Free With Silent Screams by Steve McHugh Page A

his—along with the other victims—flesh. He also has cuts and burns all over his legs and genitals. I’ve seen that type of torture before, in Germany. A man talks pretty fast when you start putting out cigarettes on his cock. And apart from his wounds, he hadn’t eaten much prior to his death; in fact, it had been a few days since his last meal. There were no alcohol or drugs in his system.” He picked up the arm beside him and showed me the victim’s wrist. “It wasn’t tied up recently, but at some point someone had been. These marks are from struggling. They’re all over the other wrist too. It’s the same for all four victims.”
    “So they tortured and killed these people for kicks, or revenge, or because they wanted something from them,” I said more to myself than to anyone in the room. “Anything out of the ordinary, something weird in all four bodies?”
    “No, unfortunately not. However, apart from the severe beatings and torture, all three of them do share a common wound.” Doctor Pierce motioned for Bill to help him roll the body onto his side, showing me the gaping hole, about the size of my closed fist, on the back of his shoulder. “There’s an identical one in the other man and the older of the two women we found.”
    “And the fourth victim, the young woman, I assume that’s Sally-Ann?”
    Doctor Pierce nodded. “She’s the odd one out. There are still some beating marks, but they were done after she died. And they were from someone’s booted foot.”
    “Someone kicked her in anger after they killed her.”
    “I wouldn’t like to say if it was done in anger or not, but the rest of what you say is correct.”
    “So, what was cut out of them?” Bill asked.
    “I have no idea,” Doctor Pierce said. “But from the size and depth of wound, I’d say they were either removing something from inside them, or there was something on them that they needed and weren’t too concerned about how much flesh they took to do it. They were also inflicted postmortem.”
    “A tattoo?” I asked.
    “It’s possible. Although they could have taken a lot less flesh if they were just removing one. Oh, one final thing, the knife to do this was incredibly sharp. There’s no hacking or sawing, it’s was just gouged out.”
    “How was the girl, Sally-Ann, killed?”
    “Throat was cut, one slice across the carotid artery. She bled out in minutes at most. She would have been unconscious i n seconds.”
    “So her death and the way her body was treated after death was different?” Bill said. “Could be someone using the other murders as a way to hide the body.”
    “That’s also possible,” I said. “But something tells me otherwise. I think she was a mistake. She didn’t fit with the usual victims for some reason and they had to kill her anyway.”
    “All I can say,” Pierce said as he and Bill lowered the body back onto the metal table, “is that I hope you find those responsible very soon. I don’t want to keep seeing the young men and women of this state end up on my tables.”

CHAPTER 8
    A fter the morgue, Bill drove us both up toward to where the body of Sally-Ann had been found, just inside the forest that surrounded Mount Bigalow. We didn’t talk on the journey, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, merely the silence of two people who had bigger things to think about than small talk.
    Bill pulled his Ford Bronco over to the side of the road and switched off the engine.
    “They found her just up there,” he said and pointed toward a slight hill before opening the door and stepping out into the cold.
    I quickly followed. The air was jarring, but the wind would have been much worse if not for the protection of the dense forest that towered on both sides of the road. A few dozen cars passed us by as I followed Bill to the top of the hill. We stopped there and looked down a steep fifteen-foot bank. I was amazed that anyone had seen Sally-Ann’s body.
    “She was dropped here and pushed down