John Burley - The Absence of Mercy

“Lower Gauley.”

“Ever try the Upper?”

Ben shook his head. “That’s quite a bit beyond our experience level,” he said. “People die on the Upper Gauley, Detective.”

Carl was glaring at his colleague. The anger had been building inside him during most of this inane conversation. Over the past few months he’d gradually come to the conclusion that having Danny Hunt as a partner was like trying to run a marathon with your shoelaces tied together. The kid slowed him down, often seemed not to appreciate the seriousness of their work, and showed more interest in chitchat than in examining the facts of the case in front of them. I really ought to have a word with Sam Garston about the kid’s overall conduct, Carl thought. Danny was a nice enough guy, he supposed—but he sure as hell wasn’t cut out for detective work.

“Are you finished?” he asked his partner coldly. “Because I’d like to talk about the case now. That is, if it’s okay with you.”

Danny nodded, handing the picture back to Ben. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his notepad. “Sorry,” he said, eyes cast downward onto the pages in front of him.

“Thank you,” Carl replied. He turned to the doctor. “What do you make of the face? Was he trying to make it difficult for us to ID the victim?”

“I don’t think so.” Ben frowned. “He also amputated several of the kid’s digits, but I don’t think it was an effort to avoid fingerprinting. He left some of the fingers intact. In addition, all of the amputated digits were either found with the body itself or simply tossed aside in proximity to the crime scene.”

“So why destroy the face? Does that suggest any significance for psychological profiling?”

“Psychological profiling is not my area of expertise,” Ben replied. “But provided we think this is the same guy—which we do—I’d say no. The faces of the other two victims were damaged, but their general features remained intact. It doesn’t fit his MO.”

“Which is?”

“Judging from the injuries to the bodies, I’d say that each one has been progressively worse.”

“You think he’s getting better at desecrating them?” Detective Schroeder asked, glancing toward the metal table in the next room.

“No,” Ben said. “I think he’s experimenting—seeing just how creative he can get. I think his enthusiasm for this sort of work is growing.”

There were a few more questions, but they were mostly formalities. By now, they all knew what they were dealing with. In a way, they each shared a certain intimacy with the killer, wading through the aftermath of each successive massacre and getting to know him by the tattered pieces he left behind. Detectives Schroeder and Hunt thanked Ben once again for his time. “If you discover anything else that might be of assistance,” Carl reminded him unnecessarily, “please give us a call.” Ben assured them that he would.

The detectives took their leave and made their way across the parking lot to the unmarked cruiser out back. “You know,” Carl said as they pulled the doors closed against the bitter chill, “you really ought to try concentrating on your job for once.” He popped the key into the ignition and started the Chevy, but left it idling in neutral. “I mean, what in the hell was that all about back there? Is this case boring you? You’d rather go white-water rafting with the doc this weekend?”

“Sorry,” Danny replied. “I wasn’t trying to irritate you.”

“You think I’m out of line?” Carl challenged. “You think I shouldn’t be irritated?” He dropped the car into reverse and backed away from the building. He tried to let go of his frustration, telling himself he was overreacting, that the stress of the case was getting to him. Still, it was hard to let the anger go once it had taken hold of him. “I mean, why don’t you try getting your head out of your ass and start acting like you really care about solving this thing. I could use a little help here. You think you could manage that?”

Danny remained quiet, looking out through the passenger window. His right hand fidgeted with the armrest. Carl watched him for a moment, then shook his head in exasperation. There was no fight in the boy; that was the problem. If anyone had given Carl the type of verbal flogging he’d just dished out, he would’ve told them to go to hell; it wouldn’t matter who they were. Instead, the kid just sat there and took it.

He guided the car out of the parking lot and shot down the street in the direction of the station, the tires screeching slightly on the asphalt as they accelerated. Neither of them spoke for the remainder of the trip. Small homes and businesses streaked past them on either side. It wasn’t a huge town: one high school, a couple of gas stations, a few bars and restaurants for evening entertainment. Not much, really. But it was theirs to protect, theirs to safeguard. The thing was, nobody around here had been outwardly vocal about the delay in catching this guy. No one had stood up and said, “ Why ain’t the police doin’ their job? That’s what I want to know! ” It simply wasn’t that kind of place. These people were Carl’s friends and neighbors, and he knew most of them by name. For the most part, they were decent folks. People trusted that their Sheriff’s Department was doing everything in its power to put an end to this. The town seemed to have faith in that, and most people understood that a barrage of criticism wouldn’t make the department’s job any easier. That made it all the more frustrating for him that the investigation had failed to make any real headway since the last attack. The DNA sample from Clarence Bedford, the escaped psychiatric patient, had not matched any of the DNA left behind on the bodies by the perpetrator. And just like that, their most promising suspect—their only concrete suspect—had been swept off their list, leaving them with no one. That setback left Carl feeling angry and ashamed, and ready to bite the head off anyone who he judged wasn’t doing their part to get this case solved. That’s where Danny came in. The kid needed someone to light a fire under his ass, and by default Carl had been the one to do it. If I hurt the kid’s feelings, he thought as they pulled into the station ten minutes later, well, tough shit . If it yielded something useful, it would certainly be worth it.

For his part, Danny had sat quietly in the front passenger seat during the short ride, gazing thoughtfully out through the window at the parade of storefronts and side streets they passed. He cared very little about the rebuke he’d just received from his partner. His hide was considerably thicker than Detective Schroeder presumed. Nor did he need a fire to be lit under his proverbial ass, as his partner imagined. He had taken the case seriously from the start, and had logged more hours than anyone during this investigation, sifting through the BMV photos until their images appeared before him even in sleep. He’d carefully reviewed the evidence over and over, looking for something to stand out from the background noise. The results of his efforts had been as frustrating to him as they had been for Carl. He didn’t know why this should be the case. Hard work had always paid off for him in the past. Maybe he’d simply been thinking about it too much, trying to will something to happen when it clearly wanted to take its own sweet time coming to him. If that was so, the price of patience had been another dead child. That had pushed him back into a state of action once again, no matter how futile those actions might turn out to be. It was what drove him to bring his own digital camera to the autopsy review today. The body had already been thoroughly photographed by the crime scene investigators at the time it was originally discovered. Extensive pictures of the injuries were also taken during autopsy. Every wound had been well documented. It had not been necessary for him to repeat the process today. And yet he had felt the need to do so, if for no other reason than to involve himself as intimately as possible with the available evidence. And so, for twenty minutes he had remained with the body in the autopsy room while his partner and Dr. Stevenson talked further in the pathologist’s tiny adjacent office. When Danny had finished, he’d returned the camera to its carrying case and had joined the others in the next room. And then…