Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (11 page)

My luck continued in its normal vein.
As
we pulled up in front of
the posh apartment building of our latest victim, the press buzz
ed
around
us
like flies on a three-day old corpse. I shoved my way through a
milling
mob of reporters and flashing cameras with little regard to their feelings or comfort. I was in no mood for reporters. Several black and white patrol cars were on the scene blocking the street. I
waved
some uniforms
over to
shove back the throng of curious onlookers and
construct
a barrier with
ribbons of
ubiquitous
bright yellow
crime tape, forcing the
crowd
and especially the press to the sidewalk across the street. Otherwise,
I figured
the slimy bastards would be picking up
pieces of
vital evidence
to display
like trophies
on
their evening news broadcasts.

I
lamented the passing of the true reporters, the newshound professionals
upon whom you could depend
to be discrete, discerning and at times even helpful. Now, they were all sensationalists, digger creatures with no regard for privacy, evidence, accuracy or even the truth. No stor
ies
, just sound bites and blu
r
bs designed for the
short attention span and
fast-paced lifestyle
of their
indiscriminate audiences
. The more bizarre the case, the
more papers they sold, the more advertisers they drew
. This one had their blood pumping. They were a frenzied
pack of
predators
scenting blood
on the wind.

Th
e
apartment had elevators, much to my delight.
The
door attendant
, dressed in red with a red cap, held the elevator doors for us
but looked
down his nose
at us as if
he
had preferred we had used the delivery entrance
.

I turned to Lew. “What do you know about the victim?”

Lew pulled out his notebook but spoke mostly from memory. “
The penthouse suite belong
s
to Sasha Sattersby of Sattersby perfume fame.
Her g
randmother
,
Lorene Sattersby
,
started
her line of fragrances during the Great Depression, at first selling them from her home
,
then
moved up to
booths in Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Now, it
’s
a worldwide corporation. Sasha’s parents died during an avalanche in France when she was only five. When her grandmother and grandfather passed away two years ago, she inherited
an
estate valued at
five-
hundred and fifty million dollars, the company and, unfortunately, her father’s penchant for booze and fast living.
”

I whistled appreciat
ively. “Rich girl.” I remembered seeing her on the news and on the covers of a few of the gossip rags in the newsstands.
Hardly a week went by without some paparazzi catching her at her worst – one of her half dozen drunken driving fender benders, attacking a bouncer at a nightclub, escorted by security from some airport for verbally assaulting the stewards.
By all reports, s
he was a spoiled, screwed up kid but she deserved better than this.

“Her money didn’t help her,” Lew commented dryly.

“That’s why I stay poor,” I said
as the elevator doors opened
. “Less to miss when I’m gone.”

The corridor was bustling with uniformed officers,
curious residents and forensics photographers.
The apartment looked like
I thought
a
half
billionaires’ penthouse should
.
W
hite carpet
so soft I wanted to take off my shoes and
stroll
across it barefooted
stretched like a blanket of
freshly fallen
snow from wall to wall.
I looked around almost expecting a ski lift.
Persian rugs
that cost more than my condo
and
stylish
,
but to my mind uncomfortable
,
late-sixties
Danish furniture
straight from the showroom window of
Dansk
Mobelkunst
gave the
living room
a
magazine
feel.
E
xpensive
Impression Era
artwork
and statues that could have graced any gallery an
d
, my favorite,
a wide-screen
HD
television that probably cos
t
more than my car
completed
the
room’s
decor
.
My own condo looked like a college dorm room compared to
Sattersby’s. My tastes were simple but I had flipped through a couple of furniture magazines
and recognized that either Sasha Sattersby had a good eye
for decorating
or
had the help of
a
n expensive decorator.

Broken glass from the balcony sliding glass door littered the white carpet, now marred by a pool of blood. More blood splattered a
n overturned
coffee table and bookcase
, indicating
Ms. Sattersby had not succumbed without a fight. A bloody handprint on
the white
curtain and a single
naked, bloody
footprint
showed
she had clutched the curtain and kicked out at her attacker.
Good for her
.
This time we got lucky, or so I thought.
Beside her obvious footprint
was a partial footprint too large for her foot
. U
pon closer examination, I found it to be too blurry
to be of much use
for
identification. Part of the heel was visible, but the remainder trailed off into three indistinct lines where toes should be.
T
he heel was bigger than mine
or even Lew’s, whose
seven-foot NBAer
now
didn’t seem so farfetched an idea.

“According to the
doorman
, an alarm went off about 2:30 a.m. He swears he was inside the apartment within
five
minutes. They have cameras in the corridor that he says will back him up.
We’ve pulled the discs.
No cameras in the apartment, though, or outside on the balcony. Neighbors say that Ms. Sattersby attended an art function
at the museum
earlier in the evening
but
was home by 1:
3
0 a.m.” Lew looked up from his notebook. “It looks like she took a bath and changed into her sleeping attire, which generally consisted of nothing
since s
he slept in the buff.”

I knew where Lew was going. Judging by the photo of her on the wall, Sasha Sattersby was a beautiful woman, dark brown hair, sparkling green eyes and a body that would look at home in any swimsuit edition of a sports magazine, but I didn’t think our killer had a sexual bone in his body.
None of the bodies, even though naked, showed any signs of molestation, only savagely drained of blood.
I doubted Miss Perfume was any different.

I had uniforms scour the roofs of all the adjoining buildings hoping for a repeat of two nights
earlier
but t
hey found nothing. I
stepped
out onto the balcony
,
mindful
of the broken glass
. From there, I could see the tower of the old church
adjoining the monastery
rising above the nearby rooftops. Looking at it gave me the willies. It looked cold and uninviting, not a place in which you would find
God or
solace
from your troubles
. The
centuries
-old stained gray stone of the monastery looked more like a mausoleum than a sanctuary.

I turned my attention to the crime scene. Blood trailed from the living room out onto the balcony before disappearing at the edge. My eyes searched the rooflines.
The
buildings
across the street
contained
penthouse apartments with sloped glass roofs, no place for our perp to
hide
.
I spotted a stone gargoyle protruding from the roof of the building next door. From it, a man would have a good view of the
Sattersby
balcony
and into the room
. The uniforms had searched the roofs, but
I doubted
had they
bothered with
the gargoyle
.
My curiosity got the better of me.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing Lew
’s sleeve
.

We went next door and
out
onto the roof. The gargoyle
perched
on the corner of the building about five feet down from the roof. Its twin on the opposite corner was missing, leaving only a broken stone stub
with attached paws
. I did
n’t
want to clamber about on the edge of the roof, but I needed to examine the gargoyle
and couldn’t send Lew because I didn’t know what I was looking for
.
I wasn’t sure why
I felt it was important
but
I knew better than to ignore a hunch.
Lew,
aware of
my fear of heights, eyed me
with
suspicio
n
as I
straddled
the ledge and peered down. I spotted a black SUV
parked
directly
be
low
, across from a white WBBT News van
.
A crowd of reporters pushed against the crime scene tape
, cameras and microphones thrust out eager for a sound bite.

“Damn reporters,” I muttered
, resisting the impulse to spit on the
van
. “Give me a hand,” I
said
as I scrambled over the ledge and landed on the gargoyle. It moved slightly under my weight. Lew grabbed my hand. Unfortunately, I had offered him my sore arm. Pain shot through my shoulder like my heart was pumping fire
though my veins
.

“Don’t kill yourself,” he warned
needlessly
.

“I’ll try,” I assured him
through teeth gritted against the agony
in my shoulder
.

I let go
of his hand
and carefully knelt on the gargoyle,
similar to the one at the old church. I
immediately spotting traces of blood and a few scratches
matching
the ones I had found on the last roof
.
Removing
a
n evidence
bag from my pocket, I turned it inside out and
s
wiped it across the blood, hoping to get enough for a DNA test.
I knew what they would find. As I stood up, the gargoyle shifted a few inches
with the ominous sound of grinding concrete. I lost my balance and tottered on the edge. I thought Lew was going to yank my arm from its socket as he hurriedly
reached down
grabbed me by the wrist.
His grip was so tight m
y hand went numb. I
glanced
down and wished I hadn’t
as a
wave of
vertigo
swept over me. I closed my eyes. If not for Lew’s steady hand gripping mine, I would have made a nasty mess six floors below. My only consolation would be if I landed on a reporter in the
crowd
below. Lew
tugged
on my arm
as I fought to swing my leg up and over the edge of the roof. Finally, I lay prostrate on the roof, fighting the pounding in my chest
as I gasped for breath
.

I was sure
a
photo
of me
straddling
the
gargoyle would be in the evening edition
of the paper
, something that would require some explan
ation
to my superiors. In hindsight, I should have waited until later to collect my sample, but our killer wasn’t going to wait. He had struck four times within seven days and all within a
five
-block radius. He was bold or insane, or possibly a little of both.