Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: From: Rhettxxoo@aol.com Subject: "Southern Hospitality" by Rhett Dreams, 2/10 [mf, crime drama] SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY by Rhett Dreams (c. 1996) Chapter Two Special Agent Clarice Starling got the call while she was drinking her afternoon tea, from a woman who identified herself as Mrs. Albert. It took Starling a second before she made the connection and placed the name. "Of course, Mrs. Albert. I remember you. How's Beth?" Clarice Starling had gone to school with Beth Albert at the University of Virginia. They had been pretty close friends at the time, and once Clarice traveled with Beth and her mother down to Florida during one spring break. Clarice did not consider herself the great beauty that Beth most certainly was, but she had enjoyed the fact that her blond friend attracted men like a magnet and she got her pick of the leftovers. They'd drifted apart after college, as Clarice's excellent grades and double major in psychology and criminology got her accepted at the FBI academy while Beth worked as a reporter for a paper in Baltimore and then in Tallahassee. They exchanged Christmas cards but that was all. "She's gone," said the strained voice of Mrs. Albert. "She's been missing for a month now. The police can't find a trace of her, nor can the FBI." Starling asked a series of questions, probing gently until she had the story. Beth Albert had checked out of her hotel in New Orleans on a Sunday thirty days ago. She was expected at her fiancee's condo in Tampa the next morning which meant she had planned to drive all night. She never showed and her fiancee, Howard Stennis, filed a missing person's report the next day. Because the police had no idea whether she was still in Louisiana, or someplace in Florida, or in between, not much was done and the case was transferred to the FBI. The mother was understandably concerned, and voiced her belief that they'd stopped looking for her daughter, believing that she'd run away with some man. "Why don't you give me the name of the agent who's handling Beth's case, Mrs. Albert, and I'll call and find out what's happening." Starling jotted down the name and promised to get back as soon as she knew something. She called the number in New Orleans and left a message on the agent's answering machine, identifying herself and asking him to call her about the Albert case. Starling was in the Behavioral Science section at FBI headquarters, the Bureau specialists in serial killers, and she only had an academic understanding of how the FBI might track a missing person across multiple states. The current case she was working on involved a series of rape and murders in Southern Arkansas and Northern Mississippi. Four bodies had been found so far and the women had been raped, seminal fluid found in each of them, and shot three times, one through each breast and once after the gun barrel was inserted in their vaginas. Her boss and section chief, Jack Crawford, was now in Dallas, attending the autopsy of the latest victim. She also worked on the case of the psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the brilliant but psychotic killer who escaped after helping her solve her first case. Dr. Lecter had disappeared two years earlier, after killing the two officers who held him. He sent her a post card every couple of months. It would be fingerprinted, analyzed and traced, always to no avail. She knew he was taunting her, amusing himself and emphasizing his great intellect at the same time for having avoided capture. But it was eerie to get these communiques, and she shivered when she recalled their meetings at the asylum where he'd been kept locked up. Lecter's piercing eyes haunted her dreams, those all knowing orbs and the twisted brilliance behind them. A secretary brought her the preliminary autopsy report that had just been FAXed from Dallas, and she read the gruesome details with that part of her brain that could stay detached from any feelings for the slain girl. The report speculated that the vaginal wound was post-mortem, as the first .38 caliber bullet had entered her heart and was fatal. Her phone rang while she scanned the report. "Gene Myers returnin' your call," said a voice with a distinct Southern drawl. "Thanks for calling back, Agent Myers. I got a call from Mrs. Albert this afternoon, who told me that you're handling the case of her daughter, Bethany Albert." "Yep," he said. "Call be Gene, please." "Okay, Gene. I'm Clarice. Beth and I were college friends at UVA. I'm just calling to find out what you've learned. Is there any hope of finding her?" "There's always hope, Clarice, but this one's getting cold. She had dinner Saturday night with a Ms. Kelly Smith, who tells me that Ms. Albert was in good spirits and was looking forward to her wedding in a couple of months. The folks at the hotel remember the girl, who I believe was quite, ah, memorable, going out the next morning on foot. One of the guys at the registration desk recalls that she asked for a late checkout time. I know she went shopping that Sunday, because we traced a half-dozen credit card charges to various stores and restaurants in the Latin quarter. Mostly tourist traps, where you can buy tee shirts and doo dads. She checked out at about seven that evening. A woman of her description was seen at a roadside diner 'bout an hour east of N'Orleans. Then nothing." "East... then she was traveling toward home," noted Starling. "Looks that way," he conceded. "No other stops along the way, say for gas?" "No credit card charges. I had the Louisiana and Mississippi Staties check the gas stations along the Interstate but nobody remembers the girl stopping for gas. With the car she was driving, a $90,000 Mercedes roadster, and with her looks, I'd be real surprised if she could have stopped for gas and gone un-remembered." "No sign of the car?" "None, and the bunko boys tell me there's an active market for those babies. They're checking new registrations of that make and model, state by state, but it'll take awhile. And we don't really know if the car's been stolen, or if it's at the bottom of some swamp, or if she'd decided to take off." "I know the girl, Gene. I can't imagine her doing that, and the report from Kelly Smith seems to support the supposition that she was happy with her fiancee and on her way home." "That's my guess, too, but I got to keep all the possibilities in mind. Do you know her fiancee, Howard Stennis?" "No. I've never met the man." "I went to see him. He's rich, tanned and twice her age. He made her sign a pre-nuptial agreement. That doesn't mean a lot these days, not for guys in his tax bracket." "What's your read on him?" asked Starling. "Seems very straight. Background check showed nothing. Always pays his alimony on time and put three kids through college, two through grad school. Active in the community. I believe he's genuinely concerned about the girl. Called me yesterday as a matter of fact." "What's next?" "Well, normally we'd just sit and wait, hope she shows up someplace or we find the car and can trace it back." "But..." prompted Starling. "I got me a funny feelin' on this. So I ran a computer check over the last two years and found a number of similar disappearances, all unexplained. We sorted through the records, selecting MP's along the gulf coast who were driving expensive cars when they disappeared, and found thirteen." "That sounds like a lot," said Clarice. "It is. Ran a similar check for New England and found only two. West coast states had three. Two across the entire midwest." "Shit," muttered Starling.. "Yeah," drawled Myers. "And nine of those shared another similarity with the Albert case. The MP was female, between eighteen and thirty. I'm requesting all the files now, hoping to find some link. Maybe trace one of those cars." After a few more minutes Starling thanked the agent and hung up. She knew that Agent Myers was doing all he could, with considerable insight, but she wanted to help somehow. "What happened to Beth?" she asked herself. "What happened all those women?" She felt a cold knot in her belly as she considered the implications. Acting on her worse fears she called an agent she knew from her training days at Quantico, and asked if he had time to talk to her. - o - "There's an active underground market for young women and girls, especially white ones" said Agent Quinn after Starling had relayed what she knew about the Albert case and the others. Despite her background and training dealing with the most crazed of all killers and the carnage they left behind, she felt her skin crawl as he explained. "Mexico is trying to cooperate but it's not doing much good. Just last month they raided a brothel in Ciudad Juarez, just south of El Paso, that was doing a good business with clients from both sides of the border. They found four white girls, and two boys, all runaways from up north who'd been abducted and sold to the brothel." "Slavery?" "Oh, yes," he said. "We were extremely lucky on this one, and were able to trace the kids back to an outfit in Houston that bought and sold human beings. Wiretaps and surveillance helped us time our raid perfectly, and we caught them with two girls who'd been kidnapped, raped and were waiting to be shipped south." "This is sick," said Starling and Quinn smiled ruefully at her, knowing full-well the horrors of her specialty. "But we're not stopping the flow, not by a long shot," he said. "A white girl can bring $100,000 or more in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere. The brothels that exploit these girls are well hidden and well financed, and the local police are bribed to stay silent, with money and access to the girls or boys, depending on their sick tastes. The dealers are more secretive and careful than anybody you can name, including big-time drug dealers. When we think we're getting close they disappear, probably to the Caribbean or someplace else off- shore, and live off their un-touchable bank accounts." Starling thanked him and walked despondently back to her office. She called Beth's mother and gave what solace she could, explaining that the investigation remained open and active. She didn't say a word of what she'd learned from Quinn. Then she pushed it out of her mind and picked up the autopsy report and resumed reading. - o - The white Porsche pulled off the road and stopped neatly in front of the single row of pumps. The young man behind the wheel peered into the well-lit office. The other occupant of the car, an attractive redhead, reached over and honked the horn. "Be patient, Deb," said the man. "Price Brothers' Towing and Service," said the girl, reading out loud the large sign over the office area. "They'd better fuckin' hurry if they want to service us." Sam Price ambled out and approached the car, his eyes admiring the expensive new sports car, then the occupants. "Fill it?" he said. "Yeah, thanks," said the driver. "And hurry," said the girl. Price noted that the driver was a strikingly handsome guy in his early twenties and that his snotty girlfriend was quite pretty, from what he could see. When he took the credit card back inside the office, he made a quick call to the police, and was quickly routed to Trent's cruiser. "Two dirtbags, sheriff, will be traveling east in a black van," he said, using the code that told Trent it was a white or light-colored sports car. "Thanks, Sam," came the response. Sam took an imprint of the card and returned to the impatient couple. The young man scrawled his signature on the charge slip, grabbed his card and pulled away without waiting for his copy if the receipt. Sam watched him pull out and heard the car race through it's gears as roared off into the night. "Your welcome," said the tall, seedy-looking Price, sliding the receipt into his pocket. If Trent caught up with the Porsche and decided to grab em', he'd destroy the record of their purchase. - o - Trent pulled the speeding Porsche over four miles down the road. He had never before been willing to try to nab two people. He knew he could manage it, but he also knew that something could go wrong and judged that it wasn't worth the added risk. As he approached the car, his flashlight checking out the occupants, he decided to give them a ticket and leave it at that. "License and registration, please," he said through the open window. Trent watched as the young man dug for his wallet. He was surprised when the passenger door opened and the girl got out. "We're late already," said the redhead, her green eyes blazing with irritation. "Can't you just let us go?" "Please return to the vehicle, ma'am," said Trent, reasonably. "Listen up, asshole," she said, hands on her hips, glaring at Trent over the top of the car. "My dad is a U.S. Congressman, and he'll have your crummy badge if you continue to harass us." Trent's blood boiled hearing these insults from the spoiled rich girl. The driver held his paperwork out to Trent and tried to calm the situation. "Listen, Officer, she's a little upset---" "Zip it, mister!" said Trent through his clenched teeth, grabbing the license and registration from the man's hand. "Get out of the car, now!" The man got out quickly and Trent grabbed his arm and led him to the curb. "This is harassment, you dickhead" shouted the irate girl. "You're gonna get---" Trent had un-holstered his gun as he walked the pliant man around to the curb and now brought it up into the girl's face. Her epitaph died on her lips as she stared down the barrel of his revolver. "Let me tell you exactly what you're gonna do, bitch," he said in a tone that made it clear he'd take no more. "You and your unfortunate friend are gonna walk over and sit your butts in the back of that police car. You're gonna do it now, and without another word." The man reacted immediately, grabbing the girl's arm and leading her to the cruiser. Once he had the two locked in the back, behind the protective screen, Trent quickly got into the car and took off, his tires squealing in protest as he turned the wheel hard and reversed directions, heading back toward town. Price passed him with the tow truck and couldn't have missed the flashing headlights that signaled him to pick up the Porsche. "You dumb son of a bitch," muttered Trent to himself, slamming his palm against the steering wheel in frustration. This was a dangerous thing he'd started and he shouldn't have let the bitch rile him. If she was telling the truth, and her daddy was a Congressman, the search would be extensive. He'd let her get under his skin but now there was no turning back. He'd just have to get rid of them and batten down. No more abductions for a long time. He turned off the highway and raced down the dirt road to the Heinz farm. - o - The idea began to form in his mind later, after he and Tom and shackled the pair to the wall in the basement. He went out to the cruiser and called Sam, suggesting carefully that he bring his load to the farm. He quickly overrode Sam's objections, repeating his instructions very carefully. He told Tom to watch their guests and drove back to police headquarters. Every police department and county sheriff in the area had been getting regular reports from the FBI about the serial killer up North. He quickly scanned all the reports and read the newspaper account of the latest find, a woman found in Clarksdale, two hundred miles north of him. The redhead, Debbie, was probably telling the truth about her father. The Porsche was registered in the name of Robert Walters of Birmingham, Alabama, and there was a first- term republican Congressman from Alabama with the same name. The driver's license of the guy, Henry Burns, had an address in Birmingham as well. The idea that was forming in his head was complicated and simple at the same time. It would ensure that his area of the state would not be combed, looking for the congressman's daughter and her friend. They'd find her body up North, shot in the same manner as the other victims. He examined it from every angle he could, using his FBI and police knowledge of forensics and crime scene techniques to help him. It was perfect, he decided. He knew full well that here was no way he could duplicate the MO of the rapist/killer who was active up North. They'd test the bullets and know they were fired from a different gun than those found in the earlier victims. He didn't know whether or not the semen of the rapist was non-secreting, making the blood type a mystery. In addition, there were probably many other details of each case that the FBI was intentionally keeping back form the papers and police. The beauty of his plan was, he wanted the investigators to know Debbie Walters had been murdered by a copycat killer. The similarities would not fool them but it was the type of thing an amateur might try to cover his tracks. The amateur Trent had in mind was none other than Debbie Walter's traveling companion, Henry Burns. Moving quickly Trent went to the basement evidence room and found a thirty-eight who's previous owner was now in prison. Then he left for the farm. - o - "We've got to do this or our operation comes to a halt for at least a year, and this place will be crawling with Staties and Feds, looking for her," said Trent to his three partners. The two Price brothers were there, along with Tom, and they had listened closely to his plan. "Who knows what they'd find, snooping around here bouts," conceded Sam Price. "You sure it'll fool em'?" asked Tom. Trent shook his head. "It's not supposed to. They'll see right through it and conclude that somebody else knocked her off, not the killer they're trackin'. When they find her Porsche back in Birmingham, with his prints all over it and the gun too, they'll like our boy downstairs for the crime." "And they'll find him, but in no condition to talk" said Tom, grinning. "Yep," said Trent. "I'm in," said Ward Price and his brother nodded. "Me too," said Tom. - o - The body of Debbie Walters was found two days later, twenty miles from the site of the previous one. The cops arrived first, and were convinced by the twin holes in her breasts and the mess made of her sex that this was the fifth victim of the serial killer. The local FBI was notified and within minutes Clarice Starling was on the phone, madly jotting down the details. When she hung up she placed two calls, one to secure a seat on the next flight to Jackson. The second was to American Airlines, and she waited impatiently before she was connected to the cockpit of the plane carrying her boss, Jack Crawford. "Sounds like our man," said Crawford when she relayed the details. "I've booked myself on the next flight down," she said, and then held her breath, fearing that he'd call her off and go himself. "Good," he said. "I wont land in Baltimore for another two hours. Get down there, Starling, and call me once you have the details." - o - It wasn't until thirty-six hours later that the results of the autopsy and forensic analysis revealed the anomalies of this case. The body was taken from the field where it was discovered directly to the modern coroner's building in Jackson. The surprises and shocks came slowly but built into an avalanche. Ten minutes into the autopsy the medical examiner revealed to Starling, who was assisting, that the girl had been raped anally, as well as vaginally. This was not the case with the previous victims. "Maybe he brought a friend," suggested the M.E., ruefully. The second shock was that all three wounds were post- mortem. The girl had died by asphyxiation, which the M.E. described as very slow strangulation. He also found faint signs of bruising around the wrists and ankles, suggesting that she'd been restrained at some point before her death. The bullets retrieved from this Jane Doe were of the same caliber as in the previous cases, but showed under the scope to have been fired from a different weapon. This surprised Starling but didn't rule out their killer. He could have changed weapons for some reason. The tests on the semen found in both orifices clinched it---the man who raped this woman was definitely not the same as the perp for the other four women. The semen was consistent with the theory of one rapist rather than two, in that both samples came from a secretor of an uncommon blood type, but the previous killer was not a secretor. His semen did not allow them to determine blood type. "We've got a copycat, boss," she said when she next spoke to Crawford. "Definitely not the same guy." "Oh, shit," he said. "Are you ready for another shock?" "What?" she asked. "We're pretty sure we know who the victim is. Deborah Walters, the daughter of Congressman Robert Walters of Alabama, has been missing since Sunday. According to the MP report, she was allegedly driving back to Birmingham from New Orleans, traveling with a friend, a Mr. Henry Burns, also from Birmingham. Same red hair and green eyes as the deceased, same age, same small mole on the left cheek." "Jesus!" said Starling. Congressman Walters had been elected on a strong law-and-order platform, and had been a particularly harsh critic of the FBI. "He's flying into Nashville to identify his daughter's body. I want you to meet him at the airport, Starling, and drive him to the coroners." - o - While Starling was dealing as best she could with the Congressman's grief and anger after the positive identification of his daughter, the Alabama State police found the Porsche and the body of Henry Burns, slumped over the wheel, shot once through the head. The car had been driven up a secluded road and then off into dense shrubbery, and it was pure luck that a young black kid stumbled across it while he was taking a short cut to fish at a nearby pond. Over the next few days the facts of the case became clear. Fingerprint analysis found only Burns's prints on the gun, and only his and Debbie Walter's in the car. The autopsy of Burns and the forensics afterwards revealed three important things. His blood type was consistent with that of the semen found in Walters's vagina and anus. Minute particles of human feces were found on Burn's penis. Third, the bullet retrieved from his brain was fired from the same gun as the one used on Walters. The gun they found clasped in Burns' lifeless fingers. - o - "Okay, Starling, let me hear how it went," said Crawford, now back in his comfortable office in Maryland. "Burns and Walters are driving back from New Orleans and decide to have a little fun. They find a motel someplace or maybe just some secluded spot for their sex games. He ties her up, probably willingly, and they have sex. They do it again later, but this time he takes her anally and wraps something around her neck. I've read that this is not uncommon with the kinky set. It's supposed to heighten the pleasure to be partially deprived of oxygen. Something goes wrong and she suffocates. He panics, takes her out to the field and shoots her, trying to imitate the killer that he's read about. Then he drives home. He's either despondent over her death or he figures that we'll nail him, so he offs himself." "Where does he get the unregistered gun?" asked Crawford, ticking off one finger, then the next as he spoke. "Where did the sex take place? Do either of them have a history of kinky sex? Why were they so far off the route between New Orleans and Birmingham?" "Wrap this one up, Starling," he concluded. - o - Tom, the black caretaker, was pacing back and forth in the basement room of the old plantation house. Nude, and quite drunk, he is as horny as he could remember. It was over seven weeks since they did the blond, his last fuck, and three weeks since he and Trent had done the job on the redhead and her boyfriend. He stroked his cock and recalled the scene of that night. They came downstairs after agreeing on the plan and had stripped and bound the struggling girl. The guy had been surprised when Trent released him and told him to fuck the redhead or they'd kill the two of them. While they waited for him to undress and to get hard, Tom worked his fingers in the girl's sex until she was good and wet. The guy entered her and came after five minutes or so. Tom recalled the scene with lust and frustration. Standing behind the pair, watching the guy's gorgeous ass flex and relax as he drove his cock into the girl, Tom's cock had stiffened in his pants. Later, after allowing him time to recover, they greased the girl and forced him to fuck her up the ass. She was a virgin there, and cried as he worked his cock inside her. The guy cried too as he unwillingly raped his girlfriend's ass. Tom would have given anything to have had the opportunity, then or later, to fuck the white boy's perfect, firm ass. Instead, after the guy had climaxed in her ass and dressed, Tom took Trent's gun and forced the young man outside and into the tow truck. They drove North for a half hour before pulling off and parking behind a deserted gas station. They waited there for a half-hour until Trent arrived and slipped Tom a zip-locked bag containing the .38 and a glove. The drove for another three hours before pulling off the road and unloading the Porsche. Tom sat in the passenger seat and directed Burns to drive down a dirt road and then into the bushes. The Porsche got stuck after thirty yards or so, and that's when Tom shot him, in the temple. Tom reloaded another shell in the magazine before closing Burns's hand around the grip and firing again, this time out the open window. Trent had discussed this with Tom carefully, how the powder burns needed to be on Burn's hands for the cops to buy the suicide. He also explained that there needed to be four and only four bullets missing from the cartridge. Drunk, swaying as he stood and stroked his hard black cock, Tom closed his eyes and played back in his mind the image of Burns's ass while he sodomized his groaning girl friend. This time, however, in Tom's mind, he was in turn fucking Burns, driving his cock between those firm cheeks and into his ass. Tom came after a few minutes, his long thick cock squirting jet after jet of cum onto the cement floor. -- Story Submission: Newsgroup FAQ: Archive site: (Not pretty yet)