Bobby Akart - First Strike

Kantor had had enough. He tried to pull away from the guy dressed as a woman. He even threw up the contents of his mostly empty stomach as a defensive mechanism. This prevented him from committing the sexual act.

It also ended his life with a swift, brutal blow.

The man, dressed as a woman, thrust a knife into the base of Kantor’s skull and twisted and twisted before pulling it out. By the time he was done with the meth-head-turned-grifter, the body was unrecognizable.

Human scum. Detective Mike Albright of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department studied the crime scene from a distance. He’d trudged through the wetlands and slopes surrounded by the stands of hardwoods that covered the island. The evidence trail was a hundred yards long, and the low-lying palmettos still showed blood splatter. There were body parts everywhere. Some were missing, either to the wildlife that inhabited the hammocks or because the killer had decided to take them as trophies.

It didn’t look like any body he’d seen before. The corpse was naked. The upper body had been stabbed dozens of times. Appendages had been sawed off, including the man’s genitals. Even its hair was gone, with only a few patches of bloody scalp remaining. What the brutal murderer had done to the victim’s face was unimaginable. The crime was sadistic.

Mike knelt down over the corpse and studied what remained. Where would the medical examiner even start? Did it really matter what the precise cause of death was? He supposed it would in the event the perp decided to go to trial. He tried to imagine what a jury, many of whom might be friends or casual acquaintances of the Albright family, would think of the photographs the forensic team was taking.

The ME approached him. “Mike, the killer has escalated his rage. The MO on this victim is the same as the other except for the obvious increase in body mutilation post-mortem.”

“Any sign of the murder weapon?”

“Part of it,” the ME replied. He handed Mike a Ziploc evidence bag with the handle of a knife inside. “It appears to be spring-assisted. The handle is roughly three and a half inches long. Perfectly legal.”

“What about the blade?” asked Mike.

The medical examiner shrugged and turned toward the body. “In there somewhere, I suspect. I’ll get to work this afternoon and let you know what I find.”

Mike grimaced as he thanked the ME. He’d seen enough. The forensics team would do their level best to gather evidence, but most likely, since this was the second murder in the last two weeks, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE, would get involved.

The Florida Keys wasn’t exactly the murder capital of the world. It wasn’t even a murderous county. They were few and far between. Most cases that Mike investigated related to assaults, robberies, and the occasional rape.

These killings were disgusting. Demented. Psychotic. Unlike anything he’d seen or heard about in his lifetime. And they were becoming more brutal.

Friday, October 18

Havana Jack’s Oceanside Restaurant & Bar

Marathon, Florida

Mike balanced his empty glass on the edge of the teak bar, waiting for the bartender to refill it with Jack Daniel’s and a few cubes of ice. The young man had been preoccupied with a group of pretty girls sitting at the other end of the U-shaped outdoor bar overlooking the Atlantic. They were knocking back pineapple-looking drinks full of rum and juice and all kinds of sweet things skewered by an extra-long toothpick. Of course, a tiny paper umbrella had been plunged into the pineapple slice adorning the rim of the glass.

Typical , he thought to himself.

Mike wanted a quiet moment to gather his thoughts, and he hoped Havana Jack’s might give him a place of respite. Mike was not much of a drinker. None of the Albrights were. Hank had gone through a period of escape after his wife died but eventually returned to nothing more than a social drink with his guests in the evening.

For Mike, however, today was different. A special occasion, if you will. He’d worked all day at the grisly murder scene, and technically, this was the end of his tour. A Jack on the rocks or three just might help him cope with what he’d just seen in the hammocks.

A female voice entered his solemn consciousness. “Can I buy you a drink, sailor?” Cliché, but real. It was also familiar.

To confirm it wasn’t all in his head, he felt the woman run her fingers across his broad shoulders, briefly touching the nape of his neck, causing the tiny hairs to rise in response.

More familiar.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he inhaled her scent.

Even more familiar.

Not perfumy. Salt water.

“How’d you know I was here?” he asked without taking his eyes away from the last swig of bourbon.

She set her phone next to his on the bar, drawing his eyes to study its display. On the map, there were two red dots blinking nearly on top of one another.

“I used the where’s my husband app,” she replied as she hoisted herself onto a barstool.

Jessica Albright, Mike’s wife of fifteen years, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, savoring the slightly scruffy feel of his five-o’clock shadow on her lips.

With Jessica’s arrival, the bartender managed to pull himself away from the vacationing college girls to take her drink order.

“I’ll have a Tanqueray and tonic with a splash of Nellie & Joe’s,” she said, pointing at the yellow plastic bottle with the green flip-top. The Florida-bottled lime juice was an essential ingredient in many recipes and a favorite complement to a gin and tonic.

Mike pushed his empty glass toward the bartender. “I’ll have another, and don’t be a stranger next time. Okay?” His demeanor was slightly surly.

“Um, yes, sir,” the young man replied sheepishly.

Mike and Jessica sat in silence until the bartender returned with their drinks and a mango wood bowl full of fortune cookies.

Mike leaned back on his stool and glanced at Jessica before addressing the young man. He pointed at the bowl of cellophane-wrapped treats usually found in Chinese restaurants.

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Um, yes, sir. The Sysco salesman dropped off a case this morning. I guess China Garden ordered way too many or something like that. He gave it to us for nothing.” He reached for the bowl to remove it from the bar, but Mike raised his hand.

“Nah. Leave it. It fits right in with the screwy day I’m havin’.”

They each took a sip of their drink and opened a fortune cookie.

“Me first,” said Jessica as she broke open the packaging and cracked the fortune cookie in two. “‘Luck helps those who help themselves.’ I like it. Time to play the Mega Millions Powerball game.”

Mike smiled as his wife tried to drag him out of his melancholy mood. She knew they both thought the lottery was a way to tax the poor. He opened his fortune cookie and read it.

“Your life is a dashing and bold adventure,” he read aloud. He shook his head. “No thanks.” He slid the small piece of paper in front of Jessica and took hers instead.

She immediately protested. “Hey! Fortune cookies don’t work like that. You can’t just pick and choose your good fortune.”

“I need luck, and you like adventure. Sounds like a fair trade to me.”

“Mike, you can’t trade fortunes.”

“Why not?”

“Um. Well, it’s against the rules or the laws of good fortune or something.”

Mike started to laugh and immediately felt better. He reached over and squeezed her hand before kissing her on the lips.