonic wouldn’t mind doing so as well.

The rest of the team went their separate ways while Ralph joined me at my desk to talk through the files he’d brought with him concerning the two unsolved homicides.

And as he outlined the cases, the uncomfortable thought scratched around in my head that a cannibal in the vein of Dahmer might be visiting, or possibly be operating out of, my city.

The training took place in the barn on the edge of their property at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

The lessons started when Joshua was eight years old. At the time, some of the things his father told him and did in front of him and taught him were frightening.

At the time.

And sometimes still.

He didn’t know how old the barn was, but it’d looked old ever since they first moved to the property when he was five. That much he knew.

The rusted metal roof had probably been painted red at one time, but to him it looked like it might have been covered in dried blood. The tall wooden slats that made up the sides of the barn had mostly been bleached by the sun. The paint that was left was cracked and peeling or flaking away.

His father had been careful to keep the doors working, though their natural tendency was to tilt awkwardly and groan from their huge rusted hinges. Sometimes Joshua had helped with the important job of oiling them.

“Everything dies, Joshua,” his father told him one day. They were walking through the field that ran alongside the barn. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Everything dies.”

“It’s the way of the world, the way things have been since the beginning. Trees, grass, animals, people. Even rivers can die. And mountains. Did you know that?”

Joshua stared long and hard at the mountains rising wild and rugged against the horizon. Of all the things he would have ever guessed could die, he never would have thought of mountains.

“Can mountains really die?”

“Yes.”

“But how?”

“Sometimes they’re killed by wind and rain, sometimes by people, sometimes by God.”

“God kills mountains?”

Despite the recent oiling, the barn door gave a weary creak as his father leaned against it. “Over time he does. He wears them out with the years. He destroyed some and formed others in the Great Flood.”

As the door opened, Joshua smelled the familiar scent of old hay and dried manure and a hint of leather from the saddles hanging on the boards near the horse stalls. The barn was mostly quiet, except for the tiny scuffling of mice beneath the hay. The air tasted dusty and dry.

“God kills mountains and rivers, animals and people,” his father went on. “Even planets. In the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy, God says, ‘I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal.’ Everything dies in the end, son, and since God is in control of life and death, he could stop it, but he doesn’t. This universe started in the dark and it will end in the dark and until then, we breathe, we live, we do our best to love each other. We try to cherish what we can.”