“Jessica Horn, sixteen years old, Caucasian, female,” Detective Ellis started his examination, “Hands bound behind her back around a tree with barbwire, two incisions on her chest in the shape of a cross, victim is totally nude, no signs of rape, can’t determine cause of death. “Ok, do you see anything else?” Doug asked.
“Let me see…Hey look there is dirt under her fingernails, maybe she got a piece of the perp too.” Rick pointed out.
“Hopefully so, good eye detective.” “Alright you can examine the surroundings.”
“Yes sir, Let’s see here. There is a red tent that sleeps three to four people with three sleeping bags in it, a smothered campfire that looks like it was put out around four or five ours ago maybe a little less, claw marks from the tree to about three feet away from the tree, looks like the victim was dragged from the tent to the tree, the tent has three sleeping bags in it but no sign of anybody else, no sign of the victims clothes. Ok I think that’s all.
“Perfect,” Doug answered, “This looks like a campout gone horribly wrong, Let’s go talk to the parents again.”
“Ok.” The two detectives started walking back to the edge of the woods where the parents of Jessica Horn were sitting on the edge of the back of an ambulance. They still looked pretty shaken up. And they had every right to be.
“Mr. Horn, is it ok if we ask you and your wife just a few more questions?” Detective Ellis asked.
“Just a few more, answered Jeff, “But just to me. We are really tired and we would like some peace and quiet. And my wife is in no shape to answer questions.”
“Thank you sir, did your daughter have any camping plans for last night?”
“None that we knew of. We thought she was in her room asleep.”
“Well there were three sleeping bags in the tent. We think that your daughter was camping out with a couple of friends but obviously something went haywire. But I swear to you that we will find Jessica’s killer. Could we have the names of some of her friends so that we could question them?”
“Jessica was into the whole gothic thing. There isn’t too many of them around so she didn’t have very many friends, but her best friend is named Annette Claiborne. Talk to her and you might find out who more of her friends were but Annette is the only one she ever brought to the house or talked about.”
“Could we get her address please?”
“I’m sorry I don’t remember it right now. My mind is going in a million different directions.”
“That’s ok. Did Jessica have a boyfriend?”
“No she never talked about boys, never even mentioned one.”
“Ok thank you for your patience sir.”
“Anything that will help in your investigation.”
“Here is my card, if you or your wife remember anything or find something call either me or Detective Daniels. Do you think we could stop by tomorrow and search Jessica’s room, see if we can find anything?”
“Sure come by about two, is that ok?”
“Yeah that’s fine. Ok well we have held y’all up long enough, we are gonna go. Take care now.”
“Y’all do the same.”
“Ok Rick let’s go talk to Anette, see what her story is.” Doug said.
“Let’s go.” Rick answered.
As the detectives walked through the November morning fog back to their car, Doug Ellis got a real bad feeling about everything that was going on, but he didn’t voice his concern to Rick. He figured the young man had enough of his own rookie jitters to battle, without Doug’s gut feeling. After all, he remembered how he felt on his first homicide case. The victim had been a six-year old girl who had been abducted, raped, and then suffocated to death. Still one of the worst cases he had ever had work. He could hardly eat for the whole first week.
The detectives finally made it back to their car and drove off into the fog.
CHAPTER 3
By nine a.m. the two detectives were pulling into the local coffee shop where they had their coffee every morning. They usually got there around seven but they were late this morning because of the body that had been found earlier that morning. The coffee shop wasn’t very big but it was just the right quiet little place that they needed to think.
Detective Ellis ordered his usual cup of black coffee and a bagel and Detective Daniels had a cappuccino, then they sat down at a table in the back.
“So Doug,” Rick started, “Any ideas on the case yet?”
“It’s hard to say for sure but something just doesn’t seem right to me, something is just out of place but I can’t put my finger on it.” Doug answered.
“Yeah I know what you mean.”
The two detectives sat there quietly for the next ten minutes sipping their coffee until they were almost finished.
“So, what is our plan of action?” Detective Daniels asked.
“The first thing we are going to do is go have a talk with Miss Claiborne and see what we can find out. After that we will just have to see. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
The detectives paid and then walked back to their squad car. Before they could talk to Annette Claiborne they had to get her address since Mr. Horn had been too shaken up to remember it, so Detective Ellis got on the radio.
“Hello dispatch.”
“Yes.”
“This is Detective Ellis, I need an address for one Annette Claiborne please.”
“Ok hold on one second… Yes it’s 143 Heart Street.”
“Thank you very much.”
“No problem.”
“You know where Heart Street is don’t you Rick?” Doug asked.
“Yeah, we’ll be there in no time.
CHAPTER 4
There was no answer at 143 Heart Street but as the detectives were leaving the door the neighbor of the claibornes, Mrs. Dunston, stopped them.
“You won’t find anybody home there.”
“And why is that ma’am?” Detective Ellis asked.
Mrs. Dunston went on to explain to the detectives how Molly Claiborne was a single mom who worked full time and often pulled eighteen-hour shifts just to make ends meet. The husband had ran out on them a couple years back and the troubled teenage daughter, Anette, was rarely at home.
“Well thank you Mrs. Dunston, here is my card, if you see one of them come home would you give me a call please?” Doug asked.
“Sure, sure, is that girl in some kind of trouble?”
“No ma’am we just need to talk to her.” Rick answered.
“Hey come to think of it you might check the woods back behind the house, her and her friends build a fire out there some nights and last night I remember seeing the shadows from the flame dancing around off the trees.”
The detectives just looked at each other and excused themselves from the little old lady. That bad feeling that Doug had had earlier that morning was now returning.
This time it was them who discovered the horrible crime scene in the woods behind the Claiborne house. It was identical to the Horn murder scene except in one aspect. Barbwire around the hands, naked, red tent with two sleeping bags this time, and of course the small incision of a cross in the middle of her chest.
CHAPTER 5
What was the meaning of one less sleeping bag? The detectives didn’t know but one thing was inexplicably clear, this was not a single homicide and they might even be dealing with a serial killer let alone a deranged psychopath.
“We have to go back to the Horn’s and look in their daughters room now,” Doug said,
“We don’t have time to wait here for a warrant to search this house.”
“I’m driving.” Rick said.
They made it to the Horn’s house in ten minutes and knocked on the door. After a few seconds Mr. Horn answered the door.
“Officers, have you found anything?”
“We have to look in your daughters room now,” Detective Ellis said, “there has been another murder.”
“We found anette de
ad just like Jessica.” Daniels added.
“Sure come on in.” Jeff Horn lead the detectives to Jessica’s room and opened the door for them then left saying he couldn’t bear to go in there yet.
They looked around several minutes before Doug found what was right in front of their eyes. There was a picture in a frame turned over face down on her nightstand. When he picked it up he couldn’t believe what he saw. It was a picture of Jessica and Anette. In red ink Jessica’s face had an X over it and and Anette’s was circled.
“My god!” Rick exclaimed. “The perp wanted us to know who was next.”
CHAPTER 6
Five minutes later the detectives were back in the car and on their way to Anette’s house. They had gotten the warrant to search the house in case her mother hadn’t gotten there yet. They arrived and picked the lock when there was no answer and started to search the house.
Finally finding the girls bedroom they were not surprised to find a picture turned face down on the nightstand. This picture had three girls in it, Jessica and Anette, both having their faces X’d out, and another girl with her face circled. She had dark black hair and black lipstick, just like the other two, and would be attractive if not for all the gothic style make up.
“We have to find out who this girl is right now.” Doug said.
They went back to the station and ran the picture through the system and thankfully this girl was in there for minor theft. Daphney Grey was her name. They got her address, 1865 West Holland Avenue, and headed there.
After there was no answer at the front door they went around to the back and found a note with two numbers on it. 34.2 and 56.7.
“It’s longitude and latitude.” Rick said. They determined where this was in town and made that their destination. It was no surprise to Doug when they ended up on an old dirt road and when that dead ended into woods, Rick said… “It’s just a little ways further north, we’ll have to hoof it.”
CHAPTER 7
Setting out on foot the detectives entered the dense and muggy Alabama backwoods again. It didn’t take them long to find Daphney Grey playing the star role in yet another gruesome campfire horror. All the props were there. The barbwire cutting into the hands leaving roadways of blood rolling down her arms. Ashes already burnt out from the macabre night. The red tent with only one sleeping bag. But this time there was another change to the scene besides the number of sleeping bags. The incision of the cross was no longer small. This cross was enormous, it went from her neck all the way past her navel and crossed both bare breasts.
“She was tortured much more than the other two” Rick said. “Do you think it means anything?”
“It could mean something or absolutely nothing, there is no telling with this maniac. Call dispatch, get the team out here.”
CHAPTER 8
Back at the station the detectives had all the evidence layed out in front of them. A search of the girls house turned up no clues, no pictures turned face down, no nothing. Apparently she had been living there alone, her mother was dead and her father had been away on business for at least a month. Some parent he is, Doug had thought to himself.
“So does the fact that he left no clues as to another victim mean that he is done?” Rick wondered out loud.
“Guys like this usually don’t end it like this. He either will continue because he enjoys it or he has some kind of plan,” Doug said, “but I just cant figure out what this guy has up his sleeve”
Forensics had turned up zilch as far as the dirt under the Horn girls fingernails but the detectives were about to get some help from the medical examiner.
The phone on detective Ellis’s desk rings.
“This is Ellis.”
“Yes detective this is Doctor Stevens, I examined all three bodies and have determined time of death. The last victim you found, Mrs Grey, she was killed between the hours of one and two AM. The first two victims were both killed between four and five AM.”
Detective Ellis thanked the doctor and hung up the phone. Then he related the information to his partner.
“There is no way that the perp would have had time to kill Jessica and Anette and set up the sites in an hours time. We didn’t even think about the possibility of two perps.” Rick said.
And that’s when it hit him.
“What if the sleeping bags indicate how many victims are left in their plan, when we found Jessica there were three bags. With Anette two and with Daphne just one.”
“If that’s the case then that means there is one more left.” Doug said. “But he didn’t leave us any clues as to the next victim.”
“No he didn’t leave us a picture, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any clues.”
“Lets look at the last scene again.”
The detectives looked over everything from the last crime scene, they sat there for at least half an hour.
“The increased size of the cross has to be the clue. Apparently it has something to do with religion or the occult.” Rick said.
The map of the town was on a large tripod in the office and they had marked the spots where they had found the girls with red push pens. Doug Ellis glanced up at it for what had to be the hundreth time but this time the proverbial light switch flicked on.
CHAPTER 9
The three red push pens had made an exact triangle on the map. Detective Ellis realized that all the map needed was a pushpen on the southern end to make a cross.
“That’s gotta be where the last victim is Rick its just gotta be.” Doug had exclaimed.
They were already on their way to Saint Mary’s Baptist church, which was the only church on the south side of town, but they had no idea what was in store for them when they got there. On arrival it was already dark and there were no cars in the parking lot. When they got to the church stoop telling them they had came to the right spot was a note nailed to the door. It read:
Dear detectives, We knew you would come here, after all we did lead you here. I hope you had as much fun chasing down clues all day as we did planting them. We are sorry all this had to happen you see we are very religious people. But when things threaten the sanctity of our religion, vengance must take place. The girls were warned not to mess with the things of the devil, not to dress in black and wear disgusting make up but they refused to listen. Lord knows we tried everything with our daughter but nothing worked and in the end she had to be punished. So did the other two because they had drug her into it, had gotten her interested in the wicked things, works of the flesh. Did you pick up on the number of sleeping bags left detectives? We hope you didn’t think they were the number of victims because it could seem that way. No they resembled the number of crime scenes you would visit today. Please don’t think there is only one victim left because in all actuality there are two.
Sincerely,
Joe & Mary Horn
CHAPTER 10
When detective Ellis finished reading the letter he looked at detective Daniels in sheer astonishment. They both unholstered their guns and opened the church doors to face the Horns.
CHAPTER 11
When the detectives opened the doors to the church they heard a click and didn’t have time to realize that the doors had been rigged, two shotguns on either side of the opening. They had walked into a trap. It was the first case they had ever worked together. It was the last case they ever worked together.
CHAPTER 12
Jeff and Mary Horn woke up the next Saturday morning bright and early. Most people in Alabama were looking forward to Alabama’s game against Tennessee or Auburn’s game against some little school from Arkansas. But the Horns weren’t football fans. They rarely missed a jog however after the doctor told Jeff that he had high cholesterol. Yes they rarely ever missed a jog and today would be no different. After they had their coffee and finished reading the newspaper, especially the article on the mysterious church fire from late last Saturday night that had turned up what were believed to be the remains of two local detectives, they left th
eir house and briskly jogged off into the backwoods.
THE END
If you enjoyed these stories, please check out the novella entitled, A Raven’s Quest, also by Justin Camp.
And the serial killer detective thriller, Prosperity, coming summer 2011
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