The Cleopatra Murders

by Mic Palmer

  “Wait a minute,” Jack thought to himself. “Was it possible that not one strand of hair made its way into the bag?” Carefully going through the contents one last time, he determined that this indeed was the case, and as a result couldn’t help but smile. Humans shed about 500 strands of hair a week, making Jack’s findings a spectacular anomaly.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Having completed his examination of Pelletier’s rubbish, Jack suddenly recalled his once urgent need to empty his bladder.

  “Hmm,” he murmured, surprised at how something so purely reflexive could’ve been so easily suppressed, but now that he was again mindful of it, the impulse returned, and within seconds he was squirming to get his fly open.

  “Ahhh,” he exhaled, still pleased over his findings. Maybe things would actually work out.

  The faucet to the sink was a bit stiff, so he had to give it a good turn, but before any water would come out, the pipes needed to sputter and shake.

  “What a dump,” he thought to himself, while splashing himself with some rusty water.

  Both warped and dirty, the mirror elongated his nose, enlarged his mouth, and shrunk his chin, giving him the look of a jackal, but what caught his attention was the three scratches just below his collar.

  Somewhat dumbfounded, he leaned over for a closer look. “What the hell?”

  All at once he grabbed his stomach. The nail it seemed had not only torn his shirt but left a fairly decent laceration. His only explanation was that the cold air and adrenaline must have numbed him to it.

  “Strange,” he thought to himself. So focused was he on the task before him that he had overlooked his wounds. In any event they were minor, nothing a band aid wouldn’t take care of.

  Touching the rows of congealed blood on his neck, he decided that they must have been caused by the tree. “No sense, no feeling,” he mumbled, as he kicked off his shoes.

  Insinuating himself onto the bed, he stretched out and yawned. At that moment he wanted nothing to do with the police, the serial killer, or the world, but out of reflex he found himself reaching for the remote. Even while he knew he should have smashed the damn thing into a thousand pieces, he quickly found himself scanning the channels.

  “This is a special report,” declaimed the announcer.

  “Here we go,” Jack fatalistically uttered.

  Sure enough another body had been found. Thankfully, however, it wasn’t Susan.

  Having been called out of bed, Betsy Tanner’s hair, which had been done up in some sort of asymmetrical bun, appeared thick and oily. Nevertheless, she spoke with great energy and zeal.

  “Found within a white shag carpet, the aspiring actress was described by friends as playful and vivacious. Having just landed a small role in a major motion picture, she thought she was finally on her way, but that was before earlier this evening, when after meeting some friends at a diner in Corona, Queens, she was attacked and murdered.”

  “Pretty girl,” Jack thought to himself. “She almost appeared to be smiling.”

  Just before she was covered in a sheet, the cameras went in for a close up. What they revealed was a delicate boned woman with a tiny nose and flawless albeit pallid skin. But for the purple, red and green blotches around her throat, you might have thought that she was asleep.

  With a deep crease running from her left eye down to her jaw, the newswoman was uncharacteristically somber. “The cause of death has not yet been determined, but one can’t help but notice the bruises around her neck. Unlike some of the other victims her body was not surgically violated, which raises the question of why? Why would the killer – the prime suspect still being Jack Lorenz – vary his approach like this?”

  “Screw you,” he responded, still taken aback by the victim’s rather cheerful expression. Could it be that she had been manipulated to look this way – or was it that she realized she’d finally be getting her close up?

  Sara Brooksfield; the name was everywhere. Before she passed, perhaps she had realized this.

  Feeling oddly distant from it all, Jack drowsily stared at the ceiling, but just before he was about to drift off, he heard something that had him running for the sink. Retching several times, he watched the drain back up into a pool of corn mash and undigested meat. “Why didn’t I use the toilet?” he admonished, while rinsing out his mouth.

  Having been murdered about fifteen minutes west of Jack’s motel, in Brighton Beach, at about the same time he was frittering his way back from Pelletier’s, the woman suddenly seemed familiar to him. In fact he could almost see himself watching her.

  “Stop it!” he urged. Of course he thought he knew her. The artificially swollen upper lip, the blond hair, the long legs, the pinched remains of a once normal sized nose, she looked like a thousand other women in the industry, including Betsy Tanner. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Taking a flashlight, he examined his car for blood, which to his great surprise, was all over the front seat. How could he have he missed this?

  Suddenly he remembered the scratches on his neck, which he had earlier attributed to a tree, only now they looked as though they could have been made by fingernails.

  “Fuck,” he groaned.

  It’s a terrible thing not to trust one’s own mind, but that’s where he was. Whereas most people take it for granted that what they see is fact, Jack took in the world with a grain of salt. The universe was a shadow and all possibilities were in play. Did he suffer from multiple personalities? Was he crazy?

  “Impossible!” he fought back. Someone would have noticed by now. He would have been locked up, psychoanalyzed, medicated.

  Nevertheless, there was a problem. Having picked up his land line at about the same time as the last murder, Pelletier had basically cleared himself, meaning that Jack’s list of suspects had proved to be about as meaningful as his art.

  “There’s no one left,” he panicked, knowing that this wasn’t quite the case.

  Rather there was no one he cared to focus upon, but focus he did, until his thoughts collapsed into a boiling cauldron of despair.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Illuminated by the flashing images from the television, Jack’s face had the dull look of someone who had given up. He was depleted, discomfited, numb.

  “We have an update,” announced the white haired journalist, his head jerking with excitement. “The commissioner’s office has just released the earliest photos of the crime scene. As you can see the victim is grasping flowers. In her right hand are roses and in her left what appear to be water lilies. Not surprisingly they were quickly removed for the purpose of analysis.”

  Suddenly Jack perked up. Why go to all that trouble? What did it mean? Fortunately, there was no shortage of opinions, even if some were a bit mundane.

  Who didn’t know for instance that roses had long been symbols of love, passion, and beauty? What Jack found interesting, however, was the fact that Cleopatra may have been the person most responsible for creating this impression.

  Using the petals as a kind of aphrodisiac, she would have them scattered about rooms, stuffed within pillow cushions, and draped about her handmaidens, the well known result of which was that she captured the stoic hearts of two of the world’s most powerful men.

  Nevertheless, what really got the media buzzing were the blue water lilies. One scholar in particular seemed to be panting over them. “Oddly enough,” he gurgled, “they were part of the Egyptian creation myth.”

  Bill Butler looked down for a moment, his shrunken chin momentarily disappearing into his neck. “Creation?” he responded, with a practiced hint of indignation.

  Looking older than his seventy years, the professor had a long taught face, slippery pink lips and a wide fleshy nose. “According to the legend,” he enthusiastically went on, “the universe began as a sea of darkness, but from the depths rose a water lily which contained a baby. That baby became the Creator, otherwise know to the Egyptians as Ra or the Sun God. Ra n
ot only saved the world from darkness, but through his thoughts infused life into all of its creatures.”

  “So what you’re saying is that whoever did this conceives of himself as some kind of god?”

  “Well it cuts both ways. The myth goes on to say that at the end of the day, when the petals eventually close, darkness again returns to the world. Perhaps whoever did this meant to convey not his sense of power but his feelings of despair. As you can see the petals aren’t just crumpled, but withered. This may not have been an accident.”

  The police psychologist on the split screen appeared miffed. Although she had taken her hair out of the bun and glossed up her impossibly plump lips, she still sported the horned rimmed glasses. “To discuss the flowers without analyzing their positioning I think misses the point. In her right hand we have the roses, while in her left the water lilies. The roses moreover were placed over her heart, while the lilies were left dangling by her side.”

  Having been silent long enough, Butler appeared painfully curious. “Are you saying that he preferred one flower over the other?”

  The psychologist had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “What I’m saying is that he prefers the ideas associated with the rose over those of the water lily.”

  Butler seemed impatient. “So in the midst of all this death, the killer somehow sees himself as a romantic.”

  “I think he sees himself as a person who consciously puts passion above order.”

  “And this is all based on the choice and positioning of the flowers?”

  “All of the ideas associated with the rose are personal and subjective, whereas those having to do with the water lily are more objective, more universal. They derive not from ourselves but a lawgiver.”

  Gesturing so that his palms faced the ceiling, Butler felt she was stating the obvious. “So whoever where looking for here is not fan of rules.”

  “In subordinating the water lily,” went on the psychologist, “what I think he’s saying is that he’s driven by his own sense of things. As for the thoughts of others, they’re irrelevant.”

  “So the only opinion that counts is his own?”

  “Exactly, but given the hateful violence, not to mention all the trouble he’s gone to in order to explain himself, it’s fairly clear that he’s battling massive insecurities. All of the symbolism regarding the flowers therefore would appear to be nothing more than a rather elaborate effort to explain away his inadequacies.”

  Feeling somewhat neglected, the professor straightened his already perfect tie. “Oddly,” he interrupted, “the water lily was said to have all sorts of pharmacological properties, including the power to improve one’s sexual functioning.”

  “That fits nicely,” commented the psychologist. “Having positioned the water lilies in the left hand – the hand traditionally associated with evil – he seems to be placing spiritual love, or at least his demented version of it, above that of the carnal, which again may speak to his inadequacies.”

  The journalist assumed a skeptical countenance. “But aren’t we reading just a bit too much into this? Isn’t it possible that the flowers have no more significance here than at your average wake – to brighten things up, to say goodbye, to show respect even. I mean the man’s clearly disturbed. Is it really possible to divine what he’s thinking?”

  “You’re certainly right,” interjected the professor. “Clearly we’re piling conjecture upon conjecture, but the details he’s come up with are really quite extraordinary and running through it all is the fantasy of subduing an extremely powerful and sensual woman.”

  “Which is why,” she psychologist added, “these crimes have to be interpreted as the acts of a man absolutely terrified by the opposite sex.”

  “Terrified or embittered?”

  “The hostility derives from fear,” went on the psychologist. “And the way he works this out is to engage in significant acts of intimacy.”

  “Intimacy?”

  “Individuals with this sort of pathology may strangle their victims, undress them, smother them, or sometimes even surgically remove parts of their body, but in every case it’s up close and personal. What this does is allow them to convince themselves that they’ve been involved in some sort of deep personal relationship.”

  Butler was appalled. “Clearly, this is one disturbed individual.”

  “That’s one thing we can be sure of.”

  “Am I correct in stating that there’s no evidence of any sort of sexual violation?”

  “Yes,” replied the woman, “which is consistent with the fact that he probably suffers from intractable sexual issues.”

  “So what the killer is really trying to accomplish is to prove he’s normal?”

  “Ironically, yes,” replied the psychologist, somehow feeling that he had oversimplified things.

  “And yet he chooses to avoid any sort of sexual component.”

  “Rather he’s pretending to choose,” said the psychologist, “thereby giving him an excuse for his inability to perform.”

  Again feeling ignored, the professor forced himself to jump back in. “The symbolism of the flowers, therefore, could have two potential functions, first to show that societal norms mean little to him, and second, that he places intimacy above lust.”

  “In either case,” added the woman, “what he’s really doing is a salvage job on his ego.”

  The reporter appeared pressed for time. “Before we wrap things up, it strikes me that the imagery relating to the rose and especially the water lily is somewhat arcane. Would you agree that the killer may very well have some sort of academic background?”

  While the experts temporized, Jack let out a Bronx cheer. “What background?” he thought to himself. “Ten minutes on a computer and I could’ve come up with same thing.”

  His derision, however, soon turned to swirling disorientation. For just as he was starting to feel a bit better about himself, the police dropped a bombshell.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Blood from the house where the gangbangers were found had been matched up to hair samples taken from his apartment, again causing him to consider the possibility that he may have indeed been responsible.

  “No way!” he thought to himself. “Even if I was in some kind of trance, how could I have possibly taken on 3 men like that. I could barely handle one of them.”

  But then he started considering the possibility of hidden powers – abilities only present during altered states of consciousness, like when a woman lifts a car to save her child. As a matter of fact he began to fancy the idea, before of course he recalled the link between the massacre and the murdered women.

  “No,” Jack told himself. “I’m no killer,” but then he recalled his hatred for Ernesto, his rage, his visceral desire to crush the life out of him.

  “So what,” he responded to himself. “Who wouldn’t feel that way? The fact remains that the attack had to have been carried out by more than one man, probably a gang – not some out of shape guy with a bad back.”

  Then again he had been feeling pretty good as of late, as a matter of fact, better than he had in years. Had he begun to spontaneously heal, perhaps from the weight loss, or was the back problem a kind of defense mechanism, a creation of his sub-conscious to protect him from unsavory thoughts?

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Jack slept fitfully that night. Untethered by the rituals and distractions of ordinary life, his mind was adrift in a dense vortex of horrific possibilities. Dosing off every now and then, only to wake up gasping, he’d smack his pillow, flip over, and then pull the damp comforter over his head. Eventually, however, he gave up, at which point he threw off the covers and rolled onto his back. “Son of a bitch,” grumbled.

  Even though he had cleaned up the vomit, an oppressive stench still hung over the room. It was thick, sticky, suffocating. He felt as if the walls were moving in on him. “That’s it!” he finally shouted, before getting dressed and grabbing his keys.

 
With the orange horizon announcing the coming of dawn, he headed for his car. Before he could get in, however, he was accosted by a rail thin blonde in a short skirt and black leather jacket. “How about a date?” she smiled, her thin brown teeth appearing translucent in the brilliant glow of the yellow neon vacancy sign.

  “No thanks,” intoned Jack, from his dark blue hood.

  With exploding pupils, darting eyes, and the jerky almost robotic movements of the bride of Frankenstein, she appeared as if she had spent the last month on a strict diet of coke, caffeine, and heroine. Grabbing Jack by the arm with a long leathery hand, she forcefully pulled him toward her, allowing him to catch a whiff of her breath – a fiery mixture of cigarettes, beer, and male essence.

  Removing her claws from his now stretched out sweat shirt, he again attempted to insert the key into the lock. “I told you; I’m not interested.”

  Like a shadow, however, she managed to slip into the tiny space between him and the door, all wired and vicious. “What’s the matter honey,” she asked through thin cantankerous lips, “don’t like women?”

  Pushing her away, he caught sight of her gaunt grey overly rouged up face and realized that he hated her. Her expression was that of permanently sucking on a cigarette, hollow, pursed, wasted, but what really got to him were her bulging velvety blue eyes. They were knowing, contemptuous, mocking.

  Observing her long pink talons, Jack was reminded of his night with Michelle. Could it be that there was just something about him that made women want to give him a slap?

  Quickly she went for his face, but before she made contact, he grabbed her arms and threw her onto her buttocks, her short red dress retracting over swollen genitals. Not bothering to get up, she began to laugh, deep, malevolent, merciless. “You got the look of a real loser, you know that. What the fuck happened to your eyebrows?”