Ross Reynolds was a man in his late fifties, years from his retirement, whose prehistoric methods of finding the criminal had gotten more people hurt than it had saved. He was very famous in the nineties when he had cracked some high profile cases and made a name for himself in the community, but growing age had left him with a deluded sense of his self. His grand ideas about his practices and ideals had clouded his mind to the point that he couldn't see the clear images placed in front of him.
I had been an intern with him for the past three months. And it had been a struggle. I had tried my best to get my points across to him with little success. In his opinion, he was the only one who could be correct. It had taken a lot of time for him to understand one little concept that the other police force had guessed long ago.
Evie Lewis had not run away from home.
She had not killed her family.
Just because the method of killing and disappearance was difference didn't mean that the grand plan was not made by the Elegant Butcher.
Murderers changed their style according to their mood. Charlie Lewis left behind a thick file of his findings on the suspect. He had theorized that the suspect had been missing for the longest time, only to be scarcely caught on CCTV. And the subsequent death of his family proved that he was unbelievably close to the truth.
From what I had analyzed from the crime-scene photos, there were definite signs of struggle. There was also the fact that someone taller than Evie Lewis (who has a very petite girl) had attacked the family and brutally murdered them.
The killing of family members were usually crimes of passion and while it could be said that in a fit of rage, the young girl had mangled her whole family, psychology said otherwise. Even in a fit of anger, it was impossible for a girl of sixteen to drag the bodies of her sleeping grandparents off their rooms and push them over the railing. The action showed a disregard for human life and lack of emotion for the people the murderer was killing.
Throwing two bodies over the railing, killing her mother in cold blood, and stabbing her father to death would surely be a mammoth task in itself, not to say that the neighbours had called in the police shortly after Charlie had himself called in. He had said there was an intruder in the house and he believed it was the serial killer whom he was tracking at that time.
For the life of me, I couldn't understand how a research assistant like me could do a better job at analyzing the crime scene than a professional who had spent years in the field. Did his gut really fail him?
I was twenty-one at the time and at my last-phase of completing my PhD, this last bit of experience would help me get information on my research. I was confident that I would pass this year, but this strange man, Ross Reynolds was boggling my mind with his sheer stupidity.
We surrounded him in the police station where he had asked everyone to gather. We were looking at footage of the Elegant Butcher going in and out of the supermarket and walking around in the mall, looking for something to buy. The investigations had shown and on closer inspection, we realized how obsessive she was when it came to cleanliness. The registers showed that the clothes were not her size and often meant for people of different sizes. The frequency with which she shopped could be comparable to the timelines of missing person reports.
A child whose mother turned away for a moment and turned back to see the infant gone from the perambulator.
An elderly couple who got into a cab and were never seen again.
A young journalist who had disappeared one day on her way to work.
The list went on and on. We tracked her card and her number; it was fascinating what the police could do once they set their mind to it. And they did just that.
We were close to finding where the woman was, and any chance of finding the remains or survivors of her rampage could be found where she was hiding. It was curious that she shopped at different locations all the time as if she knew someone was watching her.
As we discussed the probable locations the bodies were stored away, I heard a collective gasp coming from behind me. I followed suit and swivelled around to see what the fuss was about.
If I had been a conspiracy theorist of an avid believer in the afterlife, I would have thought I was looking at a dead woman who had come back to life. But it was something else. The sight of her gave me chills.
She was mumbling something under her breath which couldn't be deciphered. I crouched low, trying to read her lips but her tangled hair got in the way of my sight. I waited as her jumbled grew louder and more pronounced. She was raging, raging against the fatigue in her body.
"Save me!" the voice finally came. It was faint. She swayed to the wind and hurdled towards the floor. Everyone lurched forward to catch her, but the thud resounded before anyone to get close to her.
"Save me…" she whispered, over and over again. Splatters of blood painted her white nightgown, her hair was knotted with clots of blood. Her bones jutted out from under her skin and her naked flesh looked like that of a ghastly corpse's.
Ross Reynolds rejoiced from the back. How he had recognized her, I don't know, but when questioned, she dragged her head out of the pool of blood and mumbled her name under her breath.
It still sends chills down my spine.
"Evie Lewis."
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