Fragmented by George Fong

seep into the cabin. A blowfly landed on the truck’s steering wheel. Cooper flicked a finger at the lone parasite. It smacked against the windshield before flying off. He backed the truck out, made a two-point turn and headed up the dirt trail toward the highway. Cooper intended to find a commercial dumpster to deposit the remains of Klaus Monroe. By the time someone found his body, he would be a John Doe, just another transient who succumbed to an illness or drugs. That gave Cooper more time to find an answer to his predicament.
    The truck crawled forward under the shade of oak trees. Before coming to the end of the dirt road, Cooper felt his cell phone vibrate in his pants’ pocket. He pulled it out, flipped opened the cover and scanned the caller ID. Cooper smiled and pushed the green answer button. “Well, hello.”
    “Where are you?” the caller said through a cloud of background street noise.
    “At Monroe ’s. Where the hell are you?”
    “Close.” The caller hesitated for a beat. “Where is he?”
    “In the back.” Cooper chuckled, then added, “Asleep.”
    “You mean he’s dead.”
    It saddened him his friend wasn’t in the mood to play games. “Yes, dead.” Cooper paused, took in a deep breath, catching a whiff of the decaying Monroe in the warm, moist air. “You coming?”
    The caller again hesitated before answering. “Yeah. I’ll meet you and give you a hand.”

    “I’ll call you when I find a spot for my friend.” Cooper didn’t wait for a response. He closed the phone and shoved it back into his pocket. He glanced at his watch before gazing back toward the camper. “Sorry, Klaus, don’t have much time to dawdle.” He turned his attention back to the road as he reached the end of the driveway. The truck lumbered up and onto the main stretch. Cooper cruised at the legal speed limit as he drove in search of a repository for Mr. Klaus Monroe.

13
     

    Tuesday –
9:15 p.m.
     

    Jack ended his phone call with Tom Cannon, and slouched in his office chair, staring at a copy of the photo taken from the computer of Petroski, or whatever his name really was. It had been less than twelve hours, according to Harrington, that the photo was taken and they were no closer to locating the girl. Marquez had taken a break from assisting Harrington. She grabbed an empty chair from another pod and rolled it next to Jack, where she plopped down and elevated her feet on his desk.
    “Looks like our Petroski is nothing more than a borrowed name,” Jack said.
    Marquez raised an eyebrow. “Borrowed?”
    “Tom went to the Redburn address and searched the residence. They found Mr. Petroski in the bathtub and—let me give you a hint—he wasn’t taking a bath.”
    “So your suspect needed an identity and Mr. Petroski was the unfortunate volunteer.”
    “I’ll bet our suspect met Petroski on the Internet trading smut. They meet face-to-face at some point in time, even become friends. Then, opportunity came a-knocking and Petroski finds himself the recipient of a chalk outline.”
    “You think our UNSUB knows we’re on to him?”
    “From what the detectives could tell, Petroski had been dead about a week. If we didn’t find him, the locals most certainly would have. With this heat, I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t already call the police about the smell.” Jack sighed before continuing. “Our guy had enough time to rent the Chico residence, set up shop and kidnap a young girl. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes we know the real Mr. Petroski is face down in a pool of sludge. He’ll need another identity.”
    “That means—”
    “That means,” Jack interrupted, “he’ll kill again.”
    “If he hasn’t already.”
    His desk phone rang. The front switchboard operator.
    “Agent Paris , I just got a call from the Chico PD. They’re responding to a homicide and possibly a missing sixteen-year-old.”
    “We were just with Chico . They didn’t mention any reported