15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  “Death certificate!” I said out loud. Santiago was typing away at his computer. He looked up at me and shrugged.

  “I’m afraid I won’t get mine for a while now,” he said.

  “No, you fucking dick. I’m talking about this guy’s death certificate. Surely he must have one. And when we find it, we find him. And where he was buried.”

  Santiago smiled once again. “You’re forgetting something, Frank, my old chum.”

  I shook my head and said, “What?”

  “You’re forgetting that some things are best left buried.”

  I stood up and grabbed my coat from behind my chair. I slipped it on and cracked my neck.

  “MAYBE WE SHOULD BURY HIM!” the voice bellowed into my cranium.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Santiago asked.

  “To find a goddamn dead man!”

  Santiago protested with his eyes. I could tell that he wasn’t exactly happy. But he got up, too, and followed me out of the precinct. It was freezing outside. Boston had a blanket of snow on the ground and a blanket of clouds in the sky. We got into the Ford and revved the engine to life.

  “And where exactly are we going to find a dead man?” Santiago inquired as I shifted the car into first.

  “Where you find all dead men. Six feet under.”

  Nine

  “I don’t get why we’re here. We don’t even know if the guy’s body is here, let alone buried in Boston. I mean, he could have been taken to a lab for experiments. You know what the government is like,” Santiago said as we both sat idle in the car. The engine had been turned off, and I listened to it tick as it cooled down.

  “The Machete Man won’t be buried here,” I said out loud as I watched a group of people being led into the graveyard. They were on some sort of tour.

  “So why the hell are we here, then?”

  I turned to face my partner. “We’re here to get into the mind of death. We’re here to learn a thing or two about the history of dying.”

  Santiago shook his head and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small flask and unscrewed the cap. After sipping on whatever was in that flask, he offered me some. I declined. He put the cap back on and put the flask back in its place. Right next to his heart.

  “I don’t think we need to learn the history of death, Frank. We see the damn bitch day in, day out. Surely we should be studying the prevention of death. Then maybe we could cut the murder rate in this town in half!”

  “You can’t prevent death,” I said, reaching for the seatbelt. I undid it and opened the car door. A cold breeze hit my arm as I got out of the car and shut the door behind me. I watched as Santiago struggled out of the vehicle. Years of paperwork and slouching while eating had made his back a little bothersome. But luckily for him, he was still a relatively young man.

  “I still don’t understand why we’re here. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Inspiration.”

  I didn’t add much else to that. I just walked toward the archway. On a plaque above the archway, there was a sign: “Granary Burial Ground.”

  Santiago was behind me. I could hear him breathing. He was obviously annoyed. I could tell by the way the air was leaving his mouth. It sounded pissed off.

  “What the hell is wrong with people? It’s Christmas Eve, and they’re getting a tour of a graveyard,” Santiago said.

  “This place so happens to be quite important, San. Members of the Franklin family are buried here.”

  San came up beside me. He was swinging his arms as he walked. “So that’s why we here? To pay our respects to some dead guy?”

  “No. He’s not buried here. Just his family.”

  “Makes sense,” San huffed as we walked down a small path. We were surrounded by low gravestones. They all looked weathered and old. I breathed in a lungful of air and sighed. History tasted great on the tip of my tongue. It was like the air held secrets. And those secrets were flooding through my lungs and coursing into my bloodstream.

  “So, you going to tell me why the hell we are here?”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d found what I was looking for. Santiago spotted what I was looking at. He had a questioning look on his face, like I was trying to stump him or something, and this was all just a game. But it wasn’t. There was a reason we were there.

  “Who the hell is Crispus Attucks?” Santiago asked.

  “Someone who was killed.”

  “Really? In a graveyard? Someone who was killed?” I heard Santiago say sarcastically.

  “I mean,” he was about to say, but I interrupted him.

  “I know what you meant. Crispus Attucks was one of the victims from the Boston Massacre.”

  “The Boston Massacre?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Santiago. Didn’t you go to fucking school?”

  “I’m a dropout. You know that all I was doing at school was the teacher!”

  “Yeah, whatever. Look, I came down here to think. To clear my head. To analyze.”

  “Analyze what, exactly? Some dude gets killed in 1770, his body is still here. No need to analyse that, Frank.”

  “Five ‘dudes’ died, San. And that’s not why we are here.”

  Santiago knelt down on one knee and brushed some dirt off the grave stone.

  “So why are we here?” he asked.

  I also got on one knee and touched the stone. Not to brush anything off it, but to feel history. I never missed an opportunity to touch. The sensation of touch is important. It helps me deal with reality. “We’re here to appreciate what happens when somebody gets backed into a corner.”

  “Who got backed into a corner?” San asked.

  “A soldier named Montgomery. After hours at the hands of a taunting mob, he finally had enough and discharged his musket after being hit in the head with a rock.”

  “That’s how these five dudes got canned, then?”

  “Like sardines.”

  There was a pause for a while. It was as if both San and I were drinking in the atmosphere. The history. The violence of that day and how violence stands the test of time. How humanity never changes. How blood still runs down these streets.

  “So what has this got to do with our guy?” San asked, standing up. His knees cracked as he did so.

  “Much can be learned from the Boston Massacre. One of those things being that no matter how hard we get pushed, no matter how big the mob, we don’t jump the gun and resort to violence.”

  “But this guy needs to be stopped. I’m not going to lie, man — if I get the chance, I’ll pop a bullet in his head.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, Santiago. We’ll get him by any means necessary. But this time, let’s hope we get the right guy.”

  San’s face went white. “You don’t think we got the right guy last time?”

  “He’s still breathing, isn’t he? Last time I checked, the Machete Man had a few hundred holes in his neck. Someone switched the bodies. Saved our guy, or worse, it wasn’t our guy at all. Just some stooge. Like it was planned out.”

  Santiago started to laugh. It was a weird thing to do in a cemetery. “No offense, Frank, but that’s one long shot. There’s no place for conspiracy theories in a murder case.”

  “We’ll see who’s right about this,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my cell. It was vibrating. I was getting a call. I pressed the green button and said, “Hello?”

  “Get down to Heath Street Station. We have three women missing their heads. It’s like a horror movie down there,” Chief Shaw said into the phone.

  I grunted and pressed the red button, then put the cell back in my pocket and looked at Santiago.

  “Looks like our conspiracy theory has just beheaded three women.”

  Ten

  “What do you think goes through somebody’s mind as they are being beheaded?” Santiago asked as I surveyed what was in front of me.

  I closed my eyes in distress for a few seconds. I thought that if I did s
o, then maybe when I opened them again, what was by my feet would be gone and I’d wake up in a cold sweat, realizing it was all a dream. But unfortunately for me, when I opened my eyes, the horrors beneath my feet remained.

  “I couldn’t possibly say,” I replied. A few bright industrial flashes went off. I could hear bulbs cracking under the heat. CSI were doing their thing. Taking pictures. Bagging stuff up. Being all meticulous while the voices in my head screamed. They were bloodthirsty. Angry. Ready for vengeance. Whoever did something like this to people deserved bad things to happen to them. And I was open to being the one who did those bad things.

  “Clean cuts to the neck. Severed spinal cord after maybe three attempts,” I heard a voice say. I turned around and was met by a stern look. It was coming from the coroner. A new guy named Hank. Was a bit of a prick, but did the job right. You’d swear that the asshole actually enjoyed his work, judging by the expression on his face at the sight of blood. But I’d put that look down to habit. The habit of turning up, doing a job, and going home to tuck your kids into bed.

  “Three attempts? Seems pretty long to me,” Santiago offered.

  All three of us, the coroner, San, and I, were standing on the blood-stained platform. The station was closed. Not because of train delays or strikes, but because of what lay at our feet. Three females. Beheaded. Blood everywhere. Never seen so much, in fact. And that’s saying something.

  “Actually, three whacks to take somebody’s head off is actually quite fast. Better than sawing it off,” the coroner offered, kneeling down for a closer look. He was wearing forensic gloves. He gently moved one of the severed heads a little to the right. It rolled some, revealing a bloody hanging chunk of bones, ligaments, and spinal cord where the head had been detached from the torso. The rest of the body wasn’t that far away from the head. Maybe a yard. All three women were accounted for. Three heads. Three bodies. We just didn’t know which head belonged to which body. There was too much blood on the ground.

  “You see the angle in which the neck was struck?” the coroner asked me. I didn’t feel like partaking in his observations, but I decided to be professional and give it a crack, no matter how bad my stomach was making me feel.

  “Yeah, it’s at a higher angle,” I said.

  “Do you know what that signifies?”

  I shook my head. Santiago patted me on the shoulder for moral support. I guess he could tell I was having a hard time with this.

  “It signifies that our killer is tall. Very tall, in fact. Considering that these women seem to be of average height, I’d suggest he’s close to seven feet tall.”

  I laughed under my breath.

  “You don’t get many of them,” I heard Santiago say.

  “Nope, you certainly don’t. So this guy is freakishly tall?” I asked.

  “Yep. And big. Built like a stack of shit. A big stack of shit. The type of shit that burns and makes you regret what you ate or drank the night before.”

  “So he’s a giant with a sword?” Santiago asked.

  “Nope, I think he’s using a machete.”

  “Just like the first kill in the box. The one you and I found, San. Forensics said that they suspected a machete was being used.”

  “Not just any machete, boys. But a big fuck of a machete. Matches our guy. He likes to do everything big. First there was a girl in a box. Now there are three headless women.”

  “So six people next?” Santiago asked.

  None of us replied. We all just continued to survey the mess. A few forensic personnel were still taking pictures and whatnot. I was off daydreaming. I had my attention on the tracks to our left. The platform we were on was dumping most of the blood onto the tracks. Drips and drops of the stuff. After a while, that was all I could hear.

  DRIP…..DRIP…..DRIP……DRIP…..

  “We found something!” I heard a muffled voice shout. We were beckoned over to a pillar a few yards from our three headless ladies. There was a drain parallel to the support beam. Blood was flowing into it, and something sat lodged between the drain grate and the platform floor. The CSI who called us over picked it up. It was some sort of card. Like a greeting card. It was covered in blood and nearly unreadable. But we tried nonetheless. Four of us huddled in a circle, Forensic Guy holding a flashlight, the rest of us staring at the card. I was the first to read it and understand it. The other three weren’t too far behind. Santiago gasped.

  “We need to get to Faneuil Hall Marketplace, and fast,” I blurted out.

  Santiago nodded. He was still staring at the greeting card and hoping that the killer wouldn’t do what we thought he was about to do. We quickly rushed out of Heath Street Station and ran up a small stairwell. We emerged onto street level. Our car was parked at the curb. I opened the door and turned the key. The engine came bursting into life.

  “You think he’ll do it?” Santiago asked.

  “Oh, he’ll do it,” I replied. What was on the greeting card near the decapitated women was starting to grate on me. I kept repeating it over and over again in my head.

  There’s nothing like last-minute Christmas shopping. Or should I say, Christmas chopping? Faneuil?

  Eleven

  The black van pulled up on Broad Street. The mall was in sight. There were hundreds of cars parked in the lot. It was a busy time of the day, notwithstanding the fact that it was the eve of Christmas. Usually at this time of the day, the mall would be packed. Being Christmas Eve didn’t make matters any better.

  “Ten to five,” the driver said. The Machete Man was sitting in the back of the van. Next to him he had a bag. It was a duffel bag full of sharp objects. Saws. Knives. Maces. It was like a gladiator’s bag. Ready for battle in the Colosseum. But the Machete Man wasn’t going into battle. He was going into a cleansing. The cleansing of the filth. And the streets through the windshield were filthy.

  “In and out. Ten minutes, tops. There’ll be cops everywhere. Especially with that stupid concert that’s taking place. Keep your kills stealthy. No noise. Go for the jugular. Rip their tongues out if need be. I don’t want any fuck-ups.”

  The Machete Man looked at his partner in the driver’s seat. He looked worn out. He wondered why the other man looked so tired. Surely only he should feel tired. All the killing he’d been doing was taking its toll on him. He was ready for rest. But not before he cleansed the mall of its filth. He needed it all gone. Or he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Tossing and turning, thinking about the cretins on the street. The walkers. The sellers. The tourists. Desecrating such a wonderful city. Taking it all for them. Wherever he looked, he saw their influence. The billboards for the latest blockbuster. The latest videogame. The music he could hear in the background. It all stank. And he was ready to make it smell good again. That was all he wanted. A nice-smelling city. A city without the lust. Without the corruption. Without the desires of evil. And he was willing to do what needed to be done to achieve such a thing.

  “You hear me? Don’t fuck it up! In and out in ten minutes. Keep your kills quiet. Just like we said. Stick to the plan. Don’t be tempted by a large crowd. It won’t work like that. A one-man massacre always ends in death. Your death! So don’t get any ideas. In and out. Hit them hard, fast and quiet,” his partner said. He had both hands placed on the steering wheel. He was nervous. Tapping away with every syllable. The Machete Man, on the other hand, wasn’t. He was confident. Ready to right the wrongs of Boston.

  “In and out!” the Machete Man’s partner repeated once again.

  The Machete Man got out of the van through the sliding door on the side. Once his feet hit the pavement, he could feel the vibration of humanity nearby. He was wearing something a little more conservative this time. No dungarees. No white vest. He was attempting to blend in and not look like a cliché. The serial killer always looked like a delinquent. Somebody you avoided in an alleyway. He couldn’t do anything about his size or stature, but he could dress a little more casually. So he did. He was ready to blend in. But by
the time he walked out of the mall, he’d be covered in blood. That he had no problem with.

  “In and out!” his partner repeated for what seemed like the umpteenth time.

  The Machete Man grabbed his bag and hoisted it on his massive shoulder. He nodded at his partner, who looked like a nervous wreck. He then slid the door shut. It echoed in the early evening air. He turned on his heels and began to walk toward his destination. He could see the filth everywhere. Buying gifts. Spending money like idiots. Little did they know that they were about to get a little more than they’d bargained for.

  Twelve

  “You got change for a buck?” Malcolm Holmes asked the grumpy man behind the Plexiglas at the arcade. He had to stand on his tiptoes as he slipped his one-dollar bill to the old man in the booth. Being twelve and short wasn’t convenient to Malcolm, but he knew that one day he’d be as big as the rest of them.

  “Have fun, kid,” the grumpy man said, his voice sounding tinny and faraway in the booth. Malcolm scraped up his change and smiled at the old man. He then turned on his heels and rushed toward the Pac Man cabinet, where he placed a quarter in the slot and watched the screen go from a static image to fully fledged gaming bliss.

  The arcade was located in the middle of the mall, just after the JC Penney. Malcolm rarely visited the arcade, but ever since watching videos on YouTube about retro gaming, he decided that he wanted some of that action. But unfortunately for him, he couldn’t really afford to buy any of the old game consoles, let alone an arcade cabinet. So he pleaded with his mother to drive him to the mall on Broad Street and give him five bucks to have a good time. At first she moaned, but she could see how much Malcolm liked going to the mall. Usually she wouldn’t allow him to go alone, especially on a night like this – a night like this being Christmas Eve, but she had errands to do. Last-minute presents to buy. She couldn’t drag her twelve-year-old son around with her while she bought a sexy elf costume for herself and Malcolm’s dad. So she relented and gave him some cash. She dropped him off at the arcade and asked the grumpy old man behind the glass to keep an eye on her kid. She wouldn’t be long, and if he got hurt or anything of the sort, she wouldn’t hesitate to talk to the appropriate people. The man obliged, and Malcolm and he were literally the only people left in the arcade.