Death by Torture: Gripping Detective Murder Mystery (Detectives Ruskin & Ashley Book 3)

by Michael Sivyer

  Mike exhaled as he took the sights in. Someone had been furious when they had committed these homicides. These were acts of pure aggression – it was something akin to Jack the Ripper – the bodies had been arranged execution style, laid out on the rug with their limbs arranged in a hog-tie behind their backs. As much as both Andy and Mike wanted to turn the bodies over to find out whatever identity was left in the victim's faces, they wouldn't be allowed until the pathologist arrived at the scene, so instead, they meandered around the rest of the flat, which was spotlessly clean throughout.

  Normally, Mike would come up with some dark humour joke to lighten the mood at crime scenes, but this was not something to joke about. In fact, an eerie atmosphere consumed the flat, and the silence was almost deafening as the two partners awaited the rest of their team. Eventually, the sound of footsteps approached from the small hallway outside the penthouse apartment, and Dr. Stanton - the pathologist working on this case - entered the room, and the detectives showed him to the body. He set a small briefcase down on the cleanest section of floor he could find, and clicked open the case to pull out a camera, taking several photos and notes, leaving the detective impatient to reveal the identity of the bodies.

  The time eventually came to inspect the underside of the bodies, and the detectives were left with a nasty shock. A seeping wound spread from one ear to another, much akin to a Cheshire smile, and the eyeballs had been beaten so much that they were as black as a mid winter's night sky. And that was the body that had been given the kindest treatment of the two – the second body didn't even have much of a face to speak of, more a large, bloody battlefield of flesh, bone, and gore. Even for the experienced detectives, this was somewhat horrifying, and even the sight of the bodies was enough to send an icy sensation burning through the spines of the two men. In their time, they had seen it all; drug gang torture killings, bodies that had been left in the water for weeks, even twisted carcasses that had been inhabited by rodents and crawlies alike, this though, was something else entirely.

  “Mike... Have a look at this...” Whispered Andy's voice hoarsely as he stepped backwards. Now that the bodies had been turned, they could get a better idea of the construction and shape of the bodies. This was when they realised that perhaps it wasn't the method of the kill that was the most heartless thing waiting for them at the crime scene, but rather the choice of victim.

  The limbs were frail and bony, and bruised, wrinkled skin clung desperately to the bones that indicated the skeleton structure. The victims both appeared to be pensioners, at least in their seventies.

  Mike was usually one to be calm, reserved, and sometimes weirdly cheerful at crime scenes, but this was different. His roar sliced through the room's silence.

  “What the fuck!? I'm going to find these bastards, and I'm going to make sure they're being fed through a straw for the rest of their lives!”

  Saliva flew from his mouth as he paced the perimeter of the crime scene, and as much as he hated it, the only thing that he could now do was to head back to the head quarters and wait for the coroner's full report to come through.

  Chapter Two

  With his stomach still growling with hunger to avenge the two older ladies, Mike stormed through the precinct's corridors, leaving Andy to hurry in his wake as he made his way towards the basement level where Dr. Stanton carried out his work alongside a few other doctors. They had not yet been called, but Mike needed answers. He couldn't just sit behind a desk while the bastards that committed this crime roamed the streets. These people were the lowest class of scum as far as he was concerned, and once there was rage within him, there was no getting it out until he felt that he had exacted his task.

  The characteristic musty scent of the morgue didn't even seem to matter that much to Mike today, though even for someone like him whom lived in a flat overrun by trash, the scent was usually enough to make him gag violently. Marching straight towards Stanton, Mike ground his jaw together, his teeth producing an ear-piercing scrape as he impatiently began to ask a barrage of questions.

  Stanton, now an expert at controlling Mike's outbursts, slowed his colleague with an outstretched hand as he finished scribbling his signature onto a neatly arranged folder of documents upon his stainless-steel desk.

  “Woah,” He said, releasing his blood-stained apron from his waist, “Well, let's start here; what do you want first, the good news or the bad?”

  Andy, knowing Mike better than anyone, decided that it would be best to allow his colleague to hit rock bottom before he returned to his normal level of emotion.

  “The bad,” Nodded Andy, “Let's get it done with.”

  Stanton invited them deeper into the morgue where the two victims were laying on tables in the centre of a cooled room. Stanton approached, lightly placing the underside of their wrists in his palm as he lifted them up towards a ray of light that came from a reflector in the ceiling.

  “Take a look at these marks,” He spoke with a sigh, “These poor women were being restrained.”

  The two detectives, however, were far more concerned about a scalded mark in the abdomen of both women, where a layer of skin had crumpled like a discarded tissue around a scarlet burn.

  “Ah,” Spoke Stanton again, realising that their gazes were fixed upon the scorched areas, “That appears to be from a fire poker. Rather nasty stuff. These ladies were tortured to death, which brings us onto the good news, if you can call it that; they were under such great pain that I believe they both suffered from cardiac arrest before the whole process could be completed. By the looks of it, I think they only lived to experience about half of it.”

  “Is that it?” Hissed Mike, eager to be unleashed into the city; a hunting ground for his prey of dirt-bag murderers.

  “No,” Stanton reached for a small glass case in the pocket of his scrubs, which he handed over to Andy, “I managed to pull prints from both bodies. Hopefully you'll be able to get a DNA search with these – they're only partial, it looks like their fingertips had been burned off too, but at least it's something.”

  Mike snatched the case from Andy and turned to leave the basement area without muttering another word. He was a man on a mission. Andy nodded towards Stanton in appreciation, and then hurried after his younger colleague for the second time that day until they reached the computer lab, a small room with five or so cutting edge computers run by a geeky looking college graduate by the name of Jason, whom one day aspired to be like Mike and Andy, though deep down he knew that this was a wishful dream thanks to his lack of fitness – although it was far from the most demanding job in the world, Jason could barely even complete a one hundred meter sprint without being the victim of a nasty asthma attack.

  Mike tossed the case in Jason's – whom luckily had rather astute reflexes - general direction, and the technician caught it just before it clattered against the oak desk in front of him.

  “Run those prints through the database, would you? Make it your priority – I don't want to waste any time on this case.”

  Jason obediently tucked away a file that he was working on, sensing the furious aurora that was radiating from Mike's body while Andy kept a watchful eye on his partner – he knew that Mike's behaviour patterns closely mimicked those of a teenager, and if he didn't get his way, he would probably erupt rather violently at this point in time.

  Andy stepped close as Jason pulled the two rolls of thin acrylic from the class casing, being extremely careful with the delicate strips as he placed them into a round plastic machine on his desk. On the screen of the computer, the machine replicated the outlines of the fingerprints, and then whirred through a list of databases. With any luck, they would be in a database somewhere, though Andy held his breath – he knew that it would only be a possibility if they had passed through modern border controls in a foreign country, been arrested, or if they were individuals of an important background.

  Much to the detectives' relief, the computer pinged to indicate a match, though they found them
selves in a rather peculiar situation – There was no profile on the matches at all – the two women only had their first names visible on the system. They were listed only as Gretel and Helen, with no further information available. They glanced towards Jason, who's brows were beginning to release a bead of sweat.

  “Do you know what this means?” He spoke shakily, “It's classified information! Oh god, this could be serious!”

  Breaking into a near panic attack, Jason was observed by the two detectives, who could both sense another reason why the technician would find it impossible to survive more than a week in the field. With neither of them being particularly skilled in comforting shaken individuals, they glanced towards each-other and reached an almost telepathic agreement that they should back away.

  As the detectives retreated into the corridor, a rather out of breath Dr. Stanton stumbled towards them as he slowed his pace, seeming to suck on his lower lip with a concerned expression on his face.

  “Oh detectives,” He panted, “There you are. Were you able to find out anything about these people?”

  “No, it's... it appears to be classified information,” Said Andy, dropping the news to the pathologist.

  “Well, I may be able to help you there. I don't know how I didn't spot it before – a bruise must have hidden It. Come, quickly!”

  The three men disturbed the otherwise quiet office cubicles as they dashed through the building, opting to rush down the stairs rather than risk waiting for the precinct's notoriously slow elevator.

  By now, Mike's anger had subsided a little, but it re-emerged with a vengeance once he saw the bodies, his eyes narrowing as his mind planned a range of 'accidents' that might befall the perpetrators of such a homicide. The gathered around the torso of both women, and the pathologist lifted their arms to reveal an ink marking in the same spot on both bodies – just to the side of the rib-cage.

  The case took a rather sinister turn, and the detectives were left in a stunned silence. On each woman was what appeared to be a Nazi emblem, with an identification number etched beneath the ugly symbol.

  “You mean to say that these ladies were in the Nazi ranks?” Questioned Andy. Mike, meanwhile seemed to be deep in thought, his previous emotion of rage now being replaced by a more passive state of confusion.

  “They were guards, probably,” confirmed Dr. Stanton, “While all the men were on the front line, women like this used to guard the prisons, concentration camps and the like.”

  Andy stroked his chin frantically as he placed both of his palms upon the pale flesh of his cheeks. No wonder the files had been classified.

  “You're well informed on such a subject, Doc,” noted Andy, “Can I ask how?”

  The room was once again filled with silence before the doctor responded.

  “My parents... they lived through the horrors of a polish camp.”

  Andy had been here before. He hated investigations like that – whatever you did, people higher up in the chain would always stop you from getting the information that you needed and would constantly undermine your investigation. He sighed. On one hand, the victims were a little bit more deserving than they had first seemed, but on the other, it made the whole case a lot deeper, and a lot more complex, than he had hoped it would be. As soon as he returned to the upper levels of the precinct, the welcome party for the secret services had already begun, with confidential paperwork being thrown about like miserable strings of confetti, with twenty or so sharply dressed agents invading the office. And before long came the same old lie riddled speech from the ringleader, a balding man whose body shape indicated that he had probably not experienced any action in the field for at least the last decade or so.

  “We're all on the same side here-” He began.

  Bla bla bla. Andy had heard it so many times before that he tuned out, half heartedly signing the papers in front of him before he chucked them back at one of the agents. Shortly after the speech, a familiar face in Andy's own captain, invited him into a larger office towards the back end of the precinct.

  “Look, I'm trying to withhold information from these guys for as long as I possibly can or they'll piss all over our case. But I'll tell you what I do know.” I'm aware that you spoke to Detective Reed regarding the robbery, correct?”

  “Yeah, are you telling me they're linked somehow?” Asked Andy.

  “Almost definitely. You see, the Nazis hoarded anything valuable; art work, jewellery, the lot. In fact, they had so much that they handed it out to guards like little performance based bonuses. I don't know for sure, but if I was a betting man, I would say that these ladies were in possession of such artefacts and kept them locked in that little vault of theirs. I mean, records show that they've had that vault since they were put under protection over here in the fifties, and they haven't worked since. Makes you wonder how they got that pad of theirs, huh?”

  “It's definitely worth looking into,” Agreed Mike.

  “Yeah,” Nodded Andy, “In modern day currency? Things like that are worth millions. The information obviously fell into the wrong hands. Some crooks would kill for a lead like that.”

  “Remember gentlemen,” Spoke the captain sternly, “This is all just speculation for now – the moment that we have probable cause, we have to hand it over to those bastards, so tread lightly.”

  As they made their way into the hallways, which were infested with self righteous special agents, Mike and Andy screwed up their nose in harmony and looked across at one another with a mutual understanding that they would get out of the precinct before they could be pulled aside and interrogated for information, which wasn't a rare occurrence coming from this army of delightful individuals. Making any excuse they could, they took the keys of an unmarked police vehicle and made a getaway from the morgue-like atmosphere in the precinct.

  As they drove aimlessly around the city, Andy turned and glanced towards Mike, whom seemed deeply lost in a world of his own thoughts. Normally, this meant that his mind was whirring like a well-oiled machine, calculating theories about the case in hand. Andy didn't interrupt him, however, until they were ground to a halt by roadworks for an almost tedious amount of time.

  “So, what's going on in that brain of yours, Mike?” He inquired, tapping the steering wheel with his index finger.

  Mike snapped back to reality in an instant. “Well, the way I see it, there are two possible motives; the first option would be that someone wanted justice for these ladies' role in the Nazi regime, proven by the fact that they were killed so gruesomely. The second option? Maybe we're looking at a mob hit. Maybe someone wanted the jewellery – only a complete psychopath of a mob leader would kill someone in such an extreme way in order to get their financial fix.”

  “Seems plausible-” Began Andy, before he was interrupted by Mike, whom continued explaining his theory.

  “The dogs. The dogs, Andy – those are how we're going to crack this case. Not any old guy with a handful of dog-treats can pull off something like that, a specialist trained them. A dog whisperer, in fact. I'm not saying the person who trained the dogs did this, but if we find the trainer, then we find the client too. Or perhaps there will be a dog trainer amongst the thieves. Either way, that's going to be the best approach.”

  Andy questioned Mike, with a slight flaw in the plan. “And how do we know who the thieves are? We don't even know what precisely they stole – Jewellery, yes, we know that much, but we can't go an arrest any old dog trainer with a silver chain around their neck.”

  “Then we need to find out. Somewhere, there will be a record of what these women were given as rewards. You know the Germans – they kept records on everything. Heck, even if I have to find out what camp these women served at and search through 50 years’ worth of rubble for jack shit, it beats going back to that office right now.”

  “Or you could speak to the resident Pathologist, he seems to know quite a lot about the topic. You'd also need to find records of auctions; what they sold, and what they kept, to
work out what was left in their lockers before they were robbed.”

  Suddenly, their pointless drive became full of intent. The amount of work that they had to do was piling up – they needed the Nazi records, which would undoubtedly be a certified bitch to get their hands on due to classified information, they needed auction records, and they needed to find the dog trainers. And all of this was against the clock; dally on their tasks too long and they would find themselves handing the case over to the special agents. It was very rare that they parted one another's' company whilst on a case, their minds put together often proving the catalyst in an investigation, though they knew that this was one of the rare times where they needed to take a chunk of the workload and go their own ways. On their way back to HQ, they decided that Andy would be in charge of finding the dog trainers whilst Mike would find the Doctor and find where he might find the information that he needed, being wary not to feed too much of his investigation to the sharks that circled the wavy corridors of the precinct.

  And so, the two men, for one of the first times since they had made partners, went about the investigation in their own divergent directions.

  Chapter Three

  Thanks to Mike's faded, ripped attire that had been a pin in his closet for the last fifteen years or so, none of the agents regarded him as one of the precinct's most valuable detectives, but rather dismissed him as the office's errand boy, and as such, he avoided any form of questioning about his case as he meandered through the hallways. He made his way towards the morgue, almost like a shadow to the walls as the agents watched for any detectives to take prisoner over this case.