by Karine Green
She looked out over the mezzanine balcony at the open gate; no one was coming. "I suppose they changed their mind." She went downstairs and grabbed her keys to go lock it, making a note to remember to get a remote for the gate...Tomorrow.
As she stepped out on the front porch, she saw a patrol car pull up the drive. It wasn't Mike, so it must be Jason?
A dark haired, handsome officer got out. The family resemblance to Mike was unmistakable. Kathy also recognized the star cluster on his shoulder lapel. She smiled, hadn't Mike said Jason wasn't married?
"Chief," she said, nodding. Now here was someone she could sink her teeth into! No Mikey-high school looks left in this one. He was all Cajun grown man.
He smiled. "I am Jason Rose. Mike said you are a retired homicide detective from the NYPD."
"Yes, I'm Kathy Marconi," she said, smiling, "Mike told me about you too."
"Yes, he is my little brother."
"He's a nice kid. Come in," she offered.
"Actually, I was hoping to borrow your skills. We have a homicide case on our hands. I have never seen anything like it. I was wondering if I could pick your brains, since you have seen so many. We've only had five in the last seventeen years. And four of them had a crying family member leaning over the body, apologizing for killing them."
"Sure," Kathy said, feeling a bit let down. Darn, he couldn't just sweep me off my feet, and help me move the heavy stuff upstairs, "Just let me change quickly. I have been moving things all afternoon."
Jason nodded and smiled. To him, she didn't look old enough to be retired, despite her former Captain verifying her as a retired detective in his unit. Mike was right, beautiful, but there was more to her story than what she just told him.
She darted up the stairs, thankful that her wardrobe boxes had made it upstairs before Jack and Ramón had crapped their pants, and ran away. She quickly changed, refreshed in the bathroom, pausing to note how awful it still was, and then darted back down the stairs.
She was nervous. She had seen every sort of killing she thought possible, but when she retired she dismissed the idea of ever seeing anything like that again, and here she was, headed out to a view something horrible that someone had done to someone else. Maybe she had not been tired of the politics. Maybe she was just as sick of seeing the dead bodies of people who should still be living
The Razor Whip
She rode with Jason to the homicide scene. It seemed like such a long way from her house when one had to drive around all the water ways and canals. It almost would have been faster to walk through her backyard. No wonder the lawyers had a golf cart.
"You know, this whole subdivision used to be part of your plantation," Jason said, unsure what to say to her. He stifled a sigh; there would be plenty to talk about in a minute.
"Yes, Mike mentioned it earlier. These are really nice houses," she said, looking out the window at the brick MacMansions.
"Arthur Caine, put restrictions on the land use when he sold the tracts. Apparently, he didn't want to hurt his own property value, despite the fact that the house had become a rat hole by then," he said, not thinking.
"My house isn't a rat hole," she smiled, but was a bit offended. He had no idea the lengths she had gone to, to get the house in as good of shape as it was now. Although, it still had a very long way to go.
"Oh, sorry, I mean, it was when Arthur lived there. He could have been featured on an episode of Hoarders. The library was so horrible that no one could even enter it. It had been that way for decades." His cheeks turned a slight pink.
Kathy smiled. Was he blushing? "Well, it is stripped clean now. Nothing, but my gorgeous new, rat-less, kitchen."
He offered an awkward grin. "What about the rest of the house? Rat-less?"
"Well, aren't you a charmer," she smirked. He was not as personable as Mike that was for sure.
"Here we are." They pulled up to the address of the crime scene.
"Are there any witnesses?" It didn't escape her notice that this was the house Mike and his wife had passed over, because it smelled like a homicide. It had also had something red hanging outside on the line when she looked out the dormer window that day with Mike.
He shook his head, no. "Mike took the victim's wife to her mother's. She came home, and found him...Well, you'll see how she found him here in a minute. Her boss and co-workers have already verified she was at work at the time of death. So far, the only lead we have is the whipping post. It was stolen from the museum recently. Whoever the burglar was really tore up the museum, smashed almost everything. It will be shut down for nearly a year for repairs. I am betting the whip is from the museum too, but as of yet it isn't on the list," he said, leading her up the front steps.
"Whip," Kathy asked, confused.
"Yes, he was whipped to death. Come on in, it's easier to explain if you just see." He opened the door for her. "The Medical Examiner is ready for him now, but I really wanted your opinion before we let the crime scene go. The victim's name is Milton Lawrence." He led her up the stairs.
He pointed to a little girl's room, "This one calls the police, every weekend that she visits her dad. She cries and carries on about a ghost hiding in the closet. She says, the ghost hides and cries that she led them all to their deaths. She wasn't here though, she lives with her mother." He turned and entered the master bedroom. "This is Milton Lawrence. He was turning thirty-one this weekend."
A man was lying half face down on the bed, and half tied to a whipping post that was obviously put next to the bed after the attack. Kathy knew this, because, the only blood on it were the smears from where it appeared as though his fingers twitched as he died making small smears. If he had been tied to it as he was whipped, there would be spatter all over it. She expected the medical examiner's report would confirm that this man had suffered blunt force trauma by being whipped to death. She looked closer at the post. It was propped into the corner. It would have turned over if Milton had been in a condition to escape.
"Are these old and new blood stains? Was this used in another crime," she asked, noticing the darker brown stains under the brighter newer ones.
Jason nodded and explained the history behind this post.
"It was from my property?" She half-heartedly pointed at it, making a face.
He nodded grimly. "Not all of the Caine's were Underground Railroad heroes."
She looked up. There was a large V-shaped blood spatter on the ceiling, and another one on the wall, with what looked like an overlapping one over it, but she couldn't be sure. Overlapping patterns were difficult and would require a blood spatter expert, which she was not. However, she knew a lot about them from having worked so many homicide scenes in the past.
"Well, that," she pointed to the spatters, "indicates the victim was alive for most of the beating, since dead bodies don't bleed. See the overlapping streaks? There had been multiple and repeated hits, indicating a great deal of anger at the victim. Strangers don't normally do this, unless they are serial killers. Jesus, whoever did this is sick, sick, sick." Kathy had been on many horrible scenes, but this one was actually making her queasy.
"Multiple and repeated, isn't that the same thing?"
"No, he was struck repeated times," she moved her arm over her head to demonstrate the blows, "in multiple locations in the room," she explained, pointing to the two sets of V-patterns. "The bed is blood soaked were he bled out right here, meaning, he laid there alive, bleeding to death after the beating. But he was unable to move, or free himself from the post." She explained the scene calmly like she was ordering a burger at the drive through.
She looked at the wounds; part of the spinal cord was exposed. "He would have been paralyzed from the mid-chest down. That would explain the twitching hands, but the Medical Examiner will be able to confirm or better explain it. See the marks here in the blood on the post, it's the nerves twitching. Damn...What sort of whip did this? The level of injury is horrifying, even for me."
She looked at th
e walls again. "Well, whoever did it, hit the dresser at some point." The dresser sported deep gouge marks on it. It looked like something from a horror film.
Jason bent over and looked at the gouges. "It's called a razor whip."
"This poor guy had a very painful death," Kathy said, feeling sorry for poor Milton. "From what I can tell, there were at least two bouts of whippings, but no bloody footprints, or bloody fingerprints, with the exception of the victim's." She leaned in closer to the spatter on the wall, and looked down the entire length of the pattern. It covered the wall, and draped over the closet door and part of the high boy chest of drawers. It was the longest V pattern she had ever seen.
"Any indication of forced entry?" she asked.
"Nobody locks their doors here. It's the one thing that constantly sets off the false burglar alarms. People come home and simply walk in all the time...Like they forgot they write a check to the alarm company every month."
"Anybody hate him," she asked, ignoring the false alarm reference.
Jason shook his head, no. "The guy has no known enemies. In fact, everyone loves him. He even had a nice divorce. He also mows the grass for the lady across the street while her broken foot heals. Mike was a bit shook up; Milton graduated high school with him back in 2002. That was why I sent him to take Milton's wife to her mother's place."
"She'll have to find someone else to help mow," Kathy said. She looked around the room again. It looked professionally decorated. "This really is a swanky neighborhood for a beating death. Whoever did this wanted him to feel each and every blow. Look at the deep open wounds on his back, and then here, it looks like one caught his throat. Is the whip still here?"
"Yes, over there," Jason pointed to a whip just out of view, lying by the open window.
She walked over, and looked at it. It had what appeared to be stone arrowheads attached to the business end of the now blood soaked whip. Something outside caught her eye in the waining sunlight. She stood up straight and looked out the window. In the backyard, a red quilt was hanging on the deck railing. She drew in a breath. Too late! Didn't Jack say the little ghost boy-Ethan told him it was too late! Someone knew this was going to happen.
"I'll be right back." She hurried down the stairs, and out onto the back deck.
Jason was directly behind her, "What is it?"
She stared at the red quilt like it was a ghost. "The next quilt is red," she whispered, as she covered her mouth. "Did you say he graduated in 2002? Mtlaw2002= Milton Lawrence, and the year he graduated high school."
"What?" Jason asked, confused. He was going to be highly disappointed if one more person suggested a ghost killed Milton. It was the sole reason he had even decided to consult with Kathy in the first place.
"My movers were terrified by an African American woman and little boy today. They claimed they were ghosts. They told the movers, to warn 'them' that it was too late; the next quilt was red."
"What? Warn who? Who is 'them'," Jason asked, sounding skeptical, as he eyed the quilt. "No statements with 'them' being a party, ever, turned out to be credible. You mean, someone tried to report this, this afternoon?"
Kathy shook her head no, "Someone tried to warn him when he was fourteen. He didn't upload the video until later." She took out her tablet, and played the video for him. Milton Lawrence had been the cameraman.
He stood there stunned for a moment. "Jesus. What about the movers? They are from New York, aren't they? They don't even know Milton. Could they have known he made that video?"
"I don't know. I just thought they were just afraid of a rumored haunted house, or were using it as an excuse to just dump my stuff on the front porch, and run. What they said to me didn't even make sense, until now." She frowned at the quilt. She felt a sudden rush of guilt that she didn't call the police sooner. It just seemed so illogical, and not of an emergency nature. What would she have said? Hello police, the next quilt is red, come lights and siren! She would have sounded like a lunatic. And, where would she have sent them if she had called? Oh by the way, you can just run around town, lights and siren blaring until you find a red quilt flying! It was nuts.
"If that ever happens to you again, please call me at once." He was obviously suspicious at the idea of out-of-towners having that much information about someone they had never met in a town they had never been to.
"Yes, of course," Kathy nodded. "What does that mean: 'The next quilt is red?' Are there any old, unsolved murders that feature a red quilt as evidence?"
"Aside from this one? None that I am aware of, but I will check out some of the older cases. I know the plantation was involved in the Underground Railroad, and sometimes they used different quilts to communicate. Some let the runaways know they were safe, while others warned them to avoid the plantation," he said, trying to remember the history. "My mother is the quilter, not me. I'll have to call her, or look it up later on to see how it worked. She has studied it extensively. Personally I don't put much stock in it."
Kathy nodded, she was sure some of the research she had found back when she was a college student suggested that the quilt theory was bogus, because there was no way to verify what the quilts meant. However, she was used to dealing with vague evidence, and just because something couldn't be verified didn't mean it was a lie, or useless information. It just meant that it was something you couldn't put in front of a jury, and wouldn't that be the whole point of secret code? To keep it secret?
If trafficking logic served her correct, only the guide who led the slaves to freedom needed to know what the patterns and colors of the quilts meant. If the network was to be secure, each plantation had to have its own code, or the hunters could easily ascertain where the line ran. If the code was known by too many it would be like driving along the interstate with clearly marked rest-stops, which would defeat the purpose of a secret trafficking network. The hunters wouldn't have to work; they would just have to wait. The idea that it was published was dangerously ludicrous.
The Underground Railroad would have had to have operatives as good as any of today's CIA agents. They would only need a few 'agents', and in fact, the fewer the better. Once the agent was in place, then the runaways were on a need-to-know or eyes-only basis. Therefore, the quilt theory was quite plausible. The runaways could remain in the dark as to the code, and still be led along the Railroad using the quilts, or anything else that could be hung on a clothesline, or set out to roast on a fire. They need only follow the orders of the 'agent'. That way, if captured, they couldn't give away secrets, because only the agent would have the information. They could have used anything or everything, but the point was, they had to use something. The Caine's must have used quilts so the operatives could direct the runaways safely.
She looked at the exquisite hand stitching on the quilt. "What do you suppose the quilt means? Red, could be a warning? Too hot, as in not safe to enter." She tried to think of all the different meanings people attached to the color red; love, anger, danger, warning, stop, fight. It probably meant stay away.
Jason appeared to be thinking the same thing as he shrugged, "I am not sure. The people coordinating the runaways didn't write books on how to run the Railroad. I am sure if the slaves could write, they certainly wouldn't have written that information down. It would have compromised the entire operation. The slaves may have been illiterate as a majority, but they weren't stupid. Besides, when the Caine family first built the house, the Underground Railroad didn't exist in the same form that it did just prior to the Civil War, so the details are even sketchier. It didn't get up, and running, as you would know it from History class, until the 1850's. Please. Tell me, you aren't suggesting the ghost of a runaway slave killed him because he hung a red quilt out to dry?" A look of disappoint flashed across his face.
She looked at little white patch on the quilt that had a rosebud design on it. "No, of course not. I have been on the scene of many deaths, and have never seen any ghosts. I have been all over my newly renovated...rat-less, home...al
one, and have yet to see any ghosts there," Kathy turned to face him. "However, everyone in town seems to be familiar with both the sinister, and puff-piece Caine stories. So...The question we need to answer is; who would take advantage of that knowledge to kill Mr. Lawrence? Another interesting, tidbit of information that would be useful to know is the health of the marriage. If it was healthy, did Mrs. Lawrence have a stalker who would want Mr. Lawrence out of the way? And, what about the broken-foot lady? Perhaps there is someone out there who didn't appreciate him helping her?"
He was relieved. She wasn't being irrational. She was just acknowledging the influence of it on the case. "Hummm, I never thought to consider a jilted lover. In fact, Milton's new wife, Ellen, had another lover long before she married Lawrence here. That dude used to beat the Holy crap out of her. She left him more than five years ago. They had been high school lovers, but haven't been together in a long time. She and Milton have been married two years." Jason shrugged.
"What is the suspect doing now?"
"I don't know. He moved away, haven't seen him since. He spent his 90 days in jail for beating her, and then high-tailed it out of town, because no one would hire him. But, as I said that was five years ago."
Kathy nodded, if the case was that old, she doubted it was the ex-lover. "Well, I know one thing."
"What's that?"
"That whip is real. Ghosts, not that I believe in them, are non-temporal."
Jason nodded in agreement. "So, our suspect is very real. Good, finally someone who didn't suggest one of the Caine's or Ridely the Whipper had come back from the dead! I was seriously going to suspend the next one of my officers that suggested it. Or, at least, assign them to parade-parking duty, for a decade."
"Ya'll done?" The Medical Examiner's assistant asked, poking his head out to the deck, but pointing upstairs.
Kathy nodded.
"Sure," Jason said, leading Kathy out. “Just make sure the Sheriff’s crime scene processers are finished.”