Prologue
As a ten year veteran of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, Rhonda Banks was accustomed to, but not desensitized
by the amount of death she was exposed to in the field as a special agent. There she stood on the edge of a grassy marsh
in Middleburg, Florida. The weather was
muggy, but not near the unbearable extremes one can come to experience at the
end of a summer in North Florida. Yet
another corpse lay before Rhonda. The decomposition
of the dead body was obviously advanced by the humidity of the First Coast
Region. Rhonda stood in silence for a
moment. The initial phases of a murder
investigation always put her in a tantric trance. Even at this early stage, she could sense
that this case would be of the atypical variety. Her partner Gary Black’s sudden and curt
remark snapped Rhonda out of her mesmeric daze.
“This
is a new one for me, a disemboweled gimp in a swamp with a severed penis,” Gary
said. “Damn, Agent Banks, it smells like
day-old cabbage stewed with rancid roadkill out here.”
“I
won’t ask how you know what that smells like, Agent Black,” Rhonda commented.
Gary
and Rhonda worked closely as partners for five years. Gary was strapping and brawny man with a
thick southern drawl. He was raised in
Moultrie, a small rural town in Georgia.
His humble upbringing on a farm was a stark contrast to the way Rhonda
was raised. She got used to that ephemeral
and transplanting lifestyle that came along with being in a military
family. She couldn’t count how many
times she was uprooted and had to pack up to move when her father was transferred
to another Naval Base. More times than
not, they were coastal cities, so Rhonda grew up loving the beach. Still, the country boy Gary and the beach
girl Rhonda, although and odd pair, worked well and as a cohesive investigational
unit. They got on each other’s nerves
and clashed on occasion, but they truly trusted and respected one another.
The
crime scene in Middleburg was cordoned off.
It was a muddy and wooded area not far from the northern flowing St.
John’s River south of Jacksonville off US Highway 17. The Clay County Sherriff’s Office, the local
authorities, alerted the FBI. Gary and
Rhonda weren’t too far away in Daytona Beach investigating a high profile
missing person’s case, so they were immediately summoned to the crime
scene. A week prior, Blake Adams, the
eldest son of a prominent US Congressman named Bill Adams from Miami, vanished
without a trace. Blake had travel led to
Jacksonville to attend the first road game of the Miami Dolphins’ 2014 NFL
season versus the Jaguars at Ever Bank Stadium.
Bill happened to also be in town at the time accompanying his wife Linda
Adams, a published and renowned self-help author that had a scheduled speaking
arrangement at a conference at the Morocco Shrine Auditorium in downtown
Jacksonville. Reportedly, Blake hade
made his way to Daytona after the football game to celebrate the Dolphins’
thrilling overtime victory over the Jaguars with some of the players he was acquainted
with. Blake was last seen leaving an
upscale gentlemen’s club called Emperors’ off the strip in Daytona Beach with
an unidentified woman.
Back
in Middleburg, Agent Banks and Agent Black surveyed the area with local cops
and crime scene technicians. They
examined the dead body which was dressed up in a full-body leather BDSM gimp
suit, complete with mask and ball-gag strapped in his mouth. A large gash in his abdomen exposed his
intestines. The ankles were bound with
chains, and the wrists were handcuffed behind his back. There was a lot of blood, but it wasn’t
immediately evident whether or not part of the attack occurred on the scene, or
elsewhere, or if the man was assaulted, gutted, and dumped alive to bleed out.
“Can
somebody please remove that ball-gag from his mouth and take off that mask?”
Rhonda asked.
One
of the CSI’s obliged Rhonda’s request, then Gary said, “Holy honeycombs! That’s our guy. That’s Blake Adams.”
This
is was no longer a missing person’s case for Rhonda and Gary. It was a homicide, and a gory one at
that. The overkill was evident.
“Who
discovered the body?” Rhonda asked.
One
of the police officers answered, “A man was walking his dog on a nearby trail
when his dog got loose from the leash and ran into the woods. The man gave chase then stumbled across this. He phoned us right away.”
“Where
is this man now?” Rhonda asked.
“Right
over there,” the cop pointed.
“Officer,
we are gonna need you to escort that man to the station to get a detailed
statement from him,” Gary said. “Have
your people finish securing the scene and take as many pictures as
possible. Collect and document as much
trace evidence as you can. Then,
carefully bag up the body, and take it to the coroner, so they can conduct a
detailed medical examination and autopsy.”
“Officer
Williams,” Rhonda read the name above his badge. “We appreciate the assistance and cooperation
of the Clay County Sheriffs’ Office.
Now, my partner and I must go to Jacksonville to give the victim’s
parents the bad news. Try to keep the
press suppressed, and don’t give any official statements to the media until
tomorrow. We may handle that.”
“Alerting
the next of kin: this was always a difficult and uncomfortable
undertaking. Bill and Linda Adams were
still checked in at the Hyatt in downtown Jacksonville. Needless to say, they were absolutely distraught
and grief stricken when Agent Black and Agent Banks delivered the about their
son’s death in person. Gary and Rhonda
expressed their sympathies and assured the Adams family that the FBI would find
whoever was responsible for such horrible atrocities and bring them to
justice. After delivering the devastatingly
horrible bad news, Gary and Rhonda stood on the Riverwalk outside the
Hyatt. Gary could see the anguish in
Rhonda’s face.
“Ronnie,
we are going to catch this guy,” Gary assured her. “We always do.”
“I
know, Gary,” Rhonda replied.
Then,
Gary made a suggestion, “Let me tell you what I like to do once I get to the
meat and potatoes of a big case like this one here.”
Rhonda
asked him, “What’s that, Gary?”
He
explained, “I like to get a deep tissue massage to decompress. I vacationed in Jacksonville with my family
once. I’m going to take you to Massage
Soleil at the St. John’s Town Center on the south side of town, my treat.”
Rhonda
just nodded. She had learned long ago
not to reject Gary’s insistences. He was
very persistent and persuasive person, and sometimes he knew what was best for Rhonda. That’s why they worked so well together…
