The Butterfly Killer

Chapter 6

6

Blevins gave Marcus the stink eye as he walked around the other side of the long table in the room. Burns leaned down and lowly spoke to Mercer who nodded his head. He motioned for Marcus to have a sit at the middle of the table which he did. Awkwardly.

Detective Thompson gave a confused look around the table as Marcus sat down. “Why is he here?”

Burns sat next to Mercer. Mercer flipped open the case file in front of him without looking up at Thompson. “He’s going to be on the case. I’ve already talked to the Chief about it. He agreed Marcus could provide some new perspectives.”

“He did?” Marcus and Blevins asked at the same time. They looked at each other and then quickly looked away.

“Yes.” Mercer looked up. “If this is going to be a problem, you two can leave. It’s up to you.”

For a second Marcus thought Mercer was talking to him as well. But Mercer was looking at Blevins and Thompson.

The two sat quietly. Blevins clenched his jaw as he glared across the table at Marcus. Marcus looked down, pretending he didn’t see the grueling look on the man’s face.

“Then, let’s start. Burns.”

Burns got up from his seat and went to the whiteboard in the front of the room. There were pictures of the victims magnetized to it and key elements to the case written in a column to the side. Marcus scanned what was written. It seemed they were in the process trying to piece together how the victims were correlated or if they were completely random.

“Marcus has brought to attention that this might be a copycat killer. If we go off of that, we might also be looking at someone who knows the Butterfly Killer personally.”

“How do you figure that?” Thompson butted in. He glanced at Marcus, but he was asking Burns. It seemed old habits die hard—he could barely acknowledge Marcus. It was like he was below him.

Marcus forced himself to straighten in his seat. He wasn’t going to be ignored when he was right there in the room—he was done being steamrolled.

“The recent murder was a single mother, right?”

Thompson turned his attention to Marcus though it seemed like he didn’t want to. “Yes.”

“Single mothers are the Butterfly Killer’s ideal victim. I would bet my money that the killings are going to copy that of the murders we know of today to be by the Butterfly Killer.” He paused as he caught his breath. He hid his shaking hands under the table. “This copycat is more thoughtful. The discovery of the body—the presentation—is more important. All of the crime scenes were cleaned. No DNA, no blood, and the homes are organized afterward. The Butterfly Killer was the complete opposite.”

Thompson looked down at his files. He had a pensive look on his face.

“The escalation of the murders would be important too,” Thompson said.

Blevins made a noise at the back of his throat with a roll of his eyes. “If he’s so hung up on presentation then why hasn’t he taken pictures or videos? Wouldn’t he have plastered the kills all over the internet if he was so obsessed with his freakish art?”

“We have searched the internet in case,” Burns said. He turned to write “presentation” in capital letters. He wrote “media” right beside it. “He might be gearing up for something larger.”

A pin dropped as Marcus stared at the board.

“He’s been practicing.”

All eyes turned to him.

His mouth had gone dry.

“He’s not copying the Butterfly murders because he had some impulse to do it or he’s trying to replicate the Butterfly Killer’s success. He’s…”

He stood up. He walked to the board and picked up one of the markers. Everyone watched him as he wrote “rival”.

“He’s copying all the murders to show that he can do it better. That he’s better.”

“He doesn’t idolize the Butterfly Killer,” Mercer calmly said, echoing Marcus’s thoughts. “He hates him.”

Marcus felt weak in the legs. This killer was going to be worse than the Butterfly Killer. And the psycho was going to prove it.

Marcus needed a drink after that. He went to the water station outside in the hallway. Burns said the food would be there in ten minutes, but he didn’t think he’d be able to eat. It was getting late. He should be gearing up for bed, but he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep either. It was a good thing it was the weekend. He’d be able to sleep the whole day.

He might even ask Mercer if he could come in with them on Sunday. He knew they’d be working all-day-all-week. He needed something to keep his mind busy and to not think too deeply about what this might mean if they didn’t catch this new killer either.

He gulped down two little cups of water. It was cold going down his throat. He felt it all the way down his spine. He gasped as he stopped chugging it. His eyes closed as he tilted his head back.

“I don’t know what you did?—”

Marcus jumped, the plastic cup crushing in his closing fist as Blevins moved close to him.

“—but this isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

His heart raced. He thought back to when Blevins cornered him in the printer room. His eyes scanned the almost empty halls. The lights were turned down. It was eerie and the only life in the building was coming from the detective room.

He took a shaky breath. “I’m not doing this to get a promotion.”

It would be nice if he could get the advantage, but he wasn’t in this just to make money.

Blevins looked doubtful. “Then what are you after?”

Marcus furrowed his brows. “Do you not know who I am?”

Blevins folded his arms. The hostility was still there, but it was waning as he tried to decipher what Marcus’s words meant. He seemed to think every word out of Marcus’s mouth was chosen to confuse the fuck out of him.

“Who you are? Should I?”

Marcus snorted. He chuckled under his breath. He looked down at the crumpled water cup. He slowly straightened it back out, not wanting to meet Blevins’s eyes as he spoke.

“My mom was the Butterfly Killer’s first victim. Or, well, one of his victims.” It was still strange to think she wasn’t the first. She wasn’t even special to him. She was just another tic on his bedpost.

Blevins looked taken aback. “You’re the son?”

Son. That was all he was. A relative on a sheet of paper. He was a fool to think anyone would care enough to know who he was. It wasn’t like he made a point to memorize the faces and names of the relatives to the other victims—because he did. He knew all of them and could cite them like the pledge of allegiance.

“That’s why I care about this so much.” His voice sounded cold and hollow.

He put the cup under the spout again. He chugged the water.

The door opened and Burns came out. “Food’s here. I’m going to get—everything alright?”

Burns looked between the two of them. Marcus bounced the water cup off the rim of the trashcan. It landed inside. “I’ll be back in a second. Need to use the restroom.”

Before anyone could say anything, he turned and fled the situation.

He was in and over his head. He didn’t know if he could do this. But he also couldn’t quit.

He slowly raised his head up from where he was staring into the sink. He met his eyes through the mirror. The LED lights blinked, flickering light over his tense shoulders.

The room felt like it was closing in on him.

He splashed water on his face. The coldness on the heat of his skin alleviated some of his discomfort, but it wasn’t going to last long.

He wiped his face and headed back to the room.

He could do this.

He had to.

Marcus jolted awake by his phone ringing. He blinked at the ceiling, the sun dancing through the window, creating shadows over the water stains. He laid there for a moment, listening to the ringtone repeat itself and then finally go quiet. It took him another minute to realize someone had been calling him.

Not just anyone. That was the ringtone he had save specifically for his sister.

He grappled for his phone still stuck in the pockets of his pants from the night before. He and the team had stayed late to search through the available documents. They had to call it quits in the early morning. Mercer said they would have someone more tech savvy search through the digital database to see if there were any murders leading up to the string of murders six years ago.

Marcus would have to be satisfied with that. For now, he would help the team when he had the free time and when their schedules lined up, but he was still very much just a police officer. Just because they let him play detective a couple hours didn’t mean he meant shit to anyone.

Or that he’d be any help with their investigation.

He dialed his sister back and held the phone to his ear. The dialing tone almost made him fall asleep again. Before that happened, she answered.

“Hey, Lily?—”

“What did I say, Marcus?”

He was taken aback by her tone. His brows furrowed in confusion as he sat up. He rubbed his eyes.

“What’s wrong? What are you talking about?”

“I specifically said I want to be left out of this! I don’t want to hear about mom’s death ever again.”

“Woah! Just wait a second. I didn’t mention anything about her to you.”

Lilianna snarled through the phone. “Then what the fuck is this shit you’re sending me? Emails about the recent murders? I got a damn magazine in the mail about the Butterfly Killer history! This isn’t funny.”

Marcus scrambled to the edge of the bed. He puked all over his work clothes.

“Ew. What the fuck, Marcus?”

Lilianna’s voice could be barely heard from where his phone had fallen on the mattress. He gasped as a string of saliva dripped down to the floor. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten anything last night. It would have been all over the carpet if he had.

He closed his eyes and took a sharp breath between his clenched teeth. He slowly leaned back and grabbed the phone.

“Listen to me carefully, Lily.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses ? —”

“I’m serious Lily. I didn’t send you those emails.”

The line went quiet. When she spoke there was a clear quiver to it. “You didn’t?”

“No,” Marcus said, regretfully. If he wasn’t zoning out of his body, his voice would have been shaky as well. “Get the kids and Daniel. Go up to his parent’s cabin. Do it, Lily. Now.”

Lilianna’s breaths sped up. She panted into the receiver. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good. Call me when you’re almost there.”

He hung up. He stared at his phone for a few seconds before he grabbed Mercer’s business card he’d given Marcus and dialed his number.

“This is Agent Andrew Mercer.”

“It’s Marcus.”

Marcus grabbed a fresh pair of clothes from his dresser and yanked them on.

Mercer was stone quiet. “The techs aren’t this fast.”

Marcus groaned. “That’s not why I’m calling. Someone sent emails to my sister about the killer. She thought it was me.”

“It could just be a troll.”

“They also sent a magazine through the mail. She’s removed herself completely from the family when mom died. This is intentional.”

“Where is she now?”

“I told her to go up to her in-laws cabin with her husband and children. It was the first place I could think of.”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry, but you might be overreacting. There hasn’t been any evidence to say the killer would stalk or taunt his victims before.”

Marcus held the phone between his neck and shoulder as he pulled his shoes on. “Well, I guess call this overkill. He’s taken one person from me, he’s not going to take another.”

Mercer was quiet for awhile after that. Marcus had thought maybe the line had cut while he grabbed his keys off the stand by the door. He was just walking out when Mercer spoke again.

“Where are you going?”

“To my sister’s house. If he wants to harass anyone, it’s going to be me. I just thought you might want to know. Tell Chief I won’t be in for a couple of days.”

Before Mercer could talk reason into him, he hung up.

Running on three hours of sleep, Marcus jumped in his car and headed out on the road for a six hour drive. His sister had left her old life behind and tried to make a entirely new one, but she hadn’t moved that far away. He was glad. He had a spare key she’d given him just in case he was in the area, but it wasn’t like he’d ever thought about using it.

He’d visited her once in the years after their mom’s death and that had been two summers ago when he’d been forced to take a vacation. It had been the cold trail of the Butterfly killings that had sent him into a frenzy. He wasn’t proud of the little breakdown he’d had which almost got him kicked off the squad. Looking back, that might have also been another factor in people wanting to distance themselves from him.

He was a freak. It seemed people could take one look at him and know instantly.

He pulled off the side of the road at a motel when his vision started to go bleary. His phone was full of text messages he didn’t want to read. His sister was the only person he wanted to hear from.

He checked into the motel and dragged his almost dead body through the door of the shabby room. The bed resembled more of a hole in the ground than a bed he wanted to sleep on. He shivered in disgust as he thought about bugs crawling out from the stained fabric.

To appease his mind—or to further make him paranoid—he checked the corner of the sheets and bed. Thankfully, he didn’t find any evidence of bed bugs. That would be possibly the worst thing that could happen to him right now.

He rubbed his eyes as he made his way to the bathroom. It was small and crowded. The yellow light made the room look like a scene from a horror movie. He tried to not think about the images of death on constant loop in his mind. That seemed to be how it always was—his mind always trying to break him down by showing him things he didn’t want to see. It seemed like every time he tried to run away from his nightmares, his mind thought it would be funny to shove the things he hated the most right in his face.

He cranked the shower on, not even using the cold water setting. He wanted to feel the burn. He wanted to feel the pain just so he wouldn’t be numb like this all the time.

The aches and pains in his body lessened just a little when he stepped under the spray. The water-pressure was abysmal. The hot water wasn’t even hot. He groaned in frustration as he didn’t get the relief he wanted.

But he scrubbed himself down quick. He needed sleep and he needed to get up early if he wanted to make it to Lilianna’s house by the early morning. He didn’t know why he felt like he needed to race against time.

The panic was starting to set in. He really needed to sleep so his head would be clear and he wouldn’t start losing his mind off his irrational thoughts.

He toweled off, dressed into a fresh pair of clothes he kept in a bag in the trunk of his car. He was a cop. He was paranoid. He was always prepared for something which might not be normal for any human being, but it helped in his favor.

He slowly got into the uncomfortable bed. The mattress squeaked under his weight, the springs jabbing into his shoulder-blades and spine. He moved, twisting on his side and then flipping over, searching for a spot that didn’t hurt. He gave up in the end, laying on his back with his arms spread out beside him.

His eyes ached, but they didn’t want to close. The ceiling was similar to his back home though it was covered in cob webs. The lights of passing cars shined over the walls. He tensed each time he heard movement outside his door or from the neighboring rooms.

Was this is? Was this where his life ended?

He didn’t have a clue what was going to happen when he got to his sister’s house. He didn’t know if the killer was bringing him closer for a purpose or if it was all mind games.

Marcus closed his eyes, taking deep breaths so he didn’t have a panic attack, and finally drifted to sleep.

In his dreams, when he found his mom’s body, it wasn’t her laying on the floor dead—it was his sister.