I am the result of a whores barter for drugs.
He had no idea who his father was. Zurrn grew up poor, friendless and with a love-hate relationship with his mother. As a child, he had an ungainly limp, which hed had surgically corrected as an adult. His mother was protective of him during her periods of lucidity, feeding him the promise of a better life, telling him he was exceptional.
Youre not like other kids, Sorin. Youre destined for greatness.
His teachers had found that his IQ was the highest of any student they had taught and that he had an eidetic memory. But Zurrn was ostracized and bullied at school. He would hide away alone after classes in one of the labs, building new computers from discarded ones.
His mother struggled to pay the rent on their cold, ramshackle home but was hostage to her addiction between jobs cleaning hotel rooms or serving fast food, leaving them to rely on charity. One day a boy teased Zurrn because of his shirt.
Hey, whyre you wearing that rag, Hopalong? My mom donated it to a church. Howd you get it? You steal it?
Others soon gathered round and started poking Zurrn.
Know what I heard? A bigger boy grinned. I heard your old lady gives blow jobs for dope, anywhere and anytime!
Zurrn burned with shame.
Limping away, he tore off the shirt and threw it in a Dumpster before he got home and sought refuge in his collection. Ever since a class trip to the Chicago Botanic Garden, hed started collecting butterflies. He began by stealing several exotic ones from the Garden, putting them under his shirt, feeling his prisoners flapping against his chest near his heart. He was enamored with their beauty and, later, the whole process of chasing and capturing specimens in parks.
He soon became expert with his killing jar where he imprisoned each catch. Hed watch his beauties flutter themselves to death or die slowly in captivity. Sometimes hed pinch the thorax to stun them. After death, he took great care spreading their wings, pinning them, mounting them and soaking up their poetry.
My pretty dead things.
They didnt leave you to buy drugs and get stoned in the bathroom. They didnt bring home strange men stinking of alcohol.
They didnt humiliate you.
They were his to own, his to possess, his to control.
He held the power of life and death over them.
He was never alone when he was with his collection. They were individual works of art, so beautiful. Unlike the ugliness hed endured at every turn. Every day with each indignity he suffered, his anger grew, evolving into a quiet rage.
He remembered walking home one afternoon and seeing his mother searching through the trash cans along their street. At that moment he saw a pack of neighborhood teenage girls swarm her, mock her, slap her and rip apart her plastic bags, scattering her soda and beer cans. Mortified, Zurrn stayed out of sight. Then he ran off, his tears and fury nearly blinding him with shame for not defending his mother.
And shame because of her.
Tonya Plesivsky was the girl whod led the attack. He knew where she lived and that she had a beloved dog, Pepper. That night, Zurrn lay awake seething. A week later, MISSING flyers went up in the neighborhood for Tonyas dog. Pet lovers were sympathetic. One day Tonya even stopped Zurrn on the street near Ben Bailey Park.
Have you seen Pepper, Sorin? This is serious. Im worried.
She had a lot of nerve, after what shed done to his mother.
No, he had lied.
Of course, he knew where Pepper was and he considered sending the mutts head to her with a note-Im missing you in hell-before dismissing the plan. He was happy knowing that she would never see her precious Pepper again. At the same time, as much as he loathed Tonya, he saw how fear became her, how pretty she was in her anguish. His power over her enthralled him and he fantasized about what hed do to her, about seeing a MISSING poster with Tonyas face on it.
The vans headlights raked the woods and gravel popped under the tires as Zurrn turned onto an abandoned forestry road. He knew this area, hed been here before. As the van toddled along the old rutted path, soft groaning and cries rose from the back.
Dont worry. Not much longer, he said aloud.
That incident with Tonya was the catalyst that had put him on the path of what was truly his lifes work as a collector. First, he earned scholarships to college and studied computer design. That didnt last long before he drifted across the country trying this and trying that, before jumping from one computer job to another. During this time, he grappled with his animosity toward his mother, growing distant and out of touch. Only she knew where he was-hed allow her that much-but he rarely responded to her letters or calls.
Perhaps out of guilt, but more out of curiosity, he monitored the online editions of the Chicago newspapers. He was living in Denver when he saw his mothers death notice in the Chicago Tribune.
His mothers church had placed the notice.
He contacted the church, then returned to Chicago to quietly arrange for her funeral. But he couldnt bear to attend. Instead, hed watched from a distance as they buried her, along with his past.
After her death he returned to Colorado and began severing all ties with his mother and the family name. She had no estate. She had nothing. He ignored or tossed into the trash any records or correspondence linking him to Chicago and the Zurrn name.
At this time he used his expertise to take on a new identity.
He was reborn and started a new life, off the grid.
He was invisible.
Still, he longed for the only joy hed known through his collection. And he recalled how much he had enjoyed Tonyas anguish. Thats when his metamorphosis happened. He was traveling when he was seized with a compulsion to start a new collection, a special one that rivaled anything the world had known.
He was nervous and made tiny errors in the early days when he captured his first specimen.
But it was a success.
A work of art.
He cherished it because he owned it.
Over the years he acquired other pretty specimens, enhancing his collection. He became expert at finding them, hunting them and keeping them for as long as he wanted. Each new capture enthralled him, so much so that he would press himself against their cell to feel the panic in their hearts beat against him. Oh, how he loved it.
Flutterings in the kill jar.
Most specimens were cooperative and loyal, but some would fall ill, harm themselves or try to escape. Escape was treasonous-it meant disloyalty. It was a wish to abandon him, like his father abandoned him; to break a promise and walk away from parental responsibility.
It meant that over the years it was necessary to discard and replace them. It broke his heart, but thats how it was. The posters of the missing online, with terms such as last seen, and disappeared without a trace stood as testament to his refined skills as a collector.
My glory.
And no one ever knew.
Yes, other enthusiasts would occasionally surface in the news but only because theyd failed. Some across the country and around the world had kept their work going for years, as well, but they were defeated because of mistakes.
Never let a specimen escape.
True, Rampart didnt go according to Zurrns plan. Hed intended for the case to be closed with the death of Carl Nelson. Sure, he couldve ended things in the house rather than the barn. But the fire and staging of the specimen were stylistic touches he couldnt resist. Still, the discovery by police wasnt a setback.
It was a challenge.
Maybe Ill go public like the Zodiac and the Ripper.
Zurrn would carry on creating his new garden paradise. But hed have to make further adjustments along the way. At this moment, he was grappling with keeping the last of his remaining specimens. For years his plan was to start over with all new prospects to capture. But hed grown partial to some of his specimens and decided to keep them.
And now, with the situation brewing in Rampart and all that business with that reporter, he realized that this was a game changer. This was his chance to showcase his mastery to the world. And the only way to do it was to sacrifice his treasures.
It had to be done. He was at war.
Time to get started.
He brought the van to a stop on a soft, earthen patch alongside a fast-flowing stream. Crickets chirped and starlight glimmered on the water. Isolated. No one around for miles.
Time to get started.
He brought the van to a stop on a soft, earthen patch alongside a fast-flowing stream. Crickets chirped and starlight glimmered on the water. Isolated. No one around for miles.
No one to hear a thing. Perfect. History will be made, right here.
He stepped from the van wearing high-quality night-vision goggles. They provided him with brilliant, sharp images in the darkness as he worked.
First, he maneuvered the heavy-duty handcart used for moving vending machines and removed the wooden crates, positioning them on the ground.
Then he set out his instruments.
Next, he set up the stands for the studio photography lights, aligning them just so. Then he stood there addressing the questions:
Which one, and how?
A soft cry rose from one of the boxes.
Please.
32
New York City
After Kate got Grace to bed she made fresh coffee and called Goodsill back so they could work on the Colorado link to the abduction in Alberta.
Could this lead me to Carl Nelson and information about Vanessa?
Kate needed to follow this through.
Good news, I found my old files, Goodsill said over the phone. Fifteen years is a long time but when I read over my notes, it all came back to me, and I found some interesting stuff. I just sent it to you.
Kate set her phone to speaker, turned the volume low then started downloading the attachments of scanned documents arriving in her in-box.
Strange thing is, Goodsill went on, that clipping you found is the only story that I wrote on the case, but I put in a lot of time on it.
What do you mean? The documents blossoming on Kates screen were crumpled, torn and stained bills, invoices, along with other records. I dont understand what Im looking at here. Walk me through everything
Goodsill took Kate to the beginning. His cousin was married to a Denver detective, Ned Eckles, and the two men got to talking at a family gathering. Goodsill had learned that Ned was looking into a query from Canadian police to run down a partial plate possibly connected to an abduction.