Dark Explorations

(Samantha POV)

Law enforcement officers do not get the same luxuries of most modern jobs. The need to be always available and ready to move. My lunch ‘breaks’ accordingly were really only a break if I had no paperwork or calls to interrupt it. After years of working ten hour shifts four days a week, I had grown an uncanny sense of when it would be best to eat. On a Friday in the summer, that means eating around two in the afternoon at a place near an easily accessible road. I found that the best location was a McDonald’s located next to an exit of Interstate 79. My usual order was a Quarter Pound meal with a Coke, easy and quick to eat. Usually I can expect to be left alone for the entirety of my meal, today was an unexpected exception.

While I was ordering, I turned around and was surprised to find Agent Zimmerman, the FBI agent who had been requested to assist with the murder of the three WVU students last Tuesday. I had sat in the original meeting regarding early suspect profiling and what immediate actions were being taken for the investigation. The first steps were to investigate transients and registered sex offenders who matched the profile. That was able to be done surprisingly quickly, mainly because it turned up empty. We even decided to expand the search at my suggestion to include all females who met the criteria and still came up with nothing. They all had corroborated alibis or realistic inability to commit the crime. The next was attempting to use DNA testing which no one was exactly hopeful for considering the complete destruction that the scene had. Nothing in that room was free of contamination by those young men’s blood.

He seemed equally as shocked to find me there and we shared a good laugh at the coincidence before I offered him to join me for lunch. Agent Zimmerman accepted and I found myself now sitting and eating with him. He dressed differently today. Most notably he was no longer wearing the blue FBI jacket you see in the movies. If anything, he now seemed like an office worker taking his lunch break. He wore grey pants and a light blue button up completed by a dark blue tie. His stubby facial hair and balding grey hair gave the impression possibly of a senior management figure. When he sat down, he went straight to the most important part of sharing a meal with a coworker; the gossip of the business.

“The bureau is thinking of expanding the investigation.”

He spoke as he sat down with his bagged meal and began to pull out a Big Mac and some fries. I was shocked and nearly choked on my food. After a few coughs, I managed to speak up my confusion.

“Really? Did the county request support? And why so quickly?”

Agent Zimmerman shook his head as he took the first bite of his burger. He wiped his face with a napkin to remove the little bits of sauce that fell down his chin.

“Not Monongalia, Wayne County as well as Athens County in Ohio did. In March, Marshall University had a somewhat similar murder at their dorms involving one of their basketball players. Xavier did as well last December at a frat house. Both cases have seen no progress and their local law enforcement wants the Bureau to treat all three as a possible Serial Killer case.”

I was in shock. Brutal murders happen every day in the United States. It’s part of the nature of a society that is paradoxically both diverse and wealthy while bigoted and bankrupt as that of the United States. The fact that shocked me was that the local law enforcements were asking for assistance and willing to give over information. Local police departments are extremely territorial about their evidence and information. While it is common sense that cooperation helps in solving crime, whenever it is the City Council’s time of the year to decide the budget, you need something to show off. Every department is fighting for a larger budget and being able to claim credit for solving notable cases is how you do that. When the Bureau sent Zimmerman, there were already members of the Monongalia’s Sheriff Office complaining that the Feds will get all the credit and they will end up looking incompetent in comparison. If Wayne County and Athens County were both willingly handing over information, no matter how little, to the Bureau and asking for an increased investigation, they thought it was bad.

“Do you think it’s a Serial Killer?”

My next question came out without me even thinking. It was the most obvious thing to ask and even if it may have not been as delicately worded as it should have, I needed to know. Agent Zimmerman took another bite and looked out the window as cars passed by. He swallowed it down, but remained focused on the world outside.

“I don’t know. I’ve seen Serial Killers and I still can’t understand any of them. No matter what our science says about human behavior, I feel like I’ll never know how those brains work. The facts though aren’t exactly a lot. The cases were equally brutal and messy and had similar victims. That’s the only commonality though. We have no DNA. No suspects. No witnesses…”

His voice trailed off as he spoke. He looked back down to his food and took another bite. I didn’t know exactly how to respond and cautiously did the same. There was a long moment of silence between the two of us as we both simply focused on our meals in front of us. It cost thirteen dollars, in this economy that food needed to be appreciated before it went cold. What finally broke the awkward silence was Agent Zimmerman as I heard him begin to chuckle between bites of fries. I raised an eyebrow in confusion and sure enough he saw and gave me a professional smile with food between his teeth. His odd reaction to the grave situation forced me to ask.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just a joke when I first joined the Bureau in 2007. Serial Killer cases weren’t common anymore, but enough still existed for this joke to be known. It goes kind of like this. Two agents walk into a bar. One of them approaches every single woman in the bar and asks them out. Some say yes. Most say no. He returned to his partner and the partner asked “Why’d you go and do something like that?” You know what the agents say?”

I set my food down and shook my head.

“He says, “I want their numbers, so if they get killed next, I can be the first to arrive and find some god damn leads!””

Zimmerman laughed as though it were the funniest thing he had ever heard. I didn't find it nearly as amusing and could only manage an awkward chuckle. After nearly a minute, he finally regained his composure and made a dismissive gesture with his hand, signaling that it was time to move on.

“It was a different time and I imagine part of the reason people stopped having such a dark sense of humor was HR’s concern. I remember it though because that’s the same situation this case is in. If we add the other two murders, we still won’t have much to go on other than we know the suspect moves a lot.”

He took one last bite out of his burger before grabbing a napkin and crumpling it up and tossing it in a nearby trash can. I hadn’t been in the State Police for long. I joined the Monongalia Sheriff’s Department when I was nineteen and went to the State Police three years ago for the pay raise. Agent Zimmerman was a veteran, one which had been taught by veterans who handled the most famous cases like Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway, and Zodiac. The fact that he was stumped led me to question the solvability of this case. Maybe he was partly right that we needed to find more victims. Are there more victims who have yet to be properly connected? Something told me there was, but I couldn’t prove it. I hate to say this, and Zimmerman’s own dark humor speaks to this need, but we might need to wait for the suspect to take another person’s life. Zimmerman began to pack up his area as I was finishing up my own meal. He looked over to me and thought for a moment.

“You know, you may have been right during the first meeting?”

My brain had been thinking elsewhere when he spoke and I was momentarily confused about what he meant. I luckily didn’t ask about the matter and instead replied with a focus on the matter of my correctness.

“I was?”

“Yeah, about this not being their first murder. If Athens County is right, that would be. A poor freshman kid at Ohio University was strangled with a rope until the damn kid’s head was ripped off. Meanwhile his body was forced into sex with either a woman or gay man. You said that this was likely a progression, if that was the first, we need to catch this bastard or bitch before they progress to even worse shit than last Monday."

I found myself growing goosebumps at these words and the warning it gave. I remembered that I had said previously it likely wasn’t a first offense. At the time, I was thinking it could be a person with a record of sexual assault. I had not considered this was a Serial Killer case. There were no special honors or rituals related to your firsts in my department. I had answered calls for stolen cars, stalking, sexual assault, vehicle accidents, and murders. It was just part of the law enforcement life. This was my first time ever witnessing a Serial Killer case though. Something about it doesn’t leave you when you take off the gun. I was always good at handling my own mental health. I passed every psychological evaluation with flying colors. I wasn’t someone with PTSD or anxiety like many veterans. This case makes me understand how one develops trauma though.

I could only pray for whoever first found the scene. The photos I saw made me nauseous. Bodies weren’t meant to do that. There were gashes in the ribs of one of those young men, as if the motherfucker was using them like handlebars while fucking him. The agony he must have felt and the violation of his soul makes me wonder what demon could have been in this town that night.