Rick Mofina - Into the Dark

“August 11, 2004, during some construction work for a new subdivision in Topanga, a grader flattening the ground unearthed the body of Esther Fatima Lopez, age twenty-nine. She had been sexually assaulted and her throat had been slashed. She’d worked for an escort agency.”

A new photo titled Three showing a winding nature trail appeared on the screen. The image changed to a small hillside and the naked corpse of a white female, semiburied under branches.

“On June 3, 2005, in Lakewood’s Monte Verde Park, a grade-nine science class on a field trip found the body of Monique Louise Wilson, a thirty-year-old accountant from Artesia. She’d been sexually assaulted and strangled with her own panties.”

Slide Four showed an old factory and its storage area, followed by a slide of a steel drum containing a woman’s corpse.

“On April 16, 2006, in San Dimas, two teenage boys flying a radio-controlled airplane that crashed into the barrels near this abandoned fruit-packing plant discovered the body of Fay Lynne Millwood, age twenty-seven. She was an aspiring actress who’d been working in a bar in Burbank. She had been sexually assaulted. Family members confirmed her remains through tattoos and surgical scars.”

The fifth photograph was of a ranch-style bungalow, with children’s bicycles, balls and toys scattered across the front yard. The next image featured a kitchen, cereal boxes and empty bowls on the table, a cluttered family bulletin board.

Then the screen changed to an image of horror. In the bedroom, a naked woman in a spread-eagled position on a blood-drenched bed, each arm and leg tied to each corner. The walls cascaded with blood.

“On February 10, 2007, a neighbor discovered the body of Bonnie Catherine Bradford, age thirty-four, in her home in Temple City. Bradford was a script writer and a divorced mother of an eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed more than fifty times according to the autopsy report.”

Tanner shut down the laptop.

“The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department handles more than a thousand homicides a year,” he said. “I won’t go into discussion on our clearance rate other than to say it’s a fact that a lot of murders go cold. But no homicide is closed until the investigation is resolved.

“For years these five cases remained unsolved and unconnected among the hundreds of other cold cases. Recently, in reviewing the Bradford murder, we discovered a piece of critical evidence that had been overlooked-a cryptic message left at the scene by the killer.”

“What did it say?” Harding asked while taking notes.

“We’re not going to reveal that. It’s holdback,” Zurn said.

“What? You call me down here and hint at a big exclusive-”

“Easy, Mark,” Tanner said. “No one has this story. Listen, after we had the overlooked evidence analyzed, we found that it was irrefutably linked to these five cases with a solid common factor.”

“What could be the common factor among-” he flipped through his pages “-a waitress, a hooker, an accountant, an actress and a screenwriter? Did these victims know each other? Belong to the same book club?”

“Nothing like that. They’re linked by the physical evidence we found.”

“DNA?”

“We’re not prepared to go into details, but we realize that this killer left us a message,” Tanner said. “He wanted us to know what he’d done, that he’s responsible for these five murders across L.A. He’s very smart.”

“Are there more victims?”

“We used the information we’d found and ran it through local, state and national databases, ViCAP and others. So far, nothing’s surfaced to suggest other murders are linked to these five, but we can’t rule out the possibility. The evidence ties the five together, five murders in a string that began ten years ago and stopped cold five years ago with the Bradford case in Temple City.”

“Any theories on why they stopped?”

“The killer is dead,” Zurn said. “Or in prison, or moved on.”

Tanner resumed. “In any event we think these serial murders have ended and that the case is solvable.”

“Really? You believe that?”

“We’re forming a task force with the LAPD, the FBI and other major police agencies,” Tanner said. “We’re going to follow every lead or clue to find the killer and clear these cases. We’re asking anyone anywhere who has information on any of these homicides to contact us.”

Before they wrapped up, Harding asked Tanner several more questions. Tanner gave him a file of information and photos along with the offer to help him reach relatives of victims, or to call him with any questions.

“The tenth anniversary of the first homicide is coming up,” Tanner said. “The profilers said an anniversary story may jog someone’s memory or yield a lead.”

“You’re using me to reach out to the killer, aren’t you?”

“We want him to know that while it took a little time, we got his message and now we’re sending him one.”

“Which is?”

“We may not be as intelligent as he is, but we’ll do everything in our power to find him.”

San Marino, California

The morning after the accident, Claire woke before her alarm and reached toward Robert’s side of the bed.

It was empty.

She lifted her head and looked at their bathroom. The door was open. The light was off. Maybe he couldn’t sleep? His body clock was always out of whack because he often flew across several time zones.

But his last trip had been entirely in Pacific time.

It didn’t really matter, she thought, he was always up at all hours prowling around like a cat.

It was 5:50 a.m.

She got out of bed, tired but cheerful from yesterday’s good news as she pulled on her robe and started for the kitchen to make coffee. Padding through their Spanish-style home, she noticed that the door to Robert’s office was closed. Light spilled from the bottom. She raised her hand to the doorknob but froze when she heard Robert’s voice. It was low and she only picked up bits of the conversation.

“No, I don’t want to do that… Are you listening, Cynthia… No…”

Cynthia? Claire puzzled. Is he talking to his ex-wife? What’s going on?

Robert was coming to the door. Claire left for the kitchen expecting to hear him behind her.

She didn’t.

She shrugged it all off, attributing any qualms to her early-morning grogginess. She made coffee, then went to their front step to collect the Los Angeles Times, the Pasadena Star-News and USA TODAY . Despite her pleas to save trees, Robert had insisted on the subscriptions. He was a news junkie.

She scanned the Times, finding a story on the accident inside under the headline Miracle Rescue in Fiery Freeway Crash. There was a dramatic photo of a car in flames taken from the video a motorist had recorded with his phone camera. Accompanying the story was a small picture of Robert at the hospital with the caption Hero Pilot Robert Bowen Saved Mother and Baby. They had seen TV news reports of the accident and rescue last night. Their phone rang with congratulatory calls from friends and interview requests from reporters.

Claire was proud of him.

After her first cup of morning coffee, a bagel with peaches, and daydreaming about a nursery, she got into the shower. She tried taking inventory of the day ahead, but as the steam clouds rose around her, Claire was carried back through time, back to her deepest wound. Her Grand Canyon of pain…

… Her father is gripping the handgun, pointing it to the ceiling, keeping it out of reach from her mother’s frantic fingers as they battle for it at the top of the stairs. In her other arm, Claire’s mother holds Luke, Claire’s baby brother.