Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) Read online

  Mackenzie backed to the edge of the clearing and took in the entirety of the scene. Porter gave her a sideways glance and then ignored her completely, continuing to talk to Nelson. She noticed that the other policemen were watching her. Some of them, at least, were watching her work. She’d come into the role of detective with a reputation for being exceptionally bright and highly regarded by the majority of instructors at the police academy, and from time to time, younger cops—men and women alike—would ask her genuine questions or seek her opinion.

  On the other hand, she knew that a few of the men sharing the clearing with her might also be leering, too. She wasn’t sure which was worse: the men that checked out her ass when she walked by or the ones that laughed behind her back at the little girl trying to play the role of bad-ass detective.

  As she studied the scene, she was once again assaulted by the nagging suspicion that something was terribly wrong here. She felt like she was opening up a book, reading page one of a story that she knew had some very difficult pages ahead.

  This is just the beginning, she thought.

  She looked to the dirt around the pole and saw a few scuffed boot marks, but not anything that would provide prints. There was also a series of shapes in the dirt that looked almost serpentine. She squatted down for a closer look and saw that several of the shapes trailed side by side, winding their way around the wooden pole in a broken fashion, as if whatever made them had circled the pole several times. She then looked to the woman’s back and saw that the gashes in her flesh were roughly the same shape of the markings on the ground.

  “Porter,” she said.

  “What is it?” he asked, clearly annoyed that he’d been interrupted.

  “I think I’ve got weapon prints here.”

  Porter hesitated for a second and then walked over to where Mackenzie was hunkered down in the dirt. When he squatted down next to her, he groaned slightly and she could hear his belt creaking. He was about fifty pounds overweight and it was showing more and more as he closed in on fifty-five.

  “A whip of some kind?” he asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  She examined the ground, following the marks in the sand all the way up to the pole—and while doing so, she noticed something else. It was something minuscule, so small that she almost didn’t catch it.

  She walked over to the pole, careful not to touch the body before forensics could get to it. She again hunkered down and when she did, she felt the full weight of the afternoon’s heat pressing down on her. Undaunted, she craned her head closer to the pole, so close that her forehead nearly touched it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Nelson asked.

  “Something’s carved here,” she said. “Looks like numbers.”

  Porter came over to investigate but did everything he could not to bend down again. “White, that chunk of wood is easily twenty years old,” he said. “That carving looks just as old.”

  “Maybe,” Mackenzie said. But she didn’t think so.

  Already uninterested in the discovery, Porter went back to speaking with Nelson, comparing notes about information he’d gotten from the farmer who had discovered the body.

  Mackenzie took out her phone and snapped a picture of the numbers. She enlarged the image and the numbers became a bit clearer. Seeing them in such detail once again made her feel as if this was all the start of something much bigger.

  N511/J202

  The numbers meant nothing to her. Maybe Porter was right; maybe they meant absolutely nothing. Maybe they’d been carved there by a logger when the post had been created. Maybe some bored kid had chiseled them there somewhere along the years.

  But that didn’t feel right.

  Nothing about this felt right.

  And she knew, in her heart, that this was only the beginning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mackenzie felt a knot in her stomach as she looked out of the car and saw the news vans piled up, reporters jockeying for the best position to assault her and Porter as they pulled up to the precinct. As Porter parked, she watched several news anchors approach, running across the precinct lawn with burdened cameramen keeping pace behind them.

  Mackenzie saw Nelson already at the front doors, doing what he could to pacify them, looking uncomfortable and agitated. Even from here she could see the sweat glistening on his forehead.

  As they got out, Porter ambled up beside her, making sure she was not the first detective the media saw. As he passed her, he said, “Don’t you tell these vampires anything.”

  She felt a rush of indignation at his condescending comment.

  “I know, Porter.”

  The throng of reporters and cameras reached them. There were at least a dozen mics sticking out of the crowd and into their faces as they made their way past. The questions came at them like the buzzing of insects.

  “Have the victim’s children been notified yet?”

  “What was the farmer’s reaction when he found the body?”

  “Is this a case of sexual abuse?”

  “Is it wise for a woman to be assigned to such a case?”

  That last one stung Mackenzie a bit. Sure, she knew they were simply trying to land a response, hoping for a juicy twenty-second spot for the afternoon newscast. It was only four o’clock; if they acted quickly, they might have a nugget for the six o’clock news.

  As she made her way through the doors and inside, that last question echoed like thunder in her head.

  Is it wise for a woman to be assigned to such a case?

  She recalled how emotionlessly Nelson had read off Hailey Lizbrook’s information.

  Of course it is, Mackenzie thought. In fact, it’s crucial.

  Finally they entered the precinct and the doors slammed behind them. Mackenzie breathed with relief to be in the quiet.

  “Fucking leeches,” Porter said.

  He’d dropped the swagger from his step now that he was no longer in front of the cameras. He walked slowly past the receptionist’s desk and toward the hallway that led to the conference rooms and offices that made up their precinct. He looked tired, ready to go home, ready to be done with this case already.

  Mackenzie entered the conference room first. There were several officers sitting at a large table, some in uniform and some in their street clothes. Given their presence and the sudden appearance of the news vans, Mackenzie guessed that the story had leaked in all sorts of directions in the two and a half hours between leaving her office, heading to the cornfield, and getting back. It was more than a random grisly murder; now, it had become a spectacle.

  Mackenzie grabbed a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table. Someone had already set folders around the table with the little bit of information that had already been gathered about the case. As she looked through it, more people started filing into the room. Porter eventually entered, taking a seat at the opposite end.

  Mackenzie took a moment to check her phone and found that she had eight missed calls, five voice messages, and a dozen e-mails. It was a stark reminder that she’d already had a full caseload before being sent out to the cornfield this morning. The sad irony was that while her older peers spent a lot of time demeaning her and throwing subtle insults her way, they also realized her talents. As a result, she kept one of the larger caseloads on the force. To date, though, she had never fallen behind and had a stellar rate of closed cases.

  She thought about answering some of the e-mails while she waited, but Chief Nelson came in before she could get the chance. He quickly closed the conference room door behind him.

  “I don’t know how the media found out about this so quickly,” he growled, “but if I find out that someone in this room is responsible, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  The room fell quiet. A few officers and related staff started to look nervously at the contents of the folders in front of them. While Mackenzie didn’t care much for Nelson, there was no denying that the man’s presence and voice commanded a room without much
effort.

  “Here’s where we stand,” Nelson said. “The victim is Hailey Lizbrook, a stripper from Omaha. Thirty-four years old, two boys, ages nine and fifteen. From what we can gather, she was abducted before clocking in for work, as her employer says she never showed up the night before. Security footage from the Runway, her place of employment, shows nothing. So we’re working on the assumption that she was taken somewhere between her apartment and the Runway. That’s an area of seven and a half miles—an area that we currently have a few bodies investigating with the Omaha PD right now.”

  He then looked to Porter as if he were a prized pupil and said:

  “Porter, why don’t you describe the scene?”

  Of course he’d choose Porter.

  Porter stood up and looked around the room as if to make sure everyone was paying close attention.

  “The victim was bound to a wooden pole with her hands tied behind her. The sight of her death was in a clearing in a cornfield, a little less than a mile off the highway. Her back was covered in what appeared to be lash marks, placed there by some sort of a whip. We noted prints in the dirt that were the same shape and size of the lashes. While we won’t know for absolutely certain until after the coroner’s report, we are fairly certain this was not a sexual attack, even though the victim had been stripped to her underwear and her clothes were nowhere to be found.”

  “Thanks, Porter,” Nelson said. “Speaking of the coroner, I spoke with him on the phone about twenty minutes ago. He says that while he won’t know for sure until an autopsy is conducted, the cause of death is likely going to be blood loss or some sort trauma—likely to the head or heart.”

  His eyes then went to Mackenzie and there was very little interest in them when he asked: “Anything to add, White?”

  “The numbers,” she said.

  Nelson rolled his eyes in front of the entire room. It was a clear sign of disrespect but she trudged past it, determined to get it out to everyone present before she could be cut off.

  “I discovered what appeared to be two numbers, separated by a slash, carved into the bottom of the pole.”

  “What were the numbers?” one of the younger officers at the table asked.

  “Numbers and letters actually,” Mackenzie said. “N 511 and J 202. I have a picture on my phone.”

  “Other pictures will be here shortly, just as soon as Nancy gets them printed out,” Nelson said. He spoke quickly and forcefully, letting the room know that the issue of these numbers was now closed.

  Mackenzie listened to Nelson as he droned on about the tasks that needed to be carried out to cover the seven-and-a-half-mile area between Hailey Lizbrook’s home and the Runway. But she was only half-listening, really. Her mind kept going back to the way the woman’s body had been strung up. Something about the entire display of the body had seemed almost familiar to her right away, and it still stuck with her as she sat in the conference room.

  She went through the brief notes in the folder, hoping some small detail might trigger something in her memory. She leafed through the four pages of information, hoping to uncover something. She already knew everything in the folder, but she scanned the details anyway.

  Thirty-four-year-old female, presumed killed the previous night. Lashes, cuts, various abrasions on her back, tied to an old wooden post. Cause of death assumed to be blood loss or possible trauma to the heart. Method of binding suggests possible religious overtones while woman’s body type hints at sexual motivations.

  As she read through it, something clicked. She zoned out a bit, allowing her mind to go where it needed without interference from her surroundings.

  As she put the dots together, coming up with a connection she hoped she was wrong about, Nelson started to wind down.

  “…and since it’s too late for roadblocks to be effective, we’re going to have to rely mostly on witness testimony, even down to the most minute and seemingly useless detail. Now, does anyone have anything else to add?”

  “One thing, sir,” Mackenzie said.

  She could tell that Nelson was containing a sigh. From the other end of the table, she heard Porter make a soft sort of chuckling noise. She ignored it all and waited to see how Nelson would address her.

  “Yes, White?” he asked.

  “I’m recalling a case in 1987 that was similar to this. I’m pretty sure it was right outside of Roseland. The binding was the same, the type of woman was the same. I’m fairly certain the method of beating was the same.”

  “1987?” Nelson asked. “White, were you even born yet?”

  This was met with soft laughter from more than half of the room. Mackenzie let it slide right off. She’d find the time to be embarrassed later.

  “I was not,” she said, not afraid to tangle with him. “But I did read the report.”

  “You forget, sir,” Porter said. “Mackenzie spends her free time reading cold case files. The girl is like a walking encyclopedia for this stuff.”

  Mackenzie noticed at once that Porter had referred to her by her first name and called her a girl rather than a woman. The sad thing was that she didn’t think he was even aware of the disrespect.

  Nelson rubbed at his head and finally let out the thunderous sigh that had been building up. “1987? You’re sure?”

  “Almost positive.”

  “Roseland?”

  “Or the immediate surrounding area,” she said.

  “Okay,” Nelson said, looking to the far end of the table where a middle-aged woman sat, listening diligently. There was a laptop in front of her, which she had been quietly typing on the whole time. “Nancy, can you run a search for that in the database?”

  “Yes sir,” she said. She started typing something into the precinct’s internal server right away.

  Nelson cast Mackenzie another disapproving look that essentially translated to: You better be right. If not, you just wasted twenty seconds of my valuable time.

  “All right, boys and ladies,” Nelson said. “Here’s how we’re going to break this out. The moment this meeting ends, I want Smith and Berryhill heading out to Omaha to help the local PD out there. From there, if needed, we’ll rotate out in pairs. Porter and White, want you two to speak with the kids of the deceased and her employer. We’re also working on getting the address of her sister.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Nancy said, looking up from her computer.

  “Yes, Nancy?”

  “It seems Detective White was right. October of 1987, a prostitute was found dead and bound to a wooden line pole just outside of the Roseland city limits. The file I’m looking at says she was stripped to her underwear and flogged severely. No signs of sexual abuse and no motive to speak of.”

  The room went quiet again as many damning questions went unspoken. Finally, it was Porter that spoke up and although Mackenzie could tell he was trying to dismiss the case, she could hear a hint of worry in his voice.

  “That’s almost thirty years ago,” he said. “I’d call that a flimsy connection.”

  “But it’s a connection nonetheless,” Mackenzie said.

  Nelson slammed a hefty hand down on the desk, his eyes burning into Mackenzie. “If there is a connection here, you know what it means, right?”

  “It means we may be dealing with a serial killer,” she said. “And even the idea that we may be dealing with a serial killer means we need to consider calling in the FBI.”

  “Ah, hell,” Nelson said. “You’re jumping the gun there. You’re jumping an entire arsenal, in fact.”

  “With all due respect,” Mackenzie said, “it’s worth looking into.”

  “And now that your hardwired brain has brought it to our attention, we have to,” Nelson said. “I’ll make some calls and get you involved in checking it out. For now, let’s get cracking on things that are relevant and timely. That’s it for now, everyone. Now get to work.”

  The small group at the conference table started to disperse, taking their folders with them. As Mackenzie started out
of the room, Nancy gave her a small smile of acknowledgment. It was the most encouragement Mackenzie had gotten at work in more than two weeks. Nancy was the receptionist and sometimes fact-checker around the precinct. As far as Mackenzie knew, she was one of the few older members on the force who had no real problem with her.

  “Porter and White, hold on,” Nelson said.

  She saw that Nelson was now showing some of the same worry she had seen and heard in Porter when he spoke up moments ago. He looked almost sick with it.

  “Good recall on that 1987 case,” Nelson told Mackenzie. It looked like it physically hurt him to pay her the compliment. “It is a shot in the dark. But it does make you wonder…”

  “Wonder what?” Porter asked.

  Mackenzie, never one for beating around the bush, answered for Nelson.

  “Why he’s decided to go active now,” she said.

  Then she added:

  “And when he’ll kill again.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  He sat in his car, enjoying the silence. Streetlights cast a ghostly glow on the street. There weren’t many cars out at such a late hour, making it eerily tranquil. He knew that anyone out in this part of town at such an hour was likely preoccupied or doing their dealings in secret. It made it easier for him to focus on the work at hand—the Good Work.

  The sidewalks were dark except for the occasional neon glow of seedy establishments. The crude figure of a well-endowed woman glowed in the window of the building he was studying. It flickered like a beacon on a stormy sea. But there was no refuge in those places—no respectable refuge, anyway.

  As he sat in his car, as far away from the streetlights as he could get, he thought about his collection at home. He’d studied it closely before heading out tonight. There were remnants of his work on his small desk: a purse, an earring, a gold necklace, a chunk of blonde hair placed in a small Tupperware container. They were reminders, reminders that he had been assigned this work. And that he had more work to do.