Tangled Read online

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.