Fortune's Fool (Hannibal Fanfiction)

IX: Ill-Fitting Suit

Contrary to popular belief, Will's empathy wasn't a superpower. It didn't run on magic or the supernatural or any of that superstitious bullshit. It ran on evidence. It ran on knowledge of the human condition and on how much a person's actions could betray who they were and what they believed. If it also ran on his unusually clear understanding of why people were inclined to murder (which it did), then so be it. But it wasn't supernatural. Slightly disturbing, yes, but not supernatural.

So when Will was faced with a crime scene that didn't make sense, or a killer whose point of view he was shaky on, things worked a little differently. He still slipped into the killer's mindset, best he could, but it was like an ill-fitting suit. The killer's motivations were unclear or obscured. There were pieces missing, gaps in their design. Sometimes even the surface-level emotions were hard to parse.

This crime scene was one of those suits, with extra space in the shoulders and pants that were slightly too long.

A few things Will knew with relative certainty:

The killer had only killed once before. He was careful, as he'd barely left a trace at each crime scene, and the little DNA that investigators had found didn't match anyone already in the database. His crimes were premeditated, but not lacking strength or depth of emotion. He likely lived in or originated from Metairie, given that his first kill was there.

Will could understand all of that just fine. What he didn't understand yet was the killer's motivations.

Raymond Frank Kennedy's death was clearly one of vengeance or vigilantism. But Linda Harrington? It didn't make any sense. She was a wife and mother of three children. She was a soccer mom, a PTA parent, and one of two parent representatives on the local prom planning committee. She was a regular churchgoer and volunteer. To put it lightly, she was a pillar of the small community in Chalmette. So what was the connection? Why did she deserve the death she faced?

Will breathed in and out slowly and squeezed his eyes shut tighter. It doesn't matter, he told himself unconvincingly. Focus on what you know, and the rest will follow.

When he finally opened his eyes, everything was hazy. Sunlight no longer filtered through the trees, but it was impossible to know what time it was. It could be dawn, or dusk, or an overcast noon, for that matter. He didn't even know if he was in the woods any longer. He didn't know where he had found his next victim, or when, or why, or how. Right now, the only thing that really mattered was that he was about to kill her.

In front of him stood an unassuming middle-aged white woman edging into her older years, her weathered skin giving away decades of tanning and sun exposure. There was no expression on her face, no flash of recognition in her eyes. She didn't know him. Will wrapped his hands around her throat, and she gasped and reached up to —

But she couldn't have scratched him, because his DNA wasn't found under her nails.

He blinked. Now she was facing away from him; it would be easy to catch her by surprise this way. But that wouldn't prevent her from fighting back...so maybe her hands had been full? Carrying groceries, a purse? Something heavy? But where had that gone?

Will blinked and forced himself to focus. The woman was still facing away from him, but this time her hands were preoccupied. A purse, a phone, it didn't matter. It distracted her long enough for him to wrap his hands around her throat. He relished the life-force slowly draining from her as she choked and struggled feebly. It would feel better without gloves on, but he wasn't an idiot. If he could get away with hacking the last piece of scum to death, he could get away with a more complicated crime, as long as he took the right precautions. He was sure of it.

Will held the woman to his chest as she fell unconscious, keeping a strong grip around her neck even after she went limp. He needed her to stay unconscious long enough that she would be unlikely to wake up without major problems. A splitting headache, damaged airways or arteries, brain damage...any and all of those would do. He counted sixty seconds and then released the stranglehold on her neck, grabbing her by the hair.

Her hair was fake, just like the rest of her. It was time to expose it.

Will took a fistful of hair and yanked. There was a sickening ripppp as the extensions were torn from her scalp, taking chunks of her real hair with them. He yanked violently until he held most of her extensions in his fist, then wrapped them around her throat and pulled them as tight as he could, constricting her air and blood flow.

This was how she would go out, choking and suffocating to death on her falsities.

This was his design.

Will held the body up by the lethal extensions, closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them. He was back in the woods now, except it was so dark he could barely see in front of his nose. He felt a momentary stab of irritation that he didn't know how he'd gotten there or where he'd come from, but he suppressed it. She was dead. That was what mattered. And now he was going to put her on display.

A flashlight held in his mouth, Will hauled the body to a thick tree at the edge of the clearing and propped it up facing him. He tied it securely to the tree with a coil of rough-hewn rope. Then he weighed the small knife in his hand. It was a much more delicate weapon than an ax, but he wasn't here for delicate work. He lunged forward and stabbed the corpse's eyes, leaving them as dark pitted sockets before shaking the excess off his knife into the leaf litter on the clearing floor.

He might not understand it all, but this must be his design, because he did it.

Didn't he?

Will jerked and his eyes flew open. His breath hitched as he struggled to adjust to the light after having been engulfed by pitch-black darkness. The mutilated corpse was gone, replaced by the yellow ribbon around the tree, and he was no longer holding a bloodied knife. A thin layer of sweat stuck to his skin.

He breathed in and out, trying to stabilize himself. Who was this killer? How could he have gone from never having killed before to a vigilante kill to the cold-blooded murder of a middle-aged mother? It didn't make any sense. There were so many gaps in his design that Will almost wanted to strangle someone for real, preferably the killer himself. Where had the murderer found Linda Harrington? Why didn't anybody know where she had gone in the 24 hours up to her death? Why were there no marks on her body besides strangulation and post-mortem gouging? How had the killer gotten her into the woods in the first place? Where had her personal belongings gone?

What the fuck was up with this killer's design?

Will didn't know how long he stood there without moving. All he knew is that when Hannibal said his name, he finally broke from his reverie. He shoved his hands in his pockets and joined the older man where he waited patiently a few feet from the clearing.

"This crime scene doesn't make any sense," Will said, looking into the trees instead of at Hannibal. "It's as if it was done by a completely different killer than the first one." He shook his head angrily. "I don't know who this killer is or what he wants. I don't even know how he got the damn body here." He started for the car before Hannibal could respond. "And if the next crime scene isn't clearer than this, I'm going to personally tell Jack to shove this case up his ass sideways."