Alan had more evidence than anyone had ever had in one of these cases. The forensics were astounding! They proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the victim was in fact Mary Drake. They were also able to match fingerprints found on the scene with the fingerprints taken from Rick’s wine glasses. The best he could put together, the man involved had been the primary butcher – the prints on the surgical instruments all belonged to him. The woman had helped hang the plastic sheeting and apparently had set up Mary’s restraints.

It was the most horrific crime scene the department had ever seen, so they called in help from the FBI field office, who flew in the agents that had investigated the other killings. They’d never found the actual crime scene before, but Alan quickly figured out why.

The building where they’d found Mary’s discarded corpse had been scheduled for demolition by implosion the week after her disappearance. From what he gathered from the contractors who were hired to perform the demolition, their team would never have had to enter that particular room. Their charges would have primarily been set around the perimeter of the building, depending on its weight to pulverize and destroy the interior.

After showing the foreman the location of the room where they’d found the body he was confident the scene was well planned. There would have been a large charge placed on the other side of the wall – Mary’s body and everything else in the room would likely have been vaporized in the explosion.

“That explains why they didn’t bother with gloves. The explosion would’ve covered everything up perfectly.”

He had started piecing together bits of information from the other disappearances. In each case, there was a building somewhere in town that had been imploded within the same week. Of the ten different cases they were aware of, four only had one implosion within a week. Of those, only two of the sites were still accessible. The Feds dispatched agents to sift through the rubble. It took a few days, but they managed to uncover fragments of human bone at each site.

The DNA matched the missing women. Read the rest of this story »

Richard went home and sat in his living room. It was only 6 o’clock, but he had nowhere to go and nothing to do. He thought for a minute about turning on the TV. He almost made it as far as to pick up the remote, but deep down he didn’t want to watch specials about the horrors of humanity tonight. He was already inside his own little horror show, he didn’t need speculating journalists to seed his already tormented imagination.

No, what Richard needed to finish today was a drink.

A lot of drinks.

He carefully removed his car keys from his key ring and tossed them on the bed. Then he pulled on a heavier coat to fight the cold that was sure to come later that night and walked the three blocks to the bus stop in front of the supermarket. Richard was going to get wasted. He knew this, and he was sure his car would thank him for this much foresight.

His head, knowing a heavy hangover was more than a sure thing, wouldn’t be so lucky.

Richard’s usual bar was only a few bus stops down, sharing a parking lot with a dog groomer, a hair salon, a FedEx Express – what a stupid name. FedEx is already short for express! – and an Americanized-Mexican restaurant that served fries with its tacos. It was an odd assortment of businesses, but Richard knew the bar was of fair quality. Read the rest of this story »