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.
A man emerged from the building on the opposite side of the street, breaking him from his thoughts. Watching, he sat there and waited patiently. He’d learned a great deal about patience over the years. Because of that, knowing that he must now work quickly made him anxious. What if he was not precise?
He had little choice. Already, Hailey Lizbrook’s murder was on the news. People were searching for him – as if he were the one who had done something bad. They just didn’t understand. What he had given that woman had been a gift.
An act of grace.
In the past, he’d let much time pass between his sacred acts. But now, an urgency was upon him. There was so much to do. There were always women out there – on street corners, in personal ads, on television.
In the end, they’d understand. They’d understand and they’d thank him. They would ask him how to be pure, and he would open their eyes.
Moments later, the neon image of the woman in the window went black. The glow behind the windows died out. The place had gone dark, the lights cut off as they closed for the night.
He knew this meant that the women would be coming out of the back at any moment, headed to their cars and then home.
He shifted into drive and drove slowly around the block. The streetlights seemed to chase him, but he knew that there were no prying eyes to see him. In this part of the city, no one cared.
At the back of the building, most of the cars were nice. There was good money in keeping your body on display. He parked at the far edge of the lot and waited some more.
After a long
