J King - Angel of Death

She arrived that night. It was nice to talk with her.

Detective Leland ducked under the police line and walked slowly into the chilly Inn-Town Tap. A forest of tables and chairs stood derelict around her. She felt cold in the dark place despite the suit jacket she wore. Suit jacket, white shirt, and loosened tie – her uniform ever since she had taken over McHenry’s post as detective. No longer would she patrol. For the rest of her career, she would keep irregular hours and unwholesome company – though the cop who waited at the far end of the room seemed wholesome enough.

“He lives up here,” said Sergeant Michaels of the Griffith Police. “I mean, lived.” He blushed handsomely. The sergeant was tall, lean, and young, his eyes bright like a pair of new dimes. He had black hair and a supermodel’s body, but he moved like a kid at his first dance – awkward and unaware how beautiful he was. This work is getting to me, thought Leland. Michaels gestured up the dimly lit stairway, his breath ghosting between warped panels of pressboard. “The scene’s in okay shape but not exactly pristine.”

Detective Leland nodded. “They’ve sifted through it all?”

“Yeah, but they were careful,” said Michaels as he started up the stairs. He was supposed to be the shift manager from eleven to six but had gotten guard duty at the crime scene when his substitute patrolman and another officer were out sick. “They’ve taken away the body, of course, even in this weather. But aside from samples, nothing else’s been moved. They even wore surgical booties and hair nets.” His hand waved vaguely above his head. “You’ll see.”

She followed him up the stairs. A single yellow light flickered squalidly overhead, as though a white bulb would have attracted bugs. Leland’s shadow pressed up against the sergeant as he gained the landing. The bathroom door was painted with darkness. He fitted the key to the deadbolt and leaned against the battle-scarred door. “No one downstairs heard the gunshot. Too much noise. An old jukebox, you know. They say the killer lagged around all night.”

“Gunshot?” Leland asked, surprised. Her eyes moved from his sinewy shoulder up to his face. “The police report didn’t say so, or the coroner’s, either.”

Michaels’s eyes looked gold in the yellow light. “I guess that’s just a personal theory. Blood-spatter analysis indicates a gunshot wound to the head, but there’s so much blood – and no head. He had to chop a while to get the head off. Hard to say what happened. I figured maybe he killed him some other way, first. And…”

“And you read that he used a gun in the other cases, the ones I’ve been investigating?” she provided.

“I’m the one who told the lieutenant to call you,” he replied a little sheepishly. Yes, handsome, almost statuesque, though boyish. “I know, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about the gun.”

She laughed a little. “Jumped the gun. That was almost a pun.”

He nodded, accepting the moment of grace. He’d make a good assistant detective, she found herself thinking. I wonder if this flatlander would give up Indiana to become a cheesehead.

Without another word, Sergeant Michaels pushed open the door. His gray-jacketed shoulders cleared the frame, and Leland gazed at the room beyond. At first, it appeared to be ransacked – clothes and garbage strewn across the floor, video cases fallen from shelves and cracked open like black eggs – but the debris didn’t have the rankled look of violent action. The room had eroded over weeks and months. Still, the blood was fresh. On the threadbare couch, it formed a puddle in the shape of a large body, slumped in front of the TV. The linoleum floor held a wide, full puddle of the stuff, slowly evaporating or dripping away into the bar below. Rust-red smudges covered just about everything else – table, refrigerator, hot plate, American cheese wrappers, dresser, bed, TV stand and trays, doorknob, coat hangers.

“It’s my guy, all right,” Leland said. The sergeant looked a bit peaked as he drew the crime scene photos from a manila envelope. “You know him?”

“No,” she said. “I just feel like I do. Study the artwork, and you come to know the artist.”

He paused before handing her the photos – color shots. She was glad. Blood always looked like ink on black-and-white film. “You call this artwork?”

“Yes,” she said, taking the photos. Her hand casually touched his. It was warm and strong, reassuring: human in all this inhumanity.

Donna, what are you doing? These late nights and long drives must be getting to you.

In a matter-of-fact voice, she said, “They’re artwork as far as the killer is concerned. Erotica. Look, here – the smudges on the card table – those are from the victim’s hands, not the killer’s. He was using the victim’s hands to get out the cheese. He probably also used them to masturbate.” Leland felt suddenly awkward, and she did what she always did – launched into theory.

“Maybe he used them to pull down the bed sheets, even to turn on this touch lamp, here beside the TV. Whether or not the killer knows it, that’s symbolic for his own lack of power. He feels completely disenfranchised, powerless to act, until he murders, and then for a while he has taken someone else’s power – his hands – and uses them for his own ends.”

The sergeant nodded. “And what about the head? I thought when somebody cut off the hands and head, it was to hide the person’s identity.”

“Yes, usually, but if you want the identity to remain secret, you don’t kill someone in his own apartment. It might have started as a useful MO, but since then it has taken on ritual significance. Taking someone else’s head is taking his personality, mind, and soul. The killer probably feels he needs a new head. A new soul.”

“I would have to agree,” Michaels answered. “You cross-checked the prints with mental health records?”

“We’re running all those checks. He’s left us plenty of evidence. It’s a broad hunting ground, though, with millions of people and tens of thousands of convicts in three separate state jurisdictions, not to mention all the counties and cities.”

All right, enough already. Stop prattling. She sorted through the stark images. Police photographers had a knack for capturing not only the facts of a crime, but also the lurid terror of the scene. One image showed the headless, handless body leaning on the sofa as though still watching the blood-spattered TV screen. The flash had thrown the rest of the room into lurid, sinister darkness. Cushions and neck stump cast a shadow that looked like a range of steppes across the wall. The next photos showed details of the bloodstained carpet and wallpaper; others showed a handprint the size and shape of the one from Woodstock, the blood-spattered bathroom…

“Anything turn up from interviewing the bartender, wait staff, and regulars?” Leland asked.

“One of the busboys said he’d seen a guy that looked like Tom Petty, but with dark hair. Short, thin, vacant eyes. He hadn’t seen him before. He thought the man had talked to Mister Strange.”

“Mister Strange?”

Michaels grimaced an apology, and his hand briefly cradled her elbow. “That’s what locals called him. He was a little too friendly. He used to have all kinds of people in and out of that apartment. That’s why nobody paid any attention to Tom Petty.” He paused, chagrined again and suddenly tired. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee and talk away from all this.”

“A cup of coffee?” Leland asked. “Aren’t you supposed to stay on duty?”

Again the shrug. “I plugged in the pot downstairs and brewed a batch. I figured I needed it to stay awake.” He yawned conspicuously. “Horror takes it out of you, makes you shut down. Better get some coffee, don’t you think?”