Torrent: The first book of Byte short stories Read online

  “Sorry you didn’t run into him with two tons of steel.”

  Lee perched on my desk. “What is that guy’s problem anyway?”

  “You mean besides being fat and stupid? Is that not enough?”

  Lee laughed. “For a normal person it would be, but I don’t think there’s much normal about that man.”

  “He’s been hounding me ever since Christmas day,” I replied. “Did I tell you about that?”

  Sam shuffled his chair closer. Lee leaned in and said, “Nope.”

  I took a sip of the coffee and filled them in on how Eddie had attempted to grope me in the kitchen while his horrendous wife was hitting on Mac in the living room. What a family. The only blessing was they weren’t blood relatives of mine. Eddie was Mac’s brother. So in theory not my problem. Should I accidentally shoot one of them I could probably scream ‘just cause’. If only theory translated into cold, hard reality like it did in my head. I sipped more coffee and listened to Sam and Lee discuss how best to shorten Eddie’s life. It warmed my heart.

  After a few joyful minutes of listening to the delightful sounding tortures they devised, I threw my empty cup into the trash bin by the door and scooped the file folder and contents into my bag. By the time I scooted around my desk with my bag over my shoulder both men were out the door and waiting in the hallway.

  We traveled in one car. I spent more time with the photographs of the unfortunate Santas.

  “What the hell does this town have against Santas?” I mused aloud. “And why is someone stuffing them up chimneys post-Christmas?”

  I read the information regarding the homes where the Santas were found. The families were all away for the holidays. Neighbors bringing in the mail, watering plants, and feeding cats discovered the bodies. Police found sacks with each Santa, filled with items possibly from the houses: jewelry, small electronic items, and money. They were waiting on families to return from vacation to identify property. None of the houses had alarms or security cameras.

  So there was a plague of burglarizing Santas and a possible vigilante hunting them down and shoving them up chimneys. Or maybe a super hero. Bam! The theme song to The Greatest American Hero blasted in my head. I frantically searched for volume control as the 1980’s television series hijacked my brain. Clear as day I saw Agent Bill Maxwell ask the reluctant superhero Ralph Hinkley if he’d been using his ‘magic jammies’ to shove naughty Santas up chimneys. I struggled with the bizarre interlude until it became apparent that Ralph Hinkley and his ‘magic jammies’ were probably responsible for the whole Santa fiasco and we may as well go home.

  “Ellie, you’re singing,” Lee said swiveling in his seat to look at me.

  “Singing?” I replied.

  “Uh huh,” Lee said. A grin spread across his face as he belted out, “Believe it or not, it’s just me…” Reaffirming my feeling that an American Idol he was not. Sam laughed.

  “Oh, sorry,” I replied.

  “Any reason?” Lee asked.

  “Was just trying to figure how anyone could shove a grown man up a chimney…,” I said.

  “… and it made sense that a super hero did it,” Lee added matter-of-factly.

  “Seems plausible.” I glanced out the window at the traffic. “A super hero or someone with superhuman strength. And not just any super hero – The Greatest American hero. The reports state that some of those Santas weighed close to two hundred pounds.”

  My cell phone buzzed on my belt. I answered it and heard Mac’s voice. “Will you be home for dinner?”

  “Don’t think so. We’ve been asked to consult on a case.”

  “Okay. Just checking. I’ll save you some then.”

  “Thanks. What time is the party?” I knew. I just wanted Mac to know I hadn’t forgotten we were going to a New Year’s Eve party. This was his first Delta party and he was looking forward to it.

  “We’ll leave about nine,” he replied. “Should get us to the pickup point in time.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Stay safe Ellie.”

  I hung up. Sam spoke, “You both are coming to the party? Now that’s going to make the night more fun.”

  I smiled. New Year’s Eve Delta parties were legendary. Held in a secure location and organized by Director O’Hare. It was our chance to let our hair down and let loose big time, with no repercussions.

  “We’re here,” Sam said pulling into a car park. Snow fell in fat lazy flakes. A police officer bundled inside a thick jacket hurried through the falling snow to meet us. We walked into the building introducing ourselves.

  “We have a room set up for you,” Officer James Johansen said leading the way behind a desk and through a glass door. We stood in the warm interior of the police department; five officers greeted us from various areas of the large room. They were friendly and welcoming. A Christmas tree in a corner twinkled with silver tinsel, lit by blue and red flashing lights. Christmas cards hung all over the walls. It was quaint. Officer Johansen reminded me a little of Robert Culp, when he played FBI agent Bill Maxwell on The Greatest American Hero.

  Johansen opened a door and ushered us into a room with a large conference table in the middle. On the table sat a small fiber optic Christmas tree, also flashing blue, and red. Four places were marked with file folders and coffee cups waiting to be filled.

  “I appreciate the trouble you’ve gone to, Officer,” I said sitting on one of the chairs.

  “Thank you for coming, Agent Conway. Your SAC seemed to think you’d be able to offer some insight.”

  I smiled. My SAC did, did he? Well he was right. I knew something. Sam and Lee would catch on fast. James Johansen and his police force seemed clueless. What if we really were looking for Ralph Hinkley? Stood to reason. Only a super hero could do this, or maybe a cop. I was surprised that Maxwell hadn’t already figured that out.

  I checked the smile before it became an insane giggle. Pulled back a notch on the nutty thinking and flipped the file in front of me open.

  “Max… sorry, Johansen – if you could rustle up some coffee for these cups I’d be truly grateful,” I said.

  “Coming right up, Agent.”

  “Smooth Ellie,” Lee commented as Johansen hurried away shutting the door behind him. “Wasn’t the agent in that American hero show called Maxwell?” I knew he didn’t really want me to answer that.

  “What do you know?” Sam asked leaning across the table at me.

  “Every household is away on vacation - none stopped mail or newspapers but they did all notify the police department they would be away. What’s sadder is it’s even more obvious than that.” I pulled a list from the file I’d brought with me and laid it on the table. “This is what Chrissy turned up. They’re being burgled in the order in which they notified the department.”

  Lee whistled through his teeth. “Where’s the cop connection? Santas are cops or the killer is a cop? Or someone who works here, maybe a civilian?”

  I grinned. “Don’t ya think if the Santas were cops that we’d know? Someone would be screaming cop killer from the roof tops.”

  “You think a cop is the killer?”

  Sam rocked back in his chair. “Someone gave the list to a local pack of thieving Santas, set them up, and then killed them off. Nice.”

  “Why the Santa suits? I can understand that before Christmas but after Christmas…” I was more thinking aloud than wanting an answer. My fingers tapped on the desk. The door opened and coffee wafted in. “Someone walking around a neighborhood dressed as Santa after Christmas is going to draw attention.”

  Johansen and the coffee pot paused over my cup. “I’ll ask around and see if any Santa suits were stolen, I’d know if suits were stolen in my town. Maybe neighboring towns or even out of the county.”

  “Good idea, Johansen,” I replied. “Can we get a look at the last crime scene?”

  He nodded. “Y’all wanna go now?”

  “Sooner the better,” Lee said, standing up.

&nb
sp; A sigh escaped my lips as the delicious aroma of coffee teased me. It’d have to wait. I wanted to catch the Santa killer and go home. There was a party to attend. We drove to the scene, following a police car all the way, while I wondered if The Greatest American Hero lived in a small town in Virginia and got his jollies by stuffing Santas up chimneys. But they weren’t Santas, they were just burglars. Burglars dressed as Santas. Burglars who hadn’t actually removed anything from the houses. There was no actual theft. So they were just men. Men dressed as Santa.

  I called Johansen on his cell phone. “Did your medical examiner find anything unusual on the clothing or bodies?”

  “Unusual how, Agent?”

  Oh God. He was going to make me say the words.

  “Was there any sexual activity recorded. Anything to suggest recent sexual activity?”

  “They. Were. Men. Agent,” Officer Johansen replied with slow precision.

  “I know that, Johansen. Was there any evidence of sex?”

  “You think the killer was a woman?”

  I groaned internally. It was like pulling teeth but not as much fun. He announced we were almost at the house. I opted to leave my questions until I was face to face with him, or maybe just go straight to the medical examiner myself.

  We examined the scene, the tool marks on the back door suggested someone broke in. No way of telling if that was the deceased or the killer. I walked from the back door to the living room, taking careful note of everything I saw. Then I spotted something. Nothing huge, nothing extraordinary. Just two long stemmed glasses seemingly missing from a set in a glass-fronted cabinet.

  I walked back to the kitchen and opened the dishwasher. Two glasses. But nothing else.

  “Sam, see if you can find any prints these. There are no water drops in here; it may not have been turned on.” In the trash, I found a wine bottle. “There’s a bottle too, Sam. Could be something on that.” I turned to Johansen. “The other scenes, were they the same?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we go and look at them?”

  “Sure.” He looked slightly uncomfortable. Gas maybe. He shuffled from foot to foot then rocked back on his heels, looked out the window and said, “What was it you were saying on the phone about sex?”

  “Was there any evidence to suggest sexual activity on the bodies?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “No woman could have stuffed them up the chimneys.”

  “I’m not suggesting a woman did this.” But I reckon one could, given the right motivation –let’s not test that theory today.

  He peered out the window while he spoke, “You saying there was some sort of funny business going on?”

  “I’m asking if it was possible,” I replied in a soothing manner.

  Funny business obviously didn’t sit well with Officer Johansen.

  He shrugged. “Sure, I guess it was possible. There’s all manner of freaks in the world. You want me to call the medical examiner for you?”

  “Please,” I said with a nod.

  After a quick phone call to the ME, I had him checking all the bodies for semen. I also had him confirm that there was wine in the stomach contents of all the dead Santas. There was no evidence of drugs. Death was by asphyxiation. No soot was found in the mouths, throats or lungs suggesting the Santas were not breathing when inserted in the chimneys. The team moved on and visited each crime scene, finding two long stemmed glasses at each, either in a dishwasher or draining on a dish rack, and an empty wine bottle in the trash, the same wine a Nobile de Montelpulciano. He certainly didn’t have cheap drinking habits.

  Back at the police department in our little room, we finally got our coffee and it was worth waiting for. I pulled all the pieces we had together. Sam ran the one partial print he lifted from a wine glass. The ME confirmed there had indeed been sexual activity, he found semen. That was great news for us. It meant DNA, but it would take a few weeks to get those results back. Meanwhile we needed to have something to compare to that DNA.

  A suspect would be awesome.

  “You think the Santas were lured to the houses, don’t you?” Lee asked as I drank my second coffee.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re not burglars then?”

  “Nope.”

  “How would someone meet another person willing to dress up as Santa?” Sam said, watching the screen on his laptop and waiting for a fingerprint match.

  “Online, my pretty,” I replied and typed ‘Santa fetish’ into Google. “Man that was a mistake, who knew I’d get so many results. Over four million.” I began narrowing the search parameters until I came across some chat rooms that looked likely meeting places. “This is just downright unpleasant.”

  Within minutes, I was chatting with several people, all who wanted me to dress like Santa so they could play out some Santa fantasies. I was asking as many questions as I could without tipping my hand. From what I could gather none of them had ever meet anyone. One knew of someone who had regular offline meetings and gave me the URL for the chat that he hung out in and his screen name, Blitzen. They said he was pushy and slightly scary. Neither of them was tempted to take him up on his offers, they preferred the safety of the cyber world. I thanked them and followed the link to the chat room. It didn’t take long for Blitzen to start private messaging me. Guess he smelled the new blood. I chatted, flirted, drank more coffee, and waited for him to make his move.

  Sam’s laptop bleeped. He got a hit on the fingerprint. I scurried around to his side of the table, leaving Lee to chat to Blitzen while running a ping and trace. “Ellie, the print came back as Nathan Johansen. His address is the same as James Johansen’s.”

  “Is he a cop?” I asked the coffee in my stomach was bouncing about like it was on a trampoline; I hated the thought of a cop going bad like this.

  “No. He works for a marketing company but he was a cop, hence the prints on the system.”

  “What’s the relationship between him and Officer Johansen?”

  Sam pulled up James Johansen’s personnel records. “They’re brothers.”

  I looked over at Lee. “Set him up, Lee. It’ll take too long to get DNA results. Let’s catch him.”

  Lee grinned. “Ping and trace comes back to Johansen’s address. The computer he’s using is registered to Nathan Johansen.” A few minutes later Lee announced he had a meeting with Blitzen at an address. Blitzen told Lee it was his house. The address didn’t match the address on record for Nathan Johansen.

  “Get this… he wants me to bring my own Santa suit. We don’t need to look for stolen suits. These guys must’ve all had their own. Guess you would if you got your jollies dressing like Santa.”

  We checked the address with the list we had of empty houses. It was the next one after the last crime scene.

  “Let’s roll, we need to be in place within the house before Johansen shows up,” I said grabbing my jacket, and bag. “Sam, bring Officer Johansen don’t tell him what we’re doing and don’t let him make any calls. It’s doubtful he’s involved but I don’t want our man tipped off even by accident. If you could ride with him, then Lee and I can go on ahead.”

  “You want local law enforcement involved at all?” Lee asked.

  I shook my head.

  “This guy was a cop, this is a small town. Let’s do it ourselves, then there’s no backlash for the police here. Let’s get wired for sound before we leave.”

  Sam opened his attaché case and took out a small box. From the box, we each took an earpiece and a small microphone that could be clipped anywhere and not noticed. Most often, we clipped the microphones under the lapel on our shirts. Moments later, we were all on the same frequency and could hear each other even if we whispered. The days of talking to our cuffs and obvious wires were over.

  I left with Lee, while Sam was looking for Johansen and asking him for a ride to meet us.

  Lee and I parked down the street from the house and cautiously made our way on foot. The plan was to install some bugs,
both audio and video, in the house and for me to find somewhere to wait. The plan was not for Lee to be in a dangerous situation without backup.

  It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to tumble the lock on the backdoor of the very pretty Folk Victorian style house. I walked through the entire house, as quickly as I could, and made sure there was no one lurking in the basement or ready to pounce from the attic. It was a nice house, and felt like a happy home. Photos hanging on the walls suggested a nice normal family. Mom, Dad, and three teenage kids. I hoped we could catch the Santa killing freak before he sullied this home with his nastiness.

  “Lee, I’m going to wait in the laundry room. There’s enough room for me to hide and I can still get to the living areas quickly.”

  “Okay, Ellie. I’ll head off and wait down the street.”

  I looked at my watch. “He didn’t give us a lot of time; guess he can’t wait for Santa to come.” Lee shuddered. “I’m gone; see you in about twenty minutes. Holler if something happens, meanwhile.”

  Lee let himself out the backdoor, and it locked automatically. I disappeared into the laundry room and fired my laptop up; it was time to tune into the bugs in the house and watch. I loved to bask in the joy of Satellite internet. On my screen, I could see the backdoor, kitchen, living room, front hallway, and front door. Lee knew not to deviate from those rooms no matter what. Listening to Sam talking to James Johansen in his patrol car made the time pass quicker. They were close. I heard Sam tell Johansen to pull over and wait, at the same time I heard the sound of wood crunching and giving way. The backdoor swung open and a man entered the house carrying a bottle of wine and a crowbar. He closed the door firmly and left the crowbar by the back door. In the kitchen, he placed the wine on the counter. I watched as he searched cabinets, and then placed two wine glasses on the counter with the wine bottle. He opened the wine, and took a small vial from his pocket, tipping the contents into one glass. Nothing had shown in the medical examiners toxicity screen. It could be something already in the body naturally. Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid sprung to my mind first.

  I whispered, “Do not drink anything, Lee. He tipped something in the glass. Maybe GHB.”