Chris Mooney - The Killing House

Brandon had demanded that they postpone the trip to go after James Weeks. It was too soon, he’d said. Marie had tried to soothe his paranoia by reminding him — again — of the facts. The man who had showed up on Theresa’s front doorstep, the private investigator or whatever he was, was dead; she’d shot him twice in the chest. She’d fled through the back of the house and disappeared into the woods; nobody had seen her, and no one had followed her. Theresa Herrera was dead and the Birkin bag sitting on the foot of the bed had killed Dr Herrera. There were no survivors, no witnesses. Everything was fine. There was no reason not to head to Pennsylvania.

Brandon had wanted the dust to settle. He had wanted to wait at least three months.

Marie had no intention of waiting that long. She intended to take James Weeks, with or without Brandon’s help. He had relented, but not without a fight.

Her anger began to soften when her thoughts turned to all the obstacles she and Brandon had overcome. Together.

She needed to show Brandon how much she appreciated him. Maybe order a takeout from that Italian restaurant he loved, then settle down in front of their big LED-screen TV and watch the video she’d taken of Theresa Herrera.

Marie made it to Baltimore in two hours flat.

The building for the defunct printing press had a long, wide bay that could accommodate a tractor-trailer. She pulled inside and parked at the far end. Then she got out and went to work.

Everything was set up and ready when Brandon arrived nearly an hour later, sitting in the passenger seat of a champagne-coloured Toyota Camry. The driver was bundled in a wool navy-blue pea coat. Marie saw the craggy face and thick, bulbous nose, and smiled. Gary Corrigan, tall and in his early fifties, had devoted the past two years to bodybuilding. Whenever Marie hugged him, as she did now, it felt like she was wrapping her arms around a cloth sack stuffed with smooth boulders. Corrigan kissed her on the cheek and then scurried away to leave them to it.

Marie already had the casket gurney pushed up against the back of the hearse. The coffin was too heavy for her to lift by herself. With Brandon’s help, they grabbed the bars and pushed the coffin across the gurney’s sturdy rollers. He refused her offer to help him carry Jimmy Weeks downstairs.

She followed him, glancing at the small refrigerator set up on a grimy corner desk. She was about to go to it when she remembered she had already tucked the bottle of Gatorade inside her pocket.

Brandon placed the teenager face first against the operating table. The sedative had started to wear off; James Weeks moaned as they removed his clothing. He flinched slightly when the scalpel cut a two-inch incision between his shoulder blades. His eyes fluttered open under the bright operating lights.

While Brandon shaved off the boy’s hair with a pair of electric clippers — head lice were a constant problem down here — Marie picked up a flashlight and made her way back towards the stairwell. She moved past it, her trainers whisper-quiet against the concrete floor, and unlocked the door at the far end of the short hall.

Lying near the back of the small room and curled into a foetal position on the concrete floor was a bone-thin teenaged boy dressed in torn jeans and a threadbare T-shirt several sizes too small. Barefoot and shivering, he held up a shaky hand to shield his eyes from the bright beam of light.

The smell, as always, was atrocious. Breathing through her mouth, she moved closer, careful of the slop bucket. When she leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees, the boy didn’t try to move away.

‘Are you ready to see your mother, Rico?’

Rico Herrera broke down, sobbing in relief. Being mildly dehydrated, he could produce only a few tears.

Marie smiled. ‘I brought you something to drink,’ she said, and placed the bottle of Gatorade on the floor, directly in his line of vision. ‘Look.’

She stepped back, shining the beam of the flashlight on the bottle. Rico stared at it. He swallowed dryly several times, but didn’t dare move without permission.

‘Go ahead, honey. You’ve suffered enough.’

Rico rolled on to his stomach. Having little food and almost no water for the past three days, he crawled to conserve his strength.

Marie smiled when his grimy, shaky hand clutched the bottle. He nearly cried out in triumph.

Rico cracked open the cap. He had started to roll on to his back when she said, ‘You need to sit up and drink it… Here, let me help you… There, isn’t that better? Now drink it slowly, or you’ll throw it up… That’s better. Take your time.’

All the while Rico sipped it, crying, Marie knelt behind him, rubbing his bony back and reassuring him that his mother was waiting upstairs to take him home. When Rico tilted his head back to drain the last of the liquid, she wrapped a rope around his throat.

Rico didn’t have the strength to mount a fight. When his arms went limp, she kept twisting the rope. She had to make sure his brain was deprived of oxygen for just a few more seconds.

Marie had no intention of killing him. She just needed him unconscious. Strangling required more effort, but it was much easier than trying to administer an injection. She had tried that with the first few, and every time they saw the needle it triggered some sort of adrenalin reserve. They fought back and screamed. She wanted them to sit still; too much of the sedative in their weakened condition could potentially stop the heart.

Finally, Rico slumped to the floor. She didn’t require Brandon’s help with this part; she could easily lift Rico herself.

Cradling Rico in her arms, Marie stood and carried him out of the room, the length of rope tapping against her thigh.

Gary Corrigan had changed into medical scrubs and wore green neoprene surgical gloves that ran all the way up his forearms. A clear plastic shield protected his face.

Marie placed Rico on the operating table. She removed the rope, along with his clothing, and stepped back to give Corrigan room to work.

Corrigan rubbed a swab of surgical spirit against the crook of Rico Herrera’s elbow. Next he inserted the IV, taped the line down and then began scrubbing and washing away the filth and grime covering the teenager’s bare chest. Water sluiced over the edges of the operating table and ran into the floor drains.

Next came the Betatine. Corrigan swabbed the iodine-coloured liquid over Rico’s chest, picked up a scalpel and made what he called a ‘midline incision’. It started at the suprasternal notch and ended at the pubis. Corrigan had studied a new and rapid technique for multiple organ harvesting that allowed the organs to be cooled in situ using cold intra-aortic and intraportal infusates. The surgery would take no longer than sixty minutes.

Marie found it difficult to stand still. A fevered rush always gripped her at this stage. There was so much to do, so many decisions to make. She needed to maintain patience and calm in the midst of this exciting yet draining emotional storm.

Harvesting organs to fund their operation had been Brandon’s brainchild. He had come up with the idea early on, when their financial resources were extremely limited, back when they were storing the children in the small basement of their home. With the families scattered all over the country, they could afford to take only one child at a time. Driving to a particular state and staying at hotels, the endless days spent watching the family and waiting for the perfect moment to abduct the child and disappear without getting caught — all of this required a significant investment of capital, and it had to be paid in cash because money didn’t leave a visible trail.