In the beginning With no immediate ID, there was no family to inform that their precious daughter would not be returning home that night. And even though the neutrality of that fact made the job slightly easier in the immediate moment, she knew it would only add to the pain when the victim had an identity, a life she had meant to live before it was cut so brutally short. “Hey Beth, what a way to wrap up a night, right?” Brice was new to the Forensic unit, and he had a painful way of stating the obvious. “It’s 4am Brice, I’d say it’s closer to “What a way to start the day”, wouldn’t you?” Ignoring the forensic tech before he further moves to make conversation, she locates the ME, Ryan Fordham, and asks his opinion. “Can we get any preliminary findings?” He turns away from the girl and says “How preliminary do you want? I can tell you it wasn’t natural causes.” Beth sighs, and asks him “Do we have an official cause of death” Ryan replies, “Well, her hyoid didn’t break itself, but we’ll need x-rays to confirm.” With that, Beth wraps it up and heads home. Tomorrow is going to be another long day. Beth woke up to the slim slit of light coming through the curtains. It couldn’t be much after sunrise, but it was enough to make her stumble to the coffee machine and crank it up. She never slept well in hotels, and this was no exception. It wasn’t the strange bed, or the strange smells and sounds, just the simple knowledge that if she wasn’t home, she had better things to do than sleep. She wondered momentarily why all of these somewhat rural stations looked more like jails than police stations – granted they often served double duty, but did they all have to look so depressing? Would it kill the building designers to put even the slightest cheerful spin on these buildings? From her experience, she’s guessing it would. Heading for the double door entrance, she pauses to balance her load before pushing through, and almost loses her balance when a tall, well built man opens the doors for her and graciously invites her in. “You must be the FBI agent? I’m Robert Stafford, I‘ve been working the murders with my partner Jill Lewis since the second body was found. It’s a pleasure, and I have to say a relief, to have you here. We’ve heard good things! Beth is a bit taken aback, given that it’s rare for law enforcement to welcome the FBI into their cases, but she’ll take it! “I’m happy to be here, Robert, thanks so much for the welcome!” “No worries, he says, call me Rob!” Rob leads Beth down the main hallway to a conference room on the side. Beth takes the spare coffees and donuts and sets them up on the side table as people file into the room. She notices the broad man standing behind the head table, he’s a bit out of shape and balding, but she won’t hold that against him if he has a keen mind. He doesn’t appear overly eager to lead the proceedings, but Beth stalls heading up to the table before catching his attention. “Agent Barron! How good of you to come!” the man declares brightly. “I’m Tim Sharp, the Police chief of this little berg! I can’t begin to tell you how grateful we are to have the assistance!” Beth could have toppled over with a feather. This was not at all the welcome she had expected. Usually local LE was resistant to assistance, if not downright uncooperative. Beth tries to see the best in people, but these folks were so cooperative, she began to wonder when the other foot was going to fall, it was just too good to be true. “OK gang, we have a lot of information to review, so let’s settle down and pass around the packets.” Sharp says as he addresses the room. Stafford and Lewis take seats on the first row and dig into the materials. As the uniforms and detectives dig in, Barron hears the occasional sigh and groan as the individual members take in the extent of the damage to these poor souls represented in the files. It could be worse, there could be apathy. “Now as you all know, there have been three murders linked to our current case, so what we’re dealing with is something beyond our run of the mill murder. This is why we have a special guest with us, and with that, let me hand over the podium to Special Agent Beth Barron.” Beth drags herself to her feet, and tries to clear the cobwebs from her head. She knows Sharp expects a profile, and while it’s early days yet, she has a general idea, but not enough to be as specific as she would prefer. But there is no time to waste, so let’s do what we can, she thinks. “Good morning folks” Beth replies. “I’d like to be able to give you a more thorough profile than I can at the moment, but time is short, so we’ll make this as short and sweet as possible, and hope that the profile develops more in the hours, and likely days, ahead.” Grumbles issue through the crowd. Beth knows that profiling is considered at best a fuzzy science to most law enforcement, but it’s still their best starting point. And most of them know it. “First, as you might expect, we’re looking for a strong, healthy male in his 30’s to 40’s, and judging by his victims, he’s likely to be white. We know he’s strong because the bodies were carried, not dragged, then posed in place. We know he’s over 30 because the youngest victim was 23, making it unlikely that our killer is younger than that, and the oldest was 35. It’s a little more of an age range than we usually see in clusters like this, but all 3 victims looked similar in age, so it may be that they are essentially a substitute for the killer’s victim Zero – the person they either did kill first, or wish they had.” “All three victims resembled each other – dark hair, blue eyes, fair skin, slender builds and short in height. They could have been sisters.” As the whispers quiet down, Beth continues “But the similarities didn’t end there. He posed them in public places. Each woman was dressed in a red coat, black cap, and positioned in a tableau of sorts. They were clearly posed.” Hands begin to rise in the audience as Beth concludes. “Yes, you had a question?” she asks the attractive young woman at the first table. “Are the similarities in clothing intentional or accidental?” “Excellent question”, Beth replies. “We believe the killer may have substituted their original clothing with the outdoor wear they had on when found.” Another hand goes up, “Yes?” Beth replies. “Are we sure they were posed” asks a young officer in the second row. “That’s also a good question, and yes, we can say with some certainty that each young woman disappeared from a public area, only to be found posed in a Christmas scene of one type or another. The identical outer clothing and the unnatural positioning of the bodies does indicate the places we found them were staged.” As Beth turns to set the next slide, a voice near the door catches her attention “Agent Barron?” “Yes?”, Beth replies. “We have another missing girl.” “OK, everybody calm down!” Chief Sharp implores. Sharp takes Beth, Stafford and Lewis aside and leads them to his office. The officer who made the announcement follows and Sharp nods to let him know he should proceed as soon as the door closes. “OK Pruett, spit it out, what’ve we got?” “Well sir, we just got a missing person’s report, one Mary Brady. According to her family she was expected in last night for the holidays. She was driving in from New York, and her mother said she last heard from her last night and expected her to arrive this morning.” “So what you’re saying” Sharp replies, “is she’s running late?” Pruett looks abashed, but remains steadfast “Sir, her mother says she was just a few hours outside town when she last heard from her, and that was over 6 hours ago. Things being what they are, the mother got right worried when she didn’t show up. She’s got one of those apps on her phone to track her daughter, and it went off suddenly about 3 hours ago. She’s not answering her phone, and no one’s heard from her since.” “Well”, Sharp replied, “do we have an APB on the car?” “Yes sir, under the circumstances we thought it best to err on the side of caution, but so far there’s been no sighting.” “Damnit!” Sharp exclaimed. “Chief Sharp?” Beth says, “as frightening as the situation is, it may be the break we need. Can you call a press conference?” “What do you have in mind, Barron?” Beth thinks it over, “He’s accelerating, Chief, and we need to slow him down. This might be a chance to both deliver our profile, and spook him into a mistake.” They discuss the logistics of throwing together a press conference, and Beth puts in a call to get a warrant to track down Mary Brady’s car. It will take a few hours to get anything back on that, time they don’t have, so it’s something of a gamble. In the meantime, anything they can do to slow this guy down will help. Later, as they gathered before the growing network crowd, Beth worried that she’d spoken out of hand, that this wouldn’t actually slow down the killer. But in her gut, she ultimately felt it would. Letting the killer know they were looking for him might make him lay low long enough to spare Mary Brady. It was the best they could do under the circumstances. Just buy some time. Beth excuses herself for a moment to take some time to develop the best approach to this particular killer. She needs something to chill him out, not rile him up. And it’s a tightrope with these situations, so she needs a little peace and quiet to determine the best approach. No pressure, just the life of an innocent woman hanging in the balance. While she runs inside to jot down a few thoughts, Chief Sharp begins to explain the current situation to the press. *** As Beth gathers her thoughts, Jill Lewis steps into the office and sits at her desk. “Not taking in the circus?” Beth asks. “Not my scene. Give me a good lead and I’ll run with it, but public speaking is not my forte.” she replies. Jill is an attractive woman, and she’d make a great spokesperson for the station, but Beth understands, she’s not a fan of the need to interact with the media herself, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “So, what are you thinking? Scare him straight, or play into his fantasy?” Jill asks. “That’s what I’m trying to decide, and I need to decide fast. Which is my least favorite method of making decisions, but it is what it is.” Then she has an idea, “Run through this with me, would you?” Jill looks confused,”Sure, but what can I do?” “Well, let’s walk through it. All of the girls were a similar age, or at least looked it, and had similar characteristics. All of them were taken within a 20 mile radius, and if we’re correct in assuming he has Mary she’ll probably be found to be missing from within that range. Now does that suggest to you that the killer is local?” Jill thinks for a moment. “He’d almost have to be to know when the local attractions the bodies were found in wouldn’t be observed, wouldn’t he?” “Yes, exactly! That’s what was rubbing me wrong, he’d have to know the schedules and patterns to pull it off!” Beth replied. Beth continues, “So why those locations? What’s so special about the Christmas scenery in his imagination?” Jill scrunches her brow in thought. “Well, maybe something about the Christmas season relates to something traumatic that he can’t get out of his head?” Beth’s eyes widen slightly. “I could kiss you! That’s it! Do me a favor will you? Look into death records of women in their mid 20’s to early 30’s that met traumatic deaths in the months of late November to early January. Go back at least 10 years, preferably 20, and look for women who were mothers or sisters. I’ll owe you big!” “Sure”, Jill replies, “anything to help!” With a stronger hunch of her true profile, Beth heads back to the parking lot. A moment after she steps up to the staging area, Sharp concludes “And now I’d like to introduce Special Agent Beth Barron with the FBI, who was kind enough to lend her expertise to this situation.” Nervously eying the crowd, Barron steps forward and tries to calm her nearly shaking hands. “Greetings and thank you for joining us. We’re going to need your help with this one. We believe that the unsub is local. Most likely a white male in his early 30’s to late 40’s. It’s believed he may have lost someone special in the winter months of his youth, and chances are a more recent loss has driven him to escalate his behavior. “ A redhead in the back pipes up “Excuse me, but isn’t this the standard line? White male, 30-40s, a sob story in his past, and a trigger event that caused him to escalate? ” Barron replies “Your point being?” The red head tosses her head and sighs “Well, it just seems like we should have more to go on with three dead girls.” Barron suppresses the desire to tear the reporter a new outlet for her cynicism, and responds “Do you think you can do better? ” The reporter has the good grace to look flustered and asks “What should we tell the women of this town?” Barron replies, “Well first, don’t go out alone – especially if you’re in this creeps target age range. Stay with a friend in public places. Make sure your loved ones know your whereabouts. Above all, listen to your gut. If a situation seems creepy, there’s probably a reason for it. But above all, just use common sense.” With that said, Chief Sharp steps up and asks for final questions, which is met with a contemplative silence. Barron let’s out a deep breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and make tracks for the interior of the police station -eager to get to work on catching this guy. Nobody notices as a nondescript man vanishes back into the crowd. It’s amazing what you can get way with when nobody notices you. With that thought, the man heads back to his car to begin the drive back to home base. So what if they were looking for a white male in his 30’s-40’s. You and everybody else. He laughed, might as well be looking for Mr. Right in a church group, or down at the bar. In reality, they were as likely to find him in either place, and still look right through him. In the meanwhile, time was ticking down for Mary. But he had plenty of time. All the time in the world. Time to finish his plans, time to teach this pithy little town a lesson. Time to right the wrongs. Time to make them remember his name, once he was done. The night was still, and I’m terrified. Joe had gone into the house more than 15 minutes ago, and while there had been no gunshots, that didn’t mean he was okay. The perp had knife skills, too. And he also had superior size. And a heartlessness Joe didn’t posess. Joe and I caught this case two weeks ago. It seemed simple enough, a case of a husband gone mad with rejection. At first he only toyed with his victim, late night calls, mysterious gifts, items moved in the house when no one was home. But what brought us in was when he took his wife across state lines. He was sloppy, disorganized, and left a string of clues a crossing guard could have followed. But then he escalated, and started leaving parts of his former wife across two states. Then the disappearances started. First it was 33 year old Jeanie Strickland, who had the misfortune of resembling Todd Grahams late wife, before he took a carving knife to her. Then, most recently, Kim Snipes, 34, an otherwise unremarkable waitress with the misfortune of resembling the late Mrs. Graham, as well. It’s not like we didn’t know WHO we were looking for, it was just a matter of tracking him down. It didn’t help that he had properties across both states, due primarily to his being the only grandchild of a woman who acted like he was her son, instead of a grandson. Some people caught all the breaks, then tossed them away like so much trash. Yes, Todd was grandma Graham’s favorite. I wonder briefly if she’s rolling in her grave. Then I draw back to the present, and eye the dark windows of the house that Joe vanished in. It’s been too long without a signal, so I adjust my gun and check for my spare in my ankle holster. Moving swiftly, but as silently as possible, I make my way to the front door. It’s still ajar, where Joe entered almost 20 minutes earlier. There’s silence beyond the door, and darkness. I very carefully push the door open, just enough to squeeze in. There’s just enough moonlight to navigate the furniture. I can see the stairwell ahead, but first I move to my right and clear the rooms. A lot of good it will do to barrel up the stairs just to have the bastard take me down from behind. It’s a standard sized farmhouse, in the middle of a field in Iowa. Not the sort of place you expect a lunatic to escape to, but somehow fitting. In a Children of the Corn sort of way. After determining the old fashioned parlor was empty, and moving past the kitchen and the dining area, I take the hall to the bedrooms. One by one, I scope out the smallish rooms and determine there are no boogeymen in the corners. Nothing but mothballs, and old furniture. And a plethora of photos on the walls, the kind that lend a haunted house feeling to the atmosphere. That done, I head back to the stairwell, and grasp the banister. I move slowly, because old houses tend to creak, and for a moment, I can hear furtive movements upstairs, but is it Joe, or is it ghoulish Graham? Either way, I move forward.
Agent Elizabeth Barron, Beth to her few friends, stared at the broken body of the young girl and wondered what brought her to such an end. She was far too young to be propped up against this tree, In her red coat, and her black cap, like a lifeless doll. So many years clearly ahead of her, now wasted by the depravation of someone who thought they had the right to choose for her. Despite her years investigating cases such as this, Beth could still find no sense behind the tragic circumstances.
This wasn’t the homecoming Beth was hoping for. She would have preferred a quiet week or two in the office before a big assignment, especially after just coming back from leave as a result of her Father’s funeral arrangements. She probably should have taken the leave offered at the time, but being alone with her thoughts wasn’t going to do it for her. Better to dive in and take her mind off of the personal stuff. Yes, it was her father, but let’s face it, everyone dies. Even parents.
But for the moment, more pressing matters were at hand, how did this girl come to arrive on this spot? Did she expire here, or was this just a drop off? There’s no way to be sure before a full autopsy, but the absence of blood or a struggle indicate the girl was posed, making this a body dump. Beth sipped at a coffee she’s snagged from a nearby vendor, and pondered any possible leads. Something about the way the girl was posed scratches an itch in her brain, but she couldn’t isolate it. ***
Today, she had a trip to make to the morgue. And as ironic as it sounded in her head, she needed a really hot shower to get there. So while the coffee brewed, she grabbed her toiletries and made use of the limitless hot water. After the steam began to make her feel a bit pickled, she shut off the water and grabbed her clothes. Just as she finished getting her pants on, the phone began to ring.
“Barron” she said. The voice on the other end of the line was hesitant. “Beth?” “yes”, she replied, “and you are?” “Sorry, this is Bill Kipps, Justice Mills PD.” I was told you might like a ride to the station to look over the case files.” As she pours her coffee, Beth replies, “that’s OK, I’ve got a rental. I can meet you there in 20 minutes, will that work?” “Sure!” He replies, a bit too enthusiastically. After a brief pause he says “I mean yes, that works fine I’ll see you when you get there.”
And with that awkward as hell introduction, Beth heads out to investigate Justice Falls, and why Justice seems to be a rare commodity here. Just ask the 3 dead girls she’s here to investigate. Starting with victim #3, currently in the morgue as Jane doe, but in Beth’s head, she’s “Little red riding hood.”
Beth arrives at the bleak concrete station half an hour later, a brief stop for coffee and donuts to butter up the crew delaying her. Her old partner, Steve Stepp, taught her never to arrive empty-handed when she was a guest. And since this case was still the purview of the Justice Mills PD, she was by all means a guest.
Sharp clears his throat and calls everyone to attention.