The Watson Girl: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller Read online

  “Because,” Dr. Jacobs continued, speaking softly again and touching her arm once more, “that’s how grants are obtained. Through a goddamned circus.”

  Discrepancies

  Tess left the prison complex at Raiford a little after lunch, driving just as fast as she had on her way in. She cut across the endless fields heading east on State Highway 16, eager to hit the Interstate, with the emergency lights on. Despite going constantly more than eighty miles per hour, driving back to Miami seemed an endless, nerve-racking task, mostly because what she really wanted to do was stop and review the case files for the three families Garza claimed he didn’t kill.

  Was there any mention of rape in those medico-legal reports that she, and maybe everyone else, had missed? How could Garza have known that the other killer had enjoyed killing women more, when all he’d had access to were a few crime scene photos? Was there really another killer out there, who patiently waited for Garza to fry, so he could be forever free of any consequence of what he had done?

  Or was Garza playing tricks on them, after having pulled some names out of his list, by all appearance the names that didn’t match his usual killing rhythm of one family every three or four months? Was he going to pull a rabbit out of his hat, after getting her all worked up, so they wouldn’t fry him on the twenty-second?

  Technically, no one fried anymore. In Florida, capital punishment was delivered through lethal injection, but the term had stuck in law enforcement glossary and was hard to shake. Details… Annoying little details, like Garza knowing the unsub liked to kill women more than men. How the hell?

  She honked furiously at a distracted driver who wasn’t letting her pass on a stretch of curvy road, more irritated by catching herself use the term unsub, which meant in fact her mind was already considering the possibility of another killer out there, on the loose. An unknown subject. A man who apparently liked killing women more than men. Or did he? How the hell did Garza know that? And why did the thought of rape make Garza sad? Why did it upset him? Her mind kept spinning and spinning, trying to weave some sense out of pure speculation and some half-known facts.

  There it was, Interstate 95, a long stretch of asphalt that would take her all the way home to Miami. She checked the time and cussed under her breath. No matter how fast she drove, she wouldn’t get there for at least another four hours. She couldn’t wait that long; patience wasn’t exactly her strongest suit.

  She took the onramp and drove past St. Augustine, but then took the exit leading to Crescent Beach. A few minutes later, after refueling her Suburban and getting fresh coffee for herself, she pulled over on an undeveloped side road near the water, with the back of her car facing the Matanzas River. She got out of the car and inhaled the humid, heavily scented air, and felt her tension dissipate. She was going to get her answers now, not later.

  She climbed into the back of her SUV, leaving the hatch open, and crossed her legs under her, seated among the four boxes of documents. The tall, coffee cup fit loosely in the side pocket of the cargo area above the left rear wheel, and she almost chuckled thinking how the Suburban’s designers had failed, by not placing a cup holder somewhere in the back. People worked in there, and they needed their swill.

  Curious and eager to replace speculation with fact, Tess sifted quickly through the boxes and pulled out the three case files, then started reviewing them in detail. She had already pored over the voluminous file on Garza himself and his methods, the particulars of his crime scenes, modus operandi, and everything else that distinguished The Family Man from the rest of the murderous psychopaths out there. In the particular cases Garza had named, she looked for discrepancies, and also how those discrepancies had been overlooked or explained away by the detectives who had closed the respective cases as Garza’s killings.

  Chronologically, the Watsons were the first murdered family of the three Garza didn’t admit to killing. Fifteen years before, someone had entered the Watson family home and had shot Allen Watson, two of his children, and a little boy who was sleeping over that night. First discrepancy: the killer had stabbed the woman, Rachel Watson, instead of shooting her. Second discrepancy: a little girl survived, hidden somewhere on the premises. Third discrepancy: the killer hadn’t posed the bodies and hadn’t spent any significant amount of time with them, based on evidence left behind. Overall, the Watson murder seemed far less organized than any of Garza’s, and missed a critical element. Or two.

  The Family Man had earned his moniker by killing entire families, then staging them around the dinner table. He liked spending a significant amount of time with them, pretending to be a part of the family. He ate at their dinner tables, surrounded by decomposing corpses. He slept in the victims’ beds. He lived in their homes for a day, sometimes even two. He always made sure he wouldn’t be surprised by house cleaners, nannies, or other hired help coming to work; he did his homework thoroughly.

  Most of his attacks happened on Friday evenings, before the weekend, when he could live out his fantasy without someone interrupting him or noticing that his victims were missing from jobs or school. He was highly organized, Garza. Whatever deranged fantasy drove him to kill, he kept it in check, doing careful work of his research before striking.

  In the Watson case though, a fourth discrepancy surfaced. The Watsons were killed on a Friday evening, although the housekeeper’s work schedule included weekends and excluded Mondays and Tuesdays. A handwritten note clarified that, and the writing was vaguely familiar. She flipped through the pages until she found the name of the detective who’d worked the case. Detective Gary Michowsky, Palm Beach.

  She sighed. Good old Gary.

  She had to admit that probably Garza would have never killed the Watsons. With them, he couldn’t live through his sickening fantasy. Not for long enough. They didn’t fit the profile. But there wasn’t any mention of sexual assault anywhere in the ME’s findings.

  Tess leaned back against the window of the vehicle and closed her eyes for a second. Stabbing was a more personal form of killing than shooting. Pulling a trigger is done remotely, while stabbing requires proximity, closeness, passion. Yet, no sexual assault. The stabbing of Mrs. Watson had been attributed to the evolution of the killer’s MO, despite the fact that Garza had continued to shoot, not stab, all the other families he killed.

  Another finding, just as quickly explained away, was the ballistics that didn’t match Garza’s earlier shootings. People see what they want to see and fail to notice what’s right in front of them.

  Oh, Gary… What the hell were you doing?

  She moved on to the next case, the Meyers. They were killed the following year, in February. That murder seemed more organized. None of the loose ends the Watson case was riddled with. The Meyer case stood out for another set of reasons though. They had no children, for one. Then Mrs. Meyer was stabbed multiple times and had died of exsanguination after what the ME had ruled, “three, maybe four hours of torture.” No sexual assault on Mrs. Meyer either. A scribbled note on the edge of the medico-legal report, in Doc Rizza’s handwriting: “Unusual skin distension pattern in stab wound. No trace elements found.” She made a note to ask Doc Rizza what he meant by that.

  She sighed again as she closed the Meyer case file. These two cases didn’t fit the Garza profile either, yet somehow, they’d just been lumped with the rest of them. She reopened the Meyer file, checking for the detective’s name.

  “Oh, shit, Gary, not again,” she whispered, then wondered how it was possible. Gary Michowsky was a good cop. His heart was in the right place, and he was experienced and thorough. She’d worked with him before, and, yes, she’d noticed some slip ups, but who doesn’t slip up on occasions? It happened a long time ago, but she planned on confronting Gary about his decisions in these cases. Then she cringed, remembering Pearson’s words about solving cases without caring who got hurt in the process.

  She scoffed, a little bitter. Probably Gary was popular with his colleagues and deemed to be a reliable m
ember of his team, while she wasn’t. But he had screwed up big time on the Meyer and Watson cases, and she wanted to hear his side of the story. How did a good cop make such a bad, obvious mistake?

  She opened the third case file, fearing she’d find Gary’s name again, right there, on the signature page. It wasn’t, and she felt relieved. The case had been worked by a Detective McKinley, Miami-Dade. She’d never heard of him.

  The Townsend family was killed almost three years after the Meyers. This time there was a child, a young girl, only eight years old. Tess shook her head, feeling a wave of anger suffocate her. She almost asked herself what kind of man kills children, but she already knew the answer to that question. A man like Kenneth Garza. A cold, blood-thirsty psychopath, someone who deserved to die.

  She ran her thin fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face, and returned to study the Townsend case file in the dimming light of the disappearing day. The same notable exceptions to the typical Garza MO, but this time stronger, more prevalent. A stabbed female victim. Long-lasting torture. Then the surprise, right there, on the last page of the medico-legal report. A detail she’d missed on her first, hurried review. A two-line paragraph that had her gut in a twist.

  Emily Townsend had been raped.

  Dinner Talk

  It was close to midnight by the time Tess made it into the city. The traffic had finally cleared up a little, making it easier for her to weave through.

  Her jaws hurt from staying stubbornly clenched the whole trip. Could it have been so simple? Just because the women were stabbed instead of shot in the three murders Garza rejected, he could have figured out the killer liked to kill women more? Who better to understand the workings of the psychopathic mind, than another psychopath? Or maybe Garza was making a fool out of her, giving her bite-sized bait for her to sniff and chase like a perfectly trained hound dog.

  She wondered why she believed he didn’t kill the three families in the first place. Was the word of a psychopath ever good enough? Yet her gut told her she should believe Garza, and find the real killer. Fifteen years after the fact, it was next to impossible, but still worth trying.

  Completely absorbed by her thoughts, she almost didn’t notice when she’d arrived at Media Luna, holding little hope the blue “Open” sign would still be on in the window of the old bar and grill. It was, and the parking lot still held a few cars. She parked far to the side, unwilling to scare off the patrons who might shy away from the place after seeing a black, unmarked law enforcement vehicle in front of the building.

  The moment she grabbed the brass door handle and let herself in, the familiar smells and noises kindled the angry growl of her empty stomach. She hadn’t eaten anything the whole day, and her entire body was sending out signals of protest. She propped herself up on a barstool at the tacky counter and looked for the bartender.

  He hadn’t seen her yet; he was immersed in a conversation with a man wearing dirty construction coveralls, and, by the intensity of their gestures and the loudness of their laughter, they were having a blast. She smiled involuntarily seeing him so relaxed, enjoying life, enjoying making his customers happy. She noticed a little more slump in his back, and maybe he’d lost some weight too. His long, wavy hair had more salt and less pepper each day, but he still looked good for his age. Was he approaching seventy? Probably not yet; but he definitely had passed the sixty mark.

  Men like him never aged. Whenever she looked at him or heard him talk, she thought of Willie Nelson for some reason, although his hair was a little shorter, and he couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. But there was something in his rebellious, free-spirited, refuse-to-grow-old nature, something that spelled freedom, kindness, and friendship.

  He still wore his signature Hawaiian shirts, with a couple of top buttons undone to let his tattoo show just a little, a tribal design of a tiger that took most of his tan chest. Only part of the design was visible through the opening of his shirt, the eyes and the nose of the tiger, but it was enough to have earned him his nickname that only a few close friends were allowed to use: Catman, or Cat for short. For the rest of the world he was Ricky, or Mr. Bedell for complete strangers.

  He turned and looked her way, and a large grin stretched his lips, showing off white teeth that sparkled against his dark skin. He kept looking at her and smiling while his hands kept busy fixing drinks, and she waved and smiled back. His friendship had been the cornerstone of her troubled existence for the past ten years, an unlikely friendship that had started on the worst night of her life.

  From a distance, he lifted a burger patty in the air and tilted his head just a little, in an unspoken question. She raised two of her fingers in the air, and his smile widened. Then he showed her the bag of frozen fries, and she nodded vigorously, laughing quietly.

  “You’re too pretty to be sitting alone. What’s your favorite?” a man suddenly asked. She nearly jumped out of her skin, her heart thumping against her chest. While she’d been focused on Cat, someone took the seat next to her, and she hadn’t even noticed.

  Again, Tess chastised herself mercilessly. Again, you let someone creep up on you like that. Wake the hell up!

  She turned and looked at the man who was smiling expectantly at her left, and pulled her jacket to the side enough to show her badge, still hanging on her belt since the prison check-in. The man’s smile froze, and he disappeared without saying another word. She refrained from chuckling. No one wanted to have anything to do with law enforcement. If she had been even remotely interested in dating, she’d be worried.

  Tess looked at Cat again, who was shaking his head humorously. She mouthed, “Sorry,” realizing she’d just scared away one of his paying customers. He shrugged, and seconds later, he set two juicy burgers and a pile of crispy fries in front of her. She started wolfing everything down, too hungry to savor the exquisite flavors. Then she immersed herself into her thoughts, staring at the tall glass in front of her, mixing occasionally the herbs and tiny ice cubes with the two thin straws.

  “What’s on your mind, kiddo?” Cat asked, pulling her back to reality. Strange how his voice never startled her. “Bad case?”

  “Aren’t they all?” she replied, chuckling sadly. “Nah, nothing that bad, not tonight. I’m okay.”

  He scoffed quietly, almost offended, while looking her straight in the eye and challenging her lie.

  “It’s just work, Cat, that’s all,” she confessed. “Not a case, but work overall. I seem to screw up all the time, regardless of how hard I try. My boss… I don’t know what it would take to make that man say I do a good job.”

  Cat pulled a chair over and sat across the counter from her, then popped the cap off a Bud Light and downed a swig.

  “People,” she continued, back at staring at the bottom of her glass, “that’s my problem. I suck at people, and that’s a fact.”

  Cat touched her had gently and smiled tentatively.

  “Cat, why can’t I trust anyone?”

  He put the beer bottle on the counter.

  “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “With my life,” she answered without hesitation. “Since the first day I met you.”

  “Why?” he asked quietly, and waved at a customer who was leaving. “You didn’t know me back then. You didn’t know anything about me.”

  Memories flooded her mind, catching her breath, and welling up her eyes. That night she’d stumbled through his door, barely alive, blood gushing from her wounds, her clothes in shreds, and had collapsed right there, on the dirty barroom floor. He’d asked her if she wanted to call 911, and she’d refused vigorously, so he took care of her himself. When she woke up the next day, her wounds were dressed neatly, and her pain had somewhat subsided, her physical pain anyway. The first thing she saw when she woke up was Cat, dozing off in an armchair near her bed, watching over her. She slept for days in the small apartment above the bar, while his patrons sought liquor elsewhere, finding Media Luna closed, day after day. Until she was ready
to face the world again.

  “I was a rescue mutt,” she eventually said quietly, “who landed on your doorstep about to draw my last breath. You saved me, Cat. I can never thank you enough.”

  “Yes, you can,” he replied gently. “Trust other people, or at least try. Just a little bit, and see what happens. You might find some friends out there. You might find a new life.”

  “Huh,” she whispered, “that’s exactly what he said.”

  “Your boss?”

  “God, no, although he might know by now something’s off about me. Another guy from work, a profiler. He figured out I have PTSD. He called me on it.”

  “I was surprised that didn’t happen sooner, kiddo. These guys, that’s what they do every day. You told me that.”

  “Uh-huh, I know,” she replied, sipping some more of her drink.

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “I could be, you know. I’m surprised he didn’t report me already. Procedures are clear; unmanaged PTSD excludes agents from field duty. He broke the rules for me, and he barely knew me.”

  Cat smiled widely.

  “What do you know… someone broke the rules for you without even knowing you. Gee, I wonder how that could ever happen.”

  She looked at him, confused for a split second, then lowered her head to hide her tearful smile. That awful night ten years ago, when he hadn’t called the cops to report her assault, he had broken the law for her. He’d broken the law, and that had given her a life, a career without shame, without the public stigma of rape marking every day of her existence.

  She kept her eyes riveted on the counter’s shiny surface, speechless.

  “Yes, I’m calling you on it too, Tess. Trust someone tomorrow. Try. Then come on over for a burger and a drink, and let me know how it went. We’ll talk about it.”

  She sat quietly, staring into emptiness, absorbing Cat’s words. He checked to see if anyone else was left in the bar, then switched off the “Open” sign.