The Butterfly Killer

Chapter 1

1

Officer Marcus had been on duty for exactly twenty minutes when he got dispatched to a homicide two blocks away. That same morning he’d spilled coffee on himself not once but twice, had arrived to the station to find a stack of papers a foot high, and tripped on his way out of the station.

To put it simply, he was having a bad day.

With an anxious sigh, he grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Officer Marcus. I’m on my way, over.”

The sun just now broke over the quiet and quaint suburban neighborhood. He parked in front of the house the call had been made about. It looked no different than the other tan painted homes built evenly along the road. In fact, it was the most bland one out of all of them. There were no bikes, no cars, and nothing personal about it.

The only thing different about it was the crying woman sitting on the front steps.

Marcus got out and immediately the water-sprinklers turned on. They sprayed him from the knee down. He winced but kept moving.

“Morning ma’am.”

The woman looked up from where she’d buried her face into her hands. She held a bundle of stained black tissues. Her mascara ran down her face in an almost comical way. Marcus kept his face cool.

“S-She?—”

“Can you stand?”

She managed to get to her feet with Marcus’s help. He lead her away from the house and to the cruiser.

“Is anyone in the house?”

The woman started to nod then shook her head. She began to sob. “Just Angie. God. She’s dead.”

Another cop car arrived. Marcus motioned them over.

“Stay here, ma’am. Everything’s going to be okay.”

He winced at his words. Not exactly the best thing to say in this situation. The other cops headed toward them. Marcus took off toward the house before they got too close.

As much as he hated being around death, he hated socializing more. Especially with other police.

The woman’s sobs followed him into the eerily quiet house. The hair on his arms stood up. He had to force himself to put his hand on his gun though he knew there was no one inside the house.

The smell of death was high in the air. It tickled his nose. His face flushed as a lump started to form in his throat. His heart sped as his boots echoed on the linoleum.

The house was smaller than it looked on the outside. The entryway made him feel cramped. He couldn’t tell if the ceilings were just low or if it was his nerves causing his eyes to play tricks.

Something about this house reminded him of his parents’ home. It was long gone now. It had been condemned ten years ago when it had been devoured by mold. But the layout of the house struck a chord within him.

His hand went slack on his gun. But he and everyone who knew him knew he was never going to draw it in the first place. Just as he hated socializing more than death, he hated guns more than both of those things.

The morning sunlight drifted in from the living room from the right. He followed the path of light. The death smell grew stronger as the linoleum changed to off-white carpet.

The buzzing came next. It was static in his ears, right there next to his eardrums. He threw a hand over his nose as the smell turned pungent. He could hardly breathe it was so strong. It wasn’t just strong either—it was thick. He could almost swallow it.

He closed his eyes briefly to get a hold of himself so he didn’t end up puking all over the crime scene. He didn’t need to go much further than this to get a good look at the body, but it was the small nagging voice in the back of his head that made him do it.

Each step closer to the body made him feel like he was sinking another inch into quicksand.

The body of the older woman was spread out. Her arms and legs were positioned as if she were making a snow angel. Her wide-eyes stared up at the ceiling, her head perfectly aligned so she wasn’t looking at anything else.

Marcus stood at the end of her body. He forgot when and how he’d gotten over here. The time was lost between then and now. He gazed down at her body—not bloody but extra clean. Someone had paid close attention to her. They’d put time and effort into her like she was an ornament piece.

He stared into the large hole in her chest. She’d been cut open, filleted like she was a piece of meat being sold at a butchery. Two clean criss-cross cuts had been made at the center of her chest. The four triangle shaped pieces of skin were pulled back to reveal the inside of her chest.

She would have been clean if it weren’t for the flies. She was hours old—long gone—and the flies were impatient.

Marcus moved upward and knelt at her side. Long push-pins held her hand and fingers firmly to the carpet. The same things were probably what was keeping her head propped up.

Marcus flinched when the front door open and loud footsteps trampled into the room.

“Jesus fuck!” Officer Daniels groaned in disgust. “Why are you so damn close?”

Marcus lurched back. He hadn’t noticed he’d been inching closer and closer. He blinked at the woman’s still face. He snapped out of the haze and turned away.

His stomach twisted. He jumped up and ran out of the room, pushing Daniels aside.

He gasped as he made it to the porch. He sucked in deep breaths until he felt light-headed. He was only slightly proud of himself for not puking his guts—he’d done that many times before. He was more so freaked out that he’d not only lost time in his head but had been about to?—

To what? What was he thinking back there?

He whipped his head back to gaze into the dark gloomy house that hadn’t looked so frightening until then.

The smell of death continued to waft out. He covered his nose again, but he couldn’t get himself to walk away.

As things began to click in his head, a sense of dread and excitement filled him. His stomach flipped.

After six long years, the man he was searching for was back again—the Butterfly Killer.

Marcus sealed off the scene with yellow tape. Thirty minutes later and the whole crew was here. Forensics lab bustled through, swabbing and bagging things. The lone man with a camera took photos of the outside and then he went inside.

Marcus watched as each person slowly went inside while he was stuck outside to make sure no one crossed the tape. A part of him was glad to be away from the smell of death. The image of the dead woman was painted clearly in his mind. But there was also the side of him that hungered for information and revenge that was fighting tooth and nail to get in there.

He needed to know more. But he was a nobody in the grand scheme of things.

A silver car pulled up along with the Chief’s car. The chief exited and met up with the two tall men dressed in black suits.

Feds. That was quick.

Marcus watched them closely. He couldn’t hear anything they were saying. He tried to read their lips but that was a lost cause. The two agents nodded to the chief and then headed toward Marcus.

He straightened up as they grew close. He lifted the tape for them. They passed by without looking him in the eyes. Only the chief offered him a smile. That felt worse. Like the chief was giving him acknowledgement out of pity.

Marcus returned the tight smile anyway. He wasn’t one for being rude. He was just trying to make it through like everyone else in the department, but he knew no one really liked him. He was a weird strange case people whispered about.

Once more he was left alone in the front yard, guarding the scene like someone was going to run up on it at any second. That was a rare. He sorta wished it would happen so things would get interesting. The sun blazed in the afternoon and there were a couple more hours of this before he got a break.

A few minutes later another car pulled up. It was much nicer—flashy and ugly if Marcus was being honest. The car looked like it belonged to a billionaire fuck boy rather than someone attached to the department.

Marcus wasn’t surprised when Detective Blevins stepped out with his just as annoying partner Detective Thompson. Blevins slid his shades up on his head, pushing back his feathery cut hair from his face.

“Morning queasy.” Blevins gave a toothy smile as he stood in front of the yellow tape.

Marcus gave him a blank stare. “It’s afternoon.”

Blevins rose a brow. He looked up at the sky briefly. “So it is.”

Their stand off moment was broken when Thompson went under the tape. He motioned for Blevins to follow him. Blevins gave Marcus a look that made Marcus want to punch him. He rolled his eyes as he seethed.

There were worse things in the world than Blevins being an asshole to him. He’d seen worse things in the four years he’d been a cop. And he’d gone through Blevins antics time and time again. Nothing came out from them. Nothing worse than what he’d already dealt with.

It was another thirty minutes later when an older cop changed posts with him. He was on his way to take a break when he noticed the forensics team was packing up. Before he could talk himself out of the bad idea, he crept up the stairs. No one paid any attention to him. He was a fly on the wall, possibly more invisible than that. People simply didn’t give a shit about him one way or another.

The house felt different than it had before. Somehow, it felt more disturbed than when the traces of the murderer were left behind. He took a moment to scan the area. The detectives and agents were in the living room with the body. Their voices drifted and he could just barely make out what they were saying.

“—he’s changed his type.”

“Were we really sure about his type in the first place?”

“He only went after young single mothers. This woman never had children.”

Marcus walked past the living room.

“He might have picked his victim out of desperation. She lived alone and she has no alarm systems.”

The small hallway lead toward the just as small bedroom. There was a twin bed pushed against the wall. The curtains were closed.

Something egged him. Something he didn’t first notice when he saw the body. He turned around, surveying the room once more to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

He took another long look at the bed. He turned to look at the small closet. The door was left ajar. He crept over to it. With no fear he’d be contaminating evidence since the forensics team had already been through, he pushed the door open with the tip of his pointer finger.

The door made a creaking noise as it opened slightly more. The closet was stuffed with clothes. It was a mess. Again, something tickled the back of Marcus’s thoughts.

He turned around. The room was clean. The sheets looked like they hadn’t been slept in. In fact, the corners of the sheets were tucked in neatly and perfectly aligned. The curtains too, he noticed now, were perfectly pulled back so they were symmetrical.

He left the bedroom. The voices were faint from the living room. He didn’t care to listen in. He felt far removed from what was happening now—his mind was drifting to what had happened last night when the killer had been here.

Someone was standing in the hall. They might have been calling his name, but he was too lost in his head to hear it.

He moved to the bathroom like he was being lead by a string. It was spotless. Another thing that tipped him off that something was wrong. The tiles looked new—brand new. Which couldn’t be possible because this house was at least from the mid-century.

Someone must have scrubbed them really good. The same was for the shower walls and the shower glass. The toilet and sink were shining with no dirt to be found anywhere.

But, as he expected, when he opened the bathroom cabinet, he found dirt and grime that could have been there for years. The build up was almost as gross as the death. However, he wasn’t scared of dirt like he was of death. His nose didn’t even twitch.

“What are you doing?”

He almost jumped out of his skin. He looked at Blevins through the mirror. He swallowed the lump in his throat and slowly turned to face the detective.

“I was just…” Poking his nose into something that didn’t concern him. He knew he was already getting close to the case and he wasn’t even officially on it. Too much of it was like his mom’s, but almost different that it made him eager to put the pieces together.

Blevins narrowed his eyes as he leaned his arm on the doorframe. “This isn’t your investigation. Get back to guarding the tape.”

Marcus was too embarrassed to even think about muttering a remark. He squeezed between the small space between Blevins and the doorframe to get out. Blevins glared at the back of his head as he walked down the hall and made his way to the front door.

The agents stepped out from the living room just as he was passing by. The tallest one who also looked the oldest of the two, stuck his hand out.

“I believe you were the first one called to the scene.”

Marcus was stunned he was even acknowledged, not to mention offered the man’s hand. It took him an awkward second to get his arm working. He grabbed the agents hand and fumbled to shake it.

“Uh, yes. I’m Officer Palmer, but everyone calls me Marcus.”

The agent made a pinched face that looked like he’d sucked on the most sour lemon in the world. “I see. I’m Agent Mercer and this is Agent Burns. Can you tell us anything that stood out to you when you saw Miss Calloway?”

Marcus turned his head to look into the living room. She was still there. They were waiting for the detectives and agents to be done so they could take her to the morgue.

Seeing her now, it felt worse. His stomach twisted and he had to look away after just a second.

Mercer gave him a strange look. “Are you going to be okay? I didn’t know you were new.”

Marcus couldn’t speak. His mouth had gone dry.

“He’s not,” Blevins chimed in.

Marcus could feel his mocking eyes behind him. He could barely see Blevins from the corner of his eyes, smugly standing there as if seeing Marcus struggling to not pass out was the funniest thing he’d seen in his life.

“He has the weakest stomach I’ve ever seen. In the academy, we use to hock loogies in a cup and pass it around—as soon as he saw it, he’d hurl.”

Mercer squinted. “I see. You two you were in the same academy. And you’re a detective?”

Blevins straightened. “I’ve put in the work and I’m qualified. Are you trying to imply something?”

“No, not at all.” Mercer turned his attention back to Marcus. “We can discuss this down town.”

Marcus gave a little shake of his head. “I’m okay. Just need a second.”

He pressed the back of his and to his mouth. His eyes watered. He blinked away the unshed tears.

When he felt good enough to walk, he moved into the living room.

“I didn’t notice at first but…”

Mercer followed him. “But?”

Marcus had to keep covering his face. “Look at the curtains. They’re perfectly mirroring each other. And look at the bookcases. They’re dusted and cleaned. Miss Calloway was a hoarder. If you look at any of her closets or tucked away cabinetry, you’ll see she even hoards trash.”

“Except the whole house has been scrubbed clean,” Mercer agreed while nodding.

Blevins scoffed. “So what? You think the killer cleaned the house before he left?”

Marcus stared at the woman’s blank face. “Yeah. I do.”

Mercer gave Marcus a long look. Marcus didn’t move as the agent left the room with Blevins.

“He’s always like that,” Blevins was quick to say even though Marcus could still hear them.

Mercer ignored the comment. “We’ll meet you two down at the station. We’re going to check around the neighborhood.”

Marcus felt like a fool. Still, he didn’t move when the front door closed as everyone left.

Until he saw a fly crawl into her nose and he had to rush out the door to puke onto the front steps.

Blevins laughed loudly.

“Told you.”