Rise of the Dunamy (5 page)

“Of course, if they are crazy enough to partake in cannibalism, it’s a little hard to think they could be the good guys you were hoping for.” Sofia said with a sideward glance. Bishop rolled his head back and pretended to be lost in thought as he ignored her comments.

At some point, Bishop had speculated that it could be a gang that was out to do some good; albeit in a very misdirected way. When he first voiced this opinion, Sofia gave it very little consideration before disregarding. Bishop had not given up on his idea as readily as she had, and his detective work on the case had taken a noticeable turn for the worse since making the statement.

Because he believed the cannibal killers were cleaning up the streets better than the police ever could, he was in no hurry to catch them. The only reason he hadn’t completely abandoned the idea of bringing them to justice was that he understood that, if left to their own devices, it was possible they could hurt an innocent person. He felt that the best idea was to find out who they were so if they got out of line, he and Sofia could easily bring them in. He also felt there was no need to rush to figure out who they were since they were clearly not endangering the general public. Bishop had all but stated these ideas directly to Sofia during a conversation about the case where he thinly veiled them as a hypothetical question. When Sofia called him out on his idea, shocked at his disregard for the law she worked so hard to enforce, he quickly backpedaled, stating, “It was a hypothetical question!” While he continued to operate slower and slower with regards to the case, Sofia had been busy trying to use every outlet she had available.

Although she had used every street resource she could think of, Sofia was unable to locate a single sliver of information that matched up with what they were seeing. No one knew of any gang that was in to any sort of rituals that even sounded close to what was happening in these cases. Sofia’s constant contact with her street resources and her knowledge of the street let her know that there were only a handful of gangs in Atlanta who might be behind these acts. Of that handful, there were only two in their jurisdiction that might have been out to commit these crimes; the East Niners, and Los Diablos.

Sofia had a resource that was well connected with the East Niners. A locally developed gang that was imbedded in the downtown drug trade, the East Niners were still relatively new to the scene, having only been around a few years. They had come up in the system quickly, and had made the proper connections with the other gangs in the area to allow them to work in certain parts of town while they built their credibility. They had been given the more difficult areas to work and had managed to make it look easy. The men behind the Niners were intelligent and had developed several new ways of dispensing their drugs in the areas with higher police presence and faster response times while managing to keep from drawing eye of the patrols. The patrols in the area had only been alerted to the presence of the Niners in their area when Sofia had given them a heads up. She had learned of the Niners from a young man she had met years before and kept up contact with.

She met Dex at a soup kitchen in her first year as an officer and took an instant interest in his well-being. When she met him, Dex was a scrawny, malnourished boy. His big snaggle-toothed smile and poofed out afro had gotten her attention immediately from across the room and drew her to him instantly. Although he was bouncing around the system, moving between foster families and occasionally taking up residence in the streets, Dex was a happy boy and always very respectful. Now a teenager that had been through a great deal of struggle and sadness, the happiness still managed to show itself whenever Sofia was around. Over the years she had maintained a relationship with him and he had turned him into her most reliable and well-informed street informant. The word he had been bringing her the weeks before the Cul De Sac murders began was that the Niners were becoming unhappy with the arrangement they had been given by the other gangs. He also mentioned their desire to possibly begin a territory battle.

Since the case had escalated and Sofia had decided to check with her informants to see what the word around town was, she had spoken with Dex only once. He told her that the Niners had not been behind the murders and that all talk about a possible territory fight had been put on hold. They had heard of the killings and realized the connection themselves. Dex also said that everyone in the Niners had been warned of the situation and had been told to be prepared to protect themselves.

Satisfied by what she had heard about the Niners, Sofia had asked Dex about Los Diablos. Dex’s answer was the same as it ever was when it came to them; he had nothing. Los Diablos was a gang that was developed by, and received its orders directly from, La Eme; or the Mexican Mafia. The members were vicious and did exactly as they were instructed by their Mafioso leaders. They had been known to dismember people that posed them with a threat, and in this case, not a single member of the gang had been killed. Dex had told Sofia that he had nothing on them, and not to expect much. They were loyal to the gang, and never spoke of their dealings to outsiders. The only insight he had to offer was that he believed they were not involved in the Cul De Sac murders. He said they hadn’t been involved in any sort of incidents with other gangs recently, and they had nothing to gain from starting a war.

Sofia had thanked Dex and told him to watch out for himself until she had found the killers. Although he hadn’t made as compelling a case for Los Diablos as he had for the East Niners, Sofia felt like neither was involved. Dex had been right about Los Diablos having nothing to gain from a war, but she also knew something that she found equally convincing. It was true that they had left enemies dismembered, but there had never been any occasion where a member of Los Diablos had been found guilty of eating a victim and there was a very clear distinction between those things to a member of LD. Sofia knew that in the Mexican culture, cannibalism was as taboo, if not more so, as it was in most other cultures. With the shot-callers of Los Diablos being some of the highest ranking members of La eMe, a call for such actions would not go unnoticed within the gang, and certainly wouldn’t be allowed to continue. The leaders of La Eme were not unintelligent. They knew that such behavior would lead to far more attention to their activities, and that wasn’t good for business. In the end, every direction that Sofia had tried to go with this case had led her to a dead end. After speaking with all of her informants, every idea she had been working with had been eliminated, and she found herself back at square one.

8

“Y
ou two just getting in from Piedmont?” Sofia sprang to attention at the question being posed to her by the Lieutenant. He had snuck up on her while she was lost in thought over the case.

Sofia respected the Lieutenant a great deal. He had been the driving force behind some of her recent promotions and he had always pushed her along when she needed it. Coming through the force as a black man in the 70’s and 80’s, Lieutenant Marcus Nichols had seen enough prejudice towards minorities to make him want to make his own kind of difference within the force. He had made it a personal goal to lend a hand to the most gifted officers and do everything in his power to assist them in their personal advancement whenever he was able. He had shown a great deal of faith in Sofia’s abilities and she was always eager to impress him whenever she was able, which hadn’t been too often on this case. Nonetheless, she had started making it a point to give him every bit of information from every crime scene in this case to make certain that he was aware how hard they had been working on it.

“Yes sir! We had four victims. Three possible muggers, one…..”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I need the short version, Milena. Go, Bishop.”

“Three guys killed one guy; our guys killed those guys. No evidence. No witnesses. The really short recap is we have a ton of dead people and no leads.”

“And you believe this one is linked to the CDS case?”

“Absolutely. The bodies were shredded.”

“What’s your next move?”

“Catch the bad guys, boss.”

“Your immediate next move, smartass?”

“Waiting for some blood samples to rule out the dude in the as being on our guys’ tab. That’s probably gonna take a bit, so we’re thinking of going to check out the scenes again to make sure there’s nothing we missed.” Bishop said, motioning to Sofia, as he finished stacking his papers neatly and placing them back into the case file. The unmistakable smell of Copenhagen that was constantly on his breath wafted across the desk towards her. Revisiting the crime scenes was one of his new favorite diversions. He knew that since they had found nothing time and time again, that it was a very credible way to keep her time occupied instead of allowing her to focus on the case while still putting them in no position to make progress. Sofia hadn’t seen it as so much of a diversion when he first began suggesting they revisit the crime scenes. She had been a willing participant in the review of the scenes, but now she saw his suggestions as blatant obstructions, and it was beginning to infuriate her.

“You better make sure you’ve gotten everything you can from those places. Anything you find at this point is going to be questionable anyway. Too much time has passed and too many people could have gone through there.”

“Understood.” Bishop replied. Sofia watched the Lieutenant’s white head of hair meander through the crowded room until it disappeared into his office at the far end before she turned her attention to Bishop.

“We’ve been over those scenes enough times for me to close my eyes and count the blades of grass at each one. There’s nothing there for us to find. Whoever is behind these murders clearly took every precaution to ensure that nothing was left behind, Bishop.” Sofia’s nerves had been stretched to their limit in this case and she was beginning to find it difficult to put up with Bishops usual eccentricities, much less his flagrant stall tactics.

“You know I don’t like to pull seniority, Kid.” Bishop sighed as he pushed his chair in neatly. “So just saddle up and lets go.” Sofia rolled her eyes harshly at his comment.

Bishop was the king of pulling rank, and Sofia usually found it quite entertaining. It wasn’t something he usually felt the need to do with her, just others around the precinct that had less time on the force than he did. If he was waiting behind someone for coffee that he had rank on, he would make as many gentle sounds as he could to get their attention. If that didn’t work he would simply say, flat out, “Pot’s getting pretty low, Kid, why don’t you let me get the last of it while you make a new one.” Bishop would call a man twice his age “Kid” if he had seniority on them. Thinking quickly, Sofia came up with another alternative to offer Bishop that she knew he would jump at the chance to take.

“Tell you what. I could use a little break from this stuff to try and clear my head. Why don’t you go check the scenes again, and I will head over and see what Lucian has found out about the latest victims?” She was actually pretty pleased with that idea herself and she knew that there was no chance that Bishop would pass up an opportunity to not only get away from the case, but also away from her for a few hours.

“You serious?” Bishop gave her a stunned but satisfied look, and never fully stopping his stride towards the door.

“Sure. We can clear our heads for a while and get back to it in a few hours.” Sofia assumed he never even heard the final part of her explanation as she heard the front door of the precinct shut behind him.

9

T
he morgue had become one of Sofia’s favorite places to visit. She had entered rooms before where nearly all of the occupants lay filleted open before her, but none was inviting like this. She had to work to hide her excitement each time she entered the room because there was Lucian who always had a very youthful air about him. It was infectious for Sofia. She always felt light and happy when she came into his presence, even when she couldn’t show it. He was her first real crush since Mateo, and it was far more intense with Lucian. Nonetheless, she always did her best to remain as professional as possible when she spoke to him in front of the others. She knew that if she acted any differently, it could ruin all the work she had put in with the other officers, so the flirting was put on hold until they were alone.

Rounding the corner from the staircase to the hallway, she strained her ears to hear Lucian’s voice begin echoing through the corridor. She loved to hear him muttering to himself as he worked whenever she approached his room. Drawing closer to the morgue, she began to hear his incessant rambling right on schedule. The initial wave of smells always hit her about this time as well. The most overpowering of these was the various cleaning chemicals that were used to sterilize Lucian’s tools and tables. While a little strong, the smell always gave her a feeling of cleanliness; which was a welcome feeling when entering a room filled with death.

As she entered the room she could see Lucian standing over the body of one of the victims from that morning; taking great care as always. He was carrying on a one-sided conversation with the corpse regarding something about his “ridiculously outdated sense of style”.

Lucian’s faux-hawk was hidden by his favorite black scrub cap. His face covered with an intense, almost intimidating scowl as he focused on the cadaver that lay before him. A large empty bowl of what smelled like it once contained Chicken Parmesan sat near the sterilization sink, but Lucian had sense moved on to the partially eaten club sandwich that sat on a nearby preparation table. Sofia no longer saw the point in mentioning Lucian’s incessant eating. She had mocked him for a while once they had gotten comfortable with one another, but quickly grew tired of his sharp retorts. She imagined he had been defending his eating habits for quite some time, which had given him a response to anything she could dream of to say to him. Nowadays she was more concerned with keeping their conversations light and flirty.

“Hey, sexy. Any news?” Lucian looked up from his work momentarily, somewhat startled. His face seemed to soften as he realized that she had come alone. Lucian understood why she acted so professional in the field, but greatly preferred their private interactions.

“Well, hello beautiful. Actually, I got very little for you at the moment. I honestly didn’t expect to hear from you so soon, so I started with the other victim first; the guy that was stabbed and didn’t get eaten. I sent blood samples off to the lab so they could run ‘em against what you pulled from the knife, but it looks like he’s gonna be the match. The width of the blade is consistent with puncture wounds. Do you need me to hold off on him and get back to the others?” He asked as he pointed his scalpel towards the other bodies that were sprawled out on the other examination tables in the room.

“Nah, no real hurry on that. I just came down to see where you were at on these so I didn’t have to rework the crime scenes with Bishop.” She playfully knocked out a little tune on one of the empty steel tables before hopping on top of it for a seat. “Anything interesting about that guy?”

“Nah, nothing really. Looks like he was a smoker. Stomach contents were normal, looked like fast food. The cause of death was a puncture wound to his heart, and that looks like the only dent from the fight. From what I can tell, there was very little physical interaction with the exception of the stabbing. Blade punctured the heart along the right ventricle, causing his pericardium-sac to fill with blood, which keeps the heart from expanding to fill itself. The only upside is that it was quick. I don’t see anything to indicate that this was anything more than just a mugging gone bad, but that’s really more down your alley.” Lucian lay down his scalpel and took a break from his autopsy to focus on Sofia.

“So what are you up to? It’s not like you to miss a chance to work a case.”

“Oh, nothing.” She said with an exasperated sigh. “You know how Bishop is being about this. He keeps trying to keep me from looking at the actual evidence by running back and forth between empty crime scenes.” Sofia had spoken to Lucian on a few occasions regarding Bishop’s view of the case. She had mentioned on several occasions that she felt he was taking steps to intentionally slow down their investigation.

“That dude is hilarious!” He said with a smile. “Did he pull rank on you again?”

“Of course; and it’s not hilarious, Lucian.” Sofia’s voice was filled with frustration.

“He kills me!” Lucian laughed. “He’s the king of workin’ the system, isn’t he?”

Sofia was once again irritated by Lucian’s lack of outrage at the way Bishop had been handling himself in this investigation.

“I don’t understand you. I know how you feel about solving crimes and I know how you feel about justice, so how can you be alright with his carefree attitude on this?”

“That’s where you always get off track, baby. You care too much about what he’s doin’. I understand being angry about it, I just don’t feel the same. I’m not about to let his relaxed attitude about this case get to me, and neither should you. Just keep doin’ your thing. If and when you break this thing wide open, make a choice as to whether or not you want to share the glory. It’s not as big a deal as you’re making it.”

It was always the same story with Lucian. He refused to let others be responsible for his emotions. He always acted exactly how he wanted regardless of what might be going on around him.

“But he’s directly affecting what I can and cannot do. What you’re saying is that he and I can work separately in our own way, but that’s not true. He’s dragging all across town on these pointless errands and keeping me from doing anything productive!”

“Where’s he at right now?”

“At the crime scenes again!”

“And you’re in here?”

“You know what I mean!”

“No, what I know is that you’re a smart girl and could figure out how to get away from him– you just haven’t done that until now.”

“No! He’s constantly doing things to tie up my time, Lucian.”

“You know I’m not going to continue to argue with you. Either you can get away from him, or you can’t. You’re the one with the facts and only you know whether it’s possible or not. I think you finally found out he’ll go work without you, now you’re just frustrated that you’ve let him get away with screwin’ you over for so long.”

“Well, I just think you’re afraid to make anyone mad at you, so you just refuse to argue with them.” Sofia said, frustrated that he might have been right. Lucian simply let out a loud laugh.

“Wow!” He exclaimed with a well-directed grin. “And the claws come out! Tha hell was that about? I think I’ve told you before, Sofia; I think that what I believe is my own business. I don’t feel the need to push my beliefs on people, but when I do bring them up it’s only to let people know where I stand on an issue. Then I listen and consider what they have to say in response. I’m not about arguing just to argue. I’ll leave that up to everyone else in the world that thinks that you can actually win an argument.” Sofia knew that there was no point in trying to debate the point with Lucian; she wasn’t even sure why she was trying.

“I know,” she muttered, embarrassed that she had let her frustration out on him. “I guess you’re probably right about me being aggravated with Bishop and this case. I can’t find anything on these guys; no evidence is ever found, no witnesses ever come forward. There’s nothing that can lead us anywhere. What do you think?” She asked, in a desperate attempt for a fresh look at the case.

“Oh, no. Not me. If I’m going to lead you anywhere it will be based on what I find here.” He stood up from his resting place and approached the victim on the table. “You guys are trained to think on a whole different level than me. I can only tell you exactly what this evidence indicates, and that’s the way I like it.” Lucian began to look the body over as he leaned against the table.

“You know, you may need to try and step away from the case so that you can take a fresh look at it. You’ve said before that it’s the best thing for you to do when you’re stuck.”

“I know, but I can’t let this one go for some reason. I try to get away from it and it just keeps creeping in somehow. I even tried working an old case to try and get my mind tied up in that, but I couldn’t focus on it. I just kept thinking about this.” Sofia began lightly bouncing her palm off of her forehead in frustration.

“I tell you what, lemme take you out tonight. I’m the king of mindlessness.”

Sofia stopped bopping her forehead, leaving her hand placed firmly in the middle of her face. She slowly raised her eyes to bring him into view and peered at him around the edges of her wrist. She was not paying attention to his face when he had made the comment, so she was unsure if he had been kidding. Whether or not he had been joking, he looked serious now, although a little comical as he was ducking down to look at her beneath his surgical light. She was now staring at him and unsure what to say. After staring at him for what felt like an eternity in Sofia’s mind, Lucian smiled softly and said.

“I guess I’ll take that sweet smile as a yes.” Sofia suddenly realized that in the time that she had been sitting and staring at Lucian, a huge grin had spread across her lips. She quickly looked away from Lucian in an effort to conceal her excitement, but knew that it was obvious. The smile, the staring and the unintelligible stammering that followed were all very clear signs of her excitement. Being the gentleman that Lucian was, he didn’t give her any grief about it, he simply continued to smile back at her for a short time before slipping his mask back over his face and returning his focus to his work in an effort to make her more comfortable. After a few moments of gathering her thoughts, Sofia was finally able to speak.

“Well, you don’t have to take me out to take my mind off of things.” As the words came out of her mouth, she screamed at herself in her mind, “What are you saying!”

“Oh, I’m not. I want to take you out. I have for a while.” Lucian wasn’t lying. He had been trying to work up his nerve to ask her for quite some time, but the timing never seemed right. Sofia was the first woman in quite some time that he felt might actually turn him down. He knew she was interested in him, but other factors had always worked their way into the equation.

“I just think that this is the perfect time to ask, because you’re less likely to say no since it could potentially help you on the case.” He continued. “What makes you think I would have said no either way?”

“You just have a ton going on right now. I thought I would wait until after the case was over.” He looked up at her, “But now there’s this opportunity…. So I took it.”

“So you’ve been thinking about this for a while? How much time are you spending thinking about me?” She asked with an uneasy smile. Each time she spoke she heard that voice in her head screaming for her to stop, but it was useless. She felt consumed with awkwardness and completely out of her comfort zone. The very limited experience she had with these situations consisted of boys and men that she had no interest in dating approaching her with the exception of Mateo; and she was just as awkward about it then. She hadn’t spent the years perfecting flirting that others had, which stunted her growth in the area. In every situation since her high-school crush she was perfectly capable of keeping her cool as she shot men down, and the three experiences she had allowed since finishing college hadn’t been with men she was so enamored by. Those interactions had done nothing in the way of preparing her for what she would do if confronted with someone she was actually interested in.

Sofia didn’t even feel like she knew how to stand normally, and kept twisting her toes into the ground like a child. In an effort to stop her toe-twisting, she began moving around the room, which produced a new nervous twitch. As she moved about she began touching anything that she could reach and either stroking it or playing with it in some way. Everything that she was doing now felt very uncoordinated and strange and she knew that it looked even worse than it felt.

Realizing how awkward things could become if he didn’t allow her an easy out, Lucian continued to keep his eyes down and focused on his work. His efforts paid off as they effectively kept him from seeing Sofia make a complete fool of herself.

Sofia finally regained some level of composure when she realized that Lucian’s averted eyes weren’t due to his concentration on his work, but that he was keeping himself occupied in order to keep from watching the train wreck that was taking place. She snapped herself out of the awkward meandering and tried to regain a tiny bit of dignity as she straightened up and cleared her throat.

“What I meant was, that is very nice of you and I would love to.” Lucian finally seemed comfortable enough to take his eyes off of the victim’s intestines. Pulling down his mask to expose a comforting smile, Lucian continued to try and ease Sofia’s nerves.

“Good deal. I’ll swing by and grab you at your place if that’s cool. Does six o’clock work for you?”

“Perfect,” Sofia responded quickly. She was now eager to leave the room, hopefully leaving behind the embarrassment she now felt.

“Just text me with your address when you get a chance, I can’t really write right now.” He explained, holding up his bloody gloved hands.

Still mortified from the scene she had just put on in front of him, Sofia became completely focused on keeping her answers as brief as possible to keep from recreating that moment.

“I’ll see you tonight.” She said politely. They each gave one another a nod of agreement before Sofia turned to leave.

“And Sofia.” Lucian added as she turned to leave.