Before he Sees

“No,” Ellington said. “In fact, after this meeting, I’m having the case files delivered to your apartment to go over. I’ll give you a few hours to look them over and then contact you at the end of the day for an answer. But, Mackenzie…I’d strongly suggest you take this.”

She knew she would, but didn’t want to seem too anxious or cocky. Plus, there was a degree of nervousness that was starting to set in. This was the big-time. And for an agent as seasoned as Bryers to want her help…well, that was simply amazing.

“Here’s the gist,” Bryers said, leaning in across the table and lowering his voice. “So far, we have two bodies that have shown up in the same landfill. Both have been young women – one was twenty-two, the other nineteen. They were found naked and with bruises all over them. The most recent showed signs of molestation but no trace of bodily fluids. The bodies appeared about two and a half months apart, but the fact that they showed up in the same dump with the same sort of bruising…”

“Not a coincidence,” Mackenzie said, thinking it over.

“No, probably not,” Bryers said. “So tell me…let’s say this was your case. It just got handed to you. What’s the first thing you’d do?”

It took her less than three seconds to come up with an answer. When she gave it, she felt herself slip into a sort of zone – a sense that she knew she was right. If there had been any doubt that she was going to accept this opportunity, it was erased as she gave her answer.

“I’d start at the landfill,” she said. “I’d want to see the area for myself, through my own eyes. I’d then want to speak with family members. Were either of the women married?”

“The twenty-two-year-old,” Ellington said. “She’d been married for sixteen months.”

“Then yes,” Mackenzie said. “I’d start at the landfill and then speak to the husband.”

Ellington and Bryers gave one another a knowing look. Ellington nodded and drummed his hands on the table. “You in?” he asked.

“I’m in,” she said, unable to keep her excitement at bay much longer.

“Good,” Bryers said. He reached into his pocket and slid a set of keys across the table. “No sense in wasting time. Let’s get going.”

CHAPTER THREE

It was 1:35 when they reached the landfill. The eighty-five-degree weather enhanced the stink of the place, and the flies were so loud it was like some bizarre music. Mackenzie had driven while Bryers sat in the passenger seat, filling her in on the details of the case.

By the time they stepped out of the car and approached the dumps, Mackenzie thought she had Bryers pegged. He was, for the most part, a by-the-books sort of man. He would not come out and say as much, but he was extremely nervous about having her ride along with him, even if those in the know had approved it with blind eyes. It was evident in his posture and the fleeting glances he gave her.

Mackenzie walked slowly while Bryers approached the large green bins. He walked toward them as if he worked there. She had to remind herself that he’d been to the scene once before. He knew what to expect, making her feel very much like a novice – which she was, actually.

She took a moment to really study the place, having never taken the time to study landfills before. The area she and Bryers currently stood in – the portion of the landfill that allowed traffic – was really nothing more than a dump. Six economy-sized metal dumpsters lined the place, all set within a hollow space within the grounds. Behind the dumps, she could see the area below where state trucks came to pick up the haul. To allow for these hollow areas that hid most of the dumpsters, the paved entryway and lot took on the shape of a well-maintained hill; the area she and Bryers currently stood on was the summit while the road through the landfill led further back, wound around, and spit cars out behind the dumpsters into a road that led back out to the highway.

Mackenzie scanned the ground. Where she stood was nothing more than packed dirt that gave way to gravel and then tar around the other side of the bins. She was standing on the dirt portion and looking down to the tire tracks that were embedded like ghost prints along the ground. The criss-crossing and jumbled passage of countless tire tracks was going to make it very hard to identify a reliable print. It had been dry and hot lately; the last rainfall had been about a week ago and that had only been a drizzle. Dry ground was going to make this significantly harder.

Feeling that getting suitable prints out of the mess was going to be next to impossible, she joined Bryers by the dump he was standing by.

“The body was found in this one,” Bryers said. “Forensics already lifted the blood samples and took the prints. The victim’s name was Susan Kellerman, twenty-two years old, a resident of Georgetown.”

Mackenzie nodded, still saying nothing. She shifted her priorities as she looked into the dump. She was working with people from the FBI now so she felt comfortable skipping ahead a few steps. She wouldn’t waste her time looking for the obvious. Those that had come before her – probably including Bryers – had already done the legwork. Therefore, Mackenzie tried to focus on the obscure…on the things that might have been overlooked.

After about a minute of looking around the immediate area, Mackenzie thought she knew everything there was to know. And so far, it wasn’t much.

“So tell me,” Bryers said. “If you had to guess, what’s the significance of the killer dumping his bodies here?”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of convenience,” Mackenzie said. “I think he’s trying to play it safe. He’s discarding the bodies here because he wants to get rid of them. I’d also guess he lives nearby…no more than twenty or thirty miles. I don’t think he’d drive that far off just to dispose of a body…especially at night.”

“Why at night?” Bryers asked.

Mackenzie knew that he was testing her and didn’t mind. Given the amazing opportunity she had been handed, she expected some ribbing.

“Because he’d almost have to come during the night to dump a body. Doing it in the light of day while there are workers here would be stupid.”

“So you think he’s smart?”

“Not necessarily. He’s cautious and careful. And that’s not the same as smart.”

“I saw you scouring for tracks,” he said. “We tried and there was nothing. There are just too many.”

“Yeah, it would be difficult,” she said. “Of course, like I said, I’d assume the body was dumped after hours. Is that the assumption you’re going on?”

“It is.”

“So there would be no prints here,” Mackenzie pointed out.

He smiled at her. “That’s right,” he said. “No tire tracks anyway. But footprints would. Not that it matters. There are too many of those, too.”

Mackenzie nodded, feeling stupid for having missed such an obvious fact. But right away, that sent her mind down a different path.

“Well, it’s not like he carried the body over his shoulders,” Mackenzie said. “His tire tracks would be somewhere. Not here, but maybe just outside of the gate. We could then try to compare and contrast between tracks we find stopped outside the gate and tracks here in this dirt. We could even look right around the edge of the fence for any indication of impact from where he almost certainly threw or dropped the body over.”

“That’s good thinking,” Bryers said, clearly amused. “That’s a detail the guys from the print lab got, but I managed to overlook. But yes, you’re right. He would have had to stop his car outside of the gate. So the thinking is that if we find tracks that come to the gate, stop, then turn around, that could be our guy.”

“Could be,” Mackenzie said.

“So you’re thinking along the right lines, but there’s nothing new. What else you got?”

He wasn’t being rude or dismissive; she knew this from his tone alone. He was simply trying to urge her on, to motivate her to keep going.

“Do we know how many vehicles come through here on any given day?”

“Approximately eleven hundred or so,” Bryers said. “Still, if we can get prints that come close to the gate and then just stop…”

“It could be a start.”

“That’s the hope,” Bryers said. “We’ve had a team working on that since yesterday afternoon and we still don’t have any leads.”

“I can take a look if you’d like,” Mackenzie said.

“Knock yourself out,” Bryers said. “But you’re working with the Bureau now, Ms. White. Don’t overwork yourself if there’s another department that can handle it better than you can.”

Mackenzie looked back into the dumpster, trying to make sense of the crushed shapes of trash inside. A young woman had been there recently, her body nude and slightly beaten. She’d been discarded in the same place people dumped their refuse, the things they no longer needed. Maybe the killer was trying to speculate that the women he had killed were no better than common household trash.

She almost wished she had been here when Bryers and his soon-to-be-retired friend had come out. Maybe then she’d have more to go on. Maybe then she could help lead Bryers closer to a suspect. But for now, at least she had proven herself rather quickly with her perceptions regarding the tire tracks.

She turned back around to him and saw that he was standing idly, peering back toward the gate. It was clear that he was giving her some time to process. She appreciated it, but again, it made her very aware just how much of a rookie she was.

She ventured down to the chain-link fence that surrounded the dump. She started at the gate where vehicles came through and worked her way to the left. She looked around the bottom edge of the fence for a few seconds before another thought hit her.