55 Graves

By Robert P. Maroney

A family has been brutally murdered leaving only their young daughter alive. Two days later another family is also slain, leaving their teenaged son unharmed. While most investigators agree the attacks are random, Detective Nicholas Pearce feels they are connected and deliberately planned. As he searches for the truth, he discovers a sinister and vicious group of killers who will destroy anyone that threatens to expose them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469198606

Robert P. Maroney

ROBERT P. MARONEY is a devoted husband and proud father of two wonderful children, and is known as Grandpa Bob to a rambunctious toddler. His background is diverse; retired career military, a musician who has played professionally on three continents, and adjunct university professor, and CEO of a consulting firm. He currently resides in Fayette County, West Virginia.

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Copyright © 2012 by Robert P. Maroney.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012906665

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-9859-0

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-9858-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-9860-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

Prologue

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Epilogue

In life, sometimes, you must choose a path.

But sometimes, the path chooses you.

—Unknown

Prologue

Virginia

Autumn 2008

The white panel van drove steadily down Highway 460 West, heading toward Grundy, Virginia. The two occupants rode in silence, the older contemplating the plan and the younger considering its purpose. The older man looked at himself in the rearview mirror and gave it a quick disapproving frown. His unkempt white hair and beard, a side effect of a hard country life, made him appear much older and world-weary than his sixty years.

The frown slowly morphed into a sardonic grin. Good, he thought, the perfect disguise. His mentor had taught him well: If you are seen, shave off the beard and mustache, cut your hair, and comb some color through the little bit of hair you have left. Your best friends probably wouldn’t even recognize you, much less a witness. He would pass all his knowledge and experience on to his young protégé; after all, he was proving to be a very able student.

The younger, a sixteen-year-old boy, sat up attentively going over the training he had received on today’s mission. They had stayed overnight at a YMCA in West Virginia, a two-hour drive from the target. It was close enough for a comfortable drive, yet in a different state and far enough away that they wouldn’t hear about the crime on the local news.

As they crested a hill, the younger’s eyes widened at the view. He had never been more than fifty miles away from where he was raised; just the fact they were driving into Virginia was an adventure. He knew the hills and felt comfortable in them, but these were different—treeless, majestic. He could see for miles from this vantage point, amazed how the road snaked through the valley like a naturally formed concrete stream.

They would be pulling over soon to attach the magnetic business signs on the sides of the van; they read Big Al’s Heating and Cooling out of Vinton, Virginia. Always use a business in the same state so as not to draw attention. They had several stolen magnetic signs and plates back at the farm. Most of the signs were from realtors; they always had them on the doors of their cars and were easy to steal.

The van was an innocent-looking white panel van, the type people see so often that they become practically invisible. Even if someone looked in the back, they would only see a worn vinyl bench seat and a couple of toolboxes. Most wouldn’t even give notice to the steel lock fasteners bolted to the floor or the chains and padlocks stored with the tools. Inside and out, it looked like every other business van on the road.

The boy had washed the van yesterday evening as instructed. A dirty business van may attract a second look. People are used to business vehicles being clean. They may not even realize why they are giving a dirty van a second look; it’s a subconscious reflex, something deep that alerts them that something isn’t quite right. He put on the stolen Virginia plates before dawn and had tucked the Ohio plates back inside the van.

The boy was antsy; it was his first solo mission and much was expected. He’d been on another as an observer, and the training was intense but not nearly as intense as the rush of the actual abduction. He loved it, but then he never had a doubt that he would. The only doubts he ever had were in the why they were doing it in the first place. It seemed like a lot of work for some sex, but the older man loved it: the control, the violence—he absolutely lived for it. Truth be told, the boy found it all a bit unsatisfying. The torture, the forced sex—it did little for him. The killing, though, was a rush better than any drug in existence.

Of course, he would never question the why of it all; to do so would most likely bring about his own death or at least a couple more days suspended on the hook. He shuddered as his mind flashed on the rattan; the cane was the absolute worst. It would leave deep, bleeding, painful welts that left scars on your back and buttocks. Six lashes was the limit; most couldn’t take more than that—it was simply too painful.

He gave a quick inconspicuous shiver and came back to reality. That part was all over for him. There was no need to dwell on the initiation; after all, he had made it, hadn’t he? And here he was, ready to prove himself to the old man and that made him more nervous than the mission. He was damn near impossible to please, and failure was not an option.

They stopped and put on the magnetic signs. They had been here the past week for two days, mainly just getting the lay of the land and seeing how the lesser-traveled country roads connected if they needed them. Gaining familiarity with the land was paramount to a successful mission. You never simply plotted alternate escape routes on a map. The only way to learn them was to drive them, usually more than once. And as the old man would say, Plan for the expected, the unexpected, and the worst-case scenario.

But then, that was his calling—his forte. The old man was a textbook sexual sadist. He loved the planning of the abduction as much as the execution and would become firmly erect just thinking about it. He tried to mask it by telling the boys that sometimes a man just needed some pussy and that this was the only way to procure it while maintaining a modicum of privacy and safety. Even whores talk, and many are diseased. Plus, who wants to wear a rubber anyway? And why pay for a dried-up old whore when you can have a young, juicy, high school sophomore for free?

And he was the prophet, the leader, the commander; he always had first dibs on the take, as it should be. His boys were fiercely loyal and considered him a deity. They would cower in his disapproval, fearing the punishment for even the slightest of grievances. The boy looked upon the elder with awestruck reverence and simultaneously hated him with every fiber of his being. Oh, he would kill the old man someday but not today. He was too preoccupied with proving himself to think about that right now, and there was so much yet to learn.

They pulled into Grundy on schedule, and the boy exited the van, taking a familiar seat on the wrought iron bench by the side of the street. He had sat here twice before; once on Tuesday last week and again on Wednesday. The first morning, a pretty, young schoolgirl, fifteen or sixteen years old, had walked by him, and the older man, still in the van, went ballistic. She was all the elder had talked about the entire trip, putting even more pressure on the boy’s first solo mission. He was determined not to screw it up.

He didn’t see what the elder was so excited over; after all, she looked like most schoolgirls at that age, wearing little pink flip-flops, blue jeans, and a logo T-shirt. It didn’t matter, though; the old man wanted her, and it was up to him to make it happen.

The boy had nodded to her and smiled on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he had said good morning as she passed by the bench. He saw the interest flicker in her eyes as she smiled back; after all, he had the bad boy look down in a handsome yet boyish way.

The old man drove around the block and parked down the street where he could keep the situation in view. The boy caught himself starting to pace and looked up to see if the old man had caught it. As taught, he took a couple of slow, deep breaths and sat down on the bench, trying his best to be inconspicuous. A tedious fifteen minutes later, the young girl turned the corner, taking her usual route to school.

The boy stood, feeling antsy, shaking away the tremors from the moment. This was his stage, and the time for his lines had come. He cleared his throat as he waited for her draw near.

He stood in the middle of the sidewalk and smiled. Well, good morning again.

She stopped and returned a sly smile. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.

Oh, she’s quick and good with the flirting. Well, I better introduce myself then, the boy said, pointing to his chest. I am Shadow, he proclaimed, a little too proudly.

He saw the flash of uncertainty in her eyes, and he immediately blushed and looked down at his shoes. I mean, my friends call me Shadow, because I have dark hair and I, um, wear black and stuff, he stammered.

She gave a small chuckle over his embarrassment; it was endearing to see an obvious bad boy turn shy. I’m Carrie. Nice to meet you. She returned the blush.

Shadow looked up, relieved. She’s on the hook now. Don’t blow it. Me too. My dad and I are putting in a new heating system at the Tasty Freeze, you know, the one over by the high school?

"Of course. Everybody hangs out there." She didn’t notice the van creeping up behind her.

Hey, there’s my dad now! Shadow smiled again as he slid open the side door. C’mon, I’ll drop you off at the school since we’re driving right past it.

Shadow smiled and extended his hand toward the open door, trying to slow the tension that was building up inside. This was the moment of truth, and it had to go smoothly.

I don’t know… Carrie hesitated for a moment and took a tentative step up to look inside the van. She felt a sudden hard push from behind and saw the driver reaching with something toward her throat. As the Taser hit her neck, she stiffened, her eyes wide with disbelief. She convulsed violently but briefly and fell unconscious to the van’s cold metal floor, unaware she had just vanished from the face of the earth.

1

Pennsylvania

Four years later

March was manic-depressive: sunny and upbeat one week, cold and dead the next. A five-day warm front had seduced the Philadelphia detectives into wearing lighter clothing, but the cold had returned with a vengeance. Detectives Pete Macklin and Michael Coleman shared the usual cop love–hate relationship with cold weather; it was uncomfortable and inescapable, yet it helped preserve a crime scene. As they exited their car, a blast of March wind tore through their jackets before settling into a mild yet biting breeze.

A patrol officer approached them. We got a call from a concerned citizen who was driving by and happened to look over. Said he thought it may have been a manikin but wasn’t about to get out and check. He was taking his wife to work, but we have his contact info.

So he didn’t stick around? Macklin was starting to get agitated.

"911 says his wife was freaking out and told him to take her to work now, so he left the scene and took her to work. It was all on the recording. The officer chuckled. It sounds like he’s more afraid of his wife than he is a judge."

Smart man, Coleman responded.

There were several bags of trash strewn around the site and a rusted-out dishwasher nearby. The dead woman they were looking at was nude, sitting up, leaning back against a Do Not Litter sign. "See, I told you, nobody pays attention to these signs," Coleman quipped, a reflexive defense mechanism they weren’t even aware of doing anymore.

Macklin shrugged off the joke. Man, oh man, I hate these! Jane Doe, dumped, obviously, during the night. The original crime scene could be anywhere. Damn it, it’s going to be a long day.

Maybe it’ll be an easy one, Pete. Maybe the husband or boyfriend did it. Coleman had an old-school view on murder and was right much more than not.

You always say it’s the husband or boyfriend.

Coleman nodded. I know. I call it the big bang theory. Find out who’s banging her and you’ve found your murderer. It’s an old joke they were doing for the benefit of the younger patrol officers controlling the scene, but in reality there was a lot of truth to it.

I don’t know, Mike. A spouse wouldn’t display her like this. Unless he was off-the-charts clever, Pete thought and added, Though it would be nice to have this one wrapped up by the end of the day.

The display of the body was troubling, though, and Macklin didn’t like it one bit. Spouses or boyfriends generally hid the bodies; killers simply threw them out, disposed like garbage. Pete shook his head. I have a feeling this one is going to be a bitch.

God, I hope not…, but first we have to get in there. How long are these bunny-shoed pantywaists going to take? Coleman was seriously old school in his approach or just old, depending on to whom you talked. He didn’t comprehend all the forensic talk or care that much about it. If it’s a match, just tell me who it is and we’ll go get him, he would say. Don’t bore me with that scientific crap like you’re some kind of hero for finding it. DNA doesn’t shoot back.

The crime scene tech looked at Coleman as if he was reading his mind. It’s all yours, Detectives.

About time, Coleman said, trying to get a rise out of the techs.

Yeah yeah, we’ve been out here since about 4:30 this morning. Oh, and the clock is ticking, asshole. They’d never publicly admit it, but each wanted to be the one to solve a crime. Coleman hated it when the techs would have the first big clue that led to an arrest, mainly because the crime scene guys rubbed it in relentlessly. He still believed that shoe leather solved cases. The crime scene techs would always respond, Shoe leather may solve cases, but forensics convict.

The medical examiner started a quick summary as they approached. Let’s see… female, thirty to thirty-five years old, maybe early forties. Who the hell can tell any more? She looks healthy, well-kept, definitely not a street person. She doesn’t appear to have been bleeding anywhere. No obvious COD wounds. There’s no visible bruising, no broken fingernails, no apparent defensive wounds. No ligature marks or bruising around the wrists, no restraint marks on her arms or legs, but there are some type of rope burns around her neck.

Or a braided belt. Think she was strangled? Macklin was taking notes.

Oh, she was definitely strangled, the medical examiner interrupted. Now, whether or not that was the cause of death is doubtful. See the eyes? They’re clear, no hemorrhaging. Something killed her, but we’ll know more after we get her on the table.

Anything else?

No obvious signs of a sexual assault, but again, we’ll just have to wait and see. Looks like she was killed sometime during the night. See that slight discoloration on her right cheek that continues down her right arm, hip, and right leg? That shows that when she died, she was lying on her right side. Then she was moved. See how the lividity is more pronounced on her buttocks? She was probably sat up when being transported and then deposited here.

Thanks, Doc. That was really interesting, yet no help whatsoever. Coleman laughed. But it might come in handy later on.

Yeah? Well, bite me.

They did a cursory check around the crime scene and came up empty. The techs had done their job. Macklin led the way back to the car. No defensive wounds? No ligature marks? She just sat there and let him strangle her? Must have been unconscious—had to be. We’ll know more after the autopsy.

Yeah, let’s get some coffee first. You know what? I like a doctor that says ‘bite me.’

You mean the ME?

Coleman huffed, He’s still a doctor.

Yeah, the kind you only see once.

Probably gets fewer complaints that way.

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Nine-year-old Sarah Cincinnati sat on the floor of her bedroom, a million miles away from reality. Her eyes were black and dead—shark’s eyes—and they stared straight ahead at nothing. Her blood-matted hair stuck to her face, and her blood-soaked nightgown was drying and stiff and uncomfortable, but she was unaware of any of it. The only sound was the rhythmic tick, tick, tick of the bloody butcher knife she held in her small hands as she mindlessly stabbed the hardwood floor beneath her.

Suddenly, at 6:30 sharp, her alarm started the aggravating beep, beep, beep that woke her for school every morning. Without warning, a spark of life came into the little girl’s eyes for just a moment, and then the screams came—scream after scream after scream until she couldn’t scream anymore. She heard knocking at the doors and the windows downstairs but could not move. Then there was nothing but that dreadful silence once again. And after another eternity, the sound of a faint siren began to grow louder and more insistent until it settled and loudly chirped off in the driveway.

The young patrol officer knocked on the door while trying to calm the distraught neighbor who had phoned 911. The neighbor was telling him about the screams of the young girl who lived there. He looked in the window, saw the blood, and told her to stand back as he kicked the door open. Police! he yelled, but the only response was a distant beeping of an alarm clock. He walked into the foyer and immediately stopped, staring through the living room and into the kitchen, his mouth open but unable to speak while his eyes tried to rationalize the scene. Turning to his partner, he sputtered, "Call the detectives, the EMTs, the ME, the, um, um, goddamn, just, goddamn, call everybody."

2

Macklin and Coleman looked around the living room as far as they could go in, taking in what they could as the crime scene techs started their work. Two bodies were visible through the living room on the floor—well, what was left of them was visible. Both bodies looked male: one older, one much smaller, obviously young. And there was so much blood. Little nine-year-old Sarah was carefully being rolled into an ambulance, but she was not speaking, not seeing, not hearing…

Both Coleman and Macklin were in their early fifties and considered dinosaurs by some of the younger detectives. True, they weren’t up on all the scientific breakthroughs in forensics or profiling or technology, but they still solved cases, and they played by the book. They called for backup always—the captain used them as a smart example for other detectives to follow because you can get in over your head in moment’s notice. The simple truth was that they always called for a patrol backup just in case a suspect took off running from them. Coleman had a middle-aged paunch from years of good beer and bad food, so he wasn’t chasing anybody. Macklin was thinner and much more fit, but he wasn’t chasing anybody either.

Standing around waiting for their turn at a crime scene was one of the biggest adjustments they had to make, and the transition was not easy for them. Being patient creates more stress in detectives than the actual work sometimes. Patience is a learned behavior for detectives and a tough one to master during a hunt. You don’t tell a bloodhound to relax. Their eyes roamed about, taking in and mentally processing everything they could see from their current vantage point.

Coleman scanned the living room. On the mantel were some candles and a picture of a happy family—Mom, Dad, a teenaged boy, and a young girl—all smiling. Oh shit!

What?

Look at the mom. Coleman pointed to the picture on the mantel.

Yep. That’s our Jane Doe. Macklin immediately frowned; the cases were connected, but it just became much more complicated. What the hell happened here? I mean, why take the mom away from the crime scene?

Coleman shrugged and instinctively stepped toward the picture. A crime scene tech quickly approached him with his hands raised and quickly ushered them both out to the front porch. Come on, guys, you know the drill. We haven’t processed the living room yet.

Coleman was red-faced. Macklin snickered at his embarrassment, knowing the tech was right. He was also immediately aware that this case was unusual; the longer you stay in law enforcement, the more you pay attention to those little hairs rising up on your neck. There was too much blood—overkill. Why let the little girl live? There’s no way she did this, but she had to have seen who did. And again, removing the dead mother from the house made no sense whatsoever.

I say we call in the Peacenik. Now. Macklin knew they needed all the help they could get on this one, and there weren’t many options without risking jurisdiction, and they weren’t ready to give that up this early in the investigation. I’m calling the boss to let him know what we have and that we’re bringing him in. You call the Peacenik.

3

Shadow sat on the edge of the bed in the stolen RV. The rest of the guys were sleeping soundly now, and he knew he needed to do the same. Morning had already broken, but he remained wide awake, sitting with his head in his hands, trying to figure out how he had screwed everything up so badly.

He looked at the teenage boy sleeping so peacefully, and he knew immediately what was wrong. He had been completely blindsided with an emotion he had never experienced or understood—love. He had never thought of himself as being gay, had never considered himself using that term, but women had never had much of an emotional effect on him.

He had never known love on any level, really, not even with his parents—especially not with them. The only love they showed was with pills and booze; he had practically raised himself the last few years he was with them. Burning them up in the house while they were sleeping seemed like the right thing to do then, and he still had no regrets over doing it. In fact, like every person he had killed, he had no feelings about it one way or the other.

Even the group home he was sent to wasn’t that bad, mainly because he had full run of

Reviews for 55 Graves

[cainebooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Debut novel; stiff writing populated with cookie cutter characters (along with the requisite cookie cutter dialogue). The pacing is good, the plot is fine, but...there's a reliance on racist and sexist stereotypes, which is uncomfortable and distasteful. Also populated with characters who can't seem to get enough of using 'pussy/pussies' as an insult. Always lovely to encounter a writer who is too lazy to come up with something creative and non-sexist.