Marla continued toward the garage. A gradual incline led down to a small guard shack; two patrolmen stood nearby talking.
“Evening, Detective,” one said, recognizing her.
“Hey guys, Detective Harden already here?”
“Yeah, he was at the office when the call came in.”
Good old Jamie, she mused. Even after the trouble at Williams’, James had returned to work. Marla was glad he was her partner.
Marla went around the crossbar that blocked the entrance and moved into the main garage. The place was alive with activity; flashbulbs popped as the photographers found new evidence, a uniformed officer took a statement from the night watchman, forensics was already busy placing every possible scrap of nearby material in plastic bags for analysis.
In the center of the bustle two men crouched near a partially covered body, a pool of congealed blood encircling the corpse. One she recognized, James, the other, a tall, handsome figure with dark hair and eyes, she did not.
When he saw Marla, James said something to the man, then came over to greet her. “How you doing?”
“Been better,” she said.
“Sleep any?”
“Just dozed off when the phone rang.”
“No rest for the weary, I’m afraid,” James said, indicating the body.
“What you got?”
James thumbed through his notepad and said, “Linda Booker, age thirty-three. Junior accountant for the Chase Group. The logbook on her floor indicated that she signed out at 10:03. The guard confirmed seeing her leave in the elevator.”
“Cause of death?”
“Massive trauma to the throat and chest. Lacerations covered the entire body. The lab boys haven’t seen her yet since the body’s still on sight.”
“Just like the others.”
“Exactly. Looks like we got a real sick fuck on our hands.”
“Who’s he?” Marla said, gesturing toward the man crouching beside the body.
“Oh, Alex Thorpe, doctor or something. Supposed to be an expert on the occult.”
“I’ve heard of him. He worked with the L.A.P.D. on a similar case last year.”
“Yeah, Captain Greaves said he came highly recommended.”
Fifteen feet above the garage, inside an air duct, two malevolent golden eyes surveyed the scene below, coming to rest on Thorpe. A hate-filled growl issued from the creature.
Below, Alex continued to study the cadaver. While inspecting the left hand, he noticed a clump of wiry hair lodged between the thumb and index finger. He pulled the hair free and placed it inside a bag, glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then tucked it in his coat pocket.
Suddenly, his acute hearing picked up a faint scratching sound. He tried to tune out the background noise the police were making and isolate it. His eyes wandered over the garage as he zeroed in on the source—an air duct grille. Alex squinted, trying to detect movement behind the grille, then tested the air using his sense of smell. It was still here—watching—reveling in its misdeeds. Were it not for the police Alex would issue a challenge and demand the thing to show itself.
“Dr. Thorpe,” someone said, startling him.
“Y-yes,” he responded, as if coming back from a far off place.
“Dr. Thorpe, this my partner, Detective Shaefer.”
Alex stood and took Marla’s extended hand, shaking it curtly. “A pleasure, Detective.”
“Likewise,” she said.
Right to the point, Marla said, “Do you have any ideas on who could have done this?”
“Marla, the guy just got here,” James said.
“Detective Shaefer, it would be premature for me to offer an analysis at this time,” Alex said.
Marla was impressed with the way he parried her question and wondered if Thorpe had attended the same school of diplomacy as the police, but she pressed on. “But you have suspicions?”
“I need more evidence before I can comment,” he said, shifting his gaze to James.
He was lying; Marla could sense it, but she decided to let it go, for the moment. As she started to say something, Thorpe’s cellular phone rang.
“Excuse me,” he said, pulling it from his coat. Into the phone: “Thorpe. Yes. What?” Then he spoke in another language, Marla wasn’t sure, but she guessed Chinese. The conversation became heated and Thorpe hung up.
“I’m sorry, but I have some important business to attend to. If you will excuse me. I’ll be in contact,” he said, turning back to them. Then without a reply, he quickly strode to the exit.
“What do you think?” James asked.
“Something about him that’s…”
“What?”
“…weird.”
“You know that most eggheads are flaky,” James reassured her.
“That’s not it. It’s something else.”
“Want me to keep an eye on him?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“You’re right, but I’m going to do it anyway.”
“I knew you would.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Alex walked on a lonely dirt road, at least it seemed like dirt, the damp soil having a reddish hue to it. On either sides of the track, gnarled and misshapen trees looked as though they were frozen in the throes of agony, their branches reaching out to the sky pleading for mercy. Sickly yellow patches of grass were strewn along the sides of the highway outlining the hellish road.
It appeared to be near dusk, the horizon to the west a bloody visage. Alex could not remember how he came to be there, but continued walking through the surreal landscape.
Suddenly, from somewhere to his right, Alex heard a cry of anguish. Alex stopped and searched for the source of the banshee-like wail. The entrance to a graveyard lay just beyond the road, where only moments before there had been none. The phantom cemetery blinked in and out of existence, as though trying to gain a foothold in this reality. It flickered faster and faster like a strobe light. When it finally stopped and solidified, Alex could see rows of freshly dug graves.
He stepped closer to the entrance, intrigued by the spectral bone yard. The moaning came again, the bizarre cacophony seemingly rising from the earth itself. Then the first of the cemetery’s residents began rising from their eternal sleep. Alex was petrified with fear, his mind told him to run, but when he tried, he found he was stuck in a gummy substance. He looked down at the road and saw that it had turned to a river of blood.
The residents of the cemetery had left their resting places and now shambled toward him. As he looked on, he noticed that some of the ghouls wore lab coats, while other were dressed in military uniforms. “Why, why did you let us die?” One of the zombies asked, in a mewling voice.
Alex redoubled his efforts to break free of the swirling mass of plasma, but the bloody whirlpool held him firmly in place. A chilling touch came at his shoulder. His head snapped around to find the origin of the icy grip. Standing before him was Philip Voss, the side of his neck so torn apart that his head rested sideways on his right shoulder. The vision of the man would have been comical had it not been so frightening.
Voss regarded him with that trademark sneer. “You let us die in that mountain. Did you think we had forgotten about you? Did you?!” Voss screamed. His voice had a gravelly, almost metallic sound that caused Alex’s head to ache. The closeness of Voss assailed Alex’s senses with the smell of decomposing flesh. He fought back the urge to vomit and closed his eyes, trying to will the specter away. When he opened them a moment later, Voss was gone. Breathing a sigh of relief, Alex again tried to free himself.
Without warning, two skeletal hands grasped Alex’s head and turned it back to the graveyard. “Look at them, look what you did!” It was Voss again. The ghouls had drawn closer and were almost on top of him. Alex tried more than ever to break free, but Voss held him tightly, the apparition possessing tremendous strength.
Alex finally stopped struggling and he let his head fall forward, resigning himsel
f to his fate. “I’m sorry,” he said.
The ghouls drew closer. Voss’ specter began laughing in that grating vent.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said louder.
Closer. Voss cackled.
“I’m sorry!” He yelled.
Their hands were upon him, pulling at his body, the specter’s laughter drowning out all other sounds.
“I’m sorry!” Alex screamed. The surging mass of decaying bodies falling over him.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said, lunging forward in his bed. “Oh god, I’m sorry,” he said, sobbing into his hands.
Quong opened the door to the bedroom. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Alex replied, sniffling.
“Another nightmare.”
“Yes, but I’m fine, really, thank you.” Alex said. “Go back to bed.”
Quong closed the door.
Alex got up and went into the bathroom on unsteady legs, his equilibrium still arrested from the fevered sleep. He turned on the light and looked into the mirror, his bloodshot eyes and pasty complexion made him appear as though he belonged with the ghouls in his dream. He splashed water on his face then looked at his watch, 3:35. No use going back to bed, he thought.
Marla swept the leaves from atop the headstone. Though she paid the caretaker a considerable monthly sum, he always seemed to neglect the grave just before she visited. The marker was one of the most expensive that money could buy. The only gift she was ever able to give her mother.
Marla looked to the plot next to her mother’s, marked with only a flat granite stone. She couldn’t care less for the man who was buried there, he being the one who had ended her mother’s life so prematurely.
Placing a fresh bouquet on her mother’s grave, she threw the old arrangement on her father’s. He would probably appreciate the irony of the dead flowers on his grave, being so close to death his entire life.
Marla had visited the cemetery once a week, every week, for twelve years. Ever since she had her father’s case files opened, and found out the truth about her mother’s death. He had robbed Marla of the most important person in her life.
The man she loosely referred to as her father, Clinton Friedman, had been a vicious killer. Murdering seventeen young women, the twelfth of which was her mother. All had been drawn in by his celebrity, easy prey.
After her mother was found dead at the family’s estate, Clinton told Marla she had received a special gift from him. She asked him what it was, but he only said that she would realize it later in life. The gift, as he referred to it, was a talent for murder, although his was for committing them and Marla’s was for solving them. She felt obligated to use it as a way of making amends for her father’s crimes, joining the police academy at eighteen.
Marla looked up and down the row of graves. How many, how many here were victims? she thought. She glanced back to her mother’s grave and absently rubbed the stone. “Got to go now, Mom, but I’ll be back soon,” she said, then turned and made her way back through the graveyard toward her car.
When Marla arrived at work the next morning, she met Harden at the front entrance. They always seemed to be on the same sheet of music. “Good morning, Detective Shaefer,” Harden said cheerfully, holding the door for her.
“Morning,” she said, wondering how he could be so chipper at six o’clock.
They shared the elevator to the fifth floor and moved down the hall toward their office. Upon entering, they found that Alex had already arrived and was sitting at Marla’s desk. She was furious that he would be so bold as to take a seat in her chair, but ground her molars and simply said, “Dr. Thorpe, you’re up early this morning.”
Thorpe looked up from an immense pile of documents stacked in front of him, and said, “Oh, good morning, I never sleep well when I work a case, I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, but Detective Harden and I do have some reports to file, so…" Marla said, indicating her desk.
“Oh,” Alex said, taking the hint. He began shuffling the loose papers into a stack. When he finished, he said, “I’ll be in the lounge if you need me.”
After Thorpe left, Marla turned to Harden, “What did he do last night?”
“Went to an incense shop on the Southside, then picked up a few things at a local market and went home. A very cushy neighborhood on the Westside. I parked outside for a couple of hours, but he stayed put for the night,” Harden said, recounting the surveillance.
“Well, stay on him.”
“It’s what I live for,” he said.
After finishing their reports, Marla and Harden retrieved Thorpe from the lounge. The first stop of the morning would be the Chase Group, to question the employees in Linda Booker’s department.
When they arrived on the eighth floor the mood was a somber one, the workers went about their tasks with a less than enthusiastic attitude. The trio split up the responsibilities: Harden, who was a more people person, went to question the employees, while Marla and Thorpe headed for the records room, where the employee files were kept. Although Marla did not particularly want to work with the Doctor.
They were taken to a ten-by-ten room, filing cabinets filled the small cubicle to near capacity. “These are all the employee files from the last ten years,” Gina, a pretty young secretary, said. “We’re converting everything over to computer files, but the process isn’t going well.” She looked at Alex, and said, “If there’s anything else I can do, anything, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Thank you,” Marla said, opening the first cabinet. To Thorpe: “Police work isn’t so glamorous, is it?”
“I suppose it’s what you make of it,” he replied, thumbing through a separate cabinet.
Marla didn’t know why, but Thorpe seemed to irritate her with his remarks. She tried not to think about it as she began going through the files.
They spent three hours in the small chamber, with only short breaks to the bathroom. Gina came by a few times with coffee and to talk to Alex, but never to Marla.
Alex had gone through four sets of files and was beginning to think this was a dead end. Then, there he was, the Professor, his picture big as day, in a file marked ‘John Edwards’. The Chase Group required all of its employees to take a photograph for their ID badges. It appeared that Silverman had slipped up. Alex quickly tucked the photo into his breast pocket, then looked at the address, Fourteen East Broughton Street. Now, to get out of here. Alex was about to excuse himself when Harden came through the door. “Lunchtime,” he said.
“Already?” Marla said, looking at her watch.
Alex glanced at his own watch, 11:52. He had not realized the time either.
“Join us, Dr. Thorpe?” Harden asked.
“Uh no, I have some things to attend to, I’ll meet you later,” he said, quickly exiting.
“Damn, who lit a fire under his ass?” Harden said, eyeing Marla suspiciously.
“Don’t look at me, I’ve been as courteous as possible.”
“I’ll bet, come on let’s get some food, I’m starved.”
When Alex arrived at Fourteen East Broughton Street, he found a dilapidated boarding house that had seen better days. The building looked as though it had sustained some fire damage in the past, but apparently the landlord had not gotten around to repairing it. He more than likely pocketed the insurance money, if the structure had been insured at all. A sign hung over the front entrance proclaiming low weekly rates and clean, comfortable rooms, but it too was singed at the edges.
Alex entered the lobby of the four-story building, the seedy interior a perfect match to the outside. Vagrants, drug addicts, and third degree bag ladies, sat or laid around the decaying vestibule. He noticed a man sitting behind a reinforced steel cage, which served as the front desk. As he drew closer to the counter, he pulled out the photo of Silverman.
“Excuse me, I was wondering if you’d seen this man,” he said, showing the photo to the clerk.
Behind the counter a pipe-armed and bon
y man, with greasy hair and drawn features, glanced up from the television and fixed Alex with a wintry stare. “Who wants to know?” he said, around the filterless Pall Mall clenched in his blackened teeth.
Alex produced an FBI badge, one of his many fake identification he carried, and showed it to the clerk. “Special Agent Paul Harris, FBI.”
The clerk took a little more interest and looked closer at the picture, “Yeah, sure, that’s John Edwards, he’s got a room on the third floor.”
“Can you show me this room?” Alex asked.
“You gotta warrant?” the dirt bag asked.
“No, but I do have friends at the Health Department,” Alex said, looking around the neglected lobby.
“All right, all right, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” the man said, handing Alex a key. “Room 305.”
“Thank you,” Alex said, taking the key.
Alex took the stairs to the third floor, the elevator was in such a state that he felt the steps were more prudent. When he stepped into the cramped corridor he was struck by the scent of feces and urine, the tenants obviously not caring where they handled their business. The red threadbare carpet was stained and matted in places with ropey turd piles here and there. Spooled soot, obviously from the fire, ran up the walls and ceiling leaving motifs of permanent shadow.
Halfway down the corridor he found room 305 and entered. It was more like a narrow hallway, only five feet wide and fifteen feet long. The furniture consisted of a bed, a nightstand, and a small chest of drawers. There was no bathroom, he had passed a community privy down the hall. The room’s only window was covered in grime so thick, it cast a gummy light, giving the room a nightmarish appeal. The sickly yellow paint that covered the walls looked as though it was brushed on baby shit.
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