Sons of a Brutality

by Daniel Jeudy

  “Oh, what a sharp little peanut you are. So full of wisecracks and spunk. Maybe there’s a solitary brain cell somewhere inside that stoner head of yours. But, man, why you always got to be so freakin’ serious?”

  Jed gawped at her. “I guess it depends on how you feel about innocent women being tortured and killed. Is it something you think we need to be serious about, or not really?”

  Holbrook dismissed him with a sigh, opening the door for her partner to cut in.

  “You should’ve been here to see the lieutenant rip young Steer a brand-new asshole this morning,” Rodgers said comically. “Poor little thing looked like she was going to melt into the fuckin’ floor. I reckon if Mendez hadn’t been standing by her side, she might have bolted out the front doors of the building, never to be sighted again.”

  Addison allowed the comment to hang. Whenever a female got reprimanded in the office, a handful of regular assholes would mill around to snicker at their embarrassment, a practice which he had no interest in being part of. Female coppers had more than enough rubbish to deal with without adding a public correction to their day.

  Take Holbrook, for example. She was constantly fighting for validation within an environment dominated by testosterone. A wide-ranging consensus still existed among many men that their counterparts were little more than secretaries with guns. America’s left may have declared war upon the residual chauvinism of years past, yet sexism prevailed inside most district houses. Holbrook probably worked harder than anybody in making her way to the HSS division. She had a well-rounded set of skills and never hesitated to get her hands dirty in an investigation. Nevertheless, she was often subjected to archaic jibes from her male contemporaries.

  The detectives turned around when the lieutenant called out impatiently again, his big frame filling the passage which led to his office door. He didn’t appear at all pleased by the prospect of having to twiddle his thumbs while they indulged in conversation. The man wasn’t familiar with being put on hold.

  Addison farewelled his colleagues as they began moving on.

  “Adios, amigos,” Holbrook quipped. “Here’s to hoping you find a way to have some fun in there, Perkins. Best to keep that serious face on for a while longer, I imagine.”

  “Thanks for the sage advice, Lyn,” Jed called over his shoulder. “Perhaps while I’m busying myself with this investigation, you could wander off someplace to go fuck yourself.”

  When they entered the lieutenant’s office, he was already behind the desk with his arms folded. Collins looked at them both with a frosty scowl while they found a seat.

  “What do you want to know?” Addison asked him.

  “Everything, Mowbray. I want to know every fucking detail. So, did you learn anything useful from the witch?”

  “She provided the name of a priest whom she believes may have relevant information.”

  “A priest, you say?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, a priest.”

  “Tell me, Mowbray, why the fuck would a priest know anything about this specific asshole we find ourselves pursuing? Has he recently undertaken a stunning confession, or are you hoping he might have received a word from God?”

  Addison was about to reply when Jed interjected.

  “Plume said there had been whispers about a group of people who are rumored to be into some extremely unpleasant shit. She thinks if this group’s existence is more than just gossip, then it would contain the kind of shitheels capable of killing in a manner that befits the crimes. The witch also clarified how the inverted cross is supposed to have a certain significance to these people. So, there’s that, and he’s a retired priest.”

  Collins’s observation went from Jed to Addison, then back to Jed again.

  “Do I detect a tone of mockery in your words, Perkins?”

  “No, sir, just letting you know what she said is all.”

  The lieutenant kept Jed under the scrutiny of a furrowed brow.

  “You’re beginning to sound more like Mowbray with each passing day, which is mighty fine in principle. It just so happens your partner has a bunch of redeeming qualities. However, I do hope you eventually close as many cases as he has. Heck, if you somehow manage to achieve his numbers, then I might even be receptive to the sarcasm I believe I just heard.” When Collins finished, he turned back to Addison. “So, I take it you’ll want to keep running with this whole satanist angle, then?”

  “Not necessarily a satanist angle, but I would like to remain open to the possibility the perp might have more than a fleeting interest in the occult, at least.”

  Collins appeared lost inside his head. “Isn’t Elizabeth Plume the same woman who came forward with information in the middle of the Randy Johnson investigation?” he accused.

  “Yes, she is.”

  “And will you remind me how that turned out again?”

  “Her info was solid.”

  Collins rolled his eyes. “Well, can you enlighten me as to how a retired priest supports this hunch of yours?”

  “It appears Harry Bath may not have been your typical kind of priest. He was likely involved with certain practices a man of the cloth shouldn’t be playing around with.”

  “Our resident witch has implied he’s into the same hocus pocus bullshit as she is, then, I take it?” The lieutenant was smiling, but not in a happy way.

  “She also informed us there might be witches and the like working right here in the department,” Jed said with a straight face and wooden eyes.

  A humorless laugh exited Collins’s mouth while he gaped in amazement.

  “Isn’t that just fuckin’ something. Maybe I can take this information upstairs and explain how my lead detectives still haven’t found anything more to link the homicides to satanism, but they have warned there might be witches working among us in the LAPD. The brass might suggest we head down to Santa Monica and jump off the pier as a way of seeing how many of us float…Are you both fucking with me right now?” he bellowed.

  “Look, all I’m saying is we need to go talk with the guy,” Addison reasoned. “If nothing solid comes from it, then we’ll be straight back in here searching for fresh leads by morning. And when Jennifer Hill’s corpse turns up, we will be more than happy to follow any other angle you might feel is relevant. But as of right now, there isn’t much else to go on when it comes to a motive. And no matter which way I look at this, those two bodies, the manner they were killed and kept, it certainly appears to be very ritualistic.”

  Collins nodded with pursed lips.

  “We’re going to be issuing a computer-enriched photo of the Bowl victim to the press sometime in the next hour. Have you been made aware of this?”

  “Nope,” Addison replied. “Hopefully, someone comes forward because her identity would help construct a more detailed timeline between the victims.”

  The softening behind the lieutenant’s eyes suggested he appreciated the response.

  “Okay, Mowbray, you boys go and speak to your priest. But if you want to continue working on this approach, then you’ll need to come back with something more substantial than a rumor about a group of people. From where I’m sitting, the only door this cocksucker may have left ajar is wherever it is he’s getting those drugs. There’s a ton of info coming in on those phones, and I don’t have nearly enough people to work through it all.”

  Addison decided to change the course of their conversation.

  “Did the lab guys lift anything from Jennifer Hill’s car?”

  “Nope, not a single darn thing. All the fingerprints inside the vehicle have now been accounted for as well. Flatmates and friends, that kind of thing.”

  Jed reclined casually in his chair, content to clam up again.

  “All righty,” Addison said. “We’ll keep trying to get hold of Harry Bath. See if we can’t schedule a meeting with him for tonight or in the morning.”

  “Anything else?” Collins asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Perkins?”

/>   “I’m all good.”

  “Goodbye, then,” Collins said dismissively.

  The detectives got to their feet before breezing out the door.

  “That was fun,” Addison observed.

  Jed chuckled. “The thing about Collins is, he’s just a good old barrel of fuckin’ laughs. At least we managed to secure a reprieve from working those incoming phone leads.”

  Addison felt the beginnings of another headache forming inside his temples.

  “Yeah, well, it sure as hell ain’t gonna last long if Bath doesn’t hit us up with something substantial,” he remarked while moving toward his desk in the hope of finding a couple Advil.

  Twenty-Three

  Edward lifted Jennifer’s corpse into the back of his Ford Transit cargo van, where he wrapped her remains in a canvas sheet. He examined her clouded blue eyes, fixed wide and staring at nothing. Jennifer’s lips were parted in a strange half-smile, and he documented how even in death, she presented as beautiful.

  Part of him felt dissatisfied to be releasing her shell without first humiliating the body. It was like eating his favorite pizza without cheese. Nevertheless, he wanted Jennifer’s splendor to remain apparent when the LAPD arrived on the scene.

  He closed the sliding door on the van and looked out across his property to Munz Ranch Road in the distance. His modest acreage was situated on the periphery of Palmdale, a pleasant town on the opposite side of the San Gabriel Mountains to LA. Edward purchased the land two years earlier for a tidy sum, not that the inflated price bothered him. He inherited a fortune when his father passed away, so the cost was never a deterrent if he wished to acquire something. Edward took his financial standing for granted. He’d been born into privilege, and his Southern bloodline continued to provide him security from the grave.

  Everything changed once he decided to try his hand at bringing Linda back by playing six rounds of poker with a croupier from hell. When she initially returned in torrents of color to start making pictures behind his eyes, he was right in the middle of fucking Meagan Banks. They’d opted to entice Linda out of the Badlands with sex Magick once he returned from placing the first victim at the Hollywood Bowl. Meagan was a renowned cardiovascular surgeon and a real cock-gobbler to boot, so she’d been thrilled to engage in more depraved sexual activity.

  They dropped a tab of acid, then started screwing while Meagan intoned Latin blasphemies until Linda’s essence channeled through their bodies. Edward had felt euphoric as his brain shifted to a blank canvas in readiness for whatever she wanted to deposit before spiritual perfection soaked inside his consciousness. Their flesh had convulsed beneath the power of the images melting his mind, more real than anything he’d faced with eyes opened. But the experience lasted only half a minute as Linda quickly returned to the underworld.

  Edward reentered the house to consider his acrimonious living room. Satanic symbology covered the floor, while the walls displayed photographs of the dead. His bureau and leather couch were the only things not allied to the darkness. Stacks of occult literature formed crooked towers of esoteric information. The books were mildewed and dusty; a portrait of his father stared down from the mantle above the fireplace.

  For the briefest moment, he could feel Linda’s aura nearby as the pores on his skin popped out like gooseflesh. Then, she just disappeared. As if a spirit purifier had penetrated the ceiling to extract every trace of her from the room. He would eventually prevent the doorway to her torment from closing by utilizing Magick in amalgamation with blood sacrifice, crafting an invisible key capable of breaching its lock.

  Edward strolled down to his bedroom and retrieved a handgun from a weapon box he kept beneath the floorboards. He didn’t expect to encounter any problems while moving the corpse, but it was always best to prepare. If anyone happened to be unfortunate enough to pull him over, then he’d shoot them in the face.

  He made his way to the kitchen, where he removed Jennifer’s ears from a bag in the fridge. They were impeccably shaped, like a piece of exotic fruit left outside to ripen in the sun. After inhaling the aroma of raw meat, Edward returned his keepsake to the base shelf and snatched a bottle of root beer, guzzling half the drink in a single gulp. Once he completed the objective of calling in Jennifer’s location, he would be free to receive additional insight.

  The only way for a seeker to acquire a more profound understanding was by confronting the challenge of eternally forbidden practices every day. They must be prepared for insanity, shipwreck, and returning emptyhanded to earn a rite of passage within the demon realm. Edward had infused himself with taboo to obtain black mystical wisdom, forever craving more and prepared to do anything if it increased his knowledge of evil.

  His first attempt to communicate with the dead occurred when he was thirteen, just a sad little boy intent on hearing from his deceased grandmother by burning Bible pages over her grave. It was a juvenile venture, whereby he tried to make her mad enough to jump out of the ground and manifest a way back into his life. Gram was particularly religious, and Edward had been strangely fond of her.

  It didn’t take long for his curiosity to evolve into a full-blown captivation that determined the direction his life would ultimately take. By the time he attended UCLA, he had spent his days seeking out people educated in mysticism and other occult practices. College turned out to be a disappointing experience that exposed most of the self-declared occultists as frauds. There’d been plenty of kids who smoked weed and messed about with Ouija boards in the hope it made them appear mysterious. But they were just middle-class douchebags, every last one of them.

  A significant breakthrough occurred when he met a young professor named Earl Whiteman, who taught him the ways of satanism, voodoo, and Black Magick. Earl persuaded him to adopt wickedness and feed his passion, irrespective of any societal consequence. Edward began pandering in cruelty while he was baptized beneath a banner of malevolence, discovering the mysteries concealed within modern paganism, Western esotericism, and the concepts that permeated the counterculture of the 1960s.

  Edward finished the rest of his drink and dropped the empty bottle into the trash, making his way to the front door, where he inhaled a final lungful of rust-scented air. The fragrance reminded him of the old pennies his grandmother used to store inside a jar under her bed. After making one final sweep of the living room, he stepped outside and locked the place up.

  The sun had started to fade in the sky, and Edward heard a cactus wren calling to its mate as he climbed inside the van. He checked his appearance in the mirror before starting down the dusty driveway. Perhaps he’d take a quick diversion to a neglected area on the way home in the hope of luring someone unimportant back to the ranch, a vagabond or crack fiend whom he could shame beyond recognition like the other carcasses down in his shack. The sweet stinking attraction of the dead touched him in a way no living person ever would, and he needed to have a quiet moment where he treated himself to an installment of ferocity.

  Twenty-Four

  Addison had only just poured himself a second glass of Buckeye when the call about Jennifer Hill’s body came through. The timing was inconvenient, though he quickly changed into a clean black suit and splashed cold water onto his face before driving up to Mount Lee. By the time he pulled in near the hiking track entrance on Deronda Drive, the liquor was already wearing thin.

  He attempted unraveling the impetus of why the murderer was calling the bodies in while he poked the dirt on the side of the mountain. Addison considered whether the perp might be deriving inspiration from watching his handiwork on TV. There was no denying that his flagrancy had played a significant role in cultivating his notoriety. Perhaps he intended to establish some eternal disgrace by proclaiming himself the next big thing on the FBI’s most-wanted list. What other reasons could he possibly have for laying her body down among the sweetgrass below the Hollywood sign?

  The corpse was positioned near a sage tree a short distance from the front gates, with her arms folded acro
ss her chest. Both hands rested atop her shoulders, and she remained clothed in sports gear. Dark chunks of desiccated blood clumped Jennifer’s hair as it encircled her throat like a frond of dried seaweed. Her eyes gaped up into the night as if searching for a stairway to heaven. The sliced flesh pattern where the offender had cut her ears away appeared jagged, which suggested he may have been feeling frustrated while dispensing his cruelty. A laceration on her neck penetrated down to the spine, and an inverted cross blistered at the rise of her left breast. Addison believed the perpetrator likely struggled to employ a restrained approach even though there were no signs of any sexual defilement. One thing remained apparent: the twisted shitbug had a voracious appetite for attractive blondes in their twenties, and he was moving at breakneck speed.

  Addison gazed out at the city, a vast wonderland that twinkled like fireflies. The semi-gilded glow formed a hazy bubble that reached into the sky to eat away a portion of its darkness. There was a magical quality to the capital when viewed at night, a romantic enchantment that defied the harsh realities inside his head. Addison inhaled deeply, holding the air inside his lungs until he needed to draw breath. The hills were naturally aromatic, and the smell reminded him of being young and carefree, eating freshly baked pie after swimming in the lake at the back of his grandparents’ farmhouse.

  Jed was speaking with Coniglio beside the body. Traceable angst permeated the kid’s demeanor, the same brewing frustration that he’d been carting around for the last few days. He was like a tightly compressed metal spring waiting to be released.

  “What do you think he slashed her throat with?” Jed asked.

  “The depth of the wound implies he used a straight razor of some kind,” Coniglio replied. “There’s no way a standard knife blade would penetrate so severely from a single strike. The victim died from exsanguination, which might support the theory that these murders are an occult sacrifice.”

  “How does her dying from a sliced throat support that theory?”