Authors: Ram Muthiah
S
an Jose Police Detective Wong
scanned the room one more time. Two guys on the floor, one guy on the bed. Two had been shot in the head, and one died from a knife wound to the neck. The killer took time to write something on each victim’s forehead.
STAY AWAY
FROM
LITTLE GIRLS
There were multiple shoeprints on the floor. It was going to take some time to sort out which ones belonged to the killer. The killer could have entered from the balcony or from the front door. There was no one alive in the room to talk about it.
He looked at Detective Montgomery, who was taking notes on a small scratch pad with a blue Pilot pen. “There were similar murders in the Bay Area. Girls were abducted and sedated. All kidnappers get killed eventually. Killer seems to have focused his gun on their private parts. Weird. Same warning is written on all the dead guys. There’s a pattern here. It’s obvious that we have one butcher out there slaughtering all these guys. I just don’t understand how the killer knows so much about kidnappers before we do.” Wong sighed.
“
This girl
…” Montgomery pointed at the empty bed as if Tracy were still there. “The girl was not kidnapped. All these kids came here for a party. There was a 911 call from one of these guys. When we came in here, it was a total mess,” he said.
“Did anyone speak on that call?”
“Yes. Someone spoke in a robotic voice as per the operator, giving the address of this house.”
“Whose house is it?”
“Millers. Big shot in real estate. His wife is a former fashion model. They’re out of town.” Montgomery pointed at Dave, who lay dead in the pool of blood. “Their only son arranged this party. I doubt if the parents know about it.”
“911 call came from his phone?”
“Yes, sir. The guy had the phone attached to his ear.” Montgomery pointed at the iPhone lying next to Dave’s dead ear.
Wong pulled the gloves through his fingers and scrolled through the call log. There was a 911 call at 7:15 p.m. and another call, which lasted for a minute at 6:55 p.m. He dialed that number and put the phone on speaker mode. A rap music ringtone came from the king-size mattress, through the dead guy’s jeans pocket.
“Hmm, killer did his job between 6:56 and 7:15.” Wong touched the camera icon and touched the album icon. When he saw the first picture that came up, he muttered, “Oh shit.”
The boys were trying to rape the girl and had filmed it. Could there be any video? Wong clicked the home screen button and played all the videos. There were two videos. The first video was filmed at five o’clock in the evening. There was nothing other than boys smirking and laughing for no reason. The second video was filmed at five minutes past seven. Two of the boys posed obscenely next to the girl on the bed. The boys talked. Then, the video screen showed the shaky wall and the ceiling. Strong thud. Then, the screen went dark.
“Too bad it didn’t catch the killer’s face or the voice,” Montgomery said.
“He was careful not to say a word.” Wong looked around and rubbed his temple. “There’s no blood trail. When victims are stabbed and killed, usually there would be a blood trail.” He immersed himself in thoughts about what could have happened before asking, “Who’s the girl? Did you check?”
“The girl is a junior at Bay Creek. All these kids are from the same school.”
“Let’s talk to these kids. The phone pictures are disturbing. These boys did something. We need to figure it out.”
Wong and Montgomery walked down the stairs to face the group of forty boys and girls sitting on the living room floor. Three girls, sitting together on the red couch placed closer to the wall, sobbed.
“Guys, can anyone tell me what this party is about?” Wong looked at the crowd.
A boy with orange-dyed hair raised his hand. “Dave threw the party. His team won the football championship.”
“Are you guys all in the same school? Same class?”
“Yeah, same school,” the boy said.
A girl leaning against the wall said, “But—not the same class. There was a junior. Rest of us are seniors.”
“The girl who was taken in an ambulance is a junior? What is her name?” Wong asked.
“Tracy. She’s a nerd. I don’t think she was
even invited
,” a blond girl growled. She sat on one arm of the long leather couch placed adjacent to large speakers, which were no longer pumping out loud music. She placed her left leg firmly on the couch and left her other leg bouncing uncomfortably over the side.
A boy with a thin mustache stood up. “Dave invited her. That’s what she told me when she walked into the house. I saw Dave take her upstairs.”
“No shit!” the blond girl growled again.
Wong turned to Montgomery. “Please get everyone’s name and address. We may get some prints from the phone. Or not. We will try anyway.” Then, he looked at the blond girl, who was staring at him with her blue eyes. “Did you see anyone suspicious going up there?” He raised his left hand toward the stairs.
The blonde snorted. “I think everyone here is a suspect.” She looked away.
S
amantha waited
for the class to end. She had office hours with Professor Mitchell immediately afterward. The teaching assistant spoke in a croaky voice. “Make sure you understand how the interest rates work. Otherwise, you’ll fail miserably in all internship interviews.” She ignored the subtle threat and drew a mind map in her notebook.
Class ends at noon. It would take three minutes to reach Prof. Mitchell’s office. Ten minutes to wait in the line, 12:13 to 12:33, Prof. Mitchell a.k.a. Prof. Yell! Another seven minutes to walk to cafeteria. 12:40. Review notes, then walk to George Hall for Midterm at 1:00.
The wait wasn’t so bad in Professor Mitchell’s office. Samantha sat on the wooden chair with wobbly legs, after greeting the professor. “I have a question about the term paper.”
“Okay. Shoot!”
“You asked us to go back in time and look at unsolved crimes. I want to write something about one of the current unsolved crimes. I want to write about the killer who kills all the bad guys.”
“Which killer are you talking about? There are so many of them.”
Samantha noticed the frustration in the professor’s voice.
She pulled a few sheets from her backpack and spread them on the desk. “These were all in the news. You know, the guy who wrote the warnings on dead bodies?”
“Stay away from little girls?” Professor Mitchell nodded. “I know. That’s an interesting case. I never came across a murderer who took time to write warnings for dead people! The guy’s already dead; why write the warning?” He looked up to see if Samantha would smile at his joke.
She forced a smile. “Actually, the warning is not for the dead guy. The warning is for people who would attempt such a thing.” She continued, “It’s not just one case. There were a couple of cases with the same pattern.” She pulled a printout of a US map before the professor raised his hand and stopped her.
“What exactly do you want to do? Do you want to write about this killer?”
“Yes. Here’s the thing. I want to focus on the motivation of the killer. My gut feeling is that the killer is a good guy.”
Professor Mitchell smirked. “How can the
killer
be a good guy?”
“Well, when someone kills the bad guys, he must be a good guy.”
“Not really. The killer may have a beef with the bad guys. Good guys don’t kill others. I’m not surprised about your thought process. Fantasy is natural for people of your age.”
“What if the good guys get provoked?”
“Hmm, let me ask you this.” Professor Mitchell looked straight into Samantha’s eyes. “If someone provokes you, would you go and kill that person?”
Samantha shook her head back and forth. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…you know, there’s really something strange with what happened in these killings.” Samantha looked quickly at the clock,
12:23. Good, right on time.
Professor Mitchell listened as Samantha narrated her theory.
“Some kind of Robin Hood, that’s what you think?” Professor Mitchell looked at the clock, showing his disinterest.
“Not really. Not a Robin Hood. But a guy with a good heart, somehow deeply troubled by the crimes. I want to write about how good people turn into killers.”
Professor Mitchell tapped a black Pilot pen on his desk. “Okay. This isn’t really what I had in mind when I asked for a paper on criminal behavior. But this could be interesting. I would love to read your paper when it’s ready.”
Samantha collected the printouts she had spread on the desk and thanked the professor as she got to her feet.
Professor Mitchell nodded with a smile.
She stopped walking toward the door when she heard the professor’s voice from behind. “You know what? One of my students is a special agent in the San Francisco FBI office. He called me to inquire about you!”
He waved his right hand to calm her down after seeing the confusion in her face. “Nothing to worry about! You applied for an FBI internship, right? That’s why he called me. I told him good things about you.” He smiled warmly.
Samantha’s face lit up. “Thank you very much! I have the interview tomorrow in San Francisco.”
“Tomorrow? Very good! I hope it goes well. All the best.”
Samantha thanked him again and walked out. All of a sudden, the future looked very promising. She stopped outside Kroeber Hall, closed her eyes, and slowly inhaled the breeze coming from the palm trees surrounding Berkeley Art Museum. The air smelled pleasant, and the art museum looked more beautiful than it had the last time she saw it, which was only twenty minutes ago. She pleasantly recalled the conversation she had just had with the professor. Nothing beat the alumni connection when trying to find a job or internship.
Samantha smiled with excitement and walked fast to grab lunch before heading to her midterm exam room.
These exams are so boring.
She could not wait to complete the quarter.
The midterm exam was over by four o’clock. Samantha felt relieved. She briskly walked to the cafeteria adjacent to the campus bookstore, ordered a cinnamon dolce latte, and glanced at the television screen mounted on the wall behind the cashier. A man was crying. His daughter had been kidnapped the previous week and found dead in the morning.
Horrible
. For a parent, there was nothing worse than losing a child. She stared at the picture of the girl. She was only five and looked very beautiful.
What kind of a man would have the heart to kill this girl?
The girl’s dead body was found in the woods near the College of San Mateo.
She felt the stiffness in her neck and took a deep breath.
I will join the FBI and save at least one child from these monsters.
S
amantha Cruz walked briskly
to the Berkeley BART station. BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, was the local subway system, which connected most of the cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. After twenty minutes on the train, she got off at the Civic Center station in San Francisco. She had about thirty minutes to reach the FBI office for the internship interview. She took the escalator to reach the ground level of the train station and started walking toward UN Plaza.
She turned left at Golden Gate Avenue and started walking uphill. Fifteen minutes later, she turned right into Polk Street. On her right, a fifteen-story building stood tall. “FEDERAL BUILDING” was written in big, capital letters, sixty feet above the ground, in the center of the building. Tiny water fountains were pumping water in front of the building. A gentle breeze combined with light drizzle touched her hair. She adjusted her hair and backpack and braced herself for show time.
She opened the giant glass door in the entrance to find two guards staring at her. One of them said in a monotone. “Put your mobile phone and any metal objects into your backpack, and push it onto the belt. Shoes go in a bin.” He pointed to a stack of bins on the right. She did exactly that and waited for the backpack to arrive at the other end of the X-ray machine. She wondered when the security guard had smiled last.
A minute later, she waited in front of the elevator and checked her watch. It was seven minutes before nine o’clock. Right on time. The elevator door opened with a ding. She got in and pressed the number five. As the elevator slowly climbed, she heard her stomach growling in spite of the noisy ride. She gently touched her stomach in an effort to calm it down. The last thing she wanted was to appear nervous.
She got out of the elevator and walked tall to show her confidence until she saw the sign pointing to the FBI field office. The fear crept in again. She dismissed it and briskly walked to her left to find the open door leading to a small waiting room. She expected a receptionist but found none. Portraits of politicians hung on the wall. She observed four chairs and one small glass table, on which crime prevention brochures were spread, in the center of the waiting room.
As she was thinking about how to get the attention of the people inside, she found a small white button next to the door on the wall with a sign in tiny letters: “Press here for assistance.” She pressed it, adjusted her hair, and waited.
A few seconds later, a tall man with a dark-blue coat came out. “Samantha?”
“Yes. I’m here for the internship interview.” She shook his hand warmly.
“I’m Special Agent Theaker. Come on in.” He led the way to the small conference room in the far-right corner. Theaker introduced her to two other people sitting around the conference room table. “This is Assistant Special Agent Jones. This is Agent Rousseau.”
Agent Jones was five-foot-ten, handsome, probably Irish. He stood up and shook her hand firmly. Agent Rousseau waved her hand and smiled. Theaker pointed to the chair. “Take your seat. Make yourself comfortable.”
Make myself comfortable? He’s got to be kidding.
Samantha lowered herself into a small chair in the middle, placed the backpack on the floor, and sat upright. The oval-shaped table showed the wear and tear of twenty years. The three people sitting on the other side of the table looked at each other. Rousseau put her head down and took a serious look at Samantha’s résumé on the desk. Theaker gave a silent nod to Jones and looked at Samantha.
“Well, I think we should start.” Theaker took five minutes to explain the selection process for interns.
When he had finished his warm-up speech, Rousseau looked up and asked in a stern voice, “Why should we choose you over the other applicants? What makes you so special?”
Samantha looked shocked at the change of tone. She took a second to regain her confidence and said, “Nothing makes me special. I’m sure there are lots of other qualified applicants for the internship. However…” She paused and looked at Jones, who was smiling. “I applied for the internship for only one reason. I want to join the FBI and serve my country. My degree from Berkeley can open the door for good-paying jobs in Silicon Valley. I can take a shot at a start-up and become a millionaire in a few years. But money does not motivate me. I want to serve the country and protect the people, especially young children, from harm. I hope that you will find me a suitable candidate after this interview.”
Theaker nodded, took notes, and silently smiled at Rousseau’s lousy question. He fired the next question. “How can you protect young children from harm? You can’t magically protect them just by joining the FBI. It’s not like what you see in the movies! I want to put your expectations in perspective. Remember, a lot of agents die or get injured in the field.”
“I understand. I have an inquisitive mind and keep coming up with ideas to catch the bad guys. Having a position inside the FBI would help me to channel my energy and use my intelligence effectively. I could do a lot of amazing things with the resources available in the FBI.” She radiated passion and confidence.
“Really? Interesting!” Jones said.
Theaker smiled at Jones and looked at Samantha. “Give us an example. Give us some of your ideas. Let’s see if we can use any of those ideas!”
“Sure!” She pulled the backpack from her side and took out a bunch of papers. “This is about the
stay away
killer who saved the children from kidnappers.”
She spread the papers on the desk and pointed at the first sheet. “This is the recent case in San Jose. Three high school seniors tried to gang rape a junior after giving her a date-rape drug. Someone came in and killed all three. No one,
no one
, saw the killer who wrote ‘
Stay away
’ all over these guys’ faces. The warning is not for the dead guys. It’s for pedophiles and bad guys who would attempt such a cruel act.”
She moved to the next sheet on the desk. “It’s not just one case. There were a couple of cases already with the same pattern. This one happened in Hillsdale Mall a few months ago. Amanda Rivera was kidnapped in broad daylight from the mall parking lot. She was found alive within a few hours. Her kidnapper was brutally murdered.”
She pulled out a printout of a US map and ran her fingers over the red dots. “There was a similar case in Thousand Oaks last year. Cardiologist accused of molesting young patients was killed in his clinic. The killer tied up the doctor’s staff and made them watch the killing. Later, he asked the nurse to write the warning ‘
Stay away
’ on the doctor’s forehead. According to his staff, the killer wore a ski mask. No one saw his face. The doctor’s attorney was killed a few days later in Sacramento with the message ‘
Bad karma
’ on his forehead.” She caught her breath and continued, “Then, a middle school teacher was killed in Pasadena around the same time. The teacher was accused of molesting his students, but the jury released him after a six-month trial. The teacher was butchered in his home. His right wrist was cut and his hand thrown into the fireplace. When the police reached the dead man’s home, they found that the guy was sitting dead on the couch, facing the front door, and holding a small white board with the words ‘
Stay away from little girls
’ on his lap.”
“We’re aware of those murders, Samantha. Go on.” Theaker wanted to know more.
She grabbed a few more sheets from the backpack. “There were three cases in the last week. Just the last week. Two kidnappings and one rape. Five dead people. All these guys are bad guys. They were killed horribly. Warnings were written all over their faces.” She spread the pictures of dead guys on the desk. “I strongly believe that the killer is a male in his early thirties. I also believe that he lost a loved one, probably his daughter, recently.” She paused for a moment. “These killings are not
revenge
killings. The killings are all over the map on the West Coast. He is possibly a good man spooked by violent crimes. He is frustrated with the judicial system and wanted to take justice into his own hands.”
Theaker nodded. “I see. If you were in charge of catching this killer, how would you plan to catch him?”
“I think the first step is to think like him. What would you do if you wanted to catch the pedophiles
before
they did harm to the children? You would go after sex offenders. You would go places these people frequent. The killer is going after bad guys by thinking like them. So, if I think like the killer, I’m sure I’ll catch him.”
“That sounds like a plan! Why don’t you think like the killer and tell us where to find him?” Jones winked.
“Sure! All I need is the desk in this office, access to FBI databases, and some help from forensic and cyber-crime teams. When can I start the job?”
Jones laughed out loud. Theaker and Rousseau smiled at each other.