So this is a first draft. Yes, structuraly speaking it's a bit of a mess, and there are grammatical errors abounding. But I tend to write in this stream of consciousness, and then go back and make revisions, tighten up plot points, and flesh out characters motivations. So please excuse all those things. Much of this will most likely be re-written, some of it will be excised all together.
The way this is headed, this may in fact turn out to be more than a short story.
As usual, all criticisms are welcome, as is any praise.
Anyway, without any further ado, here we go:
Chapter One Mary Jo Whitmore hurried down Seventh Avenue with her head down and her coat pulled tightly shut around her. It had been threatening to rain all day, and as fate would have it, the threat turned into reality just as she started the six block walk home from work.
The orthopedic shoes that were part of her nurse’s uniform filled with cold water and made flatulent squishing sounds with each step that she took. By the time she had covered the first two blocks of her walk, she was soaked to the skin, and wanted nothing more than to get home, strip off her clothes, and relax in a luxurious hot bath.
She needed to decompress from another shitty night in the Emergency Room. The old wives tale about the full moon was no myth. The E.R. was always at its most frantic on these nights, and this one had been no exception.
Her shift started off normal enough, the usual gunshot wounds, stabbings and car accident victims, but two hours before the end of her shift, a thirteen year old girl had been brought in with excessive internal bleeding. It didn’t take long to find out what the cause was. She’d had a twisted wire coat hanger jammed up inside her. It turned out that she had been five months pregnant with her uncle’s child, and out of shame, or guilt, or both, had tried to give herself an abortion.
She died an hour after she was brought in.
It was rare that Mary Jo let her emotions take over, after all she was a professional, and was accustomed to daily horrors, but this particular instance was too much for her. Seeing that little girl on the stretcher, the coat hanger, the blood, and the revelation that a girl so young should be thrust into a situation in life that would reduce her to so desperate an act overwhelmed her. She ran to the ladies room, and once inside, fell against the wall and wept. She cried until her breath came in hitches, and her head ached from the effort, and finally she gathered herself together enough to finish her shift.
Now, on her way home at last, the event still clung to her psyche like her wet clothes clung to her skin. She shook off the image of the little girl as best she could, and continued on her walk home, the autumn rain running down the back of her neck and driving a deep chill into her spine.
As she rounded the corner onto Twenty Eighth Street, she noticed a man sitting by himself beneath a bus-stop shelter. Catching his eye only briefly, she noticed him smiling at her, and despite the weather, and her aching legs and feet, she found herself smiling back. His good looks caught her off guard momentarily. He was movie star handsome, with chiseled features, thick black hair and blue eyes. Despite the cold rain, she felt flush.
Crazily, she considered stopping to talk to this stranger, and might have done just that, when a lunatic cab driver sped past, sending up a spray of filthy water that drenched her even more thoroughly than she already had been. Rivulets of mud rolled down her face and inside her clothes, and with that, she put her head down, and continued on her way, focused on the promise of a hot, cleansing bath.
…
He’s been sitting at this bus-stop for nearly three hours now, watching the dirty city busses stop and go, their passengers getting on and off, searching this sea of flesh, looking for the right one. The one that will give him the release he seeks this night.
He hates this city. It’s filth, both human and man made makes his skin crawl. In his heightened state of awareness, he can smell the festering decay in the people around him. So he is delighted when it starts to rain, washing away at least some of the vile grime and detritus that clog the streets.
He’s waited nearly three hours now, and has not seen one promising prospect. He can feel it building up inside him straining for release, this Demon that comes to him every few months. The one that wakes him from a sound sleep, at first just a tingling sensation in his groin, but slowly growing to an un-scratch-able itch, a burning desire that must be sated before he goes mad.
He has learned that when The Demon comes to him, there is no denying its persistent call, no chance of ignoring it in hopes of it going away. The Demon is unrelenting, The Demon has the patience of a thousand men, and will whisper to him, urging him over and over to do what it wills him to do, what he must do to satisfy its desires.
He is just about to give up his position here and try to find a busier thoroughfare in which to conduct his search, when he spots her coming around the corner. Even in the rain, her hair soaked, her head down, and wearing a formless frock of a uniform, her singular beauty captivates him. This is the one he has been waiting for. He finds that he is smiling despite himself, and is surprised to see that as she passes him, she is smiling back. This is the sign he has been waiting for. Though he and his chosen one have never met, a certainty arises in him that they both share knowledge of what is to come, and that they both desire it equally.
The Demon hisses in agreement.…
Mary Jo entered her apartment, closed and locked the door behind her, and started to strip off her wet clothes, leaving a trail from her front door to the bathroom as she went. From the hook on the back of the bathroom door, she took her flannel robe, and delighted in the warmth it provided when she pulled it on.
She ran herself a bath, the water as hot as she could stand, and headed off to the kitchen to put the tea kettle on the stove, when there was a knock at her door. This was odd. She only knew a handful of people in the city, and she certainly wasn’t expecting anyone to drop by tonight, so immediately she was cautious.
Looking through the peephole, she was surprised to see the handsome stranger from the bus-stop standing in front of her door. He was soaking wet and shivering. She engaged the safety chain and opened the door as far as it would allow.
“Can I help you?”
“Boy, I sure hope so,” he said, “I was robbed.”
“Robbed?”
“Yeah, mugged. They took everything, my wallet, my car keys, even my high school ring if you can believe it.”
He smiled sheepishly, and she was again reminded of how utterly beautiful he was. But Mary Jo Whitmore was her mother’s daughter, and as such was skeptical of everyone she met until they had opportunity to prove themselves. So why did she suddenly find herself considering opening her door for this man?
Instead, she said, “I’m sorry, really, but I can’t help you. You should call the police.”
“I was kind of hoping you might let me use your phone. See, I’m not from around here, and to tell you the truth I’m more than a little shaken up over this. When I saw you on the street and you smiled at me, I thought you might be the kind of person who would lend a hand to someone in trouble. I’m sorry if I bothered you, have a nice evening.”
He turned to walk away, and against all better judgment, Mary Jo said, “Wait.”
Turning back, he smiled a little boy smile at her and said “Yes?”
“Listen, I know what it’s like to be alone in a place like this, it’s not easy, and I suppose if I were in your shoes, I would hope that a good Samaritan might come to my rescue, but you have to forgive me if I’m a little cautious here.”
“Hey,” he said, “I more than understand. I wouldn’t want to make you do anything you were uncomfortable with, and I guess it was a little silly of me to think that you would just open your door to a complete stranger in this city. Again, I apologize, and I’ll leave you alone.”
Mary Jo hesitated for a moment, and said, “No, really, its okay, come on in. You can use my phone.” She removed the safety chain and opened the door. “I’ll get you a towel, and I have some water on for tea if you’d like some.”
He smiled radiantly at her.
“I would love some tea. Thank you so much.”
“The phone is on the table next to the sofa, let me go turn off my bath, and I’ll get you that towel and a warm cup of tea.”
“Thank you,” he said, smiling that dazzling smile, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this miss...”
Looking at him smiling at her, Mary Jo found herself once again smiling back at this man whom she had never met. “Mary Jo Whitmore, you can call me Mary Jo.”
“Mary Jo it is then.”
She headed off down the hallway, picking up her discarded clothing along the way, and turned off the water in the bath. Smiling to herself for no real reason she could think of, she opened her linen closet to fetch a towel.
…
He can’t believe how easily she let him in. Sure, he is used to women giving in to him with a fair amount of ease, but in a city like this one? How stupid could this sow possibly be? He would have to be sure to teach her the error of her ways. The Demon whispers to him, tells him that she is not stupid, she is a willing participant. That she has been chosen, as have all the others, that she knows precisely what is in store for her, and more; she yearns for it, desires it. Her hesitancy at the door was simply a formality.
He recognizes the truth in this, and the realization excites him. He is throbbing, straining against the fly of his pants. He seeks release, but knows there is much work to be done before he can have it.
First the demon must be sated, then he can follow suit.
He smiles at her and watches as she turns and heads toward the running water, picking up her mess as she goes. She smiles back, and he knows that she is as eager for what is to come as he is. He wonders if she is as wet in anticipation as he is hard.
When she is out of view, he reaches down and pulls the phone cord from the wall.…
...
Mary Jo walked back into the living room with a dry towel and a hot cup of tea. Offering both to her guest, she saw that he was standing with the phone to his ear and frowning.
“Something wrong?”
“Your phone seems to be out of service.”
“You’re kidding. I just paid the bill last week,” she said as she took the phone from him to check for herself. There was no dial tone, no static; in fact there was no sound at all. “Odd.”
“Maybe it’s the rain,” he suggested.
She looked out the window, the rain had already let up and was now no more than a drizzle. “Maybe… but I don’t think so. My service has never gone out before, and it wasn’t that bad a storm.”
That was when Mary Jo noticed that the phone cord was disconnected from the wall jack. Frowning, she had a brief moment where she tried to sort out in her head whether or not she had somehow dislodged the cord herself, when the realization hit her, and her stomach knotted up into a cold ball.
She turned around in time to see the stranger cocking back a closed fist, and then everything went black.
…
He stands over his chosen victim and finds himself more aroused than ever. She is sprawled out on the floor, one arm over her head, the other across her mid-section. Her robe has fallen open, and one of her breasts is exposed. Lying there in this way she could almost be posing for an artist, and in a way she is. He considers her for another moment, then grabs her arms and begins to drag her toward the bathroom.
Along the way, he fantasizes about all the wonderful, wet things he is going to do with this one. The throbbing in his groin is unbearable.
He is smiling as he picks her up, and taking off her robe he lowers her into the bath she so conveniently drew for him. Surely this is no coincidence.
The Demon assures him it is not.…
As consciousness slowly returned to her, Mary Jo had a fleeting thought that she had fallen asleep in the tub, and that it had all been a dream. As her vision cleared, and the dull throbbing in her jaw became a full on pain, she understood with an all consuming dread, that it hadn’t been a dream at all.
With great effort, she lifted her head and saw the handsome stranger sitting on the toilet and smiling at her. He had something in his hands, but her vision was still too cloudy to make it out.
“Welcome back.” He said. “I was beginning to think you were going to sleep through this. That would have been…disappointing.”
He rose up and approached her, and she finally saw what it was that he was holding. In his hands was a wire coat hanger, the bends straightened out, the end fashioned into a small hook. Instantly, she flashed back to the little girl in the E.R. earlier that night. She tried to scream, but he grabbed her by the hair and pushed her head under water.
She struggled, thrashing and pounding the walls of the tub, but he was too strong. Her lungs straining, she took on water, and as the world started to recede, she looked up through the surface of the bath water.
The last thing she saw in this world was his handsome face hovering above her, and on that face, a beatific smile.
…
He stands over the girl, staring down at her lifeless form, and begins to cry. He is not sure why, but it is short lived. The Demon must be satisfied.
He knows what he must do. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he removes a pair of surgical gloves and pulls them onto his hands. Kneeling beside the tub, he reaches out and caresses her lifeless face, brushing wet hair from her forehead.
He picks up the coat hanger, and grabbing her head, tilts it back.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll be gentle.”
This makes him chuckle, and he forces himself to stop, because he knows that if he allows himself to laugh now, he may never be able to stop.
“You have no idea how lucky you really are.” He says.
He begins the slow laborious task of working the hooked end of the coat hanger up inside her nose. There is a specific path through the nasal canal that must be followed before he hears the satisfying crunch that tells him he has hit his mark. Then the turning, the scraping, and finally the removal. This procedure, this ritual must be performed in exactly the same manner in which the ancient Egyptians performed it. He has studied it extensively, and The Demon has instructed him in the proper methods.
He has hours of work ahead of him, and all must be perfect.
After all, he is an artist, and this glorious vessel before him is his canvas. Chapter Two Ian McBride awoke at dawn. He looked out his apartment window and watched as the teeming masses went about their lives in the shadows cast by a new sunrise. He thought about how lucky most of them were. They went to work, met for lunch and shopped for clothes at Banana Republic and GAP, all the while blissfully unaware of the evil that was all around them, lurking around the next corner, waiting to pounce on them and reduce them to the status of victim in one brief moment of violence.
Ian new a great deal about evil.
As an FBI profiler, he was intimately acquainted with it, with the horror of it, with the utter and complete randomness of it. He envied the people below him now, envied them their ignorance. Try as he might, he could not remember a time when he himself had shared that particular ignorance, and he longed for it. Longed for a life in which he could look at a person without seeing them as a potential victim. Or a potential murderer.
He brewed a pot of strong coffee and sat down with a fresh cup.
He was tired this morning. He seemed to be tired all the time lately. Although as far as he knew, his sleep was sound and dreamless, he awoke each day feeling as if he had barely slept at all. As a result, his coffee got stronger and stronger, and he had taken to drinking it black.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he was burning out. He’d been in the bureau eleven years now, seven as a profiler, and two as the assistant director of the Behavioral Science Unit, a promotion that was well deserved considering his track record. In his career as a profiler (a short career by bureau standards), Ian had been responsible for the apprehension of no less then twenty-two known serial killers. His uncanny ability to place himself inside the mind of a murderer verged on eerie. Some agents stayed as far away from him as possible, making jokes at his expense to cover for the fact that he simply creeped them out. Others still, thought he was a genius and sought him out constantly for advice and knowledge, hoping that something would rub off on them and help them to advance in their careers. There were even a few who thought he might actually have some precognitive ability.
What Ian knew was this; he was good at his job. He had worked hard to become so. Yes, he considered himself more insightful than most, perhaps even gifted, but he gave no credence to anything supernatural. He gave credence to his work ethic and to himself.
The sounds of the city below him brought him out of his moment of reflection, and looking at the kitchen clock he realized that if he didn’t get moving he would be late for work. Maybe I am burning out, he thought. He went to his closet and chose a suit. After a quick shave and a shower, he was on his way to his office in the FBI building in Federal Plaza.
Once he was out on the street, he found himself filled with a sudden sense of anticipation. This sensation was amplified by the crispness of the fall air, and the smell of the previous night’s rain. Something about that smell triggered a brief emotional reaction in him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He shook it off and hailed a cab.
As soon as he arrived at work, the cobwebs in his head disappeared just as they always did. Within moments he was besieged with paperwork requests, profiles on various violent crimes to be created for agents in the field, reports going out via email and fax to various other agencies, discussions with rookie agents on protocol and procedure.
Ian was the eye of the storm. He found calm amid the frenzy of deadlines and emergencies. This was where he truly came alive, and it was a far better stimulant than even the strongest cup of coffee.
Where other agents found pressure counter-productive, Ian thrived on it, was quite sure in fact that he probably couldn’t work as well without it.
Just before noon, a call came in from the NYPD requesting his presence at a crime scene. This was what he had been waiting for. Now his day had a purpose. He was eager to visit the crime scene, but still he remained calm. He had been to so many in his time here, and there were procedures to follow, superiors to notify.
He wrote down the address and told the officer he would be there in twenty minutes.
As he arrived at the scene on Twenty-Eighth Street, he made his way through the gathering crowd, and approached the police line. A young uniformed officer held out his hand. “I’m sorry sir,” he said, “this is a crime scene. I’m going to have to ask you to step back.”
“FBI.” Ian said, showing the rookie his I.D.
“I’m sorry sir, come on through.”
Ian stepped beneath the yellow police tape, and turned around to survey the crowd. It had been his experience that the perpetrator of this kind of crime usually hung around to watch the show afterwards. As his eyes worked back and forth over the thirty or so people who were already present here, he wondered which if any of them could be the one responsible for what he was about to witness inside.
His concentration was broken by the young officer beside him.
“The Crime scene is on the eleventh floor, just follow the badges.”
“Where you the responding officer?”
“No sir, that would be Officer Delgado. He’s up there now with Detective Lusk from homicide.”
“Has the M.E. arrived?”
“Yeah, about fifteen minutes ago. Listen, do me favor? When you get up there, could you let someone know I could use a hand down here? This crowd’s getting’ bigger by the second.”
“Sure.”
Ian turned and proceeded towards the entrance to the apartment building. His mind racing, taking in every detail of the surroundings, he walked through the door and entered the lobby.
To his left was the elevator, beyond that at the end of the hall was a door that led to the staircase, on his right were the banks of mailboxes for the tenants, each one marked with a different apartment number. Standing in the center of the hallway were two uniformed officers.
“Apartment number?” he asked to neither one in particular.
“Eleven D.” one of them responded.
“Thanks. By the way, one of you may want to step outside and assist with crowd control, the rookie’s getting nervous.”
He looked back and forth between the elevator and the stairs, and decided to take the stairs. He thought that the perp had probably taken the elevator up, but most likely took the stairs down on his way out to draw less attention to himself, and there was a strong likelihood of trace evidence in the stairwells.
As he reached the landing on the tenth floor, he noticed a single black scuff mark on the worn linoleum above the top step. It was quite dark, and therefore probably fresh. He made a mental note of it and continued up the last flight of stairs to the eleventh floor. He paused at the door to the hallway and reaching into his pocket, removed a pair of latex gloves and put them on. Using just his fingertips, he pushed open the door and stepped into the hall.
The buzz was on him now. Every synapse in his brain was firing rapidly. Every sense was attuned to his surroundings. He knew that to be truly effective at a crime scene, a good investigator needed not only to look, but to listen, to touch, smell, hell even taste all that was around him.
The hallway smelled of mildew and fresh paint, mixed with a slight tinge of burning garbage from the incinerator chute three doors down to his left. The lighting was dim, with three overhead fixtures lining the ceiling above his head, one of them flickering on and off at uneven intervals. The floors were covered in cheap linoleum that was made to resemble marble. The walls were industrial grey, the doors and trim a deep maroon.
There was a scattering of police officers, both uniformed and plain clothed interviewing other tenants, and the door to Eleven-D stood open several feet to his immediate left. The elevator was six doors down to the right.
Yeah, you took the stairs down alright, he thought to himself,
you came out of the apartment and saw them just across the hall, which was perfect for you, because even though you were careful, even though you had ample time to clean yourself up, you took something with you didn’t you? A little souvenir to bring home with you, so you can relive it again and again any time you wish.
A short Hispanic cop stood just outside the open door, and Ian approached him, “Are you Officer Delgado?”
“Yes sir, I am.”
“Special Agent McBride. What can you tell me?”
“Well,” said Delgado, taking a small spiral notepad from his back pocket, “the victim’s name was Mary Jo Whitmore, age twenty three, a nurse, worked at Saint Vincent’s in the E.R., finished her shift at two A.M. Wednesday morning. She didn’t show up for her shift last night, and a co-worker, named….let’s see here….Nancy Parker got worried because she say’s the vic never missed a shift, never even called in sick. So she tried calling her all last night, and when she didn’t get an answer she swung by here this morning, knocked on the door, no response. That’s when she called us.”
“Has she given a statement?”
“She’s down at the station house giving one now.”
“Go on.”
“I got the call at nine forty five, arrived here at about nine fifty two. I tried knocking and calling through the door, but I got no response, so I notified the super, got him up here with the key, and gained entry into the apartment at seven minutes past ten.”
“What did you see when you entered the apartment?”
“Nothing unusual at first. The place was a bit messy, some clothes on the floor, a towel on the couch. Then I noticed that the phone was on the floor, and it was yanked from the wall jack.” He cleared his throat and continued, “So I started walking from room to room, calling her name, you know, in case she was just sick in bed or somethin’, and that’s when I checked the bathroom and found her.” Delgado shifted on his feet slightly and said, “Whoever did this to her is one sick fuck.”
Ian saw a brief glimpse of anger in the officer’s eyes. “Thank you Officer Delgado, I trust I can contact you if I need to ask anymore questions?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
A tingle of excitement ran down Ian’s spine as he approached the door. It was always this way, first the excitement, then that creeping sensation of dread and a deep sense of loss for the victims and their loved ones, followed by the thrill of the chase. It was here that Ian felt most himself, here at a crime scene with the clues still fresh to him, here, the evidence in its place as it was found and not in plastic bags on a storeroom shelf.
This was where Ian got his first sense of the murderer as an individual, as a complete and realized human being, and it was here that he came to put himself into the mind of that individual, to place himself at the crime, to try and see the event through the killer’s eyes. It was a gruesome task that needed to be performed in order to make an accurate composite, and one that he never took lightly. Every time he allowed himself into the minds of these monsters, he feared that he might slip over the edge himself, every crime scene bringing him closer and closer, and this terrified him and titillated him at the same time.
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and stepped into the apartment.
Following the trail of the cops and forensics team, Ian headed straight for the bathroom. He paused in the doorway, looking over the shoulder of the police photographer and saw the Medical Examiner, Philip Trask, leaning over the victim in the bath tub. Standing just behind him with a look of disgust on his face was Richard Lusk, the attending homicide detective.
Ian knew Lusk, had worked with him on several occasions, and knew that he would be able to count on the detective’s full cooperation and experience. Unlike some cops he had had the displeasure to work with in the past, Lusk did not get caught up in all the jurisdictional bullshit and overall contempt for the FBI that seemed so prevalent in this boy’s club they both worked in.
Detective Lusk was a good man, a good cop, and a straight shooter. A bit of a stereotype (he looked and acted the part of the gruff homicide cop to the tee), he was also a tireless and talented investigator whose expertise and devotion to solving murders rivaled Ian’s own. Insightful and intelligent, he would be a valuable asset to this investigation, and Ian looked forward to another chance to work with the man.
Lusk looked up and noticed Ian standing in the doorway.
“Hey Frank,” he said to the photographer, “Wanna step aside? We got a bonafide Federal Agent waitin’ to get in here.” Then to Ian; “You’re gonna love this one McBride, it’s got your name written all over it.”
Ian nodded his head as a greeting, “Detective.”
“I was wondering who they were gonna send us for this one,” said
Lusk, “tell the truth, I’m glad it’s you, ‘cause this guy’s twisted.”
“What have we got?”
“I think I’ll let you find out for yourself,” he said. Then to the other officers in the room he said, “Alright, clear out. Nobody in the bathroom but me, the M.E., and Agent McBride.”
Ian stepped aside to let the others out, and walked slowly over to the bath tub. No matter how many crime scenes Ian had been to, he found that he was never quite prepared for his first look at the victim.
He steeled himself, and looked down.
What he saw took his breath away for an instant.
“Pretty ain’t it?” asked Lusk.
Ian didn’t answer, and Lusk didn’t really expect him to.
Lying in the tub was the body of a white female, approximately twenty to twenty-four years old. She had been arranged in a pose for affect, her head back, her arms laid out on either side of the tub, as if she were simply relaxing and enjoying her bath. Her legs were spread at a ghastly angle, draping over both sides of the tub.
Her sodden hair was sandy blonde and clung to her forehead and face in thick wet strands. Her eyes were open in a milky stare. Her lips were blue, and the veins in her face were evident below the surface of her pale and slightly translucent skin, telling Ian straight away that the cause of death was most likely drowning. Her upper shoulders were bruised where her assailant had held her while she struggled.
But that was not where the brutality ended.
He could see right away that the victims nipples were missing. They had been cut off with an almost surgical precision, the fatty tissue beneath in stark red contrast to the white pallor of her skin.
The fingers on both hands were stripped of flesh, the white bones protruding from ragged tears of tissue. From the lack of blood on the scene, Ian deduced that these injuries were probably produced post-mortem.
Ian removed a small micro cassette recorder from his breast pocket. He brought it to his mouth and pressed record. “He had all the time in the world, and he enjoyed himself. He was methodical and deliberate. He took great care in removing her nipples. The cuts are precise and skilled, done with a very sharp instrument, probably a surgeon’s scalpel”
“Here we go,” said Lusk, “he’s doin’ that voodoo that he do so well.”
Ian continued. “Her fingers are another matter entirely. The flesh was stripped from them violently, possibly torn off in his teeth. Will have to check for traces of saliva and other DNA evidence, although I don’t think we will find any. He cleaned her up before he left.”
He turned off the recorder and asked Trask, “Have you located the nipples or fingers yet?”
“No,” he said, “but there is something interesting here.”
“What’s that?”
“This.” said Lusk, holding up a wire coat hanger. It was straightened out with a small curved hook at the end. “Seems our boy’s been watching the Discovery Channel.”
“I don’t follow.”
Trask stood up and said, “Her brain has been removed. He pushed the wire up through the nasal canal, scrambled it around, and pulled it out in much the same way the ancient Egyptians did before mummifying a body.”
“Yeah,” said Lusk, “a real student of history this guy.”
“How do we know this?” asked Ian.
“I asked the same thing. I mean you can’t exactly tell by lookin’ at her.
We know ‘cause we found this.”
Lusk lifted the lid of the toilet and Ian saw the victim’s brain sitting inside in several pieces. He felt the gore in his stomach rise for a moment and quickly gained control.
“Yeah,” said Lusk, “that’s pretty much the same reaction I had. Lucky me, I was eatin’ a chili-cheese dog when I got the call. Could’a been worse I guess, I could’a had cauliflower. ”
“You’re a riot Detective.”
“Fuck you Phil, you’re gonna hurt my feelings. My wife keeps tellin’ me I’m way too sensitive for this job.” He turned to Ian and said, “As the guy on the infomercial say’s, ‘but wait, there’s more’.”
“More?”
“We just noticed this about a second or two before you walked in. Phil?”
The Medical Examiner nodded towards the body. “Yes, upon further examination of the victim I noticed that her vagina was sown shut. I didn’t see it at first.”
“Sown shut? With what?”
“Mono-filament. Fishing line is my guess. I’d hazard to say that it will be difficult to trace.”
“Difficult?” asked Lusk “Try damn near impossible. You can pick that stuff up off the shelf of any sporting goods store, not to mention department stores, bait and tackle shops, hell, even some supermarkets.”
“Of course we’ll try to narrow it down as much as possible, but I wouldn’t count on any solid leads coming from it.”
“Have you removed the stitches?” Ian asked.
“No, not yet,” said Lusk, “you’re just in time for the gala unveiling. Lucky you. What do ya’ say? Wanna give her a snip?”
“Go ahead Phil.” said Ian.
Trask produced a small pair of shears, and kneeled down beside the tub. He slipped the lower blade beneath the first stitch and began cutting.
Ian tried to remain detached. He felt both disgusted and exhilarated by the possibility of discovery. He realized that he was holding his breath, and let it out slowly.
Detective Lusk was beside him. “Wanna place bets on what we find inside?”
“Not really, no.”
“There’s something in here alright,” said Trask, “hand me those forceps will you?”
Ian reached into the evidence case at his feet, pulled out a pair of small curved forceps and handed them over.
In a moment, Trask sat back and held them up.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Lusk
“One of her nipples.” said Ian.
“Exactly.” said Trask. “That’s not all.” He bent back down and began removing more objects. “We have the skin and tissue from her fingers in here too, hard to tell just yet, but it looks like all of them. Yes, that makes ten.”
“The other nipple?” asked Lusk who had gone pale.
“No, it’s not there.”
“He took it with him.” said Ian.
“You gotta’ be fuckin’ kiddin’ me.”
“No,” said Ian, “he took it as a souvenir. Something to remember her by. In his own twisted way he had an affection for her, and he wanted to be reminded of her.”
“What, he couldn’t have taken a picture the sick fuck?”
“A picture wouldn’t do. He wants to have something he can touch, something that will bring him back to the scene as vividly as possible. He sees her as something more than just a victim or a body, he feels a connection to her somehow, and he wants to keep that connection alive with something tactile.”
“Y’know, you really creep me out sometimes McBride.”
“I creep myself out sometimes Detective. Now if the two of you don’t mind, I’d like some time alone in here.”
“Sure thing. C’mon Phil let’s leave these two lovebirds alone.”
Ian heard the men exit the apartment, and heard Lusk issue an order that no one was to disturb him, followed by the sound of the front door closing.
He looked down at the body of Mary Jo Whitmore and felt a brief tugging in his chest. She was so young, and she had been such a pretty girl.
He looked into her milky eyes, locked forever in an endless stare.
He turned on his tape recorder and said, “Some cultures hold the belief that when a person is murdered, the last face they see, that is, the face of their killer, becomes imbedded in their eyes. In fact, in the early days of forensic science, some doctors took up the practice of photographing the eyes thinking the killers face would be burned into the retina, and others went so far as to remove the eyes of the victims and place them under microscopes. We know now of course that this is a ridiculous notion, however, on an entirely non-scientific level I believe there is some truth in it. The answers are here. Not burned into the cornea of the victim’s eyes, but within the victim themselves nonetheless. In this case, quite literally within the victim.”
He turned and walked out into the living room.
“There is no sign of forced entry,” he continued, “so we are left to assume that the victim either knew her killer, was somehow conned into letting him in, or he was already in here waiting for her when she got home.
“No real signs of a struggle, although the phone jack has been torn from the wall, and the phone itself is lying on the floor. Her uniform is also lying on the living room floor.”
He kneeled down and touched it.
