by Lotta Smith
I thanked my guardian angel and muttered a silent ‘Thank you’ to Archangel. I knew it was better to voice my appreciation directly to him; however, he tended to take advantage of it and came up with extra errands, such as fetching his Halloween costume from the drycleaner’s, when I went too soft and fluffy.
“By the way, there’s something that doesn’t make sense.” Archangel’s words grabbed me back to the real world.
“What’s that?” I asked my employer, who was at his mahogany desk with a leather upholstered swivel chair.
“If you killed a person and you wanted to get rid of the body so to avoid getting caught, what would you do?”
“For your information, killing is not my favorite pastime, especially when it involves killing humans.”
“It’s just hypothetical. What would you do?”
“Dump the body somewhere people wouldn’t come and find it, if I intended to get away without being arrested, prosecuted, and such,” I replied. “Or else, I’d push the victim into an active volcanic crater like Kilauea and let the hot lava do the job. Though this option is kind of risky on the account that I might end up melting in the magma as the victim.”
“Even for a hypothesis that’s…” Archangel mumbled.
Then I added, “Oh, suppose I was a real psychopath and I had no fear or remorse for doing just about anything, then dumping the body into a fish farm would be just as good, I guess. I’ve heard the eels are especially aggressive and they’d eat up everything, including the bones of moderate to large mammals. In that case, the fishes would devour the body, which is the most important evidence of the murder. Then they would be sold and probably served at restaurants all over the nation, or the world for that matter, to be eaten by unsuspecting patrons. That makes it even harder to track down the corpse.”
Open-mouthed, Archangel stared at me blankly.
Then he shook his head and said, “Sometimes, you scare the hell out of me, Kelly.”
“You know what, Mr. Archangel, I was just talking hypothetically.”
“Okay. Suppose you see a lake at the site where you came to dump the body. Which makes you more comfortable, dumping the body on the ground with a quick cover with the leaves, or sinking it into the water, at least temporarily?”
“Dump the body into the water?” I said, not quite sure where we were headed for. “If I want to conceal it, or get rid of it forever, that seems like a better idea.”
“Except the body ripens, gas accumulates in the body cavities, and a bloated body may be found floating. Still, there are basses and bluegills in those lakes that would hasten breaking down the corpse by eating. It’s worth the effort, like you have mentioned previously. Seeking help from aquatic nature may even conceal taking away the eyeballs part. In the water, it’s more likely that any residual incriminating evidence sticking to the body dissolves. If you get lucky, the body might disappear for a long while.”
“Then, why didn’t he dump the body into the water?” I grimaced. With his words describing the disgusting outcomes awaiting the abandoned bodies, I couldn’t help having disturbing images in my mind.
“That’s the tricky part. In general, killers try their best to conceal the corpse in an attempt to get away with the crime.” Archangel crossed his arms.
“Maybe, with all the damages he’s caused, he was confident the victims wouldn’t be identified,” I suggested. “Maybe he was too tired to carry her to the lake and dump her into the water. Maybe he wasn’t a macho, strong kind of a man. Or maybe, he’s water phobic.” I knew many people manifest irrational fear for things that were not particularly dangerous. My former employer, Estella, was phobic of sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and sands; however, she lived on a private island in the Caribbean.
“Oh yeah, maybe that may indicate a little something about the killer’s behavioral pattern.”
“Still, this particular habit of him just leaving the body with an imperfect cover and so on might have occurred just spontaneously, like out of the blue. In that case, does this behavioral pattern thing apply?”
“Theoretically speaking, the possibilities is literally infinite. Then again, it’s hard for anyone to change a person’s behavioral pattern, so the killer should be moving according to the habit,” Archangel remarked. “By the way, Kelly, why do you keep on referring the killer as a man, not a woman?”
“Because at least one of the victims was in a profession that served to fulfill men’s sexual fantasies. Doesn’t it imply the killer is a man?”
“That’s shallow, not to mention judgmental.” He snorted. “So far, no sperm or male cell was found from the crime scene. The possibility of the killer being a woman cannot be ruled out yet.”
“Hmm…” I thought. “Then, it’s still possible a man with an erectile dysfunction or a transsexual who used to be a man but had a sexual adjustment surgery has committed the murders.”
“You’ve got a point,” he said, resting his chin in his hand. “Except that even feminization surgery does not change the Y chromosome into an X chromosome. Besides that, clients are not the only people she knew.”
“That makes a gazillion suspects, literally.”
“I know.”
“So, the possibility of the killer being a woman is as high as that of being a man?”
“Theoretically so, perhaps. At the same time, there’s this piece of statistics which goes that a murderer being a man is considerably higher than that of a woman. Still, exceptions do exist.”
Then he flicked on the remote and switched on the seventy-two-inch flat screen TV sitting on the file cabinet by the side wall. A female reporter was feeding on updates of the Eyeball Snatcher murders in a rather breathless tone.
Back in the studio, the talk show host, a middle aged man with gray hair, was speaking to his assistant. “By the way, Mellissa, what do you think is the killer’s purpose of taking away the eyeballs from the victims?” The assistant, a young blonde with I’m-too-professional-to-smile-like-a-moronic-woman stern expression said, ‘I have no idea, and personally, I don’t even want to know. It’s way gruesome.’
“She’s trying to appear ‘Oh, I’m so innocent and too good a girl to imagine hurting someone,’ or a total airhead with nothing between the ears,” snorted Archangel.
“Isn’t that a little too harsh?” I said. “It’s normal to be clueless of the motive for taking the eyeballs out of other people. I can completely agree with her that even imagining the reason for poking out someone’s eyeballs is too gross. It makes most people sick.”
“Says a woman who has this daring idea to push someone into an active volcanic crater, or feed this special someone to fishes.”
“I said those were just theories. Besides that, as for the motive for stealing the eyeballs part, I’m assuming you’re as clueless as the rest of the world.”
“Clueless? Who? Me?” he said with fake shock. “On the contrary, my head’s full of possible reasons for the killer’s behavior. For example, the eyeballs might have been carrying some critical information to ID the killer, or as they say, the eyes are the window to the soul, and the killer had taken them in an attempt to get their souls so they can feel closer, more intimate with the victims. I guess I can hear them at BAU seriously discussing those topics. It totally lacks originality, but it’s the standard theory to be considered first thing in behavioral analysis.”
I recalled that Archangel himself once used to be an FBI agent. He started his career with the feds in the department of art crimes, and his area of expertise had expanded into homicide as well. It was easy to imagine him working with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. The hard to imagine part was a giant transvestite working as a fed agent. I didn’t know when he started to wear women’s attire, but so far, I’d only known him as a giant transvestite. If he ever appeared in front of me clad in a men’s suit that screamed “serious business,” I might burst out laughing.
Archangel continued. “The problem is, there’re too many possible explanations
for the reason the killer poked the eyeballs out of the victims. Maybe it’s the killer’s special ritual to avoid getting caught. For instance, assuming there was no eyewitness save for the victim, taking the eyeballs out of the corpses might have worked just fine for that purpose. Perhaps it gave the killer a sense of security. People, whether labeled normal or abnormal, often have peculiar obsessions. So maybe taking the eyeballs out of the victims might be something equivalent to sex for the killer. And here’s another one, maybe the killer’s purpose is just to collect the eyeballs. Or maybe, the killer has taken eyeballs for interior decoration of the house. Basically, nothing is impossible.”
Imagining the killer showing off eyeballs in a gold fish bowl, I shivered. “The last speculation was the sickest of all.”
“Not as bad as the possibility of the killer eating the eyeballs out of the victims.”
“Excuse me?” I gasped. “Eating the eyeballs? Like a cannibal? That’s…outrageous. You can’t be serious.”
“What’s wrong with eating the eyeballs? I’ve met a Japanese guy who regularly eats eyeballs out of tuna and red snappers. You can’t possibly criticize the culinary culture of other people’s heritage, especially when you share the same heritage.”
“Eating human eyeballs is a completely different story!” I protested. “You’re just making fun of me with a theory that’s too gross to be true.”
For someone with an angel in his name, Michael Archangel often came up with demonic ideas, totally going the opposite direction from what his surname implied. According to him, when his ancestor Archmepapadopoulas from Greece came to Ellis Island back in 1899, the officer at the immigrant inspection station told him “You’re an Archangel from now on,” and issued a new passport with Archangel written as the surname, and that was it.
This officer should have been called Mr. Cynic, I guessed.
“Okay, so it’s true that sometimes you’re fun to prank. But the thing is, cannibals do exist. Remember Rudy Eugene, Miami Cannibal? Though it turned out he only bit off the poor man’s face rather than eating the victim,” he said, munching on a homemade chocolate chip cookies.
“How can you eat cookies while talking about cannibalism?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“Practice. You get used to seeing corpses. Then you’ll be eating while thinking, visualizing, and talking about cadavers.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing murdered corpses,” I said bitterly.
“Lucky you. You can shed extra pounds without starving yourself.” Then he gave me a onceover. “Maybe in your case, that’s not working.”
“Excuse me?” I demanded. “Did you just say I’m fat?”
“Well, I didn’t say the f-word, you know,” he said, suddenly showing a very keen interest in the wood grain of the desk.
I sighed, feeling a bit inclined to shake him hard until the teeth fell out. “Anyway, I really hope the killer gets caught ASAP. It’s not right for this eyeball-snatching idiot to walk free.”
“I know.” Then he squinted at the TV screen. “Who’s he?”
A cute blond guy was performing one of his hit songs with a piano.
“That’s Yves; he’s a singer, song writer, and multi-instrumental player. He’s an emerging new stars in the pop music scene,” I answered.
“He’s weird,” he said, frowning.
“You said the same thing about Justin Bieber.”
“No. I said Justin Bieber is a stupid brat and a pothead; weird is not the word I used.”
“I don’t see much difference. You’re dissing them both.”
Ignoring my remark, he muttered, “Yves appears very unstable. I think he has some serious problem within himself.”
Then the phone rang. It was Henderson requesting Archangel to come to a new crime scene where another body, minus the eyeballs, was discovered.
Chapter 6
I felt her intense gaze on me and looked into her eyes.
“I hope you love it here,” I whispered.
Honey, I love you, she whispered back, although she didn’t make a sound, but I knew she meant it.
“Are you tired?” I asked her. She didn’t say anything, but her silence told more than words.
Again, I stared at her. She looked back at me as if she were enjoying a game.
There was something more in her expression.
There was…acceptance.
No need to act so confidently. Not anymore…
Hot tears rolled my face as I sensed her happiness.
I broke into laughter.
On the TV, they were airing the latest news. The reporter was talking fast, using lots of words with little meaning. It was a complete waste of time.
I reached for the TV remote to flip it off, but froze.
“Darling, how about that woman?”
She said nothing, but I knew she wanted to meet her.
Badly.
But how? I wondered. Then I observed her carefully.
The woman on the screen was insecure. Her every move made it clear.
I saluted with my champagne glass.
In the glass was clear, golden liquid.
Delicate bubbles danced around the two human eyeballs soaking in the liquid.
I knew one thing: I was going to get her.
Julia Stewart, MD, the woman on TV, shared major physical features with Dragon Lady.
Chapter 7
Russel Street was located in a good neighborhood in northern Virginia. Large to moderate size houses lined it, each one accentuated with a charming exterior and manicured lawn. If it was not for the yellow crime scene tape that said “CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS” wrapped around a dollhouse-like structure like a sick joke, it would have appeared nice. Picturesque, even.
Due to its relative closeness to the D.C. metro area and the growing attention to the Eyeball Snatcher case, media-type people flocked to the area. Cameras, satellite trucks, and all journalistic equipment were gathering on the sidewalk, as if they were awaiting some kind of action or something.
It was the place where the latest murder had just occurred. In addition to TV networks, various journalists—including those from newspapers, magazines, and even blogs—were there.
I parked Archangel’s Machomobile—my secret nickname for the black Chevy Camaro—at the closest possible place to the house, slapped the FBI parking permit on the front glass, and hurried after my employer who was speed walking with long strides in front of the cameras and reporters. Despite his attire, he seemed deceptively masculine.
Coming out of the Machomobile had that effect on me. I’ve got my own set of wheels, but my Cadillac came in a loud metallic purple with gold hues. It made me feel like a pimp, or a gangsta. Then again, the pimp car was a freebie, it was functioning, and it scared away other shoppers trying to find parking spots at the mall’s garage, so I couldn’t complain.
As the sun sank under the horizon, it was a beautiful spring evening—maybe too beautiful for a horrible murder to take place.
Amid the buzz, I caught a couple of men engaged in a heated discussion about seeing some woman.
“If you’re so bloody sure it’s her, why don’t you go ask?”
“Oh yes, I will.”
I heard the exchange, but I wasn’t listening carefully.
As I walked past, a voice called me from behind. “Hey, is that you, Kelly?”
I stopped breathing and cold sweat trickled down from the back of my neck all the way to the nucleus of the earth. Or hell. I was vaguely familiar with that voice. And that British accent. Not to mention, Americans usually don’t say “bloody” for emphasis purposes. I should have just ignored him and kept walking, but by reflex, I looked back, and consequently, my eyes were blinded by the camera flash.
Hey, Kelly, is it true that Warren the Big Swindler did a threesome with you and his new girl while finalizing the divorce?
In my head, the paparazzo’s voice replayed over and over. Baz was his name; now I rem
embered. Clearly.
I relived the exact moment the dynamite of ‘hate Kelly’ campaign ignited. It was in my early post-divorce days. The divorce itself was a real quickie, but before the ink on the divorce paper dried, Warren was arrested. The scandal that erupted following was huge and messy. After all, it had turned out that Warren Bernadoff Estevez—the obscenely successful financial tycoon, the man referred to as the king of the city—in truth, had never been a legitimate businessman. The supposedly successful business he’d been running for decades was nothing but a massive Ponzi scheme, the biggest one in British history.
The money he’d collected from investors was used to support the glamorous, extravagant, jet-setting, partying lifestyle he’d fully indulged for a long, long time. Though no ordinary, hardworking people were victimized on the account the minimum required amount to participate was outrageously high, public opinion, especially coming from the media, was harsh. Warren was well-connected and had friends in the media industry, and many of them had entrusted their money to his Ponzi scheme, anticipating to boost their already humongous net worth. When those media bigwigs realized they’d kissed their millions goodbye, they were not thrilled. At all. What had ultimately ticked them off was that Kelly, the ex-wife of the big swindler, had cunningly managed to walk without even a slap on the wrist.
For them, I was an accessory to my ex’s crime and a ‘bloody’ lucky slut who’d dodged criminal charges by getting a divorce before things got ugly. Another gold digging third wife who married a man probably older than her own father—that’s what they called me. They turned a blind eye to the fact that, first, I had nothing to do with my ex’s business. Second, I had fully cooperated with prosecutors; and third, I was actually the dumpee in the divorce, not the dumper.
It only enraged them more when they realized they wouldn’t be able to recover their losses by suing me. I had a modest divorce settlement, but by the time they thought about lawsuits, I had already donated the entire amount to research funds to find cures for osteogenesis imperfecta and achondroplasia. It felt wonderful to donate money to congenital diseases with hard-to-pronounce names. The so-called victims made threats about ruining my life, but I just got a new phone number and closed all of my SNS and email accounts. My lawyer, the one Mom hired for me, was adamant that I keep a low profile. So she put me in exile in Gibraltar. As instructed, I lived in a safe house, until a couple of paparazzi popped up at my doorstep from out of nowhere, like an unpleasant version of a genie.