The location of the body was the peaceful pond of Central Park. We arrived on the scene at 1321 hours and we pushed through the crowd of nosy New Yorkers to the police perimeter, using our badges to be allowed access. The bloated and decaying body lay at the edge of the pond with a group of investigators around marking evidence with numbers and taking pictures. Rico started gathering samples of soil and collecting scavengers.
"No identification?" I asked one of the investigators examining the body.
"Nope. Nothing," he answered.
Kowalski knelt next to the body. "Female. Late twenties to early thirties. Cause of death is unclear until I investigate further," he said. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and started his examination.
I glanced back at the Private and found myself surprised at how calm he looked. Although, I could tell by his eyes that this was really bothering him.
"Skipper," Kowalski called in a serious tone. When I met his eyes, all the color was drained from his face. He doesn't make this expression often, but that's because it only comes from one thought.
"Kowalski, you don't think that —"
"Yes, Skipper. I'm nearly certain. She's been dead for between five and six months, and I'll bet my right arm that I'll find she wasn't killed in this park. There's only one man we know that dumps the body months after the murder. Also, look at this," he said, gently holding up the victim's fingers. "Her fingernails have been ripped off."
Of course. He only strikes two or three times a year. He might even kill more people than the bodies he dumps, but no one knows.
I looked at the victim, the fourteenth known of the Dolphin's victims, and then to the investigators. "Keep searching. He never leaves enough evidence. He's bound to slip up one of these times."
"Who are you talking about?" Private asked.
I turned to him and ran my hand over my face. "He's a serial killer we've been trying to get a location on for five years. We don't know his actual identity, and he's never been sighted. His game is to kidnap a victim, torture them, and after he's killed them, he preserves them for several months before dumping the body. No one knows his motives. All we know is that he leaves just enough evidence for us to figure out it was him, but not much else.
"He goes by The Dolphin. Some detectives call him Dr. Blowhole since we've reason to believe he uses surgical tools for his torture techniques. We also believe his goal in torture is to drive the victim to madness before finally finishing them off," I explained.
The Private's face seemed to have shifted between three different colors within the past couple of minutes.
"Oh, dear," he said softly. "He's mad."
"That doesn't even begin to describe it," I replied. "Let's get the victim to the lab."
It seemed like a very long drive back to the precinct. No one said anything. I was afraid the Private was going to bombard me with questions, but I guess he'd had enough information to swallow for the time being. We waited outside the labs while Kowalski performed the autopsy and my unit started examining the evidence. He was the first to finally break the silence.
"So, have you ever gotten close to catching him?" he asked.
I took a breath. "It was about two and a half years ago. There was this old abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere, where we discovered he'd tortured one of his victims. We sent in a whole team of armed police officers and FBI just to find an empty shack. We spent two weeks searching the place and the outlying areas for clues, but all we found were his surgical tools and a chair covered with the blood of our last victim. The only other things there were a bed frame and a cage. No prints, no hair, no dead skin to positively identify him. We don't know how he does it."
I examined his reaction for a moment. He seemed deep in thought, as if trying to make sense of what I was saying. To be honest, even I couldn't do that.
"That is creepy. Are there any other running patterns?" he asked.
"Just one: he always dumps the victim in some body of water. Previous victims were found in a lake, one in a jacuzzi, another in a large fish tank. He's never chosen the same kind of location twice. It's his signature," I explained.
He looked down in thought again. I took the opportunity to change the subject.
"So, what made you decide to become a detective?" I asked, extremely curious about the answer.
He looked back to me and straightened his posture. "Well, my Uncle wanted me to do something to give back to society. After my parents died and their killers were never found, I wanted to get justice for others that I didn't get myself," he answered.
I nodded. Not the answer I was expecting, a little better actually, but I still had concerns. His file hadn't mentioned his parents were murdered.
"Are you sure you can handle it? It seems as though you get pretty sick at the sight of death," I inquired.
"Well, actually, I just —" He stopped mid-sentence, hesitating, which made me more curious.
"It's all right, you can tell me. Nothing will leave this . . . hallway," I assured him, gesturing to the tiny area around us as if we were alone, other doctors bustling around with shrink-wrapped organs and case files.
Private sighed. "Well, it's not so much that the bodies make me sick. I guess a little, but it's not the bodies that bother me. Death just reminds me of . . . my parents. They died when I was seven because they tried to stop these men from robbing us. Well, in reality, they weren't worried about our stuff, they were afraid they'd hurt me. I was hiding in my closet when I heard the gunshots. When there was silence, I found them dead in my kitchen. So whenever I see a murder victim, that's the first image that always comes to mind. I guess I just . . . haven't really gotten over it completely, even after all this time."
I blinked. I started to feel rather guilty about the thoughts I'd had about him being a nancy-cat. We've all had trauma. It was actually quite difficult for me to look him in the eye as he told his story. They were so full of hurt, as if he could see everything happening in his mind again. He probably could.
"I'm sorry, I usually don't talk about that," he said in response to my silence.
"No, you're fine. I'm just — really sorry that happened to you. It must've been very hard to deal with, especially at such a young age," I replied, finding it hard to meet his eyes.
He looked at the floor. "It was."
I was grateful that Kowalski came out of his lab a moment later, giving me a reason to drop the conversation.
"I'm ready to give my first report," he said. We followed him into his lab.
— § —
"It's conclusive," Kowalski said as the Private and I entered. "It's definitely Dr. Blowhole, as we feared. I found scarring on her abdomen. Her heart, liver, and several feet of intestine are all gone. Her vocal cords are severely damaged, likely due to consistent screaming over long periods of time. Time of death was likely twenty to twenty-two weeks ago."
"Anything else?" I asked finally.
"I still need to examine the foreign substances I found on and in her body, and I want to inspect the contents of her stomach," Kowalski answered. "She's still unthawing internally so it will take some time."
I nodded. "Get to it. We'll go help examine the evidence."
Private and I left the lab and met with my unit, an organized team of five.
Next to my desk is Detective Marlene Sullivan's. She's about five-foot-six and one hundred eighty pounds of feisty, kick-ass, case-solving badassery. Her long, curly brown hair, skin, and eyes may make her seem like a cold drink of water, but she'll spit you out before you can even think if you try anything. We haven't gotten along very well — okay, at all — for a while now. There's a reason for that, but I'll get to it later.
Across the room is Detectives Patrick Manfredi and Danny Johnson. Let me tell you, they have the worst luck I've ever seen in my life. They can solve a case like nobody's business, but they always end up getting hurt, and sometimes nearly killed. They've certainly got the cats beat on the number of lives they seem to have.
Manfredi is a bit more heavy set than Johnson, and he's blind in his right eye, which he used to wear an eyepatch over, and now he has a glass eye. Apparently, he'd gone to Ecuador while he was in the army and a piranha seemed to have just flown right into his face and took out his eye. He also has a synthetic leg from his time in Algeria, where he accidentally came too close to a mine disguised as an elephant's foot. I don't really get how that works, but I never asked.
Johnson isn't in quite as bad shape as far as permanency. He's usually the one to get black eyes, scars, and broken bones. He recently recovered from a broken arm, and has a nasty scar on his side because he had to have surgery to stop some internal bleeding. Lastly, on the left side of his abdomen, there's a large pinkish area since he had to have several skin grafts because of an incident four years ago involving an incident with Chinese lanterns and six bottles of illegally obtained rocket fuel. He was lucky he didn't get it worse than that.
We've all cracked a lot of cases together, with the help of Kowalski, of course. Every time we crack a case, we all go out for drinks together. But when it comes to Dr. Blowhole, we made a pact that we wouldn't celebrate until he faced the death penalty for his heinous crimes. We never felt like celebrating afterwards anyway, because we never really cracked the case. No arrest, no trial, no conviction, no celebration.
"So, what have we discovered?" I asked.
Marlene stood and projected an image of Central Park to the big screen on the wall that was dated last night, just before midnight.
"This is the feed of the security camera last night," she said before pressing play. A sped up version of the footage started rolling across the screen. After a few minutes zipped by, and the screen turned to snow. "See there? It stays like that for two hours, and then," she said, gesturing to the screen as the feed returned. Under the moonlight against the water, you could just make out the outline of the victim floating right in the center of the pond, almost completely submerged.
"Did you interview whoever's in charge of these feeds?" I asked.
"Yeah," Marlene said with an irritated roll of her eyes. "Lazy son of a bulldog claims to have slept through the whole thing. His alibi was confirmed by his coworker, who said he's fallen asleep on the job before."
"Fantastic," I said sarcastically. "I just returned from Kowalski's lab. He confirmed our suspicions: this has Blowhole written all over it. She was tortured, killed, and dumped about four to five months afterward. Do we have positive identification, yet?"
"No," Manfredi answered in his gruff voice. "We're sending her facial reconstruction through Missing Persons right now. We should know in a few minutes."
"I don't know how he can always get away with this," Marlene said in a hard voice. She looked ready to throw her desk into the wall, and I can't say I didn't share the sentiment.
"I don't know either," I said, "but he's bound to screw up one of these times. Nobody's that perfect."
"I just feel like there's something missing," Johnson cut in. "I feel like he does leave major clues around, but we always look in the wrong places."
"Knowing the way his mind works, he probably does. Just like he leaves just enough for us to know it's him, just to drive us crazy," I replied, clenching my jaw.
Our attention was averted when Marlene's computer bleeped. She went to her computer and read the screen. "We have a match," she said, hitting a few buttons, and a moment later, she projected the victim's profile on the wall.
"Jessica Timbers," she said, standing again and carefully examining the picture of the woman on the wall. She had fair skin with short brown hair, green eyes, and a dazzling smile set into a round face with refined features. I started reading over her other basic statistics.
She was twenty-nine years old when she went missing, five-foot-three, one hundred eighty-seven pounds. Her occupation was a secretary for a lawyer in Queens. Lived at 1846 97th Place in Corona. Was married to Neil Timbers and has two children, a daughter and son ages eleven and eight respectively. Graduated from Falmouth Academy in Massachusetts and received her Bachelor's Degree in Law from the College of Staten Island. She was reported missing about nine and a half months ago.
"We should interview her family and coworkers," Manfredi said.
Johnson nodded. "We'll check out her firm. You guys go see the family."
That was usually how we'd go about things. Marlene and I on one investigation, Manfredi and Johnson on another. Kowalski examines the body and Rico determines murder weapon and studies evidence that was found around the crime scene. Then we'd come together to discuss our findings. Even though Marlene and I don't get along, we have a similar way of thinking, as do Manfredi and Johnson to each other. It's easier to move forward this way.
Marlene, the Private, and I climbed into my car and started for Corona, with me at the wheel. Marlene sat in the passenger seat and started looking through Jessica's file. She studied it as if each word held a clue to her murder. The Private just awkwardly sat in the back with his hands folded in his lap.
After about ten minutes of silence, Marlene finally spoke up. "So, James, what made you decide to become a detective?"
Private cleared his throat. "Well, my Uncle Nigel wanted me to join the army, but I thought that was a little too much for me. We finally agreed on a position in the police field. I grew to the idea because my . . . my parents' murder was never justified. I want to bring that satisfaction to others that I was never given," he answered.
I noticed that Marlene clutched the file a little tighter upon the Private's last statement. I imagined it must've reminded her of our current case — strings of murders that have never been solved, no justice brought to the friends and families. She looked at the file, but I knew she wasn't reading it.
"I'm sorry for your loss," she said with a deep breath. "So, uh, England, I'm guessing?" she asked, obviously trying to change the subject.
"Yes, London," Private answered.
"What brought you here?" Marlene asked. If I hadn't been driving, I would've closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, knowing she had just walked herself back into the subject she was trying to avoid, but of course, she wouldn't have known that.
"Oh, I moved here when I was fourteen. After my parents died, my Uncle was my only other known kin, so I moved in with him, then we moved to New York some time later," the Private answered. I looked at him in the rear view mirror. It was obvious he hadn't talked about his parents' death this much in a long time.
Marlene closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. She tended to do that when she got herself into awkward situations. "I'm sorry, I guess I —"
"No, it's fine," Private cut in. "Really. On our last session, my therapist told me that it'd be healthy for me to talk about it every now and then. Don't worry about it."
Either Marlene was out of questions for the moment, or she was afraid to ask them. Knowing her, it was probably the latter. Instead of asking him anything, she read off some of the things she read in her file that we hadn't covered at the precinct.
According to her Missing Persons report, she was last seen on the fifteenth of this past December. She'd left a babysitter with her children while she was at work and never returned. She was last seen at a grocery store she'd stopped at on her way home. Her car was found totalled on a secluded street with scattered Christmas gifts and smashed groceries in the backseat. There were traces of her blood in the seat and on the steering wheel and windshield. The area was thoroughly searched, but her body was never found. No other clues were found either. Blowhole's name just kept popping up more and more.
Finally, we arrived in Corona and turned onto 97th Place. I stopped on the curb and we stepped onto the lawn of 1846. Marlene and I exchanged a glance before stepping up to the door. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. This was probably the hardest part of our job, over anything else.
I turned to the Private. "Look, rookie, this is going to be very hard for the family. There will probably be tears. I need to know you're going to keep it together. Seeing you getting upset will only worsen the situation."
The Private took a deep breath. "I can handle it."
I wasn't too sure about that, but I didn't say anything. Instead, I said, "If you feel the slightest of a choke, make an excuse to go back to the car."
The Private nodded, and we moved forward. It took a few moments after knocking for someone to answer the door.
"Um, yes?" answered a man in his thirties. He was about my height, with blonde hair and green eyes looking through rectangular glasses. He tucked one thumb into his jeans pocket while keeping the other braced on the door.
"Detective McGrath. This is my partner, Detective Sullivan, FBI," I said as Marlene and I showed him our badges. "Neil Timbers?"
"Yes," he answered after a moment's hesitation. "Is there a problem? My parking ticket fee isn't due until the end of the week."
Marlene took over. "Mr. Timbers, we're here to talk about your wife, Jessica. Is this her?" she asked, holding up her photo.
The crease between his eyes disappeared as his brows rose with his posture. His mouth started to form several different words in the next several seconds before he finally regained his composure and spoke. "Y-yes, w-what about her? Did you find her? Is she all right?"
We were about to give him the unfortunate news, but I guess our expressions answered for us because his lip quivered a moment later and he turned his head away, covering his mouth. We waited for him to compose himself. Finally, he took a deep breath.
"I don't understand, she's been missing for almost a year. Why would she show up now?" he asked in a shaky voice.
"We're still not entirely sure about that answer," I replied. "We have strong reason to believe she was killed by a man we've been trying to track down for years now. If you don't mind, we'd like to take you down to the station to confirm the ID of the body and ask you some questions that might help us further our investigation."
"Sure," he said, nodding. "Let me get my neighbor to watch my kids."
We waited by my car while we watched Mr. Timbers go next door and ask his neighbor, a stout middle-aged African American woman, to watch his children. When he went back into his home, he emerged again with a young girl and boy. The girl was wearing a little blue dress and her hair fell over her shoulders in curly blonde locks, and she was holding a teddy bear under her arm. The boy wore a white Tee and jeans and had brown hair like his late mother's. He carried a laser gun and kept annoying his sister by pretending to shoot at the teddy bear. After locking his door, Mr. Timbers knelt down and braced his left and right hand on his daughter and son, respectively. After saying something that seemed like "I'll be back soon" and "be good for Miss something-or-other," the little girl said something that I couldn't make out. Without giving an answer, Mr. Timbers hugged his children and gave them a pat on the back, and they hurried over to the neighbor's.
He started coming toward us, but he looked back to his children several times before he reached us. He ran his hand over his face and took shaky breaths.
"She asked me why I'm upset," he said, looking up, as if something to ease the pain was about to fall from the sky.
Marlene and I exchanged a glance.
"We're sorry for your loss, Mr. Timbers," Marlene said softly.
Mr. Timbers never replied.
We headed for the precinct in silence.