Justin Cornell, sitting next to me in the coffee shop booth, opened his laptop and went to his Facebook profile.
“That’s her.” He pointed to a private message, then clicked the link. “Vanessa Scott.” Her profile pic showed a young, pretty blond woman in a yellow blouse. The messages were pretty mundane:
Vanessa:Hi Justin! What have you been up to?
Justin:Who is this?
Vanessa:It’s Vanessa. Remember me?
“Okay.” This didn’t seem like anything you’d hire a private detective for. Stalking, maybe? “What’s the problem?”
Cornell sighed. “She’s dead.”
I sipped my coffee. “Someone probably hijacked her account.”
Cornell, in his 30s, had short black hair and wire-rimmed eyeglasses. His eyes looked nervous behind thin lenses. “She knows stuff about me no one else knows.”
I shrugged. “Girlfriends share.”
He shook his head. “It’s something else. She died two years ago. She was murdered.”
That was different. But not too different, considering the number of various undead creatures I’ve dealt with in my career. I’m a private detective, doing background checks mostly and tailing cheating spouses, but some of my cases tend to be—offbeat. “Who killed her?”
His hand trembled as he lifted his latté for a sip. “I don’t know. It was a serial killer, and he never got caught.”
Great. I’ve tangled with vampires, werewolves, and the occasional demon from Hell. They were bad enough—but humans can be a lot more vicious.
But a job was a job, and it kept the cable bill paid. I nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out. But I’ll need access to your profile.”
That made him more uncomfortable. Understandably. “I—I guess I can give you my password. But I’ll want to change it after you’ve looked at everything.”
“Of course. Give me until—five today?” I tried for a reassuring nod. “Don’t worry. I have to deal with lots of confidential information. Unless I find something criminal on there—”
“No, no.” Cornell shook his head again. “Nothing like that. I called you because people said you were—you handle strange cases like this.”
“Yeah.” Like I said, I’m not like most private detectives.
He wrote me a check, then picked up his latté. I watched him walk away. He limped on his left foot.
Back home I headed for my office, powered up my computer, and went to Zuckerberg-land.
“Checking your profile?” Rachel, my girlfriend, leaned in behind me, a hand on my shoulder. She’s got red hair, hazelnut eyes, and slightly psychic powers. All nice things. Plus, we live together, which has its benefits.
I only keep a bare profile on Facebook for the sake of having access to social media. Not even a picture. “It’s a case. Dead girl sending messages from beyond. The usual thing.” I typed in Cornell’s password.
She snorted. “It’s one of her girlfriends getting back at him for being an asshole.”
“Probably.” I found the beginning of Cornell’s thread with Vanessa:
Vanessa:Hi Justin! What have you been up to?
Cornell:Who is this?
Vanessa:It’s Vanessa. Remember me?
Cornell:She’s dead.
Vanessa:I had to go away. It hurt a lot. But yeah, I’m dead.
Cornell:This isn’t funny, whoever you are.
Vanessa:It’s me. Don’t you remember our first time? My place, and the purple candles, and . . .
I skimmed. Whoever was writing did seem to know a lot about Cornell’s, uh, preferences. I reminded myself that I’m a professional, with lots of experience following and occasionally spying on cheating spouses of all sexes and inclinations. At least Cornell and Vanessa weren’t into anything too kinky.
Cornell got down to it in a later thread:
Cornell:What happened? Who killed you?
Vanessa:Don’t know. It was dark. He broke my ankle. It was wet. Bag over my head.
Cornell:Why are you talking to me now? How?
Vanessa:Find him. Find him. Findhimfindhimfindhim
I sat back, staring at the screen.
Several questions came quickly: Was this really Vanessa? On a vengeance quest from beyond the grave to find her killer? Why hadn’t Cornell led with that when we met? I used to be a reporter—that would have been my lead.
Which led to the obvious question: Was Cornell the killer?
On the one hand, it didn’t make sense. Why would he hire me to find out what was going on? On the other hand, if he didn’t really believe Vanessa’s ghost was talking to him, he might want to find out who was really sending him messages so he could protect himself.
I checked the time. We’d met at noon, and it was 1:45 right now. I had a few hours before he changed his password.
So I sent a message to Vanessa as Cornell:
Me:Hi, Vanessa. What happened that night?
I waited, not sure how quickly she’d reply. So I started researching her murder in another window. But after two minutes seconds, she came back:
Vanessa:Don’t remember. Going out with friends. Then—nothing.
Traumatic experiences can erase memories. Being murdered certainly fit. I replied:
Me:What friends?
Vanessa:Traci, Meredith, Robyn and I don’t remember anyone else.
The names were hyperlinked to other profiles. I made notes. Then:
Me:Have you messaged anyone else?
Vanessa:Just you.
Me:Why me?
Vanessa:I remember you.
Great. What did that mean? “Gotta go,” I typed, then closed out of the account.
Now what? I started searching the internet furiously.
“What’s going on?” Rachel turned in her chair. We share an office. Maybe she heard my fingers slapping the keys, or maybe her psychic powers picked up something.
“I’m researching a serial killer. Hang on.”
“Oh, for god’s sake.” If she was close, she would have slugged me. Hard. “Vampires and contagious fungus and ancient Greek Furies aren’t enough for you? Now we have to track down monsters from the real world?”
“I’m not trying to track him down. I just need to know—oh, hell.”
A dozen articles on Vanessa Scott’s murder popped up on my screen. And lots more, because she was one of a half-dozen victims of a serial murderer dubbed “The Left Foot Killer.”
I remembered the headlines. Over the course of a year and a half, seven women had been kidnapped, beaten, killed, and left in alleys and parks around Chicago. One common denominator—they’d all been found with their left feet or ankles or legs broken.
Just like Vanessa had said.
“Give me a few minutes.” I leaned forward, gulped some water, and started reading as fast as I could.
Most serial killers target women on the fringe—prostitutes, the homeless, people who won’t be missed. I knew that from Mindhunterand other TV shows, plus my own crime reporting. If they were reasonably careful, it could take a long time for anyone to make a connection, because the victims usually didn’t have a lot of people to care about them.
Not this guy. His victims were young professional women, and the left foot thing caught everyone’s attention. After the second or third murder, people were demanding answers and action—family members, politicians, and even some reporters I knew from when I worked at the Chicago Tribune. Because the victims were all young, most of them white, and generally attractive, the murders attracted a lot more publicity than the usual crop.
It wasn’t fair, obviously. But that didn’t matter, because they never caught the guy.
The victims hadn’t been sexually assaulted. Which was unusual in itself. Just beaten, their broken bodies left just out of sight.
My stomach churned. I’d reported on dozens of cases like these as a journalist. I’d had to learn to be objective and dispassionate when writing up the story. But like most reporters and cops I knew, I’d never learned to accept it.
Vampires weren’t the only monsters stalking the world.
I rubbed my eyes and then picked up my phone. I wished for Dudovich, the cop I’d sparred with for years. We’d never really become friends, but over the years we developed a kind of trust—even though she thought I was crazy for seeing vampires, zombies, and other supernatural terrors. She’d come to see the same things, but she remained skeptical when I reported anything paranormal to her or her colleagues.
But she’d been killed in the vampire wars years ago. She used to abuse me, but after a while I kind of liked it. I still miss her.
“Who are you calling?” Rachel walked across the office.
“Who do you think?” Fortunately I had other—friends? Allies? Contacts? People who would at least talk to me before hanging up?—on the CPD. The phone buzzed. Twice.
Then detective Anita Sharpe picked up. “Jurgen? I was having a nice quiet day here without vamps or demons or anything supernatural. Just the usual drive-by shooting this morning and now a husband-and-wife murder/suicide thing, although I don’t who killed who first at this point. This better be good.”
Sharpe was part of the CPD’s unofficial Vampire Squad. It had been set up during the vampire wars, but in the last few years or so vamp activity had simmered down around the city. Now she was mostly back at her regular job, investigating trouble and doing her best to keep the mean streets safe.
I heard traffic around her. “Okay, I guess you’re not at your desk. It’s about the Left Foot Killer.”
“Leftie?” Sharpe groaned. “That was years ago. I don’t have time for this right now. What do you want?”
I hesitated. I couldn’t just give up my client based on speculation involving a Facebook ghost. “Did you ever catch him?”
“It would have been in the papers, right?” She shouted at someone—“Hey! Don’t touch that!” Then she came back. “Okay, sometimes we get a perp on something else, but we can’t link him to an open case. So he goes to jail and we count that a win. But I never told you that, okay? Anyway, I don’t know about Leftie right now. Maybe—just maybe—I can look it up later. You going to tell me what this is about?”
“Not yet.” I bit my lip. I needed more information before I could think about turning over my client. The cops wouldn’t care, of course. I only hoped Sharpe could wait.
“Let me know. I’ll be back at the office soon.” She hung up.
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