“I’ve come across a murder in South Korea—”
“How does one come across a murder on the other side of the world?”
“I-it will make sense. Will you listen to me first?”
“Do I have a choice?” Conor’s tone got more sardonic by the second.
“I think that murder was perpetrated by an American.”
“Uh-huh?” Conor scratched the trident on his neck.
“Not only that. I also believe this guy doesn’t have a comfort zone, meaning he travels at will to kill people.”
Conor’s eyebrows met.
Good. The asshole was finally getting serious.
“A wandering serial killer, eh?”
“I suppose. And he takes trophies.”
This was something Noah had also written in his letter.
“What kind of trophies?”
“I haven’t… I don’t know that yet. So, would you help me, Agent Lyons?”
Conor sighed and shook his head. “One, you’re not authorized to stretch your nose halfway around the globe. Two, you can’t know if it’s an American because all the whites are Yanks or Brits to the rest of the world. And three, no.”
“Why?” Gabriel’s mere dislike for Conor transformed into righteous hatred.
“Because, unlike you, I have a lot of work. I don’t want to get involved where it’s not absolutely needed.”
“It is not absolutely needed? But there is a murderer on the loose. A serial killer who goes around the world—”
“Around the world.” Conor scoffed. “I thought it’s just Korea. How’d you make that leap?”
“Cop instinct. You don’t get the confidence to rob a federal bank without robbing your local convenience store first. Look,” Gabriel slowed his rate of speech, “I can’t know for sure, but there is a good chance that he’s killed people from other countries. Countries that are closer to the US.”
“This would be an ideal time to present some evidence,” Conor poked the table twice, “because all I’m hearing is fanciful stories. And to be honest, I’m getting really lukewarm about it.”
“There is no evidence—”
“Then there’s no case here!” Conor stood. “Dada’s going bye-bye.”
“Wait!” Gabriel said, in desperation.
He didn’t think it would come to this, but he had no option but to divulge a secret.
“Now what?” Conor rolled his eyes.
“Noah told me all this before killing himself.”
“Noah Smith?”
“Yes.”
Conor’s nose wrinkled and eyelids shrunk in confusion. “Noah the drug dealer, is friends with a serial killer?”
When he’d finally caught Mr. Bunny, Gabriel charged him with a drug case, not as a serial killer. He made this move to prevent Noah from enjoying the notoriety of being Mr. Bunny. Only his team knew about that, and they’d sworn secrecy.
“So Noah was like your informant or something?”
“In a way. It’s good intel. Don’t you see that I’ve really got something here?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t see a damn thing except a delusional cop prattling about non-existing serial killers. Anyway, you have your own caseload, don’t you? Why bother searching for imaginary assholes when you have enough real ones that need to be put away.”
“I do have a backlog, but most of the cases assigned to me are crimes of passion. These people aren’t as dangerous—”
“A cop who calls murderers not dangerous.” Conor smirked as if Gabriel couldn’t stop being stupid.
“Not as dangerous as this guy. I mean, isn’t that the reason why we’re here? To protect and serve? For all we know, he might be stalking his next victim right now.”
“I don’t have time for this.” Conor started walking.
Gabriel jumped up, overtook Conor, and stopped him at the glass door. Madeline and another FBI agent who were talking near a coffee machine glanced at them.
Conor said, in contrived exasperation, “Look, Detective Chase, you may believe your best friend—”
“Noah wasn’t my best friend.”
“But I don’t have to.” Conor lowered his voice. “Funny you brought Noah’s name up. I’ve been thinking, and you know what?”
Gabriel waited.
“I believe you knew Noah was a criminal from the get-go. From the time he faked Casey’s death.”
“What?” Gabriel recoiled as if doing so would create a big enough space between them for the accusatory words to not reach him.
“I’m saying you had a hand in it all along.”
“I caught him!” Gabriel said, not sure if he’d shouted.
“The partnership became too risky, and you guys fell out. You helped Noah escape one of the securest prisons in the US. Then you garroted him and hung his dead body.”
“What the—”
“And I’m sure you’ve stashed stacks of drug money somewhere. You are as ugly as Noah, and Casey’s blood is on your hands, too.”
Gabriel tightened his fists. “You’re going to take the last sentence back,” he said, between clenched teeth.
“Make me, you corrupt son of a—”
Conor’s words were shoved back into his mouth by flying knuckles.
* * *
Gabriel was just thirty-three, but whenever he closed his eyes at night, he prepared himself for death by heart attack. His belligerent ghosts were too scary. Not only death, he was also prepared for a great many uncomfortable things in life. The kind of things people avoid, like getting shot, confronting murderers and robbers, and bloated bodies in bathtubs. But what he had never prepared for was being handcuffed to a steel table in an interrogation room with glass walls.
The door opened slightly. Madeline sneaked in and sat across the table, smiling mischievously.
“I like you, Gabriel.”
“Old interrogation technique.”
“Huh?”
“It’s an old interrogation technique, starting the interview with I like you. An attempt to build a rapport with the suspect. Doesn’t work anymore because the TV’s overused it to the point where it’s a cliché now.”
“Would you listen to yourself?”
“Not by choice.”
“I don’t think our boss has ever been in a fight. He didn’t even flinch when you slugged him, kinda stood there like a retarded animal about to be run over by a car.” Madeline smiled again. “I’m gonna repeat myself. Balls.”
Gabriel shrugged.
“What’s this about?”
Gabriel bit the corner of his lip.
“I’m an actual agent, unlike Mr. Douchebag out there.” She tilted her head to a closed room where the security had dragged Conor’s limp body. “He is in there, getting his face fixed. He’ll be out before long. So, tell me if I can help you.”
He had nothing to lose by telling his story to her. He had been castigated for doing his job, his reputation tarnished among the Feds. She might be his only chance. So he began.
When he finished, she said, “You’re absolutely sure you’ve got something?”
“One hundred percent. Unlike Mr. Bunny, this guy hurts people because he loves to do so. He is as bad as they come.”
“They?”
“Serial killers.”
“Let me see what I can do for you.” Madeline’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Your number.”
She programmed it into her phone and said she would call him when she got the information he’d come to search for.
Gabriel was locked up, but at least he’d got something. At a hefty price, true, but he had it, nonetheless.
Chapter 3
September 3, 1991. 03:23 P.M.
Having skipped recess and lunch again, Tyrel spent the whole day looking out the window at an old pine tree that had fallen at the corner of the playground. It rested as it was disintegrated by bugs and fungi. But even in such slow death, it looked calm and majestic. Like an angel finally returning to its righ
tful place.
A few branches that hadn’t fallen off were bare of leaves, therefore devoid of protection. However, a small blue bird had made the tree his home. Or the bird had always been there and was now refusing to abandon his former haven. Just like Tyrel and his—
“Tan theta!” the class sang in chorus, the excitement of the day’s end electric in the air.
“Good… good. Let’s see how y’all fare in Wednesday’s test.”
A test Tyrel was bound to fail. That day, he hadn’t paid attention to Mr. Anderson’s trigonometry or to Ms. Erin’s covalent bonds, his favorite subjects taught by his beloved teachers. He hadn’t paid mind even to the resident bully, Ricky, who was calling him the same old names and shooting the same old spit wads at his neck. All his focus and energy were spent holding down his sadness.
“Tyrel?”
He turned from the window and looked at Mr. Anderson.
“Meet me after class.”
The bell shrilled, and the bird hightailed it. Mr. Anderson walked out with his satchel brimming with papers. Tyrel folded his arms on the table and rested his head on his forearms. Rick screamed, “Whoo!” in his ear on his way out, but Tyrel didn’t respond.
After what seemed like a really long time, Tyrel got up. He checked the corridor from the safety of the classroom and heard only the distant sound of a floor buffer. No bullies. Tyrel was the thinnest boy in school, his physique just a little thicker than a skeleton wrapped in skin. His hair was oily, his face mottled with pimples. All these things made him a prime target for Ricky.
He tiptoed out of the room. The janitor stopped his machine as Tyrel avoided the clean spots on the floor. It took some effort and a brief return to reality to sneak past the teacher’s lounge in the silent corridor.
He was out of the school’s compound in two minutes. The air was colder than usual. Dark, intimidating clouds, rumbling with lightning and thunder, loomed on the horizon. He looked both ways. Left—to home, or right—to his father.
Tyrel chose right. It was hardly a choice, because he didn’t want to go home so soon and hear his neighbor make out with Tyrel’s fat whore of a mother.
Mr. Anderson wasn’t a fan of insubordination, but he wouldn’t mind Tyrel’s. Everyone teaching middle grade gave him a lot of space. Homework not done? No problem. Sleeping in class, not answering roll calls? No problem. Playing truant? No fucking problem, because they all knew what Tyrel was going through. That’s the way of small towns. Everyone knows about everyone else’s life.
Tyrel Boone came from a family of farmers who’d grown sweet potato. They lived in Apex, a beautiful town located at the edge of North Carolina’s Piedmont, which boasted a population of about 5,000 people.
The Boones took pride in the family business, and it wasn’t any different for Benjamin, Tyrel’s father. And the Boones were far from being broke. But Ben had known the times were changing. A day spent in the hot sun, driving the tractor and plowing the land, wasn’t as rewarding as sitting at a computer in an air-conditioned room and typing away god knew what. He told the same to Tyrel.
“Me, my pops, and his pops before him, we all made our lives by getting calluses below our fingers, boy. You gonna be the first Boone to make them by getting calluses on top.”
“We don’t get them by working the keyboards, Dad.”
“You don’t?” Ben frowned and feigned confusion.
When Tyrel shook his head slowly, his dad smiled and pulled a Marlboro from above his ear.
“Seriously, though, do well in school.”
“Why? Momma said we’re rich.”
“That ain’t a reason to slack in the home all day, junior.”
“I’m not gonna slack. I just wanna ranch and take care of animals like you do.”
“You can take care of them even if you work on computers. Better yet, you can hire someone to do it for you.”
Tyrel remembered that evening talk clearly. How did unimportant memories and conversations crystallize in his mind, while the more important ones felt like dreams hanging by threads to his consciousness?
Tyrel felt his face getting cold. He touched it and found his fingertips were wet. While wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist, he crossed an intersection. He was restless and knew for certain that there was something wrong about that day. He just knew it, like how some animals could predict rain.
A small crowd with worried faces was gathered outside Gladys Electronics, watching breaking news on a big Toshiba TV inside the glass window. Tyrel walked around them. On the TV screen, EMT vehicles, fire trucks, and police cruisers were parked haphazardly, and in front of them was a handsome man speaking into a mic.
“…experts believe this is one of the most disastrous workplace accidents in the history of Carolinas. Authorities say the fire was put down, but the smoke still…”
Tyrel didn’t pay attention to it and the voice faded behind him.
When he stopped walking and stood before St. John’s, Tyrel was zinged back to the present. It didn’t surprise him anymore how zoned-out he had become. He didn’t remember if he’d eaten that morning or put on underwear before pulling on his pants. Sometimes he didn’t even remember getting dressed. Profound sadness had a way of making people oblivious to the world.
Strangely he became super-aware as he climbed the steps of the monolith and was assaulted by the iodoform in the air. The smell of disinfectants, the sight of yellow-stained tiles, and a lonely beat wheelchair in the corner welcomed him. This place wasn’t where people came to heal. They came here to die, just less painfully. But how much less? Only the phantoms with broken dreams, failed responsibilities, and unachieved desires could answer that.
He crossed another small crowd. A group of orderlies were gathered under a TV mounted on a wall behind the reception area, and the same cute reporter was still going at it.
“… from what we’ve learned so far, it seems like the chicken plant’s safety features are to blame. The death toll has reached a staggering twenty, and still counting. The families…”
Tyrel walked to the end of the corridor and stopped before a door that had 108 painted on it. He knocked. No response. Something grabbed his heart. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
For a twelve-year-old, knowing stomach cancer was one of the most painful types of cancer and seeing the effects it had on his dad was too much to bear. How the sickening malady ate away at his insides inchmeal, turning the brawny man Tyrel had once known into a thing slightly denser and a little less pale than a ghost.
Only one thought ran through his mind as he looked at the man in bed—Buddha was full of shit, and karma was a lie.
Before cancer, the Ben Boone that Tyrel knew had maintained a ranch full of animals, in addition to potato plantations. This ranch housed animals that had been abandoned, or were disabled or deemed too unhealthy even for meat. People knew about Ben’s affection for them, so they had given these animals to him. Ben spent more than he earned on caring for these poor things. He had a vet on-call, and he fed them and took care of them until they died. Then he would dig up graves and bury them. Some townsfolk mocked, while the others told him he was a good man with a good heart.
One day, when he’d gone to buy a pack of Marlboros, he rescued a dog from the railroad. Its front legs had been crushed by a locomotive. He took a real liking to the brown fluff ball and named it Sandy. He took the dog home and it looked sad and hopeless, but Ben made it happy, giving it attention, exercise and a lot of playtime. He even taught Sandy how to walk on her hind legs. She had become cheery and playful within a few months. Tyrel had asked how come he loved animals so much, and Ben told him a story.
Apparently, Benjamin Sr. had been a vegan before it became a hippie fad. One day, Ben Jr. came home with a hamburger and challenged his father’s way of life, and the eccentric Ben Sr. took his son to a slaughterhouse to show him how a burger was made. Ben Jr. was never able to eat meat ever again.
Tyrel had wanted to go and see it,
too, but Ben refused, saying that the incident had traumatized him. So Tyrel sneaked into a pig farm and bribed the butchers who worked there, with a six-pack. They shrugged and let him in. What he saw inside that slaughterhouse had broken him.
Screams, tears, blood, and shit. It was animal hell.
While Ben had been revolted, Tyrel was angered. The factory men had earbuds plugged in to shield against shrieks, not out of guilt, but because they were a discomfort. They kicked piglets like they were footballs and threw them around for fun. They mistreated the animals that had already spent their lonely lives incarcerated.
That day, Tyrel came to believe that humans were really demons. Not even the most vicious predators on earth, extinct or otherwise, could compete with them. The word inhuman he’d learned in school held a new meaning for Tyrel from that day forward. If human was synonymous with everything cruel, unfair, and selfish, then its antonym, inhuman, must mean kind and loving, just and altruistic.
“Your mother isn’t coming?” Ben said, his raspy voice barely a whisper.
It surprised Tyrel because she never came, and Ben never bothered to ask. So why today?
Tyrel shook his head and Ben nodded.
Tyrel hated Mel, even though he had forgiven her whoring and drinking. His real hatred for her arose from the fact that she was giving her time to a scrap yard owner, ignoring Tyrel’s father, Mel’s husband of twenty years, who was dying alone in a hospital, breathing and shitting through tubes.
Tyrel had overheard their conversations years before they’d stopped talking to each other. Mel had screamed that Ben wasn’t a real man anymore. Tyrel didn’t understand what that meant back then. Now he understood, as did Mel, the reason behind Ben’s weariness over the years. He had been suffering silently so as not to hurt his family. For Tyrel, that’s who a real man was.
Ben had been keeping it a secret, until one night he couldn’t anymore. He cried and vomited blood at their dinner table. Tyrel had taken Mel’s truck and driven his father to the ER, where the doctors said he needed hospitalization.
Only then had Mel and Tyrel discovered Ben’s noxious secret. They sedated him and transferred him to a hospice, where he was currently living on palliatives. No one could save him. The doctors had given him a timeframe, and Ben had already crossed it. So Tyrel visited him every day. But Mel didn’t give a single fuck, because she was too busy giving them somewhere else.
Inhuman: Detective Chase hunts an animal who protects his own Page 3