Page 8 of Broken Hearts

4

Agent Jason West

“Police reports,in conjunction with statements from the FBI, have confirmed that the latest body to surface in the Monongahela is in fact a victim of the serial murderer known as the Heartbreaker. While the body bore none of the usual torture markings, and the victim was only reported missing for two days, the heart was removed in the same method as previous victims. Investigators are also said to have found a link between the victim and a previous victim. No details of this have been released yet, and there are still no leads on the identity of the killer. This latest victim is yet to be named to the public, but he was the tenth known Heartbreaker victim, after the recent discovery of the ninth, confirmed as Paul Halston, who was found under the Commercial St. Bridge a month and a half ago. Police ask the Pittsburgh public to be vigilant and report any unusual or suspect behavior in their area immediately. Back to you, Jane.”

I turned down the radio and stepped on the gas pedal as the light turned green. The field office had been in uproar over the last day, even more so than usual, now that two bodies had surfaced in the space of six weeks, both linked to the Heartbreaker. The killer seemed to be escalating, and his MO had changed quite drastically.

The latest victim, Dan Vallone, hadn’t been kept captive for weeks as the other previous ones were, and the coroner had informed us that his heart was removed post-mortem. In almost all of the previous victims, the heart was removed while they were still alive. Also, Vallone wasn’t tortured like the rest, aside from a patch of skin on his left upper arm which had been flayed off, and this made us think one of two things was likely going on.

Firstly, it could’ve been as simple as this: the Heartbreaker was somehow disturbed in his activity and was unable to keep Vallone as long as he usually would, meaning he had to kill and dispose of him much quicker than his previous targets.

The second option was a copycat killer, but that theory was ruled out almost immediately when it was discovered that Vallone had links to aprevious victim. He was once employed by Paul Halston, the ninth man killed by the Heartbreaker. Still, no one had any idea as to why both men were targeted.

I had my own personal theories regarding the killer, though no one really seemed to think they held any weight.

I was particularly interested in the removed patch of skin on Vallone’s right arm. With all the previous victims, that exact part of their left arm had been skinned or obliterated with stab wounds, or simply had the entire chunk of flesh removed. Usually it wasn’t that noticeable, as most of them had many, many other small pieces of flesh or bone removed, drilled into, or burned off during torture, but it struck me as odd that the killer targeted that particular spot on all of them. I’d never, ever believed in coincidences, and it annoyed the hell out of me that so many of my colleagues brushed it off as nothing but that.

Even the first victim, John Riley, who’d been killed in a frenzied attack—before the Heartbreaker had developed his usual MO—had that particular patch on his arm destroyed by multiple stab wounds. Although to be fair, there wasn’t much of him that wasn’t covered in knife wounds.

I’d gone through and read the reports on his death, and at the time, his young daughter—Celeste Riley—gave a statement about a tiny tattoo he had on that part of his arm. She said he once told her it was a remnant from the past, something he got in college as a joke. Anne Riley didn’t even seem to know that he had it; she claimed she never spotted it.

Other victim’s wives or partners didn’t seem to remember their men having any tattoos, either, though all of them said the same thing—if it was that small and on the innermost part of the triceps, they probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway. Hardly any of the victims had close, loving relationships, even with their wives, and one of the wives even stated that she barely remembered what her husband looked like naked, let alone what his inner arms looked like.

As such, nothing had ever really come from pursuing that angle, but I now firmly believed there was something there after mentally going down the rabbit hole. I believed each victim probably had a small, mostly-hidden tattoo which linked them all with some sort of social club or organization which required a tattoo for membership. However, I had no idea what it was, and therefore no leads on who might want them all dead. None of the people related to the previous victims had been able to tell me anything about them being involved in anything other than their work and regular social clubs. So if I was right, and this group existed, they were highly secretive.

It made me wonder if Celeste Riley knew more than she let on all those weeks ago, when she sat in on that profiler meeting. Even if she didn’t actually know that she knew something useful, the information could be secretly stored somewhere in that head of hers. She said she thought the victims were all linked by something other than what the current profile stated, and she was practically laughed out of the room by Foley and the others. I agreed with her now, though. There was something else going on, and since the recovery of the most recent body, a hunch told me it probably had something to do with John Riley’s tattoo.

I tapped my hands on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for another light.

Today’s work assignment for me was much the same as usual—interviewing the friends and families of previous Heartbreaker victims to see if any new information came up. I was on my way to see the widowed wife of the fifth victim, a woman in her early fifties named Paula Halloran. Her husband had been a successful attorney before his death at the hands of our city’s infamous serial killer several years ago.

I was still hunting for Celeste too, but I had about as many leads for her right now as we did for the Heartbreaker. The girl had simply vanished. There were no track marks from the Fox Chapel property which could tell us where she’d gone—or been taken—and sniffer dogs lost her scent on the property. All we could narrow it down to was a vague time, as an old neighbor of hers named Bill Francis had been expecting her for coffee at three p.m., only she never showed up. At the time, the neighbor assumed she simply forgot, but when he eventually found out she was actually missing, he came forward with that particular information.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled up at the white Sewickley Heights mansion owned by the Halloran family. Paula was expecting me, and she let me in graciously and offered me a drink.

“Coffee would be great,” I said with an agreeable nod.

She held up two fingers to her housekeeper, a petite brunette, then smiled at me. “I know why you’re here, Agent West, but I really don’t know what I can tell you now that I didn’t already tell the police and other agents five years ago.”

“I understand, Ms. Halloran, but we—”

“Paula, please,” she said, flipping her perfectly-styled bottle blonde hair over her shoulder.

I gave her a tight smile. “Paula. We’re reviewing all our past statements and hoping someone gives us something they may have forgotten back then. You know, sometimes we forget certain details or omit particular things that we think won’t be relevant or useful, but we remember them years later, when we’re able to view things more objectively. It’s funny how the mind works.”

“I see.” She nodded, then smiled at her housekeeper, who was setting down our coffees on the table before us. “So you’re hoping I’ll remember something I didn’t say back then. When… it… happened.”

“That’s right. Now, in your original statement….”

We spent the next hour going over her previous statements along with the missing person report she filed for her husband when he failed to return home from work one evening.

Nothing new was volunteered until I brought up my own theory. “Paula, was your husband involved in any sort of social clubs?”

“I was already asked this years ago as well,” she said with a sniff. “I told them then, we were members of the Country Club. He played golf and tennis. That’s all.”

I leaned forward. “Sorry, let me be clearer. Were you aware of him being involved in any sort of secret organization? Something he may have confided only in you?”

Her eyebrows drew together. “A secret organization? What, like Skull and Bones?” She laughed at that.

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