GrowingOlderHopeWiser

Natalie Jenkins fumbled with the lock box and balanced her cookie tray and flowers. She held her cell phone to her ear with her right shoulder. “Yes, sweetie, I’ll pick up cupcakes and Barbie party favors for your class birthday. Love you. I’ve got to get ready for the Open House now.” 

At 52 Elm Street, all was still in a quiet Atlanta cul-de-sac. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was perfectly coiffed, and her blue eyes sparkled in the sun. She wore a stylish, professional outfit, including her navy blue Realtor blazer with her name etched on a gold pin. 

The house was empty, but she noticed the back slider was slightly ajar. She called out, “Is anyone here?” Natalie set the cookie tray and flowers down, then took a quick walk through the house. She was alone. Back in the kitchen, she began humming as she picked out a vase for the flowers and filled it with water. Charles slipped from behind the pantry door, grabbed her, covered her mouth, and held a knife to her stomach. “You scream, you’re dead before anyone can get here,” he whispered in her ear. 

“Now show me the upstairs bedroom, Realtor Natalie.”

Natalie dropped the vase, and it shattered on the tiled floor. Shards of glass cut her leg as her heels slipped on the spilled water. “Steady now,” he said, squeezing her tighter and holding her up. His breath reeked of rancid meat and garlic, making her dry heave. “Something you don’t like?” Charles said, licking her ear. “Upstairs now.” Natalie obeyed, walking awkwardly up the stairs with him clinging to her back. 

Detective Frank Jones and Detective Lucy Brown worked the scene. This was the third Realtor rape and murder in two months. Lucy kept thinking of her younger sister, also a Realtor in Atlanta. How many open houses had her sister staged? Alone. These women were vulnerable, and a pattern was emerging.

“He is intensifying his attacks,” Lucy said. 

He posed his victim with nothing on but her Realtor jacket and a red ribbon tied in a bow around her neck. A strong Clorox scent filled the air as he tried to remove all traces of himself. The red ribbon concealed the belt marks from the belt he used to strangle her. Natalie was discovered when she failed to call her office to say she was ready for the Open House. Beatrice, the office manager, went to check on her at the house, saw the blood, the shattered vase, and water in the kitchen, and called the police.

Lucy noted a bloody partial sneaker footprint leading from the kitchen toward the stairs; CSI had already marked it and taken pictures. The slider doors showed tool marks consistent with those of a professional locksmith or someone who knew how to open them. 

 “We need to make a public announcement; we can’t afford to keep this under wraps. Female Realtors aren’t safe in Atlanta until we catch this guy,” Detective Lucy said.

The crime board was filling with photos and notes. Profiler Brian Smith was brought in from Main Headquarters. He painted a picture of a loner in his 30s, possibly a day laborer or a blue-collar worker—such as a locksmith or cable technician—who blends in with the neighborhood. 

“He is starting to get sloppy,” he said, noting the footprint and tool marks on the slider door. 

“He is accelerating; it has only been a week since the last victim.” He continued his profile of the perp. 

“ I don’t think these are his first victims; there are similar cases in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They are sending us the case files. The last two victims, both female Realtors, posed the same as Natalie, wearing their blazers and with a red ribbon neatly tied around their necks.

Natalie was a mother with a young daughter who is turning 8 this week. Galena, 46, beautiful and elegant, was a widowed empty nester who sold real estate on the side to keep busy. Janet was mother to five-year-old twins and a deacon’s wife. Frank was seething; these ladies did not deserve this. He hated men who became controlling and violent toward women; he remembered his own childhood, when his mother was a victim of his drunk stepfather. Lucy had her own nightmares of her little sister being alone while staging open houses.

Excerpt from The Open House Killer