A mass of grey clouds clustered like an acrylic painting in the Boston sky. James Carver threw back two sertraline pills with a mouth full of cold Starbucks as he drove between two dense forests along a thick black road.

        Carver’s car screeched to a halt at the mouth of the forest, it’s tires crumbling over the auburn leaves that had gathered on the ground. He stepped out surveying the area with one hand resting on the roof of the car.

“Agent James Carver,” he said flicking his badge towards one of the officers stood at the mouth of the forest where yellow police tape had been tied between two thick oak trees.

“You’re from Queens? I got an aunt who lives in Queens,” began one of the patrol officers noticing Carver’s accent, “how’s the place looking, Sir? Wasn’t looking great last time I paid my aunt a visit, then again neither was she.”

“I don’t see what relevance my home has officer.”

        The officer smirks and glances at his colleague.

“Of course, Sir,” he said, “crime scenes just through here.”

Carver followed the officer through the trees ducking and dodging branches in the tangled nest of a forest before arriving at a small clearing. The floor was dried mud cracking in the sun.

“We’ll get back to it then,” said one of the patrol officers as Carver ignored them.

        He watched the CSI’s pass over every detail of the area noticing the thick elm tree that sat at the center of the clearing.

“You,” he said, “why is the ground dry?”

A CSI stopped and lowered his mask looking down at the hardened mud.

“And who might you be?” he replied as Carver offered him his badge.

“I’m sorry, Sir. It was probably the tree cover that blocked the rain.”

Carver glanced up at the trees that sheltered the clearing whose branches were mangled and leafless.

“There’s no leaves on these trees and it was raining just this morning.”

“I don’t know sir,” replied the CSI, “would you like us to take a soil sample.”

Carver nodded before taking his hands out of his pocket and moving in closer towards the tree. He moved his fingers over a symbol carved into the wood of the tree just behind where the legs of the body swayed gently in the morning breeze.

        He watched the body, pale with dead eyes, as it hung from a thin branch of the tree by the neck. A young girl with blonde hair curled into ringlets and long elegant fingers with black painted nails. He tilted his head looking over the yellowed flesh around her hips and thighs, watching the trail of blood that ran down her inside leg all the way to the tip of her middle toe where it slowly dripped into a crack in the mud.

“Any sign of her clothes?” he asked the CSI.

“Patrol are sweeping the area as we speak.”

“Witnesses?”

“Just the hunter who found the body.”

“How’d he find it?”

“He heard a scream about five this morning, thought he’d check it out and then he found the body.”

“Have a statement taken from him.”

“Already done,” replied the CSI, “Sir.”

        Carver paced around the tree watching each numbered yellow marker placed on the ground.

“You know they call this the Wych Elm,” spoke a voice from behind him.

Carver turned to see a young woman, small and petite but with blocky shoulders and a monochrome suit.

“They?”

“Local kids, people who want to creep out tourists.”

They watch each other from a distance each trying to puzzle the other out.

“You rise early,” she said.

“I like to be on my own.”

“So I’ve heard,” she added.

She approached him offering her hand.

“Agent Emma Langston.”

He tentatively shook her hand staring into her eyes.

“Don’t worry I’m up to speed,” she added.

“Is this number six?” he asked.

“Something tells me you already know the answer to that question.”

She approached the body drinking her coffee from a worn and scratched travel cup.

“All the victims have been killed in this or similar ways,” began Langston.

“Displayed,” interrupted Carver.

“Excuse me?”

“Displayed, they’ve all been displayed this way, they were all strangled or drowned before being hung is that correct?”

She watched the trail of blood down her leg.

“Yes,” she began, “and if this is my guy, and something tells me it is, then he didn’t stop there.”

“No, your guy is fond of crosses.”

        Langston notices the chain from a necklace dangling out of her genitalia with a ball of blood dropping off its end.

“He’s punishing them.”

Langston drank from her coffee scratching away more of the red paint with her thumb.

“Yeah, we figured that much. For promiscuity or something,” replied Langston.

“For witchcraft.”

        Langston smiled and turned from the body to look at Carver.

“Witchcraft?”

“The key is the way to bodies are being displayed,” he began, looking at the body and avoiding the gaze of Langston, “they’re all being hanged or drowned.”

“Lots of killers drown or hang their victims doesn’t make this about witchcraft?”

Carver reached into his pocket to take out an inhaler, which he held between his lips for a moment threatening to take a breath.

“I think he’s using the means of execution to tell us something,” said Carver.

 “And what exactly do you think he’s telling us?”

        Carver looked at the body, he felt her pain like a scratching in his palms and thighs. The bones in his neck ached and his skin felt sore. He watched her hanging, pale under the dark clouds.

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t that why they sent you here?” said Langston, “or was it just to undermine my investigation because I’m struggling to work out which it is at the moment.”

He walked over to the body ignoring her.

“I think he might be forcing them to apologize and admit their wrongs,” said Carver.

“He saw them as tainted when they were alive, and maybe in executing them he thought he was freeing them from their sins.”

Langston smiled.

“You’re not used to working around people are you Carver?” she said.

“James,” he began, “you can call me James.”

        He flicked his eyes towards her awkwardly before turning them back to the body.

“Okay then James, if he’s just getting them to atone for their sins, why the pageantry? Why the witchcraft references? Is he some kind of religious nut or cult leader?”

“I’m not sure it’s as simple as that,” said Carver.

 “So far you’re not doing a good job of assisting with the investigation,” she added, “aren’t you supposed to be working out a profile of who our killer might be? We certainly don’t need any more fucking questions.”

“To understand the killer we have to understand his victims. The dead tell us everything we need to know, Emma.”

“You can call me Agent Langston,” she replied, “and you know, the dead don’t tend to be great conversation.”

He ignored her again, focusing on the body hanging.

“Her name was Emily,” he began, “she was a high school student.”

“Is that right?” replied Langston.

Langston sipped from her coffee and approached the body again looking at her face.

“You knew her well did you?” she began, “see that’s the thing, you come into an investigation somewhere you know nothing about and assume. I’ve been working this case for three weeks now and…”

“…that’s why I’m here. It’s been five weeks and they wanted a fresh perspective.”

Langston feigned laughter.

“Perspective? That’s the bullshit you’re feeding me. They never thought I could handle it, Harris told me as much when I asked for the case. You’re just his awkward little excuse to get a man down her to do my job.”

“I don’t think this has anything to do with gender Agent Langston.”

“Try being a woman in the FBI and then tell me this has nothing to do with gender.”

She looked up at the body again, her face turning from frustration to anguish.

“She was a witness,” she began, “she was supposed to be coming in to be interviewed tomorrow because she had new information about one of the other murders. About one of the other six murders we’re no closer to solving.”

“Maybe she was killed because of what she knew?” replied Carver.

“This is planned, he knew it would be her, he knew how he wanted to kill her, I don’t think he cared about what she knew.”

Langston drank the last of her coffee, still scratching away at the logo on its front with her worn and bitten nails.

“Have you come up with a profile for us?” she asked.

Carver turned to her.

“Sort of,” he said.

“Sort of?” she replied, “you get paid too much money for sort of.”

“I have an idea who he is.”

“Well don’t hold back, tell me what you think.”

Carver watched his hand, and remembered the way the snow used to fall in his palm when he was a child hiding his skin in a beautiful white sleeve. His hand began shaking and so Carver clenched a fist and dig it back into his pocket looking back at Langston.

“He’s defiantly a man,” he began, “his focus on the genitalia suggests that. He’s smart, probably a teacher, likely of History in college. His fascination with religion stems from a place of fear and his belief is well founded. I doubt he’s ever been married.”

Carver stopped, assessing Langston. She watched him with her eye brows forced down onto her eyes with concern, sending him a stare as cold as the snow that used to fall delicately into his hand.

“Why do you doubt he’s been married?”

“He doesn’t seem overly keen on women,” he replied.

Langston looked once more at the chain that hung between the thighs of the body stuck to her leg with blood at its top.

“I know plenty of married men who aren’t overly keen on women,” replied Langston. There was a pause between them as Carver watched Langston intently.

“We’ve got another body!” shouted an investigator stood near the other side of the elm tree.

Carver and Langston ran towards the voice and stood next to the investigator looking at an opening in the tree where the bark had dried, broken and had been hollowed out by an animal to make a nest. Inside sat the contorted remains of another girl, with blond hair matted with blood, brown eyes with a blue spec floating around near her iris and dead, pale skin dotted with purple that had been eaten away around her mouth and neck.

“I don’t understand, this doesn’t fit our guy,” said Carver.

“Judging by the rate of decomposition she’s been here for a few weeks,” replied one of the investigators.

“Before the murders began?” added Carver.

“This was his first,” began Langston, “this was practice.”

Next Chapter: Chapter One "Out"