Acts Beyond Redemption Read online

  CHRISTOPHER Pike - April 11

  DANIEL Attwood - April 24

  GAVIN Hamilton - October 22

  JOHN Hunt - November 2

  XAVIER Peronei - March 11

  John Doe #1 - December 12

  KEVIN Standish - February 9

  BERT Philpot - June 6

  FRANK Patterson - May 6

  TRENT Garnett - January 3

  URS Swenson - July 12

  John Doe #2 - November 16

  VICTOR James - January 1

  YVES Crevasse - April 9

  John Doe #3 - May 21

  ZACHARY Denton - August 2

  “All right, Doctor,” Mike continued, “let me run through what we do know for certain. Each victim had sustained numerous burns to the face, cigarette burns. This indicates torture before death. The victims we have located bodies for have been castrated.” His voice thickened with disgust as he went on. “Their tongues have also been removed. Each has an arm missing. Mostly the right arm, only four had the left removed. In every instance their hands had been severed, and were never found.”

  “Trophies, and no finger prints,” stated the doctor. “Not unusual in this type of ritualistic murder, I’m afraid. Can you find out for me whether the victims were right or left handed? I have a feeling you will find the removed arm coincides with that. I am going in now. What do I need to be aware of, apart from what I’ve already seen and heard?”

  “We have nothing else. Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing! Can you believe that? After all these years?” Mike drew a deep breath, and continued in a calmer tone. “Look, Doc, you’ve seen the tapes. Be careful man; we got real lucky to get this far. She has made only one mistake. That’s the result.” Wearily he pointed to the two-way mirror. “In all my years I’ve dealt with my share of twisted humanity. That in there, man, that’s something else altogether.”

  “Mike, do we know if she is also a foundling?” asked Nigel Cantrell.

  “We only just got her name from the registration of the vehicle. Ms Eileen Sheila Harrington. I’ll get someone on the foundling question immediately.”

  The doctor nodded. “Yes. You should.”

  Matheson didn’t comment further, merely indicated the door to the room and sat back to watch, record, and wait. Tension was tangible. Each of the agents present fervently hoped this woman was indeed their perpetrator. Everything so far pointed in that direction.

  The doctor entered the room quietly, noticing as he did that the lone occupant didn’t bother looking up. Her bowed head remained on her folded arms, although he was certain she was aware of his presence.

  “Hello?” he said softly.

  The woman raised herself into a sitting position and stretched, flexing her long arms and yawning as she did so.

  “Hello Eileen, my name is Nigel Cantrell. May I sit?”

  He was ignored.

  “I was hoping that you and I might talk awhile. Would that be okay?”

  “Would it not be more correct to introduce yourself as Doctor Nigel Cantrell?” she asked in a warm lilting voice. “I’ve read much of your work, Doctor. I found it, shall we say, inspiring.”

  She stood, a tall woman, confident of her beauty. She walked over to him, assessing him much as you would an insect under a microscope, and sniffed at him, moving closer. A predator, scenting its prey.

  The woman circled him twice, moving closer, slowly closer. Then, with a well-manicured fingernail, she reached out and gently traced the jagged scar on his face, making deep moaning sounds as she did.

  Giving a throaty laugh, she moved back, just a little.

  The hairs on his neck stood on end, and he felt a cold, gut-wrenching recognition of something inhuman and unholy. He chose to disregard her presence; if he was correct, she would react to that.

  He focused instead on the nagging thought he was missing something vital on that list. Sitting, without her consent and ignoring her presence, he focused on his notes.

  In spite of herself, she appeared intrigued. She perched on the table next to where he sat, crossed her long slim legs, and leant forward to read what he wrote.

  Abruptly he looked up, and said, “Yes! Yes, of course!”

  He felt, rather than saw, her body tremble. His brain recognized it- not fear as one might expect- as excitement.

  Finally, he looked up at her, noting her dilated pupils. “Sheila?” he asked. “It is Sheila, isn’t it? There will be no more bodies. Will there, Sheila?” He repeated the name, allowing his voice to raise a fraction “Sheila?”

  “Oh, what a clever little man.” The woman clapped her hands together slowly, mocking him. “Clever, clever, little man!”

  The doctor did not react. He stood, carefully avoiding eye contact, crossed to the door and left the room.

  “What the hell are you doing, Cantrell?” stormed Mike Matheson as the doctor re-entered.

  Cantrell was too preoccupied to respond; instead he hurried over to the list of names.

  He wrote on the board in large letters. A, E, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, S, W.

  “Sheila didn’t slip up, gentleman. That’s her correct name, by the way. Sheila allowed you to catch her.”

  “What? Why in the name of God would she do that? We hadn’t even come close to finding our killer. She’s much too clever! She made a mistake, pure and simple,” Mike stated in a voice reserved thus far for errant underlings.

  “No, Mike. She made no mistakes. She decided the when, the where and the how; then, well, she sat back and waited for your people to arrive.”

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  Doctor Nigel Cantrell tapped the letters A, E, H, I, L, M, N, P, O, S, W.

  “Remove P and M for the Paul and Martin she mentioned earlier in her ‘tirade’, and rearrange the letters just so, and what are we left with? Ah, yes, I thought as much.”

  A, E, H, I, L, N, O, S, W.

  “She had finished, gentleman,” he said firmly. “All she wanted then was for everyone to acknowledge how brilliant she is.” He stood back to allow the startled agents to see what was written there.

  SHEILA WON.

  “Dear God in Heaven! This was a fucking game to her? A fucking game?” said Mike Matheson. The enormity of what Nigel Cantrell revealed sank in. “Shit! What are our chances of her being fit to stand trial?”

  “Slim,” the doctor replied.

  The big man sat abruptly, and stared at him. “What in the name of God? Are you telling me she planned this from the beginning? Dear Lord, man, what type of monster are we dealing with in there?”

  Doctor Nigel Cantrell looked at the board and then at the faces of the other agents and police, all staring dismayed and disbelieving at what he had written. “I need to know the details of what prompted her arrest, and her initial reaction. Quickly.”

  “We have her. She can’t walk away from this. It was a clean and provoked arrest. Trish, get that arrest report for the Doc, please.” Mike Matheson turned his attention to Nigel Cantrell, “What’s bothering you? It was a confession. We have her.”

  “Please bear with me, Mike. She would not have allowed herself to be arrested, without being utterly certain that no charges would stick.”

  “Fuck!” Mike spat the word. He was frustrated and exhausted.

  Jesus, he’d shoot the bitch himself before he’d let her walk free.

  Chapter 2

  Nigel Cantrell accepted the file from Agent Trish Clayton, giving her a weak smile.

  “Thanks; pull up a chair. I may need clarification on a few points of law.”

  “Not a problem, Doctor. Call me Trish. I’ll help as much as I can and get someone in from the Director’s office to explain further, for you and the rest of us.” She glanced across to where her boss now sat with his head in his hands. “He’s gonna break down if we have to let her go.”

  “Yes, he needs to step back, yet I understand he cannot, not till we have her tried, convicted, and sentenced. How good is the forensic evidence thus
far?”

  “We’re waiting on lab results of the blood found on her, and splattered throughout the back of the van she was driving. I’ll chase it up.”

  “Please. Oh, and Trish, could you have someone rustle me up a large coffee and a sandwich. I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours and need to be alert.”

  “Done.” She walked away and then turned back. “Doc?”

  “Yes?”

  “She’s sociopathic, isn’t she? I mean, you couldn’t have a conscience and do what she’s done? Could you?”

  “I believe she is possibly a sociopath, yes. I will, of course, need much longer to cement my view on that. Proving it is not an easy thing. She has the ability to mimic any behaviour she chooses- that much I have noted already.” He shuddered, recalling the way the woman in custody had sniffed at him like a rabid dog about to take its victim.

  Trish left the doctor and went off to fetch him a well-earned coffee and something to eat. She stopped by Mike’s desk. “Hey, Mike, you doin’ okay?”

  “Huh? Oh, Trish. Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.”

  “I’m gonna get the Doc a coffee and a snack. How about you? Coffee?”

  “What time is it?” Mike asked in response.

  “It’s just gone seven p.m. Why?”

  “I’m going to go and grab a couple of beers. I’m officially off duty, as of about four days ago. I’ve earned it. I’ll bring them back here. Call everyone in, the whole team, for a conference. We have some heavy duty shit to get through if we’re to hold this female.”

  “Most of the team is still here, Mike. They want her as badly as you do. Don’t forget that. I’ll take care of the beer and food. It’s gonna be another all-nighter.”

  Nigel Cantrell read the arrest report. He read it again and his guts tied in an uncomfortable knot.

  Mike Matheson and his nine member team sat around a large table in the annex to the interview room.

  The woman they knew as Eileen/Sheila Harrington had been taken to a holding cell and would be given a meal. The guard was a little taken aback by her softly spoken appreciation. This woman was supposed to have butchered eighteen men, yet she looked so delicate and feminine. It didn’t seem possible.

  Deputy Director Henry Weisman walked quietly into the office and joined the team waiting for Cantrell to begin.

  “Mike, read over the transcript of what she said after the official interview process was concluded,” began the doctor. “Did she say anything at all that could not have been learned from the enormous press coverage these cases have received? Please look at it carefully. I have supplied each of you with a printed transcript. We will watch the video replay again in just a moment. I need input, people.”

  Mike looked at him and shook his head in dismay. “Jesus Christ, Doc. You don’t think this is a fucking false confession? No way, man! That monster did these things! She’s guilty as hell! You gotta know that!”

  “What I think and what can be proven may well be two separate issues, Mike. She is clever, I believe, too clever by far to risk being actually charged with these crimes. She wanted you all to see just how brilliant she is. She smothered herself in the glory of it. But I’m betting she said not one thing that couldn’t be learned from watching the news reports or reading the newspapers. I hope to God one of you can tell me I am wrong. How much time do we have before we have to have her charged, or let her walk?”

  Mike checked his watch, and checked the time she was bought in for questioning, “We have seven hours. Seven fuckin’ hours!”

  “What about the forensics, the blood in the vehicle and on her when she was pulled over by the Highway patrol? How long before the initial results come back?”

  “Anytime now. The guys have worked the clock around. It’s way too soon for DNA, but the blood will tell us a lot.”

  “Has she asked for a lawyer, or a phone call?”

  “She wouldn’t speak in response to any questions asked. She wouldn’t even acknowledge her identity.”

  “Why am I not surprised? We need the newspaper reports, everything since the first body and photo was sent to The Times.”

  Mike nodded. “We have all of it, every paper, and every report.”

  “Good. Thanks. I need to speak to the highway patrolman that brought her in, can you have him come in?”

  “Sure, okay. You think he may have noticed something not in his report?”

  “I hope so, Mike, but it will help if we can hear from him just how it was she responded. The words on paper tell us squat. I want to hear about her voice, the look on her face, and her body language.”

  “Get those damned forensic results, I want them now!” Mike screamed.

  Junior Agent Lewinski hurried from the room and down to the lab.

  “What was her response to her one phone call? Did she refuse it?” the Deputy Director asked.

  “She didn’t respond,” said Mike.

  “God, man, if you believe in Him, start praying that forensics gives us what we need to hold her,” the Deputy Director murmured.

  “The van was covered in blood, Henry,” Mike said. “It was everywhere. She had cut herself, but the hospital assures us that the cut could never have generated the amount of blood in that vehicle. Add to that a Polaroid camera of the same type the pictures of the victims were taken with, on the front seat of the van …”

  “Like I said, pray for forensics. We can’t charge this woman because she bleeds and takes photographs, for fuck’s sake.”

  “What the fuck! What about what she said in the interview room?”

  “Inadmissible. Mike. You know that.”

  Mike jumped up from his chair. “Get me those results ... and get them now! What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

  “Easy, Mike. Settle down, we are all frustrated and anxious. Keep a lid on it.” Henry Weisman attempted to put his hand on the taller man’s shoulder in an effort to calm him. It was thrown off and Mike turned on him.

  “Keep a fuckin’ lid on it? YOU keep a fucking lid on it, Henry! You haven’t spent the last four years dealing with decapitated and castrated bodies. So you shove keepin’ a lid on it where the sun don’t fuckin’ shine!”

  “Mike! Calm down, now! I’ll take you off this case. I can do it. You need to keep some perspective on this.”

  “Take me off?” Mike bellowed like an enraged bull.

  Before anyone could foresee what he was about to do, he swung and punched the Deputy Director of the FBI in the mouth, and sent him sprawling to the floor. He was about to lay the boot in when members of his team crash-tackled and held him down.

  Henry Weisman lay stunned for a brief moment, and then shook his head and spat blood. “Mike, get out of my sight. I can’t suspend you in the middle of this shit, but you will be called to account. Understood? Now, leave the room, and you are not to come back in until I have left. Go and get drunk, get laid, just get the fuck out of here. Now!”

  Mike didn’t respond. He sat looking at Weisman bleed. More blood. It had been nothing but blood and body parts since this began.

  Nigel Cantrell walked over to where the big detective sat. “Mike, how about we go and grab a beer, buddy? Come on, show me the local bar, I need a drink.”

  Mike looked at the doctor as if he’d never seen him before, and nodded his response. He stood and took his jacket from the back of the chair, shrugged into it, and waited to be told what to do next.

  Henry shook his head. “Oh, shit. Take care of him, Cantrell. For God’s sake, don’t leave him on his own. Lock him in a cell if you have to.”

  The doctor looked at Weisman with new eyes. “You understand what just happened?”

  “Yeah, yeah! I’ve seen it before. We need him. We need him badly. He knows more about this damned nightmare than anyone else.”

  “Good. I’ll see what I can do, but we are running out of time. She may have to go free.”

  The forensic technician came hurrying in, headed toward Mike, and stopped. The look on Mike’s face threw
him. “What the hell? Who is in charge?”

  Trish Clayton said, “Randolph, that’d be me tonight, my friend. What have we got?”

  Randolph Creswell glanced around the room. “The blood swabs taken from the woman, and the vehicle. No match to any of the victims.”

  “What? No, that’s impossible; it was all over her hands, and the back of the van. How many more are we still to find?”

  “No, Trish, you don’t get it. It was her blood, a small amount of it. The rest of it was not human. It was deer blood.”

  Nigel Cantrell was the only one in the room without a stunned expression on his face. He had told them she was clever. They were to find out just how clever, and soon.

  They couldn’t hold her based on forensics.

  She would walk.

  Chapter 3

  Sheila sat back comfortably on the cell bed.

  She checked her watch and let out a sigh of satisfaction. By now the fools would be running around like headless chickens trying to find a way to hold her. She laughed. “This is such fun!”

  The guard appeared at her cell door.

  “You say somethin’?”

  “Me? No.”

  “Your meal will be here soon.”

  “Why, thank you. That’s very kind.”

  The guard smiled. This one was a different kettle of fish to the usual scum they had in the cells; she seemed like a nice woman. Classy even. They must have got it wrong. She was ladylike, this one.

  “Excuse me. I hate to bother you. Am I allowed to make a call?”

  “You had your one call already.”

  “I haven’t made a call yet. I need to let my family know where I am.”

  “Oh, your family, eh? Don’t you think you’d better get yourself a lawyer?”

  “Oh, no, I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I haven’t done anything. They will realize that soon. I need to let my mom know I’m okay. She’ll worry. She’s old and, well, you know how it is when they get old.”

  The guard understood completely. She still lived with her bitch of a mother. “I’ll check with the boss about a call.”