Thomas O`Callaghan - Bone Thief

A beep interrupted the verbal assault.

“Jack, that’s call-waiting. It’s gotta be someone from the squad. I gotta put you on hold.”

“Don’t you-”

Driscoll cut off Parsons and depressed the “talk” button. It was Thomlinson.

“The motherfucker mutilated the girl’s body, and now Parsons is on the warpath. He went up one side of me and down the other. Called me an incompetent drunk! Said I was the reason for the fuckup. And now he’s after you. I tried to head him off, but he’s bearing teeth.”

“I know. I got him frothing at the bit on the other line.”

“There’s more. The son of a bitch has got Moira! We just got word by e-mail.”

“Read it to me!”

Centurions in Blue,

Hail to you all with the thankless task of apprehending us lower demons. Your sweet lamb is now in the wolf’s den. I relish the thought of the nearing orgy. Such fresh flesh, inviting canine claws. Such unblemished skin soon to be lacerated by bestial talons. Such delicate bones holding such moist meat. Moira is her name.

Adieu

When Moira came to, her palms and ankles were nailed to a pine chair. The slightest stir delivered infinite suffering. Perfect stillness temporarily kept the agony at bay. The nails had lacerated cartilage and tendons, perforated muscle tissue, and pulverized her bones. She had ceased screaming long ago. Now, no sounds could escape her mouth, sealed as it was with plumbing tape. No tears could secrete from her eyelids-they were clamped together with globs of Krazy Glue.

“I knew you’d come,” the voice lumbered. “The certainty never wavered. Curiosity is such a stimulating elixir, don’t you think? I also knew you’d be naive. It’s quite amazing how both traits coexist so comfortably within one’s mind.”

He had an educated voice. The realization struck Moira as odd.

Someone moved what she thought to be a metal chair. She imagined her torturer shifting his weight as he sat there, watching her.

“I knew you had to be young. And my guess was right. Only a youthful mind would waste its precious resources trying to catch a demon like me. That’s because the young believe in Satan and all his minions and the power of the magician’s wand. Therein lies my realm, dear one. My element. It’s funny. But, somehow I knew sooner or later a heroine dressed in Buster Browns and a double A bra, barely past the onset of menstruation, would come traipsing into my lair. Yes, curiosity is a dreadful yet divine commodity, don’t you think? I had a hunch it was you when I saw you approach that group of detectives. I was at a safe distance, watching your every move through my field glasses. And such a legion of policemen they had brought with them. My, oh my! Of course, I wasn’t playing by the rules. Not being there in aisle three wasn’t quite fair, but sometimes we demons lie. But then, so did you. Your Donny was a fraud. Remember?”

She heard the creaking sound. He had moved again.

“At first, I thought your makeup a bit excessive for your seraphic face. I wondered about that. And that brown suede miniskirt? ‘Heavens,’ I cried. ‘That’s how she’s dressed for our date?’ In case you were wondering, my plan was a simple one. I simply followed as the policemen took you home. They left. You eventually came out. And now you’re here.”

The chair creaked again. She heard the sound of his footsteps.

The decoy police sedan worked very well, parked beside the row of hedges lining the shoulder of the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Inspector Tom Mueller at Highway Patrol 17 may have been short staffed, but he believed it was senseless to let an extra police vehicle sit dormant in the precinct’s garage. He ordered the marked cruiser to be situated at a strategic location along the Parkway. It was unmanned, but a speeding motorist wouldn’t be able to tell; the motorist would slow down at the first sighting of the highly visible dark blue vehicle with its colorful array of emergency lights.

It was nearing 10:00 P.M., time to retrieve the decoy, when Highway Patrol Officer Bill Simmon’s patrol car #643 pulled in behind the parked cruiser. Officer John Masterson, his partner, stepped out onto the shoulder of the road. Three steps from the decoy’s door, he unfastened the safety on his 9-mm automatic. He had realized the vehicle was occupied.

A girl’s body leaned against the passenger door. The smell of regurgitation and human excrement singed Officer Masterson’s sinuses. His flashlight illuminated blotches of dried blood staining the girl’s blouse and miniskirt.

“You’d better forget the card game, partner,” he grumbled. “We’re gonna have one helluva night.”

Colm had never boned dead virginal flesh before. The audacity of the feat intoxicated him. To celebrate Clarissa’s desecration, he visited his wine cellar and lingered before the bins. He finally selected a 1975 Chateau Latour.

Whispers of adulation, murmurs of delight oozed through the concrete flooring. Soon he would join the cheering party gathered beneath him with his prize. He would rattle Clarissa in the face of his parents. How dare they think she would have gotten away? But for now, he would savor his trophy in seclusion.

When he had had his fill of the wine, he descended to the lower level to meet with his tenants. At first, they could not contain their exaltation. But at the sight of the new skeleton, the assembly became silent, resenting that their cramped quarters would be shared by yet another.

Clutching the child’s bones, Colm eyed the shelves for a suitable place to deposit them. He would need time to build her showcase. The residents groaned in unison. He understood their grievance. It was crowded enough already without another relic. He would renovate the atelier, he thought. It would add another one thousand square feet to their catacomb. It meant he would have to cease his killings, for the time being, but he could resume his sport once the expansion was underway.

Maybe he would apply to the New York State Council for the Arts for a grant to back the project. After all, these were former residents of New York City, now inhabiting Nassau County. It would be a form of income-maintenance subsidy to guarantee proper lodging for these former taxpaying members of the community. He filed the thought for consideration at a later date.

The ground suddenly shimmied, followed by stillness. A second tremor was more pronounced. It displaced a clavicle, which tumbled from its shelf and shattered on the terra-cotta-tiled floor.

Earthquake! he thought. He wedged himself into the lift.

Reaching the ground floor, he bolted out of the house, expecting an apocalyptic landscape of shattered houses and burning cars. But the street was intact. A diesel breeze fumigated the thoroughfare; smoke billowed from a bulldozer with a spider arm, its jackhammer pulverizing the asphalt. Huge steel pipes lay nearby, awaiting installation.

Colm envisioned the bulldozer causing the walls of his precious trophy room to cave in, entombing his possessions in mountains of rubble. Then a worse fear crept into his consciousness. What if the vibrations didn’t bury his guests? What if it unearthed them?

A grief-stricken Eileen Tiernan straddled the chair, hugging her son, Timothy, close to her bosom. Ryan was clamped to her leg. Her husband sat at her side. They all glanced up as Driscoll and Margaret stepped into the pediatric ward’s corridor.

“They won’t let us see our daughter,” said Seamus Tiernan.

Driscoll walked over to the policeman stationed at the door to room 732. “What gives, officer?”