Chapter 5

Alice had come to realize just how dull a place Atlanta could be without organized crime to keep her attention. Ever since she had broken up that protection racket and had all the crooks in Atlanta turn themselves in to the police, she had been pretty much in the doldrums. It looked like she was going to have to return to concentrating on private citizens for amusement until organized crime could get itself reorganized. She did hope that her telephone would ring pretty soon.

And ring it did. "Good afternoon. David Smith, Investigations. How may we help you?"

"Hello, Mrs. Clark. This is Agent Tom Jones. We have a situation at UGA in Athens. Is Miss Jones available to take on an investigation?"

"Yes, she is. Please hold while I connect you." Alice shifted to her Janet Jones voice and said, "Yes, Agent Jones? How may I help you?"

"This is not actually my case; I am acting for a friend in the Georgia Highway Patrol. It is a case that really needs a woman's insight and I suggested you as a possible source of assistance to them. It is really too delicate to discuss over the telephone. He is in my office right now; could I send him to your office to discuss the matter?"

"Yes, please send him over."

"His name is Col. Jefferson Monroe of the Georgia Highway Patrol and he will be by your office in about 30 minutes."

"Fine, I'll be waiting for him. Good bye."

"Thank you and good bye, Miss Jones."

Alice had done a quick mind scan while Agent Jones was on the phone and determined that the problem at hand involved a serial rapist preying on coeds attending The University of Georgia in Athens. He had no details, so she would have to wait for Col. Monroe to brief her.

Alice went through her usual routine of TPing to the EU house to change to her Janet Jones persona and jumped back to the office to wait for Col. Monroe. She was sitting at Alice's desk when a very distinguished looking man walked in wearing a highway patrol uniform.

Janet stood up and asked, "Col Monroe? I'm Janet Jones. Our regular receptionist has left for a few minutes, so I was covering for her while I waited. Please come into my office."

"Yes, I am Jefferson Monroe. I am pleased to meet you, Miss Jones. Agent Jones has given you a very high recommendation."

"Thank you. Please be seated and tell me how I may help you."

The Colonel blushed and hrumphed a bit, as he tried to force himself to discuss the subject of rape with this pretty young woman. Janet finally said, "Colonel, from your reaction, I can guess that the subject involves rape and you are embarrassed to discuss it with a woman. Please treat me as just another colleague and forget my gender; I assure you that I can take a very professional attitude with the subject."

"Thank you, Miss Jones. You are right, the subject is rape and the details are somewhat sordid. I like to think that I am a sophisticated man of the 1950s, but this modern age still puts some strain on my sensibilities.

"I'll give you a quick outline of the case and we can fill in the details if you decide to help us. By the way, we will pay you your usual consulting rate that you get from the FBI and the city of Atlanta, if that is satisfactory"

"Yes, that would be satisfactory, Col. Monroe. And please call me Janet. It may make it easier to discuss the case."

"Thank you, Janet, and please call me Jeff.

"For the last 11 months, we have been trying to find a rapist and murderer who is preying on young women who are attending UGA in Athens. There have been 13 rapes and murders during that time. We were not initially called in on the investigation because the first 5 bodies were found within the city limits of Athens and it was, therefore, purely a city problem. However, 7 of the last 8 bodies have been found outside the city limits of Athens, and that's when we became involved.

"The rape and murder do not always occur at the same time, according to the medical examiner. There may be as much as 3 to 5 hours between the rape and the murder. Frankly, we don't understand the reason for this delay, since it does not fit the usual pattern of a rapist who also kills his victims.

"As far as we can tell, the perpetrator transports the dead woman to some other place and disposes of her nude body by simply dumping her from his car. There is no particular effort to hide the body, it is simply dumped in an out-of-the-way location and abandoned. We have some tire tracks, but we are not absolutely sure that the tracks are always those of the criminal.

"Can you help us?"

"I am sure that I can. Of course, I will need to see the files on the case before I can start making my contacts and asking for information. When can you make the file available?"

The colonel reached into a bulky briefcase and removed a thick file. "I had hoped that you would agree to help, so I brought a copy of the file with me. I hope you don't find that presumptuous on my part."

"Oh, no, Jeff. I admire your efficiency. I'll start work on the case right away."

"In that case, if you will excuse me, I must return to headquarters to take care of some pressing matters."

"Good day, Jeff. I'll contact you as soon as I have something to report."

"Excellent. Here is my card with my private telephone number. Feel free to use that number, if you think that it is appropriate. Good bye for now."

After Monroe had left, Janet jumped to the EU house and changed back to Alice. She sat at her desk, there, and began to read the file. She skimmed through the technical stuff that she really didn't need and concentrated on the dates and locations when and where the bodies were found. She would use these as reference points to POV for the details she could use.

She also studied the medical reports to see if there was some useful detail she could use. The odd thing to Alice was that the cause of death was always suffocation. This really was unexpected; she had expected a knife or a bullet. A common factor reported by the medical examiner was the presence of a hypodermic needle mark in a vein, usually in the victims arm, but sometimes in the hand or leg.

Alice finally finished reading the files, so she stopped for supper. After supper, she sat with a cup of coffee in her favorite chair and composed herself for an extensive POV search. She somewhat arbitrarily chose the last victim for her first investigation. She jumped her POV to the time and place of the discovery of the body and watched the scene unfold.

The body had been discovered by a boy who was riding his bicycle home from school along a back road he used for a shortcut. He was shocked at his find and rushed home immediately to report to his mother. She called the police and the investigation was routine from there.

She didn't follow that part, but jumped her POV back to the body and then jumped back and forth in time until she found when the body had actually been dumped. This had occurred just after the boy had ridden by on his way to school, at about 8:30 AM. The body had been dumped from a brown 1949 Ford sedan which had stopped only just long enough to deposit the body; it then sped away. She followed the car to a cheesy little basement student apartment near the university. A man got out of the car and went into the apartment where he ate some breakfast and left for a 10:00 AM class.

Alice jumped back in time for that location until she found a young woman wandering in the apartment. She jumped back an hour and the apartment was empty, so she jumped forward in 5-minute intervals until she found the man and the woman entering the apartment. The woman was laughing and hanging on to the man's arm as they entered. Once they were inside, the woman had excused herself to go to the bathroom and then the man had done the same, that's when Alice had first found the woman in the apartment.

The man returned from the bathroom and they went into the bedroom. Both the man and the woman removed all of their clothes and they lay down on the bed. After some rather uninspired foreplay, the man mounted the woman and they coupled until they both orgasmed; obviously, this was not the usual rape, though it looked kind of boring to Alice. They both went to sleep for a while and then they woke up and coupled again.

After they had both orgasmed, the woman asked for her "fix." The man got out of bed and reached under the bed; he pulled out a shoe box which he opened on his dresser. He manipulated some kitchen implements and filled a hypodermic from the contents of a tablespoon. He injected this liquid into the woman's vein and put the implements back in his box, which he put under the bed.

After a very few minutes, the woman dropped into a very deep sleep. The man checked to assure himself that she was fully asleep. He then pinched her nose closed and covered her mouth with his other hand. She put up a minimal struggle and then her body completely relaxed and lost all muscle tone. Alice attempted a mind scan, but the woman was dead. The man set his alarm clock and lay down and went to sleep beside the woman's corpse.

The man woke up when the alarm went off, showered, and got dressed. He checked outside to be sure that he would not be seen, and got the corpse from the bed and put it on the passenger seat of his car. He drove off and Alice stopped following him. She had seen all of this part of the crime she was interested in.

Alice wanted to know the relationship between the man and the woman and how she came to accompany him to his apartment the night before. Did she know him, or was this a chance meeting for the first time? Alice could discover that by jumping back in time and following the man as he met the woman.

Alice realized that she could follow the man more easily if she knew his name; besides, she had to know eventually so that she could identify him to the police. Therefore, she decided to search his apartment; his name had be written there, somewhere. It took longer than she expected, but she finally found his name: Wilbur Rogers, though he preferred to be called Will.

Alice jumped to the moment when Rogers and his victim entered his apartment and jumped back from there, in short intervals at first, to find their meeting that night. They met in a local honky-tonk (the owner preferred to call it a small restaurant with character) that night; Rogers spotted three young women sitting to themselves at a table away from the dance floor. He walked over and introduced himself and asked if he could sit down. They assented and Rogers bought them all a beer.