If I had to do it, I was going to shoot him in front of a hundred witnesses. I steadied the gun and kept the front sight bead focused just above his ear as he continued to walk. “Stop walking immediately, and put your hands on your head!” I yelled at the top of my voice, one last time, to no avail. The man kept walking. I thumbed the safety off.
I began to squeeze when at the last second he veered away from Grace and her friends and disappeared behind a crush of people pouring down the bleachers—the first half of the game had just ended and a crowd began to pour through the opening.
I stopped walking, lifted the Luger into the air, and flicked the safety back on. Katie and Ally rushed around me and scrambled to Grace on the floor ahead of me. I was torn: follow the man or stay with the girls and keep them safe? Though I desperately wanted this guy, I had to make sure they were okay first.
Katie looked up from the ground as she clutched Grace in her arms. Several of the girls were crying, and the rest were looking up at me in stunned fascination. I started to tell them that everything was all right, but Katie spoke, or rather, screamed first. “What the fuck, Lucas?” she yelled at the top of her voice. “What were you doing?”
I saw the girls look at each other in surprise through tearstained faces as they heard Gracie’s mother’s angry words.
“Kate. The killer. He left a message.”
“What?”
I held up my hands in a lame attempt to calm her. “The Snow White Killer. He left a message for me here, at the game tonight, which made me think you might…” I stopped before finishing the sentence. “I just had to find all three of you, make sure you were safe.”
At that moment a pair of hands grasped my shoulders and I spun around, only to look into the eyes of Woodson. “What the hell, Madden? What’s going on?”
“Woodson! SWK—he’s here.”
“What? Are you sh—” Woodson started to say, but at that moment a woman’s scream split the growing conversational roar surrounding us, echoing off the rafters above our heads for what felt like an eternity. It came from the opposite direction, behind us.
“Come on,” I said to Woodson, and we turned toward the source of the scream.
Either someone had found SWK, or SWK had found them.
As we turned toward the scream, I saw a deputy approaching in the crowd and I flashed my badge toward him. “You! Come here.”
He ran over as a second long wail echoed down the halls.
“What’s going on? We better—”
“We’re with the FBI,” I explained. “I need you to stay here and protect that group of women, got it? You’re not to take your eyes off these three women. Do you understand me?”
The young deputy glanced at the badge, then toward Katie and the girls, then back to me. “Yes, sir.”
“Draw your gun, and take it off the safety. This is serious. Don’t let anyone fucking near them. Anyone. You follow?”
“Yes, sir. I won’t let them out of my sight.”
I next spoke to Katie, addressing her the way an older brother needs to address a younger sister when he’s not telling her, not asking her, but simply begging her to do something. “Kate. You and the girls have to stay here with the officer until I get back. Please, Kate. Promise me.”
She nodded wordlessly. The look of true fright on her face told me that, for once, she was going to listen to her big brother.
Having confirmed their cooperation with the deputy, we finally left and made our way through the crowd toward the source of the screams. I noticed with chagrin that they’d come from the opposite direction in which the SWK, or the black-clad person I believed to be the SWK, had just fled. Another howl filled the air as Woodson and I weaved through the growing crowd. I pulled my badge and held it above my head as we maneuvered, telling people to clear a path.
The screams originated from the very end of the stadium. Woodson and I finally broke free of the crowd and ran along the dusty concrete floor, unimpeded the rest of the way. There were no concessions underneath this portion of the stadium, and the lights strung up on the ceiling were fewer and farther between. Only old football equipment—a couple of old blocking sleds, a stack of tractor tires, some folded-up green padded mats, and a pile of old cleats—even inhabited this area under the stadium anymore. The half-inch layer of dust cloaking the equipment suggested no one had been in this part of the stadium for months, until tonight. I looked back down the length of the stadium and could just make out Katie and the girls standing next to the deputy in the distance.
Another scream echoed up the walls. “Help! Somebody, help!”
Woodson and I ran the last twenty yards and nearly crashed into a pair of kids sitting on the dirt floor near the very back corner of the home team’s side of the old stadium.
“What’s the matter?” Woodson asked them.
The huddled-together couple pointed wordlessly to their right, and Woodson and I followed their fingers into the gloomy corner of the stadium’s underbelly. As my eyes adjusted I saw exactly what I had known we’d find, ever since I’d read that letter at the ticket booth. I just hadn’t known where, or who, or when.
Another dead girl sat in the corner, staring out at us with open eyes. Her knees were propped up and she was fully clothed, only partially lit by an old overhead lamp swinging above us, shaking in time with the concrete stadium above. She offered a green apple into the air and bore the bloody craftsmanship of the SWK on her forehead.
Morbidly, I paused to take it in. Across the poor girl’s forehead was smeared the single word to which the Snow White Killer had referred in his earlier message.
ATTACK.
And like the rest of the words smeared onto the foreheads of all the other unfortunate victims, it meant absolutely nothing to me. A tan cat can’t attack.
I turned to face the teens. “Stay here until the police get here. Don’t move.”
They nodded in fearful, silent agreement.
I walked toward the body and spoke to Woodson over my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this crime scene secured before we have a carnival down here.”
* * *
Less than an hour later, yellow tape reading
POLICE LINE—DO NOT CROSS
surrounded the final section underneath the stadium. Although Woodson took control of the crime scene and allowed me to look around the rest of the grounds, I had no luck tracking the man who’d approached Gracie and her friends earlier in the evening. Officials from the high school conferred with us and agreed to stop the game. All exiting fans were searched and questioned. The local police officers did a good job of keeping all the curious onlookers and media vultures at bay.
After the crowds cleared out, Woodson and I spoke with the local medical examiner, explaining what the FBI would need from the autopsy. The body hadn’t been removed from her sitting position yet, since the locals were still documenting the crime scene. Flashbulbs popped in the interim. After the CSI paparazzi were finished, Woodson moved in closer to examine the body directly.
Donny showed up a little later, ducking under the tape and walking directly toward me. “Where are Katie and the girls?” he asked.
“Over there,” I told him, looking over my shoulder toward the concession stands, but seeing no one. “Wait a minute.” I pushed past him, the familiar frantic clutch in my chest. Just as I started to yell their names, the girls popped into view on my left. They stood only a few yards away, and the deputy I’d assigned to their safekeeping was still keeping them faithfully in sight. The girls were straining to look around the corner and catch a glimpse of the crime scene. I looked around to find Katie and yell at her, but finally found her on the perimeter sharing a comforting embrace with, of all people, our brother.
It bothered me to see her talking intimately with Tyler.
I knew that they’d remained close all these years. Tyler and I were the ones who’d grown apart over the Mara incident. It hadn’t affected Katie and Tyler, just as it hadn’t affected Katie and me. And yet I felt that I should be the one consoling her, not him. That I deserved her love and attention. After all, wasn’t I the one who’d rescued her and the girls?
As soon as I had the thought, I realized it was a sad state of affairs when I felt myself growing jealous over which brother deserved to protect his sister and her children from a serial killer loose in the Mississippi Delta.
Donny’s voice behind me brought my attention back to the crime scene. “What’s on this one’s forehead? I can’t see.”
I turned to Donny. “Attack,” I said. “She has the word
attack
written on her forehead.”
Woodson overheard us and stood up from where she’d been kneeling beside the body, shaking her head. “Not quite, Lucas. Her hair was covering her forehead. Look again. Our killer forgot to write the
K.
” She pulled out a pointer and lifted a lock of hair from the victim’s forehead.
Donny and I walked over. As Woodson lifted the hair, I could see that she was right—there was no
K.
Only ATTAC had been inscribed on the victim’s forehead. Not ATTACK.
“Bad speller,” Donny grunted.
“No way,” I said. “With this level of complexity in the modus operandi, our guy knows how to spell.”
“Maybe he was interrupted.”
I looked at the girl’s forehead again. “Maybe,” I offered in weak agreement with Woodson, despite a nagging feeling that this wasn’t the case, either.
Woodson spoke. “She died about eighteen to twenty-four hours ago. But judging from the immature state of several faint hematomas on her body, I believe she was postured only recently, probably only a few hours before the game started.”
“Well, maybe somebody saw him do it this time. Interrupted him or something. I’ll have the sheriff set up interviews,” Donny said.
“You know,” I said to Woodson, “he’s finally communicated with authorities, just like the algorithm suggested he would.”
Donny frowned. “What algorithm?”
“The Damnation Algorithm Terry and I developed.”
“Not following you.”
“We used the blood sample from SWK as our first true test case, Donny. The blood samples from the bloody letters on the victims all match, and they all carry a ton of mutations in the damnation signature. We’re almost certain the messages are left with the killer’s own blood.”
“I see…”
“And the SWK’s DNA clusters most closely to the DNA profiles of BTK and Zodiac.”
“Jesus,” Donny laughed, but with a bitter tone. “Can’t say I like the company he keeps. Genetically speaking, at least. So you think he’s leaving those messages with his own blood?”
“Ninety-nine percent sure at this point.”
I flinched as the vision of the stranger approaching Grace and her friends suddenly flashed through my mind. “By the way, Donny. I think he was at the game tonight.”
“Who?” Donny asked.
“SWK himself.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“No, I saw a guy—a suspicious guy—walking toward Grace and her friends down near the concession stands. Right before those kids found the body here underneath the stadium.”
“You really aren’t shitting me?” Donny asked.
“No, honestly. I even drew my weapon on him. He didn’t flinch when I tried to call him down. I was seconds from blowing him to kingdom come before he disappeared into a crowd.”
Woodson’s face gave a look of disapproval not entirely dissimilar to the one I’d received from Raritan on many occasions. “What made him look so suspicious?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“There had to be something. What was it?”
“I don’t know, Woodson. The way he walked? Or maybe it was just the way he didn’t respond when I first called out for him to stop. He didn’t move a muscle even though by that point I’m certain he’d heard me. He was the only person in the crowd who didn’t respond to my voice.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And I was so worried for Grace, Kate, and Ally that I stayed with them a few seconds, and then this girl was discovered. I should have gone after him.”
“Hold on there,” Woodson said. “For all you know this was somebody’s out-of-town uncle who happens to also be hard of hearing. Don’t go jumping to conclusions. You did the right thing. You had to take care of Kate and your nieces first.”
Donny nodded in agreement just as a CSI requested Woodson’s assistance, and she walked away. Donny lowered his voice once they were out of hearing range. “She’s right. But I’ll be honest, Lucas. That story scares the living piss out of me,” he whispered, locking onto me with his steel gray eyes. “Scares me for you.”
“I’m telling you, Donny, it was
him.
”
“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But that kind of shit is why you’re going to get pulled from this case. You’ve got to calm everything down here.”
“He walked straight toward Gracie! He’d just left me a message that asked what I thought a tan cat can’t do, and then wrote ‘Go Cougars’ at the bottom. What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“I’m not saying I don’t sympathize. I’m just saying that it looks bad. Hell, I probably would have done the same thing if I were in your shoes. But you have to be more careful, Lucas. You can’t have any mistakes in this case. That’s all I’m saying.”
I let it go at that, just as Woodson reappeared and knelt back down beside the victim. I was growing tired of all my colleagues telling me to be careful.
I looked down. “Anything else, Woodson?” I asked.
She shook her head. “The CSIs did a good job. No footprints, no latent fingerprints anywhere. Again, typical SWK. We’re essentially finished here, until the autopsy. The important thing with this victim is going to be the need for extensive interviews, to see if anyone saw the guy when he deposited the body in the stadium. I think he’s getting careless as he ups the ante with us.”
“Agreed,” I said, addressing both Donny and Woodson at the same time, “but I have to take my sister and her girls home tonight. They’re pretty shaken up.”
They both nodded, and Woodson turned back to focus further on the body. She smoothed the protective plastic already wrapped around the victim’s hands by the CSIs and lifted it. “Before you guys go. Check this out.”