"And that will put me at the murder scene far quicker than I've ever been. And maybe will be exactly what I need." I extended my hand and he shook it. "I can't thank you enough, Mr. Slice. You may have just saved my sanity."
"The pleasure is mine," he said. "And you can thank me by preventing any more murders, and bringing this monster to justice."
As it turned out, my killer wasn't finished just yet.
Fifteen
I was about to become acquainted with the corpse of a celebrity Cornerball player named James Patterson, but my killer had finally screwed up, and was about to screw up again. And killers who screw up get caught.
What I didn't realize at the time was I myself was about to take a step into a whole new world.
I was about half way to the planet Atlantis, and having sent a message off to Flint, when I received the call about Patterson, from Avon PD. My stomach turned at the thought of another victim, but it was beat out by the sheer excitement of knowing I was less than a day away from the killer, and had actually been in front for a few hours.
I could smell blood in the water. As it turned out, I'd be able to smell it at the murder scene, too. Lots of it.
I turned the ship around, and a few hours later, jumped back into Avon. For the second time, I saw the giant mounds of broken ships, collected debris of the battle for Avon. A real war had been fought here, by all accounts a desperate line in the sand action, and very recently. Warning markers were placed all over the place, blaring out messages to stay on the down jump path, or hope your shields survived a collision. Salvage droids were still collecting debris.
There'd been a fair amount of traffic going in both directions, and drawing near Atlantis, the media packets had outlined how the Atlantis, Cobol, and Azgard systems, had suffered at Midgard hands. What I hadn’t seen until now, was the military presence in Avon. While nothing compared to Earth, it was the first major presence I’d seen since leaving London. And they seemed jittery, especially seeing a ship come back so soon after leaving. It took a few exhortations to contact the local General, before they removed me from target lock.
The sense of blood in space was a tangible thing here, and for some reason, I shivered.
Flint's return message arrived not long after the jump. He was hopping mad after not hearing from me since before Apricot, but I didn't give a shit. He was too far away now for me to bother with, beyond obtaining me permission to operate locally. All I'd told him was the murder on Apricot had sent me to Atlantis in the hopes of being closer to the next murder scene, and I’d almost been right. It was the only thing worth reporting, so that's all I'd done.
"Your theory makes no sense," he fumed. "Why the hell would the killer be heading towards the end of the spine? She'd be working herself out of victims! I want you back on Earth Torus ASAP, Burnside. I'm getting my ass chewed out over these murders, and you're giving me a heaped helping of bugger all! All you're doing is burning up police resources, and giving us nothing in return."
I recorded a simple return message, a vid of me flipping him my middle finger, and sent it off. I'd be damned if I was going to let him put me off my game, especially when I was so close to catching my prey. Flint could take the Calypso, and cut off my pay, but he couldn't stop me from hunting down this killer.
Avon had two sizable stations, not including a very large shipyard. One of them was obviously military. The other was civilian, and my police credentials obtained me priority landing at the nearest ground-side spaceport to where my crime scene was.
On the ground, it was dark when the local cop who picked me up from the spaceport dropped me off outside James Patterson's house, in the hoity-toity neighbourhood he lived in. I appreciated the fact he hadn't said a word during the ride, considering the nature of the case. I'd heard it all before.
I stepped out of the transport, and onto the street. At the end of the driveway, I could see a pair of Avon PD detectives in dark suits, and a bored-looking forensics tech, all male, loitering around the front door. The driveway itself was home to a mint-condition cherry-red Ford Mustang convertible, a real one which ran on actual petrol, not one of the common fusion replicas, or an electrical conversion on an original chassis. Patterson obviously had no shortage of credits if he could not only own one of these babies, but actually fuel it up as well.
The first suit tapped the second as I approached the door.
"Heads up, Ed," he said. "I think this is our Earth Sector specialist."
"You think right," I said, pulsing my credentials to Ed's PC. "Name's Burnside."
Ed scanned the creds, and I sighed as I saw a grin creep across his face. Here we go again, I thought. It never ends.
"That's funny," he snickered.
"Oh yeah?" I asked, deadpan. "What's funny?"
"You know," he said. "Your name is Dick, and you're looking for a killer who steals… you know…" He leaned forward. "Dicks."
I frowned at him.
"Huh. That's hilarious. You know, in a dozen crime scenes, you're the first person to ever point that out to me."
"Really?"
He looked surprised. I shook my head, and rolled my eyes.
"No, dipshit, not really. Now if you're done wasting my time with your stand-up act, I'd appreciate it if you two got out of my way."
I could tell these two were going to be no help in the investigation, which pissed me off, and I didn't have time to screw around with them. I was too close, and I needed to pick up a trail.
They exchanged a look and stepped aside, allowing me access to the front door. I glanced at the old-school lock. Like me, Patterson was obviously some kind of history buff, given his love of analog things like petrol engines, and keyed deadbolts. I guess if you've got the money, go nuts.
"There's a broken key in there," Ed offered helpfully, apparently assuming my own eyes didn't work. "But the back door was unlocked when the first cops arrived on the scene."
"Why do you figure that was?" I asked, more to myself than them.
"I actually have a theory on that," said the other cop.
"I'm sure you do, Detective…?
"Spinelli."
"Spinelli. All right then, let's have it."
He hitched up his pants, and cleared his throat.
"I think the killer broke the key off in the front lock to keep the vic from escaping through it."
He pronounced it 'excaping'.
I nodded, all but ignoring him as I scanned the area.
"So you think our guy deliberately locked Patterson in the house, then entered through the back door, and killed him?"
"Yeah."
"Motive?" I asked absently.
Ed chimed in.
"Revenge. There's vid of Patterson leaving Shaw Stadium after a match the night of the murder. He was with a woman."
I'd read that in the report I’d received on my way down here, but kept quiet.
"I figure he brought the lady back here," he continued. "They did the horizontal mambo, and her boyfriend found out about it. Came here, busted the key in the lock, and snuck in the back. Sliced off our boy's John Thomas, and escaped through the back again."
"Uh-huh," I said thoughtfully. "So pretty much open and shut then?"
He shrugged like it was no big thing.
"We got techs going over the vids as we speak. As soon as they ID the woman, I bet you anything we'll bust down her boyfriend's door, and he'll confess on the spot."
"Simple as that, huh?" I asked.
Spinelli shook his head.
"Sometimes I think the brass have never heard of Occam's Razor."
I could see he was dying to tell me about it, so I raised a palm to encourage him to go on. Meanwhile, I headed for the back door. The two of them followed me.
"See," Spinelli continued, "way back over a thousand years ago, there was this philosopher named Occam, and he said that the simplest explanation was usually the right one. But the brass always seems to want to complicate things. You know how it is."
/>
I reached the door, and walked into Patterson's kitchen, then into the living room beyond. It was huge and ornate, with hollos of our man in action that were almost as tall as the fifteen-foot ceilings. The guy had a healthy opinion of himself.
"So you're just waiting on the ID, then?" I asked as the two followed me around. "You'd think if she was a local, they'd have found her by now, wouldn't you?"
The bedroom was on the other side of the house. No signs of any forced entry, nothing apparently out of place. There were plenty of fragile-looking knick-knacks perched precariously on shelves next to the railing, but nothing had been disturbed.
My shadows caught up with me at the door to the bedroom. I'd been prepared for what was coming. The AvonPD head, who'd contacted me in Atlantis, had told me there was blood, but I was still unsettled by what I saw. It was like a Rorschach blotter surrounding the bed. It had seeped into all of the bedding, spreading out from under the body, and covered almost all of the floor.
I stood there a moment.
Blood. Lots of it.
Sixteen
A definite first, a change in the pattern.
"It is kind of surprising they haven't tracked her down yet," said Ed. "But it's just a matter of time."
I pulled up the initial forensic notes on my PC. I also started recording as I scanned the room myself, since the current conversation with Tweedledum and Tweedledee didn't inspire confidence in the skills of the local forensics team.
"Guh," Spinelli groaned. "Still gets me every time I see it."
There was nothing unusual in the spatter pattern, but that didn't surprise me. The blood itself wasn't what was going to break this case, it was what the blood represented. The killer had been forced to leave the scene earlier than usual.
"Neighbour called it in, right?" I asked.
Ed nodded. His eyes glazed over as he consulted his PC.
"Maria Katz, age 116, lives alone. Said she heard a scream capable of waking the dead, and went to her window to take a look. At her age, I'm sure it took a couple of minutes to get there. Anyway, she saw the lights in here were on, and by that point Patterson was already either dead or unconscious, and he was bleeding out. Traumatized the old gal pretty good, I guess."
"She must have a few bucks to live in a neighbourhood like this," I said.
"The Katz family has mining interest all through the spine," said Spinelli. "She's probably richer than Patterson himself."
"And she's been eliminated as a suspect?" I asked.
"Her?" Ed frowned. "She's an old lady. What kind of idiot would think she'd be a killer? Especially one who cuts off a guy's dick?"
I'd gleaned everything I was going to from the scene itself, as I expected, outside of the blood there was nothing I hadn't already seen at the other murder scenes.
"It's less idiotic than assuming a jealous boyfriend is the killer," I said absently, as I headed for the bedroom door.
I didn't need to see their faces to know I'd hit a nerve. They rushed out behind me.
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Ed huffed.
I'd already been in a black mood when I arrived, thanks to Flint's message, and these two were just making it worse. The only thing I hate more than a stupid cop is a lazy cop, and these two were both. I continued walking to make sure they were listening to my back.
"First of all," I said, "you assume the killer knew about a rendezvous between his girlfriend and Patterson. And at the same time, you were the ones who told me Patterson picked up this mystery girl outside the stadium. If it was a random groupie hook-up, how did her boyfriend find out about it?"
"Well," Spinelli began, but he didn't say anything else.
"That's not the stupidest part," I continued. "You know I was brought in as a specialist on this case. Ed, you even pointed out I had experience in chasing dicks, as you so cleverly put it. And yet you concluded that this was some crime of passion by a local yokel."
I stopped abruptly in the main living area, and scanned the main floor for a particular door. I found it hidden in the wall, as utility room panels so often are, and strode over to it.
"Hey," Ed sputtered. "It could still be, you know, like a copycat thing. You think of that?"
I tapped the panel, and it popped outwards, revealing a small room with a low ceiling. Inside were the typical power cell, water tank, temperature regulators and air filtration system, plus an anti-grav generator for what I assumed was a space somewhere in the house for Patterson to practice his moves. But what I was looking for was the computer interface which was next to the controls for the house's electrical system.
"A copycat," I said evenly. "So this boyfriend somehow finds out his girl is here with Patterson, comes over, breaks a key off in the front door lock to trap him inside, comes in the back door, and catches them in the act."
I kept up my investigation, making sure to avoid looking at my two companions. I wanted them to know just how little I appreciated their company. It was surly, sure, but I had a reputation to maintain, not to mention a fedora and trench coat to justify.
"According to you," I continued, "the copycat somehow knows about the specific killer I'm chasing, and in the heat of the moment, comes up with a plan to emulate the MO by cutting off Patterson's penis. And then he manages to escape with the girl, quietly enough Ms. Katz doesn't hear anything else, in the space of however long it took her to get to her window after she heard Patterson scream."
I was finally beginning to feel like I was worth my salt again. Making it to the scene early had sparked my instincts in a way I hadn't felt in far too long, and I was savouring every moment of it.
Blood rushed into Spinelli's cheeks as I pulled out a small hack box to connect my PC directly to the house computer, which first needed the access code broken. PC's didn’t have any such capability, and rightly never would have, and I’d taken this little gadget off a dead perp many years ago. I didn’t need much, just read access on the house computer, which stored all the data flowing in and out of the house. Technically, it wasn't exactly legal without a warrant, but I doubted either of these geniuses knew that, and I'd already wasted enough time on this scene. I had a killer to catch.
"Maybe not exactly like that," Spinelli fumed. "I mean, maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe the girl was already gone by the time the boyfriend got here, and he just lopped Patterson's dick off and left!"
"Where'd he get the keys?" I asked, as my PC called up the records from the house computer. "He would have needed one for the front and back doors. And why would he cut off his own best path of escape by jamming the front door? Leaving through the back forced him to run an extra forty yards, right past the Katz house, to get out of here and onto the street. And if no weapon was ever found, the killer must have taken it with them. Why isn't there a trail of blood leading out of the house?"
I used the hack box to download everything onto my PC. I'd been doing this since Augustus Quon on Honshu, hoping one of the victims had managed to record something about the killer, and that the killer hadn't wiped the memory. In every instance before the Patterson case, the computer records had been as clean as the rest of the crime scene. Never any blood, never any digital evidence. The deletions had been done properly, and couldn't be recovered. Unlike my two companions, my killer was incredibly sharp.
But this scene was different. The killer was surprised, I'm assuming by Patterson's scream, and with the realization someone must have heard it, had panicked. They didn't have time to clean the blood, which gave me hope they didn't have time to wipe the computer memory, either.
My heart did a little jig in my chest as I hit pay dirt. Every other time, my search had ended with a message saying no data found. But not this time.
"So you think the old lady is the killer?" Ed sneered from behind me. "Great work, Detective. Glad they brought you all the way out here to figure that out."
"I can hear the sarcasm in your voice," I said distractedly. "Apparently you didn't hear it in mine."
I continued scanning the house computer with my PC. Computers logged everything, if you knew where to look. When someone was using their PC, it connected to the local computer in the building, which connected them to the network. Even if the PC was interfacing with local Wi-Fi, log entries still appeared on the local computer, and more often than not, the request went through the local computer first, without the user realizing it. You could tell when there was no one home, you could tell exactly when someone arrived, and if they used their PC for anything outside their own head. Something as simple as remotely turning on a light left a log entry on the house computer.
But they'd always been wiped clean at the other scenes. Now, even though there was no recording of Patterson's murder, I could see what had happened online during the approximate time it took place. Obviously I couldn't hope for something that would identify the killer, but as luck would have it, I found something almost as good. According to the logs, someone had done a search around the time of the murder, and I knew it hadn't been Patterson, because he was too busy bleeding to death.
I felt a smile creep across my face as the tumblers clicked into place in my mind. I couldn't see the whole picture yet, but things were a hell of a lot clearer than they'd ever been, thanks to my meeting with John Slice. It disproved something he'd said, but I wasn't going to complain about that.
"Something funny?" Ed sniped, obviously mimicking my line from earlier.
"You could say that," I said, as I ended the hack box connection. "I know where the killer is going to strike next."
"Oh, yeah?" said Spinelli. "So you know whose dick is next on the chopping block, then?"
Now that I'd found what I wanted and downloaded everything I needed, I was sick of the whole scene, and the two jackasses in front of me. I rounded on them with a look that made both men take a step backwards. I'm a tall guy, and while my hat and coat may be anachronisms in the 27th century, they intimidate the hell out of people.
Burnside's Killer: Extended Version (The Hunter Legacy Book 6) Page 6