Bleeders

by Anthony Bruno

  She glanced at the television. A vibrant green baseball diamond was on the screen. The pitcher threw a pitch, and the batter connected. The camera followed the ball into the stands just inches clear of the foul pole. The jubilant batter rounding the bases, then stepped on home plate, waving to the crowd with a big smile on his face. She looked away. It was hard to watch someone else’s joy.

  The way the bed was positioned next to the window reminded her of her mother’s room in the country, the big bed surrounded by three bay windows. It also reminded her of the image that haunted her—her mother’s lifeless body. That memory would sometimes appear in her mind out of nowhere, like a ghostly face rising through murky water. She’d often thought that even if she suffered brain damage and lost her memory, that image could never be erased. She’d seen her mother’s body for only a few seconds, but it was permanently imprinted.

  She remembered it like a movie she’d seen countless times. She had just finished her set with her father and his band at the big summer party, and she was parched. She wanted a root beer, but all she could find outside in the coolers were cans of Coke and Sprite and ginger ale, so she went inside to look in the refrigerator. She was alone in the kitchen, holding the refrigerator door open, pushing jugs of orange juice and milk aside, certain that there had to be a can of root beer somewhere in there. Root beer was her favorite, and they always had some on hand. She squatted on her heels and started pawing through the jam jars and Tupperware on the bottom shelf when she heard the scream. A scream followed by a hysterical, high-pitched, “Natalie!”

  She jumped up and froze, her heart pounding, dreading that the moment had finally come, that her mother had succumbed to her disease. She ran to the living room and up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. She dashed down the corridor to the master bedroom, sensing that her mother was dead, fearing that she’d be so pale and wasted she’d be unrecognizable. But when Trisha barged into the room, the color she saw was not the one she expected.

  Red.

  Crimson red.

  Blood on the sheets.

  An unfurled flag of blood.

  An ocean of blood.

  Her first thought was that a vicious animal had come in through the window and attacked her mother, ripping the inside of her arm to shreds. Her body was as limp as a rag doll, her head lolled back, her mouth open. Michelle, the heavyset nurse with the long single braid down her back, hovered over the bed, sobbing. Trisha realized then that Michelle was the one who had just screamed.

  Michelle noticed Trisha standing in the doorway, and she rushed to her, blocking her view and encasing her in her bosom, covering Trisha’s eyes with her hand. She swept her out of the room, and Trisha was too shocked to resist. The nurse took her to the end of the hallway, threw open a window, and yelled for help, not in panic but in the forceful, commanding way that nurses have in a crisis. Michelle’s hysteria had evaporated as soon as Trisha showed up. Trisha remembered hugging her tight, grateful to be in her fleshy arms, wishing she could burrow deeper into the folds of her body.

  And that was the last time she saw her mother. Her father had always felt that open-casket funerals were grotesque, and he said he’d be damned if he’d let the paparazzi snap photos of his wife’s decimated body and have the world’s last remembrance of her be as a murder victim instead of the beautiful, creative person that she was. Trisha and Cindy were given no say in the matter, but part of Trisha wanted to see her mom one last time to say goodbye, though she was also terrified that seeing her dead would be frightening. Later as an adult she regretted that she hadn’t insisted on seeing the body. No matter how her mother had looked—even artificially beautified by a mortician—it would have been a better parting memory than the one Trisha had—a ghost lying in her own blood.

  Her mother’s death was deemed a homicide. Initially those who saw her assumed that she’d bled to death, but an autopsy revealed that air had been injected into a vein, stopping her heart. It was suggested that she might have taken her own life because she was in a lot of pain and knew the end was near, but the county medical examiner ruled that out. The angle of the puncture wounds indicated that another person had done it. Also her mother probably didn’t have the strength or the stamina to jab herself over and over, desperately trying to hit the vein.

  The medical examiner wrote in her report that the murderer must have been extraordinarily cruel, drunk, or high on drugs to have done what he did, estimating that Trisha’s mother had been jabbed nearly 80 times. This person was either an unfeeling monster or maniacally obsessed. The state detectives who worked the case had found bloody footprints on the rug but only the left foot. They surmised that the killer had stayed with her mother as she bled out and possibly after death because he had stepped on a bloody section of the comforter that was on the floor. Forensic experts estimated that it would have taken 40 to 60 minutes for blood to seep from her mother’s arm to the floor.

  Trisha practically knew those reports by heart she’d read them so many times. Over the years with every case she worked, she considered the possibility that the killer she was profiling was the one who took her mother. The chances were one in a billion, but still she kept that hope alive like a candle in a cavern. The FBI estimated that at any given time there are no more than 50 active serial killers operating in the United States, the psychosis was that rare. But the man who had murdered her mother could still be active, and that could be Gene Lassiter.

  He knew that song, “I Need You.” But how? Where would he have heard it? At that party? Over 250 people had attended—he could have snuck in and blended with the crowd. Lassiter would have been in his late teens/early twenties, the age when serial killers typically start to blossom.

  But the man who had killed her mother shot an air bubble into her vein. The carnage was the result of his incompetence with a needle. But killers evolve. A hypodermic to the arm could eventually become a spinal needle to the heart if the thrill was in the bleeding. He’d botched it with her mother but in the process found that he liked blood. He liked to watch the life drain out of a woman. Maybe he liked the feel of blood or the smell of it. Her mom’s killer had stuck around and watched. It was totally possible that Drac was the bastard who had done it. But was Lassiter Drac? Gene was a violent creep and a despicable thief, but was he a serial killer?

  She realized she’d been staring blankly at the TV when the bright colors of the baseball field were suddenly replaced by a printed notice that said Special Report. A news anchor appeared on the screen, a handsome man in his sixties with thinning sandy hair and rimless eyeglasses. The news crawl at the bottom of the screen said, Suspected Serial Killer Released. Trisha grabbed the remote from the night table and held down the Volume button.

  “…Judge Neuhauser set bail at one million dollars,” the anchorman said. “Lassiter, who is reported to be a multi-millionaire, made bail and was released this afternoon.”

  News footage showed Lassiter exiting the courthouse with a husky middle-aged man with dark slicked-back hair and a blue double-breasted suit, who shielded him from reporters and cameramen. Trisha didn’t need to be told that this was his attorney. Defense lawyers always seemed to be a little flashier—and a lot more arrogant—than other lawyers. Some of them, like this guy, carried themselves like Mafia dons. The lawyer descended the courthouse steps, cutting through the crowd like an icebreaker with Lassiter right next to him. Lassiter’s expression was flat. Despite the crush of people, he acted as if nothing was going on around him, as if he were walking through a field of high grass all by himself.

  The image on the screen switched to his lawyer standing in front of a half dozen outstretched microphones. “My client is innocent. It’s as simple as that. The police, in their desperation to apprehend the individual known as ‘Drac,’ arrested my client based on flimsy, unsubstantiated evidence.”

  “The hell it is,” Trisha grumbled. “Ge
tting caught attacking a woman with a weapon is not flimsy evidence.”

  The image switched to Lassiter slipping into the backseat of a black Lincoln Towncar, which pulled away from the curb as soon as the attorney got in. Reporters filled the void in the car’s wake like flood water.

  The anchorman returned to the screen. “Once again, Gene Lassiter, the man suspected of being the serial killer known as ‘Drac,’ has been released on bail. Lassiter, a well-respected wealth manager whose clients include many celebrities, including rock’n’roll legend turned philanthropist, Michael McCleery, has not been charged with any of the ‘Drac’ murders, but police officials say that other charges are pending.”

  “Thanks for the mention,” Trisha muttered. “I’m sure Dad will appreciate it.”

  Assistant Chief Franco’s face took over the screen, the camera shooting her at an unflattering angle up her nose. “I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation at this time,” she said. “As of now, Mr. Lassiter has been charged with assault. That’s all I can say. Now if you will excuse me.” She shouldered a reporter out of her way as she walked off camera.

  Trisha could tell that Franco was stressed from her strong Astoria accent with its exaggerated sibilant “s.” Normally she kept her “New Yawk” under control, but she was no doubt under the gun from her superiors to get more evidence on Lassiter ASAP so that the judge would revoke bail and send him back to jail. Trisha didn’t like Franco, but she was angry at the way the press was portraying her—a bitchy female bureaucrat covering up for implied police department incompetence. That wasn’t the case at all, but Trisha understood how the press worked. Every story needed a villain, and until they had a definite Drac, Franco would have to be it.

  “This has been a special report,” the anchor said. “We bring you back to regular scheduled programming which is now in progress.”

  A scruffy pitcher in a red Phillies cap, shaking his head at signs from his catcher, filled the screen. “This young man has gotten himself into a jam here in the seventh inning,” the voice of an off-screen sportscaster said. Trisha turned down the sound and heard the buzz of her cell phone vibrating on the bare wood of the night table. She snatched it up, expecting it to be her father or her sister, but the caller ID readout indicated it was someone else. There was no name, just an area code and phone number, but Trisha recognized it immediately. She pressed Send.

  “Hey, Pete. What’s up?” She could hear the fatigue in her own voice.

  “What’re you doing? Right now.” Pete sounded serious.

  “I’m… I’m processing. It’s been a big day.”

  “Do that later. We just got a warrant to search Shugrue’s place in Brooklyn. I’m on my way right now. Meet me there.”

  “I…” Trisha was so tired she considered making up an excuse.

  “If you wanna stay in the loop, you should be there.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. The department shrinks think Lassiter and Shugrue are a killing team. It’s not unheard of.”

  “No. It’s not. There have been several well documented cases of two people doing serial murders together.”

  “There you go. So come on, get off your butt and meet me there. You do want an FBI presence on the scene, don’t you?”

  She caught his drift. If she wasn’t there, the police department would take all the credit for breaking the case and she’d catch hell for it.

  “Okay, I’ll be there.” She sat up and put her feet on the floor.

  He gave her the address and hung up.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, the phone in her hand, adrenaline coursing through her, making her forget that she was ever tired. She stepped into her flats, evaluating the likelihood of a killing team as she grabbed her jacket and bag and rushed toward the door.

  It wasn’t impossible, she thought. Lassiter could have brought Shugrue into it. The old hand taking on an apprentice. But did that make Lassiter a less likely suspect in her mother’s murder?

  She whipped open the apartment door and headed for the elevators.

  >>

  Chapter 21

  Richard Shugrue’s apartment was a beehive of activity when Trisha arrived. A team of detectives systematically executed the search warrant, at least two in each room, looking in drawers and cupboards, looking under the beds and in the closets, feeling for loose floorboards, poking ceiling tiles, leaving no surface untouched. While this was gong on, Shugrue sat on the worn blue velveteen sofa in the living room, waiting for what came next. He wore a pair of baggy jeans and a rust-colored Arcade Fire t-shirt, and his feet were bare. He gripped the seat cushion with both hands as if he were careening down a snow-covered slope in a toboggan. His expression conveyed a shifting mixture of moods—sulky, bewildered, scared. The short black female detective with the serious face who had been at the Robin Savitzsky crime scene stood over him like a detention monitor, making sure he stayed put. She made brief eye contact with Trisha, and Trisha nodded back, not sure if this was the taciturn detective’s way of saying hello.

  As Trisha looked around for Pete, Shugrue stared up at her, his eyes begging her to take pity on him. She figured hers was the only familiar face in the apartment.

  “Ms. McCleery,” he said, his voice cracking, “I didn’t do anything. I don’t understand. I—”

  The serious detective interrupted him. “Mr. Shugrue, you were advised that anything you might say could be held against you.”

  A heavyset, prematurely gray detective who had been feeling through the curtains stopped what he was doing to listen.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” Shugrue said. “I just did what Mr. Lassiter told me to do.”

  “Just following orders,” the gray-haired detective said under his breath.

  Shugrue ignored him and honed in on Trisha. “Ms. McCleery… Agent McCleery. Please help me. I don’t know what to do.”

  Trisha said nothing. She was not unaffected by his plea, but she knew from experience that serial offenders were often very good actors, and some were able to convince themselves of their innocence despite the horrible crimes they’d committed. She hoped to interview him one-on-one to get an in-depth impression, but for the moment it was best to have no interaction at all. If he perceived her as an ally or a go-between with the police, it would taint everything he said and keep him from revealing his real reactions.

  Trisha stepped farther into the room, looking for Pete. “Is Detective Warwick around?”

  “Please do not touch anything,” Detective Serious said.

  “He’s in the kitchen,” the gray-haired detective said, going back to the curtains.

  But as she headed toward the kitchen, she heard someone calling to her from the hallway. “Trisha.” Barry Krieger stepped just inside the doorway, wearing a dark suit. He nodded for her to come toward him. “A word, please?” She followed him out to the landing at the top of the stairs.

  “What do you think?” he asked, keeping his voice down.

  “I just got here.”

  He peered through the doorway at Shugrue on the sofa. “He looks about right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “White male in his twenties. Loner. Socially backward.”

  “Hang on, hang on. How do you know all this? I haven’t heard word one about this guy.”

  “Come on, Trisha. How much do you need to know? You’ve worked enough of these cases to know the pattern. He fits the profile.”

  Barry had a point, but she didn’t want to accept it automatically. Yes, serial killers were overwhelmingly white males in their twenties, but there were exceptions—African-Americans and Hispanics. And older men whose killing careers had been interrupted by prison terms for unrelated offenses. They often pick up where they’d left off after they’re released. And then there were the smart ones who are extreme
ly cautious and cover their tracks very well. Lassiter would probably fit under that category—if he was in fact Drac. But at this point that was a big if.

  “I’m going to arrange for you to interview this guy as soon as possible,” Barry said, “so you can write up a profile.”

  “And do what? Rubberstamp whatever charges they bring against him? I won’t do that, Barry. I need time to work with him. One interview is never enough. You know that.”

  His face hardened. “Do I have to remind you how much pressure I’m under to get some closure on this case? The First Lady calls the Director every other day for an update. I have to file a report on this every day.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “And?”

  “And what? You expect me to railroad Shugrue to please the First Lady? I won’t do that. And I know deep down you don’t want me to.”

  “I resent the implication that I would want anything but justice served. What I’m asking you—no, telling you, Trisha—is that I want you to interview this man and expedite a profile we can share with the police. Then they can decide his fate. Understood?”

  “Ms. McCleery?” Shugrue called to her from the sofa. “Ms. McCleery?” His eyes were puppy-dog pathetic. “Can I talk to you? Please?”

  Detective Serious glared at Trisha as if it were her fault that Shugrue wasn’t behaving the way she wanted.

  “I’ll call Colleen Franco,” Barry said in her ear. “I’ll have her hold Shugrue long enough for you to interview him. Clearly he trusts you. If he’s Drac, I’m sure he’ll let you know one way or another.”

  “Fine. I’ll talk to him. But if I don’t think he’s our guy, I’m gonna say so.”

  “Of course. I just expect you to do your job.”

  She hoped he meant that.