The Ashen Horse

“It has become a national issue, Josie,” commented Tim. Timmy Burkman, senior detective for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, preferred to be called Tim. This steaming pile of excrement had fallen on his plate, and although he didn’t want to get anywhere near it. He had to defend the company line to Josie, a lieutenant in the Salt Lake City Police Department.

“I assure you, Josie. I don’t want to deal with this, at all. However, the higher-ups have dictated that this will now be a national investigation. I don’t know what everyone knows yet, but there’s evidence that at least three or four of these murders are tied together. I was supposed to be going on vacation next week Josie. Vacation. Do you know how long it has been since I was on a vacation?” The exasperation was clear in his voice, and a hint of desperation was prominent. This was a man that was not far from entirely losing it.

“I know the situation you’re in Tim, but this is my case. The FBI doesn’t get to just swoop in here and take it. I knew the victim Tim, and he will get justice.” Josie Flakes wasn’t a pushover, she wasn’t having the FBI pee in her pond, this was her jurisdiction. “I’m entirely willing to corporate here Tim, I’ll feed the FBI every ounce of information we churn up. But we will be investigating. Fully.”

“It sounds like you should recourse yourself Jose, that’s what it sounds like. You are too close to this. But I’ll tell you what Josie. I don’t have the energy; I just don’t have it. So, you get to do whatever you want, I’m not going to get in your way.” He could actually hear her smile over the telephone at that. Little did she know what this meant. “You might think this is free reign, but it’s not. It means I’m staying out of it. But here is the catch, if you ruffle the feathers of the system, and it escalates to leadership beyond me in the FBI or beyond you in the SLC PD….” He let the silence hang in the receiver for a couple seconds. “If it escalates, they’ll just fire you. Last I heard your team doesn’t mess around with this, and I can assure you the FBI doesn’t.”

He truly was getting to old for the politics. And he wasn’t that old, but did they ever wear a guy down. “My responsibility was to tell you to back off, step down, and turn over your investigation. I’ve delivered that, I’m going to write a memo explicitly saying that, and I’m CCing you, and your boss, on it. After that, you do whatever you want. But the beauty here is you deal with the consequences.” She wasn’t going to listen, and fact she would be a total pain in the ass for the coming months. He could tell that this was going to be a very unhealthy working relationship.

“You do what you have to do Timmy. I’m going to do what I have to do.”

“Exactly Josie, exactly. My hands are washed of it. I’ll have some guys swinging by your office next week for any relevant files. I’m positive, you and the team will show them every courtesy.”

“Consider it done, we have most of them ready already if you’d prefer them electronically. Utah has been working on a national crime database. You fibbies should have access, you’d think. Maybe the team isn’t up to date?”

That final stab was enough, he was done with her for at least today. “Thanks Josie, we’ll look into it.” And with that effective conclusion he angrily tapped the ‘end’ button on his smartphone. He didn’t really like smartphones. There was just no way you could appropriately slam down a phone anymore, and that was a call that desperately needed a proper vicious hang-up.

He had the pleasure to forget about the case for a couple days while his team built up all the files and started connecting the dots. The serial killer was a busy one, they had five cases which were awfully similar and suspicious. All the victims had been powerful men or women in the upper echelons of society. Many of them suspected of crimes themselves. The serial killer almost appeared to be a vigilante. But where was he getting his information?

The killer wasn’t that creative though, or perhaps he was ultra-creative. They could track most of the cases and tie them together because the victims for the five cases were all decapitate with a sword. And they were all done in the last six months. Sword deaths weren’t that common, it stood out in every investigation. That was the primary running theory on why these cases were the same serial killer. Decapitated victims, by a sword.

Initial forensic evidence was hinting that it could in fact be the same sword. Tim Burkman desperately wanted that proof on the table, that would change the whole game. He spent half the previous day hounding the medical examiners and lab rats, trying to get them to solidify that it was, in fact, the same sword at multiple crime scenes. The cowards hadn’t committed yet. They kept going on and on about more tests and examinations to perform to lock it in. Tim’s frustrations went higher, along with his blood pressure.

Right now, they were running on idly suspicions and coincidence. That wasn’t the way to run a case. He needed the facts to line up and be able to tie these cases together or kick them back to their local jurisdictions.

After yesterday the frustration was running high for the entire team, but he had assembled his small task force together in a room to go over the merit of the current evidence. “What do we have that’s really concrete here guys?”

“Ashen uses a sword, we know that, if nothing else,” commented Josh.

“You guys really need to stop calling him Ashen. We don’t even know yet if we can tie all these cases together. The guy already has a serial killer nickname and we haven’t even confirmed it’s the same guy.”

Ellie was leaning against the door frame as she often did, never wanting to fully commit into the situation, and always having one toe ready to blitz away from any conversation. “Come on Tim, we know it’s the same killer. The bodies are decapitated with a sword. There’s not a gang of ninjas roaming around America loping off heads, this is definitely one guy. One guy with a sword fetish.”

“Many of the victims also have other wounds, wounds with smaller knives mostly. The medical guys haven’t identified what are causing those. They comment on strange angels with the blades. Not normal stabbing wounds. That makes no sense yet though, but Tracy will get to the bottom of that. She always closes the medical loopholes given enough time.”

“We also know that there is a commonality in the victims as well,” Josh said. He never minced words but also was routinely the guy that said the obvious thing. Although Tim appreciated Josh for it, sometimes the obvious things were the most overlooked things.

“That’s true Josh”, piped up Ellie. “We see a vendetta almost being played out with all the victims. Most of them were under a haze of suspicion of crimes. A couple of them are senior ups in various financial dealings, others are notoriously shady businessmen. Bottom line, every single one of these victims, if we should even call them that, had enemies. Lots of enemies.”

Tim scratched his head and looked up at the ceiling. Eyes closed, and really hoping the day could just be over, he asked the question he knew there was no answer for. “But are any of the victims, and we should call them that, associated or tied together though?”

“Nope, not a lick, anywhere. We got all their financial records, dates, receipts. Nothing. Only two of them had even crossed into the same cities in the last year. The rest of them are completely isolated and probably didn’t even know about the existence of any of the other victims.” Josh annunciated the last word, just to make sure he was poking the leader of the task force just enough.

“Got it. So, we got nothing except a loose tie between the victims, but we don’t know how or why. We don’t know what. All we got is a loose tie that they are related because the weapon appears to be the same.”

“It is the same, it’s a three-foot, deftly balanced katana. Incredibly sharp as the cuts show that pressure is aggressively applied, but it is still slicing effectively and cleanly. At least four of these five cases are tied to that same sword. At least as far as my own investigation shows. But I’ve shared all my conclusions and reasoning with the team, I’m sure they’ll get all of this into an effective report soon.”

“Didn’t take you for a medieval sword master Josh.”

“It’s a side hobby. You guys really should check out the Renaissance Faire this year, we always need volunteers.”

The meeting had been going for the last several hours and not much was getting accomplished. They broke it up shortly and each of them went off to their own desks to start combing through a mountain of more files. They were all dedicated to ‘The Ashen Horse Case’, as it had started appearing officially in memos. But they all still had case work that they hadn’t completely finished or put aside yet, which clocked up at least a third of their week. It was rapidly turning into weeks.

Ellie, walking over to his desk with a file, “Tim, you might want to look at this. It looks like they think they might have gotten a photo of Ash.”

“What? How is this the first we are hearing of this?” exclaimed Tim. How was it possible after two weeks and they were just getting this now?

“Calm down, we just got it earlier today. Beside it doesn’t show anything at all. Just a cloaked figure in black, nothing to go on here at all really. Weird clothes though. I mean we joked about ninjas but, these clothes, strange. This image is grainy as hell though, doesn’t show us much. Captured from either an ATM or street cam, I can’t even get those details right yet.”

“Let’s see it Ellie. Huh, it is grainy, this would barely hold up in….” The phone on Tim’s desk interrupted him as it rang. That was strange, everyone he knew always called him on the cell. Well, son-of-a-goat, that meant it was something official, he better pick it up. “Hang on Ellie.”

Ellie, glancing to the door, just making sure it was still where she left it, estimated her time to exit the room. Then she stared at him on the phone, waiting. Nothing to do in these situations but stare, and wait, and fidget.

Tim said, “Yes Sir,” at least twice in there. Apparently, he was talking to one of his superiors. Sounded a bit serious, this was all business. Tim wasn’t giving any details so it must be funneling information only one way. The senior people were always wanting and asking for progress, strange the conversation was all one-sided.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. We’ll make arrangements, we’ll be in touch.” Tim finished the call with a last, “thank you”, and set down the receiver.

“Anything up?”, asked Elle.

“Yeh. Atlanta. All three of us are booking tickets to Atlanta. There’s been another murder, and they suspect it’s the same killer.”

“Tim, you really need to start calling him by his name. The Ashen Horse, Ashen, or Ash. ‘Killer’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Tim’s face was quite blank as he looked at her. “You know I was supposed to be on vacation for the last two weeks? You know, that right?”

Ellie laughed, “Boss, we really need to get you a girlfriend. Someone needs to work this tension out of you.”

“You’re probably right.” He said sighing. “Look, we leave tomorrow morning, let’s all take the rest of the day to get around and ready. I’ll see you all at the gate tomorrow.”