by Gurley, JE
He looked unconvinced. “So what do we do now?”
“We check on some of these vampire groups. You’re a wiz on the computer. See what you can dig up on-line. Maybe there’s a Vampires R Us.com or something.”
“And you?”
“I have a few unanswered questions. I need to talk to Munson about some fish scales.”
He looked at me as if I had gone off the deep end, but cranked the SUV, threw it in gear and took off.
****
I found Dr. Munson in the autopsy room. He looked up at me through his clear face shield spotted with blood and set down his bloody electric bone saw. Three of the four tables were occupied – my victims. The girls were naked save for strategically placed cloths over their private parts. Munson did not always do this. He was being generous. I was grateful for his show of courtesy to the girls. They deserved dignity even in death. The lights were low and except for the body on which he was working, the room was in shadows. I was grateful for that too.
Patricia Stewart, the latest victim, still looked beautiful in spite of the ragged sutures holding together the flaps of skin where he had removed her internal organs. Munson had bathed her body, removing the blood covering her face. She was pale, far paler than most bodies I had seen, but her freshly scrubbed face retained the beauty of her youth. She looked so innocent and childlike lying on that stainless steel table, so opposite of the vibrant young girl in the photo by her bedside. The savage wound in her neck reminded me of the wound in my back.
“Notice anything?” Munson asked, nodding at the table.
I played his game, checking the body carefully with my unpracticed eye. Then I spotted it. “No lividity.”
He smiled. “Correct.” He rolled the body over slightly to show me. “No tell-tale purplish marks where the blood settled post mortem, and do you know why?”
I took another stab. “No blood.”
“Correct again.” I could tell Munson was fascinated. His eyes sparkled with excitement. “All three girls have been bled almost dry of blood. The amount of blood discovered at the crime scenes and found at the church would not account for a third of it. What happened to the rest?”
“If I knew that, I might know where to start looking for my killer.” I paused. “What do you know about vampires?”
He lifted his visor and stared at me. “You mean Dracula?”
“No, I mean those Goth punks in black that file their teeth and drink human blood.”
“Well, there are loose groups of them in town, but I think you’re reaching.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Oh? And why is that?”
“To them, blood drinking has sexual connotations. I can’t see any of them brutally attacking women in their homes and transporting their bodies to another location, especially without leaving clues.”
“Maybe I’ve got a psycho vampire on my hands,” I countered.
“A psycho, certainly. See this wound.” He pulled back a flap of skin on the Stewart girl’s neck with a gloved finger. “A sharp object, applied with strong force did this but not a blade like a knife. The tip was sharp but with a slightly rounded body, almost like a meat hook, but not made of metal. Possibly a chitinous substance. I found bits of chitin in the wounds. And there was no hesitation in the wound. Our killer has had lots of practice.”
My stomach fluttered. “You remember that gray fish scale stuff?”
His eyes went wide. “Oh, yes. I examined that. Interesting. It’s composed of skin cells, a type of chitin also, but from what creature I can’t begin to guess. The cell structure is very odd and the DNA singularly complex. There were some nasty germs mixed with it, some I can’t identify. I’ve sent the cultures to the CDC for analysis.”
I shook my head. “Chitin?” I asked. I knew I had heard the word but couldn’t place it. I took a stab. “Like a cow horn or something?”
“No, horns are composed of the protein keratin, like hair. Chitin is a derivative of glucose. It’s the substance comprising the shells of arthropods, such as crustaceans and insects, like the hard carapace of a beetle, or the beak of a squid. It serves the same function as keratin but is different chemically.”
“So we’re looking for a beetle now, or a squid?” I snapped irritably.
“No, it did not come from an insect or a cephalopod.” He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know where it came from.”
I nodded. If Munson was stumped, I didn’t feel too bad in my ignorance. “Whatever it was, the bastard got me in the shoulder and I had a fever within minutes. The ER doc found some of that same chitinous substance in my wound.”
He looked dumbfounded. “Minutes? That’s … I almost said impossible, but this case breeds impossibilities.” He glanced at my shoulder. “How is it?”
I moved my arm experimentally and grimaced “Sore. I’m taking antibiotics.”
He looked at me with sympathy. “You should be in bed, but I understand your enthusiasm.” He looked down at the dead girl and sighed. “Catch this bastard Detective.”
“That’s my job, Doc.” I turned to leave. “Gotta go.”
“By the way.”
I turned back.
“That ammonia – turns out it’s a form of urine.”
“Urine?” I repeated in disbelief. “I’ve smelled urine of every type in my job from fresh to several months old. It stank but not like this.”
“Animal urine, more specifically it’s very similar to that excreted by vampire bats of South America. Their diet consists mainly of animal blood.”
I stared at him a moment as his words sank in. “Are you saying that this guy has vampire bats for pets?”
He said nothing.
I slowly realized what he was suggesting. I shook my head vehemently. “No way, Doc. No way will I believe this guy is drinking blood and pissing ammonia. That’s…that’s not even human.”
“Someone who savages women like this is not human,” he reminded me pointedly.
While we faced off, him suggesting the impossible and me denying the improbable, the telephone rang. He picked it up and spoke briefly into the receiver. When he looked at me and nodded, I knew it was bad news. He replaced the receiver slowly.
“You’ve got another missing girl. It appears your man was busy again last night.”
4
As Lew drove, I hung my head, feeling the weight of the last twenty-four hours pulling me inexorably like gravity to the ground. We had four victims and the only clues as to the murderer made little or no sense. Nothing about the case made sense to me. A rookie could have made as much progress as I had. Bodies were piling up and all I could do was keep count.
My luck continued in its normal vein. As we pulled up in front of the posh apartment building of our latest victim, the press buzzed around us like flies on a three-day old corpse. I shoved my way through a milling mob of reporters and flashing cameras with little regard to their feelings or comfort. I was in no mood for reporters. Several black and white patrol cars were on the scene blocking the street. I waved some uniforms over to shove back the throng of curious onlookers and construct a barrier with ribbons of ubiquitous bright yellow crime tape, forcing the crowd and especially the press to the sidewalk across the street. Otherwise, I figured the slimy bastards would be picking up pieces of vital evidence to display like trophies on their evening news broadcasts.
I lamented the passing of the true reporters, the newshound professionals upon whom you could depend to be discrete, discerning and at times even helpful. Now, they were all sensationalists, digger creatures with no regard for privacy, evidence, accuracy or even the truth. No stories, just sound bites and blurbs designed for the short attention span and fast-paced lifestyle of their indiscriminate audiences. The more bizarre the case, the more papers they sold, the more advertisers they drew. This one had their blood pumping. They were a frenzied pack of predators scenting blood on the wind.
The apartment had elevators, much to my delight. The door attendant, dres
sed in red with a red cap, held the elevator doors for us but looked down his nose at us as if he had preferred we had used the delivery entrance.
I turned to Lew. “What do you know about the victim?”
Lew pulled out his notebook but spoke mostly from memory. “The penthouse suite belongs to Sasha Sattersby of Sattersby perfume fame. Her grandmother, Lorene Sattersby, started her line of fragrances during the Great Depression, at first selling them from her home, then moved up to booths in Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Now, it’s a worldwide corporation. Sasha’s parents died during an avalanche in France when she was only five. When her grandmother and grandfather passed away two years ago, she inherited an estate valued at five-hundred and fifty million dollars, the company and, unfortunately, her father’s penchant for booze and fast living.”
I whistled appreciatively. “Rich girl.” I remembered seeing her on the news and on the covers of a few of the gossip rags in the newsstands. Hardly a week went by without some paparazzi catching her at her worst – one of her half dozen drunken driving fender benders, attacking a bouncer at a nightclub, escorted by security from some airport for verbally assaulting the stewards. By all reports, she was a spoiled, screwed up kid but she deserved better than this.
“Her money didn’t help her,” Lew commented dryly.
“That’s why I stay poor,” I said as the elevator doors opened. “Less to miss when I’m gone.”
The corridor was bustling with uniformed officers, curious residents and forensics photographers. The apartment looked like I thought a half billionaires’ penthouse should. White carpet so soft I wanted to take off my shoes and stroll across it barefooted stretched like a blanket of freshly fallen snow from wall to wall. I looked around almost expecting a ski lift. Persian rugs that cost more than my condo and stylish, but to my mind uncomfortable, late-sixties Danish furniture straight from the showroom window of Dansk Mobelkunst gave the living room a magazine feel. Expensive Impression Era artwork and statues that could have graced any gallery and, my favorite, a wide-screen HD television that probably cost more than my car completed the room’s decor. My own condo looked like a college dorm room compared to Sattersby’s. My tastes were simple but I had flipped through a couple of furniture magazines and recognized that either Sasha Sattersby had a good eye for decorating or had the help of an expensive decorator.
Broken glass from the balcony sliding glass door littered the white carpet, now marred by a pool of blood. More blood splattered an overturned coffee table and bookcase, indicating Ms. Sattersby had not succumbed without a fight. A bloody handprint on the white curtain and a single naked, bloody footprint showed she had clutched the curtain and kicked out at her attacker. Good for her. This time we got lucky, or so I thought. Beside her obvious footprint was a partial footprint too large for her foot. Upon closer examination, I found it to be too blurry to be of much use for identification. Part of the heel was visible, but the remainder trailed off into three indistinct lines where toes should be. The heel was bigger than mine or even Lew’s, whose seven-foot NBAer now didn’t seem so farfetched an idea.
“According to the doorman, an alarm went off about 2:30 a.m. He swears he was inside the apartment within five minutes. They have cameras in the corridor that he says will back him up. We’ve pulled the discs. No cameras in the apartment, though, or outside on the balcony. Neighbors say that Ms. Sattersby attended an art function at the museum earlier in the evening but was home by 1:30 a.m.” Lew looked up from his notebook. “It looks like she took a bath and changed into her sleeping attire, which generally consisted of nothing since she slept in the buff.”
I knew where Lew was going. Judging by the photo of her on the wall, Sasha Sattersby was a beautiful woman, dark brown hair, sparkling green eyes and a body that would look at home in any swimsuit edition of a sports magazine, but I didn’t think our killer had a sexual bone in his body. None of the bodies, even though naked, showed any signs of molestation, only savagely drained of blood. I doubted Miss Perfume was any different.
I had uniforms scour the roofs of all the adjoining buildings hoping for a repeat of two nights earlier but they found nothing. I stepped out onto the balcony, mindful of the broken glass. From there, I could see the tower of the old church adjoining the monastery rising above the nearby rooftops. Looking at it gave me the willies. It looked cold and uninviting, not a place in which you would find God or solace from your troubles. The centuries-old stained gray stone of the monastery looked more like a mausoleum than a sanctuary.
I turned my attention to the crime scene. Blood trailed from the living room out onto the balcony before disappearing at the edge. My eyes searched the rooflines. The buildings across the street contained penthouse apartments with sloped glass roofs, no place for our perp to hide. I spotted a stone gargoyle protruding from the roof of the building next door. From it, a man would have a good view of the Sattersby balcony and into the room. The uniforms had searched the roofs, but I doubted had they bothered with the gargoyle. My curiosity got the better of me.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Lew’s sleeve.
We went next door and out onto the roof. The gargoyle perched on the corner of the building about five feet down from the roof. Its twin on the opposite corner was missing, leaving only a broken stone stub with attached paws. I didn’t want to clamber about on the edge of the roof, but I needed to examine the gargoyle and couldn’t send Lew because I didn’t know what I was looking for. I wasn’t sure why I felt it was important but I knew better than to ignore a hunch. Lew, aware of my fear of heights, eyed me with suspicion as I straddled the ledge and peered down. I spotted a black SUV parked directly below, across from a white WBBT News van. A crowd of reporters pushed against the crime scene tape, cameras and microphones thrust out eager for a sound bite.
“Damn reporters,” I muttered, resisting the impulse to spit on the van. “Give me a hand,” I said as I scrambled over the ledge and landed on the gargoyle. It moved slightly under my weight. Lew grabbed my hand. Unfortunately, I had offered him my sore arm. Pain shot through my shoulder like my heart was pumping fire though my veins.
“Don’t kill yourself,” he warned needlessly.
“I’ll try,” I assured him through teeth gritted against the agony in my shoulder.
I let go of his hand and carefully knelt on the gargoyle, similar to the one at the old church. I immediately spotting traces of blood and a few scratches matching the ones I had found on the last roof. Removing an evidence bag from my pocket, I turned it inside out and swiped it across the blood, hoping to get enough for a DNA test. I knew what they would find. As I stood up, the gargoyle shifted a few inches with the ominous sound of grinding concrete. I lost my balance and tottered on the edge. I thought Lew was going to yank my arm from its socket as he hurriedly reached down grabbed me by the wrist. His grip was so tight my hand went numb. I glanced down and wished I hadn’t as a wave of vertigo swept over me. I closed my eyes. If not for Lew’s steady hand gripping mine, I would have made a nasty mess six floors below. My only consolation would be if I landed on a reporter in the crowd below. Lew tugged on my arm as I fought to swing my leg up and over the edge of the roof. Finally, I lay prostrate on the roof, fighting the pounding in my chest as I gasped for breath.
I was sure a photo of me straddling the gargoyle would be in the evening edition of the paper, something that would require some explanation to my superiors. In hindsight, I should have waited until later to collect my sample, but our killer wasn’t going to wait. He had struck four times within seven days and all within a five-block radius. He was bold or insane, or possibly a little of both.
“I almost dropped you,” Lew said in a deadpan voice that belied his anxiety. I knew he meant it.
“Glad you didn’t,” I said as I stood and massaged my aching shoulder, willing the pain to subside. “Looks like our killer perched here.”
He nodded. “This guy bothers me more and more.”
“The papers wi
ll crucify us over this one. Sasha Sattersby was one of their darling bad girls. She sold papers and TV ads. We’re going to be under careful scrutiny. They’ll watch us 24/7 and any mistake we make will either make the front page or be seen by a few hundred thousand viewers.”
Lew came to the real point. “It’s the captain I’m worried about.”
His concern was valid. In spite of his constant haranguing, Captain Bledsoe had covered our asses on more than one occasion. The suits upstairs were breathing down our necks on this one and if we blew it, the captain, and we, might be walking a beat down in the hooker district, a thoroughly unappetizing prospect.
Lew glanced out over the roofs at the old Jesuit monastery. It often amazed me how alike our minds worked. “You don’t think…”
I shook my head slowly. “Nothing about this one makes any sense. A normal psychopath wouldn’t return to the church, but this guy,” I shrugged, “who knows?”
“Maybe we should take a chopper with us this time in case this guy goes through the roof, literally.”
I liked the way Lew was thinking, but our killer would hear a helicopter a mile away. Besides, I suspected he would lay low in the daylight. He seemed to prefer the cover of darkness to commit his crimes.
“No, I think just you and me tonight.”
He looked at me with an unspoken question. I anticipated it.
“Too many people and he’ll bolt. Just you and me … we might catch him with his pants down.”
Lew grimaced, reading more into my comment than I had intended. He remained unconvinced. “No backup?”
His terseness communicated his feelings that having no back up would be foolish. He could be right. We had blown it once already. Twice and we would look like fools. I relented. “Okay, we’ll place some uniforms outside the perimeter. There’s no moon tonight until four a.m. If they can keep quiet and out of sight, we just might pull it off.”