Scream

Roselyn Turner, a young brunette college student from Kansas, was suddenly snatched twelve hours ago. A team of four agents, plus me, rushed to the scene; we knew every second counted to try and locate her.

Unfortunately, we were too late. Roselyn's body was found nearby the local park and leaned abut a fence.

Have you seen The Scream? That's how we found Roselyn's body: eyes forced open by staples, hands attached to her face, and her mouth stuffed full of a grungy rag to complete the look.

Thanks to an assortment of cuts and stab wounds, we could tell the murderer was perverse, possessed to complete some sort of set protocol. The poor woman, she suffered so much and death must have been such a sweet welcome when the moment came. One's state has to be utterly horrendous to beg for death.

The monster was also new to the game (a cruel turn of phrase), a neophyte, and left loads of DNA all over the prone body. The system spat out a suspect -- John Jacobs, or "Double J" as he demanded he be called.

As “Double J” was dragged to a dreary room, we were absolutely sure the case was a slam dunk. He and Roselyn were last seen at a local bar and threw a manly tantrum when she refused to go be dragged away to the rat-hole apartment he called home. The bouncer had to, quote, "punt the sorry excuse of a man out the door." To add, Jacobs' records stated a precedent of brutal conduct toward young women: aggravated assault as a teenager and a recently completed 15-year sentence for a murder charge. Any lawyer, good or bad, wouldn't be able to go head to head verses a jury, and Double J had a lousy one from the case before. Why he would keep a crappy lawyer around, one may never know.

Terry, a smart cop we dubbed "Sherlock" and my mentor, entered the room, eager to put the guy where he belonged.

"So Jacobs..."

"Told y'all to call me Double J!"

Terry stared at the toddler, sorry, man. "Sorry about that." He pulled the seat back and sat down. "Double J," you could hear the eye-roll, "we found your DNA all over Roselyn Turner's body. Care to tell us what that's all about?"

Double J smugly beamed. "Can't be my duh'nuh." Yeah, not the sharpest tool out there.

"Why not?" Terry placed the results on the table. "The test tells us so."

"Wasn't here."

Terry told me years later that he was rattled, but you never would have known as you watched. Terry's face was blank as he responded, "where were you?"

Jacob's eyes grew humorously large before he leaned over to the sleazy lawyer. Whatever the lawyer told Jacob turned off the snark from before.

He mumbles. "Speak up, Double J," "Sherlock," Terry comments.

"Was out of town!"

"You know that you are supposed to stay locally. That's one of the demands of your parole." Jacob gave a pout. (Goodness, he really was a toddler and he wonders why Roselyn was so turned off by the guy.) "Oh, you knew that." Terry walked to the door. "We'll have to corroborate your story, but understand," he leaned close to Jacob's face, well-pleased, "you are back to lockup. How long depends on what we unearth."

***

The camera for Rose's Bar, a swanky bar two towns over, showed Double J drunk, barely able to stay on the stool. Just as he told Terry. He ended up back to lockup for 14 days; apparently, he had been some trouble recently.

To add, another woman was gone as we checked on Jacob's story.

We had the wrong guy.

***

After a lengthy few days, nearly a week, we had become bleary-eyed people, exhausted and desperate for more than just coffee and takeout. We were ready for an end to the deaths, now totaled to four women. How the team was able to operate amazed me, even now. Eventually, we saw the end of the dark tunnel or so we thought.

The fourth woman, Vanessa Anderson, fought back and we had a DNA sample.

Enter our new suspect, Thomas Logan, a regular, but handsome Joe (an accountant no less), full of charm and smarts. Anyone who would see Thomas on the street wouldn't deem murderous, but trustworthy, someone safe. Underneath though, was an abhorrent creature, at least based on the gruesome scenes we've attached to the fellow. But regardless of all the unearthed proof over the past few days, we could not tether the man, no, the ungodly beast to the horrendous acts.

Now we only had 48 more hours left to hold the perp, an understatement of a word, and we needed to get Thomas to confess. That or search for uncontested proof that would trump any type of defense.

At the moment, though, we were stumped. Terry worked every angle to get Thomas to confess as the rest of us searched each corner of the house.

The hours faded too fast; now, there were only two hours left on the clock.

"We aren't gonna succeed, are we?" asked Randell, leaned up on the wall. "He beat us."

"No!" That was Bea. "We have two hours left." She started to pace the space. "Come on! Where haven't we looked?"

My eyes wandered over the room. There must be...my eyes landed on Thomas' boots, notably the mud on the boots. There was a storm yesterday and that meant....

"The yard."

***

Thanks to the muddy boots, we scoured the yard for areas where Thomas probably dug recently. At one spot, we found a box full of tapes.

What were on those tapes haunts me even now, a source of fuel for extremely dark dreams. And those screams from those tortured women. God, what leads a person to do that to another person?

As we told Thomas and a less sleazy lawyer, by all appearances, about the tapes, Thomas' faced morphed from safe to deranged. He started to clap.

"Good for you. Y'all not as dumb as you look." The lawyer attempted to shush Thomas, but he doesn't seem to care anymore. He has been caught and there's not any reason to try to conceal the truth.

"Why?"

Thomas merely beamed, before he took a deep breath and spoke words that would penetrate my very bones for the rest of my days. "Could you hear the screams? And the smell." The bastard groaned. One would compare that groan to the contentment of a good meal's scent. "That fear, oh, a most pleasant, sweet perfume that most would choke on."

"And you?"

He leaned forward, eyes a-sparkle. "Bottle that scent for me to enjoy. That and those melody of screams. Just perfect."