Chapter 7

October 2^nd, 2013:

            I got a chance to see the other crime scenes today. Our Raven killer had created something else, far earlier than we were alerted to the disappearance of Anton. Two years earlier, the FBI had been tracking the disappearance of two women, one named Jeanette Churchill, the other Annabelle Lee. At the time we hadn’t paid any attention to the name, but now it is quite clear to us. The Raven Killer was making another Poe allusion, this time from his famous poem, “Annabelle Lee.” In the poem, Poe states that Annabelle was dead, lying in a “sepulcher by the sea.” Our killer took this literally. Just last week, a local fisherman was blown off course by a storm. He was beached on the beach of a small island, about 60 miles off shore. When the storm cleared, he noticed a small building and went inside to ask for directions. What he found inside was truly horrible. He found an open coffin, with two embalmed corpses lying inside, dressed in fine silk clothing, and resting on a platform of glass. Later evidence suggested that the victims had been embalmed while still alive.

Now, the other people in my unit think that it could be a different killer, and that there are endless possibilities, but I know that this is the work of our Raven. The poetry is just perfect. It’s impeccable the way they set it up. Annabelle Lee was obviously being used as an allusion to the poem, but there’s something more than that here. The other woman. What was her purpose? Now, in the poem, Annabelle Lee was used to represent the women that Poe cared about in life, so obviously, this woman meant something to our killer. But then, why would he kill her? Once again, my subordinates doubt me on this theory, they think that the woman was randomly selected, as most victims of serial killers are, and this time, they may have good reason.

            Our forensics team has scrubbed the cabin for DNA, and we have a positive result. The samples of hair and skin we found on the bed and pillow in the cabin trace to a Jacob Welsh. Jacob is a sixty-two year old man who went missing just about two years earlier, lining up with the dating on the disappearance of the two women. However, Jeanette Churchill has absolutely no relation to Welsh. They lived on completely different sides of Baltimore, have no family relation, and according to their families, they have never had any kind of contact, romantic or otherwise. All of the forensic evidence fits together, but something just doesn’t feel right. Why would a man in his 60s want to recreate the stories and fantasies of an author? According to the research we have done, his life was doing very well until he went missing. It just doesn’t feel right, somehow. Why would he throw away his successful life for something like that? That seems to be an act of one who has undergone the same atrocities, lived the same terrible life, as Poe himself. Perhaps Jacob Welsh isn’t our killer.

Regardless, if I know one thing about the killer, it’s this. In order to figure out when they are to strike next, we need to decipher their modus operandi, which can be found in the writings of Poe. We need to find out which story they are going to use next. Tomorrow is the date that I can visit the third and final crime scene, and I feel myself almost looking forward to it. I am so close to figuring this killer out, I can almost taste it, but there’s just something about this whole ordeal that doesn’t fit…

Reviews

[Tony Conaghan]

Absolutely great, would love to read more.

[Kristin Lee]

I very much like this chapter. It has the creepy aspect with the two women in coffins, but also the speculative aspect of a potential suspect that doesn't quite fit. Very well done. My only suggestion is that I'm not 100% sure that you need to say that "he was beached on a small beach" the repetition seems redundant to me. Beached implies that your vessel has run aground, usually in sand, corral or rock...to use the word so close to the word beach feels funny to me, even though I know you are just trying to describe the area. Just something to think about.