Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

Since that night John’s life had never been the same. He couldn’t go outside without staring at every window, every door, without thinking that every stranger had a gun and was watching him, waiting for him to look away.

The shrinks couldn’t do shit. John knew he was being crazy, but knowing it and fixing it are two different things. The constant, numbing fear made it impossible to be a cop.

Months later, Chief Zou had reassigned him to the Gang Task Force as a graffiti expert. Same pay, same rank, but now his days were filled with computers and spent safely behind the walls of the Hall of Justice. Chief Zou had taken care of John when many people would have cut him loose.

He sorted through the box containing case files for the Golden Gate Slasher. What he saw briefly made him glad he didn’t have to visit crime scenes anymore. Eight children, ages six to nine, murdered over a ten-month period, yet the case hadn’t drawn the same kind of attention as other high-profile serial killers. In fact, it had received almost no national attention.

John didn’t want to think of the probable reasons for the lack of media coverage, but it was obvious — all the murdered children had been minorities. Six black kids, an Asian and a Latino. Back then, the media didn’t really give a shit about niggers and spicks and slants.

Not that things had changed all that much in the last thirty years. He could turn on cable news any day of the week and see the bias in full effect. A missing pretty white girl? National news for months on end, driven by angry women wearing too much makeup who screamed about it on cable. A missing black girl? Local paper, page five, running under an ad for Doritos, if she was mentioned at all.

John flipped through a forensics summary report.

“Holy shit,” he said quietly. “How can people be like this?”

The report showed a detail that the cops had managed to successfully keep out of the papers — the children’s bodies had been half eaten.

He thought of the Ladyfinger Killer. Both the Slasher and Ladyfinger were dead, cases separated by a decade and two thousand miles, yet both had that symbol, and both involved cannibalism.

Forensic reports of the Slasher case also showed fork-and-knife marks on the children’s little bones. Some bones even showed gnaw marks. All eight children had been missing their livers. Most had limbs cut off … some limbs appeared to be chewed off.

It was the chew marks that gave a positive ID. SFPD had matched the Slasher’s right upper molars to grooves in the bones of four victims. That reminded John of what Pookie had told him about Oscar Woody’s body, about marks made by too-wide incisors. John dug through the box until he found the perp’s dental charts — he didn’t know much about dentistry, but the charts seemed to show a perfectly normal set of teeth.

John started putting the box’s contents into neat piles on a table: one pile for each child and a final pile for the killer. The crime-scene report for the Slasher’s death was missing. John found the autopsy report’s summary page. That report — signed by a much younger Dr. Baldwin Metz — said that the perp had committed suicide with a self-inflicted knife wound to the heart. John looked through the box again — yes, just the summary page … where was the rest of the autopsy report?

He quickly flipped back through the files for each victim. Each case had missing information, particularly the initial scene descriptions where inspectors would have recorded strange drawings or symbols. Any paper file would be missing some information, sure, but this?

This was systematic.

John went back to the perp’s death report, or what little of it there was. Maybe he could find the name of the investigating officers. If they were alive, Pookie could track them down and get more details.

He found what he was looking for — the Slasher task force’s lead inspector had been Francis Parkmeyer. John had checked that name right after Pookie called with an update about the fortune-teller meeting; Parkmeyer had passed away five years ago. No lead there.

John read through the other names on the task force. Most had to be long since retired, if not dead.

Then he saw the last two names.

He read those names a second time. Then a third.

“Ho-lee shit,” he said.

John started putting the files back together. He still had to get over to the San Francisco Chronicle offices. Considering the sorry state of the police records, the newspaper archive was the only place left that would have the information Bryan and Pookie needed.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Rex Deprovdechuk sat in his living room. The TV played an infomercial. Something about speed-reading.

Roberta wasn’t moving. She was never going to move again.

Rex didn’t have to worry about her anymore.

Or Oscar Woody.

Or Jay Parlar.

Rex drew. He drew Alex Panos. He drew Issac Moses.

Rex didn’t know how it worked, but he didn’t have to. Oscar and Jay were dead. Issac and Alex would be next.

He’d skipped school again. He wasn’t ever going back.

Rex drew.

An Offer Aggie Can’t Refuse

Hands shook Aggie James awake.

He was old, recovering from addiction, hadn’t slept worth a crap in days, but there was no grogginess, no confusion.

He knew exactly where he was.

He knew what the hands meant.

The masked men had come for him .

Aggie jerked upright, his threadbare blanket flying away, his hands waving about in total panic without direction or purpose. He started to scream, but only managed to take in a big breath before a hand smacked him in the face, smacked him hard , snapping his head back as he fell to his ass. The room spun. His face stung like someone had pressed a hot iron against it. He blinked a few times, feet automatically pushing him away, sliding his butt across the floor until his back hit the white wall.

A flash of pink fabric with white spots, a hand clamping on the back of his head, another across his mouth. He smelled household cleaners and faded smoke. In an instant, he registered her raw power — her hands were steel skeletons covered with warm flesh, hands that could snap his neck with no effort at all.

Aggie stopped struggling. He stared at the old woman who held his head tight.

“You be quiet,” Hillary whispered. A pink scarf with the white polka dots covered her thin gray hair. The scarf’s tied ends dangled below her chin. So many wrinkles on that face. Aggie thought about striking out, but she held him so hard he couldn’t move his head, couldn’t even open his mouth.

“You be quiet. I can kill you, easy-peasy, you understand?”

“Mm-mm,” Aggie said.

“Good,” she said. “Tomorrow night, we come for the Chinaman.”

She turned his head so he could see the Chinaman, who was sound asleep.

“I let you go now,” she said. “You make any trouble for me, they will take you instead. Understand?”

“Mm-mmm,” Aggie said.

She let go of his head, but her face stayed close to his. “After the ouvriers come for the Chinaman, I will come for you. I will show you what happens if you do not do what I ask.”

Aggie shivered, both in fear and in hope. “You mean … you mean maybe I don’t die?”

Hillary nodded. “Maybe. If you do what I say.”

Aggie nodded violently. “Anything,” he whispered. “Anything you want. What do I gotta do?”

She stood and stared down at him. “You help save the life of a king,” she said. “You do this, maybe you live.”

She walked away. Aggie couldn’t stop shivering. He’d resigned himself to a brutal end where those freakish masked men dragged him out of the cell. But now, her words allowed a sliver of hope to pierce his soul. He gently fingered his jaw. It was already swelling.