Despair Read online

  Despair

  By

  Tina Kunkle

  Despair

  Copyright © 2018 by Tina Kunkle

  TMK Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

  Chapter One

  Dani and Tommy shined their flashlights into the darkness, both searching for the one thing they dreaded the most.

  “There, by that log.” Tommy said.

  Dani swung the beam of her light over to join Tommy’s. They stood in silence for a few moments then Dani asked Tommy, “You wanna call it in or should I?”

  Tommy let out a sigh, “I got it.”

  An hour before, the SCPD received a call about a four nineteen located just off of highway sixteen.

  Tommy turned and walked back to the car leaving Dani all alone. She climbed down the wet bank being careful not to disturb any potential evidence that wasn’t washed away by the earlier rain.

  She knelt down beside the body on one knee and reached in her black jacket and pulled out a small three ring binder and her favorite gold pen, the one she received when she made Detective seven years prior. She made notes. May 3rd 2017. Ten-thirty pm. White female found in a drainage ditch off of highway sixteen, mile marker twenty seven. South bound.

  The deceased was nude and resting against a log, facing it, with her arms above her head. Looking at her it didn’t take Dani long to realize this was a homicide. Her hair had been removed from her head and genital area. When she looked at her hands, she noticed all of her fingers had brutally cut off. She was beaten and had bruising on her face and torso. Her lips were swollen and her nose appeared to be broken with dried blood under the left nostril. Both eyes were swollen shut, and she had ligature marks on her wrists and ankles. Her throat was cut ear to ear and was so deep it almost decapitated her. She was covered in mud and looked malnourished. You could count every rib in her tiny body. It was obvious this was an over kill.

  Sadness washed over her, whoever you are, you didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved this, Dani thought to herself.

  After looking her over with the flashlight something caught Dani’s eye. On the only clean spot on her entire body was a mark. It was on the inside of her right wrist and when she looked closer, she could see the number 004. The numbers were a quarter of an inch in size and black in color.

  Dani looked around and saw the dense tree line a couple hundred feet past the body.

  “It’s good this log stopped you sweetheart or we may not have ever found you.”

  She glanced up at the full moon. The smell of rain was still lingering in the air. Except for this body it was a beautiful Washington night.

  Tommy made his way down the hill to join Dani and slipped rolling the rest of the way. He stood up, covered in wet mud and angrily shouted, “DAMN IT!”

  Dani turned just in time to see him tumbling and laughed to herself.

  When Tommy reached Dani she asked, “You all right partner?”

  “Yeah, I’ll live; CSI is on its way so you better get what you can before they arrive.”

  “I’m done.”

  Dani stood up and closed her notebook and tucked it back where she retrieved it.

  Tommy asked, “So any thoughts on this one?”

  “Whoever's responsible doesn’t want us finding out who she is. Her head was shaved and her fingers cut off. It looks like somebody just pulled off the highway in their vehicle and rolled her body down the hill and this log stopped her from rolling any further. I don’t think she’s been out here that long, rigor is just setting in. This will be a tough one to identify."

  Tommy smirked, “You know why?”

  “You mean besides from the obvious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, enlighten me.” Dani said.

  “The god damn TV that’s why, they put all those crime shows on and it’s like a damn blueprint on how to commit the perfect murder and get away with it. Those Hollywood people don’t realize how much harder their making it on us to solve murders now. I’m surprised no one has written a book called Murder for Dummies. No wonder there’s so many cold cases!”

  Dani put a slight grin on her face and her right hand on Tommie’s shoulder. “Partner, you think too damn much. Besides, there is no such thing as the perfect murder.”

  Daniella Holland and Thomas Randolph had been partners for fifteen years. They both worked the beat at the same time and both made Detective the same time. They always had each other’s back and wouldn’t want it any other way. Their kids grew up together. Their wives even got along until they all got divorced five years ago. They even did that close to the same time. Neither of them put blame on their wives. Being a cop’s wife was no easy task. The long hours and haunting cases can break the best Detectives. They say cops shouldn’t take their work home, but that’s easier said than done. They all do and try their best to keep the horror they see away from their loved ones.

  Dani’s wife Barb got fed up with the drinking and the worrying that when she walked out that door in the morning there was a strong possibility she wouldn’t walk back through that night, and fearing the dreaded knock on the door. They are still civil to one another for the kid’s sakes but Dani knows if it wasn’t for them, she would be done with her all together.

  They had two daughters they adopted, Rebecca who just turned twenty one and Hanna nineteen, both in college. Hanna wants to become an FBI profiler. She has the smarts to do so. Rebecca is not sure what she wants out of life. It changes from one day to the next. First she wanted to be an attorney, then a vet, and yesterday she called and announced, proudly, she now wished to be a journalist. Dani would support her in whatever she wants as long as she stuck to it.

  Dani had one goal when she was younger and that was to be a cop. After collage she went into the academy and never looked back. All the years on the force has taken its toll on her in mind, body and soul. She’s suspicious of everybody. Her once good looks are now replaced by a much older version that has seen better days. She’s older looking than her forty- six years might suggest. She’s five six and a hundred and twenty pounds, Her once jet black hair now had traces of gray throughout it. Her breasts once firm are now heading south. She’s a strong willed woman and straight forward.

  She can see things at crime scenes that others would miss. Once she’s on a case, it consumes her. She drinks more than she should, but not enough to block out what she’s seen over the years. Law enforcement officers know all too well the carnage that one human being can bring upon another.

  Tommy had his own issues. He doesn’t know what the word commit means and has lost two wives over it. The last marriage lasted seven months. He has a son named Michael, and a daughter named Maggie, twins by his first wife Valerie. They attended the same college in Seattle as Hannah did.

  He’s the live for the moment and not for the tomorrow kind of guy and loves the ladies. He receives about thirty texts a day from women of all different backgrounds, from attorneys to store clerks. They start out thinking they’re the only one but eventually figure him out. He tells them, there’s enough of me to go around! He’s made the mistake of calling women by different names while making love more than once, now, he calls them all by one name… baby.

  He a pretty boy, standing five eight with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes and looking like he should be on a surfboard out on the waves somewhere in California, not a cop. He works out regularly and loves to wear tight tee shirts to show off his biceps. He can be self- centered and arrogant but it works for him. Anger is a fault and has gotten the best of him over the years but Dani helps keep it from getting out of control. Tommy’s a great father and tells everyone that his greatest accompl
ishments in this world are his children.

  The CSI team arrived from Seattle and roped off the entire area with yellow crime tape. They put up canopies and had spotlights shining everywhere. Camera flashes were going off lighting the darkness. Photos of the victim and crime scene were being taken. There were close to twenty people on scene all having their own individual jobs to do. Dani and Tommy stood top side looking down observing it all. They watched a lady in a black jacket with the letters CSI written in white on the back giving orders to everyone. She had blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She grabbed the arm of one of the police officers as he was walking past and was talking to him. Soon he pointed towards Dani and Tommy. She climbed out of the ravine and walked in their direction. When she reached them she extended her hand to Dani and said, “Hi, I’m Jackie, the head of the CSI team. I hear you were the first ones on the scene?”

  Dani extended her hand to hers, “Yes we were. I’m Detective Holland and this is my partner Detective Randolph.” She and Tommy shook hands.

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news guys but this is my third body this month and I’m sure it’s the same UN sub in all three cases.”

  Tommy asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, what makes you think that?”

  “They all three had their heads shaved and fingers cut off and my bet is once I get her back to the lab and the coroner does an autopsy, she will have all her teeth missing.”

  “Great… a serial!” Dani replied.

  “I’m afraid so. You need to speak with the coroner shell give you more insight on it and if I find anything else, I’ll let you know. Are you guys going to be the lead Detectives on this?”

  “As far as I know we will be. You know the TOD yet?”

  “Yeah, three maybe four hours tops. She was killed somewhere else and her body dumped here. Whoever’s doing this is one sick individual and I hope you get them sooner than later or I’m afraid the bodies will keep coming!.”

  Dani and she exchanged business cards.

  “I’ll call you when were finished with our findings.”

  She walked back down the hill to the crime scene.

  Dani looked at Tommy and said, “Come on there’s not much we can do here. Well go talk to the coroner first thing in the morning.”

  Tommy scrunched up his face, “God, not your geeky girlfriend.”

  “Afraid so, and she’s not my girlfriend. You know if you would keep your dick in your pants a little more often you wouldn’t have an issue with her and half the other woman in this town. I swear that damn thing will fall off one of these days, mark my words!”

  A few moments later as they walked back to the car Tommy said, “That CSI chick was kinda hot.”

  Dani threw her hands up in the air and shook her head, “I swear it’s like talking to a damn brick wall!”

  Laughing, Tommy replied, “What? You can never have too many women partner.”

  That night Dani didn’t sleep. Having a serial killer at large in this neck of the woods was no great comfort. Stoney Creek, Washington had never had one preying on its women before. Sure they had their share of murders. This town did not differ from any other, but to have a serial killer on the loose, that was a whole new ballgame and one Dani would rather sit on the bench for.

  Stoney Creek was a small town about fifty miles north of Seattle. It’s surrounded by snow Cap Mountains and western hemlocks. With the high rain fall amounts it makes for beautiful green country. The Cedar River is on the outskirts of town and has great fishing and awesome rapids. Dani frequents it when she’s in need of space or to clear her mind.

  With the tourist season fast approaching, it will make finding the killer all that more dire. This was a popular vacation spot and the town’s economy depended on it. They wanted and needed the tourists to come and if word got out about a serial killer on the loose, it would hurt the pockets of a lot of good people making a living there.

  Dani lived in a small one bedroom apartment above Roxy’s bar, one of four bars in town. She knew each one of them well. They had drained her wallet of cash lots of times but Roxy’s had always been home. She had her first date with her wife there so it had some sentimental value. Plus it was the only bar in town that rented rooms above it.

  She liked living above the bar and hearing the sounds of the patrons below laughing and having a good time. The clanging of the glasses and muffled sounds of the jukebox relaxed her and made her loneliness a little more bearable.

  Her small, one bedroom apartment was nothing to look at. The kitchen was tiny with just enough space for the rusty white refrigerator and stove that been there since the seventies. The sink dripped, and the paint was cracked and chipped in numerous places on the white walls throughout. There was a brown water stain in one corner on the living room celling and if she laid on the couch in just the right way, it looked like Jesus staring back down at her. She wouldn’t make an announcement about this, but sometimes when she had one too many to drink she would talk to it.

  She had pictures of both her daughters hanging on all the walls but one. That wall had a single picture of someone else’s daughter hanging on it. She had flaming red hair and hazel eyes and haunted Dani’s dreams almost every night.

  Chapter Two

  Jasmine was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. She didn’t want for anything. She lived in a two story house in a safe middle class neighborhood. She was her parent’s little princess and loved to dress up in cute little outfits and dance and sing. She had long straight hair and beautiful hazel eyes. Her skin was pale just like her Ireland ancestors. She was a miniature copy of her beautiful mother.

  When she turned nine, she got her first big girl bike and within thirty minutes of receiving it, she mastered the two wheels. It was pink and had a little white basket on the handlebars. She loved that bike, and now it’s the only thing from her past she can still remember.

  Two weeks after her ninth birthday she was out in front of her house riding that bike when a brown two door Capri pulled up beside her. The drivers door flew opened, and a man jumped out and grabbed her. The bike fell to the ground with the front wheel spinning as the man tossed her in the backseat and sped away. As they turned the corner Jasmine was banging on the back window with her little fists crying and screaming, “Mommy, Daddy!” Repeatedly as she watched her house get further and further away, till it disappeared from view.

  In a blink of an eye, the happy life she knew ended, and a brutal one was just beginning.

  The man who took her wore a black baseball cap and had greasy brown hair sticking out from under it. He wore dark sunglasses and had a severe case of acne on his face. He wore jeans and a black and gray flannelled shirt. He was slender built and in his late twenty’s. When he spoke it was with one syllable words.

  Jasmine cried the whole way to the man’s house. When he pulled in his garage and shut the car off he turned to look at her in the backseat and said, “Enough!” It was a harsh enough tone that Jasmine knew she better listen. He got out and went over to her side and opened the door and said, “Out.”

  Jasmine listened and followed him inside the house and down stairs to a basement. There was an old brown couch with gray duct tape in spots preventing stuffing from coming out of it. The floor had a beige rug that had stains on it. A small white refrigerator was in the far corner humming. There was a video camera on a tri pod pointing towards the couch. A computer was sitting close by on a wooden table. The air had a hint smell of mildew to it.

  He pointed towards the couch and said, “Sit!” Jasmine sat down. He walked over to a closet and opened a padlocked door and two other little girls were inside. One had blonde curly hair the other brown short hair. He pointed to the couch again and told them to sit. They all three held hands and sat close to each other and cried, making him annoyed. He slammed his hand down on the coffee table in front of them making a loud bang and all three jumped back against the couch. He yelled, “Shut up!”

  He hung a card around each o
f their necks with a number written on it, Jasmines was 012. He roughly separated them and walked behind the video camera and pushed a button. Jasmine saw a little green light come on and he walked over to the computer and sat down watching a live video feed of them over the internet. He was selling them in an auction. One by one they were sold off like livestock. Virgins bring the higher dollar. The younger the better. Jasmine was the last one to get sold.

  Two days later a man came to pay and take her away. When he walked up to her, Jasmine kept her head down and didn’t speak. He put his hand under her chin and raised her head up so he could see her hazel eyes.

  “My, my, my, what do we have here, you are better than expected. The boss will be really pleased with you. He never had a red head before.”

  Jasmine heard the man who abducted her call the other man Doug. He was a heavy, bald man that wore tan khakis and baggy tee shirts and his breath smelled of alcohol and cigarettes. He grabbed her arm and walked with her but Jasmine resisted and pulled back yelling. “I want to go home. Please take me home!”

  The man slapped her in the face sending her to the ground. It was the first time in Jasmines life she had ever been hit. He tossed her a bottle of juice and told her to drink it or she would get another slap. Jasmine did what he said and drank it, unaware it would make her sleep.

  When she woke she was lying on a cot somewhere different. She could hear the soft cries of other little girls nearby.

  A woman with shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes came over to sit by her. She was dressed in an oversized tee shirt and black sweat pants.

  Stroking Jasmines hair and smiling she said, “Hi, I’m Miss Kitty, what’s your name darling’?”

  Softly she replied, “Jasmine.”

  “Well that is a beautiful name. It’s nice to meet you Miss. Jasmine.” She nodded her head and bowed like she was in the king’s court.

  “You have a big night tonight so we better get you cleaned up sweetie. You get to meet Daddy.”