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Before he Kills
CHAPTER NINE
Mackenzie was reading over the final report on Clive Traylor, wondering where she went wrong, when Porter stepped into her office. He still looked a little disgruntled from the morning. Mackenzie knew he’d been sure Traylor had been their guy and he hated being wrong. But his constant irritable mood was something Mackenzie had gotten used to a long time ago.
“Nancy said you were looking for me,” Porter said.
“Yes,” she said. “I think we need to pay a visit to the strip club that Hailey Lizbrook worked at.”
“Why?”
“To speak with her boss.”
“We’ve already spoken to him on the phone,” Porter said.
“No, you spoke to him on the phone,” Mackenzie pointed out. “For a grand total of about three minutes, I might add.”
Porter nodded slowly. He stepped fully into the office, closing the door behind him. “Look,” he said, “I was wrong about Traylor this morning. And you impressed the hell out of me with that takedown. It’s clear that I haven’t been showing you enough respect. But that still doesn’t give you the right to talk down to me.”
“I’m not talking down to you,” Mackenzie said. “I’m simply pointing out that in a case where our leads are next to zero, we need to exhaust every possible avenue.”
“And you think this strip club owner might be the murderer?”
“Probably not,” Mackenzie said. “But I think it’s worth talking to him to see if he can lead us to anything. Besides that, have you checked the guy’s rap sheet?”
“No,” Porter said. The grimace on his face made it clear that he hated to admit this.
“He has a history of domestic abuse. Also, six years ago, he was involved with a case where he supposedly had a seventeen-year-old working for him. She came out later on and said she only managed to get the job by performing sexual favors for him. The case was thrown out, though, because the girl was a runaway and no one could prove her age.”
Porter sighed. “White, do you know the last time I stepped foot in a strip club?”
“I’d rather not know,” Mackenzie said. And by God, did she get an actual smile out of him?
“It’s been a long time,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“Well, this is business, not pleasure.”
Porter chuckled. “When you get to be my age, the line between the two sometimes blurs. Now come on. Let’s go. I imagine strip clubs haven’t changed that much in the last thirty years.”
*
Mackenzie had only seen strip clubs in movies and although she hadn’t dared tell Porter, she hadn’t been sure what to expect. When they walked inside, it was just after six o’clock in the evening. The parking lot was starting to fill with stressed out men coming off of their work shifts. A few of these men gave Mackenzie a little too much attention as she and Porter walked through the lobby and toward the bar area.
Mackenzie took the place in as best she could. The lighting was dim, like a permanent twilight, and the music was loud. Currently, two women were on a runway-like stage, dancing with a pole between them. Wearing only a pair of thin panties each, they were trying their best to dance in a sexy manner to a Rob Zombie song.
“So,” Mackenzie said as they waited for the bartender, “has it changed?”
“Nothing except the music,” Porter said. “This music is terrible.”
She had to give it to him; he wasn’t watching the stage. Porter was a married man, going on twenty-five years. Seeing how he was focused on the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar rather than the topless women onstage made her respect for him go up a notch. It was hard to peg Porter as a man who respected his wife that much and on such an account, she was happy to be proven wrong.
The bartender finally came over to them and his face went slack right away. While neither Porter nor Mackenzie wore any sort of police uniform, their attire still presented them as people that were there on business – and probably not business of the positive kind.
“Can I help you?” the bartender asked.
Can I help you? Mackenzie thought. He didn’t ask us what he could get us to drink. He asked if he could help us. He’s seen our kind in here before. Strike one for the owner.
“We’d like to speak to Mr. Avery, please,” Porter said. “And I’ll have a rum and Coke.”
“He’s busy at the moment,” the bartender said.
“I’m sure he is,” Porter said. “But we need to speak with him.” He then took his badge out of his interior coat pocket and flashed it, returning it back as if he had just pulled off a magic trick. “But he needs to speak to us or I can make some calls and make it really official. It’s his call.”
“One second,” the bartender said, not wasting another minute. He walked to the other side of the bar and went through double doors that reminded Mackenzie of the kind she’d seen in saloons in those cheesy Western movies.
She looked back to the stage where there was now only one woman, dancing to Van Halen’s “Running with the Devil.” There was something about the way the woman moved that made Mackenzie wonder if strippers lacked dignity and therefore did not care about exposing their bodies, or if they were just that confident. She knew there was no way in hell she could ever do something like that. While she was confident in many things, her body was not one of them, despite the many lewd glances she received from random men from time to time.
“You look a little out of place,” someone beside her said.
She looked to her right and saw a man approaching her. He looked to be about thirty years old and as if he had been sitting at the bar for a while. He had that sort of gleam to his eyes that she’d seen in many a drunken altercation.
“There’s a reason for that,” Mackenzie said.
“I’m just saying,” the man said. “You don’t see many women in places like this. And when they are here, they’re usually here with a husband or boyfriend. And quite frankly, I don’t see the two of you,” he said, pointing to Porter, “as being an item.”
Mackenzie heard Porter chuckle at this. She wasn’t sure what annoyed her more: the fact that this man had gotten brave enough to sit beside her or that Porter was enjoying every minute of it.
“We’re not an item,” Mackenzie said. “We work together.”
“Just here for the after-work drinks, huh?” he asked. He was leaning in closer – close enough for Mackenzie to smell the tequila on his breath. “Why don’t you let me buy you one?”
“Look,” Mackenzie said, still not looking at him. “I’m not interested. So just move along to the next unwitting victim.”
The man leaned in closer and stared at her for a moment. “You don’t have to be a bitch about it.”
Mackenzie turned to him finally and when they locked eyes, something in the man’s gaze shifted. He could tell she meant business, but he’d had a few drinks too many and apparently just couldn’t help himself. He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What I meant to say is, well, no, I meant what I said. You don’t have to be a bitch about – ”
“Get your hand off of me,” Mackenzie said softly. “Last warning.”
“You don’t like the feel of a man’s hand?” he asked, laughing. His hand slid down her arm, groping now rather than simply touching. “I guess that’s why you’re here to look at naked women, huh?”
Mackenzie’s arm came up with lightning speed. The poor drunk man didn’t even realize what had happened until after she’d thrust her forearm into his neck and he was falling off of his barstool, gagging. When he hit, it made enough noise to attract one of the security guards that had been standing by the edge of the lounge area.
Porter was then on his feet, stepping in between the guard and Mackenzie. He flashed his badge and, to Mackenzie’s surprise, stood nearly toe-to-toe with the much larger guard. “Slow down, big boy,” Porter said, all but rubbing the guy’s face with his badge. “In fact, if you want to avoid the spectacle of having someone arrested in this seedy establishment, I suggest you toss this jack-off out of here.”
The guard looked from Porter to the drunk man on the floor, still coughing and gasping for air. The guard understood the option he was facing and nodded. “Sure thing,” he said, hauling the drunk man to his feet.
Mackenzie and Porter watched as the guard escorted the drunk man to the door. Porter nudged Mackenzie and chuckled. “You’re just full of surprises, huh?”
Mackenzie only shrugged. When they turned back around to the bar area, the bartender had returned. Another man stood beside him, staring down Mackenzie and Porter as if they were stray dogs that he didn’t trust.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” the man asked.
“Are you Mr. William Avery?” Porter asked.
“I am.”
“Well, Mr. Avery,” Mackenzie said, “your patrons need to do a better job of keeping their mouths shut and their hands to themselves.”
“What’s this about?” Avery asked.
“Is there somewhere more private we can speak?” Porter asked.
“No. Here is fine. This is the busiest time of the day for us. I need to be here to help tend bar.”
“You sure do,” Porter said. “I ordered a rum and Coke five minutes ago and I still haven’t seen it.”
The bartender scowled and then turned to the bottles behind him. In his absence, Avery leaned forward and said, “If this is about Hailey Lizbrook, I already told your other cop buddies everything I know about her.”
“But you didn’t talk to me,” Mackenzie said.
“So what?”
“So, I take a different approach than almost everyone else, and this is our case,” she said, nodding toward Porter. “So I need you to answer more questions.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Well, if you don’t,” Mackenzie said, “I can interview a woman named Colby Barrow. That name sound familiar? I believe she was seventeen when she started working here, right? She got the job by performing oral sex on you, I believe. The case is dead, I know. But I wonder if she’d have anything to tell me about your business practices that might have been swept under the rug six years ago. I wonder if she might be able to tell me why you don’t seem to give a damn that one of your dancers was killed three nights ago.”
Avery looked at her like he wanted to slap her. She almost wanted him to try it. She had encountered far too many men like him in the last few years – men that cared noting for women until the lights were out and they needed sex or something to punch on. She held his gaze, letting him know that she was much more than a punching bag.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
Before she answered, the bartender finally delivered Porter’s drink. Porter sipped from it, smiling knowingly at Avery and the bartender.
“Did Hailey have men that came in and usually flocked to her?” Mackenzie asked. “Did she have regulars?”
“She had one or two,” Avery said.
“Do you know their names?” Porter asked.
“No. I don’t pay attention to the men that come in here. They’re just like any other men, you know?”
“But if it came down to it,” Mackenzie said, “do you think some of your other dancers might know their names?”
“I doubt it,” Avery said. “And let’s face it: most of the dancers ask for the man’s name just to be nice. They don’t give a shit what their names are. They’re just trying to get paid.”
“Was Hailey a good employee?” Mackenzie asked.
“Yes, she was, actually. She was always willing to work extra shifts. She loved her two boys, you know?”
“Yes, we met with them,” Mackenzie said.
Avery sighed and looked out to the stage. “Listen, you’re welcome to talk to any of the girls if you think it will help figure out who killed Hailey. But I can’t let you do it here, not right now. It would upset them and screw with my business. But I can give you a list of their names and phone numbers if you absolutely need it.”
Mackenzie thought about this for a minute and then shook her head. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary. Thanks for your time, though.”
With that, she got up and tapped Porter on the shoulder. “We’re done here.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I still need to finish my drink.”
Mackenzie was about to argue her point when Porter’s phone rang. He answered it, pressing his free hand to his other ear to block out the godawful noise of the current Skrillex song blaring from the PA. He spoke briefly, nodding in a few places before hanging up. He then downed the remainder of his drink and handed the car keys to Mackenzie.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It seems I am done,” he said. Then his face became set. “There’s been another murder.”
CHAPTER TEN
They drove a little over two and a half hours from the strip club after receiving the call, night falling slowly the entire way, increasing Mackenzie’s depressed mood, and when they arrived at the scene, night had fallen. They finally turned off the main highway onto a strip of unpaved blacktop, and then onto a dirt road that led to a large open field. As they neared their destination, she started to feel an impending sense of doom.
Her headlights glowed just ahead of her as she carefully drove down a bumpy dirt track, and slowly, she started to see the numerous police cars already on the scene. A few of them were pointed to the center of the field, their headlights revealing a grisly, yet familiar sight.
As much as she tried not to, she flinched at the sight.
“My God,” Porter said.
Mackenzie parked, but never took her eyes from the scene as she stepped out of the car and walked slowly forward. The grass in the field was high, coming to her knees in places, and she could see the slightly worn trail that the officers had been using. There were too many officers here; she already worried that the scene was contaminated.
She looked up and took a sharp breath. It was another woman, stripped to her underwear, bound to a pole that looked to be roughly eight feet tall. This time, seeing the woman strung up in such a way, Mackenzie was unable to repress a memory of her sister. Steph had been a stripper, too. Mackenzie wasn’t exactly sure what Steph was up to these days, but it was too easy to imagine her ending up like this.
As Mackenzie approached the victim, she glanced around the crime scene and counted seven officers in all. Two officers were off to the side, speaking with two teenagers. Up ahead, standing a few feet away from the pole and the victim, Nelson was speaking with someone on his phone. When he saw them, he waved them over and quickly ended his call.
“Anything of substance from the strip club?” Nelson asked.
“No sir,” Mackenzie said. “I’m convinced Avery is clean. He’s offered the names and numbers of all of his employees if we need them, but I don’t think we’ll need his help.”
“We need someone’s help,” Nelson said, looking to the pole and looking as if he might get sick.
Mackenzie approached the body and saw right away that this one was in worse shape than the body of Hailey Lizbrook. For starters, there was a large lump and bruise on the left side of the woman’s face. There was also dried blood in and around her ear. The lashes on her back looked to have been made with the same weapon, only this time they had been applied with more force and in greater succession.
“Who discovered the body?” Porter asked.
“Those two kids over there,” Nelson said, pointing toward where one of the officers was still speaking to the two teens. “They admitted they came out here to make out and smoke some weed. They say they’ve done it for a month or so. But tonight, they found this.”
“Same body type as Hailey Lizbrook,” Mackenzie said, thinking out loud. “I think we can probably assume the same profession, or similar, too.”
“I need answers on this, you two,” Nelson said. “And I need them now.”
“We’re trying,” Porter said. “White is on fire with this thing and – ”
“I need results,” Nelson said, close to fury. “White, I’ll even take some of your out-of-the-box thinking on this one.”
“Can I borrow a flashlight?” she asked.
Nelson reached into his coat pocket and took out a small Maglite which he happily tossed to her. She caught it, flicked it on, and started looking around the scene. She tuned out Nelson’s nervous banter and let him release his steam with Porter.
With the dead-on precision that took over her in moments like this, the world melted away as she started scouring the scene for any clues. There were several that stood out right away. For instance, she knew that Nelson and the other officers had used the same beaten path to get to the body to prevent contaminating the scene; outside of their worn-down footpath from their cars to the body, there were several other indentations in the tall grass, likely placed there by the killer.
She strayed a bit outside of the footpath and slowly arced the flashlight beam around the field surrounding the post. She took some mental notes, looked back over to the two teens, and then headed back to the pole. She looked the body over for any further clues and became certain that this body, like that of Hailey Lizbrook, would show no signs of sexual abuse.
She wondered if setting up the pole was more than just a theatrical device. Something about it seemed resolute, almost like a necessity for the killer. For a brief moment she could see him, his hands falling on the pole and going to work.
He drags it with pride, maybe even hoisting it up along his back. There’s labor to the task, a prerequisite to the killings. Struggling with the pole, bringing it to the site, digging the hole and installing it – there’s a sweat-of-the-brow satisfaction in it. He is readying the site for the murder. He takes just as much satisfaction from this work as he does the murder.
“What are your thoughts, White?” Nelson asked as he watched her circle the body.
Mackenzie blinked, being torn from the image of the killer in her mind. Realizing just how deep she’d gone there for a moment, she felt a slight chill pass through her.
“A few easy ones right off the bat are that you can see the trail where he dragged the pole from the dirt track to here,” she said. “That concludes that the pole was not here originally. He brought it with him. And that denotes that he drives either a pickup truck or a van of some kind.”
“That’s what I figured,” Nelson said. “Anything else?”
“Well, it’s hard to be sure at night,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure the killer had the victim wrapped in something when he brought her out here.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t see any blood at all on the grass but some of the wounds on her back – especially those around her buttocks – are still fairly wet.”
As Nelson digested this, Mackenzie went to her haunches at the back of the pole and pressed the grass down with one hand. With the other, she shone the flashlight beam along the bottom of the pole.
Her heart raced as saw the numbers: N511/J202.
He uses a knife or a chisel, and he takes a lot of time and effort to make sure the carvings are legible. These carvings are important to him and, more than that, he wants them to be seen. Whether consciously or subconsciously, he wants someone to figure out why he’s doing this. He needs someone to understand his motives.
“Chief?” she said.
“Yeah, White?”
“I’ve got those numbers again.”
“Shit,” Nelson said, coming to where she was kneeling. He looked down and let out a heavy sigh. “Any idea what they mean?”
“None at all, sir.”
“Okay,” Nelson said. His hands were on his hips and he was looking up to the dark sky like a man defeated. “So we have a few more answers here, but nothing that’s going to tie things up for us anytime soon. A man driving a truck or van that has access to wooden poles and – ”
“Wait,” Mackenzie said. “You just said something.”
She went back to the rear of the pole. She leaned down to look at the place where the woman’s wrists were bound with rope.
“What is it?” Porter asked, coming over to have a look.
“You any good with knots?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“I am,” Nelson said, also coming over to have a look. “What have you got?”
“I’m pretty sure this is the same knot that was used for Hailey Lizbrook.”
“So what if it is?” Porter said.
“It’s a bit unusual,” Mackenzie replied. “Can you tie a knot like that? I can’t.”
Porter looked at it again, seeming stumped.
“I’m pretty sure it’s a sailor’s knot,” Nelson said.
“I thought so,” Mackenzie said. “And while it might be a long shot, I’d consider that our killer might be familiar with boats. Maybe he lives near the water or has lived near the water at some point.”
“Drives a truck or a van, maybe lives near water, and has some sort of mommy issues,” Nelson said. “Not much to go on, but it’s better than where we were yesterday.”
“And given the ritualistic manner of these killings,” Mackenzie said, “and the short time frame between the two, we can only assume he’s going to do it again.”
She turned and looked at him, summoning all the seriousness she could.
“With all due respect, sir, I think it’s time we call in the FBI.”
He frowned.
“White, their processes alone would slow us down. We’d have two more bodies before they even sent anyone out here.”
“I think it’s worth a try,” she said. “We’re getting in over our heads.”
She hated to admit it but the look on Nelson’s face showed her that he agreed. He nodded solemnly and looked back to the body on the pole. “I’ll make the call,” he finally said.
From behind them, they heard a very punctuated curse from one of the other officers. They all turned to see what was going on and saw the bouncing glow of headlights coming down the dirt road.
“Who the hell is that?” Nelson asked. “No one else should know about this and – ”
“A news van,” said the officer who had let out a curse.
“How?” Nelson said. “Dammit, who the hell keeps getting information to these assholes?”
The scene became a flurry of activity as Nelson did everything he could to prep for the arrival of a news crew. He was fuming and looked like his head might explode at any moment. Mackenzie took the opportunity to take as many photos as she could: of the depressed sections of the field, of the knot at the victim’s wrists, of the numbers at the bottom of the post.
“White, Porter, get out of here and get back to the station,” Nelson said.
“But sir,” Mackenzie said, “we still need to – ”
“Just do as I say,” he said. “You two are the leads on this case and if the media gets a whiff of that, they’ll constantly be on your asses and slow you down. Now get out of here.”
It was a sensible train of thought and Mackenzie did as she was asked. But as she headed back to the car with Porter, another thought occurred to her. She turned back to Nelson and said: “Sir, I think we should have the wood tested, on this pole and the last one. Get a sample and have it analyzed. Maybe the kind of wood being used for these posts could lead us to something.”
“Damn good thinking, White,” he said. “Now haul ass.”
Mackenzie did just that as she saw two more pairs of headlights trailing in behind the first set. The first set belonged to a news van with WSQT written on the side. It had just parked on the far side of the police cars. A reporter and a cameraman came bustling out and Mackenzie instantly thought of them as vultures circling a fresh kill.
As she got into the car, taking the driver’s seat again, another member of the news crew got out of the van and started snapping pictures. Mackenzie was mortified to see that the camera was pointed in her direction. She lowered her head, got into the car, and started the engine. As she did, she saw that three officers were already storming toward the news van, Nelson in the center. Still, the reporter did her best to bully her way forward.
They took off, but Mackenzie knew it was already too late.
Come tomorrow, her picture would be on the front page of all the papers.
