Murder by the Light of the Moon: The Midnight Massacres

Murder by the Light of the Moon:

  The Midnight Massacres

  by

  Gary W. Hancock

  Copyright Gary W. Hancock 2017

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  Washington D.C.

  It was a dark and stormy night... just kidding. I started out as a reporter but at the age of forty I found that I could get paid more as a book writer. I have written over fifteen novels featuring notable people of the Twenty First Century and it was during research into one of these that the following story of horror and mystery was stumbled upon by yours truly. I am not a person given to flights of imagination into the mystical and weird. Mister plain vanilla is what the ex-girlfriend called me. I didn't know exactly how she meant it.

  I was in downtown Washington D.C. getting a very early Breakfast at "Bud and Pop's" when I notice the commotion outside. People were running from East of the shop shouting something about terrorist and shooting. The Capitol has been on the edge for the last ten years or so and any gang-bang or car jacking was called a terrorist attack. I slapped down a ten to pay for the five dollar breakfast and coffee then I stuck my nose right out into the fray.

  Sure enough there were black Chevy SUVs, the favorites of all the Alphabet agencies, racing up and down the street. I spotted a nice looking twenty something year old in a white shirt and black suit that just screamed Federal Bureau of Investigation. I got on her six and followed up the street to Connecticut Avenue and across to the east side of the road. I would have to lie if I didn't say that the view from her six was visually pleasing. We were in front of Brooks Brothers and she was so intent on her destination that she hadn't notice me. She kept on toward St. Matthew and turned in front of the Cathedral and stopped at the Washington Sports Clubs. There were bodies all over the plaza or so it seemed to me. I let out a loud gulp which caused her to turn and look at me for the first time. There was puzzlement on her face.

  All of a sudden, I was looking down the bore of a Taurus forty four. I had done some research on the private security for a certain "famous for being famous" personality and one of them carried the little gun with the big magnum bite. The snub nose revolver looked like the old detective gun you see on the black and white movies of the forties. Except this one was made of titanium. Even at its diminutive size, it looked way to big for such a tiny woman. The agent glared and asked in a loud angry voice. "Just who the hell are you". I cringed a little and held up my press card and replied "Frank McCulloch". She told me to stay behind her till the area was secured. That was no problem for me. I wasn't armed and dead bodies in real life always scare the crap out of me.

  I looked and there were six people on the ground. Two looked like females and the rest were males, I think. The corpses had arms and legs that were bent at unnatural angles and they had been beat in the face and body till blood poured out on the ground. All of them were lying on their stomachs. My breakfast was doing flips inside of me and I was determined that no young lady was going to see me throw up. I slipped out a notepad that I keep for jotting down story ideas and without saying anything to attract the FBI's attention, I started documenting the injuries that I could see. I drew a little map of the small plaza and the position of each victim and a note beside each body telling what the injuries look to be. While I was doing this my agent, I was beginning to think of her as mine, went and knelt beside each body and placed fingers against the throat to see if there was a pulse. Man I thought there is no way any of these are still in this plane of existence. When she bent over the second woman, she jerk straight up and yelled, "This one is still alive".

  The ambulance came around the corner into the opening between the buildings and this was the first time I noticed that the plaza wasn't visible from the street until you were directly behind it. People would not have seen the carnage until the employees arrived for work. Who knew how long they had been on the ground before discovery. The woman was loaded into the vehicle and it left with sirens wailing and lights flashing. The officers were now getting down to the procedure of taping off the area and waiting for the morgue workers to arrive. I started walking backwards trying to slip away from the crime scene. The suited young lady spotted me and I knew I was going on a trip to her office. Oh well, the only thing I had scheduled for today was a journey into the past at the John Hopkins University. I was writing a historical account of the life of John Allen Astin, one of their notable alumni. His wife Patty Duke and their son Sean (the hobbit) Astin were the subject of many books and stories, so I thought I would tell it through the eyes of the husband/father. I could smell a much better story in the making here and now. My main question was just how to infiltrate the detectives?

  She sat me at one of the desk, at least they didn't put me into the interrogation room. I casually asked one of the guys that passed by the name of the agent that had escorted me in. I was then told that it was Agent Margaret Crawford. The name immediately rang a very loud bell in my head. This was the famous catcher of the " Cross State Cross Dresser Killer" and had been on the trail of the "Twin Killer" when the criminal just disappeared off the face of the Earth. Her and her husband John had led a chase from one side of the U.S. to the other. They didn't catch the killer but no other twin killings had shown up in the last eighteen months. Most believe T.K. , as they started calling the monster, is dead or in jail for some other crime.

  I sat back in the chair and thought to myself, "This is my way to the biggest story of my career and I was going to pull in every favor owed to me to get access to her. Agent Crawford you are about to be my Muse."

  I have always been a very savvy reporter who always looked to build up contacts and exploit them for my own gain. A lucky incidental side story on what I was covering at the time led me to a story involving the current Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit and a certain famous lady of the Capital City. I had advised him of the fact before it was made public news. He appreciated my heads up and was able to get in front and make a statement that completely turned the story around. This was Ms. Crawford's boss and I approached him to find out if he could help me. I told him that some good publicity would really help his agency, as a lot of bad news had been coming out about all the LEOs in Washington. I made the joke it would be just like the TV show Castle. He bought it.

  To say that Agent Crawford wasn't happy would be the understatement of the century. She gave me the ole evil eye as she said, yes sir and no sir, to her boss. I just said, "you lead, me follow". The first place on the agenda was to the morgue and the lovely Dr. Harriett Jones. As much as Margaret was petite and cute, Harriett was bigger than life. She looked like an Amazon. The six foot two woman with raven black hair and a figure like a comic book heroine, got your initial attention because of her striking beauty. But you i
mmediately forgot all that when she started talking. This was one smart woman. I would never try to play any board games with her for she would defeat me a hundred to zero. I thought to myself, "Gorgeous and smart, be still my heart."

  The standard questions were asked and the answers left a lot unanswered. They had all been killed between eleven and one at night. The lady, that was alive when we got to the scene, had been on the ground for over eight hours. That was one tough bird. Some people can get a splinter in their hands and die, and some can be shot by a dozen bullets from a machine gun and live. The manner of the deaths were all the same. The limbs were torn almost off the bodies and blows to the torso and face cause them to bleed out. What an agonizing way to go. Ms. Jones wasn't able to determine how this trauma was accomplished exactly. It could have been mechanical or physical, but either way it took a huge amount of force to separate the tendons and muscles. She also said that trace amount of an anesthetic gas was found in the blood work. I thanked the pretty Doctor for her letting me sit in and we left to go back to the office.

  The next step was a meeting of all the unit's personnel to share the information each had gathered. "We" gave the autopsy report and the rest of the gang stared at me while it was being read. I thought the best thing was to not actually say anything, so I just listened. The rest didn't have much to add and the victims were still being identified. Our only witness to the holocaust was still unresponsive in the hospital, but at least she was in a stable guarded condition. The doctors said that she had a dislocated left shoulder, a twisted ankle and two broke ribs. She should recover in a few months at least the physical part. Mentally, that was to be seen. The doctor said that it would be a blessing if she didn't remember the incident. The detectives and I were hoping just the opposite.

  Agent Crawford motioned for me to follow her again. Back at her desk, she got on the computer and started looking up similar crimes. The only group of people that were mutilated with limbs twisted and torn was back in 1906. It was in San Francisco and the great Earthquake was blamed for the mutilation. It seemed a real stretch in my opinion, which I kept to myself.

  I need to know more about my Agent so later I did some research on her and she had three or four belts in different martial arts and no one at the academy had been able to beat her except for one of the instructors. She also was a deadly sniper but was only average with the pistols. I guess that is why she carries than hand cannon of hers. You wouldn’t have to get a bulls eye with that thing, just anywhere on the body would knock the crook back fifty feet. She was an all around terror to the criminals that she came up against.

  As the days passed we did the dull inspection of all the leads that came in and it was starting to get on my nerves. Noticing my uneasiness, Margaret told me that this was how most of her days were, until that clue shines through the dust and darkness. That was her true skill, the finding of the needle in the haystack of facts. The first of these needles of truth was about to be found, the survivor had regain consciousness.

  As the initial agent on the scene, she was given the first try at the woman in the hospital. Are you warm? Would you like a cigarette? Have they treated you well? These were the first standard questions to get the interview open on a friendly basis. Then it was time to gather personal information. What is your name, made the victim pause and think for a little. "I think it is Betty", was the reply. And your last name, this was met with a longer pause and the answer was a very shaky and uncertain, "Lofton. Yes that sounds right Betty Lofton." I couldn't tell if she was just mentally unstable or lying.

  The rest of the questions were met with an I don't remember answer right up to the main one. "What were you doing behind the Washington Sports Clubs?" She informed us that she did not know where that was. The last thing she remembered was leaving the Charity event at the Smithsonian. There was a pause and a puzzled look came on her face and then all of a sudden she asked, "Where was my new gown I bought it just for that party". "Indeed" I thought, she was found on the ground with only her bra and panties. Come to think of it, none of the others had their outer apparel. They were all clad in just underwear. Crawford showed her pictures of the others from the killing ground. I noticed that someone had photo shopped the blood and cuts from the faces in the pictures. Only one of them she recognized. It was her husband. The others were complete strangers to her. The doctor came in and informed us that was enough for today.

  We were using one of those black Chevys and we were moving down the avenue toward the White House area, I asked, "Did the others all attend the Charity event." I had her kind of trapped beside me for the first time and she let go a small exhale of breath, "Yes all were there, but as far as we can tell, they all left separately". I digested this for a minute and said, "I guess the main questions are how did they all manage to be murdered and transported to the same dump point. and why were they chosen." All she did was touch her index finger to the tip of that cute little nose of hers. I had asked the right questions and shown I was paying attention.

  We gathered in front of the "Murder Board" to put all the victims and the details that had been gathered in one place. This usually results in a revelation of some type, but not today. There was a couple of high society types, a pair that owned a BBQ restaurant and a member of the national orchestra. What a mix.

  Betty and Frank Lofton were well known around town as a couple that had made a fortune in the DotCom bubble of the 90s and had sold out before it popped. Now they just spent the millions on various charities and loving the reputation it provided them. "Social butterflies to the max", I thought. The event of last night was just one of the big buck parties they just loved to attend. "Save the Grey Wolf", I thought, "Yeah the people attending the gala were mostly their cousins the 'Wall Street Wolves'."

  Nancy Lee was the first chair French Horn in the National Symphony and her looks was why she was at the Gala. The head of the orchestra had sent her to schmooze the crowd and drop hints about the upcoming benefactor party for the Symphony. Poor girl never imagined that something as innocent as a museum party would be the end of her young life.

  Ralph and Al were attending for the public relations aspect as it reflected on their business. All the restaurant chains had been targeted by the various animal rights groups especially the ones whose main dish was meat. They thought that showing support for one of the wild animal charities would placate some of the radical people. Getting the right people to speak for them could stave off a protest at their establishment. It turned out that they were on the endangered list without knowing it. What a assorted lists of victims, I couldn't see a link except for them all being at the same place at the same time.

  Two days later, Betty had recovered enough to tell what she remembered of the night. "It was just before Midnight when we finally left the party. The moon was shining so bright that I told Frank, "Let's walk down to The Ronald Regan Parking building where we had left the Mercedes". Frank had one of the few carry permits legal in D.C. and was fearless. I knew that I was safe in his company as we left the crowd behind us. I don't remember anything else till I woke up in the hospital with my shoulder almost torn off and my poor Frank no longer there to protect me."

  Using the only new information we had got, the parking structure was thoroughly searched. A shoe that was identified by Nancy Lee's parents as belonging to her was found on the second level against the inside rail. It was half hidden by a long term parked car of a Senator that was out of the country and had been for the last three weeks. It must have been kicked off as she was abducted and lost in the shadows of the night. Ralph and Al's delivery van was discovered parked on the forth floor. They must have driven over together. We had where the victims were taken but nothing else discovered. There was the who and where but still not a why insight.

  As the days turned into weeks, I watched a very confident woman slowly drift down into a depression due to the inaction. I had gain a good bit of camaraderie with her, but she was hiding something and it
wasn't about the case. It was weighing on her soul and if she didn't relieve herself of it, that super agent, that I was counting on, just might not appear.

  It was exactly twenty nine days from the Washington murders when the next group of bodies was discovered. This time they were in New York City. A mounted policeman had come across them in Central Park. There were five, all female, in the same state of undress and savage mutilation. It takes a little less than four hours to drive to New York and that was faster than taking a commercial flight with all the waiting at the airport and the traffic into the city. With the lights on or as the London bobbies say, "The blues and twos" we made it in three. One advantage of taking the vans was that all the equipment is loaded for immediate use and one does not have to borrow from the locals.

  The scene was as horrific as the first, and I for one was glad I hadn't eaten since we left Washington. I watched the experts bag and tag all the evidence. Margaret pulled her smart phone out and looked at the screen. I couldn't see what she was looking at, but it came clear it was a astronomical calendar because suddenly she said out loud, "Full moons." I looked at her and said, "I think you're right. Now we need to know why he chose these people." Then as if we were twins we both said at the same time, "Let's get their histories and compare to the others and look for that link."