Dave Zeltserman - Blood Crimes Book One

“I’ve been trying to find this missing person for the past year,” Hayes said. “I don’t know anything about him other than a sketch my client gave me and that his first name is Jim, but I’ve been tracking him across the country. I have no real evidence, just a lot of bizarre circumstantial stuff, but I think he did both these killings, maybe some others.”

“Yeah? What do you have?”

Hayes made a pained face. “Jim’s girlfriend was at a bar near the murder scene last night. I think she was here also.”

Colvin looked more interested. “What bar?”

Hayes consulted a notepad and gave the detective the name and address. He told him how the bartender claimed he hadn’t seen her, but his reaction was a dead giveaway.

“Okay. Let’s say this mystery girlfriend was near the murder scene last night. How do you know she was here?”

“I talked with one of the cashiers working the tickets. She recognized a drawing I have of the girlfriend.”

“That’s funny,” Colvin muttered, rubbing his jaw. “Witnesses inside the movie theatre saw the victim with two other guys. No one said anything about seeing a girl with him.” His eyes shifted to meet Hayes’. “Why don’t you show me this drawing of yours.”

Hayes shook his head. “I have to talk to my client first.”

“Uh uh. Unless you want me to arrest you as a material witness, let’s see it.”

Hayes was still holding his handkerchief. It had gotten damp, but he wiped it again over his forehead and along his neck.

“It would help if I knew what happened in there,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“It just would.” Hayes ran a hand through his hair, felt the dampness of it. “I heard the guy was hacked to death. And that it was bloody.”

Colvin looked around to see if anyone else was standing nearby, or at least close enough to hear them. No one was. He licked his lips.

“It was bloody, but the victim wasn’t hacked to death. According to the medical examiner his arm was ripped out of its socket, then while he was bleeding out, his throat was crushed.”

“What do you mean his arm was ripped out of the socket?”

“Just what I said.”

Hayes felt dizzy at the thought of that. He put a hand out on his rented Neon to steady himself.

“That mean something to you?” Colvin asked, an eyebrow arched.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just trying to get a handle on this. Was the guy small? Someone frail with a degenerative bone disease you could do something like that to?”

“Nope, a big beefy guy. Bigger than me.”

“You know anything about him?”

“Yeah. We knew about him. He was a pretty bad character. Worked as an enforcer for a drug gang we have here in Cleveland called the Blood Dragons. Not a nice group.”

“His arm was pulled out of the socket…how would someone do something like that?”

“You tell me. About those drawings…?”

Hayes nodded. He went back into his car, got a folder and took two drawings out of it that he handed to Colvin.

“I’ve got other copies,” Hayes said. “You can keep those.”

“Thanks.”

While Colvin studied the drawings, he took out a half-smoked stogie from an inside suit jacket pocket, chomped down on it, then fished out an ancient-looking Zippo lighter from his pants pocket. He turned an eye suspiciously towards Hayes. “You’re not one of them smoking Nazis, are you?” he asked.

Hayes shook his head. “Feel free to light up.”

Colvin flicked the lighter, got a flame burning, then puffed on the cigar until he had the end glowing red. His large ruddy face relaxed as he breathed in a lungful of smoke. “You’d be surprised all the smoking Nazis out there who’d call my precinct to complain about my cigar smoke invading their personal space. Christ.” He held out the drawing of Jim’s girlfriend at arms length, studied it. “A good-looking girl,” he observed. “The guy looks like a freak, though. I need the name of your client.”

“I can’t give you that right now. I have to talk to her first.”

“Uh uh, you know better than that. I need her name.”

“I know, but I’m going to have to talk to her first. I’m sorry.”

Colvin looked like he was going to argue the point, but instead his face deflated as he exhaled out a small cloud of acrid smoke.

“Why’s she looking for this guy?”

“Beats me. She never told me.”

Colvin let out another small cloud of cigar smoke, nodded to himself. “You can talk to her first, but afterwards I’m going to need her name and phone number. Show me who recognized this mystery girlfriend.”

Hayes pointed out the cashier who was standing huddled with other Cineplex employees. Colvin took his cigar from his lips and gave it one last longing look before tapping out the lit end and placing it back in his inside jacket pocket. He had Hayes join him while he questioned the girl, then the other employees. When he was done, he told Hayes to stand off to the side while he showed Jim’s picture to the other witnesses. Afterwards he walked back to Hayes looking dejected.

“No one recognized your guy,” he said. “And none of them remembered seeing the girl.”

“It was probably too dark in there.”

Colvin nodded slowly, thinking about it. He told Hayes he wanted him to come with him to the bar where Jim’s girlfriend was seen the other night.

“I’m going to need you to point out the joker who saw her,” Colvin said. “You can follow in your own car. It will give you a chance to call your client in private.”

Hayes agreed and took several steps towards his car. He stopped when Colvin received a call on his cell. The homicide detective stood quietly listening. Hayes gave him a questioning look after Colvin put his cell phone away.

“We’ve got another one,” Colvin said incredulously, his large face falling slack. “Another dead Blood Dragon enforcer.” He closed his mouth as if he were trying to decide how much to trust this one-time cop and now private investigator. He made up his mind, and with his voice a low rumble, went on, “This one had his head torn off from his body. According to the medical examiner who’s with the body now, it was torn off, not cut off. The body was left inside a motel room near the Brook Park area. The head was found a couple of hundred feet outside the room. From the way it was scraped up and dented, the medical examiner thinks it was thrown.”

“You’re shittin’ me.”

Colvin shook his head. His face had paled, giving it a washed out look. He lowered his voice into a conspiratorial-type whisper, said, “A lot of bullets were fired inside the motel room, and while a lot of casings were found, not enough bullet holes were. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I want you to follow me there. Maybe something will make sense to you. And when we get there you’re giving me the name of your client.”

Hayes agreed, and Colvin gave him the address. That same dizziness from before hit him as he walked back to his car. Somehow he stayed on his feet and the dizziness faded. Neither of these killings made any sense for Jim. They were too public and they offered to much risk for exposure. But as much as they didn’t make sense, Hayes knew it was Jim. He also knew something had gone seriously wrong, and a lot more of these killings were going to happen. There was something else about them, something buried deep in the recesses of his subconscious that tied it all together, and made sense of it. He just couldn’t pull out what it was.

When he returned back to his car he checked the name of the motel against the leads Annie had given him, and found that it was the next motel on his list. The one desk clerk Annie had spoken to who wasn’t full of shit. That had to be where Jim and his girlfriend were staying. If he hadn’t let himself get sidetracked by checking out this last murder, he would’ve been at the motel an hour ago, maybe even been there while Jim was ripping that gang members head off. Fuck. What lousy timing turning on the radio and hearing about the ‘most vicious and depraved murders in recent Cleveland history’. He had a feeling the one at the motel might end up topping it-or if not that one, one of the others that were coming. He tried to piece together what he knew and come up with some idea of what had happened. The Cineplex murder was first. Jim and his girlfriend were out minding their own business and enjoying a movie when that gang member showed up. Later another gang member ended up in Jim’s motel room and was killed. Jim must’ve been one of the men that the witnesses saw with that dead gang member. Maybe they were confused and thought Jim’s girlfriend was also a guy. But how was that possible? From the drawing and every description he had of her, she was a tiny thing and as feminine looking as any woman has ever been. How could anyone confuse her as a guy? It just wasn’t possible. It must’ve been two guys inside that theatre with Jim, maybe the other gang member who was killed later in Jim’s motel room. So where was his girlfriend? Something had happened…fuck that, something was happening. He could almost see it, could almost put the jigsaw puzzle pieces together…