The Tangerine Killer (19 page)

His treasure hangs in the dim basement, swinging in the soft light from two clothes pegs and a line of twine. He’s soaked it delicately with the utmost of care so that the lacelike design has been preserved and now it has been slathered with the brains of the stray dog he captured and killed. He should have used Jill’s. That was the proper way. The method passed down through his family for generations. He’s mostly shunned these ancient traditions, done everything in his power to remove himself from them but in his art he has found them useful.

He decides against desecrating Jill’s body any more than necessary. The piece of skin he removed has left an equally stunning reverse image on the body and in light of that she herself is a work of art to be treasured. To remove her head would do an injustice to that art. He wishes he hadn’t been so hasty in removing her fingers but he can’t do anything about that now.

Despite the elation he feels at the cleverness of his plan, he’s sad that he had to sacrifice his beloved pet. He found the alligator when it was just a baby and raised it with great joy. In a way it has been his only friend and the fact that it is now dead causes a hollow feeling to fill his insides. He has never felt like this before and it troubles him so he focuses on the next part of the plan. Every stage has to be set. Each act has to be finely tuned so that in the end he will have his revenge and his moment of glory.

The design that had been carved into Jill’s back was beautiful. If it weren’t for the fact that the skin was missing, you could almost believe that it was an intricate tattoo that someone lovingly slaved over.

Olin put his hand over his mouth but I wasn’t sure whether it was because he felt sick at the sight or smell. Jill already had the pungent aroma of a body in the first stages of decomposition. I wondered how much longer it would be until they shoved her into one of the freezer drawers like a carcass of beef.

“I’ve seen this before. I know I have.” I peered closer at the design.

“It looks a bit like a snowflake,” Olin mumbled from behind his hand. “You know like the ones kids cut out of paper at Christmas.”

That was close but it wasn’t it. In fact it was so familiar that I was almost sure it was something I had seen every day.

“Damn it,” I swore. “I know what this is, why can’t I put my finger on it?”

“Because you’ve been through hell and you’re exhausted, that’s why.”

“No, that’s not it,” I kicked the table leg.

“Of course it is. Come on, let’s go back upstairs and grab some coffee. Maybe that will jog your memory.”

Just as we turned to leave, a potbellied man in a white lab coat wheeled a squeaky gurney into the morgue. Stretched out and hanging off the edges as though merely sleeping was the giant alligator that had met its demise in the middle of the road.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the man groaned. “Non-human life forms here in my morgue.”

I stifled a giggle as he wheeled it past Olin.

“It is a sad day Max, a sad day indeed,” he said.

“And they want me to perform an autopsy,” Max shook his head. “An autopsy on this thing, can you believe it?”

“You mean a necropsy,” I said.

“Whatever,” Max said. “I don’t care what it’s called. All I know is that I don’t want to do it. Where are my interns when I need them?”

We didn’t answer. We just left Max in the dank, concrete basement to dissect the poor prehistoric creature with the begrudging promise that he would call us if he found anything of interest.

Back upstairs the detectives were sitting at their desks working the phones. Olin stopped to pick up a few files and flick through them and not for the first time I felt like a fifth wheel.

“Wishing you’d become a fully-fledged member of the police force after all?”

Dr. Carmichael materialized beside me and I fought the urge to punch his bug eyed glasses right off his face. Instead I bit my tongue and tried to swallow the myriad of retorts that were poised to rip through him like butter.

“You know private investigators don’t have it as easy as these cops think they do,” he continued. “Hated by both criminals and police alike. It can be a lonely, self-loathing, thankless job.”

“You’re right,” I spurted out, unable to stop myself any longer. “And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, some whack job decides they want to kill everyone around you.”

“But is it really out of the blue?” Carmichael probed.

“Look just cut it out okay? I know what you’re trying to do but I don’t know who this guy is. Don’t you think I’ve spent countless hours wracking my brains in an attempt to put a face on that sick, sorry, son of a bitch?”

“Of course.”

“Doc, cut her some slack.”

Olin finished with the file he was skimming through and grabbed my arm protectively.

“It’s been a long couple of days and we’re all beat.”

“I understand,” Dr. Carmichael said.

I knew he didn’t understand at all. He just wanted to get me alone in a room so he could question me for hours on end. Delve deep into the hidden recesses of my mind by breaking down my barriers one by one. He was first and foremost a shrink. I knew the damage he could do to my psyche and there was no way I was letting him anywhere near my deepest recesses. Of course I did want the psycho caught so that in and of itself posed a problem. What if I did know who he was and I just hadn’t connected all the dots yet? All I could do was hope that someone else would before it was too late because there was no way I was talking to Carmichael again.

“You all right?” Olin asked as he poured two giant cups of coffee.

“Yeah I’m fine, just tired.”

I took my cup thankfully and smiled. It had a doughnut for a handle. I wondered if it was the one Will usually drank out of.

“If you want to close your eyes for a bit we have a den here. It’s not much but at least you’ll be safe.”

I hesitated. Sleeping at the station wasn’t exactly high on my to-do list but I was having trouble staying on my feet and keeping my eyes open at the same time. I couldn’t go on much longer.

“I’ll make sure no one bothers you, I promise.”

“All right,” I conceded.

The den was a bare room with three bunk beds and no windows. It could have been a corner of the floor with a blanket for all I cared. I didn’t want to admit it but I felt awful.

“I’ll wake you up if we find anything out,” Olin promised.

I eased my sore body onto the scratchy sheets and lay in the dark, listening to the muffled sounds of activity still taking place beyond the closed door. Activity that was supposed to save my life and bring justice for Jill and Lisa. I told myself I’d just lay there for a moment but it seemed like I had only just closed my eyes and I was asleep.

I knew I was dreaming because I was standing in the middle of a crowded room and I was naked. A party was going on around me. There were colored balloons and a giant cake in the shape of an alligator. No one seemed to care that I was naked because everyone else was as well. Middle aged women with love handles were dancing to music that rang out from a stereo, their sagging breasts swung like tennis balls in socks. Men of all ages were jumping up and down in time to the beat, their dicks slapping against their legs. Some couples danced together, their eyes closed as they clutched one another tight. As they swayed and groaned, I realized they were having sex and I looked away embarrassed.

I was looking for the exit when a man jumped out in front of me. He was wearing nothing but curling ribbons around his head like a crown. He had cold eyes and sallow skin. I covered my breasts and crotch with my hand. The others had already seen me naked, grazed their eyes across me and away without a second thought. But this man raped me with his dead eyes. I wanted to curl up in a ball and die but all I could do was stand there, pathetically trying to cover what he had already seen.

“Don’t do that,” he clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

“Why?”

“Because you’re my present.”

He reached out with icy hands and pulled my arms away. I was frozen, unable to move or breathe. The room started to swim and I prayed I’d pass out. Anything to get away from the nightmare I was trapped in. He stood there surveying me critically.

“Nice,” he nodded. “Very nice. Now turn around, slowly.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t obey him.

“Turn around now, whore,” he growled.

I turned slowly, shaking. The other couples were lost in their own pleasure. My eyes begged them to help me but no one even looked in my direction. By the time I turned back to face him, the monster had a full blown erection.

“Your back,” he whispered softly. “It’s so perfect. May I touch it?”

I wanted to say no, to scream and run from the room. I kept telling myself it was only a dream. I could do whatever I wanted. Slap him in the face, fly away, morph into a giant snake and swallow him whole but instead all I did was nod and turn around again.

His hands were smooth and cold with tiny calluses on them. He started at my neck and shoulders and made his way slowly down until they were just above my buttocks, then he worked his way back up with a soft, gentle grunt.

“What do you want from me?” I whispered.

“Do I have to decide now?” he chuckled.

“But why me?” I persisted.

“Because you’ve had it coming for a long time now.”

His voice was hard. He’d become cross and angry. I turned back to face him, trying to etch every line of his face into my memory but his features were fluid. They rippled like the surface of a lake when you toss a pebble across. Distorted and shimmering. Grotesque and yet beautiful.

“What did I do to hurt you? Tell me and maybe I can make it right.”

“You can’t.”

He pushed me back against the wall angrily, his breath hot against my face.

“Everyone is going to suffer and it’s all because of you. That’s why you have to watch them all die first and there won’t be anything you can do to stop me. Then I’ll come for you.”

He pushed against me and I shoved him back so hard that he fell backwards onto the floor.

“And stop trying to get inside my head. It won’t work. I’m going to have you, no matter what.”

“You’ll never have me you sick fuck,” I spat.

I woke up with a muffled scream from beneath the scratchy cotton sheets in the dark, concrete den. For a moment I almost couldn’t remember where I was and then Olin burst into the room with a sudden flood of orange light.

“What is it? Are you okay?”

I sat up groggily. “Where were you, sitting outside the door?”

“Actually I was just coming to wake you. Max found something.”

“Good, let’s go.”

I jumped out of the bed and followed behind Olin who managed to secure me another cup of coffee on the way down to the morgue.

“You’re sure you are all right?” Olin asked in the elevator on the way down. “Want to talk about it?”

“Just a nightmare,” I shrugged his concern off. “I’m fine.”

But I had to admit that I wasn’t. I’d been inside the killer’s head and now he was kicking me out. How was I supposed to know what he was up to if I’d lost my connection to him?

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my whole life.”

Max was eating a giant sandwich when we arrived. He stood against one of the steel gurneys in the morgue, shoving it eagerly into his mouth. Fresh blood still trickled into the drain in the floor and he had splatters across his white lab coat. Obviously dissecting the giant gator had been a more rewarding experience than he’d expected. He seemed rather pleased with himself.

“This was your first gator wasn’t it?” Olin asked, surveying the room with dismay. “Looks like you sure made a mess of it.”

“That’s kind, that’s really kind. I carve open the mammoth creature for you not knowing its bowels from its brains and all you can comment on is the mess?”

“You went out on a limb for us Max and we are extremely grateful. Now can you tell us what you found? Please?” I smiled.

Abandoning the remains of his sandwich for a bloodstained manila folder, Max withdrew several x-rays. He slapped them up on the light box that hung on the wall and flipped on the light. It flickered a few times until he thumped it with his fist and it begrudgingly grumbled to life.

“What exactly are we looking at?” Olin squinted.

I didn’t have to ask, I already knew. The skeleton was curled up in the center of the x-ray, tiny bones that made up arms, legs and little fingers. The skull was tipped to the side, as though it had simply fallen asleep hugging its favorite teddy bear.

“Is that a baby?” Olin whistled. “Inside the gator?”

“Sure wasn’t what I was expecting,” said Max.

“How long has it been in there?” I asked.

“You don’t think?” Olin raised an eyebrow.

“Do you?” I countered.

Max looked at us in disgust and returned to his half eaten sandwich. With his free hand he pointed to a large steel tray where he had recreated the tiny skeleton of the baby. All the bones were in order though some were cracked and others broken completely.

“I’d say it’s been in there a long time,” Max said. “The bones are smooth, see?”

He held up a rib bone and showed us the end.

“These bones have been rumbling around in the old gators belly for years.”

“Well, what’s it been eating, other than babies?” I asked.

Max spun around brandishing a large, half decomposed fish. Olin retched and turned away, trying to conceal how affected he was by the revolting fish and the awful stench that now mixed in with all the other unmentionable smells.

“Is that a trout?”

I held my breath and stepped forward for a closer look. There was a familiar splash of orange on either side of what was left of the poor fish’s lower jaw.

“Looks like this was the last thing that poor old gator snacked on. It was still lodged in his esophageal tract.”

“But that’s a cutthroat trout. It’s not native anywhere near Florida. Someone must have been feeding it,” I said.

“See if you can find out where that trout came from,” Olin bolted from the room.

“And as soon as you know anything more about the baby, please let us know Max.”

Out in the hallway Olin was taking in large, gulping breaths of air as though his life depended on it.

“I’ve never smelt anything so disgusting,” he wheezed.

“Not even when you had to change your son’s diapers?”

“Not even then.”

The color that had drained from his face started to return as we rode the elevator back up.

“You never actually changed your son’s diapers did you?” I teased.

“Only once,” he shook his head. “And never again.”

We started to laugh and by the time the doors opened, tears were streaming down our faces and we clung to one another for support. We tumbled out straight into Captain Bright.

“Detective Olin?”

“Sorry Sir.”

“I think you’d better come with me.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked. “Has something happened? Have you found him?”

The captain’s face was set in a frown but I knew that it wasn’t because we had been larking about in the elevator. His lips were pursed and as he looked at Olin, I knew that this was something personal.

“It’s okay. Just tell me what it is.”

Olin’s jaw was set and his fist clenched. The laughter and smiles had completely evaporated as though they never existed at all. In that brief second I knew we had been foolish to allow ourselves to get caught up in silly frivolities while there was still a madman out there on the loose.

“It’s your son,” Captain Bright spoke softly. “He’s been taken.”

I expected the worst, for Olin to snap and punch the wall or take off down the corridor yelling that he was going to murder the son of a bitch. I guessed that was why the captain had taken it upon himself to break the news. But Olin just stood there, unable to move as he tried to process the awful truth that his son had been kidnapped by a psychotic serial killer.

“Show me,” he eventually uttered.

We followed Captain Bright back to the central room and the whole way I fought the urge to reach out for Olin’s hand and take it in mine. I’d squeeze it tight and show him that I was there for him as he had been for me, that we would get his son back no matter what. But this was his workplace and we were about to walk into a room full of his peers. People who would be watching to see if the news had made him crack. I had to allow him his dignity, to walk with his head high and his character strong. I owed him that.

All I could do was stand there and hope that somehow our strengths would unite and become far greater combined than they ever were apart. But I knew that wouldn’t be enough if his son ended up in the stomach of an alligator because of me.