CHAPTER SEVEN

Ella rolled up on Chautauqua Park like a storm cloud, ready to rain hell. The place was swarming with uniforms, yellow tape flapping in the breeze like a flock of pissed off canaries. Looky-loos clustered at the perimeter, noses pressed to the proverbial glass, like vultures circling a fresh kill.

Luca was beside her, all lanky limbs and nervous energy. She could practically smell the fear sweat leaking from his every pore. Poor kid looked like he was about to hurl his lunch all over his shiny new wingtips.

‘You ready for this?’ Ella cocked a brow at him.

Luca nodded jerkily. ‘Yeah. Let”s do this.’

Brave words. But his face was fish-belly pale, and Ella could see his pulse hammering in the hollow of his throat. Like a rabbit cornered by a hungry wolf.

But hey, they all had to start somewhere. Ella thought back to that fateful day in Louisiana – the corpse of a woman strung up like a deer, missing her face and a few internal organs. Ella remembered the stench, the flies, the way her stomach had twisted itself into a gordian knot and threatened to evacuate her breakfast all over the evidence.

Those were the days.

She gave Luca what she hoped was an encouraging nod and headed for the tape. A baby-faced uniform stood guard, thumbs hooked in his utility belt like a Wild West sheriff. He eyed them warily as they drew near.

Ella flashed her creds. ‘SA Dark and Hawkins. FBI. We’re here to meet with whoever’s in charge.’

The uniform”s brows shot up to his hairline. He fumbled for his radio, muttering something about the feds gracing them with their presence. Ella resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Local yokels always got their tighty-whities in a twist when the out-of-towners came sniffing around.

A few crackly exchanges later ano,ther uniform appeared from the depths of the scene. Older. Harder. A face like a clenched fist, all scowl lines and pinched lips. He had the look of a man who”d seen too many stabbings and not enough shut-eye.

He thrust out a hand. ‘Chief Dean Harland. Thanks for getting here so damn sharpish.’ Ella returned his grip. Harland shook a little too hard.

‘Early bird gets the unsub,’ Ella said. ‘You’re in charge?’

‘That I am.’ Harland’s eyes flicked to Luca and sized him up like a cut of meat at the butcher shop. ‘No Ripley this time?’

‘Afraid not. You know her?’

‘They sent her last time we had a serial psycho running around. Must have been ten years ago.’

Of course, Harland knew her. Every chief in every town in this damn country seemed to know her. ”Ripley”s on a leave of absence. What”s the status of the scene?”

Harland scratched at his stubbled jaw. ‘Passerby called us just before seven this morning. The guy heard a scream, thought someone was being attacked. He followed the sound through those trees up ahead and found another rubbernecker. That was who screamed.’

‘Two people,’ Ella said. ‘You spoke to both of them?’

‘Yup. Cleared. The guy was a feeble little thing, and the girl – the screamer – was barely eighteen.’

Luca chimed in. ‘Not exactly serial killer material.’

‘They touch anything?’ Ella asked.

Harland shook his head. ”Not a thing. The guy had the good sense to call it in right away. Been keeping the scene locked down tighter than a nun”s knickers since, but you know what the public is like.”

Ella knew all too well. In her line of work, death was the ultimate tourist attraction. ‘What about our vic? Is she still there?’

‘Coroner bagged her about an hour ago. But they left that medieval contraption in place. Figured you”d want to get up close and personal with it.’

‘That we do,’ Ella said. ‘Lead the way.’

He led them past the sea of uniforms and gawking onlookers towards a small clearing ringed by towering oaks. The bandstand sat smack in the center, a round wooden platform with a conical roof. It might have been charming once, the kind of place where the town brass band tooted their horns on lazy summer afternoons.

But nothing was charming about it now. Not with that monstrosity squatting in the middle like a tumor.

‘Right in the middle of the bandstand,’ Harland said. ‘Never seen nothing like it in all my years.’

Ella strode towards the bandstand, Luca falling into step beside her. With each footfall, the knot in her gut pulled tighter, like a noose around her neck. The photos from the case file flashed through her mind in a hellish slideshow, but those black-and-white shots hadn’t done justice to the eeriness of the thing. Up close and personal, the thing was a behemoth - a hulking mass of rough-hewn wood, like something straight out of a medieval torture chamber.

‘Christ on a bike,’ Luca said. He took a few steps back.

Ella fished a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and tossed them to her new partner. ‘Rule number one. Don’t add any prints to the scene.’

Luca fumbled the catch, nearly dropping the glove in the dirt. Ella bit back a smirk.

‘Understood,’ he said.

They snapped on their gloves and got down to business, circling the stocks like sharks scenting blood. Ella ran a critical eye over every inch of the contraption, pressing a gentle finger to the apparatus, testing its rigidity. The thing was solid as a rock.

‘Good craftsmanship for something amateur.’ Luca must have read her mind.

The damn thing was clean as a preacher”s sheets, Ella thought. No bloodstains, no tangled hairs in the hole designed for her head. Even the ground around the base was undisturbed, like the stocks had just materialized out of thin air.

She crouched down, examining the base of the stocks. The top section, the part that would have locked the victim”s head and hands in place, lay on the ground a few feet away. Like it had been tossed aside in haste.

Ella straightened up, dusting off her hands. ‘Chief. This bit here. Was it like this when you found her?’

Harland ambled over, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. ”We had to take that part off to get her out. The damn thing wasn”t even locked in place. Just sort of slotted in.”

Luca asked, ‘No padlocks? No screws?’

‘Nope,’ Harland said.

Ella”s brow furrowed. ‘So our vic was already cold by the time he trussed her up. He did the dirty work somewhere else, then transported them here for the big reveal.’

Harland spat into the dirt. ‘Freak. Parading them around like some kinda trophy.’

Ella barely heard him. She was too busy chasing the thread, unraveling the skein of the unsub”s twisted logic. ‘He”s staging them,’ she murmured. ‘Posing them just so, like mannequins in a department store window.’

‘But how’s he getting all this stuff here?’ Luca asked. He gestured around. ‘It’s not like he can drive a car all the way up here. Nearest parking space is…’

‘A hundred feet away,’ Harland jumped in. ‘I’ve been asking the same questions.’

‘Piece by piece,’ Ella said.

‘That might explain this weird device, but how’s someone get a body here without anyone seeing?’

Ella considered it and could only conjure up one likely answer. ‘Witnesses found this in the early hours, so chances are he snuck in here in the dead of night. Never explain with conjecture what can be explained with blind luck.’

Harland shifted uneasily. ‘So you think this guy snuck this device in, set it up, then went back and hauled a body here too?’

‘I don’t see any other way. He didn’t kill the victim here, so he had to transport her here. This park’s open twenty-four hours?’

‘Yup.’

‘Then it has to be that. We need any CCTV from the surrounding areas. Parking lot, roads leading into this place. Everything.’

‘Already on it,’ Harland said. ‘Forensics have been and gone, so we’ll have a report within a couple of hours.’

‘Excellent.’

Ella turned back to the skeleton of the stocks, her eyes tracing over every joint and plane. Imagining their victim splayed out in this thing, limbs askew, head lolling obscenely. A grotesque puppet, dancing to their killer”s tune.

But why here? Why this place, this particular slice of suburban hell? There had to be a reason. With theatrical displays like this, there was always a reason, always something that harkened back to a traumatic incident. Even if it all only made sense in the funhouse mirror of their own twisted psyche.

‘Alright,’ Ella said, stepping back from the bandstand. ‘Let”s think about this. Our boy goes to a lot of trouble to bring his victims here. Sets up this whole tableau, makes a real production of it. Why?’

Luca shrugged helplessly. ‘To show off? To get attention?’

She looked out at the park, at the soccer moms and dog walkers already starting to drift back in now that the initial shock had worn off. Chautauqua Park. Where families came to frolic and old folks fed the pigeons. Norman Rockwell Americana, right down to the duck pond and the ice cream truck.

But scratch that wholesome surface, and what did you find? Strip away the veneer of picket fences and porch swings, and what dark things scuttled underneath?

Ella had to question whether or not it mattered. This could be Delaware ru,ral France, or the seventh circle of hell. Everywhere had their secrets, hidden ugliness. And sometimes, that ugliness couldn”t be contained anymore. Sometimes, it came boiling up to the surface, seeping out through the cracks in the sidewalk like pus from a festering wound.

‘He hasn’t just built this thing in the middle of the trees,’ Luca continued. ‘It’s literally on a stage, where eyes are naturally drawn.’

‘Even when it’s empty,’ Ella said.

‘Probably stakes out his hunting grounds in advance. Knows the blind spots, the places where he can strike without drawing attention,’ Luca chimed in.

Ella nodded. The kid was catching on quickly. ‘He”s organized, meticulous. This whole scene, it”s literal theater to him. He”s sending a message, making a statement.’

‘By turning his victims into a sideshow attraction?’ Harland grunted, equal parts disgusted and baffled.

‘In his twisted little mind, yeah.’ Ella circled the stocks, taking in every angle, every splinter. ‘Chances are our guy sees himself as an artist, only instead of paint and canvas, he”s using bone and wood. Humiliation. Debasement. He”s stripping them of their humanity, their dignity. Putting them on display like animals in a zoo.’

She could almost hear the howls of the crowd, feel the rotten vegetables splattering against wood and skin. Public shaming, medieval style. Cruel and visceral, designed to break the spirit as much as the body.

Harland asked, ‘Couldn’t this freak just be obsessed with old torture devices or something? He’s done this twice in two days now.’

‘No. If that was the case, he’d mix things up. The stocks are crucial to his fantasy. This is a power trip,’ she continued, mind spinning out the theory. ‘He”s playing judge, jury and executioner.’

The chief just shook his head, the disgust eating him away. Ella couldn”t blame him. Staring into the heart of darkness day after day took its toll. They were all just different degrees of damned.

And if the killer’s two-bodies-in-two-days pattern was anything to go by, they’d need to act quickly before another body dropped into their laps.

Harland rocked back on his heels then checked his cell phone. ”I”ll have my boys send over what we”ve got so far. Witness statements, CCTV footage, the whole nine. The coroner”s ready for you if you want me to drop you at the morgue.”

‘Please,’ Ella said. She glanced at Luca, who was still transfixed by the makeshift stocks. ‘Hawkins, burn that image into your mind because it’s the last we’ll see of it. Harland, can you get those stocks into evidence? The last thing we need is some journalist sneaking in here and snapping it.’

‘Roger that,’ Harland said as he got on his radio. Luca stepped back from the murder throne and shook off the discomfort.

‘Morgue?’ Luca asked.

‘Yup. Ready?’

He sucked in a deep breath through gritted teeth. ‘Uh. This is the part I’m dreading.’

Ella eyed Luca, taking in the green tinge to his skin and the faint sheen of sweat on his brow. ‘Not squeamish are you, Hawkins?’

Luca swallowed hard, Adam”s apple bobbing like a yo-yo. ”Uh, yeah. You could say that.”

”Luckily, I brought some sick bags.”

‘You think of everything, don’t you?’

She flashed back to her first time seeing a stiff, up close and personal, Ripley looming over her shoulder like a redheaded gargoyle. The minute the sheet came back, Ella”s knees had turned to jello. Ripley had just squeezed her cheeks and told her to suck it up.

And damn if Ripley hadn”t been right. You either learned to stomach the ugliness, or you washed out fast in this gig.

But looking at Luca now, all wide-eyed and wobbly-kneed, Ella couldn”t bring herself to go full drill sergeant just yet. He was still as green as a shamrock, so the last thing he needed was a boot to the groin on his first day.

‘First time”s always the worst. It gets easier. Or at least, you get better at faking it.’ She jerked her head towards the car. ‘C”mon, let”s get this show on the road. The dead ain”t getting any deader.’

As they slid into the car, Ella shot a glance over her shoulder at the murder scene. The stocks still squatted there like a nightmare made real. She couldn”t shake the image of a limp torso locked in that thing, just waiting to be discovered by an oblivious passerby.

The unsub could justify it however he wanted. Dress it up in a pretty bow and call it righteousness or revenge or therapy. At the end of the day, he was still a rabid dog that needed putting down.

But for now, it was time to initiate her new partner. Baptism by blood and guts.