Deranged

by Jacob Stone

  “Never mind,” Morris said. “I’m sure forensics can give me those types of details, and the FBI profiler can enlighten me as to what was done to the New York victims. Assuming I accept the job.”

  Gilman took a few noticeable deep breaths and wiped some perspiration from his forehead. He had recovered from whatever queasiness had temporarily hit him, although a faint greenish hue still showed in the hollows of his cheeks. He asked Morris what objections he’d have about taking the assignment.

  “MBI would need to bill at our full rate. No discounts.”

  “Done.”

  “I’d have to be able to bring the full team onboard.”

  “Also done.”

  “And have complete control over how the investigation is handled, as well as get whatever support I need from the police department. And I decide what is released to the media.”

  “Done, done, and mostly done,” Gilman said. “There are certain public safety issues that have to be taken into account as to what’s given to the media, so there will have to be some give and take on that regard. But Morris, we’re certainly not going to undermine you, nor are we going to interfere. So do we have a deal?”

  Morris needed only a moment to consider the question before putting out his hand. “Deal,” he agreed.

  Gilman took his hand with the enthusiasm of a business tycoon who’d just closed a multimillion-dollar deal. Somewhat smugly, he gave Morris an appraising look.

  “We’ll iron out the details as to what needs to be released, and we’ll hold a press conference soon to announce that the city has hired you to lead up this murder investigation. How about you swing by your home and change clothes?”

  “No need. This is the nicest suit I have.”

  Gilman raised an eyebrow at that. “You’re kidding? That looks like a suit you must’ve bought when you first made detective.”

  “The very same one. Fits like a glove,” Morris said, patting his stomach.

  This was mostly true. Morris had actually bought three suits the day he made detective, and the suit he had on was one of those three. What he’d said about the suit fitting him like a glove was a hundred percent accurate. All three of them were a half size too large for him when he’d bought them off the rack twenty years ago, but since adding fifteen pounds around his middle, they now fit him almost as well as if they’d been custom made, if not a little snugly.

  “Morris, we don’t have much time, but I could send you to my guy at Maximillian’s on Rodeo Drive and see if he can get you an Armani off the rack, and maybe a tie that’s in fashion, all on the city’s dime. No offense, but there’s going to be a tremendous amount of media attention on this, and even given your stellar reputation, the better you look, the better we’ll look for hiring you.”

  Morris smiled thinly at Gilman’s insistence that he buy more fashionable attire. Gilman certainly wasn’t the only one. For a long time, Natalie used to do the same before finally giving up a couple of years ago. Whenever she would suggest that it was time for him to retire his old suits and buy some new ones, he’d always comment back that it would be a pointless thing for him to do since you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, and she’d roll her eyes and tell him that he was being stubborn only to be a pain in the ass, then she’d get angry and reprimand him for calling himself ugly. Well, he certainly wasn’t handsome, not with his big ears, thick, long nose, spindly legs and short, compact body. Maybe more comical looking than unattractive. In many ways Morris proved the old adage about a dog owner resembling his pet, since he looked quite a bit like his bull terrier, Parker. Of course, that old adage fell apart completely when it came to Natalie since she was a slim, petite, dark-haired beauty with mesmerizing large brown eyes. In Natalie’s case, no dog would fit the bill. A cat might, at least if it were sleek and feminine-looking enough.

  Morris wasn’t just being stubborn, though. While he was generous with family and friends, and many times with strangers, he was extremely frugal when it came to himself, and his old suits were comfortable, still in good shape, and fit just fine. That was part of it. But another part of it was his pop, who had also been a Los Angeles police detective. Like Morris, his pop had bought three new suits when he earned his detective’s shield, and never bought another one. Those were the only suits he wore the rest of his life. It had been twelve years since his pop had passed away, and Morris missed him. Something about the pride his pop took in only needing to own those three suits made Morris want to do the same.

  Morris felt a catch in his voice as he told Gilman that he wasn’t about to go shopping for clothes now. He added, “If my needing a new suit and tie is a condition for being hired, you’re going to have to find someone else.”

  Gilman seemed surprised by Morris’s reaction. He took a half step back and held up his hands in a sign of surrender, “Wow, Morris, I apologize if I’ve offended you. Not my intent, just trying to be helpful. But if it means having you work this investigation, you can wear a mawashi if you want.”

  Morris must’ve shown his puzzlement, because Gilman smiled and explained that a mawashi is what you call the loincloth that sumo wrestlers wear. “I learned that when I visited Nagoya three months ago as part of a cultural exchange. That’s our sister city in Japan. Are we good now?”

  Morris nodded. “We’re good.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gilman needed to make arrangements for the press conference. Before he left, he told Morris that Commissioner Hadley was in the back of the house with the other police and crime scene specialists.

  “I texted him that you’ve taken the job. You don’t need me to go back there and introduce you, right?”

  Gilman was trying to be nonchalant about asking this, but Morris could see his uneasiness. It was obvious Gilman didn’t want to go near the corpse, that seeing the photos and hearing the details of the murder was about all he could handle. Morris told him he’d be fine, and not to worry about anything.

  After Gilman left, Morris called Natalie to tell her what was happening, and that he wasn’t going to be able to make their seven-thirty reservation at the Banyan Tree Grill.

  “I’d hate for you to miss out also,” Morris said. “I know how much you were looking forward to it. Why don’t you see if Rachel’s available? This reservation was damn hard to get, and it would be a shame to waste it.”

  Rachel was their twenty-three-year-old daughter who was currently a second-year law student at UCLA. While Rachel inherited Morris’s stubbornness, fortunately she physically took after Natalie. A slim, petite, dark-haired beautiful girl, although with Morris’s flinty slate-gray eyes.

  “You just want me going there so I bring you home an order of their pan-roasted chicken.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t complain if you did. Or if you also brought home a slice of their flourless chocolate espresso cake.”

  “Ha! I thought you’ve been talking about losing ten pounds.”

  “I can start tomorrow.” Morris made a harrumphing noise and added defensively, “You wouldn’t believe the willpower I exhibited today at the studio. Food tables laid out with free donuts and other sweets, and I resisted them all. A lesser man would’ve cracked.”

  “A slight exaggeration.”

  “Only slight.”

  Natalie made a hmm noise at that. “My poor hubby. It must’ve been torture,” she said. “I’ll see what Rachel has to say. But if I pick you up a slice of that cake, it will only be so I can have a taste.” Her tone turned more pensive as she asked, “I remember reading about those murders in New York. How sure are you that it’s the same person?”

  “At this point, no idea. I haven’t dipped my toes into the case yet. But be careful out there. And tell Rachel to be careful, and if for some fercockta reason she’s been thinking of dying her hair blonde, tell her not to.”

  Morris could just about hear his wife shudder over the phone, or perhaps he only imagined it.

  “That’s right,” she said in a softer, more fra
gile voice. “He always killed in threes. His next victim is going to be a woman my age. And the one after that, a girl Rachel’s age, although with blonde hair.”

  “If it’s the same person. I’ll have to ask you not to share this information with anyone. Not even Rachel.”

  “Aren’t they going to be warning the public about this?”

  “There’ll be a press conference later tonight to announce that MBI has been hired to lead up the investigation, but it’s undecided whether we’ll be tying this murder to the Skull Cracker Killer, or what details we’ll be giving. All that has to be figured out over the next few hours.”

  “So you’ll be having a long night?”

  “One of many I suppose.”

  “Try not to get home too late.” She hesitated before adding, “I don’t want that pan-roasted chicken giving you indigestion. Or the chocolate espresso cake. You know how you get when you eat after midnight.”

  Morris promised he’d get home as early as possible, and if he got home after midnight, he’d save the take-out food for breakfast the next morning. After he got off the call, he followed the hubbub to the back of the house where a good deal of activity seemed to be taking place. Morris recognized everyone there except one of the crime-scene guys. He nodded to Hadley who was talking to the medical examiner, Dr. Roger Smichen, a tall, cadaverous-looking man with a head as bald as an egg. For a long moment, Hadley glowered at him, red-faced and jowly, before consenting to nod back.

  “Brick, glad to have you and your firm working this,” he said in a gruff, unhappy tone that showed he wasn’t at all glad. He cleared his throat and told Morris he’d let Smichen fill him in on what was done to the victim, then walked away to converse with Detective Walsh. Walsh gave Morris a signal to indicate they’d talk soon.

  Morris had known Smichen for over twenty years, and Smichen always possessed a naturally dour disposition, although at times would show a sense of humor as dry as a martini that had only been given a whiff of vermouth. The ME wiggled his fingers at Morris so that Morris would join him by the body, and Morris followed him to where the corpse lay crumpled on the floor. The broken up parts of the skull were also on the floor and had been pieced together like a grotesque jigsaw puzzle. Less than a foot away from the dead man’s left ear were clumps of brain matter.

  “I thought you left the force and started your little investigation firm so you wouldn’t have to deal with murders like this,” Smichen said.

  “And yet here I am.”

  “Yes, here you are,” Smichen agreed, shaking his head dismally.

  “Was he alive when this was done to him?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. None of this was done postmortem. Obviously, there was a tremendous amount of damage to the skull, but I found a curiously shaped hematoma and several flakes of rust, which makes me think the victim was first hit on the back of the skull with a rusted pipe.”

  “He was hit from behind?”

  Smichen nodded as he pulled on his lower lip. He did a deep-knee bend and pointed with his index finger into the open cavity where there was no longer any skull, indicating the spot where the victim would’ve been hit. He grimaced and gingerly held his hip as he straightened back up.

  “Hmm,” Morris murmured as he tried to picture the blow. “The victim must’ve been bent over at the time.”

  “Possibly. I’ll see if I can determine that when I get back to the lab, but possibly.”

  “So the killer either held a gun to this poor guy and made him bend over, or he asked him to look at some spot on the floor, and then bam, smacked him with a rusty pipe. Any signs of a struggle?”

  “None. No defensive wounds either. I did find adhesive residue on the victim’s wrists. We’ll be figuring out what left it, but a good guess would be after the victim was knocked to the floor, his wrists were taped together behind his back, leaving him helpless.”

  “And then what? The killer takes a chisel and hammer and breaks apart the skull? Then uses the claw end of the hammer to dig out pieces of the brain?”

  Smichen gave Morris an appreciative look. “Very good. At least that would be my rudimentary guess. But again, I need to get this back to the lab before I can tell you for sure.”

  “Assuming that’s what happened, how hard would it be to do something like that?”

  “Not that hard, at least not if you’re determined and have a strong stomach.”

  Morris briefly closed his eyes and visualized the murder taking place. “At what point would the victim die?” he asked.

  “Not while the skull’s being broken apart. He’d probably go into shock once the brain is disturbed, but death wouldn’t occur until a good part of the brain was removed.”

  Smichen again pulled on his lower lip, revealing receding gums. At that moment he looked more cadaverous than at any time since Morris had known him.

  “I hope we don’t get any more like this one,” the ME said.

  Morris agreed, but the odds were likely there were going to be two more very soon. A woman in her forties, followed by a blonde girl in her twenties. Unless this wasn’t the real Skull Cracker Killer. Or unless Morris and MBI got incredibly lucky.

  Chapter Nine

  After Morris finished up with Roger Smichen, he next talked with Detective Walsh to get the lay of the land. As with the ME, Morris had known Walsh for a number of years. A tough-as-nails police officer who was bulldogged when it came to investigating her cases. Morris had tried recruiting her for MBI, but she turned him down, telling him that someone needed to stay on the force to catch the bad guys.

  “Corey Freeman,” Walsh said, telling Morris the name of the victim. “He was a realtor working at Lacey Properties here in Venice. The house is for sale, and Freeman’s body was discovered when another realtor was showing the home to a couple—”

  “Are they being kept under wraps?”

  Walsh nodded. “For now, yeah. They’re at the Santa Monica station on Olympic Drive. Before we let them go, you’ll get a chance to talk to them, and let them know what they can and can’t say. We received the call about the body at four. Uniforms had the site secured shortly after that, and I got here not much later, probably quarter past. It wasn’t hard to figure that I needed to get the FBI looking at this, and so I sent them the same digital shots that I think you’ve seen.”

  “Yeah, Doug Gilman had a set of prints made and showed me them when I got here.”

  “Okay, so those photos show how it looked before the ME and forensics team arrived. They didn’t change it too much other than seeing how the skull pieces fit together. It didn’t take long, maybe a few minutes after I sent those photos in, for me to get a call back from a field agent named Charlie Higgins telling me this looked like SCK. Higgins was one of the agents who had investigated the murders in New York. Other than that, we’ve got uniforms canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses, and Greg Malevich is trying to find out who Freeman was supposed to meet here.”

  Morris knew Malevich. A big, blustery guy, but also a solid detective.

  “We need to find out what time Freeman stepped into this house,” Morris said. “We’ll see what Roger comes up with for time of death, but I’m sure it will be at least a four-hour window, and knowing when Freeman came here will help a lot.”

  “We’re still in the dark about that. Just like we are about who he was showing the house to.”

  “If he was even showing the house,” Morris said, frowning. “He could’ve brought the killer here under a completely different pretext. Or maybe Freeman came here to show the house to someone else, and the killer knocked on the door and asked for a quick look around.” Morris sighed and rubbed his eyes as more possibilities came to mind. “We need to get all parking tickets from the area pulled over the last week.”

  Walsh agreed that made sense. The reason for looking for a week’s worth of parking tickets was in case the killer had come to the neighborhood other times, either for casing the house or as part of his planning.

&
nbsp; “How about a four block radius? Maybe we’ll get lucky with this.”

  “Sure, I’ll put a call in first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “We also need Freeman’s complete schedule for the last month. If he was in fact here under the pretext of showing the killer the house, this might not have been the first house he showed him. The killer could’ve been planning to kill Freeman at an earlier date, but was interrupted.”

  “I’ll talk to Greg and ask him to dig for that information.” Walsh showed a half grimace, half smirk. “Just our luck, huh? This psycho finally decides to crawl out from whatever rock in New York he’s been hiding under the last five years, and he has to come out here.”

  “If it’s really SCK.”

  “Ten to one it is.”

  Morris almost took Walsh up on that, but he’d never been much of a betting man. Besides, assuming the killer was going to keep killing, their best chances of catching him was if it really was SCK back at work. At least that way they’d have an FBI profiler who’d been studying the murders, as well as a small mountain of other investigative groundwork, and they wouldn’t have to be starting from scratch. And if it was SCK responsible for this killing, finding out why he’d been dormant for five years could be what breaks the case open.

  Morris decided he’d better get on the phone and talk to Detective Greg Malevich directly. They had no time to waste with this.

  Chapter Ten

  Henry ended up not killing Susan.

  He certainly considered doing it, though. For the full two hours it took to hike the trail, he tortured himself over whether he could get away with murdering her, and even after they’d arrived at the hidden and isolated spot he had discovered a month earlier, he continued to struggle over the matter. His distress must’ve shown plainly on his face, because Susan’s heavily-lined brow scrunched up as she looked at him worriedly and asked if he was feeling ill.