Dead Market

by Gary Starta

  DEAD MARKET

  By Gary Starta

  First Printing May 2015

  Second Printing April 2017

  Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 1

  Each time Hector Gonzalez examined a body he wished the corpse could talk to him. Forensically speaking, this one did. It screamed at the veteran medical examiner. Seemingly railing against methodical detachment via an unnerving, gaping punctuation on its neck, the summation of its life was not about to be condensed into a few easy digestible sentences for the benefit of crime scene workers. The wound, in Gonzalez’s mind, gave the victim a speaking voice. Now it had the power to haunt him.

  Gonzalez had already been guilty of trivializing the ordeal, despite the bizarre nature of the killing. He had told CSI’s, no more than half an hour ago in fact, that the body, already identified as one of Tampa Bay PD’s finest, possibly died from an animal attack. Plausible or not, the possibility of a wild or diseased canine roaming the streets of Ybor City existed. Albeit, in infinitesimal probability.

  Logic screamed to differ. The inner voice of Gonzalez, the one trained and versed in cause and manner of death, didn’t even buy into his own theory. He found it most difficult to silent both voices. Both competed for the same result with different tact. The victim lying on its back, helpless, screamed for justice via its strange wound; Gonzalez’s inner voice, the more muffled plea of morality, softly pleaded for him to listen to it.

  The pounding sun of a new day, its rays cascading off a nearby apartment complex, reminded the ME of a gavel, a court of forensic biologists hammering away at his preliminary analysis. He had been found guilty of delivering a comfortable truth by his own conscience. No matter the reasoning, it just wasn’t right to tailor the truth. A louder voice in Gonzalez’s head knew this all too well.

  The dead man lying in a pool of blood had been bitten for Christ sakes! Teeth marks had been ingrained into his neck. They were the only visible sign of injury. And they didn’t appear to belong to a dog; although odontology, the study of teeth, would be able to confirm back at the lab. Hard science, hard truth, demanded Gonzalez consider the likelihood another human had done this.

  The pool of blood which had formed around the late Detective Robert Comiskey, contained a sneaker print of perhaps a child or female. Evidence told Gonzalez that another human had been in the vicinity of the crime scene, not a creature of the night. There were no paw prints in the blood. No visible animal hair or dander sullied the deceased’s clothing.

  No scratch marks to the face or arms suggested a lack of defensive wounds. If Comiskey had been attacked, it seemed likely he would have raised his hands to shield his face and neck. Since the bite was to the front of the neck, Gonzalez reasoned Comiskey was not blindsided and should have had time to try to block the attack. Because if a dog was involved, the animal would have needed a second or two to spring off the ground to get to Comiskey’s neck. An animal would have instinctively used its claws, especially one propelled in mid air, to gain purchase. Several scratch marks should have been left as collateral damage. The lack of dust and dirt on the detective’s pants made Gonzalez conclude, initially at least, that Comiskey had been on his feet prior to and during the attack.

  The evidence suggested the involvement of an animal in Det. Comiskey’s death to be remote. Nevertheless, Gonzalez’s analysis prompted Animal Control to launch a sweep of the immediate neighborhood for rabid dogs and to confirm if any animals had possibly escaped from the nearby zoo overnight. Gonzalez comforted himself in the fact that if the search proved fruitless, at least he could rule out a four-legged killer.

  Buying time would come with a price if an animal was not found responsible. Gonzalez could hear the department outcry already. If a human had murdered Comiskey, an all-out manhunt would be mandated because no officer of the law allows a cop killer to get away with murder. But at least an already budget-depleted police force might be able to help a few other people in need during the interim. Gonzalez quelled his conscience with this logic. He simply had to be sure before he ruled Comiskey’s killer to be of the reasoning and talking variety. All other cases would be shelved with that outcome.

  The ME had already watched crime scene officers and paramedics go on their way in result to two other homicide-related calls this morning. Yellow markers sat along the borders of the blood pool and tape warning: ‘DO NOT CROSS’ had cordoned off the immediate vicinity, an alleyway separating two apartment complexes. Gonzalez only needed to release the body to the morgue’s transportation assistants. Later, as time afforded, officers would be back to question tenants of the apartment buildings. So far, there were no forthcoming eyewitnesses. An anonymous caller had alerted police of the body. The caller only offered she had not seen the attack, just the body lying in the alleyway. Her vantage point, officers guessed, was one of a possible dozen apartment windows of the two nearby complexes.

  Nevertheless, Gonzalez delayed releasing the body. Desperate for answers, he had requested a friend and colleague of Comiskey’s to take a peek at the crime scene. He hoped that the presence of an actual body, the corpse of a good friend to be exact, would prompt the colleague, Vice Officer Derek Burnham, to be forthcoming with any insight. A crime scene without the body just didn’t have the same impact, whether the interviewee was cop or civilian. In this instance, Gonzalez didn’t want to take any sting out of the shock for Burnham. He reasoned that if Comiskey had died at the hands of a man or woman, Burnham might be motivated from anger and grief to overlook any concern of protecting his friend’s reputation. Hopefully, the thirst for vengeance might give Burnham the insight to narrow the list of suspects. So at least the potential manhunt might be abbreviated.

  Burnham finally pulled up after Gonzalez scanned the body for what seemed the thousandth time. A Black Eyed Peas’ song, “I Gotta Feeling”, blasted from Burnham’s car stereo. The singer alluded to a feeling that ‘tonight was going to be good night.” But Gonzalez seriously had his doubts.

  Officer Derek Burnham leapt from his black Mustang, cutting its loud engine and even louder stereo system. The sudden silence swallowed the officer in a wave of surrealism. The sports car and its super sound system seemed a million miles away, incapable of shielding Burnham with its carefree, happy go lucky implications.

  Dressed in civilian clothes, a blue polo shirt emphasizing his V-shaped torso and toned arms, Burnham felt anything but powerful at this moment. His head swam from a release of some brain chemistry intent on defying the emotional repression that had been instilled into him by academy instructors. Burnham wobbled and shuffled towards the crime tape. Disbelief, shock and anguish had engulfed him totally by time he was within the confines of the scene. He could only hope the quivering sensation threatening to take control of his mouth was
not visible to Dr. Gonzalez.

  “Thanks for coming, Officer Burnham.”

  “No problem. Just wished he wasn’t gone that’s all... Burned my breakfast, got stuck in traffic and I’m running late for my shift.” Burnham turned his head from the corpse to stare up at the apartment buildings. He squinted from the sunlight. “But right now I feel as if I couldn’t find one of those petty problems under a microscope. God, do you know what happened to him?”

  Gonzalez crouched down to the body. Burnham edged a step closer, resting his hands on his hips.

  “He was bitten, by something. His neck was punctuated on his left side, resulting in damage to his external jugular vein.”

  Burnham turned his eyes to Gonzalez who said nothing. He felt Gonzalez was intentionally waiting for his response, as if he had been summoned to fill in some missing blanks. He furrowed his brows. “So, you’re saying he died from bleeding out? But I don’t see much blood, especially from a wound to the neck.”

  Gonzalez smiled with his mouth, his eyes locked with Burnham’s in a staring contest.

  “Don’t you want to ask about the bite mark, officer? It’s cause?”

  “Sure. What do you suppose it’s from? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it either; at least not out in the field. It’s most peculiar to happen in such a populated area of town.”

  “Wait a sec, Dr. Gonzalez. What exactly are you referring to? Some sort of animal bite…?”

  “It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Gonzalez redirected his stare towards the body. Burnham sensed disapproval. He surmised he had given the wrong answer. He felt blood flush in his ear lobes. He licked his lips to compensate for a sudden attack of cotton mouth.

  “As opposed to… I mean, are you expecting me to know, doctor? I told you I’ve never seen anything like this. And Comiskey was a good friend, here…” Burnham paused to regain composure. He ascertained his voice had risen about a half octave from stress. He had heard many a suspect or victim’s family member sound this way over the years. The moment allowed him to recognize Gonzalez’s tactic. He had someone become the interviewee while the good doctor had apparently traded his latex gloves for a virtual badge.

  “I know you’re trying to do your job, doctor. But why don’t you leave the investigation to the officers. I’m sure they’ll find out whom or what delivered the bite mark.”

  Gonzalez nodded before rising to his feet. Burnham sighed and forced a smile. He doubted the synthetic dose of charm fooled the doctor, but at least he had let him know he was not going to be intimated. Gonzalez, now fully upright, still had to crane his neck upwards to lock eyes with Burnham. To the vice officer, Gonzalez still appeared formidable, despite his size; somehow the doctor was able to tout his superior intellect by only locking eyes with him. They contained so much certainty. Burnham had seen this before when interviewing doctors or scholars. They believed an educated guess was nearly as good as fact. They had such confidence, an arrogant faith that their minds were better than most. So, when Gonzalez changed tact with him, it didn’t surprise Burnham in the least. He would now be talked down to, treated as if he were a child. “Officer, I’m not out to give you a hard time. And I do realize Det. Comiskey was a good friend of yours. That’s why I waited to release the body. I wanted to get, I needed to get your expertise in this matter. If we do have a cop killer out there, it’s imperative we narrow the suspect field as best we can. So, let me put it this way, if the detective did suffer a bite from a human, could it possibly be from someone he was acquainted with? Was he known to visit this section of the city? Did he talk about having any sort of problems?”

  “Doctor, I would be most forthcoming if I had any kind of hunch as to who did this to Comiskey. In fact, I’d be on my way to arresting them. So no, I don’t know, or believe, Det. Comiskey was involved with an unsavory individual; nor did he ever talk about visiting this neighborhood or let on to having a problem. And we can stop talking in code here. I know you’re inferring Comiskey might have had a drug problem. He didn’t. He was a dedicated officer.”

  “But Comiskey was off duty.”

  “He was a hell of a man, in or out of uniform. He set examples for us because he was so rigid, so dedicated. I can remember some of the men calling him ‘Bobbie the Commie” because of his no nonsense approach to life.”

  “Could he have had money problems? Maybe he turned to dealing. If so, this all might make some sense. Maybe some crazed junkie hopped up on-who knows what-went ballistic and bit him. If so, it would alleviate a lot of potential tension.”

  Burnham folded his arms across his chest and bent his body so his six foot plus frame appeared to hover over Gonzalez. “What tension?”

  “If the killer didn’t even know Comiskey was a cop, but was just some crazed junkie, then we don’t necessarily have a cop killer on the loose out there, at least by definition.”

  “Well, I’m sure your autopsy would reveal that. Shouldn’t the bite contain some trace of saliva from the attacker? And is so, couldn’t you test it for drugs?”

  “I believe so, but tests will take time.”

  “Well, there you go. I’m sure you’ll find out no such thing happened from your tests. Then you can stop casting my late friend in a bad light.”

  “It’s not that I want to blame Comiskey. I guess I just want damage control.”

  “I know we’re all shorthanded but you can’t let that affect the way you do your job. I do understand what you’re trying to do. It’s called containment. I just don’t condone it. An investigation should be only about getting to the truth.” Burnham dropped his head, his teeth gritted. “And I’m sorry if I’ve snapped at you but I’m mad at myself for losing touch with Comiskey. When he switched to the nightshift I hardly ever saw him anymore.”

  “Well, I guess there’s nothing left to do but transport the body. I just hoped there would be an explanation…to all this strangeness. I’m not showing the kind of blood loss you’d expect from such an injury. The bite mark is weird in itself. The only definitive trace of another person here is a footprint in the blood possibly belonging to a child or woman which I don’t see as the killer because Comiskey was over six feet tall. A woman or child possessing the strength or height to do such a thing…”

  “To be fair, maybe some crazed junkie female did do this. I admit I lost touch with Comiskey. He could have changed. My gut tells me no. But it’s possible. And I’ve heard of some crack heads performing some very odd physical feats before.”

  “Thanks for your time, Officer...”

  In the split-second Gonzalez would have needed to complete his sentence, Burnham witnessed something he was sure damned sure Comiskey-or any other dead body- to be incapable of. A hand had latched around Gonzalez’s ankle. The ME once again locked eyes with Burnham. All Burnham could feel were Gonzalez’s two big brown eyes dueling with him, demanding an explanation for what was transpiring below. The impossible, the implausible, the unbelievable…

  Burnham read something in the doctor’s eyes in that moment. The connection was so strong he felt as if they were talking to him, the bulging, sparkly brown eyes. Burnham knew the doctor had no doubt as to whose hand had suddenly gripped his leg. He just wanted to know: how?

  Instinct, not reason, took over Burnham in that instant. He pushed the doctor away from him with a two-handed shove. The doctor now thrown free from Comiskey’s grip squirmed on blood splatter, heaving and panting from surprise. Burnham fell backwards himself, landing on pavement not covered in blood.

  The desired result was not all desirable for Burnham, however. He had freed the doctor. But now the thing, the person he once knew as “Bobbie the Commie”, had come to its feet. And in doing so, it had the perfect opportunity to reacquaint itself with a long lost friend.

  It lunged at Burnham, falling completely on top of him. Burnham squirmed to h
is extreme right, hoping to throw the literal dead weight off of him, but to no avail. The thing, the ravenous creature, began to breathe heavily. Burnham’s mind filled with a picture of some monster from a black and white film he had seen as a youth. He knew what it wanted. But he didn’t know how he could avert its hunger. Burnham threw a weak punch to the back of the thing’s head just before it sank its teeth into his neck. He screamed, loud and guttural. The blood curdling urgency of Burnham’s plea sparked Gonzalez to action. Now attached to the thing’s back, piggy back style, the doctor rode the monster as if a bizarre and macabre adult amusement park had suddenly materialized in an alleyway of Tampa. Burnham watched in disgust, as the thing licked his blood from its lips, savoring it, nearly unaware of the doctor riding upon his back. It gave Burnham time to retrieve his service weapon from his shoulder holster. All he could think was: I may have burned my toast. But my gun is clean and loaded… The odd conclusion, the mind’s protection mechanism, the very need to try and make sense of the nonsensical, gave the monster time to throw the doctor from its back. As it lunged again towards the fallen officer, in hopes of a second course, Burnham took aim at his friend’s head.

  He fired…twice. Blood and brain spatter confirmed contact. Yet Comiskey ambled about for what seemed a long moment refusing to believe half of his head was now smeared all over Dr. Gonzalez’s smock. He finally fell. Burnham had passed out just before he did.

  Dead…he was surely dead…

  It was the only intelligible thought Gonzalez could muster as he watched a new pool of crimson liquid surround Derek Burnham.

  As screams descended from the two towers above, Gonzalez found the presence of mind to find his phone. He could not discern how many minutes had passed or exactly how his smock became slathered in guts. His only focus was Burnham. My responsibility…my responsibility… And then he spoke:

  “Another officer down at previous location…Need ambulance and backup immediately.”