by Brian Ewing
“Sisto,” Acknowledged an unimpressed Marcetti.
“Marcetti,” Sisto replied with matching flat enthusiasm.
The two men had never had any issues with each other. If anything, Sisto enjoyed the refreshing calm and truth Marcetti displayed. They never dealt directly with each other but were called to a few of the same crime scenes and both knew and acknowledged the roles each played at that time. Marcetti was the guard dog patrol sergeant tasked by the detectives and the forensics teams to put the scene on lockdown, and then there was Sisto, the spooky uncle that gets an invite to all the worst hosted shindigs. Marcetti was smart in his responses anytime Sisto overheard him relaying information to the commanding officer on the scene.
Opening a small path for Sisto to walk through and meet up with Caden, Marcetti, in his signature monotone, said, “Try not to puke and taint the forensics.”
Sonofabitch, Sisto thought internally. He really was sharp. Sisto knew that before long he would be meeting Marcetti as his point of contact at these horrific places.
The metallic aroma filled Sisto’s nose as he entered the sawdust-and-hay-filled barn, probably from the pints of blood all over the walls and ground of the tourist attraction. Mr. Tattoo must have watched a Dexter marathon before heading to commit the horrific act. Still fifteen feet away from the collection of detectives, Sisto noticed at his feet, soaked into the sturdy but old wooden floor panels, a trail of dark crimson drops and puddles leading him up to the main event. A map of DNA and agony was sprayed on the hay bale to the right, causing Sisto to pause in awe at how amazingly the human body functioned when it was fully intact and not poked or prodded with crude instruments. Pulling back his straying thoughts, he looked ahead and saw a few members from the Saratoga City forensics team spread around an area of eight by ten, assisted with floodlights to capture any debris Mr. Tattoo may have left behind. Thankfully, between the four members of the scientific team, the body Sisto knew he would have to inspect at some point was blocked from full view. Cloaked in the shadows of the floodlights a few feet behind the nerds was Caden’s lesser half, Bell.
“Hey, Detectives.” Sisto approached, trying to interrupt the conversation they had been having, in the politest tone he could muster.
“Here we go,” Bell muttered, rolling his eyes towards the vaulted ceiling of the barn.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Tom,” Caden said, trying to make up for her asshole partner.
“I’m gonna check in with Maloney and see where his boys are at with surrounding neighbor’s statements,” Bell, already visibly annoyed at Sisto’s face, said, already heading in the direction of the exit.
The bitter, overweight detective told Caden he would check in with her in a bit and gave Sisto a scowl before fully turning and proceeding out the rustic doors.
Turning back to Caden, Sisto looked to her for a rundown of what she knew. Sisto’s vision was interrupted so he had an inclination of what to expect, but still needed Caden’s debriefing.
“This is a mess, Tom,” she started, getting her bearings together before presenting what she knew. “We have a body, can barely determine it’s a male because it has been so mutilated, and from what SCF says, the man is maybe late fifties.”
“You okay?” Sisto reached up to cup her elbow. “I don’t know if I have ever seen you rattled like this.”
Filtering emotions, her honey-brown eyes, which were bloodshot at the moment and accompanied by small bags of unrest at the bottom lids, looked at him and she replied, “Tom, this is like a fucking animal attack. If a person did this, we need to stop them immediately. I have seen a lot of horrific stuff, but the rage in this kill is unlike anything I have come across.”
“You normally don’t call me into a scene unless it’s the last resort. Why this case? This is something new, not a spree or a serial right?” Sisto wondered.
“Tom, listen.” Her tone changed to a worried sister-like voice. “I want you to play this out like any other case. We have to be objective in this field, or we make mistakes.”
“I don’t understand. Camille,” Sisto said, before correcting himself, “Detective Caden, I have no clue what you are trying to tell me.”
Uncomfortable, Caden reciprocated the gesture of grabbing Sisto’s arm in an effort to comfort. “Come this way.”
The two left the shadowed cove of the barn and approached the spectacle of lights, police tape, and SCF officers combing for clues. The taste of Italian dressing started to mist in the back of his throat, giving his taste buds a tang he did not want; he realized there was a sense of panic in the air. Sisto was pretty sure it was exuding from Caden, but never having seen her like the current state she was in made Sisto wonder if that panic was rising within himself and causing that reaction. Something was really off about the situation and with each step closer, The Reels started to assault Sisto with images—like lightning strikes, not full visions—of the morbid act that had occurred in the barn nights earlier. Another step and another step, the smell of metallic ions in the air from the blood still prevalent countered the Italian dressing in an attempt to fight for which sense could make Sisto vomit again.
Sisto could feel Caden’s thin but firm arm brace across his front, halting him from proceeding.
“Give me a sec, Tom. Let me make sure we can get in there without dancing around these guys.” Caden nodded over the SCF agents.
She proceeded ahead and her shadowy figure came into view as she moved into the spotlights perched over a perimeter in the center of the barn floor. The SCF agent she spoke with gave approval for her request, based on her body language, since she had her N-95 mask and goggles on, making it impossible for Sisto to read her facial expressions. The SCF agent walked around to the other side of the perimeter with a clipboard in hand and gave way for Sisto to view a heap of almost black-crimson coated appendages stacked in the center of the lights. Caden nodded from the edge of the lighted scene for Sisto to come up front and center to the atrocity for analysis. Sisto, still unbeknownst to him why he was even at this scene, made his way to the intuitive detective. He could see something was bothering Caden but couldn’t put his finger on it. Face to face, he finally dropped his gaze to the pile of rotting flesh. Mr. Tattoo had been very busy after the vision The Reels had presented to Sisto. The body was built like a campfire. The torso, tattered remains of the shirt still on it and cloaked in dark, oxidized blood, was at the base. The two legs were sawed off the torso at the top of the femur, and again at the base of the knee, giving Mr. Tattoo four pieces of human kindling instead of two. Counting the surrounding pieces, Sisto determined that Mr. Tattoo had gone through the same procedure at the base of the arms and elbows, giving the scene eight partial limbs propped up and around the torso. The dried blood on the floorboards beneath the human sculpture were coagulated pools of dark liquid, and Sisto could see slight movement at the base of the flat torso, intriguing him to kneel and get a closer look. The open meat of the torso, now having been perched in position for a few days at least, had been feasted on by an uncountable amount of feeding maggots.
“Jesus!” That was all Sisto could convey on taking in Mr. Tattoo’s handiwork.
Standing back upright, Sisto took a deep breath and coughed slightly, trying to dislodge the remnants of the Italian dressing taste out of his mouth. He looked at Caden, still utterly confused by the request for his presence. “Well, no doubt this is awful, but again, why am I here? Is this someone important, like a politician or local celebrity or something?”
Looking at the human-formed teepee, it dawned on him that one key element was missing to determine identification. “Caden . . . where is the head?”
Caden sighed and while normally not stuck on pause for voicing her opinion, opted to nod in the direction behind the body, instead of answer him. Behind the presentation of limbs, just outside the main circle, was a handmade rustic trunk, presumably already inside the barn before the murder occurred. The trunk had a clasp on each side and i
n the middle a clasp lock with an opening to loop a combination lock through for security. The lock had already been snapped clean open by a pair of bolt cutters one of the SCF team had used, after logging all proper notes and digital images of the original scene. Sisto walked over to the trunk and knelt in front of it, wearily assessing the lid before reaching for it. The SCF team, as well as the many detectives, had probably already looked in the box numerous times, but the thought was still in the back of his mind to proceed with caution. The clasps, all unlatched already, allowed Sisto to grab the top of the trunk on each end and simply raise it. In doing so, it presented him with two things. One, he was mentally preparing for was the sight of a rotting head, severed by the bottom base of the neck, and hitting a stench that burned his nose as it escaped the box it had been fermenting in. The second thing in the box was something Sisto was not expecting and didn’t know how or why it was there, but he understood now why he was called out to the scene. The top of the lid had a newspaper article, slightly yellow from time, with an image of himself from a year and a half ago exiting a crime scene he’d worked. Sisto, feeling like he had just been punched in the stomach, sat down on his butt from the kneeling position he had been in and tried to process what he was looking at.
The article was titled: “Hometown Psychic Assists in Morbid Local Case,” written by Max Halstead. The article was almost half a page, but it wasn’t the print he was reading. Written in blood with a now dark, brick maroon hue to it and probably with a finger, Mr. Tattoo had written directly to him. Sisto had carried The Reels with him for many years and seen many things but had never considered the victim or offender could in turn see him too. Could that actually be the case? At this point, Sisto couldn’t rule anything out. Sitting on his ass, in the middle of a cold barn, in the silent outskirts of the city, he was staring at an article with his name and face on it and a note from a psychopath communicating directly with him. The bloodied finger-painted print was a calling out for Sisto to come play a game and while he was sure he did not want to play, he knew the invite wasn’t optional. The taunt simply stated:
I know who you are,
I know where you are from,
I will show you we are one,
In the days to come.
CHAPTER 10
Rallying back to his marked territory from earlier, Sisto viciously released an encore of bile from what he’d thought was an empty stomach. The cool breeze in the night air hit his forehead, cooling the light beads of sweat that had started to form. The whole situation was ridiculous. At that moment, once this case was behind him, Sisto made a note to find Max Halstead and beat the shit out him, on principle, for releasing Sisto’s business to the world. Granted, Sisto had signed the waiver and taken his one-hundred-fifty-dollar compensation from the media outlet that was a parent company to Halstead’s local newspaper. Regardless of all that, Sisto mentally put it on his to-do list to clock Halstead with a cheap gut shot. People got real uppity when they have to explain a black eye or broken nose, and Sisto didn’t want to deal with having charges pressed upon him. A good ol’ fashion kidney pop was enough to get his point across without having Halstead get his chonies twisted.
“Jesus, Tom, I am so sorry. I could have prepared you better, I just didn’t know what—”
Raising his hand behind him to halt Caden from coming any closer, her voiced stayed at that current distance and continued, “Seriously, I am sorry.”
Sisto started racking his brain through all the cases he worked the last year and a half and, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember a single case, material witness, family member, or any intersecting point where a real life Hulk covered in tattoos would want to fuck with him. He mentally sifted through his early cases and nothing stuck out in his mind.
“Fuck me,” Sisto blurted out, seemingly the only appropriate response he could generate.
“Tom, that article is dated from late last year. Why would anyone want to come after you now? Has anything weird been going on outside of the work the 22nd has brought you in on? What about cases over at Mustain?”
“Nothing I can think of,” Sisto said, all confidence removed from the statement.
“Tom,” Caden approached gingerly, “I know on most of these scenes we have worked together you are kind of a jokester. Could you have said something to someone you shouldn’t have?”
Sisto crinkled his brow and involuntarily squinted, trying to process how something so dumb could come out of someone so smart. “Did I heckle a murderer to a point they would want to come back to invite me to a round of hide-and-go-fuck-myself?”
Sisto was pissed and frustrated beyond belief and decided to continue his venting. “I know I am fucking joke to everyone here in uniform, Caden. I get it. I wish I worked at a fucking zoo and shoveled animal shit, just so I could listen to music and avoid all the horrors this world has to offer. Instead, I have this fucked up gift and while trying to put it to use, I get ridiculed and berated by people like Bell, more recently get taunted by maniacs like this guy. I didn’t want any of this!”
Speechless longer than he had ever known her to be before, Caden chose her next words carefully. “Do you know why you started getting more and more cases with Bell and myself? Do you?!”
Her voice perked up a bit on the follow up question, causing Sisto to finally gaze into the detective’s softened facial features.
“I believe in you. I have seen with my own two eyes what you are capable of and I would fucking kill to have what you have, Tom!”
Getting uncomfortable at the escalating aggression he seemed to have triggered in her, Sisto rose and started walking to her, in hope that part of her voice raising was just ensuring he heard from the distance between them. That was not the case however, as she continued at that same octave, even as he was mere feet away from her now.
“I envy what you have. I have never in my life seen a true miracle before you. What you have been given is a gift. And you want to roll me into the same category as the cops that talk shit behind your back, including my partner? Fuck that.”
“Whoa, okay, okay,” Sisto softly countered, trying to simmer the fuse he’d lit inadvertently. “I am sorry I lashed at you, Cami. Jesus. I am just weirded out by all of this and it doesn’t make any sense.”
Caden paused, a thought trampling her current tirade, then exhaled as she knew she was about to ask a question Sisto didn’t want to answer.
“Tom,” slightly pacing, anticipating some blowback, Caden asked, “You remember at breakfast this morning where I mentioned I ran a background check on you?”
Fucking hell, Sisto’s inner voice proclaimed. He nodded.
“There were a few years where I just could not find anything on you. I mean nothing,” Caden offered. “It’s like you were a ghost during that period. The only people I have come across in my line of work with that type of gap are special ops soldiers, or . . .” she trailed off, waiting for Sisto to divulge.
“Witsec,” Sisto admitted, wiping bile from his mouth and feeling an emotional weight lift off his shoulders.
“Witsec.” Caden parroted, expecting his response.
CHAPTER 11
Tom Sisto needed clarity and believed that in telling Camille Caden his secrets, she may be able to stumble on a clue to guide them. Knowing she was entering shaky territory, she treaded very carefully with every question, in an attempt to not let Sisto shut down on exposing possible motive.
“What was it that you were doing that caused you to enter Witsec?”
“It wasn’t anything I was doing,” Sisto immediately spoke, setting the record straight. “My brother, Eddie.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother. I never saw that in any records,” Caden, angrily stated, realizing she’d only received whatever redacted files the powers that be deemed acceptable.
“Yeah, that makes sense. When you testify against someone in organized crime and have to get whisked away for a few years with a new name and identification, Witsec is
pretty keen on not giving up a witness’ family members to the people you are helping put behind bars.”
Trying to recall his life from before the event, was like calling on The Reels in itself. The memories almost felt like they belonged to someone else. A life of blissful ignorance, late nights waking up to next to beautiful women, handfuls of money from slinging cocktails and beers, and never looking more than a week ahead of his own path. The Reels grabbed the reigns like a coachman, steering the carriage of his life down a path the twenty-three-year-old man could have never imagined.
“My brother was a good man,” Sisto finally drew back in his focus, “with a great woman by his side and the most amazing little girl, Corey.”
Caden immediately didn’t like where the story was going but remained silent and let him proceed.
“Eddie had gotten a job working at Angie’s Marina for Frank Vinnova.”
Caden was familiar with the place. Back in high school, her and her friends would go south-east down the 154 Highway towards Rugby Forks on Spring Break and set up camp at Bluefish Lake. It was the goto place where all high schoolers in the surrounding counties amassed each spring break and most summers, when trying to get away from parents and work. Off the main path entering the northern side of the lake was Angie’s Marina, which was named after the owner Frank Vinnova’s first born daughter. Frank Vinnova was a seemingly cordial, middle-aged, Italian American man that just enjoyed the fresh air and organizing slips for people to settle in the docks on their time there. It wasn’t until Caden was in the Saratoga City Police Academy that she heard whispers that the docks were one of Vinnova’s few legitimate ventures that helped masked his shadier and more prosperous ones.