The Baltimore Police Department now operated in crisis mode because a suspected serial killer walked its streets. A seemingly minor call from a security guard at Frankford’s Towing had exploded into an investigation into multiple murders. Someone was stabbing people, dismembering them, then burying them in a forest that edged the tow yard. So far, the police had uncovered three victims, one having been dead for several months, the second perhaps a month old, and the latest only dead two days. The police were on the hunt for anyone who’d made contact with the third victim, Jared Heine, in hopes they could follow leads towards his killer.
While teams scoured the forest near the tow yard for additional disposal sites, the captain gathered a task force to tackle the investigation which had veered down a very dark turn.
Niles Gule and his partner, Mariella Cruz, took seats at the front of the conference room for the next meeting of the taskforce. Given they’d been assigned the original case for Victim One, they were automatically added to the overall investigation.
Sergeant Tan Lo, head of the night shift, stood at the front of the room along with the captain, the head of day shift, and several members of the mayor’s administration, there to ensure nothing cast a bad light on their boss. At the back of the room, a single reporter from the Sun had been granted access to the meetings so long as all he did was take notes. No recordings or photographs allowed. The scratching of his pen on a pad of paper tickled Niles’ predatory hearing.
Lo gestured to a television screen on which the photo of a man in his early forties appeared.
“Based on dental records,” the sergeant explained, “we’ve identified Victim One as Jorge Venzaga, forty-two years old, Hispanic, from Dundalk. His family declared him missing three months ago after he failed to return from a camping trip. The medical examiner estimates he was killed approximately three months ago which fits with his disappearance. Dr Sheridan suspects he died of a stabbing, but given the state of decomposition, she cannot be sure. She can state that the bones indicate a knife was used on them at some point before, at, or shortly after death.”
“Let’s hope it was after,” uniformed Officer Jonas Williams murmured in Niles’ ear.
“Amen,” whispered the vampire.
Lo continued. “Virtually all the soft tissue has decomposed, so we can’t know how he died. However, the skeleton showed signs of butchery. The man’s legs were missing.”
Silence met this announcement. The reporter’s pen scratched furiously.
Lo asked for the next picture to be projected. A perky, blond woman gazed out at them with soft blue eyes.
“Candy Lynn Radcliff, Caucasian, twenty-one years old. She’s our second victim. Murdered approximately a month ago. She was a runaway throughout her teen years so when she disappeared yet again, her family didn’t start to panic until two weeks passed. Only then did they realize she wasn’t calling begging for money or to come home like she usually did. Her drug of choice is heroin, but she’ll take anything she can get.”
Detective Krewelski raised a hand. “Any indication she was involved in prostitution?”
“Not that we know of,” Lo replied. “Although her family won’t rule it out. They said she could get pretty desperate for her next fix. Ordinarily, she’d rob her family of objects she could pawn. But as we all know, drug addicts will do whatever it takes to grab that next hit.”
“How about Venzaga?” Niles asked. “Any drug use with him? Any links to prostitution?”
“Yes and no,” the sergeant replied. “Yes, Venzaga used drugs, although he seems to have stuck to prescription narcotics. He was a doctor shopper and obtained his vice legally. No known links to prostitution.”
Krewelski’s face fell. He shot Niles a look. “Was hoping for a connection there.”
The photo shifted again, this time to a young Black man with a dark goatee.
“Our last victim, Jared Heine,” Lo explained. “Twenty-two, dark complexioned Black man. Was a college student at UMBC, but he was failing all his classes and didn’t expect to return in the fall. His family reported him missing one day after he disappeared. Tight group, that one. According to his social media accounts, he was deeply depressed about his failure at college.”
Cruz lifted her hand. “Same question: links to drugs?”
“None that we know of,” Lo answered. “His mother rode him like a cowboy on a bronco. She insists Jared didn’t do any drugs or anything illegal. He was just depressed.”
Niles flipped through files on his lap, one for each victim while Lo continued through the predetermined briefing, repeating information Niles already knew. He was after a connection. Something must have brought these three individuals into the orbit of a serial killer. But one came from Dundalk on the south end of the city, the second from Midtown, and the last from the western suburbs. Only Venzaga had a job, in a meat packing plant. Candy was a stray while Jared was nominally a college student. So what had brought these three people together?
His finger landed on a sentence in Candy’s file. He lifted his head.
“Depression,” he blurted.
Lo paused. He turned his dark eyes on the only vampire on his staff. “Excuse me?”
Niles hesitated, realizing he’d interrupted the flow of discussion. “Depression,” he repeated. “I was calculating what’s similar between these three people, given they are different races, ages, genders, members of varying socioeconomic communities, and so forth. The only common denominator is that all three of them complained of depression over the past year.”
Williams twisted in his seat to gaze balefully at the vampire beside him. “Are you suggesting our suspect seeks out depressed people?”
“Why not?” Niles asked. “Predators seek the easy target. The wounded. The sick. The defenseless. People suffering from mental illness can be easy marks.”
“Says the vampire,” Williams muttered.
“And knowledgeable about predators,” Lo snapped in Niles’ defense. “We should listen to him.” He gestured to Niles. “Let’s hear what you’ve uncovered, Gule.”
With a flick of his finger Niles requested control of the television screen be shifted to his laptop. A website composed predominantly of black background with blood red typeface filled the screen. A grinning pink pig cavorted in the upper left corner next to the site’s name Zambian Meats, the #1 site for exotic meats.
Niles rose to stand beside Lo for his report. “While investigating the life of Jared Heine, I stumbled across this website. Contrary to its name, which implies one can purchase exotic food from Africa, the site is basically a chatroom, like the Telegram app or Twitter, but you won’t find it with a Google search. You have to know where it is to find it. I found it by following Heine’s travels through cyberspace. Heine was an enrolled member and spent a lot of time posting to the site.”
“Did you find anything useful?” Williams asked. He loathed the internet and didn’t own a computer.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Niles swallowed. “This site is off the radar for a reason. As I said, it doesn’t offer to sell you zebra meat. Instead, it’s something of a dating site, if you will. For cannibals.”
Drawn breaths hissed through the room. His statement sent a rustle of consternation through the assembled crowd. His sharp hearing caught whispers from some of the detectives and uniformed officers. He heard swearing from the mayor’s assistant.
“I didn’t know cannibals dated,” Williams quipped.
Cruz plugged him with an elbow. “If anyone would know about that, you would.”
Williams scowled at her then turned his attention forward again.
Niles continued. “This site purports to be a safe place for cannibals to gather. It offers handy advice about how to butcher a human being and lots of recipes.”
“That’s just sick!” Krewelski complained.
Williams’ gray eyes glared hard at Niles. “Did vampires create this site?”
Niles growled low in his throat to convey his disapproval. “No. Vampires eat raw meat.”
Cruz was squinting at the posting that appeared on the screen. “Sounds like one of my mom’s pork recipes!”
Niles twitched as he noted the recipe on the screen. “According to those in the know, humans taste a lot like pork.” Before anyone could snipe at him, he raised a hand. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never eaten cooked pork.”
He received groans as his reply.
Niles hastened on with his explanation. “If you pay for a membership, you can become a chef, or a person looking to acquire someone to eat. Once you’ve killed and eaten your first human, you can use the honorific of Master Chef. People who want to get eaten don’t have to pay.”
Krewelski’s face screwed up in disgust. “Are you seriously saying people on that site are asking to get eaten?”
Niles nodded grimly. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. And why I called it something of a dating site. Chefs post what they’re looking for and victims post in response, offering themselves up.”
“Unbelievable!” Krewelski complained.
“I believe it,” Williams retorted. “I’ve seen some sick shit in my time. This is no different.”
Cruz gazed at her partner. “Do you believe this stuff is real?”
Niles shrugged. “Hard to say, really. Some of it certainly sounds real. But who knows with depressed people on a site like this?”
Lo motioned for his people to settle down. “You said you found Heine was using this site.”
Niles nodded. “He was conversing with a user by the name of Master Chef Carver. When his friends and family said he’d hooked up with some guy on the internet named Carver, they… and I… assumed that was simply the guy’s last name. Now it appears, it’s actually his screen name. He claims he’s a master chef, having killed and consumed two people before he approached Heine.”
Williams waggled a finger. “So you’re thinking this Carver dude killed and ate Heine?”
“Some of Heine,” Niles corrected. “His right arm and leg.”
“And that’s the link to the other victims,” Lo explained. “All of them were depressed. All of them were murdered and dumped in the same location. All were missing limbs or body parts. I suspect if we dig into Radcliff and Venzaga, we’ll find they were using this site.”
Krewelski clicked a pen and began writing. “I’ll pin that down for us.”
“We must find Carver and quick,” Cruz added. “Who knows how many more people he’s trying to bag on this site.”
Lo gestured to Niles. “I’ll ask you to chase that down. Find out if Radcliff and Venzaga were enrolled in the chatroom.” He turned his eyes to members of the cyber team. “You folks dig into Master Carver. See if you can excavate a real name behind the screen persona.”
Heads nodded. Pencils jotted.
“That’s all I’ve got for today,” Lo said to finish the meeting. “It’s more than we had yesterday. But folks…” He paused to glare in turn at everyone in the room. “We have got to find this guy before he kills another deluded person. The fact that his victims may offer themselves up to be murdered doesn’t make this any less of a crime. If anything, it makes it worse. Preying on the weak, depressed, and defenseless.”
With that the meeting broke up. Niles closed his laptop with its foul vision of a chatroom. He was the last to leave the room.
Lo stopped him with a quick comment. “Find this guy, Gule. Fast.”
Niles nodded. “I’m on it.”
“I need the answer yesterday.”
Niles gave him a thumbs up.
But he wasn’t feeling that triumphant. Much as he needed to bring Master Carver to ground, he didn’t want to face such a disgusting human being. But that was his job. And he would succeed.
Lives depended on it.
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