A young detective, maybe 28, bald with medium brown skin and a slightly lighter rim of skin where a wedding ring used to be, ran his tell-tale fingers over his scalp. A woman strutted past the table, long black hair and vivid blue eyes, carrying a Glock 19 and swaggering as he stared at his laptop screen.
“You know your wife left you for this very reason.”
“Really? Because here I thought she left me because I was banging you on the side." he huffed.
“Well, yea, but clearly you’re more interested in that conspiracy than either of us, so all those late nights we spent working on this, probably caused the late nights with us doing other things. So essentially, that laptop and its bullshit cost you your marriage.” She sighed.
“She knew the job when she married a detective, if she left me because of my job, I wouldn’t feel like the villain here. She was stressed by the job, and the job wasn’t good on the marriage, but finding the two of us bare-assed in the kitchen was definitely the part where she drew the line. I must be crazy.” He said, shaking his head and straining at the computer data.
“Obviously. You can’t even blink, let alone look up from that screen with me in the room looking this good.” She said, gesturing to her cleavage.
“I mean crazy for cheating on her. THIS is perfectly sane detective work. Why don’t you seem interested in the slightest? This is OUR case.”
“Because Damien, it’s not OUR case, it’s nothing. It’s a bunch of unrelated cases you think are related to one major group. It’s 20 of our old cold cases and 3 solved ones.”
“Of course they’re related.” He objected, annoyed and finally looking up. “All the same victim profiles, mostly wealthy, always horrible people with criminal lives under the radar even we didn’t know about till someone shot them. The dates, almost perfectly spaced 3 weeks apart, never any REAL convictions, You know The Butcher they arrested wasn’t the right guy. And this…magnesium thing.” He said. "Got me all kinds of confused."
“Well, all good serial killers take a multivitamin, Damien” she sighed.
“Magnesium dust found on the victim's clothing, Gina.”
“Damien, that’s 20 cases, two of them found unexplained magnesium dust on the victims. That’s not an organization of killers, that’s either coincidence, or one guy killing 2 of the 20 people from that unrelated list in a year. Magnesium boy made a second round. High profile criminal assholes make enemies and get killed, that’s just what happens when you get rich and piss armed people off. You’re focused on the…dates that ALMOST space out, the vague circle of locations covering the whole state of Illinois, the fact that a lot of rich criminals knew each other and had connections and 2 cases of them had weird magnesium dust. Have you focused on the differences? Because the differences are astounding. Here. This guy was shot with a generic 22, the most common caliber in the country, and then stabbed after that during an alleyway struggle. This guy was just shot in the head point-blank outside a bar with a special 22 subsonic round made for suppressors.”
“Both cases 3 weeks apart, Magnesium dust. Has to be the same guy. 22 long rifle caliber, rifling looked similar, obviously the first time he did it, something went wrong, and he switched to the knife. Next time he came back with subsonic rounds and went directly to the dome with a silencer. In an alley in case he had to get stabby again. Now the third time we see magnesium dust was not long after that, 9mm to the head, subsonic rounds. Nobody heard the shots. Motherfucker upped his game to a 9mm, and now he uses only suppressors and only shoots for the head. He’s evolving.”
“So at best that’s 3 cases of the magnesium killer. Evidence was lost on the 9mm case, no official record of magnesium. You may have imagined that.” She frowned.
“I worked that case, I saw the forensics, that’s what tipped me off. Then the records got lost? The Magnesium killer adapted to stealing or bribing for records? I know what I saw. So that’s 3 cases I KNOW fit the same killer evolution. Now draw a triangle, fits perfectly in my murder circle, all 3 dead guys Magnesium killer took down, knew someone else on one of these dots, and all shot about 3 weeks apart. Now they may not be the same guy, but they all work for the same organi-zation.” He said aggressively.
“Here we go. Organization of hitmen taking out the scum of society one hit every 3 weeks, centered around a base of operation, right here in the middle of Illinois. Well they sure do have a lot of hitmen with varying tactics, don’t they, almost like they were just…different people murdering random people. Hey, chill out! People kill people, they usually use a gun, and these victims were human shit. There’s no organization. There are a bunch of random events you glued together with one cold case you took personal that was either 2 or 3 kills from possibly the same guy that apparently uses magnesium silencers or something. That’s 2 or 3 murders, not all 20+, and not the ones on your... MAYBE list, from over a year ago.”
“He didn’t use a silencer the first time. Still found magnesium. I can’t find any guns that have a magnesium barrel, let alone a 22 and a 9mm. Where the hell is the powder coming from? The bullets were nothing special. Solid lead, 9mm was a Fiocci copper jacket FMJ. No magnesium jacket, or coating. I looked that up, it’s not even used in bullet making, so there’s no common brand he likes, no common store that sells anything magnesium. What, he just sprinkles it around for flavor? The fuck is it doing at the scenes, Gina?” he yelled.
“Damnit Damien, That’s Special Agent Garrett if you’re gonna take that tone. And then you better remember the safeword. It’s one asshole with a weird quirk that killed 2 or 3 people who frankly probably deserved to die. 2 pedophiles and one guy who beat 3 hookers, killed one. Good riddance, Glad he didn’t kill anyone decent. He stopped after that. The rest of this is nonsense. Look, a guy takes 3 to the back with a 10mm auto in his car from point-blank, this guy takes 2 rounds center mass lying in his bed with a Five Seven pistol. And what is this shit? Your man likes handguns and close range, right? Okay, maybe he has a lot of handguns, big vault and receipts. Seems to switch up his shot placement a lot, but maybe. So what the fuck is THIS case. Lakeshot Shooter. Guy on his lakefront porch gets hit in the face with a round forensics can’t even identify. Their best guess is a bronze-jacketed compressed tungsten carbide 50 BMG round from 2800 fucking yards? That’s some black-ops shit. You think the same people that run this mythical organization have guys who sprinkle metal dust on their guns before headshots that they botch 30 percent of the time, and also they hired some thugs who just empty rapid fire rounds center mass like stoned gangbangers, BUT they also have a guy who can blow away someone from a MILE and an HALF away, with 15 thousand dollar rifle and a mythical unicorn tungsten carbide round?” Gina asked.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“How do they know how far the shot was? They never found the gun or the shooter.” He scoffed.
“Well it says in the file that the bullet’s jacket rifling’s matched a Barrett 50, and according to blood splatter and shit I don’t understand, the bullet hit with the force it would have at that distance. I’m a detective, not a forensics genius, but they searched the radius and found a 50 cal brass shell. NOBODY heard the shot. On an open, quiet lake in the early morning, nobody heard a damn 50BMG artillery round going off. You know how far you have to be not hear a 50? Even with a suppressor, they sound like a cannon. So this guy has military marksman experience for sure, Military grade silencers, very heavy weaponry, expensive weaponry, and specialized bullets, and the same people who supplied that pro also hired a guy who fucks up a point blank 22 hit so bad he has to stab a guy? What do they just draw out of a hat and call random people up…hey buddy, wanna kill a sexual predator in 2 weeks, resume? Nah, just bring a gun of some kind. Any gun is fine, whatever you got.” She paced.
Maybe they’re taking the victims guns, Gina. Maybe that’s why a different gun is used almost every time, they just never use the same once twice, they just kill people, take their guns, use that for the next murder.”
“Right, some lucky guy killed a Softball coach who owned 40 grand in black ops gear. What if the target didn’t have a gun to steal?” she asked.
“They’re likely not all registered, black market guns bought illegally, ghost guns, they probably have a stockpile of these and carry a dozen or more backups in some warehouse. Probably got their own gun store owner on payroll. Some of the crimes here had multiple calibers used. Like this one. Molotov Brothers. These guys made several kills, never caught either of them. 2 victims, if you can call them that, living together, both convicted rapists. We didn’t even know they hunted victims together and racked up 4 more attacks until after they turned up dead. First guy was taken out with a Mosin Nagant, 7.62x54 Russian bolt action rifle from around 500 to 550 yards through the trailer window, and moments later people heard the other 2 shots, one through the door lock and one to the head taking out the second target with a 7.62x39, that’s an AK47 round. So a couple of guys working in unison with Russian surplus ammo, one guy gets in close, the other takes a sniper position. Sniper takes a body shot, the other guy shoots the door, walks in, shoot the second guy, over in seconds, people in the area said the shots were a few seconds apart. No guns recovered, AK brass in the trailer, nobody spotted anyone carrying a rifle on the run, let alone 2 guys with rifles. They just executed like clockwork in unison, and vanished. Tossed a flaming bottle of vodka on the trailer. The dead guys probably had a gun, the shooter in the trailer snatched it. Disposed of the other guns somewhere, sold them at a gun show parking lot to some 20-year-old kid for 50 bucks. Who knows. They all have something else in common. They’re all just weird. The ballistics don’t ever quite make sense.”
“Oh so weird is now a point of evidence. Well, in that case we’re both killers, especially you. You have enough weirdness in that laptop to tie you into this ring of assassins yourself.” she scoffed.
“I’m serious. The Molotov brothers AK rounds were shortened by 1mm. Filed the tips flat...why? The guy who ate a 40 cal in his car, solid brass rounds. Paperwork says they were custom. Where do you even get solid brass bullets made for a handgun? Look at this report from last night. Arms dealers, big bust, couple of assholes selling some MP5s to some gang members. They show up to the place in the middle of the woods, halfway through the deal, 4 guys get taken out from nowhere. 8 shots in rapid session, 2 to each of the victims with a 45ACP soft point, rifling matches a 1911 style pistol…2 taps fucking one inch apart. Just the arms dealers and the leader of the gang buying the guns got tagged. The other 2 guys didn’t even get shot at. The guy just picked 4, wiped them out, professional killer style, quick and laser efficient. The 2 guys in custody right now, were so confused they just ran like hell. Guy didn’t even try to shoot them.”
“So they guy only had 8 rounds, typical 1911. He had one clip. He snuck up on them and went for the big dogs first, didn’t care about the 2 nobodies. What’s the weird part?” Gina sighed.
“Nobody saw the shooter. They were in a clearing, with headlights, probably a good 40-foot well-lit circle. Guy didn’t even step into view. Both of the survivors said it was like a ghost just started executing people, no shooter, no movement, not even a direction, they said they just heard shots and people dropped. Everything went silent. So the perp was in the dark far enough away that they didn’t even know where he was shooting from, took out 4 guys in 5 seconds with a 1911 pistol? That’s some good shooting. Even weirder: The ballistics confirmed a 1911 style barrel rifling and estimated the range under 15 feet. How the hell did they not see him from 15 feet? Even weirder still. All shots were fired from a single position, look at this graphic.” He said turning the laptop.
“That can’t be right…the muzzle of the gun was at 9 feet from the ground?”
“So this guy had an invisible ladder already conveniently right where the deal went down, or they just didn’t notice the 15-foot tall guy rockin a Colt 45 when shit it the fan? Maybe he was a basketball player, 6 foot 9, only takes jump-shots?” he joked.
“Maybe forensics just botched that. Maybe they were kneeling down, so the shooter seemed higher up.” She puzzled. 15 feet away, 9 feet up…what the hell?”
“Survivors would have noticed everyone taking a knee BEFORE the shooting started. According to the charts I made, this guy would have had to be a hundred yards out or more to be in the dark tree cover, 45ACP rounds drop fast, Gina. Even if he hot-loaded the hell out of those shells for extra range and still get point-blank power, the gun would probably blow up, that’s WAY over the pressure rating, and you’d still be taking a hundred yard rapid shot, dead accurate on multiple targets with a fucking 5-inch handgun barrel, at night."
So is he a 12 foot tall ghost with an invisible 45, or the best pistol marksman in the country up in a tree with night vision and dangerously hot-loaded rounds, just praying they don’t blow the gun up?" she said, reading the screen. "Makes no sense, what the hell is he loading into that pistol? Survivors of the gun deal shooting said they were there to buy 4 MP5s, only 3 of them were found at the crime scene."
"Looks like our ghost got himself a new toy and a bunch of ammo. I bet you ten bucks on a hunch, someone 3, 6, or 9 weeks from now gets taken out with a 9mm from an MP5.” He smirked.
“I’ll certainly take your money, I don’t see most of that happening, but I wouldn’t be shocked if someone got killed with it somewhere. Wonder why he didn’t take all 4?” She asked.
“You ever tried carrying 5 guns and making a getaway on foot through the woods? Man’s only got 2 hands; we’re looking for a ghost, not 5 ghosts.” Damien reminded.
“Okay, I still think most of your nonsense is unrelated cold cases, and red yarn tied between thumbtacks on some crazy theory board in your house... but this case is fresh and fucking weird. And if he can do that kinda damage with a colt 45 and 8 rounds, and he’s just got himself a submachine gun now, he may be about to start some shit. You got one good case here, don’t be thinking you’re not crazy or that any of these ties together…it’s not a conspiracy, There's no organization, but the case of the ghost with the 45 certainly needs answers. Let’s work on that and ignore the rest of the old nonsense cases.” She said starting some coffee and grabbing a chair.