CHAPTER TWO
"I think we have another victim of the same sick son of a
bitch," Jay's voice crackled down the line.
A shiver ran through Ben and he cupped his head in one
hand, his elbows propped up on his desk. "Same M.O?"
He asked, referring to the killer's Modus Operandi. Some
murderers use a particular style when they kill their
victims; Albert DeSalvo strangled his victims and posed
them in sexually degrading positions. Jeffrey Dahmer
drugged and ate his prey, along with performing other
cruel and unusual experiments on them. This killer
removed breasts and cut stomachs open for kicks.
"Yup," said Jay, "right down to the missing breasts and
the cut up stomach. This killer is just twisted, Benny Boy.
A real freak of nature."
"This new vic, she got a name yet?" Ben asked, swapping
the phone to his other ear.
"Not yet. There were no identifying belongings with her.
She's got a birthmark on her left shoulder, though, so
that may help figure out who she was."
"Was she…?" Ben was unable to finish his question. The
mere thought of the answer was unthinkable.
"Pregnant?" Jay blurted out.
"Yeah," Ben whispered.
"Dunno yet. Won’t know until the Doc does the slice ‘n’
dice later this afternoon. Maybe he can give us something
that can help us identify her too. With a bit of luck the
killer might have left something of himself with her."
"Himself?" Ben paused. "Are we sure it is a he?"
"Are you thinking it’s a woman, Ben?"
"I don’t know what I’m thinking, Jayy. But I do believe it
would be a mistake to rule every possibility out this early
on."
"Yeah, I guess you’re right. So where to from here?"
"Are you going to the autopsy?" Ben asked, scooping up
the photos, notes and other reports on his desk before
tucking them neatly into a manila folder. He then placed
them in his top drawer with the other information on
Tessa Hunt.
"Was planning on it, why? You wanna do it instead?"
"No, no. I’ll leave that in your capable hands Jayy," said
Ben as he rose from his chair and pulled his jacket from
the back of the seat.
"I’ve got a few things I want to check out myself." Ben then
rubbed his forehead vigor-ously and sighed down the
phone.
"Aaww, hell, Ben. Don’t tell me you got another damn
Brain Bleeder?"
That’s what Ben had always named his tension headaches
down at the station. ‚Brain-Bleeders. Whenever a big case
hit their desk, Ben always suffered a brain-bleeder. They
didn’t just happen with any case, though, only the ones
that turned out ugly and usually didn’t end too sweet. It
was never a good sign when Ben suffered one of his
infamous headaches.
"Fraid so," he replied, still massaging his temples and
patting at his pockets, in search of his medication. As a
rule, he generally had a stash in just about every coat and
every drawer in his home and at the office; he even had a
leaflet in the car. He despised taking the pills since they
were strong enough to tranquilise a small horse, or so he
believed. Yet, sometimes he was left with little choice. He
found a leaflet in his coat pocket and held them tightly in
his hand. "If these killing are linked, the press is going to
have a field day with this Jayy. We need to sort this out
now and with as little fuss as possible."
"Mum’s the word," said Jay.
"Well, I’m heading home for a bit. Gotta get rid of this
bloody headache before it lands me in a heap. You right
out there?"
"Sure thing, Ben. I’m just gonna have another walk
through of the crime scene. Gimme a call when you’re
back on deck."
"Will do," Ben agreed. He hung up the phone and said to
himself, "Later." He looked down at the leaflet in his hand
and headed for the bathroom. If he didn’t ease this
headache soon, he’d be a useless wreck for the rest of the
day.
Ben stood in front of the washbasin and stared in the
mirror for a moment. There, staring back at him was a
forty-something year old, washed up and burnt out shell
of a man. He had nothing more to show for his twenty
odd years as a cop other than a hardened expression and
a sprinkling of grey hairs that seemed to multiply daily.
His brown eyes narrowed, Ben couldn’t help but notice
how lifeless they appeared. They held no fire, no passion,
nothing.
Ben’s thoughts drifted back to Tessa, the memory of her
murder still etched deeply in his mind. The sheer violence
and ferocity of her attack chilled him to the very core. Ben
rubbed his hands over his face. This murderer could have
been straight from the pages of a Patricia Cornwell novel.
In his twenty odd years on the force, he had never
encountered a homicide quite like this. He had
experienced numerous cases varying from assault and
domestic vio-lence to sheer random acts of murder. Of
the homicides, he’d found the usual causes to be
robberies gone bad or a star-crossed lover turned jealous.
Not once had he worked a murder that was committed for
what seemed like nothing more than the sheer pleasure
of the act itself. To Ben it felt very much like Tessa’s
murder was fast shaping up to fall into the latter of the
categories. Unless he uncovered a motive soon, he would
be forced to acknowledge that a ‚thrill killer‛ was patrolling
his territory. He couldn’t shake the images of Tessa’s
mutilated body from his mind. They were engrained there,
forever…
Vivid splashes of dried blood covered the young woman’s
face, a deep three inch gash above her eye gaped wide
open, exposing raw flesh and muscle. Around her neck
were dark ligature marks; her wrists and ankles bore the
same purple bands. Torn and jagged nails hung from her
fingers and toes, her hands and heels showed evidence of
cuts and scratches, perhaps from a futile attempt to
defend herself. In her matted, bloodied hair were twigs
and leaves along with various insects, native to the scrub-
land where her body had been dumped.
These details were shocking enough, but the worst was
still to come, the mutilation. How it turned Ben’s stomach
to have to view such depravity and the barbaric nature of
this crime. Both her breasts had been excised from her
body. All that remained were two large patches of
coagulated blood, fatty tissue and flesh. Yet it got worse,
much worse. Her abdomen had been torn open from just
below the navel, all the way down to the pubic bone.
Internal organs were visible through the mess of more
coagulated blood, muscle and flesh. This woman had
almost been disemboweled; the evidence of this was
obvious, with her intestines spilling from the cavity and
over the side of her lifeless body.
; Ben looked at his pills in his hand, then popped two from
the leaflet and swallowed them down before splashing
water over his face. Lowering his head, he stepped back
from the mirror, his thoughts again returning to Tessa.
For a little over three weeks he had been working her case,
so far his results had been zip. No witnesses, no real
leads to speak of and nothing of importance was
obtained from speaking with her neighbours. The woman
was like a ghost. Everybody he spoke to knew who she
was, yet none of them could tell him too much about her.
She lived alone and kept pretty much to herself. He had
tried to track down her next of kin but that even lead him
down a fruitless path. Both her parents were dead. They were killed in an auto accident just three years ago. She had no siblings that he had been able to uncover.