by Hadena James
“Our serial is a local,” Detective Hight sighed. “That’s the last thing this town needs.”
“No offense, but that’s the last thing any town needs. Even large cities do not need serial killers preying on teenagers. If all serial killers did it, we’d lose entire generations and there would be a serious population decline,” I said absentmindedly.
“That was depressing,” Fiona said.
“But true,” I shrugged. “Serial killers already impact population growth, but it is spread out among all genders and ages, which minimalizes the damage. If they didn’t, we’d have a bottleneck much like the Soviet Union did during and immediately following World War II.”
“I’m sure that’s a fascinating story, but we have a serial killer to catch,” Gabriel reminded me.
“So did they,” I quipped. “Although, Stalin may have been more mass murderer than serial killer. I’m sure the Soviets had their fair share of serials during those turbulent and trying years of Stalinism. He definitely did not deserve statues built in his honor.”
Lucas looked at me. I stopped talking. However, that didn’t stop my brain from running. It was attempting to calculate what the modern population of Russia would be if Stalin and World War II hadn’t happened. It was a considerable amount, nearly rivaling China. Communism might have survived if the population had been there to support it.
“Now that the history lesson is done,” Gabriel glared at me, “we’ve divided up the area in a grid. We have four cadaver dogs at our disposal. We’ll split up, each of us going out with a dog and small squad. If we find anything, we’ll call in Reece to come look at the bodies. Any questions?”
“If Reece is on call, that makes three of us,” I pointed out.
“Marshal Stewart will be accompanying a dog,” Gabriel told me. I raised an eyebrow and Fiona looked a little green around the gills. She didn’t do fieldwork.
“Great, who wants to go traipsing the county with the nutter?” I asked the group of policemen that were gathering. There were some confused looks.
“Marshal Cain means herself. She isn’t really...” Gabriel stopped. He was going to say that I wasn’t really crazy, but this would have been a lie. “Cain attracts violent people, just something to be aware of when you go with her.”
I held out my hands and shrugged. It was true. Violent people were attracted to me like butterflies to a corpse.
“I’ll join her group,” a stout man with a dog answered. I smiled at him, the fake kind. The real one would send him running for cover and might have scared the dog too. It took about twenty minutes to get organized. While most officers were being assigned, my group was voluntary. It spoke volumes.
Another twenty minutes and we were on the road. Our destination was an old farm. The family had built a new house on the land, more than a hundred acres away from the other. As a result, the old house had been left abandoned.
It showed. The windows were gone. The paint was gone. The roof had collapsed in one section. Rot had set in. Termites were doing the rest of the work. It didn’t look or sound stable as we wandered up to it.
I had four volunteers. Two men, two women, I was impressed. Someone was giving background on the house and family. I tuned them out, listening instead to the house. It creaked and groaned despite there being no breeze. Its own weight was its worst enemy.
Ranger Young was having the same thoughts I was having. We both exchanged glances before turning our attention back to the house. I wasn’t sure how much his Doberman weighed, but I was worried about it getting trapped in the house.
Dobermans were air-scenting dogs. They got the smell of decomp in the air and would follow it. I had never worked with a Doberman, but I had seen other breeds used. The stereotype was either German Shepherds or bloodhounds, but the two were very different types of dogs. Shepherds, like Dobermans, are air-scenters, while bloodhounds searched by sniffing the ground and are primarily used to track a single individual. I had worked with some spaniels in the past, as well as German Shepherds, because normally, we needed cadaver dogs and ground sniffing just didn’t help all that much.
Ranger Young unleashed his Doberman, named Nails. The dog, who had sat patiently at his trainer’s side, stood up and stuck his nose in the air. He knew it was time to go to work. We watched the dog, waiting to see where he would lead us.
Nails didn’t go up the stairs to the house, as we had expected. Instead, he headed towards a barn. The barn was in better shape than the house. We followed at a fast jog. Nails picked up his pace, following his nose. He skirted around the barn and stopped, his nose still working the air, pulling all the scents out of it that he could.
He took off again, this time he wasn’t trotting. He was running and keeping up with his powerful body was impossible. Young and I were able to sprint the longest, but even we had to give up and slow our pace. Young gasped, gulping in air. I watched the dog’s dark coat get farther away.
His bark was sharp. It cut through the silence, making a few team members jump. I didn’t startle easy. We followed his voice, a series of quick, loud barks to a shed. I didn’t have to enter it. Even I could smell the decomp now.
“Good dog,” I said.
“It could be a rabbit,” Young told me. “Sometimes, Nails gets confused with decomp. He’s mostly a search and rescue dog.”
“I don’t think he’s confused,” I said, standing about forty feet away. I brought out the jar of peppermint balm. “You can’t smell it?”
“No,” Young said.
“You will,” I offered the balm. He stared at it. I shrugged and put it away. It was going to be bad.
Eleven
As we stood outside the door of the shed, everyone could smell it. They were holding their hands over their nose and mouth. I once again offered the balm. Everyone took it this time. Peppermint was a wonderful thing. It tingled, which was nifty, and it killed a lot of noxious odors, but left the olfactory system fast once it was washed away.
Nails lay on the ground as I opened the door. I wanted to put some of the balm on his poor nose. I couldn’t imagine how bad it smelled to him. However, I knew better. I opened the door instead.
Flies, their meal suddenly interrupted, took flight. They swarmed the stale air, creating a buzzing black cloud. A few butterflies were mixed in, their brightly colored wings contrasting with the black swarm as they fluttered. They only stayed in the air a second or two, before returning to the three bodies. Butterflies were less disturbed by living people than flies.
“Don’t,” I put my arm up to stop Young from entering the shed. I pointed at the floor.
It was coated in a semi-tacky goo of indescribable color. It looked black, brown, red, or orange, depending on how the light hit it and how you held your head. The shed was well built. The goo showed no footprints from scavenging animals.
Most humans forgot that they were made up primarily of water. Decomposition released the water and other fluids. As the solid parts broke down, they mixed with the water and other fluids, creating these semi-tacky puddles of human goo. However, it was a slow process and most bodies were not as well protected as these, making the goo puddles rare.
Young radioed the find in. My phone instantly rang. Xavier was on the other end.
“Well protected, insect damage severe, put in here at different times,” I replied curtly. “Three bodies, all look to be young, or they were midgets.”
“They prefer the term ‘little people’,” Xavier corrected.
“Gender unavailable at this time,” I snipped. “It’s bad, bring floor scrapers.”
“Hm, human goo.”
“Lots of it.” I hung up and closed the door again. No need to let the insects out. There was also no need to go traipsing in. We’d wreck the disposal site and they were all very dead.
I lit a cigarette and walked towards a tree. Nails surprisingly followed me. Young followed Nails.
“He likes you,” Young said.
“What’s with the name
?” I asked.
“His toenails grow at an alarming rate. I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies, but nothing like that.”
“Human decomp without scavengers in the heat. The fluids drain creating a breeding ground for bacteria. The bacteria break down the matter. It creates goo. Most bodies are found before this stage or after. Those that aren’t, well, they usually are not stored in such perfect conditions as to keep the goo from draining. It’s rare to find a floor or something covered in it, but it happens.”
“You’re one of those very smart types that knows a little bit about a lot of different stuff, aren’t you?”
“No, I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff and I am constantly expanding my knowledge.”
“I’m not sure whether to congratulate you or give you my condolences,” Young said. “I had an uncle like you. Brilliant man, couldn’t forget anything he learned or saw. He was a cop too. A homicide detective to be exact. He was working a case in the fifties, a serial killer on I-5. Found a dozen little girls’ bodies. They caught the guy, but he was deemed not fit to stand trial. While being held at an asylum, he escaped and managed to kill two more little girls. My uncle killed him and then killed himself.”
I had nothing to say to that or to Ranger Young. Nails was fine, panting near my feet, not talking to me, but Young seemed to want to fill the void. There were a few stories that came to mind. Recently, I had put a gun to my head, the result of a tumor and a migraine. It had even created feelings and I hadn’t liked it. However, that was not the type of story one told others. I could share my tragic family history; grandfather a serial killer, father a cop gunned down in the line of duty, brother a mass murderer getting revenge not just for our family, but for dozens of unknown families while destroying just as many lives. Again, that was not the type of story one told others. Instead, I offered him a cigarette from my pack. He politely declined. We stood in silence as I smoked.
“You’re not much of a talker,” he finally said.
“If you would like a lecture on unsolved crimes or the fall of the Soviet Union or the use of torture in medieval times, I’m your girl. However, I do not chit chat about the weather or my private life.”
“A genius who doesn’t talk, that’s new,” Ranger Young said. “Are you married?”
I frowned. I was fairly certain he wasn’t deaf and that I had just said I did not chit chat about my private life. Now, he was wanting to talk about marriage.
“I am a female sociopath who hunts serial killers for a living with an IQ over 160. I’m not exactly the type of girl you bring home to your mother or take on a double date with your married friends. It would be far more likely that my number would be kept in your cell phone because you belonged to a bar trivia team and needed a ringer one or two nights because your team was in second place.”
“That’s depressing,” Young responded.
“Depression requires a deep well of emotions to pull from. I am incapable of having many deep emotions and none of them are sad.” I stubbed out my cigarette.
“A sociopath hunting sociopaths. That’s a novel idea.”
“Not really. History would provide a very strong basis for the theory that most law enforcement before the 1900s was indeed made up of sociopaths. It would also support the idea that executioners and the ilk were most likely psychopaths. Two sides of the same coin, both working towards the enforcement of some sort of archaic law and order. Of course, it would also support that a large number of ‘madness’ ascribed to many criminals was in fact the exact same mental condition. The same applies to modern day, with some exceptions. Most psychopaths can fake their way through a personality exam, fewer sociopaths make it, but that is just a matter of controlling emotions. Psychopaths have fewer emotions, so it is easier to fake being well adjusted.”
“Using that logic, sociopaths would be the more unstable of the two.”
“Quite the opposite. While we lack empathy, sympathy, and compassion, we are capable of feeling something. Psychopaths generally have no emotions. Our killer is most likely of the psychopathic variety. The death of the victims serves some inner need to control or destroy. Lucas is more up on the babble than I am, but the difference can be illustrated as such: if I were to kill, there would be a reason, aside from just a desire to do so. A psychopath doesn’t need any reason at all.” I looked at the shed door, which remained closed due to the stench. “Of course, a psychopath blends in better than a sociopath in every day society. Which makes our killer more mundane appearing than is useful. Rounding up all the oddballs in town won’t help us catch the killer. We’d be better off to bring in all the ‘normal’ people for questioning.”
A car pulled up. This was unusual, as the government seemed to have an endless supply of black SUVs with tinted windows at our disposal. The irony of driving around in the sport utility version of a hearse was not lost on me. It wasn’t just that they were all SUVs, usually Suburbans, but that they were always black. Not once had we hopped into a red or white one.
Xavier climbed from the driver’s side of the car. I wondered how many fences and signs were showing damage within the town of San Marcos.
He nodded to me and walked over to the shed. He didn’t bother with balm of any sort. As our coroner, he was immune to the smells associated with the dead. However, even he grimaced as he opened the door. Standing under the tree hadn’t moved me far enough away to keep me from being able to smell it, but with the door open, it was a chore not to make a face.
A couple of other people now stepped out of the car. They looked pale and I was betting it wasn’t the heat or the smell. Facing serial killers was less harrowing than riding with Xavier. Hell, being chased by crocodiles was less harrowing than riding with Xavier. They each held a bag and began the process of unpacking them.
As we watched, they transformed from human beings to white-suited androgynous non-beings. They had almost no forms, because the suits were very loose except around the hands, ankles, and face. To this, they added gloves, booties, respirators, and goggles. Xavier just slipped on booties, obviously less concerned with getting that smell or any diseases on him.
Sometimes, I couldn’t decide whether he was being cavalier or everyone else was just overly cautious. I was leaning towards the first one as he entered the shed. The two suited beings joined him and they began poking and prodding at the bodies.
The flies moved as a giant unit. They buzzed loudly, their wings beating angrily in the warm air. The butterflies lazily drifted through the door. One attempted to alight on the arm of one of the officers that had come with me. The officer beat at it crazily. I tried not to smile at his concern. Most people never understood that while butterflies and moths liked the sweet nectar of flowers, they also liked the salty goo of decomposition. Every butterfly or moth ever to touch a living person had also made a meal of something dead. The officer would probably never look at a butterfly the same way.
One landed on my arm, a large Monarch with exceptionally bright markings. Unlike the officer, I didn’t bat at the insect or attempt to keep it from landing on me. Its tiny tongue poked at my skin, licking off the salt that collected on the flesh. It tickled.
“Wow, that doesn’t bother you?” Young asked.
“No, all butterflies and moths feed on decomposing flesh. It is just rare to see.” I looked at him. “Besides, I really like butterflies and moths. They are amazing creatures.”
“I’m kind of horrified by that at the moment,” Young answered.
“Let’s take them back, scrape up all this as well,” Xavier pointed to the shed floor.
“Done?” I asked.
“Well, I could request the collection of all the insects, but that would be a fool’s errand.” He grabbed the Monarch on my arm. Gently, he uncurled his fingers from around it. The monarch was uninjured. “However, it’s unlikely they were poisoned, so...” He lightly breathed on the butterfly. It took flight, flittering away from us.
“To the morgue then,” I suggested.
“My second favorite sentence in the world,” Xavier answered.
Twelve
There is only so much a person can learn from three decomposed bodies and several bags of human goo. Xavier was currently gleaning every kernel of information he could from them. I was sitting on the counter, wondering if there was anyway the smell was ever going to come out of my hair. It may not have seemed like a big deal, but the truth was the smell could cling for days, and you got used to it. Once that happened, you didn’t realize how badly you smelled.
Xavier had on his googly-goggles. They magnified his vision, which in turn, magnified his eyes when he was wearing them. It showed the small blood vessels that filled the whites of his eyes, feeding his optical nerve and pupil. The contrast of the red within the white was stark, making my eyes want to water in response.
The autopsies, if that’s what they could be considered, were boring. The bodies were going to hold few, if any, real clues. The newest one had probably been in that shed for a month or more. The atmosphere had been conducive to a massive amount of insect activity.
Instead, I booted up a movie on my phone and let the sounds of Indiana Jones wash over the room. Xavier hummed along to the theme music as he did something terribly gross with the bags of human remains. I didn’t hum along and I didn’t watch him.
Indiana was in the middle of being offered monkey brains for dessert when something metallic clanked in the room. I couldn’t resist, my eyes drifted to the stainless steel table where Xavier was sifting through the bags. There was a metal colander on the table that made my stomach flop. Xavier was staring intently at the table though. I tore my gaze away from the colander and looked at his googly-goggles.
Covered in gunk was an object about eighteen inches long with a heavy stone attached to one end. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was a necklace. Xavier was carefully cleaning it with a solution that smelled a bit like hydrochloric acid and lemons.