CHAPTER 11: COLD CRIME
(Narration)
The last bit of daylight is fading into darkness, but the day isn't done for Detective Lancaster. He’s eager to find out what happened to those college students. He’s overwhelmingly tired, but he has no time for sleeping; not right now. He’s too busy trying to piece all the clues together; which isn’t much.
Still, if sleeping were an option, he wouldn’t be able to rest without feeling some form of guilt. He never had a case turn cold and never planned to, but there’s something that separates this case from all the others. His instincts tells him there’s more to that girl’s death. A grand plot is unfolding and he will not stop until he uncovers the truth.
His only desire at the moment is to unveil the truth. Once again, he comes to an area blocked off by police troopers and yellow caution tape. This area is off the road near a flowing river and a thinly wooded area. Jones has already taken the initiative to examine the next victim of an appalling crime. Jones looks over his shoulder and sees Frank approaching him.
He rises off the ground, brushes his hands clean, and steps away from a body that’s completely covered in black plastic. The victim's midsection and legs are tied with braided rope.
“It took you long enough,” Jones tells him.
“Damn, another one?” Frank asks, ignoring his partner’s smart remark. “We have any ID?”
“Yup, it’s the boyfriend of that girl we found.”
His suspicion has been confirmed. He knows two animal attacks are not likely, especially if the two victims knew each other. This has to be a homicide; just as he suspected. As always, his gut instincts placed him on the right path.
“Shit,” Frank replies automatically.
Frank kneels and lifts the plastic. Staring back at him with gray eyes and a pale-blue face is a clean-shaved black male. His face is a witness to his youth. He was barely nineteen-years-old before he was brutally murdered.
“Someone spotted his body floating upstream about an hour ago. Some sick fuck gutted the kid like a fish.”
“Jesus,” Frank says as he lifts the bag further to find a profound incision in the victim's chest.
Frank exhales deeply at first sight of the boy’s wound. He then covers the boy’s body again.
“This changes everything,” Frank states while standing. “We’ve got a serial killer out here. All we know, he could’ve been at this for a while.”
“It gets worse. The autopsy report came in about the girl. Her heart was taken from her body,” Jones informs him. “And it looks like he’s been killed the same way.”
“What kind of person would kill two kids like this? What’s the motive?” Frank thinks out loud.
“That's the same question I’ve been asking myself,” Jones replies. “But maybe there is no motive. Maybe the guy is just doing it for sport.”
“No, there's always a motive. We may not agree or understand the son-of-a-bitch reasons for it, but he is doing this for some kind of fucked up pleasure,” Frank replies. “We have to keep a tight lid on this investigation. We can’t let the press hear about this.”
“I'll work my magic,” Jones replies.
“He’s smart, but he’s creating a trail behind himself. Something will come up sooner or later. It always does,” Frank tells Jones.
Just as Frank finishes his statement, a short Asian investigator is walking along the lakeside and finds a clear Ziploc bag washed up ashore about twenty-yards from where they’re standing.
The investigator kneels down and picks up the bag and sees a suspicious brown envelope inside. He flips the bag over and see’s the name LaNCaSter pasted on the front in old newspaper clippings.
“Frank!” the investigator calls out to him. “I think you better come see this.”
Frank and Jones rush over to meet him.
“What is it?” Frank asks.
“It has your name on it,” the investigator states.
Frank and Jones eye one another and pauses. Frank grabs the bag, but hesitates to open it. With anxious hands, Frank pulls out the brown envelope from the clear bag and opens it; reading a note written on a piece of line paper that’s been torn from a composition book.
“What does it say?” Jones asks.
Jones looks over the shoulder of his partner and sees the giant words RiNg RInG cut and pasted with magazine letters.
“Ring, ring?” Frank says with confusion.
Frank’s cellphone starts ringing and vibrating as soon as he finishes reading the note out loud. Jones and Frank quickly eye one another again, this time with intensity. Frank pulls out his phone and notices a number he’s unfamiliar with.
“Everybody get down!” Frank says as he ducks his head and draws his pistol.
Jones does the same. All of the other investigators at the scene gets paranoid and lowers their heads immediately.
“What happened?” a female investigator asks.
“Someone is watching us. They’re calling Frank’s phone. Get cover now!” Jones commands.
Everyone scurries over to a car and keeps their head lowered. Frank gets into a kneeling position behind his black patrol car and answers the phone.
“Hello,” Frank answers.
“I was afraid, Detective. I was afraid you would never answer,” an ominous, soulless, voice replies.
“Who is this?”
“The villain.”
“The what?”
“The villain of the story.”
“Huh?” Frank replies with confusion mixed with frustration.
“I’m the maniac, the antagonist,” the mystery caller continues.
Frank raises his head over the patrol car and looks around at the wilderness surrounding the lake, hoping to get a sight of his stalker.
“If I wanted you dead, you would be by now.”
“What do you want?” Frank questions while glancing around at every angle.
“I want to fulfill my purpose; to find the perfect victim. You see, I know all about you Frank. That’s why I like you so much. I know about your little brother. It’s such a tragedy. I always knew there was a reason why you became a cop. It wasn’t because you wanted to, but it was purpose that made you one. You see, you need people like me. If it wasn’t for people like me, there would be no use for people like you, understand? The antagonist creates the protagonist. The villain creates the hero.”
“I don’t know who this is but I will find…”
“Save me the cat and mouse speech. Just know that we are coming. We’ve been in the shadows too long. Watch for the signs. We are coming.”
“Who are ‘we’?”
The conversation ends abruptly.
“Hello? Hello? Damn it.”
“What did he say?” Jones asks.
Frank’s respond isn’t immediate. He’s too busy trying to figure out how this person received his number. Most importantly, he wants to know how the mysterious caller knew about his younger brother. This is something he has never mentioned to his best friend and partner, Detective Jones, and for good reason.
It brings up a time in his past that he thought was buried with his brother.
“Call for backup and tell them to bring K9s. We need to sweep this whole area fast.”
“What did he say?”
“Jones, please, do as I say,” he replies to him.
Jones stares into Frank’s face and sees something he’s not used to seeing in those emerald eyes. His eyes tell it all. He notices Frank is hurt about something he’s unaware of. Jones nods and proceeds to do what Frank demanded of him.
“We need backup down here. Tell them to bring all available K9 units,” he says into his radio.
Unfortunately, Frank's long night is about to get even longer, and his will is about to be tested like never before. This could be the very case that breaks him…
THREE HOURS LATER…
WOOF! WOOF!
The sounds of bloodhounds and German Shepherds echoes into the night as a search crew, led by Detective Lancaster, hunt for their suspect on foot. Their flashlights cuts through the heavily darkened woodland. The woods is vast and seemingly unending, especially for someone traveling by foot, yet Frank remains determined to find something, anything, that can crack this case wide open. To make matters worse, the woods are on the side of a hill.
It’s been nearly two hours since Frank received that unexpected phone call; still, the conversation can’t stop playing in Frank’s mind over and over again. Jones believes they are wasting their time searching for him on foot. His irritation is growing by every passing second.
“This is useless Frank. We’re wasting time here,” Jones states while halfheartedly searching around.
Frank remains closemouthed and attentive to his surroundings. Jones and Frank hadn’t talked much since that phone call, and Frank seems adamant on remaining that way.
“I guess I must be talking to my damn self,” Jones says to the back of Frank’s head.
Again, Frank doesn’t respond.
“Frank!?” Jones says in a higher volume.
Frank stops walking and turns to his partner.
“He’s laughing at us,” Jones states. “I mean…is this a manhunt or a wild goose chase? We still have a laundry list of calls to make. We’re better off doing that then wasting another minute, in pitch-black, trying to find someone who obviously fled hours ago.”
“Can you just get off my back for one second,” Frank shoots back. “I don’t care what he thinks. He wants to send a message, then so will I. I want him to know I won’t back down. I want this son-of-a-bitch to feel the walls closing in. Ever step he takes, I want him to know I’m right behind him. This is all a game. It’s all mental.”
“We got something!” someone shouts at a distance.
The person that shouted is a fellow officer for the Glenworth Police Department. Frank can see the light from his flashlight focused on something at a distance. Frank and Jones both jog over to the officer. A rusty telescope and a metal folding chair is resting next to a tree.
“I guess he was having a good ole fashion stakeout,” the police officer says.
“So it seems,” Frank replies.
“I tell ya what,” the officer continued. “If he were a marksmen, he could’ve taken all of you out from here.”
“Dust for prints,” Frank orders. “He is getting too confident. Pride always comes before the fall.”
“Frank, what’s your status?” a female speaks through his walkie talkie.
He unclips it from his belt and places it at his mouth to speak.
“We should be back at the station in thirty minutes. What’s up?”
“Better make it sooner” the voice replies. “We've found the location of the phone. Its in Webster, 8 miles from where you are; 12 Pioneer road. We called the carrier and it was reported stolen yesterday. The owner is reported missing as well. The missing person’s name is Rose McGuire; 28 years old.”
“Why didn’t I get this information sooner?” he replies with irritation.
“She went missing yesterday night. The missing person’s report just came through.”
His partner is right next to him, listening into their entire conversation.
“Oh Christ…” Jones blurts out remorsefully.
A rush of adrenaline releases into Frank’s bloodstream. This is the moment he waited so patiently for.
“Notify Webster police immediately. Get all available officers there asap. Tell them that the suspect is in connection with a double homicide. Notify them of a possible hostage situation.”
“I will notify them,” she replies.
“You go. I’ll handle this,” Jones replies. “Keep me posted. I’ll catch up.”
“I gotcha,” Frank replies before hurrying away.
“And Frank…”
He stops and turns to his partner.
“Be careful,” his partner says with sincerity.
Frank nods at Jones and continues to hurry out the wooded area.
MEANWHILE…
An abandoned car garage is resting off a deserted road 8 miles away. The windows are blacked out by spray paint and anyone who drives by would assume it's completely vacant; a perfect place to serve as a criminal hideout. The grass is high around the premises and weeds have grown through the cracks of the aged concrete. Pioneer Road is a 6 mile stretch of nothing but woods with the occasional sight of a deteriorating farmhouse, which are very few.
The inside is dim for the exception of an aged bulb that’s shining down from the ceiling. Some clever wiring and a car battery serves as its only power source. The rest of the room is obscure. The Hellhound is sitting in a tall wooden armchair, covered in shade, staring directly into the watery eyes of a woman, who is tied down in a chair with a combination of duck tape and rope.
The expression on his face is unnoticeable in the darkness. In fact, all she can see is a hooded man with a shadow for a face. Streaks of mascara running down her cheeks and glossy red eyes reveal signs of distraught. Her mouth is stuffed with a gag and wrapped with duck tape. He reaches into a pocket in his cloak and pulls out a golden pocket watch and checks the time. A small side table is next to him, where a battery powered police scanner is placed.
“Tell me…” he asks the woman. “How long do you think it takes to trace a call?”
She obviously can’t respond. Nevertheless, he doesn’t withdraw her from the conversation; instead, he rather speak on her behalf and act as if they are having a casual chat with one another.
“You don’t say,” he replies to his muted victim. “Let’s give them another hour then. That sounds reasonable, right?”
She just stares at him with a blank expression.
“I think so too,” he replies. “Yes, I know it’s a good idea. You’re too kind. Thank you.”
He then chuckles and wave his hand as if she is saying something flattering to him.
“No, no,” he says. “I’m not amazing. You are.”
His narcissistic behavior and mannerisms only makes the woman more petrified of him. She can only stare as he strokes his own ego. Suddenly, his attention diverts to the police scanner when he hears a dispatcher speaking. He removes the sound of static on the scanner by adjusting the tuner until the dispatcher’s voice is heard clearly.
“Calling all available units. We have a 134 at 12 Pioneer road. I repeat…all available units, over.”
He gasps and acts as if he’s surprised.
“You hear that? They’re coming for me. What should I do?”
He actually waits for her to respond.
“You don’t say. I guess that’s my cue. It’s been a pleasure, but unfortunately, we must depart ways.”
He rises from his chair and walks over to the woman. As he draws closer to her, she attempts to scream in her only defense. Her scream is minimized by the gag.
“Shhhh…” he whispers subtly with his pointer finger at his lips. “I’m not going to kill you,” he reinsures the terrified woman. “You will serve a greater purpose.”
She calms her voice, yet the horror in her eyes remain amplified. With his sharp nail he cuts through the duck tape and removes the gag.
“Please, untie me,” she pleads to him.
“I’m afraid not, my dear. You are safe now. This is where I say goodbye. I wish you well,” he says before he bows his head and backs away into the shadows like a ghost; chuckling madly as he fades into obscurity.
The sound of several locks unlocking is heard somewhere within the darkness, followed by a sound of a door opening and slamming close. And just like that, he flees into the night. A silence swells in the darkly lit garage. This is somewhat of a bittersweet moment. Yes, her captor is gone, taking the sense of danger along with him; however, she’s still confined in a dark room in the middle of nowhere. The sense of danger is immediately replaced by immense isolation.
Unsure of what to do next, she sits dumbfounded for a few seconds in an uncomfortable silence. She then rocks side to side and tries to loosen the rope from her body, but fails to do so. She then uses her strength and try to free her arms. Yet again, she fails.
This task is far more difficult than she'd thought. She tries another time. At this point, she has nothing to lose. The skin on her arms begin to burn and form rashes from the tightly woven fibers of the rope. Even after all of the grunting and straining, not one thread is moved from its place. Frustrated and exhausted, she stops momentarily to catch her breath. She searches her surroundings and tries to formulate a new plan of escape. Her only hope is to scream and hope that someone, somewhere, will hear her.
“HEEEELLLLPP!” she shouts at the top of her lungs.
Suddenly, she hears police sirens somewhere in a far distance. The haunting feelings of loneliness lifts as the sirens intensify. A faint flicker of red and blue lights can be seen coming through the small rock holes in the windows like rays of hope. One after another, the abandoned garage is surrounded by various law enforcement vehicles. The sirens ceases.
Both policemen and state troopers quickly scatter from their cars, which are six patrol cars in total, and aim at the building with their firearms; using their cars as shields. The Sheriff from the Webster police department is stocky with a thick mustache and wearing a brown uniform; the personified example of a small town Sheriff.
“This is the police,” he speaks through his patrol car’s PA system. “We’ve got the place surrounded. Come out with your hands in the air.”
For a moment, the entire area is filled with a heavy silence as they wait for something to happen.
“Help!” a voice cries out within the walls of the building.
“You hear that?” a female officer asks, who is positioned next to the Sheriff.
“Everyone, hold your fire!” he orders.
Their intense demeanor softens. The Sheriff lowers his gun and then walks cautiously toward the garage. He’s accompanied by four other officers. He puts his back against the building and bangs the side of his fist against the door.
“This is the police! Are you alone?!” he shouts next to the door.
“Yes! Please get me out of here!” she pleads to him.
“We’re working on that ma’am!”
He attempts to open the door but realizes it’s locked.
“Shit,” the Sheriff blurts out. “Check the premises for another entry.”
Two officers walk around the building while the Sheriff stays in the front and uses his elbow to break open a window. He shines a flashlight through the shattered window and sees a woman tied down into a chair.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“No. Just get me outta here, please.”
“We are working on it. Just stay calm. Just know you’re in safe hands now. Okay?”
She nods her head.
“Okay,” she replies with a weak voice.
He then guides the light around the room and observes what he can from the angle he’s in. In a usual repair shop, you may find tools lying around and even some mounted onto a wall. This particular one has been converted into some kind of torture chamber. He sees blades, EVERYWHERE, of all different sizes, spread throughout the garage and metal chains hanging from the ceiling. He could only imagine why someone would own so many knifes. He also sees unmarked drum barrels and boxes in corners, but he isn’t concerned about those.
“Holy shit…” he whispers.
The Sheriff then goes back to the door.
“We're kicking in the door!” he warns the hostage.
BOOM! He tries to kick the door down and fails at his first attempt. BOOM! He fails at the second attempt.
“Let me try,” another officer tells him.
He steps back to allow a bigger, stronger, officer to kick the door open. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Still, after three attempts, the door doesn’t budge.
“Someone bring out the battering ram,” the sheriff orders. “ASAP.”
The sirens of another patrol car catches their ears. A black unmarked car races onto the scene and skids to a halt on the rocky soil. Detective Frank Lancaster exits the car. He flashes his badge to one of the policemen.
“I’m detective Lancaster from the Glenworth police department. Who’s in charge here?”
“That’ll be me,” the Sheriff replies while walking towards Frank.
“Is the suspect apprehended?” Frank replies while tucking his badge away inside his blazer pocket.
“The suspect fled the scene. We have a hostage inside; tied to a chair. We are working on getting her out as we speak,” The Sheriff replies.
“Listen, my partner and I have been working on this case. This guy is not your usual psychopath. You should have your men survey the area first. He's known to hang around crime scenes.”
“Hold on there slick. I do appreciate you coming through, but I don’t appreciate you coming into my town and barking orders.”
“Sir, with all due respect, my priority has been tracking this guy down…” Frank attempts to defend his words, but his response is interrupted.
“And my only priority is getting this woman to safety. Now, if you may excuse me, Detective, I’m busy at the moment.”
He walks past Frank and retrieves the battering ram from another officer on the scene. Frank does as he’s told and keeps quiet. Technically, he has no legal right to handle any crime in any other county and he knows this.
“Alright boys, we’re back in business,” the sheriff announces as he approaches the front door.
Frank watches on in the distance as they prepare to knock the door down and rush in.
“On three,” the sheriff announces to his fellow officers behind him. “One, two, three,” he says before hitting the door with the battering ram and shattering the door off its hinges.
As the door opens, a thin white string is rigged to a multitude of bombs in boxes and barrels; the door goes through the wire and triggers these explosives. The last thing the Sheriff sees on the floor is the word “BOOM!” written in crimson letters. He has no time to react. His mouth opens as if he is about to shout something.
Cinema mode (Slow Mo)
This is when time slows down. Everyone is completely frozen in time. The words are yet to form on the Sheriff’s vocal cords. They would have been the last words he would ever speak. The barrels are filled with nitroglycerin, gasoline, and pieces of metal. This is enough explosives to level an entire house from top to bottom.
Simultaneously, a bright light sluggishly eats through the plastic barrels and spreads throughout the room; vaporizing everything in it’s radius. The Sheriff is the closest to the explosion and receives the harshest death of them all. The immense heat burns through the skin on his face like paper, and his eyes melts away in their sockets until his face becomes a chard skull.
The heat burns through his tie, then his uniform, through his undershirt, until his bare skin his exposed. His skin gradually turns from pale-white, to tan, to brown, to smoldering gray, and finally to black.
The blazing wind hits the woman in the chair; slowly vaporizing the rope, her clothes, and layers of skin.
Time reaches it’s normal speed again.
BOOM! A monstrous wave of air, heat, and fire, forces their bodies to fly back. The air pressure and shrapnel shatters the windows of their patrol cars. Frank is thirty feet away but the blast of wind sends him flying back and hitting the side of a car.
The roof of the building explodes into a million pieces of raining debris. Frank blacks out for a few seconds by the blunt force trauma, only to wake and find himself in a completely different setting. He opens his eyes and sees the world at a sideways angle. His vision is blurred for a few seconds and his ears are ringing. The first thing he notices is the florescent glow of fire illuminating the grass. The second thing he sees is a officer covered in flames and falling onto the ground, screaming in agony.
He sits up and takes in a deep breath of hot air and immediately begin to cough. Two other fellow officers rushes to aid the burning officer by panting out the flames. Frank tries to stand to his feet, only to stumble and catch his balance on a car. The ringing in his ear ceases and he gains enough stability to walk. Shock hits him hard when he discovers what’s left of the building. The entire repair shop is gone for the exception of the right and front walls of the building. The inside is nothing but a blazing inferno. All hope of freeing the woman is obviously non-existent.
“Are you okay?” he ask the two who are helping their fellow officer.
“Yeah,” they both reply.
“We need backup on Pioneer road. There’s been an explosion. Officers are down. I repeat, officers are down. We need emergency assistance now,” an officer behind Frank tells a dispatcher.
Frank looks around and sees the bloody bodies of several police officers spread along the grass. Their eyes all have a cold, lifeless, stare. He spots one police officer facing towards the building, staring into oblivion; however, he is alive and standing. His face is covered with black ash.
“Hey, are you okay?” Frank asks the officer.
The officer slowly turns to Frank, revealing loose skin mingled with blood dangling off the other side of his face. The officer seems to be in a state of epileptic shock. He can’t mutter a word. Frank grabs his shoulder and guides him toward a patrol car and sits him down against the bumper.
“Stay right here. Help is coming,” Frank assures him as the officer continues to look into oblivion.
Frank then looks up, over one of the cars, and see a hooded figure standing near the woods, staring directly at him; totally still and silent. The light from the flames are giving the person an ominous appearance. Then Frank sees something more terrifying then the hooded man; several pairs of yellow eyes floating behind him in the shadows. This hooded man is accompanied by some kind of four-legged creatures, but Frank can’t make out what they are. They are certainly larger than a dog but not quite the size of a horse.
Frank slowly reaches for his pistol. The hooded man turns and emerges into the woods; the other creatures follow him. He pulls out his pistol with one hand and grabs his flashlight in the other. He walks around the patrol car and clicks on the LED light. The mysterious figures have vanished, and he wouldn’t dare chase after them, not in the dark.
“What is it?” one of the surviving officers ask behind him.
The officer is still armed and prepared to fire at will.
Frank lowers his gun, realizing how crazy he may look to others, and replies…
“I saw something. I'm just not sure what.”
Soon, several paramedics race to the scene to aid the injured officers and race them off to the nearest hospital. For the first time in Frank’s career, he begin to realize that maybe he’s in way over his head. As Frank watches firefighters douse the fire inside of the demolished repair shop, Detective Jones drives up and parks near him. He hurries out of the car and is immediately stopped by a officer.
“Excuse me sir, but you can’t just park here.”
Jones reveals his badge to the officer.
“I’m with the Glenworth police department. That’s my partner over there.”
The officer steps aside and lets him proceed.
Jones stops momentarily to gawk at all of the devastation that was caused by the explosion. He looks at a towering wall of smoke rising from an foundation where a building once stood. The expression of awe forms on his face. He then turns his attention onto Frank, who has an unreadable expression.
“Frank, are you alright?”
Frank nods meekly.
“Yeah.”
“Jesus,” Jones says and gazes around in amazement a second time.
He shifts his back to Frank, who is still watching the firefighters douse the flames. He appears to be in a deep thought, but Jones dare not ask what’s bothering him in a time like this. It’s more than obvious that he’s traumatized by the ordeal. He gently grabs Frank shoulder.
“Hey, let’s get outta here,” Jones says to him in a subtle tone. “I’ll get your car towed back. Come on.”
Frank humbly walks to Jones car and gets in. When they hit the highway, Jones looks over at Frank and notices the lack of expression in his eyes.
“What the fuck happened there?”
Frank takes a second to respond. He takes him a moment to dig himself out of his own thoughts.
“He planned the whole thing out,” he speaks meekly while looking forward at the road. “He never attended for us to get her out. She was just bait. He had the entire place rigged with explosives.”
“Fuck. I had a bad feeling before you left. I just didn’t know it would get this bad. This is some next level shit.”
He pauses.
“This guy has to be a chemist, or some sort of a welder. We need to double down and contact every hardware store in th