Free Husk by Matt Hults

building.
    “ Let’s hear it.”
    “ Well, if you remember, it appeared Mr. Patterson had been struck twice by the vehicle.”
    Melissa nodded in agreement. “The first hit sandwiched him between the garage door and the minivan.”
    “ Which broke his hip, but didn’t have the force to kill him.”
    “ Then the killer backed up, collided with the workbench, and peeled forward again as Mr. Patterson tried to get out of the way.”
    “ Catching him in the torso, ramming him into the door a second time,” Rictor said. “His legs were crushed beneath the van’s oil pan. We had to jack it up to get him out. The thing that troubles me is that it appears he’d been working on the vehicle moments before the attack occurred.”
    “ What are you getting at?” Melissa asked, wary of the doctor’s disconcerted gaze.
    “ Well, once we got him out from under the van, we found the vehicle’s battery beside him.”
    Melissa gazed at the tape outlines that marked the areas where evidence had been collected from the floor and noticed an appropriately sized rectangle less than two feet from the body.
    “ When we looked under the hood, sure enough, it wasn’t there,” Rictor continued. “It seems he’d been working on the air filter’s mounting bracket and needed to remove the battery to get at some of the screws.”
    Melissa’s stare returned to the vehicle. “Are you saying the killer pushed the van into him?”
      Rictor took off his glasses. “With the gearshift in ‘park.’”
    “ Impossible.”
    “ All I can give you are the facts,” he replied. “There was no battery in the vehicle when it hit the man, and that was the only one we found.”
    “ What about fingerprints? Anything on the casing?”
    “ Just Mr. Patterson’s,” Rictor answered. “We’re still checking the house over, but if you’re suggesting the killer brought along his own car battery to carry out this specific act of murder, I’d say you’re stretching it a bit, even for you.”
    Melissa smirked. “Thanks for the input, Doc.”
    Rictor grinned. “I’m going to finish up in the house. If you need anything else, just holler.”
    Melissa waved and gave him her thanks.
    She walked around the garage, pondering what she’d learned of the situation so far: no forced entry in the house, no valuables taken, no fingerprints left behind, no witnesses to the crime. And the only motive appeared to be imitative lunacy, indicated by the letters etched in Mrs. Patterson’s forehead. In the end, it appeared her only hope of identifying the killer hinged on whatever clues the lab techs could harvest from his victims.
    “ Who are you?” she whispered to the empty garage. “And where are you now?”
     
     
    CHAPTER 11
     
    The Andersons’ house.
    The Killer returned shortly before noon and parked in the garage, having spent the night and a good portion of the morning engaged in the tedious labor of covering up last night’s risky venture.
    The gas station explosion forced the Killer to work against the response time of the area’s fire department, but also aided with eliminating certain evidence before police arrived and had a chance to collect it. True, only a handful of people could recognize the significance of Penelope Styles’ death and become alerted to the approaching carnage, but kingdoms had crumbled because of such minor oversights.
    The Killer destroyed each vehicle in a rainstorm of fuel and flame.
    Mutilated all the bodies and cast them into the blaze.
    Due to the rural location of the store, the Killer managed to complete some of the work before the firefighters arrived, but most of it secretly took place in their presence, while they battled the flames. It was a painstaking process, operating covertly, avoiding detection, but essential to maintain anonymity. The Killer’s efforts would be rewarded with time. Proper identification of the victims would now take a matter of days, and the Killer only required one or two to