Sign in or 
- EasyEdit
- Edit tags
-
(what's this?What are these tools?
People just like you can add or edit the content on this site. If you want to try editing, but aren't ready to add to this site, try our demo area.
Read more about editing pages at Wetpaint Central.
) - Report page
Share this
Brownstone Excerpt by Melissa Robinson
Read at "When Writing Teachers Write VI" - October 17, 2007
The woman had been disappearing for nearly three years, although it was not so important these days. The police were not convinced that they were related and kept it quiet so that the details were not revealed. The idea of a copycat killer was more than they wanted to deal with at the moment. They had 18 similar missing or dead women who were beginning to look as if the were the victims of a serial killer.
There was a small cell of detectives who were in the situation room pouring over the information they had thus far obtained from the evidence of the crimes. It was not that promising. They knew they had a killer, an intelligent killer on their hands, but they could not imagine that it was only one person. One cannot be this successful against multiple victims.
The theory that it was some sort of cult kept cropping up and the detectives were toying with the idea that there was a cult in the area that was experimenting on women. The odd thing was there was nothing sexual about the women that had been killed. It was completely scientific and it was gruesome.
The lead detective on the case had been the detective that stumbled onto the bodies of the first set of twins. He had been heading home from a party three years earlier celebrating one of his colleague’s promotions. He had been drinking and walked home, cutting through an empty lot when he virtually stumbled across the bodies of the Carlisle twins.
Dan Nelson had been convinced that the killer placed the bodies there to be discovered by him. In fact, he believed that the killer was almost toying with him. It was a power thing with serial killers and they wanted the attention and the media was playing into it.
Dan had been a twelve-year veteran of the force when he found the bodies. He had never been on a serial killer case and he stumbled into this one just like a drunk man. Although the alcohol quickly left his system when he found the victims, he was sorry he couldn’t use the alcohol to dim the memory of the women’s lifeless bodies.
The two women’s bodies were posed as if to give some sort of clue. The bodies were shaped in the letter “M”. Dan immediately thought that it was odd, and questioned his rationale at the time. But the photographs told the same tale as his initial reaction.
Not only were these two women murdered and placed in an “M” shape, they were marks, unexplained marks on their bodies. They were painfully thin. The marks looked as if they had been frozen, or exposed to extreme cold. Yet, it was a warm April, when Dan found the bodies. The signs of frostbite that he noticed were not possible in New York City, or at least he did not think it was possible. In the city that never sleeps-- anything is possible. Another odd thing about the frostbite was the area that it occurred. In homeless people, he could see frostbite in the extremities, but their frostbite was in the middle of the back, across the buttocks and upper thighs, as if they had sat on something extremely cold, an ice chair, he theorized.
Strangely enough, the next pair had been shaped in the letter “N”. Dan did not want to think that he had an alphabet killer on his hands. However, when they found the third set of twins, the killer shaped the victims in the letter “E”. From the forensics teams it was determined that the victims from the third discovery were actually chronologically the second set of murder victims. The letters spelled out M-E-N. The case was definitely looking like a serial killer. Unfortunately, for the team, the word was not M-E-N; it was still growing with each set of victims.
Again, the same external injuries were apparent on the subsequent victims. They all appeared to have been seated in an ice chair for varying lengths of time. Dan began to call them his ice-princesses. It was a shame to think of them as victims, and giving them a princess name eased the horror of the crimes—lessening the reality of their fates.
The frostbite had not been the only abnormalities with the women. In each case, the women were in their twenties. They were at some point taken care of, nurtured, and showed signs of a healthy life. However, the autopsy showed malnutrition. As if in the last year, the women had nothing to eat. Signs of dehydration were apparent with the condition of the skin prior to death and the state of the organs, according to the autopsies. The woman also had not had sexual intercourse. There were no signs of a rape.
There were tell-tale signs of some sort of imprisonment, were clearly visible on the ankles and wrists of the victims. Marks that were made by shackles of some sort were apparent on each of the six women’s legs. There were grooves also around the wrists. The manacles must have been fitted snuggly enough that there was the same slick worn indentations as if a wedding band had made the ring marks.
Then there was a six-month break with no victims. The detective group thought that their killer may have been picked up on another charge and was now in prison. However, the hiatus was short lived and the fourth set of victims were found in the same lot that the first victims had been found. The killer was certainly containing his activities to a small area near the wharf. Dan mapped it out a million times in his mind and had it on the bulletin board in a large map of the wharf area. There was a historical significance to this area and he was still at a point where there was something obvious looking him in the eye that he was not expecting.
The new set of victims befuddled Dan. They were not exactly twins this time. They had similar body types, hair color and eye color, but they did not have the same blood type. There was a chance that these two women were not related. The lack of suspect evidence was similar in all four cases. Again, the killer or killers had not left a shred of evidence. The bodies were clinically clean. So clean, it appeared that an expert had sterilized them, which Dan was beginning to believe was true.
Dan realized that he was tracking an expert who was not going to give up evidence unless the killer wanted to toy with the detective. This, in many cases, is the only way that the police are able to catch a killer, when the killer is ready to be caught.
The evidence on the bodies pointed to someone who knew a great deal about the medical field and someone who had a great deal of time and patience, someone who was willing to take his time. Some of the precinct believed that the killer was a physician or a medical student at the very least. However, tracking medical students for over three years nearly always put them in the category of physician because as time rolled by so did their education. Yet, medical students hardly had time to do their work and certainly would not have an abundance of time to do the things this guy was doing.
Dan wondered why he was always referring to the killer as a male, but somewhere in his resolve, he believed the killer was a man.
A large board was in Dan’s office with the information of the killings. He had looked at it so often; he could see it with his eyes closed. This was one such time when he was deep in thought. Suddenly, there was a knock at his door. When Dan went to the door he noticed a man standing there. He had a dark complexion but he thought it was only because he tanned. It was too early in the season for anyone to be that dark from the sun. He introduced himself as Steven Anderson, but for some reason Dan didn’t believe him. It wasn’t just cynicism from too much time as a detective, learning to not trust anyone. Dan had that sense that this man was here for something and he wanted to make sure that no one knew who he was.
“Well, Steven, what can I do for you?” Dan said as he checked out the tiniest details of Steven’s person. Dan noticed that Steven was impeccably dressed. There was not a wrinkle, no lint, nothing out of place. He was definitely anal about his person.
The woman had been disappearing for nearly three years, although it was not so important these days. The police were not convinced that they were related and kept it quiet so that the details were not revealed. The idea of a copycat killer was more than they wanted to deal with at the moment. They had 18 similar missing or dead women who were beginning to look as if the were the victims of a serial killer.
There was a small cell of detectives who were in the situation room pouring over the information they had thus far obtained from the evidence of the crimes. It was not that promising. They knew they had a killer, an intelligent killer on their hands, but they could not imagine that it was only one person. One cannot be this successful against multiple victims.
The theory that it was some sort of cult kept cropping up and the detectives were toying with the idea that there was a cult in the area that was experimenting on women. The odd thing was there was nothing sexual about the women that had been killed. It was completely scientific and it was gruesome.
The lead detective on the case had been the detective that stumbled onto the bodies of the first set of twins. He had been heading home from a party three years earlier celebrating one of his colleague’s promotions. He had been drinking and walked home, cutting through an empty lot when he virtually stumbled across the bodies of the Carlisle twins.
Dan Nelson had been convinced that the killer placed the bodies there to be discovered by him. In fact, he believed that the killer was almost toying with him. It was a power thing with serial killers and they wanted the attention and the media was playing into it.
Dan had been a twelve-year veteran of the force when he found the bodies. He had never been on a serial killer case and he stumbled into this one just like a drunk man. Although the alcohol quickly left his system when he found the victims, he was sorry he couldn’t use the alcohol to dim the memory of the women’s lifeless bodies.
The two women’s bodies were posed as if to give some sort of clue. The bodies were shaped in the letter “M”. Dan immediately thought that it was odd, and questioned his rationale at the time. But the photographs told the same tale as his initial reaction.
Not only were these two women murdered and placed in an “M” shape, they were marks, unexplained marks on their bodies. They were painfully thin. The marks looked as if they had been frozen, or exposed to extreme cold. Yet, it was a warm April, when Dan found the bodies. The signs of frostbite that he noticed were not possible in New York City, or at least he did not think it was possible. In the city that never sleeps-- anything is possible. Another odd thing about the frostbite was the area that it occurred. In homeless people, he could see frostbite in the extremities, but their frostbite was in the middle of the back, across the buttocks and upper thighs, as if they had sat on something extremely cold, an ice chair, he theorized.
Strangely enough, the next pair had been shaped in the letter “N”. Dan did not want to think that he had an alphabet killer on his hands. However, when they found the third set of twins, the killer shaped the victims in the letter “E”. From the forensics teams it was determined that the victims from the third discovery were actually chronologically the second set of murder victims. The letters spelled out M-E-N. The case was definitely looking like a serial killer. Unfortunately, for the team, the word was not M-E-N; it was still growing with each set of victims.
Again, the same external injuries were apparent on the subsequent victims. They all appeared to have been seated in an ice chair for varying lengths of time. Dan began to call them his ice-princesses. It was a shame to think of them as victims, and giving them a princess name eased the horror of the crimes—lessening the reality of their fates.
The frostbite had not been the only abnormalities with the women. In each case, the women were in their twenties. They were at some point taken care of, nurtured, and showed signs of a healthy life. However, the autopsy showed malnutrition. As if in the last year, the women had nothing to eat. Signs of dehydration were apparent with the condition of the skin prior to death and the state of the organs, according to the autopsies. The woman also had not had sexual intercourse. There were no signs of a rape.
There were tell-tale signs of some sort of imprisonment, were clearly visible on the ankles and wrists of the victims. Marks that were made by shackles of some sort were apparent on each of the six women’s legs. There were grooves also around the wrists. The manacles must have been fitted snuggly enough that there was the same slick worn indentations as if a wedding band had made the ring marks.
Then there was a six-month break with no victims. The detective group thought that their killer may have been picked up on another charge and was now in prison. However, the hiatus was short lived and the fourth set of victims were found in the same lot that the first victims had been found. The killer was certainly containing his activities to a small area near the wharf. Dan mapped it out a million times in his mind and had it on the bulletin board in a large map of the wharf area. There was a historical significance to this area and he was still at a point where there was something obvious looking him in the eye that he was not expecting.
The new set of victims befuddled Dan. They were not exactly twins this time. They had similar body types, hair color and eye color, but they did not have the same blood type. There was a chance that these two women were not related. The lack of suspect evidence was similar in all four cases. Again, the killer or killers had not left a shred of evidence. The bodies were clinically clean. So clean, it appeared that an expert had sterilized them, which Dan was beginning to believe was true.
Dan realized that he was tracking an expert who was not going to give up evidence unless the killer wanted to toy with the detective. This, in many cases, is the only way that the police are able to catch a killer, when the killer is ready to be caught.
The evidence on the bodies pointed to someone who knew a great deal about the medical field and someone who had a great deal of time and patience, someone who was willing to take his time. Some of the precinct believed that the killer was a physician or a medical student at the very least. However, tracking medical students for over three years nearly always put them in the category of physician because as time rolled by so did their education. Yet, medical students hardly had time to do their work and certainly would not have an abundance of time to do the things this guy was doing.
Dan wondered why he was always referring to the killer as a male, but somewhere in his resolve, he believed the killer was a man.
A large board was in Dan’s office with the information of the killings. He had looked at it so often; he could see it with his eyes closed. This was one such time when he was deep in thought. Suddenly, there was a knock at his door. When Dan went to the door he noticed a man standing there. He had a dark complexion but he thought it was only because he tanned. It was too early in the season for anyone to be that dark from the sun. He introduced himself as Steven Anderson, but for some reason Dan didn’t believe him. It wasn’t just cynicism from too much time as a detective, learning to not trust anyone. Dan had that sense that this man was here for something and he wanted to make sure that no one knew who he was.
“Well, Steven, what can I do for you?” Dan said as he checked out the tiniest details of Steven’s person. Dan noticed that Steven was impeccably dressed. There was not a wrinkle, no lint, nothing out of place. He was definitely anal about his person.
Mr. Anderson was quiet for a while and Dan could feel the wheels of his concocted story beginning to turn, but Steven hesitated. Then the hesitation became a long pause. Dan continued to look at the man and wonder why he was in a detective’s office.
Just as suddenly as the man who called himself “Steven Anderson” entered Dan’s office, he left, leaving nothing out of place, just a slight smell of something familiar that triggered Dan’s imagination. The sense of smell had a way of bringing back memories that the brain had tucked away. The smell triggered one such memory that came crashing down. Dan felt the nausea in his stomach and a wave of ___- swept over him. He felt faint and hardly made it to his seat.
--------------------------------------------------------
As he fell back into the swivel chair behind the ancient wooden desk, the memories came rushing back. The smell that he had only caught when the “intruder” was leaving was a smell that he had grown accustomed to in the city morgue. It was the faint smell of formaldehyde, and yet, it had a different smell, the smell that only someone who had spent countless hours in the morgue watching autopsies would be familiar with and it was ever so faint.
Dan’s mind began to race. The features of “Steven Anderson” appeared in his mind. He was dark, dressed in a dark suit. Was it solid or pin-striped? The more he thought about it the more questions popped into his mind. How long had the intruder been standing there when he knocked. Dan seemed to recall that he had been engrossed in his bulletin board and the facts of the last two murders when the knock startled him.
A clean-cut dark man in a dark suit was positioned in front of the door, but Dan did not remember any noises prior to the knock. Had Steven Anderson walked up to the door noiselessly? Dan sifted through the information. The shirt he was wearing was blue, the tie was paisley, with blue, green, and burgundy in the swirls. The suit must have been navy-blue. He hadn’t noticed the shoes, except that there was no sound from the soles on the marble precinct floor. The suit was pin-stripped, not that it mattered. There was a flash of the cufflinks, glinting from the overhead fluorescent bulbs. They must have been yellow gold, not plated either, the real deal. Dan’s photographic mind was pulling up the details from the incident when suddenly there was another knock at the door.
Steven Anderson had returned this time with his voice in working order. Dan quickly noted that all the details were correct and glanced specifically at Steven’s tie and shoes. There was a tan or gold detail in the tie that he had not noticed earlier, and the shoes were black Stacey Adams that tied. The strings were impeccably laced so that they mirrored each other. There had to be the shoes of a perfectionist.
Just as suddenly as the man who called himself “Steven Anderson” entered Dan’s office, he left, leaving nothing out of place, just a slight smell of something familiar that triggered Dan’s imagination. The sense of smell had a way of bringing back memories that the brain had tucked away. The smell triggered one such memory that came crashing down. Dan felt the nausea in his stomach and a wave of ___- swept over him. He felt faint and hardly made it to his seat.
--------------------------------------------------------
As he fell back into the swivel chair behind the ancient wooden desk, the memories came rushing back. The smell that he had only caught when the “intruder” was leaving was a smell that he had grown accustomed to in the city morgue. It was the faint smell of formaldehyde, and yet, it had a different smell, the smell that only someone who had spent countless hours in the morgue watching autopsies would be familiar with and it was ever so faint.
Dan’s mind began to race. The features of “Steven Anderson” appeared in his mind. He was dark, dressed in a dark suit. Was it solid or pin-striped? The more he thought about it the more questions popped into his mind. How long had the intruder been standing there when he knocked. Dan seemed to recall that he had been engrossed in his bulletin board and the facts of the last two murders when the knock startled him.
A clean-cut dark man in a dark suit was positioned in front of the door, but Dan did not remember any noises prior to the knock. Had Steven Anderson walked up to the door noiselessly? Dan sifted through the information. The shirt he was wearing was blue, the tie was paisley, with blue, green, and burgundy in the swirls. The suit must have been navy-blue. He hadn’t noticed the shoes, except that there was no sound from the soles on the marble precinct floor. The suit was pin-stripped, not that it mattered. There was a flash of the cufflinks, glinting from the overhead fluorescent bulbs. They must have been yellow gold, not plated either, the real deal. Dan’s photographic mind was pulling up the details from the incident when suddenly there was another knock at the door.
Steven Anderson had returned this time with his voice in working order. Dan quickly noted that all the details were correct and glanced specifically at Steven’s tie and shoes. There was a tan or gold detail in the tie that he had not noticed earlier, and the shoes were black Stacey Adams that tied. The strings were impeccably laced so that they mirrored each other. There had to be the shoes of a perfectionist.
plwp |
Latest page update: made by plwp
, Nov 10 2007, 3:33 PM EST
(about this update
About This Update
Edited by plwp
14 words added 1 word deleted view changes - complete history) |
|
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
