Mike Omer - In the Darkness

He could relate to that.

Locating H. Barry’s email, he wrote his reply to the article. He kept reminding himself to be short and concise. It was important to get this right. It was possible, and even likely, that the reporter would publish this email. He had to sound like the man he was.

Ted Bundy?

By the time he was finished, people wouldn’t even remember who that was.

Zoe was relieved to find out there were no morning meetings on Saturday. In fact, the lieutenant hadn’t shown up yet, and they could all work efficiently without needing to explain their every action to the annoying man.

Foster told her the hotline had begun receiving an endless onslaught of tips ever since the public had found out about the serial killer. Lyons and he were sifting through the call logs, determining what was relevant. Foster also had a long list of people he needed to interview—Maribel Howe’s friends and relatives. He promised to find a geologist who would talk to them as soon as possible.

Though the man was one of the most energetic detectives Zoe had ever met, Foster was clearly running on fumes. His eyes were bloodshot, his shirt rumpled. She wondered if he remembered to eat and sleep.

Zoe opened Harry’s article on her laptop again. There were about twenty comments, and she read through them quickly. None of them seemed to be relevant.

It was time to get to work. She shut the room’s door and browsed her music library, finally deciding on Katy Perry’s One of the Boys as her soundtrack. She needed a quick pick-me-up. No slow instrumental bit to get the album started. Katy understood that sometimes, you just needed to get going.

She’d printed out the whole crime scene report and spread the pages on the desk, her head bobbing with the beat, humming quietly to herself with the chorus.

“Too-doo-doo no-fingerprints no-DNA outside-the-box.

“Too-do-do-do-do-do infrared-camera in-the-box, same-setup as-the-first-time.

“Too-doo-doo box-dimensions identical-to-first-box.

“Too-do-do-do-do-do phone-used is-clean-of-fingerprints, screen-cracked probably-from being-thrown.”

She sorted through the images while Katy kissed a girl and liked it.

Holding the panoramic view of the crime scene between thumb and forefinger, she frowned. “Why did you dig here?” she muttered. “What’s so exciting about this place?”

She glanced at the images of the first crime scene. It seemed similar. A lot of rocks, dry plants, uneven ground.

The door to the meeting room opened. Foster stood in the doorway, frowning as he listened to the music. She glared at him, daring him to say anything about it.

“The geologist told us to drop by his home,” he said. “We’ll be going in about half an hour if you want to join us.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

He began closing the door.

“Foster,” she called. “Hang on.”

“Yeah?”

“Take a look at this.” She held up the images. “What do you see?”

He entered the room and took a look. “The crime scene.”

She rolled her eyes. “Imagine driving by this area. Not knowing it’s a crime scene. What would you think?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. It looks like everywhere around here. Dry. Hot.”

“But it’s not exactly the same.” She opened Google Maps. “Look here.”

She clicked on a point in the map. The image of the area appeared on-screen. A completely flat, sand-covered landscape. Hardly any plants, no rocks to speak of.

“Okay,” he said. “I don’t follow your point. This isn’t the crime scene.”

“When you see those places, when you drive around San Angelo, what do you think?”

“I don’t know. I don’t pay attention. I grew up around here.”

“But the killer does pay attention. Do you know what he thinks when he looks around?”

“No.”

“He thinks, ‘This looks like a good place to bury my next victim.’ Or he might think, ‘This doesn’t do it for me at all. This place is a turnoff.’ For him, choosing a place to dig is exciting . This is his porn.”

Foster seemed distinctly uncomfortable. Zoe was used to that reaction.

“Why is this”—she gestured at the rocky terrain with the plants—“a better turn-on than this?” She pointed at the sandy terrain. “Doesn’t the sandy field look more fun to dig in?”

“I don’t know, Bentley.” He sighed. “Did you see that we have a definite time of death?”

“Really?” Zoe’s interest was piqued.

“Yup. Curly estimates it to be between the thirtieth and the thirty-first of July.”

“That’s remarkably accurate.”

“Apparently there’s an advantage to our killer burying the victims alive. He buries them deep, no insect activity, no exposure to heat. So Curly can nail the time of death quite precisely, just by checking the putrefaction of the internal organs. He really outdid himself this time.”

“So she died within a day or two of disappearing. It matches the same pattern as Medina. He doesn’t waste any time. Takes the girl and buries her alive almost immediately afterward.”

Foster nodded. “What else?”

“We know he had this fantasy of burying women for a long time. He is obsessed with his own fame. He killed at least three victims—”

“Three?” Foster stared at her. “We know of two victims. He even numbered them experiments one and two.”

“No. I told you—this whole thing with the infrared camera and posting the videos online? That’s something he planned after killing his first victim. The original fantasy was just burying the victim alive. For a long time it was just a fantasy. He probably never thought he’d go through with it. He dug some pits as a sort of make-believe. Maybe he buried some animals alive. Then came the stressors causing him to snap. He killed his first victim, fulfilling his urge. Only then did he figure out he could film the victim inside the box. See how they struggle and die.”

“How do you know?”

“Because this is what I do. This is what all these people are like. The original fantasy is never so elaborate. It definitely doesn’t cater to external factors, like fame. There’s another victim, Foster. Call her victim zero if you need to. She wasn’t filmed. And if we find her, we might even get fingerprints or DNA. He was probably less careful with the first one.”

Foster eyed her skeptically. “You talk like you already know everything about this guy.”

“Not everything. I still don’t know why he chooses these locations.”

The home office of Dr. Andrei Yermilov was barren and devoid of character, the desk clean and neat, the walls decorated with maps or diagrams of soil layers. Zoe sat on a chair taken from the kitchen, to the left of Foster and Tatum. While Foster explained what they were looking for, Andrei kept looking around him sadly, as if he constantly wondered how he’d ended up there.

“So,” he said, his accent heavy, “you search for hidden holes.”

“Most likely covered with planks and sand,” Foster repeated.

Andrei sighed and looked around him again. He eyed one of the posters with particular dismay.

“Why don’t you use”—he waved his hands vaguely—“radar?”

“The radar didn’t work when we tried it,” Foster said. “The technician said there was too much clay in the ground.”

“Too much clay?” Andrei seemed perplexed. “There is no clay in the hole. There is only a hole.”

A second went by as they all considered this philosophical statement.

“So you’re saying,” Tatum said, “that if we’re looking for actual holes, the radar will work just fine.”