Chapter 3Our Dark Obsession

Seeing no way out, Gary finally spilled the beans.

"Look, it was just like any other day," he started, his voice shaky. "I drove out to the farm around five AM to pick up the load. But I’d been up late the night before, kinda drowsy on the road. After I left the farm, I pulled over for a quick nap."

He paused, rubbing his face as if reliving it. "Next thing I know, I wake up, and there's this... pig... right in front of my truck. Figured it must've jumped out, so I got out to wrangle it back in."

Gary explained that a full-grown hog weighs a couple hundred pounds easy. He had an old shoulder injury, no way he could lift it alone. Luckily, it was getting light out, and some traffic started appearing on the road.

He tried flagging someone down. Took a while, but eventually, a guy stopped to help. Even with two of them, Gary said, it was a real struggle getting that modified 'pig' back onto the truck.

So, unknowingly, the two of them had just sent a tortured human being to their death.

Afterward, Gary couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. For a pig that size, it felt way too light. He remembered thinking the fat looked weird, almost fake, bulging in strange places. And there were stitches all over its body. Who stitches up a pig?

But at the time, he couldn't imagine what else it could be. The other guy had called it a pig too. Despite the weirdness, the ears and trotters looked real enough. Those were definitely pig parts.

It wasn't until he heard the news about something gruesome found at the slaughterhouse that his suspicions clicked into place.

"So why didn't you come to us right away?" I pressed. Withholding information is obstruction.

Gary looked down at his hands, shamefaced. "I ain't never been in trouble with the law before. Heard about what happened… just didn't want no part of it."

It made sense, in a way. Most ordinary folks just want to keep their heads down, stay out of trouble. Something like this? You want to be as far away from it as possible. Gary was just a regular guy. Ever since the slaughterhouse opened up near his town, driving that truck was his life. Simple routine.

Besides, he clearly didn't have the means or the know-how to turn a person into… that.

After a short interview, we let him go home.

I ran a tired hand over my face, turning my attention back to the computer screen, pulling up traffic cam footage. But the slaughterhouse and the farm were both out in the sticks. Gary took the outer loops, bypass roads. The only cameras were at major intersections with traffic lights.

We watched footage all day. Nothing.

"Boss, we found the victim's family!"

Just as my frustration peaked, Jake burst in with some potentially good news.

"They reported their daughter missing about a month ago," Jake continued, then hesitated. "But... their reactions are kinda strange."

At first, I figured it was just parents overwhelmed by grief. But I never expected the kind of conflict we walked into.

"She's dead, so she's dead! Why do you insist on coming down here to identify her?" the father snapped, glaring at the weeping woman beside him, showing her no courtesy right in front of us.

The woman, however, reacted exactly as you'd expect a grieving mother to.

"Officer, please, can I just see my daughter? Just one look, I'm begging you," she sobbed, her cries like little daggers twisting in my gut.

But I couldn't agree. No mother should see her child like that. I signaled a female officer to take her aside, try to comfort her, while I focused on the cold-hearted father. His name was George Vance.

"Mr. Vance," I began, pouring him a glass of water. "Why do you feel this way about your daughter?" I needed to hear his side of the story, learn about the victim. Her name was Denise Vance.