Despite what the cops thought, he wasn’t a killer. The only life he had ever ended himself was the woman the other night. The women he had tried to help had lost their lives as a result of the lessons, not his fault, the Universe was the one responsible for that. Grace had killed the others, not him.
But this morning, he was going to claim his second soul. He was sure the Universe would understand. After all, it was either kill his neighbor or give in to the guilt and take his own life, and he couldn’t do that until he had his Grace back.
* * * * *
9:12 A.M.
“What are we doing here?” Rylla asked.
Matthew didn't answer his partner for a moment, his attention fixed on the naked body of Natalie Potter. The woman’s body had been discovered early this morning when a colleague who she carpooled with came to pick her up, discovered the front door open, and Natalie lying dead at the bottom of the stairs.
The medical examiner was yet to rule out an accidental death, and while Matthew agreed there was the slimmest of chances that the woman had slipped and fallen, he thought it was pretty unlikely. It wasn’t just the fact that the bruises closely resembled a beating, or that it wasn’t likely a fit that a twenty-nine-year-old woman would break her neck in a fall down the stairs, it was the tattoo.
“Matt? What are you thinking? I would have thought you would have wanted to focus on Grace’s case, given that the two of you have grown close. So why are we here at the scene of a suspicious death? I mean, I agree this poor woman was probably beaten to death, but it isn’t our case,” Rylla said.
Nothing was more important to him than finding Emmanuel and making sure Grace was safe. They’d bonded last night when he’d told her what happened with his family and how he knew what it was like to take a life. In his career as a cop, he’d had to kill to protect himself and others twice, and while both of those times had affected him deeply, it was nothing like the guilt he carried from killing his stepfather.
Grace got that.
Got it in a way not many others could.
At least she had the support of her family. Even if they weren’t aware of the fact she had to shoot some of Emmanuel’s victims to survive, Matthew knew there was no way they would turn their backs on her.
Unlike his family.
His mother had been furious that her meal ticket was dead, and they were back out on the streets. His sister had believed she was in love with their stepfather and had been devastated at his death. At just eleven years old, he’d been handed over to social services by his mother who had disappeared with his sister, and never once looked back. Matthew had spent the rest of his childhood in various foster homes until he aged out. He’d put himself through college, joined the police force, worked hard to become a detective and get a coveted spot on the homicide squad. But he hadn't been able to outrun the feelings of guilt, betrayal, and abandonment. It was why he was so determined not to let Grace blame herself for things she had no control over.
“Maybe this should be our case,” he said as he crouched beside the body and pointed to a small tattoo on the woman’s ankle, proof as far as he was concerned that this was murder and not an accident. “See this?”
Rylla squatted beside him. “A mouse tattoo? What are you thinking?”
Standing, he walked away from the body and outside to stand on the front porch. The day was already warming up, it was going to be a hot one. Summer had been slow to get off the ground but now that it had warmed up, it seemed like the hot weather was here to stay. The sky above was a clear, deep blue that reminded him of Grace’s eyes, and he was glad that this year she would be able to enjoy the summer. In fact, he was going to make sure she enjoyed it.
“Grace said that Emmanuel had a thing for fables. The tortoise and the hare, the ant and the grasshopper, the gnat and the bull, the lion and the mouse, so last night I got to thinking. After I left the hospital for the night, I went by the station and started searching through cold cases. We know that Emmanuel didn't bury the bodies at Mable White’s house because hers was the only body we found there which means he had to dispose of them some other way. I started with cold cases, but there might be some where someone was charged for the murder as well, we’ll have to look into it.”
“Look into what exactly?” Rylla asked.
“Tattoos. If the fables were as important to Emmanuel as Grace said they were, and we have no reason to disbelieve her, we’ve both seen the basement, then I got to wondering if he would have marked the bodies somehow. I searched cold cases, cross referencing for any female victim in her twenties or thirties, since Grace said all the women were fairly close in age to her, that had a tattoo, specifically one of his favorite fables. I focused just on the ones Grace mentioned, hare, tortoise, ant, grasshopper, gnat, bull, lion, and mouse, and I found a dozen hits. A few of the women had been shot, a couple drowned, one had been beaten, another stabbed, but all of them had a recent tattoo on their ankle. In the case notes it said families and friends all reported that the victims did not have any tattoos.”
“So, he does them himself.”
“That would be my guess. Gives us another avenue of tracking this guy down.”
“How do we know that these women were his victims though?”
“Tattoos were done postmortem. All animals in what we know are his favorite fables, all unsolved murders over the last six years, all women in the age range he targets. We don’t know for sure, but I think we should start looking into their murders, see if we can connect them to Grace’s case.” Matthew knew in his gut that these women were victims of Emmanuel’s sick lessons, and he knew that his partner would support him. He hoped they could find proof to link them to Emmanuel. But even if they couldn’t, the man would be facing life in prison for Grace’s abduction and torture alone. Still, he didn't want to give a judge any reason whatsoever to ever let Emmanuel walk free, so the more crimes they could charge him with the better.
“Why did no one else ever link the cases?”
“Dump sites were different and they weren’t all killed the same way. Different jurisdictions, a couple had violent exes who looked like they could have done it, there just wasn’t enough for someone to notice that these women’s cases might be linked, even with the tattoos which you would have to know to look into. I only had the hunch because of what we learned from Grace. Without her mentioning the fables there would be no reason to think random tattoos meant anything at all. For all the cops on those cases knew, the women had gone and gotten them voluntarily before they were abducted and just not told anyone.”
“Natalie Potter has one, so you think he killed her last night. That’s way outside his MO.”
“I know, but yesterday wasn’t a normal day for him. He needs Grace back, it was a massive risk to try to get her out of the hospital. If he tried, he’s desperate. Having his attempts foiled would have sent him off the deep end. I’m guessing he lives somewhere around here or he just happened to catch sight of Natalie. She looks a lot like Grace, same blonde curls, same blue eyes.”
“She was a substitute. He took out his anger at not being able to get his hands on the real thing on her.”
“When I heard about the case, saw a picture of the victim, I just knew. Then when I saw the tattoo, I knew I was right. He’s going off script, killed this one himself, there’s no telling what he’s going to do next.”