On The Edge

by Daniel Cleaver

  “We know he was in the apartment next door, he didn’t get out through the hallway, and we checked the ledge, we’ve cleared the other apartments, so it’s the only logical place he can be.”

  He absorbed this information and nodded. “Did you others get that?” he signaled for their responses to be gestures, not spoken.

  I said, “And we’ve just told him what we are about to do.”

  He quietly said, “Cheese and rice . . .”

  He beckoned over the cop with the piston-action battering ram and said, “Go on eight, okay?”

  He nodded and stood close, flexing his muscles in preparation.

  “Candy?” said the captain. “If you can hear me, get ready. I’m going to count down from ten, okay? Here we go, ten . . . nine . . . eight. . .” He pointed to the door. The guy with the battering ram slammed it against the door, which exploded off the frame and crashed inward into the apartment as we poured in behind, straight into her living room. Neither Candy nor the Hangman was inside. We covered each other, checking the bathroom and the bedrooms, but the apartment was empty.

  * * *

  As the scene of crime technicians went about their business, I felt a sense of panic, as they were going to turn up my prints and more as I had been there once before. I’d had a fling with Candy about a month ago. Nothing serious as far as I was concerned; Candy wanted it to be more and it had made it awkward at work for a while. She eventually got over the ignominy of being dumped. I had tried to make it easy, but then, it’s never easy being the one who is dumped: ‘it’s not you it’s me’ doesn’t cut it. Nevertheless, there was no use me pretending that it was any more than a bit of fun and I made a vow never to date work colleagues again – well, until Mia, but then she was different. I felt sorry for Candy. I hadn’t meant to hurt her, but she wouldn’t have wanted me to date her out of sympathy and it would still have had to end. When there’s a break-up someone invariably gets hurt and this time it was her. I guessed I could have dated a few times so she would have gotten fed up with me and my ways, but it didn’t happen like that. She was affronted that I could dismiss her after just one date, that I couldn’t possibly know the real her and it was an insult to make such a judgment after one evening, but there was no buzz. We went out, then back to her place where I spent the night and it was all fine, but that’s the operative word. Fine, no fireworks. It was okay and that was that. We’d kept the date secret; we didn’t want the others to know. Although the more aware amongst the detectives surely sensed some hostility from her towards me and may have drawn the wrong conclusion. However, what it did mean was that because I slept with her at her apartment that my fingerprints and DNA were gonna be everywhere.

  CHAPTER 18

  I tried to think where I might have been or where I might have left my prints. The answer was I did not know, it could have been everywhere. I’d been in the bedroom, of course: had she changed the sheets? I remembered she was not the most hygienic of people. Would they still be the same bedsheets? Would Ferdy and the crime scene technicians still be able to find traces of me on the bedsheets that been through the wash? I would have gone to the bathroom and showered in the morning: had I left any hair behind? I looked around and I was more and more convinced that she wouldn’t have cleaned very thoroughly. The room looked no different from the last time I was there and I could see that her cleaning regime was non-existent: dishes stacked in the sink, dirty clothes strewn everywhere, this could mean trouble for me.

  Big trouble.

  I thought quickly and went down the corridor ahead of the techies. I went in the bathroom, poked my head inside the corner shower cubicle and turned the shower on. “Hey, Detective!” one of them yelled at me.

  The captain shouted, “Get the hell outta there, Spooky, you know better than that!”

  “I had a hunch.”

  “What hunch warranted turning on the shower?”

  “Nothing, it didn’t pan out.” I leaned back against the vanity unit and placed my hands either side of me on the marble top.

  “Get your hands off that. Cheese and rice! Get out of here!” the captain yelled at me.

  I saw Mia watching me quizzically, moving her head from side to side, almost birdlike, then I saw the realization dawn and a slight smile appeared on her face. I saw someone dusting the cups and dishes and tried to remember if I had a coffee before leaving, or did I dash out in a hurry? Did I have breakfast with her? I’m thinking that I was feeling guilty and wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as I could. Had I sat on the couch? It had wooden arms perfect for prints, as was the coffee table. Did I touch it? This was agony and driving me crazy. Should I confess and tell the captain about the fling or would it make me look guilty? I was fairly certain that I couldn’t be thought of as a suspect in the Hangman’s murder, or Candy’s disappearance. But . . . I was the one on the ledge who claimed he’d vanished: would that put me firmly in the frame?

  I didn’t want to be removed from the case and as each second ticked by it meant she was going to be less of a missing person and more like a murder victim. The Hangman had gone too far this time picking on one of our own. The Doc was bad enough, that made us look like fools, but to strike right into the heart of the department, to snatch one of the officers actually tasked with catching him and then to abduct her while we were swarming all over the building, was all too much. We could try and keep it from the press, but there was no way it would not leak out. Who was I kidding? It would already be on Twitter and Facebook, leaked by a cop who felt slighted for some reason, or one of the techies. There was no way to keep things secret anymore, no matter how important it was to contain the news sometimes. The freedom of the press and right-to-know lobby had made it almost impossible. Although Mia had stumbled upon my indiscretion, she was far more perceptive than the others to put it together and I decided that my fling with Candy would be one secret that I would keep to myself.

  What concerned me most was that for the second time I had dated the victim and somehow the Hangman knew: that meant that this time it was personal.

  Homicide Special Section, 100 W 1st St 5th, Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 04:30.

  Later that night we regrouped back at the squad room. We were devastated and shell-shocked. Mostly for the loss of Candy on our watch, perhaps more so than the embarrassment of her taken from right under our noses. The Hangman’s audaciousness was astonishing: what sort of nut would take such a risk?

  The captain burst in, fuming: “This has to be the biggest fiasco of the century, how am I going to live this one down? My name will go down in history as the man in charge of the worst squad of detectives ever assembled. It was a simple task. We had the Hangman cornered and Candy safely secured in the apartment next door. Not only did he evade capture and escape, he passed at least fifty of LA’s finest, but he managed to get into a locked, guarded apartment and take Candy with him. I mean how? How can that be possible?”

  We looked from one person to the other. He continued. “How did I get lumbered with such a useless squad? A Mick, a Spic and a burnt-out lunatic.” I looked around to see who he meant and then realized it was me. He continued. “I’ve got to go in front of the cameras in a minute, looking like the biggest jerk in the universe; this will, without doubt, mean my demotion, if not my badge. What have you got to say for yourselves, hmm?”

  I raised my hand. “I think ya missing the point.”

  “What?” He glared at me.

  “This ain’t about you,” I said, using my brilliant people skills again.

  His face twisted with apoplexy, but I didn’t care. “I. Beg. Your. Pardon?” he said menacingly.

  “This ain’t about you,” I repeated. “This should be about Candy and getting her back.” I said it simply and it deflated him.

  “Yes, well . . .” He raised his hands in defeat and sat heavily in a chair that groaned under his weight.

  Ferdy appeared and the captain was glad to be able to change the subject. “Ah, Ferdy, what have you
got?”

  “Two things, in fact.” He smiled brightly and pressed a button on his computer. On the big screen a scene of the Hangman appeared. “We’ve managed to isolate this.”

  I strained my ears to hear, but it just sounded like faint mumbo-jumbo. Ferdy continued. “We feel it’s chanting and must be important to the Hangman. He’s whispering it quietly: we feel the incantation is an important part of the ritual for him, but we don’t know what it means. We’ve tried to translate it in all known languages but we’re coming up empty.”

  Milo raised his hand nervously. “He’s saying something like, ‘Mighty God, this is a gift for you to enjoy, no, we hope this gift pleases you.’”

  I turned to look at him dumbfounded. I noticed the others gawped open-mouthed, making Milo even more nervous if that was even possible. I finally said, “How do ya know what he’s saying?”

  “It’s Quechua.”

  Ferdy broke into a smile. “Like Huehueteotl would have spoken during sacrifices.” He was suddenly struck by a thought. “How do you know the ancient Inca language?”

  “My grandmother is fluent, she taught me. It’s not totally ancient. Some still speak it in my part of Peru. It’s like a dialect.”

  “You’re from Peru?” the captain asked incredulously. “I thought you was a wetback fresh from over the border.”

  “Should we put out an APB for Milo’s grandma?” George McGinty joked.

  The captain snorted a chuckle and joined in. “Be on the lookout for a hairy-faced old hag wearing a black dress.”

  “Hey, Captain, come on, enough with the racial slurs,” Milo said.

  “Listen, I don’t like immigrants, okay? This country is full. There’s only room for Americans. I’m a patriot, a proud American. A true American. And if you don’t like it – then go back home.”

  Even I was baffled by this; the captain was as black as coal. “Captain –” I started.

  He raised a hand, stopping me in my tracks. “I can trace my ancestry as an American back three hundred years – can you?”

  Three hundred years ago his ancestors would have undoubtedly been slaves. Surely he wasn’t proud of that? I thought it best to change the subject. “Ferdy, ya said ya had two things?”

  He pushed his glasses up his nose. “The initial lab reports have come back from the bodies up in the canyon with an interesting find,” he said. “It appears that some of the, uh, shall we say, fresher corpses had bite marks on them.” He fiddled with the computer and several bite marks appeared on the giant screen. “As you can see, the perp had a distinctive bite mark, very crooked teeth on top and overcrowding on the bottom set.”

  Mia said, “Are we looking for a foreigner? Y’know, they tend to have bad dental care?”

  The captain smiled. “Good thinking, Mia, I hadn’t thought of that. Bad teeth would generally lead to Europe, maybe Russia. We’ll get onto Interpol, see what they have. Get onto that, Mia.”

  “Or trailer trash,” George said, jumping on the bandwagon.

  “We think he’s highly educated, that would rule out the low-paid workers,” I said and got a finger from George for messing up his theory.

  The captain sighed heavily then swiveled to face me. “For what it is worth, we’ve had another perp confessing. He claims to be the Hangman: do you want a crack at it, Spooky?”

  “Sure, how many is he coughing for, three or six?”

  “All six, of course,” he said with surprise in his voice.

  “Then it ain’t him,” I said with confidence. I stood up anyway. I thought I’d go through the motions. Give me something to do while we hoped for a break in the case before we were removed from the investigation because Candy was one of our own, and that meant we would be replaced as the investigating team. I couldn’t have that. I had to be on this team. I had to watch over the investigation, especially the first three homicides. As I strolled down to the interview room, I knew that I was wasting my time. I knew for an absolute fact that the current Hangman had not committed the first three murders.

  Because three years ago when there was a cessation in the gruesome murders, it was because I caught the original Hangman and stood over him as he died. . .

  PART III

  In the third minute of a hanging, in a slow hanging like this, asphyxia is not produced by compressing the trachea, the windpipe. Rather, the pressure of the noose causes the base of the tongue to push backward and upward and thus seal off breathing, but I fight this, not wanting to be found in this ugly pose. The other cause of death is shutting off the blood flow to the brain, due to compression of the carotid arteries. This alone is enough to kill. I remember a hanging where the victim died like this despite having a tracheotomy hole which would have enabled them to keep inhaling air. I tried to breathe but my lungs feel like they are burning, I feel my body go into an uncontrollable spasm. I kick out, trying to find something to stand on, although I know this is futile.

  I felt my face redden as the blood pressure rises and it feels like it’s going to explode. My eyes bulge, but I fight this, too, as I do not want to be found in the classic hanging grimace. This is important to me, but my oxygen-starved brain could not tell me why. Blood escapes from my mouth joining the blood dripping profusely from my nose. It feels frothy; I don’t know the medical reason for this, but it feels like foam as it dribbles down my chin. I convulse involuntarily now and feel like I’m shaking with laughter, as the carbon dioxide overloads my brain and it begins frantically sending out uncoordinated nerve signals. This is rapidly followed by a variety of whole-body convulsions, violent shivering, as all my muscles begin to vibrate, then rapidly clench. Embarrassingly I feel a stirring in my groin and recall the high number of suicides I’d attended, always hoping it wasn’t a gasper. They were the auto-erotic gang that would choke themselves for pleasure, until they overdo it and end up strangling themselves to death, like the INXS frontman, Michael Hutchence, also a serving British MP, which was particularly weird, found in women’s underwear, a garbage sack over his head and an orange in his mouth, and the Kung Fu star, David Carradine. There was nothing like it to spoil your day. To break down a door and to be confronted by a victim, usually naked, presenting us with a display of their manhood. Cops and the guys from the Coroner’s office see this many times and often joke about it. That’s all I need, my cop buddies not only finding me dead, but also making comments about my penis.

  Maaan, the things you think when you’re dying. I didn’t want to join the long list of gaspers. I’m sure I’ll be dead soon and it really won’t matter, but it was the indignity of it all. Of course, it could get worse: I remembered the gossip of reports that some males ejaculate at the very end just as death comes, so do they. Now that really would be embarrassing.

  CHAPTER 19

  Friday – July 1st

  Homicide Special Section, 100 W 1st St 5th, Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 08:30.

  We reconvened after a few hours’ sleep, wanting to carry on the momentum before we were removed from the case. Mia and I slipped in separately, although we’d shared a fitful sleep at my place. I followed her in a minute later so as not to draw attention to ourselves and get us split up. I liked her as a partner, she was smart and funny and I wanted us to stay together. We were on the same wavelength which was unusual for one of my partners: if truth be told the last time I was in tune with a partner was, well, never.

  George looked Mia up and down with a strange look on his face. “I’m sure I know you. I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

  Mia looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think so.”

  Milo sauntered in wearing a banana-colored suit. He did a twirl in front of Mia and me, and she looked pleased with the distraction. He said, “What do you think, it’s good, no?”

  “Paint ya face green and you’d be a dead ringer for Jim Carrey in The Mask,” I said and added, “Smokin’!”

  He took it in good humor as we took our seats and I could tell from the captain’s manner that something was wro
ng. He signaled for us to sit; he seemed to be halfway through his presentation. He pointed at the large video screen showing some shaky footage. “It appears that Doctor Ruiz’s office was broken into the night of her disappearance. This is off the surveillance cameras. No one seems to know who they are or why they were there. Maybe they were casing the joint before the kidnap?”

  It was of Mia and me breaking into the doctor’s offices. I could feel myself redden and could not look Mia in the eye. Thankfully, we’d managed to cover our faces pretty well. Although we were in for a shock: “There was a third camera, on the next-door building. It captures them exiting the office and shows them kissing.”

  I looked at the screen in embarrassment. Ferdy entered, saw the image, and said, “Oh, that’s –”

  I grabbed him by his lab coat and dragged him onto the chair next to me and made a ‘zip it’ gesture. He looked at the screen and pointed at me and mouthed, “But?” Then at the screen and pointed at Mia. I nodded slowly. It looked for a moment that he was going to have an information overload. He pointed from me to her and back again, then he grinned and said quietly, “Spooky, you dawg!” and low-fived me.

  “Not much to glean from that, but it’s something,” said the captain. “Too late for the doctor now. Onto Candy: as she’s one of our own, we can’t investigate her abduction. Protocol states that as she is a member of our team we won’t be allowed to investigate her case: we have a very small window before that happens. Where do we start?”

  We looked from one person to the next feeling totally inadequate. I stood up and took control. “Listen up,” I said. “We’ve gotta find her and find her quick because the Hangman told us that Candy is gonna face a torture worse than death. He’s promised to hang, draw and quarter the next victim.”

  “What is that exactly?” asked the captain.

  I stood by the whiteboard and used a marker to draw three rudimentary figures upon it, the first with its head in a noose.