Considering the information that the boy and his Mother have concerning the Senator I thought….”
“Yes yes, alright, we’ll look into it. Give me that report, I’ll get my assistant to make a copy,” he said as he stood and held out his hand.
“There’s no need, you can keep this copy. I have the original back in my office,” Ms James said as she handed the pages back to Baxter and stood up preparing to leave.
She held out her hand as an offering to Baxter. Baxter leaned over his desk and shook her hand and then sat back down.
“I suppose I should thank you for coming in to see me,” he said as he smiled perfunctorily.
“That’s ok. Could you please let me know if you locate the boy?” she asked as she turned and began to walk out the door.
Baxter nodded and started to flip through the pages.
“Yeah sure, you’ll hear from us. In fact, please don’t leave Washington, we might need you, ok?” he said to her back as the phone began to ring.
He waited until the woman had left his office and then glanced at the caller ID. He recognised the caller as Senior Detective George Johnson from Washington Police Department Homicide Division.
He punched the button to enable the speaker phone, sat back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk and folded his hands behind his head.
“George, how are you, you old coot?” he said as he finished the cold dregs of his coffee.
“Not so good Derek. Do you know an old couple named Bob and Betty Stringer?”
Baxter coughed as he inhaled part of the cold coffee. He sat bolt upright in his chair as he gulped hard to suppress the gag reflex and winced from the searing pain of the coffee tearing through his lungs.
“Derek, you ok?” George asked.
Baxter realised that he must have heard his coughing fit. He swallowed hard and struggled to reply.
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine…I just sucked some coffee into my lungs. You really threw me for a loop George.
“How the fuck do you know about the Stringers?” he asked as he rubbed his chest, trying to alleviate the throbbing pain.
“I don’t know them, they’re both dead. I checked their phone. Your number came up. I just put two and two together. I thought you knew them.”
Baxter felt a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“I called them to arrange a meeting, George. They were helping me with some investigations.
What do you mean ‘they’re both dead?’
“They’ve been murdered Derek. Look, we’ve got the place sealed up for forensics. If this is part of your case you better get your shiny arse down here pronto.”
“I’ll grab some of my team. We’ll be there as quick as we can.”
Baxter hung up the phone. He slouched back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair and then slammed his fists on the desk.
He took deep breaths and contained his rage so that he could summon his team. He slammed his index finger onto the interphone button on his commander system.
“Buck! I want you to contact Arnold and Alicia and tell them to meet me at the Stringer’s home immediately!”
Baxter didn’t wait for the reply. He threw his chair back and gulped another handful of pills before storming out of his office.
The piercing pain in his head caused the rage to course through him as he made his way to the underground car park.
This day just keeps getting better and better, he thought to himself as he slammed the car into gear and howled the beast out of the car park and onto Hoover Road and headed in the direction of his latest dead end.
Twelve
Baxter reined in the power of his 1970 Plymouth GTX 440 as he pulled into Kennedy Street.
Brightview Park was your typical sleepy suburban enclave. These villages were unaccustomed to the throaty growl of a muscle car.
The streets were usually filled with station wagons or people movers that bobbed up and down synchronously as they traversed the obligatory speed humps.
There were the usual dog walkers and women with prams out enjoying the day, oblivious to the carnage contained within the modest white and blue double story, detached home of Bob and Betty Stringer.
Apart from the two police cars, Baxter could see the familiar FBI issued black van in which his team had arrived. He parked behind the van and after pulling on a pair of latex gloves, made his way inside the house.
He ducked beneath the Black and yellow ‘Do not Cross’ – crime scene tape which criss-crossed the living room.
The home furnishings were scattered like the remnants of some wild frat party. The home was a standard bottom floor open plan with the kitchen, living room and dining room downstairs and the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs.
Baxter could see that his team was in the kitchen deeply involved in some heated discussion with his old friend Senior Detective Johnson.
Even from behind, he recognised the straggling patch of flame red hair that clung to the skull like some furry starfish. The bulging torso and hunched shoulders were also a giveaway. He was a stark contrast to the athletic pair of young FBI agents.
Baxter felt an affinity towards the detective who resembled a bulldog being bailed up by a couple of whippets.
He nodded his head towards Agents Thompson and Cambridge and smiled at the red faced detective who spoke first.
“Haven’t you shiny arsed dunderheads ever heard of professional courtesy?”
“Listen up George, you told me to get my team down here. Here we are, now, what’s your problem?”
“My problem Derek is that your precious pencil pushing people here want to butt in and take over from my forensics guys.
I won’t have it. This is a straight forward fucking homicide case. I only called you out of courtesy and respect. I’d appreciate your reciprocation.”
Baxter shot an angry glance towards Thompson and Cambridge as he draped an arm around the detective’s shoulders and led him away to continue the discussion privately.
He gestured with his other arm towards his team for them to start looking around surreptitiously. He watched as they moved towards the police forensic team.
“I can see that you’re pretty upset George but what you don’t seem to understand, is that this case is of national security.” Baxter said quietly, trying to calm down his friend.
The detective shook the arm off his shoulder and stepped away, his face became redder as he pointed his finger towards Baxter.
“That’s bullshit Baxter and you know it. You’re just pissed because you’ve lost another lead.”
Baxter’s smile evaporated as he could feel his own level of anger begin to rise. He paused and took a breath before speaking.
“Ok ok, maybe you’re right George. We just need to find out what happened here, Can you at least show me through the crime scene and give me your take on it?”
He watched as the detective considered his proposal and then shrugged resignedly.
“All right, follow me,” the detective said as he left the kitchen and headed towards the stair case.
Baxter followed as the detective made his way up the stairs and then turned into the main bedroom.
The room was quite large considering the size of the house. There were several photographs in frames scattered and smashed on the floor. There were the typical forensic markers scattered throughout, as the scene had been properly photographed and documented.
The main thing which took Baxter’s attention was the smell. It was that peculiar mix of urine and crap. He held his hand over his nose as he made his way further into the room.
“Whoever did this was a disturbed son of a bitch,” the detective said as he moved across to the other side of the room.
“What makes you think the ‘unsub’ was a male?” Baxter asked as he crossed the room. He watched as the detective swung open the walk in wardrobe door.
“Do you think a woman could do this?” he said as he pointed towards the contents of the room.
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Baxter stuck his head in the wardrobe and immediately noticed that the smell grew stronger and it was then that he noticed the grotesque mask of pain on the corpse that hung from a peg in the wardrobe. Its facsimile of a face was bruised and battered beyond description.
It was the bizarre visage of a real life Picasso. The head was blue and bulbous, a gross blackened tongue lolled from the mouth like a four day old piece of crap. The only thing that betrayed the victim’s humanity was the fact that it was naked; a stream of faecal matter snaked its way down the woman’s bruised and swollen legs.
No one ever tells you about the shit.
Baxter thought about all of the horrendous murder scenes.
They all crap themselves.
Ignoring the sudden urge to vomit, Baxter moved closer to study the bondage that had brought about Betty Stringer’s demise. He could see that she had been strung up by one of the bed sheets. Upon closer inspection he noticed that the sheet was yellow and wet.
He put on a pair of latex gloves and ran a finger over the sheet. He sniffed his finger and crinkled his nose at the familiar ammonia smell.
“Piss, this sheet has been soaked in piss!” he said as he looked at the detective who was standing in the wardrobe doorway.
“Who needs forensics when you’re around Derek,” the detective said sarcastically as he moved toward the three quarter bathroom door.
“She got off lightly; do you want to check out Mr. Stringer?”
Lightly?
Baxter thought as he left the wardrobe and closed the door, even in death he thought the old woman deserved a modicum of privacy.
He strode towards the three quarter bathroom and squeezed past the detective’s gut to enter the room.
Oh my God!
Baxter thought as he surveyed the carnage in the room. It reminded him of a scene from some low budget cut and slash horror film, only this was real life.
The room was glistening with blood. It covered everything. The stench was horrendous. Baxter could no longer control his gag reflex and swallowed a mouthful of bile. He refused to vomit in front of his friend. He knew he would never hear the end of it.
The outflow of blood splattering came from a single source. Baxter moved closer to the huge lump of bloodied flesh which hung from urine soaked sheets over the bath tub.
The sheets were twisted and looped around the victim’s neck. The head and face looked like it suffered a similar fate to the other victim. The bulbous bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the wall.
Every square inch of the victim was covered in long gashes as if someone had tried to gut him. The blood had streaked from the victim’s torso and pooled in the bath tub. Baxter was speechless by the utter level of sheer brutality.
“Now do you believe me? No woman could have achieved this level of violence. This guy was a total fucking animal.”
Baxter stood staring at the bloodied corpse shaking his head; he spoke in a quiet voice.
“I want the forensics on this as soon as it’s processed. There has to be enough DNA evidence to get this prick.”
“Samples have already been sent to the lab. I’ll get a copy of the report out to you as soon as we know anything. That’s best I can do Derek.”
Baxter left the scene of the carnage as soon as he could. His stomach churned from his repeated efforts to suppress his urge to vomit.
He felt like his body had been drained of blood and knew that he had to sit down before he did the unthinkable and pass out in front of his team.
He sat on the bottom flight of stairs and pulled off the gloves as he waited until the two agents had finished their assessments.
He stopped them before they could speak and motioned them to follow him outside. With great stoicism he stood and walked briskly past the agents and waited for them out on the foot path near their van.
“Well, what new information can you give me on this?”
He watched as the newest member of his team Agent Alicia Cambridge pulled out her note pad from the pocket of her jacket. She looked nervous and she spoke quickly to cover her anxiety.
“We have determined that the victims knew their assailant.”
Baxter briefly raised an eyebrow but quickly let it fall. He wanted to appear nonplussed.
“Really and how did you arrive at this conclusion?”
The young agent paused and looked at her partner for a rescue. He seemed to understand the signal and continued.
“Well boss, after we surveyed the scene we noticed a couple of things. First of all, the door had not been forced that meant that the victims had let the assailant into their home and…”
“That probably meant that the ‘unsub’ had a good cover story. He could have pretended to be a salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness,” Baxter said interjecting his hypothesis.
He noticed the young agents as they looked at one another and flushed slightly.
“Come on guys, what else have you got?”
“Well we weren’t able to get any forensics boss. If we had access to some DNA or fingerprint trace we could get you something more definitive.” Thompson said defensively.
Baxter shook his head and turned and moved towards his car. He leant in through the window of his car and pulled out a report. He walked back and handed it to Thompson.
“Lucky for you two we’ll get all the forensics we need in a couple of days. In the meantime I want you two to get over to George Washington General and find out what you can about Sylvan Peters.
Apparently she was a patient who has mysteriously vanished.
If you read that report you’ll soon realise how imperative it is that we find her. I’m sick of all these dead ends. I want results! Find her!”
As he sped off down Kennedy Street, Baxter tried to wash the gruesome images from his mind.
He had a gut feeling that Cambridge was right; the victims did know the ‘unsub’ and he would put money on it that he was the same guy who had assassinated the Senator.
A single thought burned through his brain.
If this ‘Stringer’ prick has a twin brother we need to find him before he kills again!
Thirteen
“Stringer, where the fuck have you been? You’ve been sloppy,” the voice on the phone was metallic and inhuman.
Stringer was distracted as he listened to the voice. He was busy scrubbing the blood off his hunting knife and arms.
He cradled the phone in the crook of his neck.
He said nothing whilst he finished his task and had dried his hands and the blade on a filthy tattered piece of towelling. He threw down the towel, shoved the blade into its sheaf and angrily grasped the phone.
“What the fuck are you talking about? The job went off perfectly. The senator’s dead. His brains were splattered half way across the fucking city.”
His hand shook as he spoke, he needed another neural infuser. He grasped the bottle of whisky and took a long gulp. It would have to do. He waited for the response to be patched through several gateways. The anti tracing mechanism was necessary.
“You were seen.”
Stringer took another swig from the bottle and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He paused as he studied his nails. Remnants of blood lined the edges of his nails. He clenched his fist and shouted into the phone.
“Again Mother fucker, what the fuck are you talking about? I made sure that the room was unoccupied; the shithole that I set myself up in was practically fucking falling down around my ears. There was no one else there.”
He slammed the phone and the bottle down beside the sink and started scrubbing the blood from around his fingernails.
He could hear the clicks and beeps as his burst passed through the scrubbers. He waited for them to stop and then put the phone back into the crook of his neck as the signal changed and the response was passed back through to him.
“There have been too many mistakes. You have gone off mission. I have decided to freqlock you.
Stringer froze
as the gravity of the punishment sunk in.
“Look, ok, I’m sorry alright. Just don’t freqlock me.”
He held his breath whilst he awaited the reply. The sinking feeling began when he heard the chilling reply.
“It’s too late – it’s done.”
He said nothing as he stared at the phone receiver. He absentmindedly rubbed the now dormant TDI on the back of his neck. The voice broke through again.
“From now on I will use your neural interface to contact you. If you want to be unlocked you will have to clean up your mess.
Turn on the TV and check out the news. . . you need to fix this!”
Stringer felt an upsurge of anger and betrayal.
“Look Motherfu…” Stringer stopped when he realised that the phone had gone dead.
He slammed it down onto the sink, picked up the bottle and took another long swig. He could feel the warmth and numbing effects of the booze as it seeped into his bloodstream. He staggered slightly as he made his way from the bathroom to his Television.
He grabbed the remote and channel surfed until he found a news channel. He slumped down onto his couch and trampled the coffee table with his feet.
He pumped up the volume when he saw the headline on the screen. The newsreader possessed the typical no nonsense visage as he presented the top story of the day.
“The main story today concerns the death of Senator Trent Baker who was gunned down several days ago.
So far the FBI has been unable to find any leads in this brutal slaying of one of this city’s finest philanthropists.
However, we have just received breaking news from one of our investigative journalists Trudy Davis, who hopefully will shed some light on this case.
Trudy – are you there?”
The image on the TV changed to show the image of the petite reporter standing in front of the ubiquitous statue of the tribute to the Marines in Iwo Jima. She had a sullen look as she spoke.
“Thanks Jim, I have just spoken to a representative of the Child Protective Services, Ms Ellen James. She has confirmed that she has enlisted the assistance of the FBI in tracking down the whereabouts of a young boy who is believed to have been the only eyewitness to the Senator’s assassination.”
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