BEFORE HE NEEDS Read online

  Beside her, in the passenger seat, Harrison was going over the notes on the case. He had been mostly quiet during the trip and Mackenzie had nearly started to try to open up the lines of conversation. She couldn’t tell if he was nervous, intimidated, or a bit of both. But rather than force him to start speaking to her, she thought it might be best for his development to come out of his shell on his own—especially if McGrath planned on them working together as partners for the foreseeable future.

  Mackenzie took a moment to process everything she knew about the case. She reclined her head back slightly, closed her eyes, and pulled it all forward. Her tendency toward obsessing over the details of case files made it rather easy for her to simply delve into her own mind and rifle through them as if there were a mental filing cabinet within her skull.

  A dead couple, which brings a few questions to the surface right away. Why both of them? Why not just one?

  Got to keep an eye out for anything that might seem even remotely out of place. If jealousy is driving these killings, it’s likely from someone that envies their lives in some way.

  No forced entry; the Kurtz family willingly let the killer inside.

  She opened her eyes and then opened the door. She could speculate all she wanted based on what she had seen in the files. But none of that would be as effective as stepping foot into the crime scene and having a look around.

  Harrison stepped out of the car alongside her and into the bright Miami sunshine. She could smell the ocean in the air, salty and with just the faintest traces of a fishlike smell that wasn’t necessarily unpleasant.

  As she and Harrison closed their doors, the officer in the police car next to them also stepped out. This, Mackenzie assumed, was the officer who had been tasked with meeting them. Forty or so, she looked pretty in a plain sort of way, her short dirty blonde hair catching the shine from the sun.

  “Agents White and Harrison?” the officer asked.

  “That’s us,” Mackenzie said.

  The woman offered her hand as she introduced herself. “I’m Officer Dagney,” she said. “Anything you need, just let me know. The place has, of course, been cleaned up but I’ve got a whole file filled with pictures taken when the scene was fresh.”

  “Thanks,” Mackenzie said. “To start off, I think I’d like to take a look inside first.”

  “Of course,” Dagney said, walking up the stairs and retrieving a key from her pocket. She unlocked the door and gestured for Mackenzie and Harrison to step inside ahead of her.

  Mackenzie smelled bleach or some other sort of cleaner right away. She recalled the report stating that a dog had been trapped inside the house for at least two days and had used the bathroom several times.

  “The bleach,” Harrison said. “Is that from cleaning up the dog’s mess?”

  “Yes,” Dagney said. “That was done last night. We tried to leave it as it was until you guys arrived but the stench was just—it was bad.”

  “That should be fine,” Mackenzie said. “The bedroom is upstairs, correct?”

  Dagney nodded and led them up the stairs. “The only thing that’s been changed up here is that the bodies and the top sheet have been removed,” she explained. “The sheet is still there, on the floor and placed on a plastic sheet. It had to be moved, though, just to get the bodies off of the bed. The blood was…well, you’ll see.”

  Mackenzie noticed that Harrison slowed his approach a bit, falling safely in behind her. Mackenzie followed Dagney to the bedroom door, noticing that she stayed at the doorway and did everything she could not to look inside.

  Once she was inside the room, Mackenzie saw that Dagney had not exaggerated, nor had the reports she had read. There was a lot of blood—much more than she had ever seen at one site.

  And for a horrifying moment, she was standing in a room in Nebraska—a room in a house she knew was now abandoned. She was looking at a blood-soaked bed that contained the body of her father.

  She shook the image away at the sound of Harrison’s footsteps slowly approaching behind her.

  “You good?” she asked him.

  “Yeah,” he said, though his voice sounded a bit breathless.

  Mackenzie noted that most of the blood was on the bed, as was expected. The sheet that had been removed from the bed and stretched out on the floor had once been an off-white. But now it was mostly covered in dried blood, going a rusty shade of maroon. She slowly approached the bed, pretty sure that there would be no evidence. Even if the killer had accidentally left behind a hair or anything with DNA, it would be buried in all of the blood.

  She looked to the splatters on the wall and carpet. She eyed the carpet in particular, looking to see if any of the blood splatter could be the edge of a shoe.

  There might be tracks of some kind, she thought. To kill someone in such a way—to have so much blood at the scene—the killer would have to have gotten some on him. So even if there are no tracks, maybe there’s stray blood somewhere within the house, blood he might have accidentally left behind on his way out.

  Also, how did the killer get them both while in bed? Killing one, the other would have likely woken up. Either the killer is that fast or he staged the scene with the bodies in bed after committing the murders.

  “This is a mess, huh?” Harrison said.

  “It is,” Mackenzie said. “Tell me…do you see anything right off hand that you’d consider a lead, a clue, or anything to look deeper into?”

  He shook his head, staring at the bed. She nodded in agreement, knowing that all of the blood would make it very hard to find any evidence. She even got down on her hands and knees, peering under the bed to see if there was anything under there. She saw nothing but a pair of slippers and an old photo album. She slid the album out and flipped through it. The first few pages showed a wedding, from the bride walking down the aisle of a large church to the happy couple cutting into their cake.

  With a frown, she slid the album back where she had gotten it from. She then turned back to Dagney, still standing at the bedroom door with her back mostly turned. “You said you have files with photos, right?”

  “I do. Give me a second and I can bring it all in.” She answered quickly and with a bit of urgency, clearly anxious to get back downstairs.

  When Dagney was gone, Harrison walked back out into the hallway. He looked back into the bedroom and sighed deeply. “Have you ever seen a crime scene like this?”

  “Not with this much blood,” she answered. “I’ve seen some grisly sites, but this one tops the list for amount of blood.”

  Harrison seemed to think hard about this as Mackenzie exited the room. They headed back downstairs together, stepping into the living room just as Dagney came back in the front door. They met at the bar area that separated the kitchen from the living room. Dagney placed the folder on the bar and Mackenzie opened it up. Right away, the first picture showed the same bed upstairs, coated in blood. Only in the picture, there were two bodies—a man and a woman. The Kurtzes.

  Both of them were clothed in what Mackenzie assumed was what they wore to bed. Mr. Kurtz (Josh, according to the reports) was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of boxers. Mrs. Kurtz (Julie) was wearing a spaghetti-strapped tank top and a pair of skimpy gym shorts. There were a variety of photographs, some taken so close to the bodies that Mackenzie caught herself cringing a few times. The photo of Mrs. Kurtz’s sliced neck was particularly gruesome.

  “I didn’t see any positive ID on the weapon used within the reports,” Mackenzie said.

  “That’s because no one had figured it out. Everyone just assumed a knife.”

  A very big knife, at that, Mackenzie thought as she tore her eyes away from the body of Mrs. Kurtz.

  She saw that apparently, even in death, Mrs. Kurtz had reached out for the comfort of her husband. Her right hand was draped almost lazily across his thigh. There was something very sweet about it but it also broke her heart a little.

  “And what about the first couple that was killed?�
� Mackenzie asked.

  “That was the Sterlings,” Dagney said, pulling several pictures and sheets of paper from the back of the folder.

  Mackenzie looked at the pictures and saw a scene similar to what she had seen in the previous photos, as well as upstairs. A couple, lying in bed, blood everywhere. The only difference was that the husband in the Sterling photos had either been sleeping in the nude or had had his clothes removed by the killer.

  These scenes are far too similar, Mackenzie thought. It’s almost as if they were staged. She looked over the similarities, looking back and forth between the Kurtz and Sterling photos.

  The bravery and sheer will to kill two people at once—and in such a brutal way. This guy is incredibly driven. Very motivated. And apparently not opposed to extreme violence.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Mackenzie said, “but the Miami PD are working under the assumption that these were routine home invasions, correct?”

  “Well, we were at first,” Dagney said. “But from what we can tell, there are no signs of looting or theft. And since this is the second couple to be killed in the last week, it seems less and less likely they were simple home invasions.”

  “I’d agree with that,” she said. “What about links between the two couples?” Mackenzie asked.

  “So far nothing has come up, but we’ve got a team working on it.”

  “And with the Sterlings, were there any signs of a struggle?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  Mackenzie again looked back down at the pictures and two similarities jumped out at her at once. One of them in particular made her skin crawl.

  Mackenzie glanced back at the Kurtz photos. She saw the wife’s hand resting dead on her husband’s thigh.

  And she knew right then: this was indeed the work of a serial killer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mackenzie followed behind Dagney as she led them to the station. On the way, she noticed that Harrison was jotting notes down in the folder he had practically obsessed over during most of the trip from DC to Miami. In the midst of writing, he paused and looked at her quizzically.

  “You’ve already got a theory, don’t you?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t have a theory, but I did notice a few things in the images that seemed a little odd to me.”

  “Want to share?”

  “Not just yet,” Mackenzie said. “If I have to go over it now and then again with the police, I’ll reanalyze myself. Give me some time to sort through it all.”

  With a grin, Harrison returned to his notes. He did not complain that she was keeping things from him (which she wasn’t) and he didn’t press any further. He was doing his best to stay obedient and effective at the same time and she appreciated that.

  On the ride to the precinct, she started to catch peeks of the ocean through some of the buildings they passed. She had never been enamored with the sea the way some people were but she could understand its draw. Even now, on the hunt for a killer, she could feel the sense of freedom it represented. Punctuated by the towering palm trees and flawless sun of a Miami afternoon made it even more beautiful.

  Ten minutes later, Mackenzie followed Dagney into the parking lot of a large police building. Like just about everything else in the city, it had a beachy sort of feel. Several huge palm trees stood along the thin strip of lawn in front of the building. The simple architecture also managed to convey a relaxed yet refined feel. It was a welcoming place, a sensation that held up even after Mackenzie and Harrison were inside.

  “There are only going to be three people, including myself, on this,” Dagney said as she led them down a spacious hallway. “Now that you guys are here, my supervisor is going to likely take a very hands-off approach.”

  Good, Mackenzie thought. The least amount of rebuttals and arguments, the better.

  Dagney led them into a small conference room at the end of the hallway. Inside, two men sat down at a table. One of them was hooking a projector up to a MacBook. The other was typing something furiously into a smart pad.

  They both looked up when Dagney led them into the room. When they did, Mackenzie got the usual look…one she was getting tired of yet used to. It was a look that seemed to say: Oh, a rather good-looking woman. I wasn’t expecting that.

  Dagney made a quick round of introduction as Mackenzie and Harrison sat down at the table. The man with the smart pad was Police Chief Rodriguez, a grizzled old man with deep lines in his tanned face. The other man was a fairly new guy, Joey Nestler. Nestler, as it turned out, was the officer who had discovered the bodies of the Kurtzes. As he was introduced, he finished successfully hooking the monitor to the laptop. The projector shone a bright white light on a small screen attached to the wall in front of the room.

  “Thanks for coming out,” Rodriguez said, setting his pad aside. “Look, I’m not going to be that typical local police dick that gets in the way. You tell me what you need and if it’s within reason, you’ll get it. In return, I just ask that you help wrap it up quickly and not turn the city into a circus while you do it.”

  “It sounds like we want the same things, then,” Mackenzie said.

  “So, Joey here has all of the existing documents we have on this case,” he said. “The coroner’s reports just came in this morning and told us just what we expected. The Kurtzes were cut up and bled out. No drugs in their system. Totally clean. So far we have no discernable links between the two crimes. So if you have any ideas, I’d like to hear them.”

  “Officer Nestler,” Mackenzie said, “do you have all of the crime scene photos from both sites?”

  “I do,” he said. He reminded Mackenzie a lot of Harrison—anxious, a little nervous, and visibly seeking to please his superiors and coworkers.

  “Could you pull up the full body shots side by side and put them on the screen, please?” Mackenzie asked.

  He worked quickly and had the images up on the projector screen, side by side, within ten seconds. Seeing the images in such a bright light in a semi-darkened room was eerie. Not wanting to let those in the room dwell on the severity of the pictures and lose focus, Mackenzie got right to the point.

  “I think it’s safe to say that these murders were not the result of a typical break-in or home invasion. Nothing was stolen and, in fact, there is no clear indication of a break-in of any kind. There aren’t even any signs of a struggle. That means that whoever killed them was likely invited in or, at the very least, had a key. And the murders had to have happened quickly. Also, the absence of blood anywhere else within the house makes it appear that the murders happened in the bedroom—that there was no foul play anywhere else within the house.”

  Speaking it out loud helped her understand how strange it seemed.

  The guy was not only invited in, but apparently invited into the bedroom. That means that the likelihood that he was actually invited is a small one. He had a key. Or knew where a spare one was located.

  She went on before she derailed herself with new thoughts and projections.

  “I want to look at these pictures because there are two odd things that stand out to me. First…look at how all four of them are lying perfectly flat on their back. Their legs are relaxed and well-postured. It’s almost as if they were staged to look that way. And then there’s one other thing—and if we’re dealing with a serial killer, I think this might be the most important thing to note. Look at Mrs. Kurtz’s right hand.”

  She gave the other four people in the room the chance to look. She wondered if Harrison would notice what she was getting at and blurt it out. She gave them three seconds or so and when no one said anything, she carried on.

  “Her right hand is resting on her husband’s thigh. It’s the one part of her body that is not perfectly laid out. So either this is a coincidence or the killer did place their bodies in this position, purposefully moving her hand.”

  “So what if he did?” Rodriguez asked. “What’s the point?”

  “Well, now look at the Sterlings. Look at
the husband’s left hand.”

  This time she did not make it three seconds. It was Dagney who saw what she was referencing. And when she answered, her voice was thin and on edge.

  “He’s reaching out and placing his hand on his wife’s thigh,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Mackenzie said. “If it were just one of the couples, I would not even mention it. But that same gesture is present with both of these couples, making it evident that the killer did it with some intention.”

  “But for what?” Rodriguez asked.

  “Symbolism?” Harrison suggested.

  “It could be,” Mackenzie said.

  “But that’s not really much to go on, is it?” Nestler asked.

  “Not at all,” Mackenzie said. “But at least it’s something. If it’s symbolic to the killer, there’s a reason for it. So here’s where I’d like to start: I’d like to get a list of suspects that have been recently paroled for violent crimes that were linked to home invasions. I still don’t think it was a home invasion per se, but it’s the most plausible place to start.”

  “Okay, we can get that for you,” Rodriguez said. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing just yet. Our next course of action is to speak with the family, friends, and neighbors of the couples.”

  “Yeah, we spoke to the Kurtzes’ next of kin—a brother, sister, and a pair of parents. You’re more than welcome to go back to them, but they didn’t offer up much of anything. The brother of Josh Kurtz said that as far as he knew, they had a great marriage. The only time they fought was during football season when the Seminoles played the Hurricanes.”

  “What about the neighbors?” Mackenzie asked.

  “We spoke with them, too. But it was brief. Mostly about the noise complaint they filed about the yapping dog.”

  “So that’s where we’ll start,” Mackenzie said, looking over to Harrison.

  And without another word, they stood and were out the door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mackenzie found it a little unsettling to revisit the townhouses. While standing in the beautiful weather as they approached the neighbors’ house, the knowledge that there was a bed in the next townhouse over that was coated in blood seemed surreal. Mackenzie suppressed a shudder and looked away from the Kurtzes’ townhouse.