The Gift

by Kim Pritekel

  “Damn it, Ally.” Lizzie let out a growl as she appeared next to the kneeling waitress. “Just go. I’ll clean this up. Your sausages are beginning to burn.”

  “Okay,” Ally whispered, giving Catania and Leonardo an apologetic smile before hurrying off.

  “Don’t be so hard on her, Lizzie,” Catania said, watching as the older waitress slowly lowered herself to the floor with popping knees and a loud groan of discomfort. “She didn’t mean to do it, and besides, not everyone has been a waitress since God was a boy.”

  Lizzie glanced up at her from halfway under the table where she’d followed two runaway fries. “Just for that,” she said, pointing at her with said fries. “I’m gonna dig your ‘new’ fries out of the trash.”

  A couple hours later, Catania stood next to her Jeep as Leonardo leaned back against the passenger’s side door of the white Sentra that had been passed down from Dino.

  “Thanks again for dinner, Nia,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “And, thanks for listening.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. With work, I may be busy as hell, but you know I’m here for you, bud.” She reached across the distance between them and lightly punched him in the shoulder.

  “Yeah. So, uh,” he said, bringing a hand up and rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you know that little blond waitress? The one who made a mess?”

  Catania looked at him with drawn eyebrows, confused. “No, why?”

  His grin made her nervous. “Nothing. Just noticed you looking over at her a lot.”

  Catania rolled her eyes, suddenly feeling nervous. “Shut up.”

  His grin widened and his eyes bore into hers. “She’s cute.”

  As she met his gaze, she felt he was almost sending out an olive branch to her, saying, Hey, I sort of let you in on a little secret of mine…Your turn. She let out a heavy sigh then dug her keys out of her pocket. “Yeah, yeah she is.”

  He stepped forward and wrapped her in a firm but quick hug. “See you later, Sis.”

  “I’ll try and be by Sunday,” she said, releasing him. “I think Mamma will have my hide if I don’t.”

  “Probably.” He smirked, making his way around his car to the driver’s side.

  “Hey, when is your tryout?”

  “Thursday, after school.”

  “Break a leg, mister.”

  With a beaming smile, he climbed into his car and was gone.

  “Damn kid,” she muttered, turning to her Jeep and inserting the key into the lock. She stopped short when she felt she was being watched. Hand paused at the lock, she turned and scanned the near-empty parking lot. Evening had fallen and the few street lamps scattered around weren’t enough to fully illuminate the area.

  Leaving the keys dangling from the door, she brought her hand to the general area where her sidearm could be reached should she need it. Her attention was drawn to the darkened corner where the diner’s trash dumpsters were kept.

  Taking a couple steps toward noises she was hearing, she tried to strain to see into the shadows.

  “Hello?”

  She froze when she saw a humanoid shadow step out from behind the dumpster, blacker than the darkest shadow. The form moved, and she could swear it was looking right at her.

  “Hello?” she said again. Though through her training and years of experience she knew how to quiet the natural reactions in her body, still her pulse began to race as her heart began to thud in her chest.

  Catania gasped and took several steps back as the shadow seemed to launch itself toward her, vanishing before her eyes but not before a wave of energy crashed over her in a soul-searing wave.

  It took several minutes for her world to right itself, her heart rate slowing down as she gradually became aware of the cold air and sounds of distant traffic.

  Chapter Three

  “Okay, so, on this sixth day of May, nineteen hundred and ninety, we are…Wait, where the hell is the picture? Dude. Mike, how do you use this thing?” an unseen male voice asked, the screen black.

  The muffled sounds of two men talking ensued until finally the darkness was thrust into a bright sunny day. The large backyard was decorated with cream and maroon streamers and bells. The grass was emerald green. The festive view was suddenly blocked by the extreme close-up of a laughing man, his maroon bowtie pulled loose, the ends hanging out from beneath the undone collar. His brown eyes were glassy and unfocused, his reddish-brown hair mussed.

  “You had to take the lens cap off, dumbass!”

  “Whoops!” There was laughter from behind the camera, the same voice as the first speaker. “Anywhoo, get the hell outta the way, Mike.”

  Once the drunken man moved out of frame, the picture moved in a dizzying track to the opposite side of the yard. A covered patio housed a dozen people in various states of their Sunday best—obvious members of the wedding party. At the center of all the chatter was a man with thinning strawberry-blond hair and a beard. His white tuxedo shirt was still buttoned up with bow tie in place as well as a maroon vest. He wore no jacket. Standing next to him was a brunette wearing her long, satin wedding gown. Her hands rested on a bulging belly.

  The sound of footsteps on a thick carpet of grass rent the air as the camera got closer to the group. “And, there they are,” the voice behind the camera said. As he neared, a hand reached into frame and rested upon the bride’s beach-ball belly. “Damn, Oscar. Couldn’t you even wait until after the wedding?” The image bobbed as the man behind the camera laughed, his hand falling out of frame. “But then, I guess you wanted my niece or nephew to see their dad before he lost what was left of his hair.”

  Oscar’s head fell back as laughter erupted from his throat. “You’re an asshole, Max.”

  “Yeah, well welcome to the family, jerkoff.”

  Both men laughed, the disembodied hand coming back into view as Oscar reached out to shake the hand in the secret way that only men seem to know how to do.

  “Hey, let’s make a toast to Oscar and my sister, Linda,” the man behind the camera shouted, someone reaching over to hand him a glass of champagne.

  “Oscar?” the bride said quietly, looking at her new husband who was turned away from her to listen to a woman on the other side of him.

  “Everyone! Come over here. Let’s—” The image slid quickly down the length of the bride’s body until it settled on green grass and shined men’s dress shoes. “Linda?” could be heard distantly. “Are you okay?” The feet began to move, the shot tracking their progress to the edge of the cement patio. “Hey.”

  “My water just broke!”

  “Oh god! Oh shit. Oscar, man, someone call an ambulance!”

  ****

  “Can you believe that little shit can already play Christmas songs?”

  Catania glanced over at her partner from behind the wheel of their assigned car, a dirt-brown Crown Vic, a retired and repainted police cruiser. “Wait, whose daughter is Hunter?”

  “Greg’s,” Oscar said, beaming with pride as he spoke of his son’s and his daughter-in-law Tammy’s first born.

  “Oh yeah. The adorable little one who likes to wear the angel wings right?” she asked, slowing as she eased up to a red traffic light.

  “Yeah.” His smile was huge, face tinted pink from the emotion he always showed when it came to his only granddaughter. Both his daughters had given them grandsons. “She’s six this year, can you believe it?”

  Catania blew out a soft whistle. “Damn, time flies.” She got the car going again.

  They pulled up to the house, the night aglow with flashing blue and red. Her heart sank when she saw an ambulance sitting at the curb, dark. As she watched, it started up and headed out, the coroner’s van easing into its place. Police cars were everywhere, a few uniformed men standing around, which told Catania the threat was over or had been contained.

  “Jesus,” Oscar muttered, followed by a soft whistle through his teeth.

  She followed his gaze to see a black-and-white parked
in the driveway of the small house, someone in the backseat going berserk. His arms were pulled behind his back—obviously cuffed—and he was thrashing his body in every direction. The words and sounds he yelled were muffled through the bulletproof glass, but the entire car was moving from his violent jerks.

  One thing Catania did notice was that he was covered in blood.

  “That guy is strung the hell out,” Oscar muttered.

  “Yeah.” Catania turned when she saw a uniformed officer walking toward the car. She unbuckled her seat belt and killed the engine before opening the door and stepping out. “What do we have?” she asked.

  The young officer was pale as he shook a blond head. “It’s pretty bad.”

  “Alright, thanks.” She pushed the door closed and let out a heavy breath as she glanced over the top of the car to see Oscar also stepping out of the vehicle. They met at the front, he handing her a pair of latex gloves that he’d grabbed from their stash in the glove compartment.

  Together they walked up the cracked pathway, autumn-deadened grass in patches on either side. The hard, square heel of Catania’s loafer clicked dully on the similarly cracked cement stairs leading up to the small covered porch. The front door to the home was open, the quick flash of the police photographer’s camera welcoming them. Steeling herself as she always did at this point of a case, Catania tugged on the light blue gloves, wiggling her fingers to get a snug fit.

  She let out a quiet breath as she looked around. The front door opened to a smallish living room, appointed as a typical home: couch along the far wall, mismatched love seat on the wall under the window. An oval coffee table was situated so those seated on the two pieces of furniture placed perpendicular to each other could have access to it.

  She noted a couple Matchbox cars resting on the table next to a yellow plastic sippy cup. She also noted there was an ashtray with cold butts in it and five bottles of beer—Peroni—two empty, the contents in the other three in various stages of consumption, never to be finished.

  “Expensive taste in beer,” Oscar muttered.

  Catania nodded. “I remember my dad drinking that brand when I was a kid.”

  The room looked lived in, if a bit messy and cluttered. A young child definitely lived there. She scanned everything one more time, filing it away for what she wanted to come back for after they’d taken in the entire house. Glancing over her shoulder, she met Oscar’s gaze then moved on into the small L-shaped kitchen.

  A big pot sat on a cold burner filled halfway with water, intact spaghetti noodles nestled at the bottom. Catania walked over and waved her hand over it, finding it to be totally cool. It didn’t look the like the noodles had been boiled at all.

  “You put an open jar of sauce in the fridge, right?” Oscar asked, pointing at the jar of Prego sitting on the counter, a fourth of the marinara missing from the jar.

  “Yeah, why?”

  He reached out and touched the very top of the metal lid. “Room temperature.”

  “Okay. We’ll have to find out how long it would take to warm from fridge tempts. Could help determine when things began to happen.”

  Oscar nodded, already scribbling a note on the pad he’d been carrying.

  As Catania glanced at the small, round kitchen table, she saw an open box of Crayola crayons and an unfinished child’s drawing. It looked as though it would be a house, maybe the very house she stood in.

  “Oh boy,” she whispered, letting out a heavy breath.

  They passed the back door—locked—and traveled down a dim hallway, bathroom to the left, nothing special, nothing seemingly out of place. Catania peeked in, then continued on. She noticed the coppery, nauseating scent of blood was present and growing very strong.

  “Jesus,” Oscar murmured just behind Catania as they stepped the few feet farther to the open doorway of one of the two bedrooms in the small house.

  Catania said nothing as she stared at the scene before her.

  The bedroom was basic, appointed as most others save for an overflowing laundry basket sitting on the stained carpet under the one window. The queen-sized bed wasn’t made, the faded yellow blanket halfway hanging off one side.

  Near the foot of the bed lay a man. He lay on his back, legs straight out and slightly spread. He wore dark blue jeans and a long-sleeved, light gray T-shirt, though it was only from the long tail of the shirt the color could be ascertained. A large part of it was scarlet, though in places where the blood was drying, it was much darker maroon.

  Catania walked over to him, looking down at his face, which looked back up at her. His lips were slightly parted, eyes heavily hooded, no life in their dark brown depths. She shook her head slowly, sad for a man who looked to be no more than his early or mid-twenties.

  “Such a waste,” she said softly. One thing both she and Oscar honored was the fact that at a homicide scene, the person was once a daughter or son, once a sibling or parent. They both tried to give the victims the quiet reverence they felt they deserved.

  “Looks like he was stabbed right in the heart,” Oscar noted, knees cracking louder than either of their words. “Hey, David?” he called, looking toward the bedroom door.

  “Yeah?” came a distant response.

  “You shot the bodies, right?”

  “Yup. All yours.”

  Oscar brought up a hand and fingered the long, single tear in the shirt. “One stab, right into the heart.”

  Catania took in the information she’d just been given as she turned her attention to the woman. She lay on her stomach, arms down at her sides. Her long, dark hair draped around her head, which was lying facedown.

  “Where are her pants or lower garments?” Catania wondered aloud, noting the woman wore only a green sweatshirt. She was naked from the waist down, though it looked as though she wore red panties there was so much blood. She squatted down and reached out to push her hair back and away from what could be seen of her face.

  “I think her throat’s been slit. Oscar, help me turn her over.”

  On three, they turned the woman’s body over, a gasp escaping both their lips. Not only was her throat slip from ear to ear, whoever had done this to her had stabbed her in the lower belly so many times the entire region of her ovaries, uterus, and genitals were mutilated, gore smashed into the carpeting beneath the weight of her body where it had lain.

  “Jesus Christ,” Oscar whispered.

  Catania couldn’t take her eyes off the animalistic damage that had been done to the young woman. She couldn’t help but feel like they’d stumbled into White Chapel, England in 1888. “That is some rage,” she finally managed.

  “Do you think her genitals were removed?” Oscar asked, glancing over at her.

  Catania shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.” She blew out a breath as she pushed to her feet. “Let’s check the other bedroom.” She needed a break from the unbelievable sight before her, needed to catch her breath.

  They made their way back down the hall toward the second bedroom, walls painted light blue and decorated for a little boy. Catania glanced into the room, her gaze immediately drawn upward. She gasped as her hand went to her mouth.

  “Oh, my god.”

  ****

  Catania glanced over at Oscar, who sat next to her, forearms resting on the bar top in front of them, his left hand wrapped around his Heineken. He hadn’t said anything since they’d arrived at Deuces, a local neighborhood bar they only went to after particularly difficult cases.

  “How are you doing over there, partner?” she asked before sipping from her whiskey and Coke.

  He let out a sigh and tipped the green bottle to his lips before responding. Finally, he met her concerned gaze. “I don’t think I’ll ever that that image out of my head.”

  Catania nodded, no need for him to elaborate on just which image he was talking about after a bloody, horrible night. “I know. I hope like hell they get good fingerprints off that electrical cord that was used.”

  “Why? They go
t the guy, Nia.”

  “We don’t know that, Oscar,” she reminded, taking a sip of her drink. “We’ll find out when prints and DNA come back.”

  “That guy was so fucking out of his mind on god only knows what, he’s got a rap sheet as long as my arm, including,” he added, pointing his bottle at her to emphasis his point. “Domestic violence, fighting, rampant drug charges—”

  “Yeah, I read the reports, but slaughtering his girlfriend, her child, and the child’s father is a huge leap from assault and battery, Oscar. You’ve got to admit that.”

  “I do, but Nia, he was covered in blood!” He nearly roared, face reddening with his rising emotions and volume.

  She turned on her stool and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Bud,” she said softly. “I know you’re upset. We both want to get the fucker who would hang a four-year-old from a ceiling fan. But,” she added with a squeeze before her hand dropped to her own knee, “we’ve got a job to do.”

  He let out an angry breath, running his hand over what was left of his hair. “I know. I’m just so goddamn angry. Fucking monster.”

  “Yeah. Look, I’m heading back to the station to work on some of my notes.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. You go home. Spend some time with Linda, go see Hunter. I know that’s who you were seeing when you saw that little guy tonight.”

  He nodded. “Yup.” He downed what was left of the beer he’d been nursing for an hour. “Okay.” He slid off the stool and slapped her on the back. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Tell Linda I said hi.”

  “Will do.”

  Sitting alone at the bar, Catania looked at her reflection in the mirror that ran along the wall behind the bar. She looked tired, her face pale. She was exhausted and knew she needed to try to get sleep, but after a case like they’d had that day, it wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

  ****

  It was nearly two in the morning as Catania made her way toward her apartment. She had gone through her second, third, and fourth winds more than an hour before as she’d sat at her desk going over notes, filling out reports, and trying to put a few puzzle pieces together on this new case.